pages: unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf, 300
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unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf | 300 | ROBERT-HOUDIN'S IGNORANCE OF MAGIC years back in France by a mountebank called "the Sabre- Swallower.' "This man, who performed in the streets, threw back his head so as to form a straight line with his throat, and really thrust down his gullet a sabre, of which only the hilt remained outside his mouth. "He also swallowed an egg without cracking it, or even nails and pebbles, which he caused to resound, by striking his stomach with his fist. "These tricks were the result of a peculiar formation in the mountebank's throat, but, if he had lived among the Aïssaoua, he would have assuredly been the leading man of the company." The sabre-swallower never releases his hold on the weapon. The pebble and bottle-heel swallower does- but brings them up again, by a system of retching which results from long practice. The Japanese have an egg- swallowing trick in which they swallow either small- sized ivory balls or eggs, and reproduce them by a retch- ing so unnoticeable that they could easily show the mouth empty. This trick dates back to the offerings of that celebrated water-spouter, Blaise Manfrede, or de Manfre, who trav- elled all over Europe. This man could swallow huge quantities of water and then eject it in streams or in small quantities or fill all sorts of glasses. In fact this one trick made him famous. The European Magazine, London, March, 1765, pages 194-5, gives a most diverting descrip- tion of his trick, taken from an old letter, and here quoted : "I have seen, at the September fair in Francfort, a man who professed drinking fifty quarts of water in a [ 271 ] |