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four men. The celebrated Mlle. Gauthier, an actress of the
Comedie-Francais, had marvelous power of her hands, bending coins,
rolling up silver plate, and performing divers other feats. Major
Barsaba had enormous powers of hand and fingers. He could roll a silver
plate into the shape of a goblet. Being challenged by a Gascon, he
seized the hand of his unsuspecting adversary in the ordinary manner of
salutation and crushed all the bones of the fingers, thus rendering
unnecessary any further trial of strength.

It is said that Marshal Saxe once visited a blacksmith ostensibly to
have his horse shod, and seeing no shoe ready he took a bar of iron,
and with his hands fashioned it into a horseshoe. There are Japanese
dentists who extract teeth with their wonderfully developed fingers.
There are stories of a man living in the village of Cantal who received
the sobriquet of "La Coupia" (The Brutal). He would exercise his
function as a butcher by strangling with his fingers the calves and
sheep, instead of killing them in the ordinary manner. It is said that
one day, by placing his hands on the shoulders of the strong man of a
local fair, he made him faint by the pressure exerted by his fingers.

Manual strangulation is a well-known crime and is quite popular in some
countries. The Thugs of India sometimes murdered their victims in this
way. Often such force is exerted by the murderer's fingers as to
completely fracture the cricoid cartilage.

In viewing the feats of strength of the exhibitionist we must bear in
consideration the numerous frauds perpetrated. A man of extraordinary
strength sometimes finds peculiar stone, so stratified that he is able
to break it with the force he can exert by a blow from the hand alone,
although a man of ordinary strength would try in vain. In most of these
instances, if one were to take a piece of the exhibitionist's stone, he
would find that a slight tap of the hammer would break it. Again, there
are many instances in which the stone has been found already separated
and fixed quite firmly together, placing it out of the power of an
ordinary man to break, but which the exhibitionist finds within his
ability. This has been the solution of the feats of many of the
individuals who invite persons to send them marked stones to use at
their performances. By skilfully arranging stout twine on the hands, it
is surprising how easily it is broken, and there are many devices and
tricks to deceive t