GREAT MEN'S BODIES
straight as an iron rod—is broad in proportion, and when heaviest (in 1879), scaled close upon twenty stone (two hundred and eighty pounds).
"In 1883 a Kissingen newspaper published the following statistics of the Chancellor's weight as taken during the few previous years at that watering-place: in 1874, 207 lbs.; 1876, 219 lbs.; 1877, 230 lbs.; 1878, 243 lbs.; 1879, 247 lbs.; 1880, 237 lbs.; 1882, 232 lbs.; 1883, 202 lbs. (German). The English pound is equal to about one and one-tenth times as much as the German pound."
And how he educated that body let Mr. Low tell. In Vol. I., p. 15, he says: "But while he had thus been favored with the very best preparatory education procurable; care was also taken to preserve in him that healthy equilibrium, between the mental and physical powers, the neglect of which causes the ordinary German school-boy to resemble a sickly hot-house plant. Devoted to all manly sports, he was a swift runner; and a capital jumper; and he learned to swim; to fence; to row; to ride; and to shoot. With his rifle he could decapitate a duck at one hundred paces; and in revolver-practice also his aim was deadly. In particular he was taught to ride like a centaur, an accomplishment in which he was peculiarly fitted by nature to excel; and so well did he attend to the precepts of his father in this respect that the old Rittmeister, when especially pleased with the equestrian feats of his daring son, used to remark that he had a seat like Pluvenal, Master of the
the measurements being taken in centimetres: Prince Bismarck, 6 feet 2 inches; Count Herbert (his elder son), 6 feet 1½ inches. Count William (his second son), 6 feet and ½ inch."
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