Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-11-29
EAST INDIAN HOODOOISN.
An American Eye Witness RecOunts the Feats
ola Fakir-A Man Burned AIive-a Csin
Turned 10 SnaEeS.
The Cosmopolitan.

ola Fakir-A Man Burned AIiye-a Csis
Turned 70 SNAKES.
The Cosmopolitan.
When heard that a jUggler was pres-
ent who could perform wonderful tricks,
and that for a small consideration he
could be prevailed pon to do 80, / could
scarcely Contain myself until morning, SO
aDx.o was I &c witness this wonderful
performance. The professor was
Yus IN, one of the sect who profess great
sanotity, and are moreover, adopts in
mesmerism.
Our iuggler was provokingIy slow and
deliberate, as if he had been about to
b7ry his son in earnest, he could not have
displayed more gravity than he did. Blu.
it was useless to hurry him. He was az
impertprbable as craven image. How
ever. In due course of time he announced
himself ready. The spectators formed
circle around him, oEr party being ao-
commodated with seats. In my innocence
expec5ed everybody to quit his bust
ness for the time being, to witness this
wonderful spectacle. To my surprise,
the greater part of the people present
paid as little attention to our juggler az
a New York business man would.-pay TO d
monkey and hand organ. The few
Malays present looked on with contem OF.
Our iuggler wore a gaudy turban, red
Morocco shoes, and a checked silk sarong
or petticoat, gathered win q silk cord
around the waist. A pair of gold brace
let's ornamented his dusky arms, but his
hands were bare of rings, probably to
give him a free use of them, as the
heavy rings commonly worn might cramp
his fingers. A table was placed before
l.. l.
few articles used in his tricks, but he had
nothing partaking of the nature of ap-
paratus. While two men were EN- ploy ed
in digging trench for the burial of his
son, who sat OF stool near the o man,
contentedly chewing betelnut aud gossip
ing with the bystandees, the old man was
whetting the edge OF an old cimitar.
Finally producing what seemed to be the
egg of q baya or bottle nested sparrow,
he laid it on the table and alongside Of it
brass pyramid about six inches high.
Causing the cimitsr to describe a few
lightning like revolutions round his head
he brought it down with a tremendous
crash on the egg, but strange to say the
egg was not broken. Repeating the
revolutions be again brought down his
sword, this time on the brass pyramid
and the latter fell in two, cleft from top
to bottom. Pieces of paper wrigge
acrose to ground to his feet, ss if lmbued
with lie. He may have had horsehairs
fastened 30 them, but We could not detect
aay. He had promised to perform the
orange tree trick, and he redeemed his
word. The seed was planted and the tree
grew, blossomed end apparently bore
fruit before our eyes. While the tree
was in blossom he twisted up half a dozen
paper butterflies, and with two fans, ore
in each hand, com PEELED them to initiate
the motions of a butterfly to perfection.
have seen this trick many times, but l
never saw anything so exquisitely faith
full TO nature as this mans performance.
He next produced twelve sparrow eggs
and throwing them up one after the
other, finally kept them all going in the
air. Then, as each egg dropped into his
hand, he cast them from him, and the
egg became a living bird and few away,
singing az it went. do not know # our
juegler had patent on his remarkable
incubator. I would have paid liberal
amount for a state right, provided I
could have it adapted to chickens.
Ole of his most surprising feats was
performed on one of our party, Scotch
maa named AcFarlane. Placing in his
hand three pice-small copper coins
equal to one farthinR in value-he re-
quested the Scotchman to hold them IS