QUAINT RECORDS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 11, 11 January 1913, Page 3

QUAINT RECORDS.

The passion for record-breaking has in recent years induced men, and even women, to perform feats of a remarkable and fantastic character mostly without any utilitarian value whatever. One of the pioneers of the freak record was Mr. Arthur Lancaster, a London solicitor, who has mtny strange records to his credit. In J9OB. at the Crystal Palace, lie swung a blacksmith’s eight-pound hammer for twelve hours without stopping. A year later he made the ball-punching record, punching a two-pound ball continuously for fifteen hours. In Paris recently a twenty-four hours’ billiard match was held, contested by two young Frenchmen, MM. Cohen and Janssaud. Janssaud won with a score of 3238. A pedometer carried by the winner showed that he had walked over seventeen miles. The match b paralleled by the feat of a membei of a well-known West cf England gold club, who, to win a wag§r, played golf steadily throughout a day, from sunrise to sunset. He completed six eighteen-hole rounds, with a score of less than 100 on each round. There is room for a little variety even in cycling records. Some years ago W. Brain, a Cardiff professional, rode backwards on the road a distance ol three and a half miles in 22min 15scc. The dancing endurance record was made in a competition in the Salle Wagram, Paris, when Mdlle. Scherre; and M. Vincent danced continuously for six hours. The record was no sooner made than it was broken by an Italian' dancing master, who waltzed continuosly for fourteen hours. The piano-playing record had very bad effects on its earliest holders. M. Garnier, who established the first record of twenty-seven hours, was prostrated by a severe nervous attack immediately afterwards; an American emulator, Mr. James Waterbury, finished a similar task a “nervous wreck,” and Mr. Napoleon Bud, of Stockport, England, who played for forty-eight hours continuously, was seriously ill for a very long while afterwards. One of the most sensational of mountaineering records is that of Mr. Burr, a Bostonian, who climbed three considerable peaks in the Swiss Alps, the Jungfrau, the Moenuk, and the Eiger, within thirtysix hours.