The Miracle Mongers, an Expose Part 8

Edith Clifford, who is, perhaps, the most generously endowed.

Possessed of more than ordinary personal charms, a refined taste for dressing both herself and her stage, and an unswerving devotion to her art, she has perfected an act that has found favor even in the Royal Courts of Europe.

Mlle. Clifford was born in London in 1884 and began swallowing the blades when only 15 years of age. During the foreign tour of the Barnum & Bailey show she joined that Organization in Vienna, 1901, and remained with it for five years, and now, after eighteen years of service, she stands well up among the stars. She has swallowed a 26-inch blade, but the physicians advise her not to indulge her appet.i.te for such luxuries often, as it is quite dangerous. Blades of 18 or 20 inches give her no trouble whatever.

In the spring of 1919 I visited the Ringling Bros., and the Barnum & Bailey Show especially to witness Mlle. Clifford's act. In addition to swallowing the customary swords and sabers she introduced such novelties as a specially constructed razor, with a blade five or six times the usual length, a pair of scissors of unusual size, a saw which is 2 1/2 inches wide at the broadest point, with ugly looking teeth, although somewhat rounded at the points, and several other items quite unknown to the bill-of-fare of ordinary mortals. A set of ten thin blades slip easily down her throat and are removed one at a time.

The sensation of her act is reached when the point of a bayonet, 23 1/2 inches long, fastened to the breech of a cannon, is placed in her mouth and the piece discharged; the recoil driving the bayonet suddenly down her throat. The gun is loaded with a 10 gauge cannon sh.e.l.l.

Mlle. Clifford's handsomely arranged stage occupied the place of honor in the section devoted to freaks and specialties.

Cliquot told me that Delno Fritz was his pupil, and Mlle. Clifford claims to be a pupil of Fritz.

Deserving of honorable mention also is a native of Berlin, who bills herself as Victorina. This lady is able to swallow a dozen sharp-bladed swords at once. Of Victorina, the Boston Herald of December 28th, 1902, said:

By long practice she has accustomed herself to swallow swords, daggers, bayonets, walking sticks, rods, and other dangerous articles.

Her throat and food pa.s.sages have become so expansive that she can swallow three long swords almost up to the hilts, and can accommodate a dozen shorter blades.

This woman is enabled to bend a blade after swallowing it. By moving her head back and forth she may even twist instruments in her throat.

To bend the body after one has swallowed a sword is a dangerous feat, even for a professional swallower. There is a possibility of severing some of the ligaments of the throat or else large arteries or veins.

Victorina has already had several narrow escapes.

On one occasion, while sword-swallowing before a Boston audience, a sword pierced a vein in her throat. The blade was half-way down, but instead of immediately drawing it forth, she thrust it farther. She was laid up in a hospital for three months after this performance.

In Chicago she had a still narrower escape. One day while performing at a museum on Clark Street, Victorina pa.s.sed a long thin dagger down her throat. In withdrawing it, the blade snapped in two, leaving the pointed portion some distance in the pa.s.sage. The woman nearly fainted when she realized what had occurred, but, by a masterful effort, controlled her feelings. Dropping the hilt of the dagger on the floor, she leaned forward, and placing her finger and thumb down her throat, just succeeded in catching the end of the blade. Had it gone down an eighth of an inch farther her death would have been certain.

CHAPTER NINE

STONE-EATERS: A SILESIAN IN PRAGUE, 1006; FRANCOIS BATTALIA, ca. 1641; PLATERUS' BEGGAR BOY; FATHER PAULIAN'S LITHOPHAGUS OF AVIGNON, 1760; "THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD," LONDON, 1788; SPANIARDS IN LONDON, 1790; A SECRET FOR TWO AND SIX; j.a.pANESE TRAINING.--FROG-SWALLOWERS: NORTON; ENGLISH JACK; BOSCO, THE SNAKE-EATER; BILLINGTON'S PRESCRIPTION FOR HANGMEN; CAPTAIN VEITRO.--WATER-SPOUTERS: BLAISE MANFREDE, ca. 1650; FLORAM MARCHAND, 1650.

