Magic, Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, Including Trick Photography
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Title: Magic, Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, Including Trick Photography
Author: Albert A. Hopkins
Author of introduction, etc.: Henry Ridgely Evans
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[Illustration: THE SKIRT DANCE.]
MAGIC
STAGE ILLUSIONS AND SCIENTIFIC DIVERSIONS
INCLUDING TRICK PHOTOGRAPHY
COMPILED AND EDITED BY
ALBERT A. HOPKINS
EDITOR OF THE “SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN CYCLOPEDIA OF RECEIPTS, NOTES AND
QUERIES,” ETC.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
HENRY RIDGELY EVANS
AUTHOR OF “HOURS WITH THE GHOSTS; OR, XIX. CENTURY WITCHCRAFT,” ETC.
_WITH FOUR HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS_
LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON AND COMPANY
_LIMITED_
St. Dunstan’s House,
FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1897
COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY
MUNN & CO.
NEW YORK
ENTERED AT STATIONERS’ HALL, LONDON, ENGLAND
_All rights reserved_
The articles used from the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN and the SCIENTIFIC
AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT
are copyrighted
Printed in the U. S. A. by
J. J. Little & Co., New York City
PREFACE.
It is believed that the present work occupies a unique field in the
extensive literature of magic. There are already a large number of
treatises on natural magic and legerdemain, but in most of them very
little attention has been given to the _exposé_ of stage illusions,
which are of great interest as they are so largely based on ingenious
applications of scientific principles. Optics, mechanics, sound, and
electricity have all been pressed into service by the _fin de siècle_
prestidigitateur. In the present work great attention has been paid to
elaborate tricks of this nature, and in many cases the _exposés_ have
been obtained from the prestidigitateurs themselves. In the first few
chapters many of the best illusions of Robert-Houdin, Dr. Lynn,
Professor Pepper, Bautier de Kolta, Heller, Herrmann, Maskelyne and
Cooke, and Kellar will be found clearly explained.
Conjuring tricks have been by no means neglected, but the number of them
which are given has been limited, owing to the fact that many of the
books on magic have gone into this subject quite extensively.
Ventriloquism, shadowgraphy, mental magic, etc., will also be found
treated in the present work.
The chapters relating to “Ancient Magic” take up the temple tricks of
the ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman thaumaturgists, as well as a
number of automata which are very interesting in view of their very
early epoch. It is believed this will be found a particularly
entertaining feature of the book.
There is always a great charm about the stage, and the methods of
producing the effects which give realism to the drama. The chapters
devoted to “Theatrical Science” will be found to contain a very large
number of effects and illusions, many of which are here presented for
the first time. Thus an entire opera, “Siegfried,” is taken up, and the
methods by which the wonderful effects are obtained are fully
illustrated and described. Such amusements as cycloramas, the nautical
arena, and fireworks with dramatic accessories are not neglected.
The chapters on “Automata” and “Curious Toys” describe many interesting
tricks and mechanisms of an amusing nature.
The last few chapters of the book deal with “Photographic Diversions,”
and here will be found some of the most curious and interesting tricks
and deceptions which may be performed by the aid of photography. The
practical side of scientific photography will also be found represented.
The chapter on “Chronophotography” describes the photography of moving
objects of all kinds, and shows how the results obtained are of value to
the savant. The projection of moving pictures upon a screen is
thoroughly treated, a number of different forms of the apparatus being
described.
The introduction is a unique feature of the work, being written by Mr.
Henry Ridgely Evans, of Washington, D. C., author of “Hours with the
Ghosts; or, Nineteenth Century Witchcraft.” It contains a brief but
remarkably complete history of magic art from the earliest times to the
present date, especial attention being given to amusing incidents in the
careers of celebrated necromancers. This Introduction will be found one
of the most entertaining parts of the present book. Mr. Evans has also
contributed two chapters--one on “Shadowgraphy,” or “Treweyism,” as it
has been called, in honor of M. Félician Trewey, the classic exponent of
the art; the other on “Mental Magic,” or second-sight experiments. The
chapter on “Shadowgraphy” is not only interesting because of the
_exposé_ of the art of theatrical silhouette-making, but on account of
the sketch of the life and adventures of M. Trewey, who is a personal
friend of the writer. Mr. Evans is also the compiler of the excellent
Bibliography which concludes the book. Though this Bibliography makes no
pretense to absolute completeness, it is believed to be more extensive
than any other bibliography of the subject, and it will be found of
great value to the student of psychology, as well as to the student of
modern magic. Other acknowledgments are due to Mr. William E. Robinson,
the well-known prestidigitateur, for many suggestions and favors and for
important help in connection with the Bibliography; Mr. Robinson having
a very remarkable collection of books upon magic, which he has gathered
at home and abroad during a long period. We are also indebted to Mr. H.
J. Burlingame, of Chicago, for permission to use extracts from his
writings and for assistance in the Bibliography.
The matter for the present work is very largely compiled from articles
which have appeared in the “Scientific American” and the “Scientific
American Supplement,” with the addition of much material hitherto
unpublished. Especial acknowledgments are due to our French and German
contemporaries, particularly “_La Nature_.” The section on “Ancient
Magic” is taken almost wholly from the articles of Colonel A. de Rochas
in “_La Nature_.” These articles were afterwards amplified by him and
published in a most interesting book entitled “_Les Origines de la
Science_.” It is hoped that the present work will prove entertaining to
those who are fond of the _art magique_.
NEW YORK, _September, 1897_.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
_THE MYSTERIES OF MODERN MAGIC._
PAGE
Ancient Magic--Division of Magic--Cagliostro--Robertson--Comte de
Grisi--Robert-Houdin--Carl Herrmann--Signor Blitz--Robert Heller
--Alexander Herrmann--Bautier de Kolta--Harry Kellar, 1
BOOK I.
_CONJURERS’ TRICKS AND STAGE ILLUSIONS._
CHAPTER I.
MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES.
“Vanity Fair”--“After the Flood”--“The Magic Palanquin”--
“Cassadaga Propaganda”--“The Appearing Lady”--“The Disappearing
Lady”--“The Mysterious Trunk”--“The Indian Basket Trick”--
“Decapitation”--“Spiritualistic Ties,” 27
CHAPTER II.
OPTICAL TRICKS.
The “Cabaret du Neant”--The Three-Headed Woman--“Amphitrite”--
“The Mystery of Dr. Lynn”--“Black Art”--The Talking Head--The
Living Half-Woman--“She”--“The Queen of Flowers”--The
“Decapitated Princess”--“Stella”--Houdin’s Magic Cabinet--A
Mystic Maze--Platinized Glass--Statue giving a Double Image, 55
CHAPTER III.
MISCELLANEOUS STAGE TRICKS.
“Trilby”--The “Haunted Swing”--The “Scurimobile”--The
Neoöccultism--“The Mask of Balsamo”--The Invisible Woman--Magic
Harps, 89
CHAPTER IV.
CONJURING TRICKS.
Trick with an Egg and a Handkerchief--The Cone of Flowers--The
Magic Rosebush--“Magic Flowers”--The “Birth of Flowers”--Tricks
with a Hat--A Cake Baked in a Hat--The Egg and Hat Trick--
Multiplication of Coins--Magic Coins--The Dissolving Coin--The
Spirit Slates--Second Sight--Magic Cabinets--The Traveling Bottle
and Glass--Disappearance of an Apple and a Ninepin--A Goblet of
Ink Converted into an Aquarium--The Invisible Journey of a Glass
of Wine--The Wine Changed to Water--The Animated Mouse--The Sand
Frame Trick--Houdin’s Magic Ball, 105
CHAPTER V.
JUGGLERS AND ACROBATIC PERFORMANCES.
Jugglers--The Leamy Revolving Trapeze--Walking on the Ceiling
Head Down--The Mysterious Ball, 139
CHAPTER VI.
FIRE EATERS AND SWORD TRICKS.
Fire Eaters, Tricks with Fire--A Stab through the Abdomen--The
Human Target--Sword Swallowers--Sword Walker--Dancers on Glass, 149
CHAPTER VII.
VENTRILOQUISM AND ANIMATED PUPPETS, 164
CHAPTER VIII.
SHADOWGRAPHY.
Shadowgraphy--French Shadows, 173
CHAPTER IX.
MENTAL MAGIC.
Robert Heller--Second Sight--The Baldwins and Second Sight--
Silent Thought Transference, 184
BOOK II.
_ANCIENT MAGIC._
CHAPTER I.
TEMPLE TRICKS OF THE GREEKS.
Puppet Shows among the Greeks--The Shrine of Bacchus--The First
Automobile Vehicle--The Statue of Cybele--Marvelous Altars--The
Machinery of the Temples--Sounding of Trumpets when a Door was
Opened--Opening and Closing Doors when a Fire was Lighted on the
Altar--Invention in 1889 A.D. vs. Invention B.C.--An Egyptian
Lustral Water Vessel, 203
CHAPTER II.
MIRACULOUS VESSELS OF THE GREEKS.
