CHAPTER VI.

FIRE EATERS AND SWORD TRICKS. FIRE EATERS--TRICKS WITH FIRE. [Illustration: A MOUNTEBANK LICKING A RED-HOT BAR OF IRON.] Burning is undoubtedly that kind of pain against which the human being most strongly revolts, and the fear of being burned is not confined to man alone, but exists also as an instinct in the entire animal kingdom. This fear, the horror of being burned, which is so powerful in men, accounts for the fact that in all times the wonder and curiosity of the public have been excited by those who are capable of handling burning coals or red-hot iron with impunity, or of touching molten metal, and by those who are proof against flames or burning water or oil. There are many examples in history of individuals who are more or less fireproof, and the trials by fire in ancient and mediæval times do not need to be cited here. It was not until about 1677 that the question of the proof of man against fire was looked at from a scientific standpoint. This was done by the physician Dodart, a member of the Academy of Sciences. These studies were provoked by the wonderful tricks which were being performed at that time in Paris by an English chemist named Richardson. Dodart explained that these experiments could be performed without the aid of any chemical preparation, by taking a few precautions, and also that the success of them depended upon the hardening that the epidermis may acquire under the influence of an oft-repeated action. This hardening of the skin among laborers results in their frequently being able to handle red-hot iron and lighted coals with impunity. This, however, does not suffice to explain the tricks of those individuals who exhibit in public as fireproof. The experiments of the Italian physician and chemist, Sementini, have shown that there are preparations which, when put upon the skin, render the latter absolutely insensible to contact with fire or incandescent materials. His first experiments had no result; finally, after submitting himself to repeated friction with sulphurous acid, he was enabled to apply a red-hot iron to his skin with impunity. Continuing his experiments, he found that a solution of alum had the same property. One day, having accidentally rubbed soap upon the surface of a hand that had previously been impregnated with alum, he found that the hand was still further proof against fire. He then discovered that a layer of powdered sugar covered with soap sufficed to render his tongue entirely insensible to heat. After all these experiments Sementini succeeded in making himself much better proof against fire than was the charlatan who first suggested the experiment to him. [Illustration: FIRE EATERS AT THE OLYMPIA THEATER, PARIS.] Fire eaters have always been very popular on the vaudeville stage, and we present an engraving showing two fire eaters at the Olympia Theater, Paris. When the performers appear upon the stage, they are clad in a tight-fitting costume of a red color which represents that of the devils of fairy scenes. The stage upon which they appear is but dimly lighted during their presence upon it. The devils, after making their bow, go to the rear of the stage, and put some preparations upon their hands; they come to the front of the stage and cause very thin but brilliant flames to dart from their fingers; bringing these flames near to their mouths, they seem to swallow them and then extinguish them between their teeth. When the two devils touch each other’s hands a crackling sound is heard, and long flames dart forth for a few seconds from the tips of their fingers, which they continuously move. They subsequently experiment without putting anything in their mouths; they blow with energy, and a brilliant flame makes its exit from between their lips. They shoot forth a bed of flame for a considerable length of time, which certainly exceeds half a minute. The combustion is due to a very volatile essence. Certain eaters of burning tow proceed as follows: They form a little ball of material which they tightly compress and then light, and allow to burn up almost entirely. Then rolling this in new tow in order to guard the mucous membrane in the mouth against contact with the incandescent ball, they breathe gently, taking care while doing so to inhale only through the nose, and thus project smoke and sparks. [Illustration: MOUNTEBANK SWALLOWING BURNING TOW.] Another trick of the fire eaters is when they pretend to drink burning oil. A little kerosene oil is poured into an iron ladle. The oil is now lighted, and while the ladle is held in the left hand, an iron spoon is dipped into the oil as though to take a spoonful; but in reality the spoon is only wet, and when it is brought blazing to the mouth the operator throws back his head as though to swallow it, and at the same time a slight puff is given by the breath, which blows it out. This trick is very effective if well done, but the reader is especially cautioned against trying any experiments in tricks of this kind, as the results are apt to be dangerous except in the hands of experts. This will be seen by what is called the sponge trick. Two or three small sponges are placed in an iron ladle, gasolene is poured over them, only a sufficient quantity being used to wet them; they must in no case drip. The sponges are now set on fire, and the experimenter takes up one of them with his tongs, and, throwing his head back, drops the blazing sponge into his mouth. He expels his breath quickly all the time. Suddenly he closes his mouth; this cuts off the oxygen necessary for combustion, and the flame immediately goes out. Performers who present fire tricks for the amusement of a company frequently try experiments which give a ghastly appearance to the audience. This is done by pouring a few ounces of alcohol into a basin containing a handful of salt. When this is lighted the complexion of everyone is hideous. A slightly different effect is used by infusing saffron