The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-06-10

Then rushing to the filthy old bas that had been lying all this time on tn, ground, he thrust an arm into it anC ! drew forth the most murderous looking
 knife l ever saw. It had a curved
 blade about nine inches long, about
 three inches across at the hilt and ta.
 pering to fine point, Placing the
 knife between his teeth and graspins
 the twine in both hands the old boy
 showing marvellous agility for one o1
 his apparent age, went up the cord as
 the boy had, hand over hand, and ir
 less time than it takes to tell 1t he, too
 had disappeared from view.
 He had us all going by this time, anG We just sat there gaping up into the ail
 like lot of precious idiots. There was a seconds absolute silence, and then ar agonizing yell, so piercing that it sunk into ones very bones Another second which seemed like an age, and then we saw dark object come hurling down from the sky. Down and down it came until it landed only few feet from us with a sickening sort of thud.
 Looking to see what it was, we saw the head of the boy who had climbed the cord lying there, severed from the body at about the middle of the neck A closer examination showed that the face wore horrible expression while the scarlet blood poured from the divi- ded arteries and the dark venous blood from the veins. The twitching of the newly cut muscles and the windpipe, and the cleanly-severed joints of two of the cervical vertebrae were quite as plain to the army surgeon and to the rest of us, all of whom knew little of anatomy from the field hospitals.
 We hadn't by any means got over the shivery feeling we experienced at seeing the head of the late urchin, when hoWn came an arm, cut off through the shoulder joint and giving all the anatimical relations in that part quite plainly. A moment later the oth CT arm dropped at our feet and an ex- animation showed that it had been cut off in exactly the same way. The doc tor said the old rascal carved cleverly enough to have been a surgeon at the Royal college.
 We were about ready for anything after that, and So were not particularly surprised when a leg, severed at the hip joint and exposing the head of fe- mur, the muscles twitching just as you may have seen them twitch in freshly killed animal came along. The other leg followed in due time and then came the trunk
 "A moment later, the old man was seen coming down the string and when he dropped to the ground from the end of it, he was literally covered with gore from head to foot The knife, still held between his teeth, was fairly dripping with blood His eyes ap- peared wilder than ever his features drawn, and he paced back and forth for few seconds like chained tiger.
 Then he collected the head limbs and trunk and tossed them into the old bag. While watching this action we lost sight of the string and the knife and never saw them again. Singing the bag over his shoulder, he walked away We knew this was only a bluff, because he hadn't yet received any backsheesh and we knew he never would depart without that.
 He had moved off only a few paces when we saw that something was nav ing inside the bag. The old man stopped, put on a surprised expression, but the bag down on the ground, and in moment out crawled the boy as sound in wind and limb as he had ever been
 The boy began to smile and the old man, smiling and salaaming, came to- ward us for his money. This he got in a very liberal amount and off he went, leaving us standing there, mystifed, fabbergasted.
 We looked about for traces of the recently committed tragedy, but where the ground had been red with blood before not trace of 1t was left. There was not the slightest bit of doubt that the boy had been carved up and there was not the slightest doubt that he had as miraculousy come to life again,
 About the carving, the rest of us night have been mistaken but you couldn't fool the doctor He had been ,old- blooded enough to pick up the diff
  come tumblng down from the sky, had examined them and was perfectly pos- ltive that the dismemberment had aken place and had been the work of skilful surgeon or student of anato- ny. That was one of the few perfor- nances that I ever saw of the real Hindoo fakirs of the Indian vilds."
 "But how the devil do you account or it all?" asked one of the British rmy officers friends.
 why, there is only one way to ac- ount for it." was the reply. We were imply mesmerized or hypnotized by the Id boy and placed in such a mental tate that we imagined the whole per ormance really had been enacted"
 But how about the army doctor, who andled the dismembered parts?" asked ome one else. "Oh, he was befuddled just like the est of us He thought he handled tray arms and legs and heads and | trunks, whereas he didn't do anything ! the kind"
 "Maybe Englishmen in India can be- i ome thus mentally twisted" said the | rst inquirer, but I'm damned if be- eve anybody else can. Either you | aw miracle performed or the whole lessed lot of you were jagged. ."-New ork Sun.
 .NNJJAL DONATION RECEPTION. race Hospital Board Makes Appeal