SOME SINGULAR WAGERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 9022, 29 October 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

SOME SINGULAR WAGERS.

A glass-blower once startled the Commissary of Police at Aubervilliers, near Paris, by requesting permission to eat in public five live rabbits, in order to settle a bet. The Commissary, having satisfied himself of the sanity of his visitor, informed him that the law against cruelty to animals would nob allow of the feat being attempted ; bub bhab, if he would first kill the rabbits, he might afterwards eat them raw with the skins. The gambling glassblower and his friends were perfectly satisfied with this arrangement, and in the presence of a large number of spectators he attempted to win his wager. He got through the first rabbit without any apparent difficulty, but the second one disappeared les3 rapidly, and before commencing his third course the wagerer fell heavily to the ground in a condition of unconsciousness. The writer remembers an instance where one of those persons, to whom a whole joint seems a mere trifle, was tempted to accept a wager to the effect that he could not eat threo shillings' worth of bread and ale at a meal. The man who laid the wager provided eighteen new hot penny loaves, and steeped them in several quarts of strong pic. The effect of the ale upon the hot, soft bread was such that it sent the glutton off into drowsy helplessness long before ho had accomplished his allotted task. When ho came to himself ho was mortified at having lost the wager. Music has given occasion to more than one wager, but one of the most wonderful on record was that in which Mr. Scarborough, a Spalding organist, undertook to strike the pianoforte to the tune of one million separate notes in the space of twelve hours. Although the feat might well be considered impossible of accomplishment by those who have any conception of what is meant by a million, the wagerer accomplished it. He took a compass of three octaves, ascending and descending the different scales, and striking —the first hour, 109,296 notes ; the second hour, 125,928; the third hour, 1-21,176; fourth hour, 121,176; fifth, 125,136; sixth, 125,136 ; seventh, 127,512 ; eighth, 127,512 ; and during the last twenty minutes, 47,520 notes. This makes a total number of 1,030,392 notes struck within a period of eight hours and twenty minutes, which, with the rests which the executant was necessarily obliged to take, amounted to eleven hours and forty-five minutes. Only about three years ago a peculiar wager was settled at a music-hall. It was nothing less than a shaving match between two rival knights of the razorone from Notting Hill and one from King's Cross— for £25 a-side and a gold medal, to be given to the one who should shave twelve customers in the quicker time- Tho representative of INotting Hill proved such an adept at his " profession" that he turned his dozen " victims" out of the shaving chair in the incredibly brief space of three minutes forty and four-fifths seconds, beating his competitor by no fewer than five men. He was so elated with his success that, as an encore, ho finished up by shaving, blindfold, two men in two minutes ten and two fifths seconds. More than one wager has proved an incentive to crime, but none more so than one which instigated a horrible murder at Chicago in 1860. Two horses, named respectively Butler and Corney, were matched at trotting, the former being driven by a man named M'Keene. Darkness set in before the horses started for the final heat, which there was every prospect of Butler winning. They had not proceeded far upon their journey when a crash was heard, and Butler rushed driverless past the judge. By-and bye camo Corney, whose jockey quietly observed, as ho pulled up 'at the winning post: " You will find M'Keene on the track below." He was found there, with his skull smashed in. A board had been wrenched from the track fence and planted near the course in such a manner that as Butler came up at his best pace his driver's head was dashed against the end of the plank. So the match was won and a life was lost.