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Concerning Jugglers

A description of Chinese street acts by an early Dutch visitor to that country Submitted by Todd Strong

 

In this city there are not a few men who make their living by performing wonderful

tricks for the amusement of others.

 

Some of the sleight-of-hand performances are quite inexplicable to those who have not been initiated into the secret, and seem impossible of achievement, while others are evidently done only after long practice, but are such as most people could do, to some satisfactory extent, if they pleased to turn their attention to such things.

 

Some very common jugglers' tricks are such as these: Lying down on the back and causing a large earthen water vessel to revolve around and around on the soles of the feet, which are turned up toward the sky. Another is to cause a candlestick, in which is a lighted candle, to stand erect on the top of one's head while he sings some ditty to the sound of clap-traps which he swings or works in his hands.

 

Another is to balance a common plate on the upper point of a short perpendicular stick, which is placed for support by its lower point on another stick held in the mouth of the performer, the plate spinning around with very great velocity. The wonder of this truly wonderful performance is the ease with which the plate is made to spin around so fast.

 

Sometimes one passing along the streets will see a man playing with three or five rings, some six or eight inches in diameter, in a manner which never fails to draw a crowd around him. He throws the rings up into the air separately, catching them in his hand when they seem joined together, or linked into each other like a chain. The performer throws the rings into a variety of shapes without the slightest hesitation or mistake.

 

Another man will be seen throwing up three sticks, one after the other, keeping two of them in the air. With each, as he catches it on falling, he gives a rap on a drum placed before him. Sometimes three kitchen knives are thrown up in the same manner, and caught as they fall, one by one, and tossed up again. When knives are used no drum is struck.

 

At other times the street may be rendered impassable for the time being by any but

daring foot-pas­sengers by the exploits of a man who has taken possession of it, and is playing with a ball of iron or lead, weighing several pounds, attached to the end of a strong but small rope, some 20 or 30 feet long. He is en­gaged in forcing the ball forward and drawing it back by the cord attached, which he holds in one hand, in a line parallel with the ground, and about as high as his neck. The ball passes and repasses by him very swiftly, nearly as quick as he can stretch out and draw in the hand which has hold of the string. It proceeds both sides from him to the extent of 12 or 15 feet.

 

The wonder of the performance consists in the apparent ease with which the difficult feat is done, the speed of the ball, and the precision with which it flies backward and forward, he all the time not touching the ball. If he were to whirl the ball around his head at the distance of the end of the string, there would be in that operation nothing wonderful; but he forces it back and forth, in a parallel line with the ground, with nearly the same speed and certainty of motion that he could attain by giving it a circular motion around his head. If the ball should hit against his own head while performing thus, it would crush it or dash his brains out; or if it should impinge against the head of any of the people in the street, the result would be similar.

 

Every one, however, gives a wide berth to the ball.  The performer, at the end of each trick-of-hand and exhibition of skill, expects a contribution of cash from the spectators as the reward of his efforts for their amusement.

 

What among the Chinese is regarded as particularly wonderful is a performance described as follows: The juggler pretends to kill his son, and plants a melon­seed. The spectators behold him apparently kill his boy with blows from a sword, cutting off his legs and arms. He then covers up the mutilated parts under a blanket placed on the ground. In a short time the corpse is gone, and is nowhere to be found, having seemingly vanished from the place.

 

Having planted the melon seed in a flower pot filled with earth, after a while on lifting up the blanket, there is seen a large melon on the ground. If a spectator expresses a wish that the melon should vanish also, the blanket is thrown over it. After waiting a little while, on again lifting the covering the melon is nowhere in sight. Yet a short time spent in waiting, and on removing the blanket, there will be seen the lad who had apparently been killed and mutilated but a little while previously, living and well, without any mark of having been injured.