Harry Houdini

“ He had no sooner applied a lighted match to his lips than the whole mouthful of spirit took fire and before it was consumed the man was burned in a frightful manner, the blazing spirit running all over his face, neck and chest as he dashed from his stand and raced about like a madman among the assembled crowd, tearing his clothing from him and howling in most intense agony. ”

“ The credulous, wonder-loving scientist, however, still abides with us and, while his serious-minded brothers are wringing from Nature her jealously guarded secrets, the knowledge of which benefits all mankind, he gravely follows that periennial Will-of-the-wisp, spiritism, and lays the flattering unction to his soul that he is investigating "psychic phenomena," when in reality he is merely gazing with unseeing eyes on the flimsy juggling of pseudo-mediums. ”

“ Thardo was a woman of exceptional beauty, both of form and feature, a fluent speaker and a fearless enthusiast in her devotion to her art. She would allow herself to be repeatedly bitten by rattle-snakes and received no harm excepting the ordinary pain of the wound. After years of investigation I have come to the belief that this immunity was the result of an absolutely empty stomach, into which a large quantity of milk was taken shortly after the wound was inflicted, the theory being that the virus acts directly on the contents of the stomach, changing it to a deadly poison. ”

“ Such is his passion for this terrible element, that if he were to come hungry into your kitchen, while a sirloin was roasting, he would eat up the fire and leave the beef. It is somewhat surprising that the friends of REAL MERIT have not yet promoted him, living as we do in an age favorable to men of genius. Obliged to wander from place to place, instead of indulging himself in private with his favorite dish, he is under the uncomfortable necessity of eating in public, and helping himself from the kitchen fire of some paltry ale-house in the country. ”

“ She made me stay dinner at Leicester House, and afterwards sent for Richardson, the famous fire-eater. He devoured brimstone on glowing coals before us, chewing and swallowing them; he melted a beere-glass and eate it quite up; then taking a live coale on his tongue he put on it a raw oyster; the coal was blown on with bellows till it flamed and sparkled in his mouthe, and so remained until the oyster gaped and was quite boil'd. ”

“ Years ago I saw a colored poison-eater at Worth's Museum, New York City, who told me that he escaped the noxious effects of the drugs by eating quantities of oatmeal mush.
Another colored performer took an ordinary bottle, and, after breaking it, would bite off chunks, crunch them with his teeth, and finally swallow them. I have every reason to believe that his performance was genuine. ”

“ The stress exerted by the girl is very feeble, because, on the one hand, she has the lever arm to herself, and, on the other, the action upon her lever arm is a simple traction. When she feels that the pressure exerted is great enough, she directs the two men to exert a vertical stress strong enough to cause the stick to descend. They then imagine that they are exerting a vertical stress, while in reality their stresses are horizontal and tend to keep the stick in a vertical position in order to react against the pressure exerted at the lower end of the stick. ”

“ We shall let this versatile John Brooks close the pre-Chabert record and turn our attention to the fire-eaters of Chabert's day. Imitation may be the sincerest flattery, but in most cases the victim of the imitation, it is safe to say, will gladly dispense with that form of adulation. When Chabert first came to America and gave fresh impetus to the fire-eating art by the introduction of new and startling material, he was beset by many imitators, or—as they probably styled themselves—rivals, who immediately proceeded, so far as in them lay, to out-Chabert Chabert. ”

“ Further on he says "If you do not come away convinced that you have been witness of a spectacle which makes you disbelieve the evidence of your own eyes and your most matter-of-fact judgment, then you are a man of stone." ”

“ But he had been a good showman and his was one of the best liked working acts in the Curio, as the dime-museum profession was called.
Of all the acts of this nature that I have ever seen I think the most foolhardy was that of an under-sized Italian who lay on his back on the floor and let fall from his hands, extended upward at arm's length heavy weights upon his chest—the silly fool! I said as much to him—and some other things too. His act had little entertainment to show as compared with the pain and danger involved. ”

