HUNGARIAN YOUTH STRONGEST MAN

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6945, 26 June 1929, Page 5

HUNGARIAN YOUTH STRONGEST MAN

CARRIES STEER ON SHOULDERS

NO PARALLEL TO STORY OF MILO

Toldi, a 19-year-old strong man, who not so long ago was a shepherd boy iu Hungary, is making a fortune for tho vaudeville theatres in Berlin (says the San Francisco examiner). It is claimed that the youth is the world’s strongest man. Whether the claim is true or not. Toldi is eliciting much admiration by performing one of tho oldest, and yet, one of the most difficult feats of strength before large audiences. Four times a day he lifts to his shoulders a nerly-grown steer and carries the ponderous animal about the stage, up and down a set of stairs and sometimes through the aisles of a theatre. Toldi has always been exceptionally strong. When ho was a mere lad he showed tendencies of strength which induced him to enter the athletic competitions throughout Hungary. Toldi’s remarkable? stuut of lifting a steer or cow, or even an ox, gained perhaps its first fame back iu the sixth century B.C. Toldi, until recently had never heard of Milo, or Milton, of Greece, the hero of many school book stories. Milo was considered the greatest athlete of his time. He was crowned six times at the Olympic Games and emerged from the Pythian wrestling contests with an equal number of honours. He gained fame throughout the world by picking up an ox, lifting it to bis shoulders, and walking about the streets with it. But this spectacular stunt which thrilled thousands in 'the stadium was based on a secret. Milo, by his own admission, rendered himself able to perform this feat by starting in as a boy to raise a small calf to his shoulders. Ho would do this several times a day, and as time went on and the calf grew, Milo did not notice appreciably the change in its weight, so that when the animal was full grown, Milo's achievement was no more difficult than on the occasion when he first lifted tho calf. It has been said that Milo could not lift any other ox than the one that ho had lifted as a calf. Toldi, the modern Milo, never heard of Milo until a publicity man in Berlin had compared the Greek with Toldi himself. Then Toldi said he did not believe the story. He had never lifted a calf himself, aDd he found that lifting a steer did not require more practice, but real strength, and a knack of concentrating it. Toldi sets out now to disprove the story of milo, simply by lifting any animal that is pointed out to him. However, Toldi admits that he acquired tho knack of hefting an animal to his shoulders during tho years he spent in the fields as a shepherd boy. There is a baby hippopotamus in the Berlin Zoo. It weights nearly a ton, and Toldi has a standing wager open that 1m can lift it. The wager is for 10,000 marks, bat there are no takers. The public, probably, is waiting for the baby hippo to grow a bit beforo taking up Toldi’s offer.