The exhibitions given by the class of persons commonly designated as "jugglers" exemplify the perfect control that by continual practice one may obtain over his various senses and muscles. The most wonderful feats of dexterity are thus reduced into mere automatic movements. Either standing, sitting, mounted on a horse, or even on a wire, they are able to keep three four, five, and even six balls in continual motion in the air. They use articles of the greatest difference in specific gravity in the same manner. A juggler called "Kara," appearing in London and Paris in the summer of 1895, juggled with an open umbrella, an eye-glass, and a traveling satchel, and received each after its course in the air with unerring precision. Another man called "Paul Cinquevalli," well known in this country, does not hesitate to juggle with lighted lamps or pointed knives. The tricks of the clowns with their traditional pointed felt hats are well known.
Recently there appeared in Philadelphia a man who received six such hats on his head, one on top of the other, thrown by his partner from the rear of the first balcony of the theater. Others will place a number of rings on their fingers, and with a swift and dexterous movement toss them all in the air, catching them again all on one finger. Without resorting to the fabulous method of Columbus, they balance eggs on a table, and in extraordinary ways defy all the powers of gravity.
In India and China we see the most marvelous of the knife-jugglers.
With unerring skill they keep in motion many pointed knives, always receiving them at their fall by the handles. They throw their implements with such precision that one often sees men, who, placing their partner against a soft board, will stand at some distance and so pen him in with daggers that he cannot move until some are withdrawn, marking a silhouette of his form on the board,--yet never once does one as much as graze the skin. With these same people the foot-jugglers are most common. These persons, both made and female, will with their feet juggle substances and articles that it requires several assistants to raise.
A curious trick is given by Rousselet in his magnificent work entitled "L'Inde des Rajahs," and quoted by Guyot-Daubes. It is called in India the "dance of the eggs." The dancer, dressed in a rather short skirt, places on her head a large wheel made of light wood, and at regular intervals having hanging from it pieces of thread, at the ends of which are running knots kept open by beads of glass. She then brings forth a basket of eggs, and passes them around for inspection to assure her spectators of their genuineness. The monotonous music commences and the dancer sets the wheel on her head in rapid motion; then, taking an egg, with a quick movement she puts it on one of the running knots and increases the velocity of the revolution of the wheel by gyrations until the centrifugal force makes each cord stand out in an almost horizontal line with the circumference of the wheel.
Then one after another she places the eggs on the knots of the cord, until all are flying about her head in an almost horizontal position. At this moment the dance begins, and it is almost impossible to distinguish the features of the dancer. She continues her dance, apparently indifferent to the revolving eggs. At the velocity with which they revolve the slightest false movement would cause them to knock against one another and surely break. Finally, with the same lightning-like movements, she removes them one by one, certainly the most delicate part of the trick, until they are all safely laid away in the basket from which they came, and then she suddenly brings the wheel to a stop; after this wonderful performance, lasting possibly thirty minutes, she bows herself out.
A unique Japanese feat is to tear pieces of paper into the form of butterflies and launch them into the air about a vase full of flowers; then with a fan to keep them in motion, ****** them light on the flowers, fly away, and return, after the manner of several living butterflies, without allowing one to fall to the ground.
Marksmen.--It would be an incomplete paper on the acute development of the senses that did not pay tribute to the men who exhibit marvelous skill with firearms. In the old frontier days in the Territories, the woodsmen far eclipsed Tell with his bow or Robin Hood's famed band by their unerring aim with their rifles. It is only lately that there disappeared in this country the last of many woodsmen, who, though standing many paces away and without the aid of the improved sights of modern guns, could by means of a rifle-ball, with marvelous precision, drive a nail "home" that had been placed partly in a board. The experts who shoot at glass balls rarely miss, and when we consider the number used each year, the proportion of inaccurate shots is surprisingly small. Ira Paine, Doctor Carver, and others have been seen in their marvelous performances by many people of the present generation. The records made by many of the competitors of the modern army-shooting matches are none the less wonderful, exemplifying as they do the degree of precision that the eye may attain and the control which may be developed over the nerves and muscles. The authors know of a countryman who successfully hunted squirrels and small game by means of pebbles thrown with his hand.