The Dicaiometer--Miraculous Vessels--Magical Pitchers--Apparatus
for Permitting the Mixing of Wine and Water in Definite
Proportions--The Magical Bottle--Ancient Organs, 221
CHAPTER III.
THE ORIGIN OF THE STEAM ENGINE.
The Eolipile of Heron--Heron’s Marvelous Altar--Heron’s Tubular
Boiler, 234
CHAPTER IV.
GREEK LAMPS, TOYS, ETC.
Perpetual Lamps--An Ancient Automaton--A Greek Toy--The
Decapitated Drinking Horse--Odometers, 239
BOOK III.
_SCIENCE IN THE THEATER._
CHAPTER I.
Behind the Scenes of an Opera House--The Ordinary Stage--The
English Stage--The Stage Floor--The Cellars--The Flies--The
Gridiron--Traps-Sliders--Bridges--The Metropolitan Opera House
Stage--Wing Posts--Curtain Calls--The Electric Lighting--Paint
Bridge--The Property Man--Striking a Scene--The Dressing-Rooms--
The Production of a New Opera, 251
CHAPTER II.
SOME REMARKABLE STAGES, ANCIENT AND MODERN.
An Electric Curtain--The Fan-Drop Curtain--An Elevator Theater
Stage--Some Remarkable American Stage Inventions--A Revolving
Stage--The “Asphaleia” Stage--A Theater with Two Auditoriums--
Curio’s Pivoted Theater--The Olympian Theater of Palladio at
Vicenza, 268
CHAPTER III.
STAGE EFFECTS.
Scene Painting--Sunrise Effect--Sun Effect--Change from Day to
Night--Stars--Moon Effects--Rainbow Effect--Wind Effect--Thunder
Effect--Lightning--Snow Effect--Wave Effect--Crash Effect--Rain
Effect--Gradual Transformation--Fire and Smoke Effect--Battle
Scenes--Theatrical Firearms--The Imitation of Odors, 293
CHAPTER IV.
THEATER SECRETS.
Traps--The Swan in “Lohengrin”--The Floating Rhine Daughters in
“Rheingold”--The “Sun Robe”--The Ship on the Stage--Miscellaneous
Stage Effects--The Destruction of the Temple of Dagon--The Horse
Race on the Stage--The Effects in “Siegfried”--Siegfried’s Forge
--Siegfried’s Anvil--The Dragon Fafner--Wotan’s Spear--The Bed of
Tulips and the Electric Firefly--The Electric Torch and Electric
Jewels--An Electrical Duel--The Skirt Dance, 311
CHAPTER V.
THE NAUTICAL ARENA, 345
CHAPTER VI.
A TRIP TO THE MOON, 348
CHAPTER VII.
CYCLORAMAS.
The Electric Cyclorama--The Painted Cyclorama, 354
CHAPTER VIII.
FIREWORKS WITH DRAMATIC ACCESSORIES, 362
BOOK IV.
_AUTOMATA AND CURIOUS TOYS._
CHAPTER I.
AUTOMATA.
Automaton Chess Players--The Automaton Chess Player--A Curious
Automaton--The Toy Artist--A Steam Man, 367
CHAPTER II.
CURIOUS TOYS.
An Optical Illusion--The Money Maker--Experiments in Centrifugal
Force and Gravity--The Magic Rose--Electrical Toys--The Electric
Race Course--Magnetic Oracle--The Dancers--An Ancient Counterpart
of a Modern Toy--Unbalanced Toy Acrobats--Columbus’s Egg--Jacob’s
Ladder--The Mikado--A Toy Cart--The Phonographic Doll, 380
CHAPTER III.
MISCELLANEOUS TRICKS OF AN AMUSING NATURE.
Interesting Tricks in Elasticity--Novel Puzzle--Simple Match
Trick--Crystallized Ornaments--Magical Apparition on White Paper
--Magic Portraits--A Trick Opera Glass--A Toy Bird that Flies--
The Planchette Table--Japanese Magic Mirrors--Magic Mirrors, 406
BOOK V.
_PHOTOGRAPHIC DIVERSIONS._
CHAPTER I.
TRICK PHOTOGRAPHY.
Lavater’s Apparatus for Taking Silhouettes--Photography upon a
Black Ground--Spirit Photography--Artificial Mirage--Duplex
Photography--Illusive Photography--Photographing a Catastrophe--
New Type of Photographic Portrait--Photographing a Human Head
upon a Table--Photographing a Head on a Platter--A Multiple
Portrait--Multiphotography--Pinhole Camera--A Photographic
Necktie--Magic Photographs--Electro-Photo Detective Thief Catcher
--Composite Photography, 423
CHAPTER II.
CHRONOPHOTOGRAPHY.
Chronophotography--The Registration and Analysis of the Movements
of Men, Animals, Birds, Fishes, Insects, etc.--Amateur
Chronophotographic Apparatus, 462
CHAPTER III.
THE PROJECTION OF MOVING PICTURES.
The Edison Kinetograph--Reynaud’s Optical Theater--Electric
Tachyscope--Apparatus for Projecting Moving Pictures by the
Demeny, Jenkins, Lumière, and Other Forms of Apparatus--The
Kinetoscope Stereopticon--The Mutoscope and the Mutograph, with
Illustrations of Moving Objects--“Cinematograph” Camera--Camera
for Ribbon Photography--The Micromotoscope, 488
APPENDIX.
_ADDITIONAL TRICKS._
The Magic Table--“Gone”--The Spider and the Fly--The Trunk Trick
--“La Strobeika Persane”--“Metempsychosis,” 519
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS ON NATURAL MAGIC, 539
INDEX, 553
MAGIC:
STAGE ILLUSIONS AND SCIENTIFIC DIVERSIONS,
INCLUDING TRICK PHOTOGRAPHY.
INTRODUCTION.
THE MYSTERIES OF MODERN MAGIC.
BY HENRY RIDGELY EVANS.
I.
Far back into the shadowy past, before the building of the pyramids,
magic was a reputed art in Egypt, for Egypt was the “cradle of magic.”
The magicians of Egypt, according to the Bible chronicle, contended
against Aaron, at the court of Pharaoh. The Hebrew prophet “cast down
his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent.
Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the
magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their
enchantments. For they cast down every man his rod and they became
serpents: but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.” [Exodus vii. 10, 11,
12.]
The late Robert Heller, prestidigitateur, traveler in the Orient, and
skeptic, once told me that he had seen this feat performed in Cairo many
times by the Dervishes. The rods actually were serpents and hypnotized
to such an extent as to become perfectly stiff and rigid. When thrown
upon the earth and recalled to life by sundry mystic passes and strokes,
they crawled away alive and hideous as ever. Said Heller: “It was in the
open air that I saw this strange feat performed. Transferred to the
gloomy audience chamber of some old palace, where the high roof is
supported by ponderous stone columns painted with hieroglyphics, where
rows of black marble sphinxes stare at you with unfathomable eyes, where
the _mise en scène_ is awe-inspiring--this trick of the rods turning
into serpents becomes doubly impressive, and indeed to the uninitiated a
miracle.”
In the British Museum is an Egyptian papyrus, which contains an account
of a magical séance given by a certain Tchatcha-em-ankh before King
Khufu, B.C. 3766. In this manuscript it is stated of the magician: “He
knoweth how to bind on a head which hath been cut off, he knoweth how to
make a lion follow him as if led by a rope, and he knoweth the number of
the stars of the house (constellation) of Thoth.” The decapitation
trick is thus no new thing, while the experiment performed with the
lion, undoubtedly a hypnotic feat, shows hypnotism to be old.
The art of natural magic, then, dates back to the remotest periods of
antiquity. It was an art cultivated by the Egyptian, Chaldean, Jewish,
Roman, and Grecian priesthoods, being used by them to dupe the ignorant
masses. Weeping and bleeding statues, temple doors that flew open with
thunderous sound and apparently by supernatural means, and perpetual
lamps that flamed forever in the tombs of holy men, were some of the
thaumaturgic feats of the Pagan priests. Heron, a Greek mechanician and
mathematician, who lived in the second century before Christ, wrote
several interesting treatises on automata and magical appliances, used
in the ancient temples. Colonel A. De Rochas, in an interesting work,
_Les Origines de la Science_, has given in detail Heron’s accounts of
these wonderful automata and experiments in natural magic. St.
Hippolytus, one of the Fathers of the early Christian Church, also
described and exposed in his works many of these wonders.
Magic is divided, according to old writers on the occult, into: _White
magic_, _Black magic_, and _Necromancy_. Modern magic, or conjuring, is
divided by Robert-Houdin into five classes, as follows:
1. FEATS OF DEXTERITY. The hands and tongue being the only means used
for the production of these illusions.
2. EXPERIMENTS IN NATURAL MAGIC. Expedients derived from the sciences,
and which are worked in combination with feats of dexterity, the
combined result constituting “conjuring tricks.”
3. MENTAL CONJURING. A control acquired over the will of the
spectator; secret thought read by an ingenious system of diagnosis,
and sometimes compelled to take a particular direction by certain
subtle artifices.
