He had a platform built for this performance, which was constructed in such a way that he could use the whole power of his body and limbs. In this feat, however, he has been surpassed by Dr. Winship, of Boston, who has lifted, in public, heavier weights than Topham ever attempted.
The latter, however, was enormously strong, and performed a great many feats which made him quite famous throughout England.
A favorite exhibition of public acrobats is that of pyramids, pillars, and other tall edifices, built of men, instead of bricks and stones. The Venetians used to be very expert and artistic in their arrangement of these exhibitions, and the men composing the human edifice stood as immovably and gracefully as if they had been carved out of solid stone, instead of being formed of flesh and blood.
This performance has been made quite common in late years, and I have seen the celebrated "Arabs" and other acrobats pile themselves up in a most astonishing manner.
One of the most popular, and at the same time dangerous, of all public gymnastic exhibitions, is that of rope-walking, and most marvellous feats on the tight-rope have been performed in many parts of the world. Even in Greece and Rome, men practised this form of gymnastics. In later days no one has become more famous than Blondin, who crossed the Niagara River on a tight-rope, performing all sorts of eccentric feats while balanced on his slender support. He carried a man over on his shoulders; he wheeled a wheelbarrow across; he walked the rope blindfolded, and did many other things which would be very difficult to most people, even if they were standing on solid ground instead of being poised on a slender rope stretched high above the waters of a rapid river. In this country, however, the taste for out-door and dangerous rope-walking is not so general as it is in some countries of Europe, where it is quite common to see acrobats walking on ropes stretched from the top of one high building, or steeple, to another. In Venice, for instance, rope-dancers have often skipped and played on ropes reaching from the summits of two of the loftiest towers of that beautiful city.
The Turks were once noted for their great proficiency in rope walking, but they have been equalled by Japanese, European, and American performers. Many women have been famous in this line, and a Madame Sacqui, a Frenchwoman, was such an expert artist that one of her countrymen likened her to a "Homeric goddess" (although I do not know how Juno or Minerva would have looked on a tight-rope), and asserted that her boldness and agility were the glory of the First Empire! This infatuated Frenchman must have considered glory to have been very scarce in his country in Madame Sacqui's day. There was a French baby, however, who surpassed this lady, for the little one walked on the tight-rope before she could walk on the ground, and afterwards became famous enough to perform, in 1814, before an assembly of kings—the allied sovereigns of Europe.
The public performers of different kinds of gymnastic feats often make a great deal of money; but they sometimes break their necks, and frequently injure their health by over-exertion.