Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1876 — Jugglery and Feats of Strength. [ARTICLE]

Jugglery and Feats of Strength.

In n city so famous for Jugglers, snakecharmers, acrobats and eXev alisrs d' Indust*U generally, • vlles and gentlemen who live by their wits, In the most proper sense of the word, and who apparently make a very good living, ft was scarcely )ikely that the Prince of Wales would be permitted to stay long without Witnessing tho feats of skill for which these wandering Madrasees are celebrated. Thursday being a comparatively open day, therefore, the morning was selected for an of fresco exhibition of this kind. TJie town lost tlie nomads. Government house-gardens received them. Let us look at the savago who appears to m&ko the dried skin of a cobra live. It is a favorite trick—you may see it done twenty times a day in the streets of Madras. You may examine the apparatus closely every time, and, watch the operation as carefully as you please, yet you cannot detect the modus operandl. The performer hands you a little flat wicker-basket some eight inches in diameter, and asks you to inspect it while he folds the cobra-akin, which you have pseviously well examined, into a square, leaving only tlie tail unfolded. So soon aa you have given the basket back the juggler places it on the ground, in full view, and under the lid puts the folded part of the serpent’s skin, the tail being in your sight all the while. You may, at this stage, lift the lid once more to see that nothing but tlie serpent skin is in the basket, after which you must rest content. A white cloth is taken by tlie man and placed over the basket after having been well shaken, so that you may be assured that nothing is in it. A pipe is produced, and with it a horrible noise, similar to that always made by snake charmers, and not unlike tlie sound a cracked and badly-made bagpipe would emit, ft'made. .No one goes near tho cloth or basket except the almost naked man, who cannot possibly hide any live suake in his sleeves,' for the simple and sufficient reason that he has neither sleeves nor jacket, nor, indee^any-other kind of clothing than a STnalTwaist-cloth, which would certainly be a most inconvenient hiding place lor a lively young cobra. The sheet is lifted, you look at the basket and see the tail of a living snake being gradually drawn into it, and on the lid being opened a most distinctly energetic serpent is discovered. No sooner is it stirred than it rises on its tail, spreads out its hood and strikes with its fangs and tongue at the charmer. No one"would care to examine that basket now, with a cobra four feet long making vicious snaps at the juggler. The charmer take* good care that the snake comes near you, for with a dexterous movement he seizes the reptile by the head, and, holding it in one hand, comes to you with tin basket in the other, while you put a rupee into the receptacle, if only to induce him to go away. The snake gone, a stout, strong girl comes forward, makesadeep obeisance, and then, stepping back, throws a man weighing fully eleven stone over her shoulders. Nor does she stop here, for she seizes her victim once more, places him crosswise upon her back, and then tosses him into the air as t hough he were made of feathers, and not a broad-shouldered human being. Turning backward on her feet she picks up straws with her eyelids, throws somersaults and lifts weights which would astonish the ordinary London acrobat. While (she is thus performing jugglers are changing pebbles into birds, birds into eggs, and eggs into plants; men thread beads with their tongues, join innumerabis pieces of cotton into one long cord, keep half a score of sharp knives in the air at once, throw cannon balls with their toes, and spin tops on the ends of twigs. Pandemonium reigns, the clatter is unbearable, and one is compelled, as was the Prince, *to dismiss tlie cegwd of vagrants without further delay.— Madras Cor. London Telegraph.