1955-02-19 — Page 5

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THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1955.

Would

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your watch have kept time on the sea-bed?

WEARING a Rolex Oyster Perpetual, professor of Milan University went for a swim off Capri. But the strap-buckle was loose, and his watch broke from his wrist, and sunk to the bottom, Without much hope, the professor asked some divers, working nearby, in keep an eye open for his watch. Surprisingly, seven days later, they actually found it, and in cœur still keeping perfect time.

It is not really so incredible. For this superb watch, completely protected from water and sand by the famous Oyster waterproof case, is automatically wound by the Perpetual "rotor" mechanism→→ another Rolex invention.

It is in their ability to stay accurate under such incredible tests of endurance that Rolex watches prove their immunity from the more normal illa chat beset an ordinary watch.

FLES

"Harold were just saying he'd like to see our Mury togged up in this new 'A' line when along come our Mary."

London Express Service

TWO GIANTS WHO

L

WILM

LIVED IN FEAR

By case

By John Robbins

votised

11 sensulum when he thst rame to Lancom

It would seem that while Byrne's friends left the coffi In barn while they went for a drink the body was removed and

seu.

the

IFE in Eighteenth Century England for frish giants Patrick April 1782. He attracted tfor

2x 6 Cotter and Charles

a time) the nobility and Rentry. medical men und mæm Byrne

11 mixture of bes of the Royal Society. The fume, fortune-and fear. summer partoute at the Bay-

paving stones sub- They found fame and market Theatre was entilled, stituted. The stones fortune in the sideshows and Harlequin

referring so it is said, to him, were duly buried at

Teague

the faire: they found fear in Giant's Causeway." the knowledge that their massive bodies were coveted by anatomists like John Hunter, the great surgeon.

Cotter and Byme knew only too well that on their deaths no effort ur expense, would be spared to bring them under the dissecting knife As religious en they dreaded the thought that they migh! not receive proper burlaj and both took elaborate meenutions je vod dissection

Cofter's plans were unful rench today. 148 years after his drath, he russis peacefully in a buge leden cofn 12f1, bencalli thes Tucky foundation Jesuit Chapel Sirvet. Bristeri.

of a Trenchard

10

He was not to enjoy his fame (or fortune) for long. By the following

year his popularity had wanted and the price view him had fallen to 15.

With his popularity went his health, and the excessive drink. bug to which he was addicted

began to tell. One can picture hun, panting and Horld-faced, as he tottered from his home in Cockapur Survet in May, 1703 for an evening's roistering. It was apparently during on thee bous that he was relieved of a note for £700,

Byrne's skutelun, a monument this fallure, is a prized ex- hib in the sum

the of Itoyal College of Surgeons. it Lincoln's Inn Fields.

But for just on 100 years it was a mystery na to which of these enormous men fell Into the hands of Hunter at Earl's Court,

the

of

What apparently causeİ confusion was the fact that both billed themselves as "The Irish China" and took the name O'Brien, claiming to

be lineal descendants of Brian, ancient King of Ireland. of Cutter 11 was mid that in his person and appearance he had "all the

similitude of that great and

grand potentate."

It was pure Irish blarney but good showmanship.

Showmanship, too, must ac- count for the many disere~ 1 pancies regarding the height of these freaks, beth of whom were born in Ireland in

1701

of parents of ordinary stature,

Exaggerations

iri

1783.

ad-

the

Vexation

of

Vexation at this loss hastened his end, and he died by Cock- spur Street on June 1. 1783, ut

the age of 22.

A

newspaper report of June 5 stated: The whole tribe of Burgos put in a claim for the poor departed Irish Giant and surrounded his house just Greenland harpooners would an enormous while."

LIR

But in his will Byrne had asived his friends to sink his coffin securely in deep water to prevent his body fulling into

their hands.

It is known that they set out with the coffin with the Inter- tion of committing it to the sca (near Margate, it is thought). Thereafter the facts becure obscure und there ure versions of how Hunter snatch- ed the body with the aid of an unscrupulous undertaker at reputed cost of £500.

mony

1

Hunter, with Kreat corpse DS travelling companion, drove in his carriage te Earl's Court, where he was build- ing up his famous collection of aneto- matical samples.

