Living Weights & Training Sailors
Eugen Sandow & THE LIVING WEIGHTS
About this time there were many strong men. Each hall in London could boast of at least one. It was also a great weight lifting period. When I lifted my heaviest bell, 280lbs., the other strong men put out a placard stating that they were lifting 300lbs. By the time I had practised sufficiently to raise the weights I was lifting from 280lbs. to 300lbs., they came out with the statement that they were lifting 320lbs., and so their little game went on.
For my part I was determined to introduce a novelty. Henceforth, there should be actually living weights. I started, therefore, at the Tivoli with a new display, lifting a horse at arm’s length above my head, and marching with it to musical accompaniment.
This was followed by a display with human dumb-bells. Taking a long bar with a large ball at each end, I placed in each ball a man, and I raised bar, balls, and men, slowly over the head. After putting them down the balls opened and the men rolled out. This performance I accomplished in order to equal the feat of lifting 300lbs. dead weight.
Further, I lifted, and supported on my chest, a grand pianoforte, with an orchestra of eight performers on top of the instrument.
There was still a fourth feat which I performed, knowing that no one could equal it, and that was to turn a somersault whilst holding a weight of 56lbs. in each hand.
These performances I repeated in the provinces. During this tour I had the pleasure of visiting not only many of the chief cities of England, but also Edinburgh and Glasgow. Who can fail to be deeply impressed by the grandeur and magnificence of the scenery of Scotland? Certainly I was not proof against it. Never have I visited a more beautiful city than Edinburgh, and the Scottish people themselves I found exceedingly kind and agreeable. Since then, I have been to Ireland, and can testify that its people are as frank, generous, and warm-hearted, as they are always represented to be. Certainly, some of the happiest days of my life were those spent in the Emerald Isle.
At the end of my first provincial tour I returned to London to fulfill an engagement at the Palace Theatre. Here I introduced another novelty. In place of the orchestra I held three horses on my chest. These animals stood on a plank, one at each side and the third in the center, holding the balance in a game of see-saw. Included in this performance was the feat in which a Horse Guardsman on his horse rode over me, thus completing at that time the chapter of living weights.
ON THE “ELBE”: BOUND FOR NEW YORK
We come now to the year of the Chicago Exhibition,when I entered into a contract for an engagement in America, with Messrs Abbey, Scheffel, and Grau.
An old friend and famous pianist, Martinus Sieveking, whom I knew years before in Belgium and Holland, accompanied me to the New World. Sieveking was a brilliant artist, but as a man he was exceedingly weak and delicate. He had no powers of endurance, and it was difficult for him to remain at the piano long at a time.
“If I had only your strength,” he used to say, “I think I might become almost the greatest player in the world.”
I suggested that he should come with me as my guest to America, guaranteeing that in nine months or a year, under my personal supervision and training, he would grow so strong that his best friends would scarcely recognize him.
Agreeing to come, he travelled with me all through America. The result of my system and supervision was that his strength grew marvellously. Within the year, weak as he was at the start, he became the strongest of all my pupils, and the most redoubtable amateur I have ever met. The portrait, which is printed on an earlier page will speak for itself when you remember that a year before it was taken the sitter had a gaunt, slim, delicate figure, with narrow chest, sloping shoulders, and no muscles worth speaking about.
But I am going ahead too fast. Let us revert for a moment to our departure from England. We sailed on the Elbe, the vessel that was afterwards wrecked. There was a good deal of bustle in getting on board, and some curiosity, I suppose, amongst the passengers, when they saw the sailors straining beneath the weight of my luggage and apparatus, and got to know that a strong man was to sail with them. With the captain and the first engineer I became very friendly, giving them, during the voyage, lessons in my system.
Somehow I used to feel that the ship we were on was a doomed vessel. I am not ordinarily superstitious, and it is not necessary to attempt to account for the feeling, but do what I would I could not shake off the dread impression that one day that ship would go down. I became so friendly with the engineer, whom I used to visit in his own cabin, that I advised him to give up his appointment and go to sea no more.
Some time after that, whilst I was in America, the world was startled by the news of the Elbe’s disaster. My friend, the engineer, was amongst the few who were saved. He wrote me a letter telling me of the tidings. This letter touched me very deeply, and, seeing that it contains a story of singular bravery, it may not be inappropriate if I introduce here so much of it as I remember.
Having commented on the strange fulfilment of my prediction, he described how, when the boat was going down, the captain lashed himself to the bridge, saying he would never leave his ship. From the engineer’s boat they called to him to come on, but he would not stir. Then they sent back the pilot, but still to no purpose. By the faint glimmer of a lantern he penciled a note which he asked might be sent, if the bearer should be saved, with his heart’s love to his dear wife and children. For the last time the pilot left the ship, and as the boat bore away from its now fast sinking sides the captain from the bridge, immovable from the post of duty, waved his long farewell.
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