Mme. Christensen's Fast.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVIII, Issue II, 11 January 1902, Page 88

Mme. Christensen's Fast.

One of our poets has something to tell us regarding the "grievous sorrow of a hermit's fast,” and it was possibly the anticipation of some such prolonged privation, in the absence of the motive which may be supposed to strengthen the hermit, that induced poor Chatterton to make that sudden end. and to be found in the grey light of his garret with his torn papers round him. Within past years we have, however, had not a little evidence to show that fasts, which would once have been regarded! as miraculous, are quite possible to humanity, and it is even affirmed that they are not followed by any permanent affliction o? health or constitution. The late Dr. Tanner was the first to initiate the experiment of fasting for forty days. The public has, however, come to regard these performances as exactly what they are. namely, a public exhibition performed for a substantial financial consideration. Under proper medical supervision, a fast is not nearly so dangerous as many other feats which are performed occasionally amidst great general enthusiasm.

The crossing of Niagara on a tight rope offers more daring suggestions of peril to the ordinary mind than an abstinence from food for show purposes protected by the presence of doctors who, for their own sakes, would not allow the matter to go too far. Nobody supposes that Mme. Christensen, who recently completed a last of 35 days, under the auspices of Mr Ritchie, of Royal Aquarium fame, undertook it as an object lesion to the shipwrecked mariner stranded on an arid eoral reef or at sea in an open boat. There is, however, one class, a late growth of commercial sagacity, to whom a feat of this kind is occasionally a real service. If another Blondin, on another tight rope, were to cross the Falls of Niagara, at the present day, he might considerably improve the financial aspect of his transaction by carrying a sandwich-board advertising the latest nerve tonie.

In the ease of Mme. Christensen, something better than this has been accomplished by the proprietors of Horlick's Malted Milk. It occurred to them, not unnaturally, that, as they claimed for their product a great field of service to disorganised humanity of all ages, here was assuredly a signal opportunity for demonstrating it under the most difficult circumstances, and with the permission of the medical advisers of Mme. Christensen, their food was administered to her at the conclusion of her fast, and it appears by her own testimony that it has brought her rapidly round in the direction of her normal strength and health. . The inference is, of course, irresistible, ind will not be lost on a discerning publie, who are scarcely less disposed to be impressed by commercial readiness and enterprise than by the courage of a fasting lady. _ - —