Part 8 (1/2)
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.”