e movements
of a club-swinger, and with as great facility. He became quite a
celebrated boxer, and, besides his strength, he soon demonstrated his
powers of endurance, never seeming fatigued after a lively bout. The
porters of Paris were accustomed to lift and carry on their shoulders
bags of flour weighing 159 kilograms (350 pounds) and to mount stairs
with them. Johnson, on hearing this, duplicated the feat with three
sacks, and on one occasion attempted to carry four, and resisted this
load some little time. These four sacks weighed 1400 pounds.

Some years since there was a female Hercules who would get on her hands
and knees under a carriage containing six people, and, forming an arch
with her body, she would lift it off the ground, an attendant turning
the wheels while in the air to prove that they were clear from the
ground.

Guyot-Daubes considers that one of the most remarkable of all the men
noted for their strength was a butcher living in the mountains of
Margeride, known as Lapiada (the extraordinary). This man, whose
strength was legendary in the neighboring country, one day seized a mad
bull that had escaped from his stall and held him by the horns until
his attendants could bind him. For amusement he would lie on his belly
and allow several men to get on his back; with this human load he would
rise to the erect position. One of Lapiada's great feats was to get
under a cart loaded with hay and, forming an arch with his body, raise
it from the ground, then little by little he would mount to his
haunches, still holding the cart and hay. Lapiada terminated his
Herculean existence in attempting a mighty effort. Having charged
himself alone with the task of placing a heavy tree-trunk in a cart, he
seized it, his muscles stiffened, but the blood gushed from his mouth
and nostrils, and he fell, overcome at last. The end of Lapiada
presents an analogue to that of the celebrated athlete, Polydamas, who
was equally the victim of too great confidence in his muscular force,
and who died crushed by the force that he hoped to maintain. Figures
181 and 183 portray the muscular development of an individual noted for
his feats of strength, and who exhibited not long since.

In recent years we have had Sebastian Miller, whose specialty was
wrestling and stone-breaking; Samson, a recent English exhibitionist,
Louis Cyr, and Sandow, who, in addition to his remarkable strength and
control over his muscles, is a very cleve