“For when a man beats out his brains, The devil’s in it if he feigns.”
In 1749, three-and-twenty years after the exposure of Mary Tofts, there appeared, about the middle of January, the ensuing advertisement, which seems to have been intended to try how far the credulous folly of the town might be worked upon.
“At the new theatre in the Haymarket, on Monday next, the 16th instant, is to be seen a person who performs the several most surprising things following: viz. first, he takes a common walking-cane from any of the spectators, and thereon plays the music of every instrument now in use, and likewise sings to surprising perfection. Secondly, he presents you with a common wine-bottle, which any one present may first examine; this bottle is placed on a table, in the middle of the stage, and he (without any equivocation) goes into it, in the sight of all the spectators, and sings in it; during his stay in the bottle, any person may handle it, and see plainly that it does not exceed a common tavern bottle. Those on the stage or in the boxes may come in masked habits (if agreeable to them), and the performer (if desired) will inform them who they are.” The display of these wonders was to occupy two hours and a half. The advertisement also promised that the conjuror, after the performance, would show to any gentlemen or ladies, for, as Trapbois phrases it, a proper “con-si-de-ra-tion,” the likeness of any deceased friend or relative, with which they might also converse; would tell their most secret thoughts; and would give them a full view of persons, whether dead or alive, who had injured them.
At the same time with the above advertisement, there came forth another, which may have either been intended to put the public on their guard by its out-heroding Herod, or to make their credulity, if possible, still more glaring, in case they should accept the invitation of the Bottle Conjuror. It purported to be issued by Signor Capitello Jumpedo, lately arrived from Italy, “a surprising dwarf, no taller than a tobacco-pipe,” who could perform many wonderful equilibres on the tight and slack rope, transform his body into above ten thousand different shapes and postures, and who, after having diverted the spectators two hours and a half, would “open his mouth wide, and jump down his own throat.” This most “wonderfullest wonder of all wonders as ever the world wondered at,” expressed his willingness to join in performance with the Bottle Conjuror Musician.