LONDON’S STRONG BOY

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 November 1930, Page 2

LONDON’S STRONG BOY

UNIQUE PERFORMANCES. • A boy of 15, living in the East End of London, looks as though he may become the strongest man in the world. He is Lewis Clarke, of Abbey lane, Bow, who a ’ few years ago was so delicate that he was forbidden by the doctor to attend school, and now is unbeatable in the various feats of strength practised by professional

strong men. His father is a house decorator, who used to perform feats of strength in his youth as a hobby; and his nineteen-year-old brother Ernest, who is his trainer, also possesses apparently sup- ' er-human strength; but he admits that his young brother is becoming by far the stronger of the two. Lewis weighs 9st., and already he has beaten the world’s record in the lOst. class in the “front chest military . pull,” a difficult feat with powerful | chest expanders. But that is not all, J as he recently demonstrated to a'representative of the London “Daily Express.”

His first feat was to drive a sixdnch nail through a hard-grained plank two inches thick with his bare hands, the palm only protected with a little rag of cotton stuff. Then he took another six-inch nail, gripped it by the middle in his front, . teeth, and with his hands bent the ends forward and together until the thick nail snapped under the strain. His brother handed him a heavy tiechain, of the weight that would be used on a big dog’s kennel. Lewis twisted it over his fingers* and puckering his face in a moment’s effort, snapped it like a thread. The boy, pale, sturdy, and silent, was quite undisturbed by his strange feats, and obediently lay down for his brother to put a three-hundred-weight anvil on his chest, and strike it as hard a blow as he could with a stonebreaker’s hammer. Perhaps his most dangerous trick is to challenge two men to strangle him, A stout cable is put round his neck, and each end given to a full-grown man, who is invited to pull it as hard as he possibly can. By an incredibly powerful bracing of the neck muscles he is able to resist what might be deadly strangulation.