Read The Right Way to Do Wrong Online
Authors: Harry Houdini
She employs a number of men as snake trappers. Their usual technique is to pin the rattler to the ground by means of a forked stick thrust dexterously over his neck, after which he is conveyed into a bag made for the purpose. Probably the cleverest of her trappers is a Mexican who has a faculty of catching these dangerous creatures with his bare hands. The story goes that this chap has been bitten so many times that the virus no longer has any effect on him. Even that most poisonous of all reptiles, the Gila monster, has no terrors for him. He swims along the shore where venomous reptiles most
abound, and fearlessly attacks any and all that promise any income to his employer.
In a very rare book by General Sir Arthur Thurlow Cunynghame, entitled,
My Command in South Africa
, 1880, I find the following:
The subject of snake bites is one of no small interest in this country.
Liquid ammonia is,
par excellence
, the best antidote. It must be administered immediately after the bite, both internally, diluted with water, and externally, in its concentrated form.
The “Eau de luce” and other nostrums sold for this purpose have ammonia for their main ingredient. But it generally happens in the case of a snake bite that the remedy is not at hand, and hours may elapse before it can be obtained. In this case the following treatment will work well. Tie a ligature tightly
above
the bite, scarify the wound deeply with a knife, and press either pleasure or pain at his will. Some were purchased by individuals, and Jack pocketed his gains, observing, “A frog, or a mouse, occasionally, is enough for a snake's satisfaction.”
The
Naturalist's Cabinet
says that “In presence of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, while the philosophers were making elaborate dissertations on the danger of the poison of vipers, taken inwardly, a viper catcher, who happened to be present, requested that a quantity of it might be put into a vessel; and then, with the utmost confidence, and to the astonishment of the whole company, he
drank it off. Everyone expected the man instantly to drop down dead; but they soon perceived their mistake, and found that, taken inwardly, the poison was as harmless as water.”
William Oliver, a viper catcher at Bath, was the first who discovered that, by the application of olive oil, the bite of the viper is effectually cured. On the first of June, 1735, he suffered himself to be bitten by an old black viper; and after enduring the agonizing symptoms of approaching death, by using olive oil he perfectly recovered.
Vipers' flesh was formerly esteemed for its medicinal virtues, and its salt was thought to exceed every other animal product in giving vigor to a languid constitution.
According to Cornelius Heinrich Agrippa (called Agrippa of Nettesheim), a German philosopher, and student of alchemy and magic, who was born in 1486, and died in 1535, “If you would handle adders and snakes without harm, wash your hands in the juice of radishes, and you may do so without harm.”
Even though it may seem a digression, I yield to the temptation to include here an extraordinary “snake story” taken from
An Actor Abroad
, which Edmund Leathes published in 1880:
I will here relate the story of a sad deathâI might feel inclined to call it suicideâwhich occurred in Melbourne shortly before my arrival in the colonies. About a year previous to the time of which I am now writing, a gentleman of birth
and education, a Cambridge B.A., a barrister by profession and a literary man by choice, with his wife and three children emigrated to Victoria. He arrived in Melbourne with one hundred and fifty pounds in his pocket, and hope unlimited in his heart.
Poor man! He, like many another man, quickly discovered that muscles in Australia are more marketable than brains. His little store of money began to melt under the necessities of his wife and family. To make matters worse he was visited by a severe illness. He was confined to his bed for some weeks, and during his convalescence his wife presented him with another of those “blessings to the poor man,” a son.
It was Christmas time, his health was thoroughly restored, he naturally possessed a vigorous constitution; but his heart was beginning to fail him, and his funds were sinking lower and lower.
At last one day, returning from a long and solitary walk, he sat down with pen and paper and made a calculation by which he found he had sufficient money left to pay the insurance upon his life for one year, which, in the case of his death occurring within that time, would bring to his widow the sum of three thousand pounds. He went to the insurance office, and made his applicationâwas examined by the doctorâthe policy was made out, his life was insured. From that day he grew moody and morose, despair had conquered hope.
