STARTLING IF TRUE.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3825, 1 April 1881, Page 1

STARTLING IF TRUE.

One of the most startling storiei (remarks a London journal) which Mr Lawrence Oliphant brought back from' the East has been almost capped by the Toronto Daily Mail. Mr Oliphant declares that he saw the follower* of a certain Sheikh Russian Ambouton, whose present address is the Meidan, Damascus, devour live scorpions and snakes, and then finish off their repast by chewing and swallowing mouthfuls of glowing, redhot charcoal. Mr Oliphant declares that he not only saw this done, but that befelt the sickening smell of burning flesh as "they crunched the glowing morsels." Our Canadian contemporary tells quite as seriously as Mr Oliphant that a stranger has arrived at Toronto whose " crunching " abilities rival those of. the charcoal apd 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 *nd munched it to powder. He took another bite and then another until nothing but the bottom of the glass remained. He did not'fe swallow the glass, but "spit it out in a halfcrystallised and half-powdered form on the floor." He then demolished another glass ia the same way, and to oblige the excited crowd which watched him with amazement, he ate up" a bum-' mer's glass which is two-third bottom, and is about as thick.again as an ordinary tumbler." When he finished the last morsel of the bummer's glass/ those present declared themselves satisfied that the stranger could eat up the Crystal Palace if necessary and enjoy the feast. As Mr Ohphant's Sheikh and this Toronto stranger would make the fortune of any showman it is to be hoped thaf they will no longer allow such potentiality of wealth to remain unutilized.