THOMAS TOPHAM.
This man, whose feats of strength might have figured with those of the heroes of Homer, was born in London, about the year 1710. He was bred a carpenter, and attained the height of five feet ten inches, being well proportioned in other respects. At the age of twenty-four, he took a tavern on the city road, and displayed his extraordinary powers in the gymnastic exhibitions then common at Moorfields. He was here accustomed to stop a horse by pulling against him, his feet being placed against a low wall. A table six feet long, with half a hundred weight upon it, he lifted with his teeth, and held it for some time in a horizontal position!
His fame for strength spread over the country, and his performances excited universal wonder. He would throw a horse over a turnpike gate, carry the beam of a house as a soldier his firelock, break a rope capable of sustaining twenty-two hundred weight, and bend a bar of iron an inch in diameter by striking it against his naked arm, into a bow! On one occasion, he found a watchman asleep in his box; he took them both on his shoulder, and carried them to the river, where he tipped them into the water. In May, 1741, he lifted three hogsheads of water, weighing 1836 pounds!
Though possessed of such wonderful strength, Topham was of a mild and pacific temper. His mind does not appear to have possessed the energy of his body, for, being deceived by a faithless woman, he resorted to the desperate resolution of taking his own life, and died by suicide in the flower of his age.
FOSTER POWELL.
This famous pedestrian was born near Leeds, in 1734. In 1762, he came to London, and articled himself to an attorney in the Temple. After the expiration of his clerkship, he was in the service of different persons, and in 1764, he walked fifty miles on the Bath road, in seven hours. He now visited several parts of Switzerland and France, where he gained much praise as a pedestrian. In 1773, he walked from London to York, and back again, upon a wager, a distance of 402 miles, in five days and eighteen hours. In 1778, he attempted to run two miles in ten minutes, but lost it by half a minute.