"One of the Female Samson's best feats was done in company with the
Dwarf and the Giant. She had a horizontal bar fixed on the stage, about
ten feet above the floor. On this bar she used to swing head downwards,
just hooking her knees around it, as all the trapeze artists do. It
looks sort of uncomfortable, but it is nothing when you are used to it.
I had a trapeze chap once who would often go to sleep that way in hot
weather. He said that all the blood in his body went into his head, and
that made him feel sleepy, while it cooled off his body and legs.
There's no accounting for tastes, but as for me, give me a good bed
where I can stretch out, and I'll never ask to sleep on a trapeze bar.

"As I was saying, the Female Samson would swing on this bar, and then
she would take the Dwarf's belt in her teeth and hold him in that way
for five minutes. There was a swivel in the belt, so that the Dwarf
would spin round while she was holding him, which he didn't like much,
but which pleased the public. After she had swung the Dwarf she would do
the same act with the Giant. She had to be very careful not to drop the
Giant, for he was terribly afraid of breaking a leg, being, as I have
said, particularly brittle; but she always said that he was as safe in
her teeth as he would be if he was lying in his bed.

"It must have been about a fortnight after the Dwarf was sat on by the
Fat Woman, and a week or more after he had been corrected in public by
the Female Samson, that we had an unusually large evening audience, and
everybody was in excellent spirits. The Female Samson had swung the
Dwarf in her teeth, and after she had let go of him he had climbed up on
a chair just behind her, and stood with his arms stretched out over her
and the Giant as if he was saying 'Bless you, my children,' which was a
regular part of the act, and never failed to bring him a round of