The Miracle Mongers [35]
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 passages 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 passed a long thin dagger down her throat. In withdrawing it, the blade snapped in two, leaving the pointed portion some distance in the passage. 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; JAPANESE 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 glass 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
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 passages 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 passed a long thin dagger down her throat. In withdrawing it, the blade snapped in two, leaving the pointed portion some distance in the passage. 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; JAPANESE 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 glass 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