S NAKES in a den, like bees in a hive, and she eats ’em alive. That’s what she does, ladies and gentlemen. She bites the head off, eats the body, and throws the tail away. And it costs you but ten cents, one dime, the tenth part of a dollar, to see Bosko.”
It was just outside the main side-show connected with Poole Brothers’ Royal Roman Hippodrome and Three Ring Circus, and the big tent had not yet opened for the afternoon’s performance.
Stetson, manager of the freaks and chief announcer for all the special shows, had just succeeded, by beating on a large iron triangle, in attracting a majority of the people standing about the grounds. Behind him on a raised platform was a huge box-like pen which rose to about the height of a man’s shoulder.
Gaudy placards and pictures adorning the upper part of this platform stated that within[92] could be seen Bosko—the Strangest Freak Ever Born to Live—a human snake-eater. One of the pictures represented a creature clothed principally in long black hair and a ferocious expression squatting at the entrance of a large cave. In one hand, or paw, was a decapitated giant rattlesnake which she was in the act of devouring.
“Esau, that’s her first name; Bosko, that’s her last name; and she eats live snakes,—rattlesnakes, copperheads, yellow backs, and Gila monsters. That’s what she eats, that’s what she lives on,” shouted the manager.
The country people, anxious as ever to throw away the money so hardly wrung from their stubborn hill farms, crowded each other in their eagerness to be first on the platform. The box-like pen was about ten feet long by four feet wide, and soon between thirty and forty people had crowded about the rail, and were peering open-mouthed over the edge.
On the bottom of the pen was crouched a dark-skinned Something lazily rolling its head from side to side. This Something wore a brown canvas skirt which came to the knees, and a sort of loose coat or jacket over the shoulder. On her head, and hanging down over her eyes, was a long, black mane of hair, which but few of the yokels about recognized as a wig.
But crawling over this swarthy, thick-lipped creature were the things which caused the exclamations[93] on the part of the bystanders. Over the body of Bosko, under, beside and behind her, twined and wriggled dozen upon dozen of twisting, writhing snakes. They coiled and uncoiled over her black legs, running out their little forked tongues spitefully. The sun beat down fiercely overhead, and swarms of flies settled down on every part of the evil smelling pen.
Stetson made way for himself at one end of the rail, and began a more detailed description. “Before you, ladies and gentlemen, you see, as I just told you, the strangest freak ever born to live, Bosko, Esau Bosko, the human snake eater. The medical fraternity declare that she is part snake, part woman. Part snake because she has to kill her own food before she eats it. When first captured in Australia, Bosko was living in a cave like you see in the pictures outside, subsisting entirely on the most poisonous kinds of snakes. It is about the time she usually feeds, and if you watch carefully you may see how this strangest of all freaks obtains its food.”
As if taking its cue from the manager’s last remark, the Thing in the pen ceased rolling its head, and began running about on all fours, making low guttural noises in its throat, and feeling first one then another of the reptiles.
Suddenly it seized a small rattler, and taking it firmly in both hands just below the head gave a quick twisting movement. There was a sound of rending flesh and the head was flung to the[94] floor. Then taking the remaining stump, Bosko drew back the skin as if peeling a banana, and buried her teeth in the still quivering flesh.
Most of the spectators turned away at this point and left the platform. Several looked rather white and seemed not to feel particularly well. Others, however, of a stronger constitution, or of lesser sensibilities, stayed on, anxious to see if the show was a “fake,” and if the mouthful would be spit out.
Meanwhile Stetson at the foot of the platform, was shouting, “Go where they all go, see what they all see. Bosko, the human snake eater, that’s what they’re all looking at. That’s what they’re all interested in. Yellow backed rattlers, that’s what Bosko is eating to-day.”
There was something so disgusting about the show, and since each man who saw the freak advised his neighbors not to do likewise, those same neighbors, being human, immediately purchased tickets, and the railing about the pen of Bosko was lined with wide-eyed, fascinated spectators till the show in the main tent was over for the afternoon.
Then Murphy, one of the attendants, came to the pen and threw a cover over the top. Almost instantly a small trap door in the bottom of the box opened, and Bosko disappeared from the den of snakes. Twenty minutes later a short, thickset negro of a remarkably unpleasant cast of features was walking unsteadily[95] about the grounds consuming cigarettes without number.
It cost the manager of the Royal Roman Hippodrome one dollar and seventy cents a day in money, a few inexpensive snakes, and an unlimited amount of cheap whiskey to present to the gullible public Bosko, the “Strangest Freak Ever Born to Live.”
It had been put on by Poole Brothers as an experiment three months before, when the show split up at Boston. The best part of the side show, including Bobo, the Wild Man from Borneo, Herman the Ossified Boy, and the Sacred White Elephant, had followed the best part of the circus and gone through Rhode Island and Connecticut, while the remainder was sent up through Northern New England.
The side show was thus left a little short of first-class freaks. So Stetson, with his customary ingenuity, had arranged for an entirely new sensation,—Bosko, a human snake-eater,—and the attraction, which was only an experiment at first, was now one of the best drawing cards.
Like all other good things in this world, however, it had its disadvantages. Bosko had to be watched constantly. Twice he had smuggled the little black bottle which was his constant companion, when not before the public, into the pen with him. Fortunately, no one had seen him taking surreptitious pulls at it either ti............