OCR Text |
Show FIRE EATERS' TRICKS. HOW THE SALAMBOS PERFORM THEIR WONDERFUL FEATS. Very Easy After You Know the Way It Is Done The Mouth and Skin Are protected pro-tected by a Bolutiou of Sulphur and Alum -Oas Is Generated from Gasoline Among the various methods of earning earn-ing your bread by tho sweat of your brow, fire eating is one that would seem bnt few peoplo would adopt as a means of livelihood. But for years and years people with cast iron palates and brazen ,.lated lips and tongues have exhibited their peculiar abilities for a stipend. At the present time in tins country there are a half dozen men and women who go about from dime museum to variety hall and from variety hall to a "store show" and astonish the natives. All these peoplo do seemingly the most wonderful won-derful things, and as the business is difficult dif-ficult to learn their numbers are limited. The present corps of fiery entertainers have, however, been lately augmented by a brother and sister, whose ability in that lineputseverythingin the shado ever seen here. They are known on tho bills as t Earle and Ollie Salambo, and aro further ! dignified for show purposes as the "IIu- j uiau Electrical Dynametcrs." The Sa- lambos touch each other with their fingers ana produce sparks; they open their ! t mouths and a stream of flamo two feet i long issues from them if they but touch J their lips with the ends of their fingers; they swallow boiling wax and blow sparks showers of sparks from the end of a hollow glass tube; they take a gas pipe I with four gas jets on it, and by the sim- j pie process of putting an end in the ; mouth and drawing their hands across ! the gas jets four good sized flames burst into brilliancv. HOW THE TRICKS ARE HONE. It was only steady practice and constant con-stant coating of their months and hands and soles of their feet with a solution, i and the business was comparatively easy und they really did not swallow anything at all. Each performer has his own recipe for the solution he drinks and rinses his mouth and hands with, but the principal ingredients of it in each case remain the same. When tho mouth is rinsed out in that it forms a sort of an artificial skin or film that it takes a little lit-tle while to destroy, and as long as that coating remains there is absolutely no ' danger, and the rest of their wonderful tricks are nothing but a delusion and in most cases sleight of hand. There ia one performer who is known in museum circles as the "Human ' Lamp," and he makes lota of money by doing this act. He drinks some kero-(eno kero-(eno oil in view of the audience, puts a wick in his mouth, lights the wick with s a match, puts a lamp chimney over the flame and bums merrily away. On his ; Ktand is a lamp half filled with oil.! 1 I7" Irotn the can ha pours what purports to ' be oil in the lamp. It is not. It is j . water, and, of conrse, tho oil already in' I ' the lamp floats on top of the water; then he lights the oil to prove what he poured ; out was oil. He gravely drinks from the oil can, puts a wick saturated with sweet oil in his mouth, lights the wick, ; und there you are. Very simple, is ifc I ! not? M I t Now there is another gentleman whof ! walks on red hot bars, and seizing a horse shoe heated red hot in a forge near by bites the heated ends off and pretends pre-tends to swallow them. He is not. so much of a trickster as the "Human Lamp," and really earns all the money he gets, for although his bare feet are eoated with a sulphuric solution and his mouth and lips well plastered with the same, it is real hard work to bito pieces of iron in halves, even if the heat tnakes them soft and pliable, nnd if they aro kept in the mouth too long, in spite of the film, they are very hot and uu-mfortable uu-mfortable indeed. This gentleman wills himself St. Elmo, and another part of his performance is to take oakum balls, saturated with blazing pitch, in his mouth, a half dozen in succession. THE HUMAN GAS WELL. And that trick gets more applause than the biting of the horseshoe, but it b very easy of accomplishment, because ihe minute you put fire in a place where there is no air it immediately goes out, and so the instant St. Elmo closes his mouth tho fire is quenched in the blaz ing ball, and all there is about it is i the disagreeable taste of the oakum ball and a little warmth, which may not be pleasant, but can be borne for $50 a j week. ' Another trick of the fire eaters is to take a pioco of cotton and put it in their mouths, and then open their mouths and . blow smoke and streams of fire out. Every child, or almost every child, knows that if you put a spark iu the center cen-ter of a ball of cotton and blow through itjthe fire will eat all tho center out, leaving the mere shell. There is a companion performer to the "Human Lamp," known sometimes as "Natural Gas," or tho "Human Gas Well." He gets more money than the mau who drinks water for oil, and do-serves do-serves to. What he does is precisely the basis of all the work dono by the S.v-ltunbos. S.v-ltunbos. Instead of eating cotton and pitch and wax when heated, he coats his . mouth with his own private solution and unseen stoops down and picks up a round worsted ball saturated with gasoline. gas-oline. Now, gasoline is very .volatile, and when mixed with air forms a vapor that is easily ignited and gives a very fierce and blue flame. A gasoline ball held in the mouth and blown steadily through, the vapor goes through the gas tube and is ignited, and that's all there is to the "Human Gas Well." Tho lecturer of tho museum where ho works generally vividly de-scrilies de-scrilies where he was born and how Jiis parents could not keep him from eating tho dirt in the natural gas fields of Ohio, and other int eresting fabrications. New York Herald. |