Odd this day

16 January 1749

Praise be! It is the 275th anniversary of the ‘appearance’ of the Bottle Conjuror at London’s Haymarket. He promised to insert himself into a quart (two pint) bottle, and didn’t turn up, causing a riot in which the theatre’s fixtures and fittings were torn out and thrown on a bonfire.

An advert had appeared in various London newspapers at the beginning of the month, promising this entirely real and perfectly possible display:

It came with an addendum:

Those images show the wording of the advert as reproduced in William S. Walsh’s Handy-book of Literary Curiosities of 1909, which also tells us that

The public rose to the bait like a huge gudgeon.

(Gudgeon, while in fact small, are considered relatively easy to catch.)

Anyway, apparently,

For days all London was talking of the man who was going to jump into a quart bottle. On the appointed night the theatre was crowded to suffocation.

One of the audience was the Duke of Cumberland, aka George III’s brother.

They took their seats, or in many cases stood, at the appointed hour to look at a stage which contained an empty bottle on a table. They waited, with no music to entertain them, and the house lights down, for half an hour. Still nothing.

The lights went up, and the booing and hissing began. Finally, a lone man appeared on the stage and begged their forgiveness. He was not the Bottle Conjuror, he said, but he assured them that if the promised entertainer did not appear, they would get their money back. Unfortunately, by this time, the crowd was really very cross indeed.

According to one account, someone, possibly the Duke of Cumberland, threw a lit candle onto the stage, and it was this which precipitated the misrule which followed. One book even claims he

rose from his box as furious as the rest of the crowd and, with his sword drawn, directed the infuriated mob to destroy everything within reach.

Either way, they did. They tore out seats, pulled down curtains, yanked out woodwork, took it to the front of the theatre and set fire to it. Troops were called, but by the time they’d got there, the rioters had sensibly legged it.

According to William S Walsh, at least one news outlet had an explanation.

It was asserted by one paper that the conjurer had been ready and willing to appear on the fatal night, but just prior to the performance a gentleman begged him for a private view. The conjurer consented to crawl into a bottle for five pounds. The moment he had done so the gentleman played on the unhappy conjurer the same trick which the fisherman in the “Arabian Nights” found so efficacious with the genie. He quietly corked up the bottle, whipped it in his pocket, and made off.

Thus the poor man being bit himself, in being confined in the Bottle and in a Gentleman’s Pocket, could not be in another Place; for he never advertised he would go into two Bottles at one and the same time. He is still in the Gentleman’s custody, who uncorks him now and then to feed him; but his long confinement has so damped his Spirits that instead of singing and dancing he is perpetually crying and cursing his ill Fate. But though the Town have been disappointed of seeing him go into the Bottle, in a few days they will have the pleasure of seeing him come out of the Bottle; of which timely notice will be given in the daily Papers.

This was obviously not a particularly good or convincing explanation, but it would have to do, because — according to the Public Domain Review — the truth didn’t emerge until 23 years later, by which time, presumably, the real perpetrators were no longer in danger of anyone’s ire. It was the work of the Duke of Montagu and the Earl of Chesterfield. Unless it was the Duke of Portland (and Chesterfield).

A Modest Apology for the Man in the Bottle (1749)

Apparently, the Duke won his bet, and — according to the Fife Herald of 28 January 1862:

for many years afterwards ‘the bottle conjurer’ was a standing joke on English gullibility.

There’s more in the link above or:

The Bottle Conjuror or Bottle Conjurer of 1749 - geriwalton.com

The Great Bottle Conjuror Hoax of 1749

Basically, especially if we also consider Exhibit B: the Berners Street Hoax:

Odd this day

…men with too much money and time on their hands in the 18th century could be dicks.

Yes, indeed, one might very well argue that not much has changed.