4. PRETENDED MESMERISM. Imitation of mesmeric phenomena, second-sight,
clairvoyance, divination, trance, catalepsy.
5. MEDIUMSHIP. Spiritualism or pretended evocation of spirits,
table-turning, rapping and writing, mysterious cabinets, etc.
In the Middle Ages magic was greatly in vogue and we read strange
stories of ghosts, goblins, and gnomes in the literature of that period.
Shriveled old women were burned at the stake for the crime of
witchcraft, monks in their gloomy cells wrestled with Satan and the
powers of darkness, and grimy alchemists toiled day and night over the
red fires of their furnaces, seeking in vain for the talismanic
philosopher’s stone and wondrous elixir of life. With the aid of the
concave mirror, magicians of the period were able to produce very fair
ghost illusions to gull a susceptible public. Benvenuto Cellini
chronicles one in his fascinating autobiography.
Cellini, as guileless as a child in matters of science, desiring to
study sorcery, applied to a Sicilian priest who was a professed dabbler
in the occult art. One dark night they repaired to the ruins of the
Coliseum, at Rome; the monk described a circle on the ground and placed
himself and the great goldsmith within its mystic outlines; a fire was
built, intoxicating perfumes cast on it, and soon an impenetrable smoke
arose. The man of the cowl then waved his wand in the air, pronounced
sundry cabalistic words, and legions of demons were seen dancing in the
air, to the great terror of Cellini. The story of this spirit séance
reads like an Arabian tale, but it is easily explainable. The priest had
a brother confederate concealed among the ruins, who manipulated a
concave mirror, by means of which painted images were thrown on the
smoke. Later on Nostradamus conjured up the vision of the future King of
France for the benefit of the lovely Marie dé Médicis. This illusion was
accomplished by the aid of mirrors adroitly secreted amid hanging
draperies.
II.
The history of magic would be incomplete without a sketch of Cagliostro,
the arch-necromancer of the eighteenth century, who filled all Europe
with his fame. Novels and plays have been founded on his strange career,
as witness Goethe’s “Grand Cophta” and Alexander Dumas’ “Memoirs of a
Physician.” Thomas Carlyle has remorselessly dissected the character of
Cagliostro in an immortal essay, “Count Cagliostro,” which makes
fascinating reading. Cagliostro like Nostradamus, and others of that
ilk, as the Scotch say, was a pretender to magic and sorcery. He
manufactured elixirs of life, raised the shades of the illustrious dead,
pretty much after the fashion of our modern spirit mediums; told
fortunes, predicted lucky numbers in the lottery, transmuted metals, and
founded occult lodges of Egyptian Masonry for the regeneration of
mankind. Joseph Balsamo--for such was the Count’s real name--was born of
poor parents at Palermo, Sicily, in the year 1743. He received the
rudiments of an education, and a smattering of chemistry, at a
neighboring monastery, and then started out to fleece mankind. He began
by forging theater tickets, after that a will; then he robbed a
goldsmith named Marano of a sum of money. Balsamo pretended that a
secret treasure lay buried in a certain rocky chasm just outside the
city of Palermo, and that he, for a consideration, was able to unearth
the gold by means of certain magical incantations. Poor Marano like a
susceptible gudgeon swallowed the bait, hook and all, paid the
contingent fee, and accompanied by the amateur sorcerer (it was
Balsamo’s first attempt in the necromantic line) paid a visit on a
certain dark night to the lonely spot where the treasure lay hid from
mortal gaze. Joseph drew a magic circle of phosphorus on the earth,
pronounced some spells in a peculiar gibberish known only to himself,
which he denominated Arabic, and bade the goldsmith dig away for dear
life. Marano went vigorously to work with pick and spade. Suddenly
terrific yells were heard, whereupon a legion of devils (Joseph’s boon
companions with cork-blackened visages) rushed from behind the rocks,
pounced upon the goldsmith, and nearly beat him to death with their
pitchforks. The enchanter, in order to escape the vengeance of the
furious Marano, was compelled to flee his native city. In company with a
Greek, Althotas, he visited various places--Greece, Egypt, Arabia,
Persia, Rhodes, Malta, Naples, Venice and Rome. According to his own
account, he studied alchemy at Malta in the laboratory of Pinto, Grand
Master of the Knights of Malta and St. John. At Rome he married a
beautiful girl, Lorenza Feliciani, daughter of a girdle maker, who
proved of great assistance to him in his impostures. They travelled over
Europe in a coach-and-four with a retinue of servants garbed in gorgeous
liveries. Balsamo changed his name to the high-sounding title of the
Comte de Cagliostro, and scattered money right and left. “At
Strasbourg,” says one of his biographers, “he reaped an abundant harvest
by professing the art of making old people young; in which pretension he
was seconded by his wife, Lorenza Feliciani, who, though only twenty
years of age, declared that she was sixty and that she had a son a
veteran in the Dutch service.” Cagliostro also pretended to be of a
great age, and solemnly declared that he had hobnobbed with Alexander
and Julius Cæsar; that he was present at the burning of Rome under Nero
and was an eye-witness of the crucifixion of Christ. Cardinal de Rohan,
of France, who became a firm believer in the pretensions of the
charlatan, entertained him in Paris, introducing him to that gay world
of the Old Régime which went out forever with the French Revolution.
This was in 1785. All Paris went wild over the enchanter, and thronged
to his magical soirées at his residence in the Rue St. Claude.
Cagliostro coined money in the French capital with his spurious Egyptian
Rite of Freemasonry, which promised to its votaries the length of life
of the Noachites, and superhuman power over nature and her laws. Imbert
Saint-Amand, the interesting author of “Marie Antoinette and the End of
the Old Régime,” says (Scribner Edition): “The mania for the
supernatural, the rage for the marvelous, prevailed in the last years of
the eighteenth century, which had wantonly derided every sacred thing.
Never were the Rosicrucians, the adepts, sorcerers, and prophets so
numerous and so respected. Serious and educated men, magistrates,
courtiers, declared themselves eye-witnesses of alleged miracles....
When Cagliostro came to France, he found the ground prepared for his
magical operations. A society eager for distractions and emotions,
indulged to every form of extravagance, necessarily welcomed such a man
and hailed him as its guide. Whence did he come? What was his country,
his age, his origin? Where did he get those extraordinary diamonds which
adorned his dress, the gold which he squandered so freely? It was all a
mystery.... So far as was known, Cagliostro had no resources, no letter
of credit, and yet he lived in luxury. He treated and cured the poor
without pay, and not satisfied with restoring them to health, he made
them large presents of money. His generosity to the poor, his scorn for
the great, aroused universal enthusiasm. The Germans, who lived on
legends, imagined that he was the Wandering Jew.... Speaking a strange
gibberish, which was neither French nor Italian, with which he mingled a
jargon which he did not translate, but called Arabic, he used to recite
with solemn emphasis the most absurd fables. When he repeated his
conversation with the angel of light and the angel of darkness, when he
spoke of the great secret of Memphis, of the Hierophant, of the giants,
the enormous animals, of a city in the interior of Africa ten times as
large as Paris, where his correspondents lived, he found a number of
people ready to listen and believe him.”
The interior of Africa was an excellent place in which to locate all
these marvels. Since no traveler in that age of skepticism and credulity
had ever penetrated into the mysterious land of Ham, it was impossible
to deny the Munchausen-like stories of the magician. All this bears a
close analogy to the late Madame Blavatsky and her Tibetan Mahatmas.
Cagliostro, like all successful and observant wizards, was keenly alive
to the effects of _mise en scène_ in his necromantic exhibitions; he was
a strong believer in the spectacular. To awe his dupes with weird and
impressive ceremonies, powerfully to stimulate their imaginations--ah,
that was the great desideratum! His séance-room was hung with somber
draperies, and illuminated with wax lights in massive silver
candlesticks which were arranged about the apartment in mystic triangles
and pentagons.
Says Saint-Amand: “As a sorcerer he had a cabalistic apparatus. On a
table with a black cloth, on which were embroidered in red the
mysterious signs of the highest degree of the Rosicrucians, there stood
the emblems: little Egyptian figures, old vials filled with lustral
waters, and a crucifix, very like, though not the same as the
Christian’s cross; and there too Cagliostro placed a glass globe full of
clarified water. Before the globe he used to place a kneeling seer; that
is to say, a young woman who, by supernatural powers, should behold the
scenes which were believed to take place in water within the magic
globe.
“Count Beugnot, who gives all the details in his Memoirs, adds that for
the proper performance of the miracle the seer had to be of angelic
purity, to have been born under a certain constellation, to have
delicate nerves, great sensitiveness, and, in addition, blue eyes. When
she knelt down, the geniuses were bidden to enter the globe. The water
became active and turbid. The seer was convulsed, she ground her teeth,
and exhibited every sign of nervous excitement. At last she saw and
began to speak. What was taking place that very moment at hundreds of
miles from Paris, in Vienna or Saint Petersburg, in America or Pekin, as
well as things which were going to occur only some weeks, months, or
years later, she declared that she saw distinctly in the globe. The
operation had succeeded; the adepts were transported with delight.”
