The Press SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 1935. Freak Wagers

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21512, 29 June 1935, Page 14

The Press SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 1935. Freak Wagers

The wheelbarrow wager in Victoria is far from being unexampled in freakishness. Mr T. Parkinson was given eight days to push his human freight to the Chalet at Mount Buffalo, but in 1789 an innkeeper of great size and strength pushed a cart the 21 miles from Ware to Shoreditch Church in 10 hours. In 1811 an ostler at Harrogate won a wager when he dragged a heavy phaeton three times round the local racecourse, a distance of four miles, in two and three-quarter hours, less than half the period he was allowed by the bet. A wager on the grand scale was that made by Josef Eraschl, who declared that he would wheel a man in a barrow from Vienna to Paris in 30 days and covered the distance of BGO miles with half a day to spare. Success by a smaller margin was gained by Lloyd, the celebrated English walker, in 1828, when he walked backwards over the 30 miles between Bagshot and Surrey in fewer than 15 minutes short of the nine hours stipulated in the bet. But Captain Barclay, another noted pedestrian, was easily victorious in his wager that he would walk 1000 miles in 1000 successive hours, the equivalent of almost 42 days. He performed the feat in 1809 and is renorted to have won £ 16,000. The bets placed on the affair amounted to more than £ 100,000. A more difficult task was that of the German Count de Buckeburg, who declared in 1715 that he would ride a horse backwards from London to Edinburgh in four days. Fortunately for the Count he was taken to mean that 'he would sit in the saddle backj wards and in this fashion he ■ achieved his goal within four hours of the allotted time. Another curious wager was that of a man who said that he could haul in a pound weight attached to a cord a mile long and complete the task in 2>, hours. He won the wager. A rash challenge was one issued by the Due de Chatres, who dared the Count de Genlis to travel from Paris to Fontainebleau and back while half a million holes were being pierced in paper. The Count won easily.

There have been wagers which revealed cleverness on the part f the men who made them. One such was laic! by the Earl of March, later Duke of Queensberry, that he would send a letter by hand 50 miles in one hour. This apparently impossible feat was accomplished by enclosing the letter within a cricket ball and hiring a large number of cricketers to throw the ball to one another. Two hundred years -~o Lord Orford bet a fellow peer that a flock of geese would beat a number of turkeys in a race from Norwich to London. The road distance of this race was about 120 miles and the geese revealed better organisation, moving forward steadily and distancing the turkeys, which insisted on roosting in trees at night and lost two days while being rounded up. But a too ingenious man named Courtney, who claimed that he would produce three horses to cover 90 miles in three hours, was not able to collect when he started the three horses together and then, after they had gone 30 miles, said ;hat he had won the bet. He took the matter to court, but lost.

It is scarcely remembered that before 1845, when English law relating to betting was changed, wagers were capable of enforcement and the courts were called upon to spend a good deal of time in considering them. In 1777 there was a much discussed case when the Lord Chief Justice was called in to determine a claim for £7OO, the amount of a wager about the sex of the Chevalier d'Eon, who at the age of 50 changed into women's clothes. The Lord Chief Justice laid down the principle that wagers were not repugnant to the laws of England. He expressed disapproval of the practice, but found in favour of the plaintiff, after hearing the evidence of an intimate friend of d'Eon and of a doctor who had attended him. The judgment of the court was that the Chevalier was a woman; but when he died 30 years later the judgment was found to be wrong. In another case the Earl of March figured again. This was an action in which he took steps to recover 500 guineas from a man named Piggot. The subjects of the bet were another man named Codrington and Piggot's father. The Earl undertook to pay 500 guineas to Piggot if Codrington died first and Piggot agreed to pay the Earl a like sum if Piggot senior were to predecease Codrington. But the two principals did not know, when they booked the wager, that Piggot senior was already dead. Piggot then declined to pay and when the case was argued in court it was represented by counsel that as his client could not win he therefore should not lose. The court took the other view, however, and awarded the Earl his 500 guineas. Another somewhat similar case turned on the length of life of Napoleon Bonaparte. This was a wager between the Rev. B. Gilbert and Sir Mark Sykes. The latter had given a dinner party and the conversation turned on the perils which surrounded Bonaparte, who had already been the target of assassins. Sir Mark Sykes confidently ! proclaimed his belief that the Frenchman would not long survive the perils hu faced and offered to pay a guinea for every day that Napoleon lived, if someone would put up a stake of 100 guineas. The clergyman took up the offer at once, I sent Sir Mark 100 guineas, and was paid a guinea a day for about three

years. After this time the baronet, regretting his impulse, refused to pay any further sums and Gilbert took the matter to court. The defence contended that the wager had been made without due consideration; also that the transaction was illegal, as it gave Gilbert a beneficial interest in the life of Napoleon, and therefore, in the event of Napoleon's invading England (such a chance had long vanished), the plaintiff might be tempted to use means to preserve the life of an enemy of his country. The jury found for Sir Mark Sykes; but later Lord Ellenborough granted a rule to show cause why the verdict should not be set aside and a new trial granted as, in the judge's opinion, a contract had been clearly established. However, the new trial was refused, the judges deciding that the wager was illegal because of its tendency to produce a public mischief. They held that it not only created an undue interest in preserving the life of Napoleon, but might constitute a temptation (to Sir Mark, apparently) to plot the assassination of Napoleon, any suspicion of this course being against the interests of the nation.