pages: unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf, 303
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unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf | 303 | THE UNMASKING OF ROBERT-HOUDIN them in water very transparent, rose-water, orange-flower- water, and brandy. "I have smelt the several odours of his liquors; nay, I have seen him set fire to a handkerchief dipt in that which smelt like brandy, and it burnt blue like spirituous liquors. Nay, he frequently promised at Venice to give the water back again in milk and oil. But I think he did not keep his word. In short, he concluded this scene with swallowing successfully thirty or forty glasses of water, always from the same bucket, and after having given notice to the company by his man (who served as an interpreter) that he was going to disembogue, he threw his head back, and spouting out the fair water, he made it spring up with an impetuosity like that of the strongest jet d'eau. This last feat delighted the people infinitely more than all the rest, and during the month he was at Francfort numbers from all parts came to see this slovenly exercise. Though he repeated it more than once a day he had more than four hundred specta- tors at a time. Some threw their handkerchiefs, and some their gloves upon the stage, that he might wet them with the water he had cast up, and he returned them differently perfumed, sometimes with rose-water, sometimes with orange-flower-water, and sometimes with brandy." Another famous juggler and water-spouter was Floram Marchand, whose picture is herewith reproduced. Judg- ing from his dress, he antedated Manfrede. Bell's Messenger of July r6th, 1816, tells of a sword- swallower whose work is extremely pertinent to this dis- cussion, and the clipping is quoted verbatim: "The French papers give a curious account of one [274] - |