Miracle Mongers and Their Methods: A Complete Exposé of the Modus Operandi of Fire Eaters, Heat Resisters, Poison Eaters, Venomous Reptile Defiers, Sword Swallowers, Human Ostriches, Strong Men, Etc.Houdini, Harry
History
Miracle Mongers and Their Methods: A Complete Exposé of the Modus Operandi of Fire Eaters, Heat Resisters, Poison Eaters, Venomous Reptile Defiers, Sword Swallowers, Human Ostriches, Strong Men, Etc.
Houdini, Harry
Magic tricks -- History; Magicians -- Biography
There was probably never a gathering more dumbfounded than that present
in the room. A few questions were asked, and then five gentlemen were
appointed to examine Mr. Sothern's hands, etc., before he began his
experiments. Having thoroughly washed the parts that he proposed to
subject to the flames, Mr. Sothern began by burning his arm, and
passing it through the gas-jet very slowly, twice stopping the motion
and holding it still in the flames. He then picked up a poker with a
sort of hook on the end, and proceeded to fish a small coil of wire
from the grate. The wire came out fairly white with the heat. Mr.
Sothern took the coil in his hands and cooly proceeded to wrap it round
his left leg to the knee. Having done so, he stood on the table in the
center of the circle and requested the committee to examine the
wrappings and the leg and report if both were there. The committee did
so and reported in the affirmative.
While this was going on, there was a smile, almost seraphic in its
beauty, on Mr. Sothern's face.
After this an enormous hot iron, in the shape of a horseshoe, was
placed on Mr. Sothern's body, where it cooled, without leaving a sign
of a burn.
As a final test, a tailor's goose was put on the coals, and, after
being thoroughly heated, was placed on Mr. Sothern's chair. The latter
lighted a fresh cigar, and then coolly took a seat on the goose without
the least seeming inconvenience. During the last experiment Mr.
Sothern sang in an excellent tone and voice, "I'm Sitting on the Stile,
Mary."
The question now is, were the fifteen auditors of Mr. Sothern fooled
and deceived, or was this a genuine manifestation of extraordinary
power? Sothern is such an inveterate joker that he may have put the
thing upon the boys for his own amusement; but if so, it was one of the
nicest tricks ever witnessed by yours truly,
ONE OF THE COMMITTEE.
P. S.--What is equally marvellous to me is that the fire didn't burn
his clothes where it touched them, any more than his flesh.
P. C.
(There is nothing new in this. Mr. Sothern has long been known as one
of the most expert jugglers in the profession. Some years ago he gained
the soubriquet of the "Fire King!" He frequently amuses his friends by
eating fire, though he long ago ceased to give public exhibitions.
Probably the success of the experiments last night were largely owing
to the lemons present. There is a good deal of trickery in those same
lemons.--Editor Inter-Ocean.)
Which suggests that the editor of the Inter-Ocean was either pretty
well acquainted with the comedian's addiction to spoofing, or else less
susceptible to superstition than certain scientists of our generation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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