This trick dates back to the offerings of that celebrated water-spouter, Blaise Manfrede, or de Manfre, who travelled all over Europe. This man could swallow huge quantities of water and then eject it in streams or in small quantities or fill all sorts of glasses. In fact this one trick made him famous. _The European Magazine_, London, March, 1765, pages 194-5, gives a most diverting description of his trick, taken from an old letter, and here quoted: "I have seen, at the September fair in Francfort, a man who professed drinking fifty quarts of water in a day, and indeed proved that he was capable of executing what he pretended to. I saw him perform frequently, and remember it as well as if it was but yesterday. He said he was an Italian; he was short and squat, his chest, face, forehead, eyes, and mouth very large. He pretended to be fifty years old, though he did not seem forty. [Illustration: Blasius de Manfre or Blaise Manfrede, from a rare old woodcut in the Harry Houdini Collection.] "He was called the famous Blaise Manfrede, a native of Malta. At Francfort he frequently performed three times a day: for, besides his performances twice a day on the public stage (which nobody approached without paying), he attended private houses when called upon by great people. "He called for a large bucket of fair warm water, and twenty little glass bottles, flat like cupping glasses, so that they could stand topside turvy. Some of these he filled with water, plunging them into the bucket with a good deal of ceremony, and usually swallowed two or three to wash his mouth and gargle his throat. He threw up the water again immediately, to shew the spectators that he had no drugs between his teeth, whence he could be suspected to derive any advantage. "After this plausible prelude, he made an Italian harangue, which I cannot acquaint you with the merits of, because I am a stranger to the language.... After his harangue he usually took off two dozen of his little bottles, which he filled from the bucket, and a moment afterwards returned the liquor through his mouth. But what is most extraordinary is that this water, which he threw out with violence, appeared red like wine. And when he had discharged it into two different bottles, it was red in one and russet like beer in the other; as soon as he shifted the bottles to the contrary sides, they changed their complexion respectively to that of wine or beer, and so successively so long as he continued vomiting; in the mean time, I observed that the water grew less discolored in proportion as he continued to discharge. This was the first act. Then he ranged his two dozen of bottles opposite to him on a table, and exposed to everybody's view. Then he took an equal number of bottles, plunged them anew into the bucket, swallowed them too, and returned them in water very transparent, rose-water, orange-flower-water, and brandy.