The History of Signboards, from the Earliest times to the Present DayHotten, John Camden
History
The History of Signboards, from the Earliest times to the Present Day
Hotten, John Camden
Inn signs -- England -- History; Signs and signboards -- History
Thomas Topham was born in London in 1710. His strength almost makes the
feats of Homer’s heroes credible, for, besides pulling against two dray
horses, in which he would have been successful if he had been properly
placed, he lifted three hogsheads of water, weighing 1836 lbs, broke a
rope two inches in circumference, lifted a stone roller, weighing 800
lbs., by a chain with his hands only, lifted with his teeth a table six
feet long, with half a hundredweight fastened to the end of it, and held
it a considerable time in a horizontal position, struck an iron poker, a
yard long and three inches thick, against his bare left arm until it was
bent into a right angle, placed a poker of the same dimensions against
the back of his neck, and bent it until the ends met, and performed
innumerable other remarkable feats.
In DANIEL LAMBERT, whose portly figure acts as sign to a coffee-house on
Ludgate Hill, and to a public-house in the High Street, St Martins,
Stamford, Lincolnshire, we behold another wonder of the age. This man
weighed no less than 52 stone 11 lb. (14 lbs. to the stone.) He was in
his 40th year when he died, and the circumstances of his burial give a
good idea of his enormous proportions. His coffin, in which there was
great difficulty of placing him, was 6 ft. 4 in. long, 4 ft. 4 in. wide,
and 2 ft. 4 in. deep. The immense size of his legs made it almost a
square case. It consisted of 112 superficial feet of elm, and was built
upon two axletrees and four clogwheels, and upon them his remains were
rolled into the grave, a regular descent having been made by cutting the
earth away for some distance slopingly down to the bottom. The window
and part of the wall had to be taken down to allow his exit from the
house in which he died. His demise took place on June 21, 1809.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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