He kept his audience in good humor by presenting all this in a spirit of crude comedy and, to increase the comedy element, he introduced a number of trained cats.Although the thieving proclivities of cats are well known, Dufour's pets showed no desire to share his repast, and he had them trained to obey his commands during mealtime.At the close of the meal he would become violently angry with one of them, seize the unlucky offender, tear it limb from limb and eat the carcass.One of his musicians would then beg him to produce the cat, dead or alive.In order to do this he would go to a nearby horse-trough and drink it dry; would eat a number of pounds of soap, or other nauseating substance, clowning it in a manner to provoke amusement instead of disgust; and, further to mask the disagreeable features--and also, no doubt, to conceal the trick--would take the cloth from the table and cover his face; whereupon he would bring forth the swallowed cat, or one that looked like it, which would howl piteously and seem to struggle wildly while being disgorged.When freed, the poor cat would rush away among the spectators.
Dufour gave his best performances in the evening, as he could then show his hocus-pocus to best advantage.At these times he appeared with a halo of fire about his head.
His last appearance in Paris was most remarkable.The dinner began with a soup of asps in simmering oil.On each side was a dish of vegetables, one containing thistles and burdocks, and the other fuming acid.Other side dishes, of turtles, rats, bats and moles, were garnished with live coals.For the fish course he ate a dish of snakes in boiling tar and pitch.His roast was a screech owl in a sauce of glowing brimstone.The salad proved to be spider webs full of small explosive squibs, a plate of butterfly wings and manna worms, a dish of toads surrounded with flies, crickets, grasshoppers, church beetles, spiders, and caterpillars.He washed all this down with flaming brandy, and for dessert ate the four large candles standing on the table, both of the hanging side lamps with their contents, and finally the large center lamp, oil, wick and all.This leaving the room in darkness, Dufour's face shone out in a mask of living flames.
A dog had come in with a farmer, who was probably a confederate, and now began to bark.
Since Dufour could not quiet him, he seized him, bit off his head and swallowed it, throwing the body aside.Then ensued a comic scene between Dufour and the farmer, the latter demanding that his dog be brought to life, which threw the audience into paroxysms of laughter.
Then suddenly candles reappeared and seemed to light themselves.Dufour made a series of hocus-pocus passes over the dog's body; then the head suddenly appeared in its proper place, and the dog, with a joyous yelp, ran to his master.
Notwithstanding the fact that Dufour must have been by all odds the best performer of his time, I do not find reference to him in any other authority.But something of his originality appeared in the work of a much humbler practitioner, contemporary or very nearly contemporary with him.
We have seen that Richardson, Powell, Dufour, and generally the better class of fire-eaters were able to secure select audiences and even to attract the attention of scientists in England and on the Continent.But many of their effects had been employed by mountebanks and street fakirs since the earliest days of the art, and this has continued until comparatively recent times.
In Naturliche Magie, in 1794, Vol.VI, page 111, I find an account of one Quackensalber, who gave a new twist to the fire-eating industry by making a ``High Pitch'' at the fairs and on street corners and exhibiting feats of fire-resistance, washing his hands and face in melted tar, pitch and brimstone, in order to attract a crowd.He then strove to sell them a compound--composed of fish glue, alum and brandy--which he claimed would cure burns in two or three hours.He demonstrated that this mixture was used by him in his heat resistance:
and then, doubtless, some ``capper'' started the ball rolling, and Herr Quackensalber (his name indicates a seller of salves) reaped a good harvest.
I have no doubt but that even to-day a clever performer with this ``High Pitch'' could do a thriving business in that overgrown country village, New York.At any rate there is the so-called, ``King of Bees,'' a gentleman from Pennsylvania, who exhibits himself in a cage of netting filled with bees, and then sells the admiring throng a specific for bee-stings and the wounds of angry wasps.Unfortunately the only time I ever saw his majesty, some of his bee actors must have forgotten their lines, for he was thoroughly stung.
