judges for their artistic finish and the fidelity with which every
portion of the venerable edifice has been reproduced. To the general
public, however, he is better known as a clever performer of the tricks
with a hat of soft felt which were first exhibited in this country by
the French clowns, Arthur and Bertrand.
Mr Berrington, senior, the father of Luke and Frank, is not a little
proud of his clever sons and daughter. When Serjeant Bates, to win a
wager and make a book, carried the flag of the American Union from
Glasgow to London, the elder Berrington welcomed him to the metropolis
in an epistle signed ‘Majilton,’ without the prefix of his baptismal
name, as if the writer was a peer of the realm, and used his title. He
refers, with pardonable parental pride, to his olive-branches, then
making a professional tour in the United States, Luke and Frank being
accompanied by their sister and Costello; and the serjeant, who had
probably never heard of them before, speaks of them as a talented family
of actors! Their entertainment was really a ballet of _diablerie_, like
those of Fred Evans and the Lauri family, with a good deal of tumbling
and hat-spinning.
Seven or eight years ago, the great ‘sensation’ of the London
music-halls was a balancing feat of a novel character, which was
exhibited by an acrobat named professionally Sextillian, but whose real
name is James Lee. He arranged about a score of glass tumblers in the
form of an inverted pyramid, and balanced the fragile structure on his
forehead, the base being formed by a single tumbler. But this was not
all. He changed his position several times, constantly assuming
attitudes which would have won the admiration of the world, if they
could have been perpetuated in marble, and even passed in various
positions through a hoop, all the time maintaining the equilibrium of
the glittering pile that rested upon such a narrow base upon his
forehead. If any of my readers should be disposed to attempt the
performance of this feat as a private drawing-room entertainment, they
must be prepared with a good supply of tumblers, for I am able to assure
them, on the excellent authority of Sextillian himself, that the
wondrous dexterity with which he performs it was not attained without an
extensive destruction of glass.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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