I have often seen men champ wine-glasses between their teeth, and not hurt themselves; but not one of them swallowed the fragments. Hence, it was difficult for me to explain this trick of the Aïssaoua, till, by the assistance offered me by a physician, I found in the _Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales_ for 1810, No. 1143, a paper written by Dr. Lesauvage on the harmlessness of powdered glass. This gentleman, after quoting various instances of people he had seen eat glass, thus describes various experiments he made on animals: “After placing a great number of dogs, cats and rats on a dietary of pounded glass, the fragments being two to three lines in length, not one of the animals was ill, and on opening some of them no injury could be detected all along the alimentary canal. Being convinced, too, of the harmlessness of swallowing glass, I determined to take some myself in the presence of my colleague, M. Cagel, of Professor Lallemand, and several other persons. I repeated this experiment several times, and experienced not the slightest feeling of pain.” These authentic statements ought to have satisfied me; still, I wished to witness this singular phenomenon with my own eyes. Hence, I gave one of my house cats an enormous ball of meat seasoned with pounded glass. The animal swallowed it with the greatest pleasure, and seemed even to regret the end of this succulent meal. My family thought the cat booked for death, and began deploring my barbarity, but the next day the animal was perfectly well, and sniffed the spot where on the previous day it had enjoyed the meal. Since that period, whenever I want to indulge a friend with this sight, I regale my three cats, in turn, so as not to excite any jealousy among them. It took me some time, I confess, before I could decide on performing Dr. Lesauvage’s experiment on myself, and, indeed, I saw no necessity for it. Still, one day, in the presence of a friend, I performed this bravado, if it be so; I also swallowed my bolus, though I was careful to pound my glass much finer than what I gave to my cats. I know not whether it was the effect of imagination, but I fancied I enjoyed my dinner much more than usual: did I owe this to the pounded glass? At any rate, it would be a strange way of arousing the appetite. When the trick of swallowing bottle-heels and pebbles was to be done, the Aïssaoua really put them in his mouth, but I believe, I may say certainly, that he removed them at the moment when he placed his head in the folds of the Mokaddem’s burnous. However, had he swallowed them, there would have been nothing wonderful about this, when we compare it with what was done some thirty 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 the mouth.