in alcohol for a number of hours, and then adding salt as before; it is usually poured upon tow which is lighted. There are some liquids that have the property of taking fire and burning without injuring the object upon which they are poured and without producing any painful sensation upon the skin. As a usual thing such liquids are very volatile and consist of essential oils, ether, etc. The reason that some substances can be burned without injuring them, or upon the skin without burning, are explained as follows: These substances are very volatile, and their tension is considerable, and, in reality, when they are burning, it is merely their vapor which is on fire. This vapor then tends to borrow heat from the liquid, whence the latter may remain at a relatively low temperature while the surface is on fire. This is a reasonable explanation of the curious phenomenon of the burning liquid. SWORD TRICK--A STAB THROUGH THE ABDOMEN. The sword employed is a simple, thin, flexible blade of steel, not at all sharp, and the plan of which is seen at A in the accompanying cut. The point is sufficiently blunt to prevent it from doing any harm. As for the prestidigitateur, whose body the sword will simply pass around, but not pierce, he carries concealed beneath his vest a sort of sheath that consists of a tube of rectangular section, and semicircular in shape, and the two extremities of which are bent in contrary directions in such a way that they are situated in the same straight line, the two orifices opening in front and behind at right angles with the abdomen. This apparatus, B, is held in place by cords attached to two small rings at the two extremities of the tube. It is the prestidigitateur himself who, appearing instinctively to grasp the point of the sword as if to protect himself, directs it into the metallic tube. It makes its exit between the tails of the coat. It might be made to come out at the center of the back, but in this case it would be necessary to have an aperture formed in the seam of the coat. The illusion produced is complete, seeing that the flexible blade straightens out on making its exit from the tube, on account of the form of the latter’s extremity. It is necessary to operate rapidly, so that the spectators shall not have time to see that the length of the sword has diminished at this moment, the curved line that it follows not being the shortest passage from one point to another. [Illustration: A SWORD TRICK.] The figure represents a variant of the trick in which the sword is provided with an eye through which a long red ribbon is passed, and which follows the blade when the latter is pulled out at the opposite side of the body. THE HUMAN TARGET. Japanese jugglers, as well known, are possessed of very extraordinary skill. A few years ago two of them performed the following feat, which required a wonderful dexterity. One of them stood, with arms extended, in front of a thick board placed vertically; and the other, armed with a number of wide-bladed knives, stationed himself at a distance of about six yards from the board, and from thence threw the knives with a sure hand and stuck one of them in the board just above the head of the target, two of them very close to the right and left of the neck, and others around the arms; in a word, he outlined the form of his companion with the knives stuck very deeply into the board. This performance met with extraordinary success, and an effort was at once made to reproduce it; but as such dexterity is not possessed by everybody, and as, in addition, the operation is dangerous, the following substitute was devised by M. Voisin for the use of prestidigitateurs. [Illustration: JAPANESE KNIFE-THROWING EXECUTED BY MEANS OF A MECHANICAL DEVICE. FIG. 2.--DETAILS OF THE MECHANISM THAT CAUSES THE KNIFE TO APPEAR.] The board that is employed in this case, instead of being, as in the genuine performance, a simple one, is a piece of cabinet work containing an ingenious mechanism. The place which the human target will occupy on this board is carefully marked, and the knives that are to be stuck into the board in succession around such place are contained in the cabinet work, which, at first sight and at a short distance, seems to be absolutely without preparation. Each of these knives is fixed by its point upon a pivot. In addition, it is controlled by a spring, and is concealed within the board by a very finely adjusted double-valved window, which, at the proper moment, opens and allows it to appear, and then closes. The spring causes the knife to fall or rise according to the place that the latter is to occupy. No. 2 of the engraving shows the window opening to allow of the fall of the knife, which will appear as if stuck into the board just above the instep. In each of the valves the angles that meet each other are cut slopingly either at the top or bottom, according as the knife is to fall or rise, in order to make space for the blade when the valves are closed. Before the exit of the knife, the incision is closed with modeling wax the color of the wood. In our engraving the incision is at the bottom. Naturally the knives are concealed in the board in such a way that on making their exit the field shall be free, and that they shall not come into contact with the limbs of the target. Each of these knives, with its window, forms a distinct apparatus, which is controlled by a rod that ends at the edge of the board just at the place where the fingers of the human target can reach them. It is he who, by pressing upon the ends of the rods as if upon the keys of a piano, causes the blades to come out of their place of concealment, one after another, and appear as if they had just stuck into the board. The sound made by the spring in expanding and the sudden appearance of the knife, combined with the motion of the person throwing it, affords a complete illusion. Let us add that each knife mounted on a pivot at its