FIRE-EATING ART

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 June 1936, Page 10

FIRE-EATING ART

NAVY AND CONJUROR. That the Battle of Jutland would have been more conclusive had the a: sis'tance of Mr Maskelyne the conjuror been invoked is the suggestion made in “White Magic,” by Jasper IV. r.skelyne, published recently.

.After the battle Mr Nevil Mas- • k lyne received a communication from the Admiralty marked “Highly Confidential.” . v ; “This letter explained how it had b . come necessary for certain reasons c nnected with His Majesty’s Navy, to make investigations into methods n d to protect tile skin against fire, aril father was asked to call at the Admiralty at a given date and time.” He was told “that at the Battle of Jutland numbers of British gunners lu d. been- badly burned by the flashbuck from the big naval guns.” It a; geared that the gun-crews had a 15-minute- spell of duty and then about Che same period of rest. “But it was discovered at Jutland } that the gun teams were so badly burned that they could not carry on after their spell of rest. “So it happened that, with the German fleet more or less at our mercy, v. <• were unable to achieve the comI iete victory which should have rewarded Earl Jellicoe’s tactics.” Mr Maskelyne was asked to reveal the secret by which his magicians appeared to eat lire and lick red-hot p< kers. The formula he divulged ws thoroughly tested by Admiralty chemists, and the resultant preparation served out to the naval gunners, wiio found that they “could fire the great guns incredibly quickly, undamaged either by the flames from the breech or the almost red hot metal itself.”