[DL] Houdini's Book

[Munch Wolf <munchwolf@yahoo.com>]

While wandering the web I found a book that I had
never heard of before called Miracle Mongers and Their
Methods by Harry Houdini written in 1920.  It's been a
long time since I've done any research on Harry, and I
know he doesn't exactly fit into the current DL
timeline, but I figured this book might interest some
people here.  Basically it seems to deal with his
travels and he discusses and debunks other sideshow
travellers who do fall into the DL timeline.  He talks
about fire eaters, sword swallowers, strongmen, etc,
and explains how they accomplished their feats.

The reason I think this might be of interest is the
names and personalities of people he mentions.

Here's an excerpt of one performer:

 "Ling Look, one of the best of contemporary fire
performers, was with Dean Harry Kellar when the latter
made his famous trip around the world in 1877. Look
combined fire-eating and sword-swallowing in a rather
startling manner. His best effect was the swallowing
of a red-hot sword. Another thriller consisted in
fastening a long sword to the stock of a musket; when
he had swallowed about half the length of the blade,
he discharged the gun and the recoil drove the sword
suddenly down his throat to the very hilt. Although
Look always appeared in a Chinese make-up, Dean Kellar
told me that he thought his right name was Dave
Gueter, and that he was born in Buda Pesth."

He died later that same year, but was 'ressurrected'
and was performing again in England in 1879.  It was
later discovered that the new Ling Look was a younger
brother who was a deadringer for his departed sibling.

The online website for those interested in reading
more is:
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/browse-mixed-new?id=HouMirM&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public

-Munch Wolf

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