JUGGLERS. 
25 
feelings, works him up, in the frenzy of its efferves- 
cence, to take away the life of a fellow-creature. 
The next thing to which I alluded as intending to 
record, was an instance of visual illusion, as far as my 
experience and even my belief goes, unprecedented in 
the annals of jugglery. After the exhibition of the 
eggs, as just described, a stout, ferocious-looking fel- 
low stepped forward, with a common wicker basket 
of the country, which he begged we would carefully 
examine. This we accordingly did; it was of the 
slightest texture, and admitted the light through a 
thousand apertures. Under this fragile covering he 
placed a child about eight years old, an interesting 
little girl, habited in the only garb which nature had 
provided for her, perfect of frame and elastic of limb 
— a model for a cherub, and scarcely darker than a 
child of southern France. When she was properly 
secured, the man, with a lowering aspect, asked her 
some question, which she instantly answered ; and as 
the thing was done within a few feet from the spot 
on which we were seated, the voice appeared to come 
so distinctly from the basket, that I felt at once satis- 
fied there was no deception. They held a conversa- 
tion for some moments, when the juggler, almost with 
a scream of passion, threatened to kill her. There 
was a stem reality in the whole scene which was per- 
fectly dismaying ; it was acted to the life, but terrible 
to see and hear. The child was heard to beg for 
mercy, when the man seized a sword, placed his 
foot upon the frail wicker covering under which his 
supposed victim was so piteously supplicating his 
forbearance, and, to my absolute consternation and 
