“When I was learning to do this, I practised for nine months. I got a friend of mine to hit the stone. One day I cut my chest open doing it. I wasn’t paying attention to the stone, and never noticed that it was hollow; so then when the blow came down, the sharp edges of the stone, from my having nothing but a fleshing suit on, cut right into the flesh, and made two deep incisions. I had to leave it off for about a month. Strange to say, this stone-breaking never hurt my chest or my breathing; I rather think it has done me good, for I’m strong and hearty, and never have illness of any sort.
“The first time I done it I was dreadful frightened. I knew if I didn’t stop still I should have my brains knocked out, pretty well. When I saw the blow coming I trembled a good bit, but I kept still as I was able. It was a hard blow, for it broke the bit of Yorkshire paving, about an inch thick, into about sixty pieces.
“I got very hard up whilst I was performing at this beer-shop. I had run away from home, and the performances were only two nights a-week, and brought me in about six shillings. I wasn’t engaged anywhere else. One night, a Mr. Emanuel, who had a benefit at the Salmon Saloon, Union-street, asked me to appear at his benefit. He had never seen me, but only heard of my performances. I agreed to go, and he got out the bills, and christened me Signor C——; and he had drawings made of the most extravagant kind, with me holding my arms out with about ten fifty-six-pound weights hanging to them by the rings. He had the weights, hammers, and a tremendous big stone chained outside the door, and there used to be mobs of people there all day long looking at it.
“This was the first success I made. Mr. Emanuel gave five shillings for the stone, and had it brought up to the saloon by two horses in a cart to make a sensation. It weighed from four to five hundred weight. I think I had such a thing as five men to lift it up for me.
“I had forgotten all about this engagement, and I was at the coffee-house where I lodged. The fact was, I was in rags, and so shabby I didn’t like to go, and if he hadn’t come to fetch me I should not have gone. He drove up in his chaise on the night in question to this coffee-shop, and he says, ‘Signor C——, make haste; go and change your clothes, and come along.’ I didn’t know at first he was speaking to me, for it was the first time I had been Signor C——. Then I told him I had got my best suit on, though it was very ragged, and no mistake about it, for I remember there was a good hole at each elbow. He seemed astonished, and at last proposed that I should wear his great-coat; but I wouldn’t, because, as I told him, his coat would be as well known at the saloon as he himself was, and that it didn’t suit me to be seen in another’s clothes. So he took me just as I was. When we got there, the landlady was regularly flabbergastered to see a ragged fellow like me come to be star of the night. She’d hardly speak to me.
“There was a tremendous house, and they had turned above a hundred away. When I got into the saloon, Emanuel says, ‘What’ll you have to drink?’ I said, ‘Some brandy;’ but my landlord of the coffee-house, who had come unbeknown to me, he grumbles out, ‘Ask him what he’ll have to eat, for he’s had nothing since the slice of bread-and-butter for breakfast.’ I trod on his toe, and says, ‘Keep quiet, you fool!’ Emanuel behaved like a regular brick, and no mistake. He paid for the supper and everything. I was regularly ashamed when the landlord let it out though. That supper put life into me, for it almost had the same effect upon me as drink.
“It soon got whispered about in the saloon that I was the strong man, and everybody got handing me their glasses; so I was regularly tipsy when it was time to go on, and they had put me off to the last on purpose to draw the people and keep them there drinking.
“I had a regular success. When the women saw the five men put the stone on my chest, they all of them called out, ‘Don’t! don’t!’ It was a block like a curb, about a foot thick, and about a four feet six inches long. I went with Emanuel to buy it. I had never tried such a big one before. It didn’t feel so heavy on the chest, for, you see, you’ve got such out-and-out good support on your hands and heels. I’ve actually seen one man raise a stone and another a waggon. It’s the purchase done it. I’ve lifted up a cart-horse right off his legs.
“The stone broke after six blows with a twenty-eight pound sledge-hammer. Then you should have heard the applause. I thought it would never give over. It smashed all to atoms, just like glass, and there was the people taking away the bits to keep as a remembrance.
“As I went out the landlady asked me to have a bottle of soda-water. The landlady was frightened, and told me she had felt sure I should be killed. I was the second that ever done stone-breaking in England or abroad, and I’m the first that ever did such a big one. The landlady was so alarmed that she wouldn’t engage me, for she said I must be killed one of the nights. Her behaviour was rather different as I went out to when I came in.