of the common, as people say. Then the Duchess
of Orleans brought a green case, which was not
to be opened, and the contents of which Emile,
by virtue of his second sight, was to reveal. Of
course Houdin opened it with a rapid, unsee
gesture, gave the password to Emile, and
received, as the reward of his dexterity, the
diamond pin, with its stone surrounded by a garter
of sky-blue enamel, which was its enclosure. It
was Houdin, too, who, at the time when
magnetic trances and cataleptic phenomena were at
their height, invented the trick which it pleased
him to call " Etherial Suspension," wherein he
knocked off, one by one, the frail supports on
which he had placed his youngest son, and left
him seated on nothing, apparently suspended in
the air in a state of cataleptic trance— a sight
which never failed to bring down on the juggler's
good-looking head, a storm of maternal indignation,
and a shower of twopenny post letters,
threatening prosecution and the police. And it
was Houdin who improved on Philippe's trick
of producing five or six huge glass bowls, with
live gold fish swimming about, from nothing but
an empty shawl wrapped round his body. What
are the luminous hands in the carefully darkened
room, or under the carefully covered table, to
this, or to the heap of feathers brought out of the
hat of an unoffending spectator— feathers in such
quantities that they cover up a boy kneeling
on the stage? Look at the tin cases flung
out of that hat— enough to set up a tinman's
shop; at the bouquets of flowers— a whole
Covent Garden Market full; at the toys, the
pigeons, rabbits, and ducks all tossed out of
a single black hat! Our mediums are bunglers.
An ordinary fair-day conjuror could beat the
best of them.

What can the Arab jugglers do? They are
noted men in their trade, and are not unfrequently
quoted by the superstitious as possessing
more knowledge that is good for them, and
as having a more intimate connexion with the
Powers of Darkness than they choose to own.
They eat glass and nails and thorns and thistles
(the great prickly leaves of the cactus one
of their grand feats); and they strike their
arms, and the flesh opens and bleeds, and they
strike again and the flesh closes and the blood
ceases; they leap on the edge of sabres and
don't cut their feet; they walk upon red-hot
iron and don't burn their feet; they lie all along
sharp sabres; and they eat snakes and scorpions;
and all this they do accompanied with frantic
gestures and mad excitement, so that the grain of
jugglery bears a treble harvest of credulity, and
the senses of the spectators are confused. It does
not belong to this present paper to explain, by
Houdin's method, all the arts and manoeuvres of
these mad Arab Marabouts; but it is enough to
say that they are all to be reduced to simple
juggling tricks, or the crafty application of some not
commonly understood chemical and mechanical
secrets. So far as we have gone yet, we have
come to nothing miraculous or inexplicable
anywhere. Quite the contrary. The most apparently
miraculous things are all getting explained
away, one by one, even to the cardboard stomach
of the self-sabrer, who, when he seemed to pass
the sword right through his abdomen— for was
there not the blood to testify? and was he not
a lean man, and with no superfluity of abdominal
muscles?— was yet found to have done nothing
more wonderful than pass it through a leathern
scabbard led across a cardboard front, in which
was a small sponge filled with blood: the real
abdomen being all the while comfortably (or
uncomfortably) braced up against the spine, and in
no danger of anything save inflammation from
over-pressure. This was a very clever trick,
possible only to an extremely lean person like
the self-sabrer— the invulnerable, as he was
called. Sometimes, indeed, physical peculiarities
aid a man in performing unique tricks; that is,
tricks possible only to himself, and the few
exceptionals like himself. Like the sabre-swallower
with his enormous gullet, which could take in
an egg and gulp it down, without cracking it; or
like the pug-nosed invulnerable before mentioned,
who, while tricking the public with a juggle,
performed a real feat when he thrust knives up
his nostrils without hurting himself, because
his nostrils were so wide and flexible. These
cases are rare, but when they do occur they are
never inexplicable or out of nature as the
credulous would have us believe.

Yet, with all the evidence before them of
the cleverness of jugglers, and the dexterity
with which deft of hand can deceive the wisest
— with all the mass of evidence of frauds which
have been discovered, both pious and impious—
people go on believing in miracles, and the
" possession" by unseen spirits of carnal-looking
mediums. Why, the latest miracle of all, is the
old stigmata medium; the medium with the large
white-skinned arm on which the spirits scrawl
blood-red letters in a very bad hand, and looking
marvellously like an earthly scratch with a
material pencil! This flesh-writing is of no
recent date. The Oxford Council of 1222
crucified two "naughtie fellows" at Arborberie for
feigning the stigmata; but St. Francis of Assissi
was canonised for his fraud two years later— as
a compensation, probably. The Dominicans
who got caught in false flesh-writing tricks at
Berne, and Maria da Visitiçam who disgraced
herself in the same way at Lisbon, brought
the fashion into temporary disrepute for a long
long time, until lo! it starts up again in the
Irish revivalist who had " Geasus" written over
her stomach, and in the medium who bares his
arm to show a scrawling " John" scratched there.
What believer in the power of Revivals would
doubt the heavenly handwriting of the one
(never mind the spelling); and what enthusiast
in the cause of mediumship and spiritualism
would question the ghostly origin of the other?
O! how strange it is, that with the collective
knowledge and advancement of the ages for
his guidance, a sane man can witness the
marvellous dexterity of a modern juggler who
confesses that all he does is by fraud of sense and
mechanical combination, and can then accept the
" spiritualism" of a bungler, who cannot speak