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attempted to crack a joke about spirits
being confined in bottles, but the company
frowned him down, and for once Mr.
Sothern had a sober audience to begin
with.
There was a good deal of curiosity
regarding the object of the gathering, but
no one was able to explain. Each gentleman
testified to the fact Mr. Sothern's
agent had waited upon him, and solicited
his presence at a little exhibition to be
given by the actor, NOT of a comical nature.
Mr. Sothern himself soon after
appeared, and, after shaking hands with the
party, thus addressed them:
``Gentlemen, I have invited you here
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MIRACLE MONGERS AND THEIR METHODS
41
this evening to witness a few manifestations,
demonstrations, tests, or whatever
you choose to call them, which I have
accidentally discovered that I am able to
perform.
``I am a fire-eater, as it were. (Applause).
``I used to DREAD the fire, having been
scorched once when an innocent child. (A
laugh.)
Mr. Sothern (severely)--``I HOPE there
will be no levity here, and I wish to say
now that demonstrations of any kind are
liable to upset me, while demonstrations
of a particular kind may upset the audience.''
Silence and decorum being restored,
Mr. Sothern thus continued:
``Thirteen weeks ago, while walking up
Greenwich Street, in New York, I stepped
into a store to buy a cigar. To show you
there is no trick about it, here are cigars
out of the same box from which I selected
the one I that day lighted.'' (Here Mr.
Sothern passed around a box of tolerable
cigars.)
``Well, I stepped to the little hanging
gas-jet to light it, and, having done so,
stood contemplatively holding the gas-jet
and the cigar in either hand, thinking
what a saving it would be to smoke a pipe,
when, in my absent-mindedness, I dropped
the cigar and put the gas-jet into my
mouth. Strange as it may appear, I felt
no pain, and stood there holding the thing
in my mouth and puffing till the man in
charge yelled out to me that I was swallowing
his gas. Then I looked up, and,
sure enough, there I was pulling away at
the slender flame that came from the glass
tube.
``I dropped it instantly, and felt of my
mouth, but noticed no inconvenience or
unpleasant sensation whatever.
`` `What do you mean by it?' said the
proprietor.
``As I didn't know what I meant by it
I couldn't answer, so I picked up my cigar
and went home. Once there I tried the
experiment again, and in doing so I found
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MIRACLE MONGERS AND THEIR METHODS
42
that not only my mouth, but my hands and
face, indeed, all of my body, was proof
against fire. I called on a physician, and
he examined me, and reported nothing
wrong with my flesh, which appeared to be
in normal condition. I said nothing about
it publicly, but the fact greatly surprised
me, and I have invited you here to-night
to witness a few experiments.''
Saying this, Mr. Sothern, who had lit a
cigar while pausing in his speech, turned
the fire end into his mouth and sat down,
smoking unconcernedly.
``I suppose you wish to give us the fire-
test,'' remarked one of the company.
Mr. Sothern nodded.
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.
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MIRACLE MONGERS AND THEIR METHODS
43
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.
The great day of the Fire-eater--or, should
I say, the day of the great Fire-eater--has
passed. No longer does fashion flock to his [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]