QUEER WAGERS.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXVIII, Issue 1435, 27 October 1896, Page 2

QUEER WAGERS.

Betting is a human weakness hy no moons confined to the wagering of money on sporting events. In all ages it has been common to settle points of difference by a wager nr to accomplish great feats under penalty of the loss of a given sum. There is a man in Kentucky who vowed never to cut his beard untilHenrjClay was elected president. This was really a vow, but it was also a bet. . The man bet against fate, and fate won. A rash young Harvard graduate recently went around the world without a cent of money in his pockets when he started, T It was given aut that he had laid a wager of five thousand dollars that he could make the trip without money. : It has since turned out that he was iimply the agent of a well-advertised article. Election bets are sometimes made which require the loser to wheel the winner in a barrow over a certain distance. A famous football player once laid a wager that he could eat two dozen eggs at one sitting. He ate them. Bridge-jumpers have risked their lives for a wager. The old English law forced bettors to pay tbeir debts. A remarkable action was brought in 1812 by Rev. Mr. Gilbert against Sir Mark M. Sykes. The baronet, at a dinner-party at his own house, in the course of a conversation of the hazard to which the life of Bonaparte was exposed, offered, on receiving 100 guineas, to pay one guinea a day as long as Napoleon should remain alive. Mr. Gilbert closed with Sir Mark, and sent the one hundred guineas, and the latter continued to pay the one guinea a day for nearly three years. At last he declined to pay any longer, and an action was brought to enforce the payment. It was contended by the defendant that he had been surprised into the bet by the clergyman’s hasty acceptance of it, and that the transaction was an illegal one, seeing that Mr. Gilbert, having % beneficial interest iu the life of Bonaparte, might, in the event of an invasion, use all his means for the preservation of the life of an snemy of his country. The jury loyally brought in a verdict for the defendant. Another queer wager is the one popularly believed to have been won by Sir Walter Raleigh from Queen Elizabeth on the debatable question of how much smoke was contained in a pound of tobacco, A pound of the article was weighed, burned and weighed again in ashes, and the question was held to be satisfactorily settled by determining the weight of :he smoke as exactly that of the tobacco beiore oeing burned, minus the ashes. The fact of the ashes having received an additional weight oy combination with the oxygen of the atmosphere was ur.thought of by Elizabeth and the Knight. An amusing hot for the small sum of !lvo shillings was laid in!Bo6 in the castle-yard, VTork, between Thomas Hodgson and Samuel Whitehead, as to which should succeed in asjuming the most original character. Hodgson appeared decorated with ten guinea, fiveguinea, and guinea notes all over his coat ami waistcoat,and a row of five guinea notes around bis hat, while to bis back were fastened the words “ John Bull/' Whitehead appeared like a woman on ons side, one hajf of his face painted, one silk stocking slipper, while the other side represented a negro in man’s dress, with boots and spurs. “ Johp Ball ” won the wager. A gentleman of the last century laid a wage to a great amount that he could stand for a whole day on London Bridge with a tray full of sovereigns fresh from the Mint and be unable to find a purchaser for them at a penny apiece. Not one was disposed of. Wagers have sometimes taken a grim form. It is credibly recorded that in the last century a wager was laid for one of a party of gay revellers to enter Westminster Abbey at the hour of midnights He was to enter one of the vaults beneath the Abbey ; in proof of his having been thcrehe was to sitek a fork into a coffin which had been recently deposited there. He accomplished his object, and was returning in triumph, when, ae felt himself suddenly caught, and was jo overpowered by terror that he fell in a swoon. His companions not being able to account for his absence found him in this con« dition. The fork which he had fastened into the effion had caught and pinned his cloak and so occasioned a tit of terror which nearly proved fatal. Sir John Pakington, called Lusty Faking ton. and by Queen Elizabeth “ My Temperance/' laid a wager of thirty thousand pounds sterling to swim sgainst three noble courtiers from Westminster Bridge to Greenwich, but Her Majesty interposed to prevent any further prosedure on the bet. A gentleman named florbet, of distinguished family near Shrewsbury; bet his leg was the handsomest in the country or kingdom, and staked estates worth eighty thousand pounds sterling on the subject. He won the wager, and a picture is still preserved in the family mansion repressutiog the process of measuring the legs of the different contestants.