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Professional Faster on Public Display For 12 Days Without Food Goes Insane After Teased With a Pastry
A showman trying to publicly go without food for a month reached his breaking point after an eclair was waved in front of his face
Humans are such a curious species. Even in our supposedly advanced levels of evolution, we love to gawk at things that are considered unusual or foreign to us. Because of that, many with entrepreneurial minds have taken advantage, putting all manner of curiosities on display for a fee. One of the more unusual was a professional faster named Albert Wolly. In the 1920s, he spent 12 days confined in a locked glass case in public without food until he was teased by a chocolate eclair and smashed his way to freedom — ultimately landing in an insane asylum.
In November, 1925, Wolly, a Dutchman, made a living in part by putting himself on public display while in the throes of depriving himself of nourishment for unnaturally long periods of time. On this occasion, he was in Paris and in the midst of a 30-day stint where he promised he could go the entire time without consuming anything at all.
He persisted for the first 11 days, as more than 40,000 onlookers paid to stare at him doing nothing (and certainly not…