Cagliostro became involved in the affair of the Diamond Necklace, and
was thrown into the Bastille. Though eventually liberated, he was
compelled to leave Paris. He made one remarkable prediction: That the
Bastille would one day be razed to the ground. How well that prophecy
was realized, history relates. In the year 1789 the enchanter was in
Rome, at the inn of the Golden Sun. He endeavored to found one of his
Egyptian Lodges in the Eternal City, but the Holy Inquisition pounced
down upon him, adjudged him guilty of the crime of Freemasonry--a
particularly heinous offense in Papal Territory--and condemned him to
death. The sentence, however, was commuted by the Pope to perpetual
imprisonment in the gloomy fortress of San Leon, Urbino. The manner of
his death, nay the day of his death, is uncertain, but it is supposed to
have taken place one August morning in the year 1790. The beautiful
Lorenza Feliciani, called by her admirers the “Flower of Vesuvius,”
ended her days in a convent, sincerely repentant, it is said, of her
life of impostures.
III.
With Cagliostro, so-called genuine magic died. Of the great pretenders
to occultism he was the last to win any great fame, although there has
been a feeble attempt to revive thaumaturgy in this nineteenth century
by Madame Blavatsky. Science has laughed away sorcery, witchcraft, and
necromancy. Prior to Cagliostro’s time a set of men arose calling
themselves _faiseurs_, who practiced the art of sleight-of-hand, allied
to natural magic. They gave very amusing and interesting exhibitions.
Very few of these conjurers laid claim to occult powers, but ascribed
their _jeux_, or tricks, to manual dexterity, mechanical and scientific
effects. These magicians soon became popular.
Towards the middle of the eighteenth century we hear of Jonas,
Androletti, Carlotti, Pinetti, Katerfelto, Philadelphus Philadelphia,
Rollin, Comus I. and II. Pinetti, when he arrived in London in 1784,
displayed the following advertisement: “The Chevalier Pinetti with his
Consort will exhibit most wonderful, stupendous, and absolutely
inimitable, mechanical, physical, and philosophical pieces, which his
recent deep scrutiny in those sciences, and assiduous exertions, have
enabled him to invent and construct; among which Chevalier Pinetti will
have the special honor and satisfaction of exhibiting various
experiments of new discovery, no less curious than seemingly incredible,
particularly that of Madame Pinetti being seated in one of the front
boxes, with a handkerchief over her eyes, and guessing at everything
imagined and proposed to her by any person in the company.” Here we have
the first mention of the second-sight trick, which in the hands of
latter-day artists has become so popular. Houdin rediscovered it, passed
it on to Robert Heller who improved it, and at the present time the
conjurer Kellar makes it his _pièce de résistance_. Rollin had a
romantic career. He accumulated a fortune at conjuring, and purchased
the chateau of Fontenay-aux-Roses, in the department of the Seine. Says
H. J. Burlingame, an interesting writer on magic: “Rollin incurred the
suspicions of the Committee of Public Safety in 1793, and suffered death
by the guillotine. On the warrant for his execution being read to him,
he turned to those about him, and observed, ‘This is the first paper I
cannot conjure away.’ Rollin was the grandfather of the late political
celebrity of that name, who was minister of the interior in the
provisional government of France of 1848.”
Comus II., who played in London in the year 1793, gave a curious
exhibition of conjuring tricks and automata. His programme announced
that the Great Comus would present “various uncommon experiments with
his ‘Enchanted Horologium,’ ‘Pyxidus Literarum,’ and many curious
operations in ‘Rhabdology,’ ‘Stenaganagraphy,’ and ‘Phylacteria,’ with
many wonderful performances of the grand ‘Dodecahedron,’ also
‘Chartomantic Deceptions’ and ‘Kharamatic Operations.’ To conclude with
the performance of the ‘Teretopæst Figure and Magical House’; the like
never seen in this kingdom before, and will astonish every beholder.”
In the height of the French Revolution, when the guillotine reeked with
blood and the ghastly knitting-women sat round it counting the heads as
they fell into the basket, a Belgian optician, named Etienne Gaspard
Robertson, arrived in Paris, and opened a wonderful exhibition in an
abandoned chapel belonging to the Capuchin convent. The
curiosity-seekers who attended these séances were conducted by ushers
down dark flights of stairs to the vaults of the chapel and seated in a
gloomy crypt shrouded with black draperies and pictured with the emblems
of mortality. An antique lamp, suspended from the ceiling, emitted a
flame of spectral blue. When all was ready a rain and wind storm, with
thunder accompanying, began. Robertson extinguished the lamp and threw
various essences on a brazier of burning coals in the center of the
room, whereupon clouds of odoriferous incense filled the apartment.
Suddenly, with the solemn sound of a far-off organ, phantoms of the
great arose at the incantations of the magician. Shades of Voltaire,
Rousseau, Marat, and Lavoisier appeared in rapid succession. Robertson,
at the end of the entertainment, generally concluded by saying: “I have
shown you, citizens, every species of phantom, and there is but one more
truly terrible specter--the fate which is reserved for us all.” In a
moment a grinning skeleton stood in the center of the hall waving a
scythe. All these wonders were perpetrated through the medium of a
phantasmagoric lantern, which threw images upon smoke. This was a great
improvement on the simple concave mirror which so terrified Cellini. The
effect of this entertainment was electrical; all Paris went wild over
it. Robertson, lucky fellow, managed to save his neck from “_La
Guillotine_,” and returned to his native province with a snug fortune to
die of old age in a comfortable feather bed.
Clever as was Robertson’s ghost illusion, performed by the aid of the
phantasmagoric lantern, it had one great defect: the images were painted
on glass and lacked the necessary vitality. It was reserved for the
nineteenth century to produce the greatest of spectral exhibitions,
that of Prof. Pepper, manager of the London Polytechnic Institution. In
the year 1863, he invented a clever device for projecting the images of
living persons in the air. The illusion is based on a simple optical
effect. In the evening carry a lighted candle to the window and you will
see reflected in the pane, not only the image of the candle but that of
your hand and face as well. The same illusion may be seen while
traveling in a lighted railway carriage at night; you gaze through the
clear sheet of glass of the coach window and behold your “double”
traveling along with you. The apparatus for producing the Pepper ghost
has been used in dramatizations of Bulwer’s “Strange Story,” Dickens’
“Haunted Man” and “Christmas Carol,” and Dumas’ “Corsican Brothers.” In
France the conjurers Robin and Lassaigne presented the illusion with
many novel and startling effects.
One of the most famous of the eighteenth-century magicians was Torrini,
a French nobleman, whose real name was the Comte de Grisi. His father, a
devoted adherent of Louis XVI., lost his life at the storming of the
Tuileries, on that fatal day in August, ever memorable in the annals of
French history. Profiting by the disorders in the French capital, the
young De Grisi was enabled to pass the barriers and reach the family
chateau in Languedoc. He dug up a secret treasure his father had
concealed for any emergency, and proceeded to Italy to study medicine.
He established himself at Naples, where he soon became a physician of
note. Here his noble birth and aristocratic manners gave him the entrée
into the best society of the city. Like many enthusiastic amateurs he
became interested in legerdemain, and performed for the amusement of his
friends. A peculiar incident led him to adopt the profession of a
magician. At the Carnival of 1796, the Chevalier Pinetti arrived in
Naples to give a series of magical entertainments. Pinetti was the idol
of the Italian public. The Comte de Grisi, having unraveled the secrets
of most of Pinetti’s illusions, performed them for his friends. Pinetti,
who was furious at having a rival, set about revenging himself on the
audacious amateur. Without much difficulty he succeeded in ingratiating
himself with De Grisi, and complimented him on his success as a
prestidigitateur. One evening, he persuaded the young Count to take his
place at the theater and give a performance for the benefit of the poor
of the city. Intoxicated with flattery, to say nothing of numerous
glasses of champagne, De Grisi consented. The greater number of
Pinetti’s tricks were performed by the aid of confederates in the
audience, who loaned various objects of which the magician had
duplicates. A diabolical trap was laid for De Grisi. One of the
accomplices declared that he had loaned the young magician a valuable
diamond ring to use in a trick, and had had returned to him a pinchbeck
substitute. Here was a dilemma, but De Grisi put the man off with an
excuse until after the entertainment. Approaching the box where the king
and his family were seated, De Grisi begged the monarch to draw a card
from a pack. No sooner, however, had the king glanced at the card he
had selected, than he threw it angrily on the stage, with marks of
intense dissatisfaction. De Grisi, horror-struck, picked up the card and
found written on it a coarse insult. The conjurer rushed off the stage,
picked up his sword, and searched in vain for the author of the infamous
act of treachery; but Pinetti had fled. De Grisi was so utterly ruined,
socially and financially, by this fiasco, that he came near dying of
brain fever, the result of overwrought emotions. On his recovery he
vowed vengeance on Pinetti, a most unique vengeance. Says De Grisi: “To
have challenged him would be doing him too much honor, so I vowed to
fight him with his own weapons, and humiliate the shameful traitor in my
turn. This was the plan I drew up: I determined to devote myself
ardently to sleight-of-hand, to study thoroughly an art of which I as
yet knew only the first principles. Then, when quite confident in
myself--when I had added many new tricks to Pinetti’s repertoire--I
would pursue my enemy, enter every town before him, and continually
crush him by my superiority.”
