Waterbury Democrat., 1901-09-20
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 Fakir's Trick
Magic which a British Officer Explains by Hypnotisfn. P

l Seventh and the Fourteenth hussars $ spending few weeks in New York. The other day some friends were talking with him about India and his experiences there, and the conversa- ton turned to Indian fakirs and their wonderful performances.
 sThese fellows do perform. some ex- traordinary tricks" said the British officer, ''but, extraordinary as they are, the tricks are not so fearfully wonderful as some of the stories of | them which are brought away from India by the tourists who learn all about India and it's people in the course of a few weeks sojourn in some of the coast towns.
 "As a matter of fact, the greatest of the fallirs are never seen in the towns and cities. Their religion and superstition will not permit them to wander from their native haunts, and | only those who have travelled or lived in the widest and most remote parts of India have witnessed the perform ance of the really great tricks of the fakirs.
 .'The first time I ever met no-dis- count fakir was in a wild, unfre- quented part of India, where two oth- CT officers of the regiment, an army surgeon and myself had gone on a hunting trip. We had spent the day beating for a tiger, which got away, and had returned to camp tired and out of sorts. Taking an early dinner, for we were horribly hungry, we sat s1r ha 4o o1- cheroots.
 Suddenly, just before sundown, we noticed an uncanny-lool1ing person coming toward us, grinning like a black devil, salaaming at every step and mumbling something which none of us could understand. We knew, of course, that our visitor was one of the mountain falirs, and we calm ly waited for him to proceed to busi- ness.
 ''As he put down his bag with great deliberation, the boy accompanying him curled himself up on the ground and seemed to be paying attention to nothing in particular. After a little the old codger produced, seemingly from nowhere, ball of ordinary cot ton string, which had once been white, such string as shopkeepers or dinarily use to tie up light parcels with.
 1.-The man's hair was gray and his hide was as black as Erebus. He wore dirty turban and loin cloth, which two articles constituted his apparel. The boys outfit was no less elaborate.
 After tossing the ball of string about for awhile-it was about the size of billiard ball-he threw it high into the air, retaining the free end of the string in his hand. Up and up and up went the ball, growing smaller and smaller the higher it travelled, until it disappeared from sight altogether. To all appearances it had sailed up until it reached the nearest stratum of clouds and disappeared behind it. It was the mightiest ball throwing we had ever seen and was quite sufficient to attract our attention to anything that II boy might subsequently, do-an It was just what he wanted.
 ''As soon as the ball had disappeared, the fakir let go the free end of the string and there we had line of cot ton twine extending from about five feet from the ground up to the Lord knows where. When the old man found that the ball remained in the air, refusing absolutely to come down, no matter how wildly he gesticulated or how loudly he yelled at it, he was apparently much annoyed.
 ''He tugged and tugged at the cord, but he couldn't pull the ball out of space, and as an evident last resort, he called the boy, told him to climb the cord and bring the ball down. FThen we saw the spectacle of boy 12 or IA years old, climbing hand over hand, up line of cotton twine about the size of a large pin.
 up and up, higher and higher, the urchin went, climbing as a sailor climbs rope, until he, too, had dis appeared behind the clouds which hid the ball. When last we saw him, he looked to be just about as big as the ball did when it disappeared.
 "As soon as the urchin disappeared, there was more trouble for the fall;r The boy appeared very we'll satisfied with the roasting place he had found and the old man was no more success full in getting him back to earth than he had been with the ball of twine. Then we did have sample of splendid rage.
 "The old rascal worked himself up into perfect fury. He yelled and danced and gesticulated and gave the best exhibition of human demon that 1 ever saw. By way of heightening the effect and increasing our interest in the show, he dropped into broken but intelligible English, the substance of which was:
 "'Am I to be made an idiot of by ball of string and a fool by a chokera (small boy)? Allah forbidi I will them both teach that they may not trifie with one so old and so wise.'
 "'Then rushing to the filthy old bag that had been lying all this time on the ground, he thrust an arm into it and drew forth the most murderous-look- ing knife I ever saw. It had curved blade about nine inches long, about three inches across at the hilt and ta- pering to a fine point. Placing the knife between his teeth and grasping the twine in both hands the old boy. showing marvellous agility for one of |