A MONGOLIAN HACKENSCHMIDT.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2480, 10 May 1909, Page 2

A MONGOLIAN HACKENSCHMIDT.

Those whose knowledge of the Oriental is confined to a casual acquaintance with the local Chines© market gardener will be surprised to hear that away in the north-west of Mongolia are great six-foot wrestlers whose physical development would compare favorably with Sandow. Mr F. A. Larsen, a missionary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, tells, in ‘•The Bible in the World,” of the great athletic contests at Chitling. A city ot tents springs up like the Prophet s gourd. Where was a plain is seen a canvas city of 15,000 people, who have journeyed to see the festival. Five hundred trained wrestlers are at hand to participate. in& Mongol wrestlers are very strongly built, and a good many of them stand about 6ft. Their muscles are unusually developed. In their wrestling they showed great strength, lifting each other high in the air. The best of them would probably be considered good wrestlers iii any country. The man who wins three years m succession has the honor of becoming Bogdo’s champion (a kind of free nobleman). He' has * the privilege of taking what he needs, whether food to eat or horses to ride, from any man in the State. He is respected as a big man everywhere. The champion was a man about 30 years of age, 6ft. tall, and had a very broad, high chest. He had hard work to get the victory this year. He fainted when wrestling with a young man who was very strong and quick. It was a strange sight to see them—a few at a time—wrestling from morning till evening in the hot sun day after day. To keep on until the best of 500 trained wrestlers gains the victory. They sweat, bleed, and faint, and get hurt without showing any temper, yet each is keen to get the victory. They salute one another after each match by taking hold of each other’s hands, and apparently enjoy the sport.

If a man empties his purse into his head no one can take it from him.— Benjamin Franklin. Cold scums to have no effect on severer varieties of fish. Perch will live in pondi frozen over all the winter; and the white hch of Canada have been frozen so stiff iftat limy have been brittle enough to break, yet showed signs of life when prone: ly thawed out. .... Russian municipal administration of Harbin, which China alleges constitutes the establishment of Russian territorial jurisdiction in violation of the Portsmouth Treaty, is again receiving attention by the British Foreign Office. The Chinese Minister has made representations to Sir Edward Grey, Secretary of State lor Foreign Affairs, on this subject, but Great Britain, being without a Consul at Harbin, has been unable to establish the facts. If, however, they are found to be as China alleges, Foreign Office officials state that Great Britain and the United States will act together to retires enU to Russia the necessity of observing treaty obligations. It is understood that Mr F. D. Fisher, the American Consul at Harbin, has expressed dissatisfaction at the attitude of Russia, which Great Britain and the United States had hoped would be changed after the representations of last year. A diplomat well versed in the Far Eastern situation, said lately: “While the effort of Russia to impose taxes on the Chinese at Harbin appears to be a small'matter, it really affects the whole question of the open door in Manchuria, for if Russian ownership of the North Manchurian railway confers the rights of territorial authority the same will apply in the south, where the Japanese are supreme, and China’s sovereignty would thus become merely nominal.”