“ As a rule, Cliquot borrows one, but as no timepiece was forthcoming at the private exhibition where I saw him, he proceeded to lower his own big chronometer into his aesophagus by a slender gold chain. Many of the most eminent physicians and surgeons in this country immediately rushed forward with various instruments, and the privileged few took turns in listening for the ticking of the watch inside the performer's body. "Poor, outraged nature is biding her time," remarked one physician, "but mark me, she will have a terrible revenge sooner or later!" ”

“ For the wisest man never gets beyond the reach of novelty, nor can ever make it his boast that there is nothing he is ignorant of; on the contrary, the wiser he becomes the more clearly he sees how much there is of which he remains in ignorance. The more he knows, the more he will find to wonder at.
My professional life has been a constant record of disillusion, and many things that seem wonderful to most men are the every-day commonplaces of my business. But I have never been without some seeming marvel to pique my curiosity and challenge my investigation. ”

“ FEATS of strength have always interested me greatly, so that in my travels around the world I have made it a point to come in contact with the most powerful human beings of my generation. The one among these who deserves first mention is Charles Jefferson, with whose achievements I became quite familiar while we were working in the same museum many years ago. I am convinced that he must have been the strongest man of his time at lifting with the bare hands alone. ”

“ ↑ Such disloyalty in trusted servants is one of the most disheartening things that can happen to a public performer. But it must not be thought that I say this out of personal experience: for in the many years that I have been before the public my secret methods have been steadily shielded by the strict integrity of my assistants, most of whom have been with me for years. Only one man ever betrayed my confidence, and that only in a minor matter. But then, so far as I know I am the only performer who ever pledged his assistants to secrecy, honor and allegiance under a notarial oath. ”

“ He takes a quantity of resin, pitch, bees'-wax, sealing-wax, brimstone, alum, and lead, melts them all together over a chafing-dish of coals, and eats the same combustibles with a spoon, as if it were a porringer of broth (which he calls his dish of soup) , to the great and agreeable surprise of the spectators; with various other extraordinary performances never attempted by any other person of this age, and there is scarce a possibility ever will ”

“ He devours about half a peck of these stones every day, and when he clinks upon his stomach, or shakes his body, you may hear the stones rattle as if they were in a sack, all of which in twenty-four hours are resolved. Once in three weeks he voids a great quantity of sand, after which he has a fresh appetite for these stones, as we have for our victuals, and by these, with a cup of beer, and a pipe of tobacco, he has his whole subsistence. ”

“ Reid is authority for the statement that the Shintoist priests' fire-walking rites have "long been one of the puzzling mysteries of the scientific world," and adds "If you ever are in Tokio, and can find a few minutes to spare, by all means do not neglect witnessing at least one performance of 'Hi-Wattarai' (fire walking, and that is really what takes place) , for, if you are of that incredulous nature which laughs with scorn at so-called Eastern mysticism, you will come away, as has many a visitor before you, with an impression sufficient to last through an ordinary lifetime." ”

“ Possessed of more than ordinary personal charms, a refined taste for dressing both herself and her stage, and an unswerving devotion to her art, she has perfected an act that has found favor even in the Royal Courts of Europe. ”

“ Another nail act was that of Alexander Weyer, who, either by superior strength or by a peculiar knack, could hold a nail between the middle fingers of his right hand with the head against the palm, and drive it through a one-inch board. But since this act did not get him very far—either on the road to fame, or toward the big money—he turned to magic and finally became one of the leading Continental magicians, boasting that he was one of the few really expert sleight-of-hand magicians of the world. ”

“ Although seldom presenting it in his recent performances, Ching Ling Foo is a fire-eater of the highest type, refining the effect with the same subtle artistry that marks all the work of this super-magician.
Of Foo's thousand imitators the only positively successful one was William E. Robinson, whose tragic death while in the performance of the bullet-catching trick is the latest addition to the long list of casualties chargeable to that ill-omened juggle. ”

