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In the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal for 1825 there is an account of a juggler who swallowed a knife which remained in his stomach and caused such intense symptoms that gastrotomy was advised; the patient, however, refused operation. Drake reports a curious instance of polyphagia. The person described was a man of twenty-seven who pursued the vocation of a "sword-swallower."
In one of his acts Cliquot swallows a real bayonet sword, weighted with a cross-bar, and two 18-lib. dumb bells. In order to vary this performance, the sword-swallower allows only a part of the weapon to pass into his body, the remainder being "kicked" down by the recoil of a rifle, which is fixed to a spike in the centre of the bar, and fired by the performer's sister.
"Oh, no," said Ingigerd very decidedly. Frederick felt something like cold iron enter his soul. He seemed to himself to be a sword-swallower unable immediately to extract the steel from his body. "No, we have not," he, too, said, "though I for my part should like Miss Hahlström to give up the stage because she has a delicate constitution. But she maintains she needs the sensation of it.
The streets were gay with people, the market-place showed a number of booths, tents and canvas enclosures within which performances were already in progress. The Fabiani family was late in arriving, but a spot was found, between the sword-swallower and the Circassian lady, which suited Cleofonte's purpose.
There was the sword-swallower and the fat lady, the giant and the dwarf, and so many other things that Jerry couldn't remember them all. When the last of them had passed out at the other side of the tent, he became aware of a smell that was most enticing, quite different from the smell of the circus, the sawdust and the animals and the crowd.
See the sword-swallower from India to whom a steel sword is no more than a string of spaghetti to an Italian. Kelilah, the famous dancer of the Nile, whose graceful contortions have delighted the eyes and moved the hearts of kings. See Major Wee-Wee, the smallest man in the world, no bigger than a two-year-old baby, and Tom Morgan, the giant who stands seven feet three inches in his stocking feet.
We walked up and down before the stretches of painted canvas, balancing in our desire a sword-swallower against an Indian Princess. Most of the fat women and all the dwarfs that I have known came to my acquaintance when in company with my grandfather. As a young man, it was said, he once ran away from home to join a circus as an acrobat, having acquired the trick of leaping upon a running horse.
The sword-swallower, at the megaphone instance of the barker, waggled suddenly into motion, and, flouncing back her bushy knee-skirts and kissing to the four winds, threw back her head and swallowed an eighteen-inch carpenter's saw to the hilt. The crowd flowed up and around her. Miss Hoag felt on the undershelf of her table for a glass of water, draining it.
Deodota, an Italian Magician, was also a sword-swallower of more than average ability. He succumbed to the lure of commercialism finally, and is now in the jewelry business in the "down-town district" of New York City. Sword-swallowing may be harmlessly imitated by the use of a fake sword with a telescopic blade, which slides into the handle.
Delno Fritz was not only an excellent sword-swallower, but a good showman as well. The last time I saw him he was working the "halls" in England. I hope he saved his money, for he was a clean man with a clean reputation, and, I can truly say, he was a master in his manner of indulging his appetite for the cold steel.
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