FIRE-EATING MAGICIANS: CHING LING FOO AND CHUNG LING SOO.--FIRE-EATERS
EMPLOYED BY MAGICIANS: THE MAN-SALAMANDER, 1816; MR. CARLTON,
PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY, 1818; MISS CASSILLIS, AGED NINE, 1820; THE
AFRICAN WONDER, 1843; LING LOOK AND YAMADEVA DIE IN CHINA DURING
KELLAR'S WORLD TOUR, 1872; LING LOOK'S DOUBLE, 1879.--ELECTRICAL
EFFECTS, THE SALAMBOS.--BUENO CORE.--DEL KANO.--BARNELLO.--EDWIN
FORREST AS A HEAT-REGISTER.--THE ELDER SOTHERN AS A FIRE-EATER.--THE
TWILIGHT OF THE ART.
Many of our most noted magicians have considered it not beneath their
dignity to introduce fire-eating into their programmes, either in their
own work or by the employment of a "Fire Artist." Although seldom
presenting it in his recent performances, Ching Ling Foo is a
fire-eater of the highest type, refining the effect with the same
subtle artistry that marks all the work of this super-magician.
Of Foo's thousand imitators the only positively successful one was
William E. Robinson, whose tragic death while in the performance of the
bullet-catching trick is the latest addition to the long list of
casualties chargeable to that ill-omened juggle. He carried the
imitation even as far as the name, calling himself Chung Ling Soo.
Robinson was very successful in the classic trick of apparently eating
large quantities of cotton and blowing smoke and sparks from the mouth.
His teeth were finally quite destroyed by the continued performance of
this trick, the method of which may be found in Chapter Six.
The employment of fire-eaters by magicians began a century ago; for in
1816 the magician Sieur Boaz, K. C., featured a performer who was
billed as the "Man-Salamander." The fact that Boaz gave him a place on
his programme is proof that this man was clever, but the effects there
listed show nothing original.
In 1818 a Mr. Carlton, Professor of Chemistry, toured England in
company with Rae, the Bartholomew Fair magician. As will be seen by
the handbill reproduced here, Carlton promised to explain the
"Deceptive Part" of the performance, "when there is a sufficient
company."
In 1820 a Mr. Cassillis toured England with a juvenile company, one of
the features of which was Miss Cassillis, aged nine years, whose act
was a complete reproduction of the programme of Boaz, concluding her
performance with the "Chinese Fire Trick."
A Negro, Carlo Alberto, appeared in a benefit performance given by Herr
Julian, who styled himself the "Wizard of the South," in London, on
November 28th, 1843. Alberto was billed as the "Great African Wonder,
the Fire King" and it was promised that he would "go through part of
his wonderful performance as given by him in the principal theaters in
America, in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, etc."
A later number on the same bill reads: "The African Wonder, Carlo
Alberto, will sing several new and popular Negro melodies." Collectors
of minstrel data please take notice!
In more recent times there have been a number of Negro fire-eaters, but
none seems to have risen to noticeable prominence.
Ling Look, one of the best of contemporary fire performers, was with
Dean Harry Kellar when the latter made his famous trip around the world
in 1877. Look combined fire-eating and sword-swallowing in a rather
startling manner. His best effect was the swallowing of a red-hot
sword.[1] Another thriller consisted in fastening a long sword to the
stock of a musket; when he had swallowed about half the length of the
blade, he discharged the gun and the recoil drove the sword suddenly
down his throat to the very hilt. Although Look always appeared in a
Chinese make-up, Dean Kellar told me that he thought his right name was
Dave Gueter, and that he was born in Buda Pesth.
Yamadeva, a brother of Ling Look, was also with the Kellar Company,
doing cabinet manifestations and rope escapes. Both brothers died in
China during this engagement, and a strange incident occurred in
connection with their deaths. Just before they were to sail from
Shanghai on the P. & O. steamer Khiva for Hong Kong, Yamadeva and
Kellar visited the bowling alley of The Hermitage, a pleasure resort on
the Bubbling Well Road. They were watching a husky sea captain, who
was using a huge ball and making a "double spare" at every roll, when
Yamadeva suddenly remarked, "I can handle one as heavy as that big
loafer can." Suiting the action to the word, he seized one of the
largest balls and drove it down the alley with all his might; but he
had misjudged his own strength, and he paid for the foolhardy act with
his life, for he had no sooner delivered the ball than he grasped his
side and moaned with pain. He had hardly sufficient strength to get
back to the ship, where he went immediately to bed and died shortly
afterward. An examination showed that he had ruptured an artery.
Kellar and Ling Look had much difficulty in persuading the captain to
take the body to Hong Kong, but he finally consented. On the way down
the Yang Tse Kiang River, Look was greatly depressed; but all at once
he became strangely excited, and said that his brother was not dead,
for he had just heard the peculiar whistle with which they had always
called each other. The whistle was several times repeated, and was
heard by all on board. Finally the captain, convinced that something
was wrong, had the lid removed from the coffin, but the body of
Yamadeva gave no indication of life, and all save Ling Look decided
that they must have been mistaken.
