In February 1815 a journeyman baker performed a wonderful feat of winning a bet of fifty pounds to ten laid him by a gentleman that he would not stand upon one leg for twelve hours. A square piece of carpet was nailed in the centre of the room, and the time fixed was three o'clock in the afternoon, when the baker made his appearance without shoes, coat, or hat, and proceeded to take up his position upon his right leg. After standing eight hours and a half, before a great number of people, the gentleman, seeing the agony which the baker appeared to be in, offered him one-half of the wager to relinquish the bet; but, to the great astonishment of the spectators, the man refused, saying he would have the whole, or at least try for it; the perspiration was then running off him like rain, but he still persisted, when the bets were fifty to one against him. Nevertheless he performed what was in its way a wonderful feat, remaining on the one leg three minutes longer than the stipulated time, when he was put into a chair, and carried home.
In May of the same year, a novel bet of £500 was laid in a coffee-room in Bond Street. The wager in question stipulated that a gentleman should go from London to Dover, and back, in any mode he chose, while another made a million of dots with a pen and ink upon a sheet of writing-paper.
In 1826, Lloyd, the celebrated pedestrian, started, on Monday the 19th March, at eight in the morning, to perform thirty miles backwards in nine successive hours, including stoppages, at Bagshot, Surrey. He went on during the morning at the rate of four miles an hour, although the ground was much against him, and finished his task with apparent ease fourteen minutes within the time. He immediately mounted a friends horse, and proceeded to Hartford Bridge, where he took up his quarters for the night, and walked on to Odiham the next morning (Tuesday), where he undertook to walk twenty miles backwards in five hours and a half, which, with the advantage of a good road, he again accomplished seven minutes and a half within his time.
The same year a gentleman made a bet that he would cause all the bells of a well-frequented tavern in Glasgow to ring at the same period without touching one of them, or even leaving the room. This he accomplished by turning the stop-cock of the main gas-pipe, and involving the whole inmates in instant darkness. In a short period the clangor of bells rang from every room and box in the house, which gained him his bet amidst the general laughter and applause even of the losers.
As the nineteenth century crept on, life grew more strenuous, and the eccentric wagers, once so popular, went out of fashion; sporting matches, however, were occasionally made.
In 1831, Squire Osbaldiston, of historic sporting memory, when forty-four years old and over eleven stone in weight, won a thousand guineas by riding two hundred miles in eight hours and thirty-nine minutes, the conditions of the wager stipulating that he should go the distance in ten hours. No less than twenty-eight horses were utilised in this historic match.
At 3.15 A.M., July 13, 1809, at Newmarket, Captain Barclay, the famous pedestrian, successfully ended a walk of a thousand miles in a thousand successive hours at the rate of a mile in each and every hour. This great walker had three-quarters of an hour to spare and completed his task with great ease, 100 to 1 being offered upon him on the last morning of his walk. About £100,000 depended upon this match, of which £16,000 was won by Barclay himself.
Seventeen years later Captain Polhill easily accomplished the task of walking, driving, and riding fifty miles in twenty-four consecutive hours, the whole distance of a hundred and fifty being negotiated with five hours to spare.
Jim Selby's coaching feat of driving to Brighton and back in eight hours is still fresh in the memory of many. A thousand pounds to five hundred was laid at the Ascot meeting of 1888 against such a performance. Selby started from the White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, at 10 in the morning of July 13, and reached the Old Ship at Brighton at 1.56. Immediately starting on the return journey, he arrived at the White Horse Cellars at 5.50, and thus won the bet by ten minutes. In the same year an extraordinary sporting feat was performed by a friend of the writer, Mr. Charles Bulpett (thirty-seven years old at the time), who took £500 to £200 that he would ride a mile, run a mile, and walk a mile—three miles in all—within sixteen minutes and a half. This he was successful in doing, the exact time occupied being sixteen minutes and seven seconds. It should be added that the extraordinary athletic powers displayed on this occasion were greatly enhanced by the fact that Mr. Bulpett was suffering from a game leg.
The same gentleman also won another sporting match of an original kind. Dining one evening at the Ship at Greenwich (formerly a great resort and the scene of an annual ministerial fish dinner) with some friends, the subject of swimming came under discussion, and in the course of the conversation some one, pointing across the river, spoke of the difficulty of swimming the Thames at this spot in ordinary clothes.