IVORY GETTING SCARCE.--The stock of ivory in London is estimated at about forty tons in dealers' private warehouses, whereas formerly they usually held about one hundred tons. One fourth of all imported into England goes to the Sheffield cutlers. No really satisfactory substitute for ivory has been found, and millions await the discoverer of one. The existing substitutes will not take the needed polish.
THE ANAESTHETICS OF JUGGLERS.
Fakirs are religious mendicants who, for the purpose of exciting the charity of the public, assume positions in which it would seem impossible that they could remain, submit themselves to fearful tortures, or else, by their mode of living, their abstinence, and their indifference to inclement weather and to external things, try to make believe that, owing to their sanctity, they are of a species superior to that of common mortals.
In the Indies, these fakirs visit all the great markets, all religious fetes, and usually all kinds of assemblages, in order to exhibit, themselves. If one of them exhibits some new peculiarity, some curious deformity, a strange posture, or, finally, any physiological curiosity whatever that surpasses those of his confreres, he becomes the attraction of the fete, and the crowd surrounds him, and small coin and rupees begin to fall into his bowl.
Fakirs, like all persons who voluntarily torture themselves, are curious examples of the modifications that will, patience, and, so to speak, "art" can introduce into human nature, and into the sensitiveness and functions of the organs. If these latter are capable of being improved, of having their functions developed and of acquiring more strength (as, for example, the muscles of boxers, the breast of foot racers, the voice of singers, etc.), these same organs, on the contrary, can be atrophied or modified, and their functions be changed in nature. It is in such degradation and such degeneration of human nature that fakirs excel, and it is from such a point of view that they are worth studying.
We may, so to speak, class these individuals according to the grades of punishments that they inflict upon themselves, or according to the deformities that they have caused themselves to undergo. But, as we have already said, the number of both of these is extremely varied, each fakir striving in this respect to eclipse his fellows. It is only necessary to open a book of Indian travel to find descriptions of fakirs in abundance; and such descriptions might seem exaggerated or unlikely were they not so concordant. The following are a few examples:
Immovable fakirs.--The number of these is large. They remain immovable in the spot they have selected, and that too for an exceedingly long period of time. An example of one of these is cited who remained standing for twelve years, his arms crossed upon his breast, without moving and without lying or sitting down. In such cases charitable persons always take it upon themselves to prevent the fakir from dying of starvation. Some remain sitting, immovable, and apparently lifeless, while others, who lie stretched out upon the ground, look like corpses. It may be easily imagined what a state one of these beings is in after a few months or years of immobility. He is extremely lean, his limbs are atrophied, his body is black with filth and dust, his hair is long and dishevelled, his beard is shaggy, his finger and toe nails have become genuine claws, and his aspect is frightful. This, however, is a character common to all fakirs.