Patrick Cotter was: brought up 23

bricklayer, but at the

age of 18 was hired

by

showman for

exhibitlot: in

Eng-

not

land, For 250 10 was bound for three years, and it is surprising that soon after his arrival at Bristol he had a dis- his agreement with master. The show- took his mon venge by having him ftung into prison for a fictitious debt.

re-

When ho even-

secured his

Ch

Patrick Cotter

tually release Cotter estab ished himself at Bristol Fair and male £30

three $11

days. Thereafter he moved around the country from fair to fair until be achieved independence 1804. He returned to private Ufo and dlod at his ltgings in Bristol on September 8, 1800, In his 46th year.

in

Although he had nothing to Icar tromm Hunter, who had died several years before, there

unatomists other

who sought his body and Cotter left behind him careful In- structions for his burial.

instructions.

carctul burial

In

ONE OF

THE WORLD'S

STRANGEST

STORIES

Hunter collection bought by fle Government for £15,000

ant

handed for custody to the Royal College of Surgeons.

both

With Cotter and Byme being known as O'Brien is understandable that

during

the aherukki

In

100 years there persist a beller, particularly the West Country, that it was Colter's skeleton lodged in the

museum.

CX-

All doubts were swept uwuy la 1806 when workmen, cavating for drains In Bristol unearthed Cotter's coflin де "considerable depth." The name-plate ("Patrick Cotter O'Brien") was still legible, al- hact though the lenden shell perished and the long skeleton was visible. It was reinterred after exientifle examination.

Byrne's skeleton was the most expensive specimen in Hunter's collection a collection that is today still of immense value in the field of medicul knowledge and research.

Rare Animals

of

all

Hunter is said to have spent £70,000 building it up. He ob- tained first refusal animals dying in

the Tower and menagerie and other zoos sometimes bought rare animals and allowed them to be

Ex- hibited on the condition he had the carcasas on death,

In the garden at Earl's Court he built an ornamental pond- with the skuils of éreatures ho had dissectexi.

lives arranged the funeral for six o'clock in the morning. His tomb was sunk 12 feet in rock, heavily barred and bricked up. No indication was given on

The world has much for which to thanks Hunter and if Byrac the memorial tablet raised

the chapel of the exact place of only know how many students Interment and this started many had learned anatomy at his ex- rumours about the disposal of pensis perhaps he would not feel so badly about being snatched his body. Some contended it had been removed in socrat to from his coffin.

The Dutch, Note: for dissection.

it seema Although 23 years had elapsed hold the height records today. since the doath, of Byrne, Mr Jon Van Albers is 9ft. was not widely known that his 3%in, Miss Katja Van Dyk la

London

To avoid gaping crowds rela- skeleton formed part of The 8ft, 43⁄41⁄2in.

DEREK MARKS finds the end of a legend in a new book

LAWRENCE OF

THE COOKHOUSE

FERE is the biggest-ever "A man's callsting in his ac- authority upon us, do it in, the evidence to support that,

HE

wis

•

Eventually he was turned out when the publicity he attracted became too much for the Air Force. After a spell is the Tank camp, Corps 48 a private he was

allowed to rejoin the RAF- this time as T. E shaw. 7

bridge. "The Mint” comments: who day by day exercise their There does not seem to be any exposure of the One old record puts Byrne's fabulous Colonel Lawrence

imowledgment of defent by life." Just of crudity," height at 8ft. in 1780 and 8ft. 4in. of Arabia: a

By any standards, Uxbridge Always he emphasizes the book just in 1922 his

a pretty tough savage, the unpleasant, and the death Newspaper accounts

published called "The Mint.

Lawrence was the 8. unhealthy, Consider this pass place.

known SUCCOS and ago

the vertising his

describing 352087 Air- Ho had uppeninners give The author?

