Evening star., 1909-04-25
By w. D. Ouint


for Psychical Research and Incl
dentally puzzle into silence the celebrated Pro-
fessor James of Harvard University has GER
tainly some remarkable exhibits in his bag
of performances But that Fred E Foskett
a Young machinist of Orange Massachusetts,
now matter of record This man seems to be
among the most redoubtable of the race OF
modern human salamanders.
His principal feats before the learned and
apparently stupefed Bostonians were to hold
lighted matches in his hands, warm his fingers
above the wick of lighted lamp; grasp the TOP
of the chimney of the lamp as if it was a walk
ing stick; and bathe his hands in a basin OF
blazing alcohol
Professor James has thus far refused to make
any comment upon Foskett's feats, and the other
psychoscientiic gentlemen seem not to be able
to offer any adequate explanation Some OF
the more enthusiastic of the Boston Brahmans
attribute the fiery deeds of the young mechanic
to marvellous psychic power; while the
unbeievers have various explanations, one OF
some secret way, and another and more re-
markable that he is hypnotist and sent the
whole collection of eminent Bostonians into a
trance making them believe they saw something
that did not actually occur.
Nothing New About 1t
RUT the human salamander is by no means
= a novel nor an inexplicable creature Intact
he is very ancient institution on the face OF the
earth For countless centuries fire tests have
been used in India, and fakirs have performed
most extraordinary feats with blazes of various
sorts The Rev P. Percival, from personal
observation of the fanatics of the Salva sect,
describes how some of them placed pans OF
burning Goa on the head and bore them along
in the crowd and that Others lay PROSTATE on
their backs with a vessel full OF burning embers
on the breast So, too. did the members of a
Mohammedan brotherhood 60 through their
ordeals of fire with the utmost indifference
William H. Carpenter describes some of the
feats of these stalwart fellows that he witnessed
in Algiers. Performers, he says, gathered
round charcoal fire burning in a brazier
One of them drew out redhot iron and licked
it with his tongue. He then placed burning
coal between his teeth and famed it by his
breath into white heat Another took a
burning wisp of hay and passed it all over his
body Still another snatched an iron rod with
a ball on one end from the fire and after winding
one of his eyelids round it until the eyeball
was completely exposed, thrust its point IN
behind the eye which was forced far out on his
cheek How much Of the exhibition was real,
says Mr. Carpenter, and how much pure sleight
of hand have no means of knowing: but the
fire of the blazing wisp had not even singed the
mans garments over which it had been passed.
1t is not impossible for the ordinary layman
to initiate the seeming Prodlgies OF the tak1rs
of the East. 1t is on record that Europeans
nave walked across DedS OF DlaZlHS Goals DARE
foot and without receiving burns or any marks
that would tend to indicate that the flesh had
been in contact with fire Indeed. a Colonel
Gudgeon, British resident at Rayrotonga, went
through this kind of ordeal Of fire under the
instruction of native priests, and is said to have
been entirely unframed. Lowell's Occult
Japan" tells of similar cases of fire walking in
the land of the chrySanthemum.
Feats of Daniel Dunglas Home
0NE of the most famous and remarkable
- of the human salamanders was Daniel
Dunglas Home, the Napoleon OF Necromancy
and the Past Grand Master of Mediums, " man
with an astonishing career, in that he was
petted by royalty and was received in the best
society of London, Paris. ST. Petersburg. Ber-
lin. and Rome. Home was strange character
He despised money: but never refused a dla-
mond worth ten times the amount he would have
received in cash, or some valuable present that
the host of the house at which he happened to be
giving an exhibition always felt obliged to offer.