At this time a snake-charmer came to Melbourne, who advertised a wonderful cure for
snake-bites. This charmer took one of the halls in the town, and there displayed his livestock, which consisted of a great number of the most deadly and venomous snakes which were to be found in India and Australia.
This man had certainly some most wonderful antidote to the poison of a snake's fangs. In his exhibitions he would allow a cobra to bite a dog or a rabbit, and, in a short time after he had applied his nostrum the animal would thoroughly revive; he advertised his desire to perform upon humanity, but, of course, he could find no one fool enough to risk his life so unnecessarily.
The advertisement caught the eye of the unfortunate emigrant, who at once proceeded to the hall where the snake charmer was holding his exhibition. He offered himself to be experimented upon; the fanatic snake-charmer was delighted, and an appointment was made for the same evening as soon as the “show” should be over.
The evening came; the unfortunate man kept his appointment, and, in the presence of several witnesses, who tried to dissuade him from the trial, bared his arm and placed it in the cage of an enraged cobra and was quickly bitten. The nostrum was applied apparently in the same manner as it had been to the lower animals which had that evening been experimented upon, but whether it was that the poor fellow willfully did something to prevent its taking effectâor whatever the reasonâhe soon became insensible, and in a couple of hours he was taken home to his wife and
familyâa corpse. The next morning the snake-charmer had flown, and left his snakes behind him.
The insurance company at first refused payment of the policy, asserting that the death was suicide; the case was tried and the company lost it, and the widow received the three thousand pounds. The snake-charmer was sought in vain; he had the good fortune and good sense to be seen no more in the Australian colonies.
As several methods of combating the effects of poisons have been mentioned in the foregoing pages, I feel in duty bound to carry the subject a little farther and present a list of antidotes. I shall not attempt to educate my readers in the art of medicine, but simply to give a list of such ordinary materials as are to be found in practically every household, materials cited as antidotes for the more common poisons. I have taken them from the best authorities obtainable and they are offered in the way of first aid, to keep the patient alive till the doctor arrives; and if they should do no good, they can hardly do harm.
The first great rule to be adopted is
send for the doctor at once
and give him all possible information about the case without delay. Use every possible means to keep the patient at a normal temperature. When artificial respiration is necessary, always get hold of the tongue and pull it well forward in order to keep the throat clear, then turn the patient over on his face and press the abdomen to force out the air, then turn him over on the back so that the lungs may fill again, repeating this again and again till the doctor arrives. The best stimulants are strong tea
or coffee; but when these are not sufficient, a tablespoon of brandy, whisky, or wine may be added.
Vegetable and mineral poisons, with few exceptions, act as efficiently in the blood as in the stomach. Animal poisons act only through the blood, and are inert when introduced into the stomach. Therefore there is absolutely no danger in sucking the virus from a snake bite, except that the virus should not be allowed to touch any spot where the skin is broken.
MY FIRST INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF cryptography occurred about twenty years ago when, not having enough money to wire home for my return fare, I was stranded with a small touring company in Chetopa, Kansas. I wished to leave that beautiful city as fast as the inventions of mankind would permit me. But alas! I lacked sufficient money with which to buy a postage stamp, let alone railroad fare, so I went to the telegraph office to send a message “collect at the other end.” After a long conversation with one of the clerks or operators, he accepted my wire, and I sat down to wait for an answer from “Home, Sweet, Home.”
While I was waiting, an old man walked into the office and handed in a message, paid for it, and left the office. No sooner was he gone than the operator called me to him and said, “Here, you magician, tell me what this means.
I shall never forget the message; it was of such a nature that it is almost impossible to forget it. The operator looked at me with a smile and said that he would send the message and then allow me to study it while I waited for my answer.
I was in that office at least five hours, and to that wait
I am indebted for my ability today to read almost any cipher or secret writing that is handed to me. I have made quite a study of this art, and often it has been the means of giving me a friendly warning or clever hint to look out for myself.
The message that I studied in that grim telegraph station was written as follows:
“XNTQLZCXHM FOKDZRDQDS TQMZRJGDQ SNEN QFHUDE ZSGDQ.”