Now he found himself commandant:- 7 it variously up to 8ft, 4in. But craftman Second Claas John wer these are exaggerations; the Hulme Ross-better known

or fatigues. skeleton, though it

There

"He is only the shards of a is Lawrence, of the It towers over

Tho list section of "The others of ordinary

height, as Lawrence of Arabia,

cookhouse wishing hundreds of man-lett leg gone, a damaged measures only 7t. 7. In life

greasy dishes and experiencing eye and brain (as we charitably Mint consists of his experiences I have

always thought of the stomach-turning smell and suppose) one crippled arm, at Cranwell during this second

·Lawrance as one of the great the feel of muck." It is harder to fix Cotter heroes of the century. Richard

about spell with the RAF. alivor plates and corsois

He was was a happier there. His writing is, He goes

the butcher's his ribs. Aldington's zanty tile bio- I have

grophy published recently did chop, where he finds that "the distinguished soldier: Now, the on the whole, gontler, annathby to alter my opinion. But butcher is a young corporal, R.A.. is his pitying amour DEBASED COINAGE where as BIL. 71⁄2in,

Or. this 'remomberod `visit lu » face white and full as a bladder

Borde time account of his life written in now that I have road "The Mint"

think that Lawrence merited of lard, and his bloodied overalls Que Alexandra 1804 mys he "could not have

before his enlistment

It was at Cranwell that he been more, on the whole, than a nasty little biography.

moll of his trado,

*Whom Physical training racks with

two reached the recorded the pleasure of riding This book is an account of agony the body that the Turks presence and I saw the mumas- his motor-bike, the high-power They certainly dwarfed or his life in the ranits of the had fogged a few years before, and thing, the bird-like head Brough be called "Boanerges," dinary men, In Edinburgh Royal Air Force. There Is Drill on the square is "rank cocked on one side, not netfully "I have the honour of one of Byrne alarmed the watchmen nothing particularly odd about cruelty."

be stood about 7ft. 8in.

gives it us 8ft 3in. and

A memorial tablet

in

7ft. 10in."

on

the North Bridge one being an "erk" in the R.A.F. moning by lighting his pipe et I was one myself for some

one of the lamps without even time. But Lawrence drease up

1

STRESS ON BRUTAL

ustre

Once

only, the

may

but by disease, the red-rimmed England's straightest fastost

(the enamelled face, which roads, The burble of

of my the famous snilo. clamored exhaust unwound like a long

angular and heart- card, behind mo. Soen my sunding on tiptoe. It is also the weary tedium and the petty : And you hear pendlag-then I nearly run var eind wepped inward which sald that on narrow stains he degradations into a sordif gaga. recording: "For me the que had to crawl on all-four.

When his desert fighting was is not so harsh as that formar Lawrence- lens words to sonr

head split and The giants slept on lengthened

tyerd few Job labour (P.T.). Sitting to artiste men's mind even the Tinka fended bed used strengthened fumi which Lawrence, could not have taught me to be still for three ne scarred his body with Best T

T. E Lawrence T E.* Shaw, fufci and her their clothes and had for the acking Certain in quolters, of us hour once, whips. Ho magallies the vesty and John Hamd out from shown specially made föè, Phem, is that Churchill offered him and the military portions, aro

Bro: bullies Anto ZOLE MJETEVîng-showu Cot hith appointment under the avere Chic wudio poses.

Colonial Office, Iraitona Law Most of these who are placed com to collant in doing

romos chose to mango at Lola vorer bire, Mark 10 REKVI boud, and name, and become, oh me on LAW

'enlisted, and was not)}

Mod The Mind, whenemserga dida viju, debased coinage of BombaDS PER

Would the Lawrenos bad

This Rolex Oyster Perpetual is similar to the one in the story, Permanently waterproof in its Oyster Gate, it is given perfect accuracy by the Perpetual, selfwinding rotor." The Rolex Red Seal identifies every Rolex chronometer.

After seven days beneath the sea, a Rolex Oyster Perpetual, brought up by divert, was found to be still showing the right time! (The original letter of Professor Catele can be inspected as the Rolex officer, 18 rue du Marche, Geneva.)

W

ROLEX

A landmark in the history of Time measuremené

BOLEX Chronometer- Official Timepiece of Panagra Airlines

A reflection of

good taste

BORN 1820

STILL GOING

STRONG

Johnnie Walker

FINE OLD SCOTCH WHISKY

X-19

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