The Bottle Conjuror empties the Haymarket

JAN 16 1749

An advertisement in the London papers promised that at the New Theatre in the Haymarket a performer would play every instrument known to man upon a borrowed walking cane and then squeeze his entire body into a common wine bottle in full view of the audience. A full house paid to attend on 16 January 1749; no conjuror appeared, and the audience rioted and gutted the theatre's interior. The hoax is traditionally traced to a wager about human gullibility involving the Duke of Portland and the Earl of Chesterfield, though the perpetrator was never positively identified.