point, as we have explained, may be easily disengaged from its axis when, after the operation, the person who threw the knives makes believe to pull them out by force from the wood in which they seem to be inserted. The board having been invented, it became necessary to find a method of throwing the knives in such a way as to cause them to disappear. To this effect the board is placed on one side of the stage, near the side scenes, and the person who throws the knives stations himself on the other side of the stage, near the opposite side scenes, and he can therefore act in two ways, viz., first, in poising his arms to take aim, he can, at the last moment, throw the knife between the side scenes back of him while he takes a step forward. The knife supposed to be thrown thus disappears completely at the desired moment, but, since the spectators do not see the flash of the blade, traversing the stage, it is preferable to employ the second method. This consists in a genuine throwing of the knife, but in such a way as to cause it to pass by the board and fall between the side scenes, where the sound of its fall is deadened by some such material as a piece of carpet. In both of these two methods, it is for the human target to press the spring of the knife that he wishes to make appear at just the precise moment, in order that the click of the expanding spring may be taken by the spectators for the sound of the knife sticking into the wood. This trick, when well executed, has often deceived the shrewdest spectators, and that, too, with so much the more facility in that many had seen the Japanese perform in the middle of a circus, where it was impossible to conceal the knife, since it could be followed by the eye in its travel from the hand of the Japanese to the point where it penetrated the board. To be precise, and to omit no information, let us say in conclusion, that there exist boards in which the freeing of the knives is effected by the pulling of a thread held in the side scenes by a third party. This process has the advantage that there is no danger of the spectators seeing the manipulation of the rods; but, on the other hand, it has its inconveniences, viz., in a place where a communication cannot be established between the invisible confederate and the mechanical board, the use of it is impossible, and it is necessary to employ the other method. SWORD SWALLOWERS. When a physician introduces his finger, the handle of a spoon, or a pencil into the throat of a patient, the latter experiences an extremely disagreeable sensation. Any touching of the pharynx, however slight it be, causes strangling, pain, and nausea, and the organ reacts with violence against the obstacle that presents itself to free respiration. There is no one who has not more than once experienced this disagreeable impression, and for this reason we are justly surprised when we meet with people who seem to be proof against it, and who, for example, introduce into their pharynx large, solid, and stiff objects like sword blades, and cause these to penetrate to a depth that appears incredible. It is experiments of this kind that constitute the tricks of sword swallowers. These experiments are nearly always the same. The individual comes out dressed in a brilliant costume. At one side of him there are flags of different nationalities surrounding a panoply of sabers, swords, and yatagans, and at the other, a stack of guns provided with bayonets. Taking a flat saber, whose blade and hilt have been cut out of the same sheet of metal, the blade being from fifty-five to sixty centimeters in length, he introduces its extremity into his throat, taps the hilt gently, and the blade at length entirely disappears. He then repeats the experiment in swallowing the blade at a single gulp. Subsequently, after swallowing and disgorging two of these same swords, he causes one to penetrate up to its guard, a second not quite so far, a third a little less still, and a fourth up to about half its length, the hilts being then arranged as shown in our third illustration (C). [Illustration: A SWORD SWALLOWER.] Pressing now on the hilts, he swallows the four blades at a gulp, and then he takes them out leisurely one by one. The effect is quite surprising. After swallowing several different swords and sabers, he takes an old musket armed with a triangular bayonet, and swallows the latter, the gun remaining vertical over his head. Finally he borrows a large saber from a dragoon who is present for the purpose, and causes two-thirds of it to disappear. As a trick, on being encored, the sword swallower borrows a cane from a person in the audience, and swallows it almost entirely. [Illustration: POSITION OCCUPIED BY THE SWORD BLADE IN THE BODY.] A certain number of spectators usually think that the performer produces an illusion through the aid of some trick, and that it is impossible to swallow a sword blade. But this is a mistake, for sword swallowers who employ artifices are few in number and their experiments but slightly varied, while the majority really do introduce into their mouths and food passages the blades that they cause to disappear. They attain this result as follows: The back parts of the mouth, despite their sensitiveness and their rebellion against contact with solid bodies, are capable of becoming so changed through habit that they gradually get used to abnormal contacts. This fact is taken advantage of in medicine. It daily happens that persons afflicted with disorders of the throat or stomach can no longer swallow or take nourishment, and would die of exhaustion were they not fed artificially by means of the œsophageal tube. This latter is a vulcanized rubber tube which the patient swallows, after the manner of sword swallowers, and through the extremity of which milk or _bouillon_ is introduced. But the patient, before being able to make daily use of this apparatus, must serve a genuine apprenticeship. The first