De Grisi sold everything he possessed, took refuge in the country, and
toiled for six months at sleight-of-hand. Then with splendid apparatus
and elaborate printing, he took the field against his hated enemy. He
succeeded in accomplishing his ends: Pinetti had to retire vanquished.
Pinetti died in a state of abject misery at the village of Bastichoff,
in Volhynia, Russia. De Grisi determined to proceed to Rome as a finish
to his Italian performances. Pinetti had never dared to enter the
Eternal City, since he laid claims to genuine necromancy to encompass
his tricks. Remembering the fate of the Comte de Cagliostro, he
apprehended a trial for sorcery, and a possible _auto da fé_.
De Grisi, however, had no such fears, as his entertainment was
professedly a sleight-of-hand performance and did not come under the
denomination of witchcraft and necromancy. The Frenchman set his wits to
work to concoct a trick worthy to set before a Pope. Happening one day
to drop into a jeweler’s shop, he espied a magnificent watch lying on
the counter undergoing repairs. “Whose chronometer?” inquired the wizard
nonchalantly. “His Eminence, the Cardinal de ----’s watch, worth ten
thousand francs, and made by the renowned Brègnet of Paris,” said the
jeweler. “Is there another timepiece similar to this in Rome?” continued
De Grisi, examining the watch. “But one,” replied the jeweler, “and that
owned by an improvident young noble who spends his time in the gambling
hells wasting his ancestral estates.”
That was enough for the juggler. He commissioned the jeweler to purchase
the watch at any cost and engrave the Cardinal’s coat-of-arms inside of
the case. The expensive recreation cost De Grisi a thousand francs. When
the evening of the performance arrived the magician appeared before the
Pope and a brilliant assemblage of red-robed Cardinals and executed his
astonishing experiments in conjuring. As a culminating feat he borrowed
the Cardinal’s chronometer, which had been returned by the jeweler.
After many promises to handle it carefully, he dropped it on the floor
of the audience chamber as if by accident and set his heel upon it.
Smash went the priceless timepiece. The Cardinal turned pale with rage,
and all were horror-struck at the unfortunate fiasco. But the Frenchman
smiled at the consternation of the spectators, picked up the fragments
of the watch, had them fully identified in order to preclude any idea of
substitution, and then proceeded to pulverize them in a big brass
mortar. A detonation took place and red flames leaped up from the mortar
in the most approved order of diabolism; all crowded around to watch the
result. Watching his opportunity, the wizard surreptitiously slipped the
duplicate chronometer into a pocket of the Pope’s cassock. The
mystification was complete when De Grisi pretended to pass the ingot of
melted gold from the mortar into the pocket of His Holiness, resulting
in the discovery of the watch, which was produced intact. This seeming
marvel made the lifelong reputation of the French artist. The Pontiff
presented him the day after the séance with a magnificent
diamond-studded snuff-box as a mark of esteem.
Years after this event, De Grisi’s son was accidentally shot by a
spectator in the gun trick. A real leaden bullet got among the sham
bullets and was loaded into the weapon. The wretched father did not long
survive this tragic affair. He died in the city of Lyons, France, in the
early part of this century. De Grisi was a superb performer with cards,
his “blind man’s game of piquet” being a trick unparalleled in the
annals of conjuring.
After De Grisi came a host of clever magicians, among whom may be
mentioned Döbler, whose principal trick was the lighting of one hundred
candles by a pistol shot; Philippe, the first European performer to
present the “bowls of gold fish” and the “Chinese rings”; Bosco, expert
in cup and ball conjuring; and Comte, ventriloquist and expert in flower
tricks. Comte was the most distinguished of these artists, being noted
for his wit and audacity. He was a past master in the art of flattery.
The following good story is told of him: During a performance at the
Tuileries given before Louis XVIII, Comte asked the king to draw a card
from a pack. The monarch selected the king of hearts, by chance, or by
adroit forcing on the part of the magician. The card was torn up, and
rammed into a pistol.
“Look, your majesty,” said Comte, pointing to a vase of flowers which
stood upon a table in the center of the stage. “I shall fire this pistol
at the vase and the king of hearts will appear just above the flowers.”
The weapon was fired, whereupon a small bust of Louis XVIII appeared
instantaneously out of the center of the bouquet.
“Ah,” exclaimed the king to the conjurer, in a slightly sarcastic tone
of voice, “I think. Monsieur Magician, that you have made a slight
mistake. You promised to make the king of hearts appear, but----”
“Pardon me, your majesty,” interrupted the conjurer, “but I have
fulfilled my promise to the letter. Behold, there is your likeness!--and
are you not the acknowledged king of all our hearts, the well-beloved of
the French people?”
The king bowed his royal head benignly, while the assembled courtiers
made the salon ring with their applause. The journals next morning
reported this little scene, and Comte became the lion of the hour.
Comte was in the zenith of his fame when a new performer entered the
arena of magic--Robert-Houdin. One day the following modest handbill
appeared on the Parisian bulletin-boards:
_Aujourd’hui Jeudi, 3 Juillet 1845._
PREMIÈRE REPRÉSENTATION
DES
SOIRÉES FANTASTIQUES
DE
ROBERT-HOUDIN.
AUTOMATES, PRESTIDIGITATION, MAGIE
IV.
In the year 1843 there was situated in the Rue du Temple, Paris, a
little shop, over the door of which was displayed the unpretentious
sign, “M. Robert-Houdin, Pendules de Précision.” It was the shop of a
watchmaker and constructor of mechanical toys. The proprietor was
destined to be the greatest and most original fantaisiste of his time,
perhaps of all times, the founder of a new and unique school of
conjuring, and the inventor of some marvelous illusions. No one who
stopped at the unpretentious place could have prophesied that the
keen-eyed little Frenchman, in his long blouse besmeared with oil and
iron filings, would become the premier prestidigitateur of France, the
inventor of the electrical bell, improver of the electrical clock,
author, and ambassador to the Arabs of Algeria. During his spare moments
Houdin constructed the ingenious automata that subsequently figured in
his famous _Soirées Fantastiques_. When he went abroad on business or
for pleasure he wore the large _paletot_ of the period and practiced
juggling with cards and coins in the capacious pockets.
About the time of which I write he invented his “mysterious clock”--a
piece of apparatus that kept admirable time, though apparently without
works--and he sold one of them to a wealthy nobleman, the Count de
l’Escalopier. The Count, who was an ardent lover of the _art amusante_,
or science wedded to recreation, made frequent visits to the shop in
the Rue du Temple, and sat for hours on a stool in the dingy workroom
watching Houdin at work. A strong friendship grew up between the
watchmaker and the scion of the Old Régime. It was not long before
Houdin confided the secret of his hopes to the Count--his burning desire
to become a great magician.
The nobleman approved the idea, and in order to give the conjurer
opportunities for practice, so that he might acquire the confidence
which he lacked, constantly invited him to pass the evening at the De
l’Escalopier mansion, for the purpose of trying his skill in
sleight-of-hand before a congenial and art-loving company. On one
occasion, after a dinner given in honor of Monseigneur Affré, Archbishop
of Paris, who was killed at the barricades during the Revolution of
1848, Houdin performed his clever trick of the “burnt writing restored.”
In the language of Houdin, the effect was as follows: “After having
requested the spectators carefully to examine a large envelope sealed on
all sides, I handed it to the Archbishop’s Grand Vicar, begging him to
keep it in his own possession. Next, handing to the prelate himself a
small slip of paper, I requested him to write thereon, secretly, a
sentence, or whatever he might choose to think of; the paper was then
folded in four, and (apparently) burnt. But scarcely was it consumed and
the ashes scattered to the winds, than, handing the envelope to the
Archbishop, I requested him to open it. The first envelope being removed
a second was found, sealed in like manner; then another, until a dozen
envelopes, one inside another, had been opened, the last containing the
scrap of paper restored intact. It was passed from hand to hand, and
each read as follows:
“‘Though I do not claim to be a prophet I venture to predict, sir, that
you will achieve brilliant success in your future career.’”
Houdin preserved this slip of paper as a religious relic for many years,
but lost it during his travels in Algeria.
The Count de l’Escalopier, after the incident at the memorable dinner,
urged Houdin to start out immediately as a conjurer. One day the
watchmaker, after considerable hesitation, confessed his inability to do
so on account of poverty.
“Ah,” replied the nobleman, “if that’s all, it is easily remedied. I
have at home ten thousand francs or so which I really don’t know what to
do with. Accept them, my dear Houdin, and begin your career.”
