The attempt of Mr. Montague Holbein, once a champion cyclist,
now probably the strongest swimmer in the world, to swim across the Channel, failed on Wednesday. About Eleven miles from the French coast the flood tide caught him, and he drifted so far that his advisers recommended him to abandon the attempt. He had been swimming for more than seventeen hours, but was not exhausted, far less half-paralysed, as one of his predecessors was. There is no use in such a feat, but it has this point of human interest in it, that it shows how strong and enduring the European frame can become under favourable conditions. As we said of Captain Webb, who succeeded in the same effort twenty-eight years ago, if there had been a weak place in Mr. Holbein's consti- tution, the exertion must have killed him, or at least perma- nently impaired his strength. The South Sea Islanders are said to perform even more marvellous feats in the water; but stories from the Pacific improve in their long voyage, and require scientific confirmation.
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