The New York Times/1891/2/1/Canada's Strong Man
Canada's Strong Man.
The French Canadian who has Beaten the World at Lifting.
From the Montreal (Canada) Witness, Jan. 26.
Louis Cyr, who has beaten the world at heavy-weight lifting, is to receive a magnificent championship belt at the Queen's Hall to-night, presented by appreciative citizens. Cyr is a French Canadian. He was born in St. Johns, Quebec, twenty-seven years ago. He is a large man, lacking but an inch and a half of six feet, and weighing 318 pounds. His last and biggest lift was 3,993 pounds. "My first lift," he told a reporter, "was in this way: There was a load of bricks—over a ton, I guess—stuck in a hole in the road and the horse couldn't pull it out. I was only seventeen, but was a big fellow, weighed 240 pounds, and I got underneath the cart and lifted it off the ground and got it out.
"Then I tried to see what I could do, and have never had any difficulty in lifting 2,500 pounds since then. My mother was very strong. She could always carry a barrel of flour up stairs to the second flat. She weighed 265 pounds. My father weighed 220, but could not lift more than other men. My temperance principles? I abstained two years ago from liquor and tobacco; before that, used to take them regularly. I am three times better off since then. I gained in strength enough to lift 700 pounds more in these two years. Liquor is a bad habit, anyway. Tobacco, too much of it, is bad. I am three times better off since I gave them both up.
"I eat five or six pounds of meat a day; eat as much as three woodchoppers. It would make you hungry, perhaps, to see me at dinner. They charge me double board; never mind, I pay it. I am always gaining in strength—I guess I was born that way—and I guess I will lift 4,500 before I get through. The record for lifting? Well, you know, I lift everything without a harness; that is, just with my hands, and not with a strap slung over my back. The record for lifting with a harness is 3,239 pounds, made my W. B. Curtis of New-York in 1862. You see I got ahead of that even without a harness. I have lifted 535 pounds with my forefinger and have put a barrel of cement, over 300 pounds, on my shoulder with one hand."
The champion wears his hair long. It is yellow and curly. Asked whether he believed as much in the value of hair as the ancient Samson, he replied, "No, but it is attractive when exhibiting." When not on show, Mr. Cyr makes a neat Psyche knot of the hair, using hairpins liberally, and with his hat over it he looks exactly like the ordinary, innocent fat man.