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MIRACLE-MONGERS AND THEIR METHODS
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laid bare by Dr. Desaguliers over a hundred and fifty years ago and have been generally discarded by athletes, only to be taken up and vastly improved by women of the type of The Georgia Magnet, who gave the world of science a decided start about a generation ago. I shall have more to say of her a little further on.
The jiu jitsu of the Japanese is, in part, a development of the same principles, but here again much new material has been added, so that it deserves to be considered a new art.
The following, from Dr. Desaguliers' Experimental Philosophy, London, 1763, Vol. 1, page 289, contrasts feats of actual strength with the tricks of the old-time performers:
Thomas Topham, born in London, and now about thirty-one years of age, five feet ten inches high, with muscles very hard and prominent, was brought up a carpenter, which trade he practiced till within these six or seven years that he has shewed feats of strength; but he is entirely ignorant of any art to make his strength appear more surprising; Nay, sometimes he does things which become more difficult
