Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1901-07-11

ever saw. By way of heightening the
effect and increasing our interest in
the show, he dropped into broken but
Ineligible English, the substance of
which was:
"'Am l to be made an idiot of by a
ball of string and fool by a chok-
era (small boy)? Allah forbid! l will
them both teach that they may not
trifle 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
looking knife l ever saw. 1t had a
curved blade about nine inches long,
three inches across at the hilt and ta-
pering to a fine point. Placing the
knife between his teeth and graphing
the twine in both hands the old boy,
showing marvellous agility for one of
his apparent age, went up the cord as
the boy had, hand over hand, and in
less time than it takes to tell it he, too,
had disappeared from view.
"He had us all going by this time,
and we just sat there gaping up into
the air like a lot of precious idiots.
There was seconds absolute silence
and then an agonizing yell, SO piercing
that it sunk into ones very bones. An
other second, which seemed like an
age, and then we saw dark object
come hurtling down from the sky
Down and down it came until it landed
only few feet from us with sick
ening 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 di-
vided arteries and the dark venous
blood from the veins. The twitching
of the newly cut muscles and the wind
pipe, and the cleanly severed joints Of
two of the cervical vertebrae were
quite. plain to the army surgeon and to
the rest, of us, all of whom knew a
little of anatomy from the field hos
pitfalls.
I'VE hadn't by any means got over
the shivery feeling we experienced at
seeing the head of the late urchin,
when down came an arm, cut off
through the shoulder joint and giving
all the anatomical relations in that
part quite plainly. A moment later
the other arm dropped at Our feet and
an examination showed that it had
been cut off in exactly the same way
The doctor said the old rascal carved
cleverly enough to have been surgeon
at the Royal college.
1--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
femur, the muscles twitching just as
you may have seen them twitch in a
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 fair
ly 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. Sling
ing the bag over his shoulder, he
walked away We knew this was only
bluff, because he hadn't yet received
any backsheesh and we knew he never
would depart without that.
He had only moved off few PAGES
when we saw that something was mov-
ing inside the bag. The old man
stopped, put on surprised expression,
but the bag down on the ground, and
in a 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
toward us for his money. This he got
in a very liberal amount, and off he
went, leaving us standing there, my1-
tilted, confused, flabbergasted.
1--WE looked about for traces of "a
recently committed tragedy, b[a
where the ground had been red with
blood moment before not trace ue
it was left. There was not the slight
est bit of doubt that the boy had been
carved up and there was not the slight
est doubt that he had as miraculously
come to life again.
About the carving, the rest of us
might have been mistaken, but you
| couldn't fool the doctor. He had been
cold blooded enough to pick up the
different members of the body as they
had come tumbling down from the sky
| had examined them and was perfectly
| positive that the dismemberment had
| taken place and had been the work OF
a skilful surgeon, or student of anato-
my. That was one of the ~ perform
ances that l ever saw of the real, gen.
uine Hindoo fakirs of the Indian
| ui1dS -