But Houdin, loath to incur the responsibility of risking a friend’s
money in a theatrical speculation, without some guarantee of its being
repaid, refused the generous offer. Again and again De l’Escalopier
urged him to take it, but without success; finally the nobleman, annoyed
at the mechanician’s obstinacy, left the shop in a state of pique. But
after a few days he returned, saying, as he entered: “Since you are
determined not to accept a favor from me, I have come to ask one of you.
Listen! For the last year an escritoire in my sleeping-apartment has
been robbed from time to time of large sums of money, notwithstanding
the fact that I have adopted all manner of precautions and safeguards,
such as changing the locks, having secret fastenings placed on the
doors, etc. I have dismissed my servants, one after another, but, alas!
have not discovered the culprit. This very morning I have been robbed of
a couple of thousand-franc notes. There is a dark cloud of suspicion and
evil hanging over my house that nothing will lift till the thief is
caught. Can you help me?”
“I am willing to serve you,” said Houdin; “but how?”
“What!” replied De l’Escalopier; “you a mechanician, and ask how? Come,
come, my friend; can you not devise some mechanical means for
apprehending a thief?”
Houdin thought a minute, and said quietly: “I’ll see what I can do for
you.” Setting to work feverishly, he invented the apparatus, and aided
by his two workmen, who remained with him the whole of the night, he had
it ready at eight o’clock the next morning. To the nobleman’s house
Houdin went. The Count under various pretexts had sent all his servants
away, so that no one should be aware of the mechanician’s visit.
While Houdin was placing his apparatus in position, the Count frequently
expressed his wonderment at the heavy padded glove which the conjurer
wore on his right hand.
“All in good time, my dear Count,” said Houdin. When everything was
arranged, the mechanician began his explanation of the working of the
secret detective apparatus. “You see, it is like this,” he remarked.
“The thief unlocks the desk, but no sooner does he raise the lid, ever
so little, than this claw-like piece of mechanism, attached to a light
rod, and impelled by a spring, comes sharply down on the back of the
hand which holds the key, and at the same time the report of a pistol is
heard. The noise is to alarm the household, and----”
“But the glove you wear!” interrupted the nobleman.
“The glove is to protect me from the operation of the steel claw which
tattooes the word _Robber_ on the back of the criminal’s hand.”
“How is that accomplished?” said De l’Escalopier.
“Simplest thing in the world,” replied Houdin. “The claw consists of a
number of very short but sharp points, so fixed as to form the word: and
these points are shoved through a pad soaked with nitrate of silver, a
portion of which is forced by the blow into the punctures, thereby
making the scars indelible for life. A _fleur de lys_ stamped by an
executioner with a red-hot iron could not be more effective.”
“But, M. Houdin,” said the Count, horror-stricken at the idea. “I have
no right to anticipate Justice in this way. To brand a fellow-being in
such a fashion would forever close the doors of society against him. I
could not think of such a thing. Besides, suppose some member of my
family through carelessness or forgetfulness were to fall a victim to
this dreadful apparatus.”
“You are right,” answered Houdin. “I will alter the mechanism in such a
way that no harm can come to any one, save a mere superficial flesh
wound that will easily heal. Give me a few hours.”
The Count assented, and the mechanician went home to his work-shop to
make the required alterations. At the appointed time, he returned to the
nobleman’s mansion, and the machine was adjusted to the desk. In place
of the branding apparatus, Houdin had arranged a kind of cat’s claw to
scratch the back of the thief’s hand. The desk was closed, and the two
men parted company.
The Count did everything possible to excite the cupidity of the robber.
He sent repeatedly for his stock-broker, on which occasions sums of
money were ostentatiously passed from hand to hand; he even made a
pretense of going away from home for a short time, but the bait proved a
failure. Each day the nobleman reported, “no result,” to Houdin, and was
on the point of giving up in despair. Two weeks elapsed. One morning De
l’Escalopier rushed into the watchmaker’s shop, sank breathlessly on a
chair, and ejaculated: “I have caught the robber at last.”
“Indeed,” replied Houdin; “who is he?”
“But first let me relate what happened,” said the Count. “I was seated
this morning in my library when the report of a pistol resounded in my
sleeping-apartment. ‘The thief!’ I exclaimed excitedly. I looked around
me for a weapon, but finding nothing at hand, I grasped an ancient
battle-ax from a stand of armor near by, and ran to seize the robber. I
pushed open the door of the sleeping-room and saw, to my intense
surprise, Bernard, my trusted valet and factotum, a man who has been in
my employ for upwards of twenty years. ‘What are you doing here?’ I
asked; ‘what was that noise?’
“In the coolest manner he replied: ‘I came into the room just as you
did, sir, at the explosion of the pistol. I saw a man making his escape
down the back stairs, but I was so bewildered that I was unable to
apprehend him.’
“I rushed down the back stairs, but, finding the door locked on the
inside, knew that no one could have passed that way. A great light broke
upon me. ‘Great God!’ I cried, ‘can Bernard be the thief?’ I returned to
the library. My valet was holding his right hand behind him, but I
dragged it forward, and saw the imprint of the claw thereon. The wound
was bleeding profusely. Finding himself convicted, the wretch fell on
his knees and begged my forgiveness.
“‘How long have you been robbing me?’ I asked.
“‘For nearly two years,’ he said.
“‘And how much have you taken?’ I inquired.
“‘Fifteen thousand francs, which I invested in Government stock. The
scrip is in my desk.’
“I found the securities correct, and in the presence of another witness,
made Bernard sign the following confession:
“‘I, the undersigned, hereby admit having stolen from the Count de
l’Escalopier the sum of 15,000 francs, taken by me from his desk by the
aid of false keys.
“‘BERNARD X----.
“‘PARIS, _the -- day of ----, 18--_.
“‘Now go,’ I exclaimed, ‘and never enter this house again. You are safe
from prosecution; go, and repent of your crime.’
“And now,” said the Count to Houdin, “I want you to take these 15,000
francs and begin your career as a conjurer; surely you cannot refuse to
accept as a loan the money your ingenuity has rescued from a robber.
Take it----”
The nobleman produced the securities, and pressed them into Houdin’s
hands. The mechanician, overcome by the Count’s generosity, embraced him
in true Gallic style, and this embrace, Houdin says, “was the only
security De l’Escalopier would accept from me.”
Without further delay the conjurer had a little theatre constructed in
the Palais Royal, and began his famous performances, called by him:
“_Soirées Fantastiques de Robert-Houdin_,” which attained the greatest
popularity. He was thus enabled within a year to pay back the money
borrowed from the Count de l’Escalopier.
Jean Eugène Robert, afterwards known to fame by the cognomen of
Robert-Houdin, was born at Blois, the birthplace of Louis XII, on the
sixth of December, 1805. His father was a watchmaker. At the age of
eleven Robert was sent to a Jesuit college at Orleans, preparatory to
the study of law, and was subsequently apprenticed to a notary at Blois,
but finding the transcribing of musty deeds a tiresome task, he
prevailed on his father to let him follow the trade of a watchmaker.
While working in this capacity, he chanced one day to enter a
bookseller’s shop to purchase a treatise on mechanics, and was handed by
mistake a work on conjuring. The marvels contained in this volume fired
his imagination, and this incident decided his future career, but he did
not realize his ambition until later in life, when De l’Escalopier came
to his aid.
In his early study of sleight-of-hand Houdin soon recognized that the
organs performing the principal part are the sight and touch. He says in
his memoirs: “I had often been struck by the ease with which pianists
can read and perform at sight the most difficult pieces. I saw that, by
practice, it would be possible to create a certainty of perception and
facility of touch, rendering it easy for the artist to attend to several
things simultaneously, while his hands were busy employed with some
complicated task. This faculty I wished to acquire and apply to
sleight-of-hand; still, as music could not afford me the necessary
element, I had recourse to the juggler’s art.” Residing at Blois at the
time was a mountebank who, for a consideration, initiated the young
Houdin into the mysteries of juggling, enabling him to juggle four
balls at once and read a book at the same time. “The practice of this
feat,” continues Houdin, “gave my fingers a remarkable degree of
delicacy and certainty, while my eye was at the same time acquiring a
promptitude of perception that was quite marvelous.”
