(_To the Editor._)
In reply to the question of your correspondent--"Who was Katerfelto?" I
am enabled to offer the few brief particulars which follow. With regard
to his birth, parentage, and education, I am, however, not qualified to
convey any information. I know not "to whom he was related, or by whom
forgot." I became acquainted with him about the year 1790 or 1791, when
he visited the City of Durham, accompanied by his wife and daughter. He
then appeared to be about sixty years of age. His travelling equipage
consisted of an old rumbling coach, a pair of sorry hacks, and two black
servants. They wore green liveries with red collars, but the colours
were sadly faded by long use.
Having taken suitable apartments, the black servants were sent round the
town, blowing trumpets and delivering bills, announcing their master's
astonishing performances, which in the day time consisted in displaying
the wonders of the microscope, &c. and in the evening in exhibiting
electrical experiments, in the course of which he introduced his two
celebrated black cats, generally denominated the Doctor's Devils--for,
be it understood, that our hero went under the dignified style and
title of _Doctor_ Katerfelto. Tricks of legerdemain concluded the
evening's entertainments.
The first night of the Doctor's performance was extremely wet, and the
writer of this, who was then quite a boy, composed his whole audience.
The Doctor's spouse invited me behind the curtains to the fire, on one
side of which sat the great conjuror himself, his person being enveloped
in an old green, greasy roquelaire, and his head decorated with a black
velvet cap. On the other side of the fire-place sat Mrs. Katerfelto and
daughter, in a corresponding style of dress--that is to say, equally
ancient and uncleanly. The family appeared, indeed, to be in distressed
circumstances. The Doctor told me the following odd anecdote:--Some time
before he had sent up from a town in Yorkshire a fire-balloon, for the
amusement of the country people, and at which they were not a little
astonished; but in a few days afterwards the Doctor was himself more
astonished on being arrested for having set fire to a hay rick! The
balloon, it appeared, had in its descent fallen upon a rick, which it
consumed, and the owner, having ascertained by whom the combustible
material had been dispatched, arrested the doctor for the damage. As the
Doctor was unable to pay the amount, he was obliged to go to prison,
thus proving that it is sometimes easier to raise the devil than to
"raise the wind." Having been admitted behind the scenes, I had an
opportunity of seeing the conjuror's apparatus, but the performance
was postponed to another evening.
On the next night of the Doctor's appearance he had a tolerably
respectable auditory, and the following incidents may amuse your
readers, as they occasioned much laughter at the moment. Among the
company was the Rev. Mr. P., a minor canon. The conjuror, in the course
of his tricks, desired a card to be drawn from the pack, by one of the
company, which was done, the card examined and returned into the pack,
in the presence of the audience; but on the company being requested to
take the card again from the pack, it could not be found. The Doctor
said it must have been taken out by some one present, and civilly begged
the reverend gentleman to search his pockets. Indignant at such an
insinuation, the inflamed divine for some time refused to comply, but at
length being persuaded, he drew forth the identical card, much to his
own surprise and the amusement of the spectators. A similar trick was
also played with some money, which unaccountably found its way into the
reverend gentleman's pocket, a circumstance which put him out of all
patience; and he proceeded most sternly to lecture the astounded Doctor
for having practised his levity on a gentleman of his cloth, upon which,
and threatening the poor conjuror with vengeance, he strode out of the
room. Katerfelto declared that, although he was a conjuror, he did not
know the gentleman was a divine.
Katerfelto left Durham soon afterwards, and I have heard died at
Bristol.
_Pentonville._