A CARD.--W. C. Houghton, has the honor to announce to the ladies and
gentlemen of Philadelphia, that his BENEFIT will take place at the ARCH
STREET THEATRE, on Saturday evening next, 4th February, when will be
presented a variety of entertainments aided by the whole strength of
the company.
Mr. H. in addition to his former experiments will exhibit several fiery
feats, pronounced by Mons. Chabert an IMPOSSIBILITY. He will give a
COMPLETE explanation by illustrations of the PRINCIPLES of the EUROPEAN
and the AMERICAN CHESS PLAYERS. He will also (unless prevented by
indisposition) swallow a sufficient quantity of phosphorus, (presented
by either chemist or druggist of this city) to destroy THE LIFE OF ANY
INDIVIDUAL. Should he not feel disposed to take the poison, he will
satisfactorily explain to the audience the manner it may be taken
without injury.
In our next chapter we shall see how it went with others who challenged
Chabert.
A Polish athlete, J. A. B. Chylinski by name, toured Great Britain and
Ireland in 1841, and presented a more than usually diversified
entertainment. Being gifted by nature with exceptional bodily
strength, and trained in gymnastics, he was enabled to present a mixed
programme, combining his athletics with feats of strength, fire-eating,
poison-swallowing, and fire-resistance.
In The Book of Wonderful Characters, published in 1869 by John Camden
Hotten, London, I find an account of Chamouni, the Russian Salamander:
"He was insensible, for a given time, to the effects of heat. He was
remarkable for the simplicity and singleness of his character, as well
as for that idiosyncrasy in his constitution, which enabled him for so
many years, not merely to brave the effects of fire, but to take a
delight in an element where other men find destruction. He was above
all artifice, and would often entreat his visitors to melt their own
lead, or boil their own mercury, that they might be perfectly satisfied
of the gratification he derived from drinking these preparations. He
would also present his tongue in the most obliging manner to all who
wished, to pour melted lead upon it and stamp an impression of their
seals."
A fire-proof billed as Professor Rel Maeub, was on the programme at the
opening of the New National Theater, in Philadelphia, Pa., in the
spring of 1876. If I am not mistaken the date was April 25th. He
called himself "The Great Inferno Fire-King," and his novelty consisted
in having a strip of wet carpeting running parallel to the hot iron
plates on which he walked barefoot, and stepping on it occasionally and
back onto the hot iron, when a loud hissing and a cloud of steam bore
ample proof of the high temperature of the metal.
One of the more recent fireproofs was Eugene Rivalli, whose act
included, besides the usual effects, a cage of fire in which he stood
completely surrounded by flames. Rivalli, whose right name was John
Watkins, died in 1900, in England. He had appeared in Great Britain
and Ireland as well as on the Continent during the later years of the
19th century.
The cage of fire has been used by a number of Rivalli's followers also,
and the reader will find a full explanation of the methods employed for
it in the chapter devoted to the Arcana of the Fire-eaters, to which we
shall come when we have recorded the work of the master Chabert, the
history of some of the heat-resisters featured on magicians'
programmes, particularly in our own day, and the interest taken in this
art by performers whose chief distinction was won in other fields, as
notably Edwin Forrest and the elder Sothern.