Poor Ling Look, however, sobbingly said to Kellar, "I shall never leave
Hong Kong alive. My brother has called me to join him." This
prediction was fulfilled, for shortly after their arrival in Hong Kong
he underwent an operation for a liver trouble, and died under the
knife. The brothers were buried in Happy Valley, Hong Kong, in the
year 1877.
All this was related to me at the Marlborough-Blenheim, Atlantic City,
in June, 1908, by Kellar himself, and portions of it were repeated in
1917 when Dean Kellar sat by me at the Society of American Magicians'
dinner.
In 1879 there appeared in England a performer who claimed to be the
original Ling Look. He wore his make-up both on and off the stage, and
copied, so far as he could, Ling's style of work. His fame reached
this country and the New York Clipper published, in its Letter Columns,
an article stating that Ling Look was not dead, but was alive and
working in England. His imitator had the nerve to stick to his story
even when confronted by Kellar, but when the latter assured him that he
had personally attended the burial of Ling, in Hong Kong, he broke down
and confessed that he was a younger brother of the original Ling Look.
Kellar later informed me that the resemblance was so strong that had he
not seen the original Ling Look consigned to the earth, he himself
would have been duped into believing that this was the man who had been
with him in Hong Kong.
The Salambos were among the first to use electrical effects in a fire
act, combining these with the natural gas and "human volcano" stunts of
their predecessors, so that they were able to present an extremely
spectacular performance without having recourse to such unpleasant
features as had marred the effect of earlier fire acts. Bueno Core,
too, deserves honorable mention for the cleanness and snap of his act;
and Del Kano should also be named among the cleverer performers.
One of the best known of the modern fire-eaters was Barnello, who was a
good business man as well, and kept steadily employed at a better
salary than the rank and file of his contemporaries. He did a thriving
business in the sale of the various concoctions used in his art, and
published and sold a most complete book of formulas and general
instructions for those interested in the craft. He had, indeed, many
irons in the fire, and he kept them all hot.
It will perhaps surprise the present generation to learn that the
well-known circus man Jacob Showles was once a fire-eater, and that Del
Fugo, well-known in his day as a dancer in the music halls, began as a
fire-resister, and did his dance on hot iron plates. But the reader
has two keener surprises in store for him before I close the long
history of the heat-resisters. The first concerns our great American
tragedian Edwin Forrest (1806-1872) who, according to James Rees
(Colley Cibber), once essayed a fire-resisting act. Forrest was always
fond of athletics and at one time made an engagement with the manager
of a circus to appear as a tumbler and rider. The engagement was not
fulfilled, however, as his friend Sol Smith induced him to break it and
return to the legitimate stage. Smith afterwards admitted to Cibber
that if Forrest had remained with the circus he would have become one
of the most daring riders and vaulters that ever appeared in the ring.
His adventure in fire-resistance was on the occasion of the benefit to
"Charley Young," on which eventful night, as the last of his acrobatic
feats, he made a flying leap through a barrel of red fire, singeing his
hair and eyebrows terribly. This particular leap through fire was the
big sensation of those days, and Forrest evidently had a hankering to
show his friends that he could accomplish it--and he did.
The second concerns an equally popular actor, a comedian this time, the
elder Sothern (1826-1881). On March 20, 1878, a writer in the Chicago
Inter-Ocean communicated to that paper the following curiously
descriptive article:
Is Mr. Sothern a medium?
This is the question that fifteen puzzled investigators are asking
themselves this morning, after witnessing a number of astounding
manifestations at a private seance given by Mr. Sothern last night.
It lacked a few minutes of 12 when a number of Mr. Sothern's friends,
who had been given to understand that something remarkable was to be
performed, assembled in the former's room at the Sherman House and took
seats around a marble-top table, which was placed in the center of the
apartment. On the table were a number of glasses, two very large
bottles, and five lemons. A sprightly young gentleman 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 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 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. 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 doors, nor
science study his wonders, and he must now seek a following in the
gaping loiterers of the circus side-show, the pumpkin-and-prize-pig
country fair, or the tawdry booth at Coney Island. The credulous,
wonder-loving scientist, however, still abides with us and, while his
serious-minded brothers are wringing from Nature her jealously guarded
secrets, the knowledge of which benefits all mankind, he gravely
follows that perennial Will-of-the-wisp, spiritism, and lays the
flattering unction to his soul that he is investigating "psychic
phenomena," when in reality he is merely gazing with unseeing eyes on
the flimsy juggling of pseudo-mediums.
[1] I never saw Ling Look's work, but I know that some of the sword
swallowers have made use of a sheath which was swallowed before the
performance, and the swords were simply pushed into it. A sheath of
this kind lined with asbestos might easily have served as a protection
against the red-hot blade.