I managed, after some worry, to solve the message, and very few things in after life gave me as much pleasure as did the unraveling of that code. I noticed that by putting one letter for another, I eventually spelled the entire message, which read as follows: “Your ma dying; please return; ask her to forgive. Father.”
The telegraph operator seemed to think that this was a great feat, and even while we talked about it the answer arrived:
“BZTFGSDWOQ DRRZQQHUDMNN MXNTQKHSSKD ZKHBD.”
Which reads: “Caught express; arrive noon. Your little Alice.” This is a very simple cipher, and all there is to it is to alter the alphabet, and instead of writing the letter required, simply write the letter in front of it. For instance, if writing the word “yes” according to your code, you will have to write “XDR.” Note: It is necessary to use “Z” for the letter “A.”
This was my debut as a cypher-ist. Since then I have picked up the newspapers and have never failed to read any and all cyphers printed in the personal columns. Sometimes, I have in a joking manner answered their cypher and signed myself “Roger Bacon,” as he was the first I know of to make use of this method of varying the alphabet.
A brief narrative of cryptography may not be out of place. The word cryptography is derived from the Greek. There seem to be two words used,
kryptos
and
graphein
, the first meaning “something that is concealed or hidden;” the second meaning, in plain English, “to write.” Both together naturally mean to be able to communicate with others in a secret manner which to the uninitiated means nothing, but to the initiated, has all kinds of meaning.
Our second sight artists were the first to utilize the code or cipher for exhibitions. They had secret signs, movements, and questions in which they conveyed their answers or information to the medium. Horse, dog, and animal trainers train their troupes with signs that to the public are almost imperceptible. I know of several cases where the animal is so well trained that no man has ever been able to catch the trainer in their movements. Mazeppa, an American horse, while in England, was supposed to be a wonderful mathematician, and it was published that the horse was once known to have studied arithmetic. Maguire, the trainer, was formerly an expert accountant and had several peculiar signs for his horse that he could give either behind the animal or at the side. From what I can learn, a horse has wonderful eyesight; he can see in back of himself quite a distance.
I don't mean looking backward, but from the position of his eyes, he manages to see quite a good deal of what is going on behind him.
Der Kluge Hans, a horse trained in Germany by some very well-known gentlemen, fooled the learned professors a long time, and it was only through a certain Baumeister, who was a friend of Herr Dirâof the Circus in Berlin, that the horse was exposed. This man had the horse trained in such an ace manner that his method was never discovered. He must have had his groom in the secret, for the horse would answer all questions correctly, but I think the groom gave Der Kluge Hans the signals. It created the biggest sensation that has ever taken place in Germany in the animal world.
This is how the trick was exposed: Baumeister came to the exhibition and wanted the horse to tell him the time. Now as it was claimed that the horse could tell it himself, the owner would look to see if the horse was correct. But this time, the owner was not allowed to look at the watch, nor was any one else, and Der Kluge Hans stood there Der Dumme Hans. This led to an argument, and Baumeister was asked in a manner more forcible than elegant, to vacate the building, which he did. The incident proved the Waterloo of the horse as well as the owner.
Dogs are trained to obey at the snapping of the fingernails one against the other, and I have an old bill where a goose and pig play a game of cards together, and the goose always beats the pig.
SCYTALA LACONIAS
But I wander from my subject. Roger Bacon thought so much of cryptography that he classed it under the name of cyphers as a part of grammar. The Lacedemonians, according to Plutarch, had a method in which a round stick is made use of. John Baptiste Porta (1658) also described this method, so I will show the reader just what there is in it. This method is sometimes attributed to Archimedes but as to that, I am in no position to argue one way or the other. For this system, you must obtain two round sticks, one being in your possession and the other in the possession of the person to whom you wish to send your message. A long and narrow strip of paper, say ticker tape, must be wrapped or rolled spirally across your stick or cylinder. Now write your message right across the strips. When unrolled, the slips of paper seem to signify nothing. These wooden sticks are known as Scytala Laconias.