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
Always good-natured, he made a host of friends both in the profession
and out of it. After years of professional work he settled down as
landlord of a public house in England, where, finally, he was
prostrated by a mortal illness. Wishing to die in his native city, he
returned to Luxemberg. He did not realize that he was bereft of his
enormous strength, and those about him humored him: the doctor and the
nurses would pretend that he hurt them when he grasped their hands. He
died almost forgotten except by his brother artists, but they (myself
among them) built a monument to this good-natured Hercules, whose only
care was to entertain.
Among the strongmen that I met during my days with the museums, one
whom I found most interesting was William Le Roy, known as The Nail
King and The Human Claw-Hammer, whose act appealed to me for its
originality. So far as I could learn, it had never been duplicated.
Le Roy was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, October 3rd, 1873. He was about 5
feet 10 inches in height, and well set up. The inordinate strength of
his jaws, teeth, and neck, enabled him to push a nail, held between his
teeth, through a one-inch board; or to nail together, with his teeth,
two 3/4-inch boards. He could draw with his teeth a large nail that had
been driven completely through a two-inch plank. Then he would screw
an ordinary two-inch screw into a hardwood plank with his teeth, pull
it out with his teeth, and then screw it into the plank again and offer
$100 to any man who could pull it out with a large pair of pincers
which he proffered for the purpose. When he had performed these stunts
in various positions, he would bend his body backward till his head
pointed toward the floor, and in that position push a nail through a
one-inch board held perpendicularly in a metal frame. I saw no chance
for trickery in Le Roy's act.
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.
I met Weyer at Liege, Belgium, where we had an all-night match with
playing cards. He admitted that there were some tricks he did not
know, but he claimed that after once seeing any magician work he could
duplicate the tricks. On this occasion, however, he was unable to make
the boast good.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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