SURPASSING WONDERFUL.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3143, 15 March 1879, Page 4

SURPASSING WONDERFUL.

A writer in the Melbourne Argus, describing some scenes he witnessed in Madras, says :—" In the verandah of a leading hotel in the principal street (Popham's broadway) I stay at the sight of a group of jugglers, four in number, who seat themselves on the stono flooring. They have for clothing only the usual bit of rag around their loins, so that nothing can go up their sleeves or be concealed about their dress. Yet these men were the best of their kind that I ever saw. It was possible also, looking at their black color and unprepossessing features, to believe that Jheir clever doings were really diablerie iv all senses of the word. Among the things done by this quartette was the placing in the mouth a common pebble. The mouth was show open —and very much open, too—before the stone was placed in it. The pebble was also passed tound for testing. Yet from this pebble and otherwise empty mouth our dark friend, or fiend, blows first smoke then sparks and afterwards a jet of flame. This devilry being done, he reopens his mouth to show his white teeth and innocent red tongue with the pebble, and nothing -else, lying on it. Taking out the pebble and throwing it away, he closes his mouth, and on reopening it proceeds to take three larger stones from it. There had been no previous motions of the throat visible outside to indicate that he had brought them up in ruminating fashion from the stomach. After that it was no wonder to see him swallow a sword, as he appeared to do. One of these jugglers then laid a nut on the stones of the verandah, and covered it with two pieces of towelling. He raises these now and again to show the process that is going on. The nut is sprouting, and the sprout grows more each time it is covered, until it is, in ten minutes, a veritable little tree, the roots of which are shooting put of the other side of the nut. Another hut is then changed into a mouse or frog while the said nut is held in a close hand in front of our deceived eyes. The quick hand is closed again, and the mouse is gone and the nut there again when it opened. Seeing should not be believing, and that is quite evident here. IN ever believe what you see would be the right maxim. In one way or another we are all throughout life the fools of our senses,, to which we so pin our poor faith. A flat basket is now produced. The \rickerwork is handed round to show that it is empty—which it is, and dirty and decayed also. It is then closed and placed on the floor. Some shibboleth is muttered over it, and the lid is then raised. With it rises a snake that stands on its tail, and spreads its hood and hisses —just to show its identity: The basket is again closed, and as;ain opened to show that no snake is there, but in its place a scorpion. There was no apparatus about, and where the snake came from or went is one of those things that no fellow , could understand.

One of these high priests of deception shows that he derives no aid from anythiDg around him in his tricks by mounting on a T shaped cross bar for his performances. It is the most awkward of seats for doing anything whatever upon, as it only consists of a couple of small poles and requires dexterous, if not supernatural support to keep it upright when a man is on the top of it. He balances both it and himself all through his tricks, one of which is the production of a snake from an egg, which he handed around for our inspection before he broke the shell. It was to all appearance a common barn door fowl's egg, but the snake had evidently been in the world before he emerged from it, and was, I am sure, pot hatched there. Keeping brass balls flying about is a common performance if done with the hands, but our friend atop of the triangle struck them only with his elbows. He reserved his hands for tossing about a ball of granite weighing nearly twenty pounds, which seemed to fall naturally into the back of his neck, and not hurt him."

Filial Piety.— A resident of Cook county, Texas, has a set of furniture made from the tree on which his father was hanged 10 years ago.