“ Thus is the velocity given by the hammer distributed to all parts of a great stone, when it is laid on a man's breast to be broken; but when the blow is given, the man feels less of the weight of the stone than he did before, because in the reaction of the stone, all the parts of it round about the hammer rise towards the blow; and if the tenacity of the parts of the stone, is not stronger than the force with which it moves towards the hammer, the stone must break; which it does when the blow is strong, and struck upon the centre of gravity of the stone. ”

“ The experiment represented in Fig. 4, where it concerns the easy lifting of a very heavy person, the trick is no less simple. Out of a hundred persons submitted to the experiment, ninety-nine, knowing that the experimenter wishes to lift them and cause them to fall forward, grasp the seat or arms of the chair, and, in endeavoring to resist, make the whole weight of their body bear upon their feet. If they do not do so at the first instant, they do so when they are conscious of the attempts of the girl to raise the seat, and they help therein unconsciously. ”

“ In all feats of fire-eating it should be noted that the head is thrown well back, so that the flame may pass out of the open mouth instead of up into the roof, as it would if the head were held naturally. ”

“ To suppose that nature has organized him differently, would be unphilosophic: by habit he might have blunted his sensibilities against those impressions that create pain under ordinary circumstances; but how to explain the power by which he resists the action of those agents which are known to have the strongest affinity for animal matter, is a circumstance difficult to comprehend. It has not failed, however, to excite the wonder of the ignorant and the inquiry of the learned at Paris. ”

“ Chabert, the Fire-King, exhibited his powers of resisting poisons, and withstanding extreme heat. He swallowed forty grains of phosphorus, sipped oil at 333° with impunity, and rubbed a red-hot fire-shovel over his tongue, hair, and face, unharmed.
On September 23d, on a challenge of £50, Chabert repeated these feats and won the wager; he next swallowed a piece of burning torch; and then, dressed in coarse woolen, entered an oven heated to 380°, sang a song, and cooked two dishes of beef steaks. ”

“ Eating coals of fire has always been one of the sensational feats of the Fire Kings, as it is quite generally known that charcoal burns with an extremely intense heat. This fervent lunch, however, like many of the feasts of the Fire Kings, is produced by trick methods. Mixed with the charcoal in the brazier are a few coals of soft white pine, which when burnt look exactly like charcoal. These will not burn the mouth as charcoal will. They should be picked up with a fork which will penetrate the pine coals, but not the charcoal, the latter being brittle. ”

“ He then brings his rouse again, and drinks up fifteen or sixteen glasses of luke-warm water, which the pail will plentifully afford him: he will not bring you up the pale Burgundian wine, which, though more faint of complexion than the claret, he will tell you is the purest wine in Christendom. The strength of the Brazil water, which he took immediately before his appearance on the stage, grows fainter and fainter. This glass, like the first glass in which he brings forth his claret, is washed, the better to represent the colour of the wine therein. ”

“ In our own times the art of defending the hands and face, and indeed the whole body, from the action of heated iron and intense fire, has been applied to the nobler purpose of saving human life, and rescuing property from the flames. ”

“ The beer-drinking of Norton was a more refined version of the so-called water-spouting of previous generations, in which the returning was done openly, a performance that could not fail to disgust a modern audience. To be sure, in the days of the Dime Museum, a Negro who returned the water worked those houses; but his performance met with little approval, and it is years since I have heard of such an exhibition. ”

“ Such pressure in the first place is exerted but slightly, and the stresses are gradually increased. Then, all at once, when the force exerted horizontally is as great as possible, and the men are exerting their strength in the opposite direction in order to resist it, the girl abruptly ceases the pressure without warning and exerts it in the opposite direction. Unprepared for this change, the victims lose their equilibrium and find themselves at the mercy of the girl, and so much the more so in proportion as they are stronger and their efforts are greater. ”