DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70300#0041
SIGNORA JOSEPHINE GIRALDELLT. 25
be seen travelling from town to town, and from village to
village, throughout the kingdom, wherever a fair or great
market is held, exhibiting their wonders to the astonished
crowd; one of which, under the denomination of the
“ English Salamander,” is at this present time peram-
bulating, in a wretched caravan, the various streets of this
metropolis, professing to exhibit the same feats as the heroine
of this memoir, of whose history, we possess no other docu-
ment than the description of her wonderful performances,,
as contained in her bill of exhibition ; in this she professes
to have exhibited before most of the crowned heads of Eu-
rope. She commences her performances by passing plates
of red-hot iron over her legs; she then stands with her feet
naked, on a plate of red-hot iron, and afterwards draws the
same plate over her hair and across her tongue; she washes
her hands, without any symptom of pain, in boiling oil, and
takes a portion ot the same into her mouth; she passes a
bunch of burning candles under her arms, and also under her
feet; she next washes her hands in aqua-fortis, and puts
some of it into her mouth ; she takes up melted lead with
her fingers, and conveys it into her mouth; then concludes
her mysterious performance, by putting into her mouth boil-
ing lead, and producing it again to the company with the
impression of her teeth marked thereon: returning thanks to
the company, in four different languages, the exhibition finishes.
That these feats are actually done by her, we cannot
doubt; but the scepticism to which, in the former part of
this memoir, we allude, is, that no human being has ever
been born possessing this inherent fire-resistance; and that
the whole is performed by a secondary agent, with which the
part to be produced to the fire and heat is first rubbed or
saturated; of course it then becomes, on the part of the
performer, a mere trick, though, to the general class of visitors
of these exhibitions, a wonderful phenomenon.
Since the performances of this lady in England, another of
these wonderful fire-resisters has amused and astonished the
be seen travelling from town to town, and from village to
village, throughout the kingdom, wherever a fair or great
market is held, exhibiting their wonders to the astonished
crowd; one of which, under the denomination of the
“ English Salamander,” is at this present time peram-
bulating, in a wretched caravan, the various streets of this
metropolis, professing to exhibit the same feats as the heroine
of this memoir, of whose history, we possess no other docu-
ment than the description of her wonderful performances,,
as contained in her bill of exhibition ; in this she professes
to have exhibited before most of the crowned heads of Eu-
rope. She commences her performances by passing plates
of red-hot iron over her legs; she then stands with her feet
naked, on a plate of red-hot iron, and afterwards draws the
same plate over her hair and across her tongue; she washes
her hands, without any symptom of pain, in boiling oil, and
takes a portion ot the same into her mouth; she passes a
bunch of burning candles under her arms, and also under her
feet; she next washes her hands in aqua-fortis, and puts
some of it into her mouth ; she takes up melted lead with
her fingers, and conveys it into her mouth; then concludes
her mysterious performance, by putting into her mouth boil-
ing lead, and producing it again to the company with the
impression of her teeth marked thereon: returning thanks to
the company, in four different languages, the exhibition finishes.
That these feats are actually done by her, we cannot
doubt; but the scepticism to which, in the former part of
this memoir, we allude, is, that no human being has ever
been born possessing this inherent fire-resistance; and that
the whole is performed by a secondary agent, with which the
part to be produced to the fire and heat is first rubbed or
saturated; of course it then becomes, on the part of the
performer, a mere trick, though, to the general class of visitors
of these exhibitions, a wonderful phenomenon.
Since the performances of this lady in England, another of
these wonderful fire-resisters has amused and astonished the