On Thursday evening, July 3, 1845, Houdin’s first Fantastic Evening took
place in a small hall of the Palais Royal. The little auditorium would
seat only two hundred people, but the prices of admission were somewhat
high, front seats being rated at $1 or five francs, and no places were
to be had under forty sous. The stage set represented a miniature
drawing-room in white and gold in the Louis XV style. In the center was
an undraped table, flanked by two small side tables of the lightest
possible description; at the side wings or walls were consoles, with
about five inches of gilt fringe hanging from them; and across the back
of the room ran a broad shelf, upon which were displayed the various
articles to be used in the séances. A chandelier and elegant candelabra
made the little scene brilliant. The simplicity of everything on the
conjurer’s stage disarmed suspicion; apparently there was no place for
the concealment of anything. Prior to Houdin’s day the wizards draped
all of their tables to the floor, thereby making them little else than
ponderous confederate boxes. Conjuring under such circumstances was
child’s play, as compared with the difficulties to be encountered with
the apparatus of the new school. In addition, Houdin discarded the long,
flowing robes of many of his predecessors, as savoring too much of
charlatanism, and appeared in evening dress. Since his time, no
first-class prestidigitateur has dared to offend good taste, by
presenting his illusions in any other costume than that of a gentleman
habited _à la mode_, nor has he dared to give a performance with draped
tables. In fact, modern professors of the _art magique_ have gone to
extremes on the question of tables and elaborate apparatus, many of them
using simple little guéridons with glass tops, unfringed. Houdin’s
center table was a marvel of mechanical skill and ingenuity. Concealed
in the body were “vertical rods each arranged to rise and fall in a
tube, according as it was drawn down by a spiral spring or pulled up by
a whip-cord which passed over a pulley at the top of the tube and so
down the table leg to the hiding place of the confederate.” There were
“ten of these pistons, and the ten cords, passing under the floor of the
stage, terminated at a keyboard. Various ingenious automata were
actuated by this means of transmitting motion.” The consoles were
nothing more than shallow wooden boxes with openings through the side
scenes. The tops of the consoles were perforated with traps. Any object
which the wizard desired to work off secretly to his confederate behind
the scenes was placed on one of these traps and covered with a paper,
metal cover, or a handkerchief. Touching a spring caused the article to
fall noiselessly through the trap upon cotton batting, and roll into the
hands of the conjurer’s _alter ego_, or concealed assistant.
Let us now look at some of the illusions of the classic prestidigitateur
of France. By far his best and greatest invention is the “light and
heavy chest,” of which he himself wrote: “I do not think, modesty apart,
that I ever invented anything so daringly ingenious.” The conjurer came
forward with a little wooden box, to the top of which was attached a
metal handle, and remarked as follows to the audience: “Ladies and
gentlemen, I have here a cash box which possesses some peculiar
qualities. I place in it, for example, a lot of bank-notes, for
safe-keeping, and by mesmeric power I can make the box so heavy that the
strongest man cannot lift it. Let us try the experiment.” He placed the
box on the run-down, which served as a means of communication between
the stage and the audience, and requested the services of a volunteer
assistant.
When the latter had satisfied the audience that the box was almost as
light as a feather, the conjurer executed his pretended mesmeric passes,
and bade the gentleman lift it a second time. But try as he might, with
all his strength, the volunteer would prove unequal to the task. Reverse
passes over the demon box restored it to its pristine lightness. This
extraordinary trick is performed as follows: Underneath the cloth cover
of the run-down, at a spot marked, was a powerful electro-magnet with
conducting wires reaching behind the scenes to a battery. At a signal
from the magician a secret operator turned on the electric current, and
the box, which had an iron bottom, clung to the electro-magnet with
supernatural attraction. It is needless to remark that the bottom of the
cash box was painted to represent mahogany, so as to correspond with the
top and sides.
The phenomena of electro-magnetism were entirely unknown to the general
public in 1845, when this trick of the spirit cash-box was first
presented. As may be well imagined, it created a profound sensation.
When people became more enlightened on the subject of electricity,
Houdin added an additional effect, in order to throw the public off the
scent as to the principle on which the experiment was based. After first
having exhibited the trick on the “run-down,” he hooked the box to one
end of a rope which passed over a pulley attached to the ceiling of the
hall. Several gentlemen were now invited to hold the disengaged end of
the rope. They were able to raise and lower the box with perfect ease,
but at a wave of the magician’s wand the little chest descended slowly
to the floor, lifting off their feet the spectators who were holding the
rope, to the astonishment of everyone. The secret lay in the pulley and
block. The rope, instead of passing straight over the pulley, in on one
side and out on the other, went through the block and through the
ceiling, working over a double pulley on the floor above, where a
workman at a windlass held his own against the united power of the five
or six gentlemen below. It is a simple mechanical principle and will be
easily understood by those acquainted with mechanical power.
Houdin’s orange tree, that blossomed and bore fruit in sight of the
audience, was a clever piece of mechanism. The blossoms, constructed of
tissue paper, were pushed up through the hollow branches of the tree by
the pistons rising in the table and operating against similar pistons in
the orange-tree box. When these pedals were relaxed the blossoms
disappeared and the fruit was gradually developed--real fruit, too,
which was distributed among the spectators. The oranges were stuck on
iron spikes affixed to the branches of the tree and hid from view by
hemispherical wire screens painted green and secreted by the leaves.
When these screens were swung back by pedal play the fruit was revealed.
In performing this illusion Houdin first borrowed a handkerchief from a
lady in the audience, and caused it to pass from his hand into an orange
left on the tree. When the disappearance was effected, the fruit opened,
revealing the handkerchief in its center. Two mechanical butterflies,
exquisitely made, then took the delicate piece of cambric or lace and
flew upwards with it. The handkerchief of course was exchanged in the
beginning of the trick for a dummy belonging to the magician. It was
worked into the mechanical orange by an assistant, before the tree was
brought forward for exhibition.
Houdin was very fond of producing magically bon-bons, small fans, toys,
bouquets, and bric-à-brac from borrowed hats. These articles he
distributed with liberal hand among the spectators, exclaiming: “Here
are toys for young children and old.” There was always a great scramble
for these souvenirs. The conjurer found time to edit and publish a small
comic newspaper, “Cagliostro,” copies of which were handed to every one
in the theatre. The contents of this _journal pour rire_ were changed
from evening to evening, which entailed no small labor on the part of
the hard-worked prestidigitateur. It was illustrated with comic
cartoons, and was eagerly perused between the acts.
Here is one of Houdin’s _bon mots_: _Le Ministre de l’Intérieur ne
recevra pas demain, mais le Ministre des Finances recevra tous les jours
... et jours suivants_.
The crowning event of Houdin’s life was his embassy to Algeria to
counteract the influence of the Marabout priests over the ignorant
Arabs. The Marabouts are Mohammedan miracle workers, and are continually
fanning the flames of rebellion and discontent against French
domination. The French Government invited Robert-Houdin to go to Algeria
and perform before the Arabs in order to show them that a French wizard
was greater than a Marabout fakir. It was pitting Greek against Greek!
The marvels of optics, chemistry, electricity, and mechanics which
Houdin had in his repertoire, coupled with his digital dexterity, were
well calculated to evoke astonishment and awe. How well the famous
French wizard succeeded in his mission is a matter of history. A full
account of his adventures among the Arabs is contained in his memoirs
and makes very entertaining reading. After his successful embassy to the
land of the white bournous and turban, Houdin returned to France and
settled down at St. Gervais near Blois, giving his time to electrical
studies and inventions.
He received several gold medals from the French Government for the
successful application of electricity to the running of clocks. The
conjurer’s house was a regular Magic Villa, being full of surprises for
the friends who visited the place. There were sliding panels in the
walls, trap doors, automatons in every niche, descending floors, and
electric wires from attic to cellar. Houdin died at St. Gervais in June,
1871. His son-in-law, M. Hamilton, continued to carry on the Temple of
Enchantment at Paris, and at the present time there is a little theater
on the Boulevard des Italiens called “Théâtre Robert-Houdin,” where
strolling conjurers hold forth. It was a great disappointment to Houdin
when his two sons refused to take up magic as a profession; one entered
the French army, and the other became a watchmaker.
V.
One of the best sleight-of-hand artists that ever lived was Carl
Herrmann, who styled himself the “Premier Prestidigitateur of France and
First Professor of Magic in the World.” He died at Carlsbad, June 8,
1887, at the advanced age of seventy-two. Of him Burlingame says:
“Without using much mechanical or optical apparatus, he produced many
wonderful effects by a sharp observation of the absence of mind of the
human auditor, assisted by a hand as firm as steel and capable of the
most deft movement.” Carl Herrmann traveled extensively, and many
conjurers adopted his name as a _nom de théâtre_. Magicians seem to have
a _penchant_ for this sort of thing, as witness the case of Signor
Blitz. Antonio Blitz, a very clever performer, no sooner arrived in the
United States than imitators sprang up like mushrooms in a single night.
In his “Fifty Years in the Magic Circle,” he gives a list of eleven of
these impostors, who not only had the impudence to assume his name, but
circulated verbatim copies of his handbills and advertisements--
Signor Blitz.
Signor Blitz, Jr.
Signor Blitz, The Original.
Signor Blitz’s Son.
Signor Blitz’s Nephew.
Signor Blitz, The Great.
Signor Blitz, The Wonderful.
Signor Blitz, The Unrivaled.
Signor Blitz, The Mysterious.
Signor Blitz, By Purchase.
Signor Blitz, The Great Original.
