The middle-aged bald little man is the US boxer Johnny Coulon, who is mystifying Paris by his uncanny power to stay on his legs
PARIS, TUESDAY
The mysterious grip of Johnny Coulon, the boxer, and the financial adventures of a young man of 23 named Himmelfarb among kinema producers are the main topics of conversation in the cafés of the Grands Boulevards. Wherever one sits to take the many-coloured apéritif, by one's side is a gesticulating couple with a photo on the table in front of them of a middle-aged, bald little man engaged in a complicated effort with some giant or other in fighting attire. The little man so illustrated is the American boxer Coulon, who is mystifying Paris and such eminent scientists as he can get interested by his uncanny power to stay on his legs.
Husky wrestlers have tried one after another to twist him into the air. But as soon as he has placed his magic grip – one finger on the base of their right ears and one hand on their left wrist – no human power apparently can hoist him off his diminutive feet. Now, Johnny Coulon is a light-weight, and the men matched against him are all capable of tossing a stack of coal over the shoulder with one hand.
Magic and jiu-jitsu divide the honours of the café explanations. One even hears the hundred-year-old term of "animal magnetism" invoked by the learned as the only way out of the difficulty. Everyone is trying Coulon's grip on his friends. Already one man has been robbed of £400 by an ingenious pickpocket while in the act of showing how it is done. In the revues nightly comedians are gagging about Coulon's magic; song-writers are hard at work for café-concerts on the new theme. One unbelieving champion has bet Johnny £80 that he will shift him, on condition of being allowed to shut his eyes to avoid any hypnotic spell while the test is going on, and a hall is being arranged for the occasion.
In the graver cafes, where businessmen resort, more attention is paid to the adventures of young Mr. Himmelfarb. By dexterous means the naturalised citizen of France formed in America a great company, with a capital of millions of dollars, for consolidating the whole kinema industry of Europe. His detractors claim he went to New York and got the company started by saying he had been deputed by French interests. Then returning to Europe he went to the French interests and told them about the American company. At any rate, no one disputes that the American company is real and genuine, and that once away from the country of his adoption he had the confidence of official France.
A great morning paper has sworn to ruin him, and Paris, which dearly loves high financial scandal, has throned Himmelfarb and the immovable boxer Coulon as the principal celebrities of the day.
Ap.