A GLASS EATER.

Kumara Times, Issue 1377, 1 March 1881, Page 2

A GLASS EATER.

One of the most startling stories which Mr Lawrence Oliphant brought back from the East has been almost capped by the Toronto Daily Mail. MrOlighant declares that he saw the followers of a certain Sheikh Susian Abouton. whose present address is the

Meidan, Damascus, devour live scorpions and snakes, and then finish off Iheir repast by chewing and swallowing inouthfuls of glowing, red-hob charcoal. Mr Oliphant declares that he not only saw this done, but that he felt the Sickening smell of burning flesh as *' they crunched the glowing morsels." Our Canadian contemporary tells us iquite as seriously as Mr Oliphant that a stranger has arrived at Toronto whose '" crunching abilities rival those of the charcoal and scorpion eaters of Damascus. Arriving on a Monday night at the bar of the Windsor Hotel, this Stranger bit a piece out of a beer glass and munched it to powder. He took another bite, and then another, until bdthing but the bottom of the glass remained. He did not swallow the glass, but "spat it out in a half-crystalised and half-powdered form on the floor." He then demolished another glass in the same way-, and to oblige the excited crowds, which watched him with amazement, he ate up " a bummer's glass," a glass which is " two-thirds bottom, and is about a thick again as an ordinary tumbler.*' When he finished the last morsel of the bummer's glass, those present declared themselves satisfied the stranger could eat up the Crystal Palace if necessary and enjoy the feast. As Mr Oliphant's sheikh and this Toronto stranger would make the fortune of any showman, it is to be hoped that they will no longer allow such potetiality of wealth to remain unutilised.