That the genesis of stone-eating dates back hundreds of years farther than is generally supposed, is shown by a statement in Wanley's Wonders of the Little World, London, 1906, Vol. II, page 58, which reads as follows:

Anno 1006, there was at Prague a certain Silesian, who, for a small reward in money, did (in the presence of many persons) swallow down white stones to the number of thirty-six; they weighed very near three pounds; the least of them was of the size of a pigeon's egg, so that I could scarce hold them all in my hand at four times: this rash adventure he divers years made for gain, and was sensible of no injury to his health thereby.

The next man of this type of whom I find record lived over six hundred years later. This was an Italian named Francois Battalia. The print shown here is from the Book of Wonderful Characters, and is a reproduction from an etching made by Hollar in 1641.

Doctor Bulwer, in his Artificial Changeling, tells a preposterous story of Battalia's being born with two pebbles in one hand and one in the other; that he refused both the breast and the pap offered him, but ate the pebbles and continued to subsist on stones for the remainder of his life. Doctor Bulwer thus describes his manner of feeding:

His manner is to put three or four stones into a spoon, and so putting them into his mouth together, he swallows them all down, one after another; then (first spitting) he drinks a gla.s.s of beer after them.

He devours about half a peck of these stones every day, and when he clinks upon his stomach, or shakes his body, you may hear the stones rattle as if they were in a sack, all of which in twenty-four hours are resolved. Once in three weeks he voids a great quant.i.ty of sand, after which he has a fresh appet.i.te for these stones, as we have for our victuals, and by these, with a cup of beer, and a pipe of tobacco, he has his whole subsistence.

From a modern point of view the Doctor "looks easy."

The Book of Wonderful Characters continues:

Platerus speaks of a beggar boy, who for four farthings would suddenly swallow many stones which he met with by chance in any place, though they were big as walnuts, so filling his belly that by the collision of them while they were pressed, the sound was distinctly heard. Father Paulian says that a true lithophagus, or stone-eater, was brought to Avignon in the beginning of May, 1760. He not only swallowed flints an inch and a half long, a full inch broad, and half an inch thick, but such stones as he could reduce to powder, such as marble, pebbles, etc., he made up into paste, which to him was a most agreeable and wholesome food. Father Paulian examined this man with all the attention he possibly could, and found his gullet very large, his teeth exceedingly strong, his saliva very corrosive, and his stomach lower than ordinary.

This stone eater was found on Good Friday, in 1757, in a northern inhabited island, by some of the crew of a Dutch s.h.i.+p. He was made by his keeper to eat raw flesh with his stones; but he never could be got to swallow bread. He would drink water, wine, and brandy, which last liquor gave him infinite pleasure. He slept at least twelve hours a day, sitting on the ground with one knee over the other, and his chin resting on his right knee. He smoked almost all the time he was not asleep or not eating. Some physicians at Paris got him blooded; the blood had little or no serum, and in two hours time it became as fragile as coral.

He was unable to p.r.o.nounce more than a few words, such as Oui, Non, Caillou, Bon. "He has been taught," adds the pious father, evidently pleased with the docility of his interesting pupil, "to make the sign of the cross, and was baptized some months ago in the church of St.

Come, at Paris. THE RESPECT HE SHOWS TO ECCLESIASTICS AND HIS READY DISPOSITION TO PLEASE THEM, afforded me the opportunity of satisfying myself as to all these particulars; and I AM FULLY CONVINCED THAT HE IS NO CHEAT."

Here is the advertis.e.m.e.nt of a stone-eater who appeared in England in 1788.

An Extraordinary Stone-Eater The Original STONE-EATER The Only One in the World,

Has arrived, and means to perform this, and every day (Sunday excepted) at Mr. Hatch's, trunk maker, 404 Strand, opposite Adelphi.

