“Standing upon a staging at an elevation of about eight or ten feet from the floor, the Doctor lifted and sustained, for a considerable time and without apparent difficulty, a platform suspended beneath him on which stood twelve gentlemen, all heavier individually than the Doctor himself, and weighing, inclusive of the entire apparatus lifted with them, nearly nineteen hundred pounds avoirdupois.  In the performance of this tremendous feat, Dr. W. employed neither straps, bands, nor girdle,—­nothing in short but a stout oaken stick fitting across his shoulders, and having attached to it a couple of rather formidable-looking chains.  At his request, a committee, appointed by the audience, and furnished with one of Fairbanks’s scales, superintended all the experiments.”

The exact weight lifted on this occasion was eighteen hundred and thirty-six pounds.  A few evenings after, I lifted, in the same way, in Lynn, eighteen hundred and sixty; in Brookline, eighteen hundred and ninety; in Medford, nineteen hundred and thirty-four; in Maiden, nineteen hundred and two; and in Charlestown, nineteen hundred and forty.

As my strength is still increasing in an undiminished ratio, I am fairly beginning to wonder where the limit will be; and the old adage of the camel’s back and the last feather occasionally suggests itself.  I have fixed three thousand pounds as my ne plus ultra.

* * * * *

FREMONT’S HUNDRED DAYS IN MISSOURI.

I.

The narrative we propose to give of events in Missouri is not intended to be a defence of General Fremont, nor in any respect an answer to the charges which have been made against him.  Our purpose is the more humble one of presenting a hasty sketch of the expedition to Springfield, confining ourselves almost entirely to the incidents which came under the observation of an officer of the General’s staff.

General Fremont was in command of the Western Department precisely One Hundred Days.  He assumed the command at the time when the army with which Lyon had captured Camp Jackson and won the Battle of Booneville was on the point of dissolution.  The enemy, knowing that the term for which our soldiers had been enlisted was near its close, began offensive movements along their whole line.  Cairo, Bird’s Point, Ironton, and Springfield were simultaneously threatened.  Jeff Thompson wrote to his friends in St. Louis, promising to be in that city in a month.  The sad, but glorious day upon Wilson’s Creek defeated the Rebel designs, and compelled McCulloch, Pillow, Hardee, and Thompson to retire.