THE HARDSHIP OF WASTING.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVI, Issue 949, 14 May 1908, Page 6

THE HARDSHIP OF WASTING.

In the last winter of his life, when Archer went to Cheltenham, his native place, to indulge in his favourite pastime of hunting and renew old acquaintanceships he weighed lost ylb, and if he had let nature take her course he was naturally an list man. At Falmouth House he had fitted up a most elaborate Turkish bath, and it was as hot as Hades. One room, furnished with a constantive stove, registered 2oodeg. of heat, and in this chamber, when getting down weight, he used literally to parboil himself. Previous to the commencement of the racing season Archer had eighteen Turkish baths in one week, and his self-denial in the matter of food would have given a start and a beating to the most ascetic anchorite. His prescription for wasting was written by a most eminent London physician, and made up by Mr Wright, whose establishment is at the end of the town, near the racecourse, and this powder he was continually taking. In order to ride St. Mirin he went, as I have already stated, without food for three days, * and was for eighteen hours in a Turkish bath, and so much did he reduce himself, that with all the paraphernalia (excepting the whip) appertaining to riding he weighed only Bst ylb ! “He is killing himself,” cried the elder Jennings, when he saw Archer scale; and so he was- When his friends remonstrated with him he would reply : “If I am not Archer, I am a ndbody.”—Thormanby’s recollection of jockeys.