STONE-EATING and STONE-SWALLOWING And after the stones are swallowed may be heard to clink in the belly, the same as in a pocket.

The present is allowed to be the age of Wonders and Improvements in the Arts. The idea of Man's flying in the Air, twenty years ago, before the discovery of the use of the balloon, would have been laughed at by the most credulous! Nor does the History of Nature afford so extraordinary a relation as that of the man's eating and subsisting on pebbles, flints, tobacco pipes and mineral excrescences; but so it is and the Ladies and Gentlemen of this Metropolis and its vicinity have now an opportunity of witnessing this extraordinary Fact by seeing the Most Wonderful Phenomenon of the Age, who Grinds and Swallows stones, etc., with as much ease as a Person would crack a nut, and masticate the kernel.

This Extraordinary Stone-eater appears not to suffer the least Inconvenience from so ponderous, and to all other persons in the World, so indigestible a Meal, which he repeats from twelve at noon to seven.

Any Lady or Gentleman may bring Black Flints or Pebbles with them. N.

B.--His Merit is fully demonstrated by Dr. Monroe, who in his Medical Commentary, 1772, and several other Gentlemen of the Faculty. Likewise Dr. John Hunter and Sir Joseph Banks can witness the Surprising Performance of this most Extraordinary STONE-EATER.

Admittance, Two s.h.i.+llings and Six pence.

A Private Performance for five guineas on short notice.

A Spanish stone-eater exhibited at the Richmond Theater, on August 2nd, 1790, and another at a later date, at the Great Room, late Globe Tavern, corner of Craven Street, Strand.

All of these phenomenal gentry claimed to subsist entirely on stones, but their modern followers hardly dare make such claims, so that the art has fallen into disrepute.

A number of years ago, in London, I watched several performances of one of these chaps who swallowed half a hatful of stones, nearly the size of hen's eggs, and then jumped up and down, to make them rattle in his stomach. I could discover no fake in the performance, and I finally gave him two and six for his secret, which was simple enough. He merely took a dose of powerful physic to clear himself of the stones, and was then ready for the next performance.

During my engagement in 1895 with Welsh Bros. Circus I became quite well acquainted with an aged j.a.p of the San Kitchy Akimoto troupe and from him I learned the method of swallowing quite large objects and bringing them up again at will. For practice very small potatoes are used at first, to guard against accident; and after one has mastered the art of bringing these up, the size is increased gradually till objects as large as the throat will receive can be swallowed and returned.

I recall a very amusing incident in connection with this old chap.

In one number of the programme he sat down on the ring bank and balanced a bamboo pole, at the top of which little Ma.s.say went through the regular routine of posturings. After years spent in this work, my aged friend became so used to his job that he did it automatically, and scarcely gave a thought to the boy at the top. One warm day, however, he carried his indifference a trifle too far, and dropped into a quiet nap, from which he woke only to find that the pole was falling and had already gone too far to be recovered, but the agility of the boy saved him from injury. As my knowledge of j.a.panese is limited to the more polite forms, I cannot repeat the remarks of the lad.

Until a comparatively recent date, incredible as it may seem, frog-swallowers were far from uncommon on the bills of the Continental theaters. The most prominent, Norton, a Frenchman, was billed as a leading feature in the high-cla.s.s houses of Europe. I saw him work at the Apollo Theater, Nuremberg, where I was to follow him in; and during my engagement at the Circus Busch, Berlin, we were on the same programme, which gave me an opportunity to watch him closely.

One of his features was to drink thirty or forty large gla.s.ses of beer in slow succession. The filled gla.s.ses were displayed on shelves at the back of the stage, and had handles so that he could bring forward two or three in each hand. When he had finished these he would return for others and, while gathering another handful, would bring up the beer and eject it into a receptacle arranged between the shelves, just below the line of vision of the audience.