A clever entertainer was Robert Heller. He was a magician, a mimic, and
a musician--a combination of talents rarely seen in one individual. He
was, indeed, the Admirable Crichton of fantaisistes. As a pure
sleight-of-hand artist, Heller was not the equal of some of his
contemporaries, but he made up for all deficiencies in this respect by
his histrionic abilities. By the power of his address and wit he
invested the most insignificant feats of legerdemain with a peculiar
charm. In this regard he was like Robert-Houdin. Robert Heller, or
Palmer, was born in London, in the year 1833. Early in life he
manifested a unique talent for music, and won a scholarship at the Royal
Academy of Music at the age of fourteen. Having witnessed several
performances of the conjurer Houdin, in London, he became enamored of
magic, and devoted his time to perfecting himself in the art of
legerdemain, subsequently traveling around giving entertainments in the
English provinces. In the year 1852 he made his bow to a New York
audience at the Chinese Assembly Rooms, on which occasion he wore a
black wig and spoke with a decided Gallic accent, having come to the
conclusion that a French prestidigitateur would be better received in
the United States than an English wizard. I have this on the authority
of Henry Hatton, the conjurer, who wrote an article on Heller’s
“second-sight” trick for the “Century Magazine” some years ago. Hatton
also says that Heller began his magical soirée with an address in the
French language. Not meeting with the desired financial success, Heller
abandoned conjuring, and settled in Washington, D. C., as a teacher of
the piano and organist of one of the large churches of the city.
Eventually he married one of his music pupils, a Miss Kieckhoffer, the
daughter of a wealthy German banker, and abandoned music for magic. He
went to New York, where he opened Heller’s Hall, in a building which
then stood opposite Niblo’s Garden, on Broadway. His second début as a
conjurer was an artistic and financial success. After a splendid run in
New York he returned to London, opening what is now Pool’s Theater.
Subsequently he visited Australia, India, and California, returning to
New York in 1875. He died November 28, 1878, at the Continental Hotel,
Philadelphia, at the height of his fame. Like most of his _confrères_,
Heller was a clever advertiser. His theatrical posters usually bore the
following amusing verse:
“Shakespeare wrote well,
Dickens wrote Weller;
Anderson was ----,
But the greatest is Heller.”
His entertainments consisted of magic, music, and an exhibition of
pretended clairvoyance. Those who were not interested in his feats of
legerdemain flocked to hear his superb performances on the piano.
Heller, like Houdin, made great use of electricity in his magical
séances. Many of his electrical tricks were of his own invention. In his
will he directed his executors to destroy all of his apparatus, so that
it might not come into the possession of any other conjurer.
The most popular performer in this country was Alexander Herrmann, a
European by birth, but an American by adoption. I am indebted to Mr. Wm.
Robinson, for years an assistant to Herrmann, for the following account
of the great conjurer’s career:
“The late Alexander Herrmann was born in Paris, France, February 11,
1843, and died in his private car on December 17, 1896, while _en route_
from Rochester, N. Y., to Bradford, Pa. He came of a family of eminent
prestidigitateurs, his father, Samuel Herrmann, being the most famous
conjurer of his day. Samuel Herrmann was a great favorite with the
Sultan of Turkey, who frequently sent for him to give entertainments in
the royal palace at Constantinople.
[Illustration: ALEXANDER HERRMANN.]
“The next in the family to wield the magic wand was Carl Herrmann, who
was the first of the Herrmanns to visit America, and the first to use
and introduce the name ‘prestidigitateur’ in this country. Carl,
Alexander’s eldest brother, achieved great success in the world of
magic. He died June 8, 1887, at Carlsbad, Germany, possessed of a large
fortune. There were sixteen children in the Herrmann family, Carl being
the eldest, and Alexander the youngest. After Carl adopted magic as a
profession, the father abandoned it, and began the study of medicine. It
was the father’s fondest hope that Alexander, his favorite son, should
be a physician, but fate decreed otherwise. Alexander’s whole desire and
ambition was to become a magician like his father and his brother. He
persuaded his brother to take him as an assistant. One day young
Alexander was missing from the parental roof; he had been kidnapped and
taken away by Carl, with whom he made his first public appearance, at
the age of eight, at a performance in St. Petersburg, Russia. Even at
that early age his great dexterity, ingenuity, and presence of mind were
simply marvelous. The sudden appearance of the father dispelled the
visions of the embryonic magician, and he was compelled to return home.
But the youth’s attention could not be diverted from his purpose, and
again he became his brother’s assistant. This time, the father
compromised by consenting to Alexander’s remaining on the stage,
provided his education were not neglected. Carl engaged two competent
tutors to travel with the company and instruct the young prodigy. For
six years the brothers worked together, visiting Spain, France, Germany,
Russia, and the surrounding countries. Again the parents claimed
Alexander, and placed him in the University of Vienna. At the age of
sixteen, the old desire and fascination took possession of him. He
accepted his brother’s proposal to make a tour of the world, and ran
away from home and studies. Their first appearance in America was at the
Academy of Music, New York, Monday, September 16, 1861. Their last joint
engagement was in this country in the year 1869. On the opening night,
in New York, Monday, September 20, Carl introduced Alexander to the
audience as his brother and successor. When this engagement terminated,
the brothers separated; Carl made a short tour of this country, but
Alexander went to Europe, where he appeared in the principal cities,
subsequently visiting the Brazils and South America. After that he made
a remarkable run of one thousand performances at the Egyptian Hall,
London, England. From England he returned to the United States in the
year 1874, and from that period made this country his home, becoming a
naturalized citizen in Boston, 1876. His career as a magician was one
uninterrupted success. The many lengthy and favorable notices of him in
the leading journals of this country, immediately after his death,
showed that he was regarded as a public character.
“Herrmann bore a remarkable resemblance to ‘His Satanic Majesty,’ which
he enhanced in all possible ways, in recognition of human nature’s
belief in the superhuman powers of the arch enemy. Despite this
mephistophelian aspect, his face was not forbidding; his manner was ever
genial and kind. ‘Magicians are born, not made’ was a favorite
paraphrase of his, and Dame Nature certainly had him in view for one
when she brought him to this sphere.
“His success lay in his skill as a manipulator, in his witty remarks and
ever-running fire of good-natured small talk. He was a good conjurer, a
clever comedian, and a fine actor. His ‘misdirection,’ to use a
technical expression, was beyond expression. If his luminous eyes turned
in a certain direction, all eyes were compelled (as by some mysterious
power) to follow, giving his marvelously dexterous hands the better
chance to perform those tricks that were the admiration and wonder of
the world.
“Alexander Herrmann’s pet hobby was hypnotism, of which weird science he
was master, and to its use he attributed many of his successful feats.
His great forte was cards; he was an adept in the ordinary tricks of
causing cards to disappear, and reappear from under some stranger’s vest
or from a pocket. With the greatest ease and grace, he distributed cards
about a theater, sending them into the very laps and hands of
individuals asking for them. On one occasion he gave a performance
before Nicholas, the Czar of all the Russians. The Czar complimented the
conjurer upon his skill, and decorated him, at the same time smilingly
remarking: ‘I will show you a trick.’ The Czar tore a pack of cards into
halves, and good-humoredly asked: ‘What do you think of that? Can you
duplicate it?’ His surprise was great to see Herrmann take one of the
halves of the pack and tear _it_ into halves. Herrmann was as clever
with his tongue as with his hands, having mastered French, German,
Spanish, Italian, Russian, Dutch, and English. He also had a fair
knowledge of Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, and Swedish.
“He was decorated by almost every sovereign of Europe, and many of them
gave him jewels. The King of Belgium and the late King of Spain each
presented him with a cross; there was a ring from the King of Portugal,
one from the Prince of Wales, and various other gems.
“At private entertainments and clubs Herrmann was especially felicitous
as a prestidigitateur. I will enumerate a few of his numberless
sleight-of-hand tricks: He would place a wine glass, full to the brim
with sparkling wine, to his lips, when suddenly, to his apparent
surprise and consternation, the glass of wine would disappear from his
hand and be reproduced immediately from some bystander’s coat-tail
pocket. He would place a ring upon the finger of some person, and
immediately the ring would vanish from sight. A silver dollar would
change into a twenty-dollar gold piece. A magnum bottle of champagne,
holding about two quarts, would disappear, to reappear from under a
gentleman’s coat. He was a capital ventriloquist, an imitator of birds,
and quite clever at juggling and shadowgraphy, but he did not exhibit
these talents in public.
“The lines in Herrmann’s hands were studies for adepts in chirography.
There were three lines of imagination, instead of one, which indicates
an imaginative faculty little less than miraculous, and denotes a
generous heart, genius for friendship, a determined nature, and an
artistic temperament. The accompanying impression of his right hand,
taken a few days after he died, represents a _short_ hand, owing to the
fact that in death the fingers had curled inward somewhat. In life his
hands were long, slender, and tapering.”
[Illustration: IMPRESSION OF HERRMANN’S HAND]
Leon Herrmann, a nephew of the great Herrmann, is now performing in the
United States with success. In personal appearance he resembles his
uncle. He is very clever at palmistry--the cardinal principle of
conjuring.
One of the most original and inventive minds in the domain of conjuring
is M. Bautier de Kolta, a Hungarian, who resides in Paris. He is almost
a gentleman of leisure, and only appears about three nights in a week.
He is the inventor of the flying bird cage, the cocoon, the vanishing
lady, and the trick known as the “black art,” reproduced by Herrmann and
Kellar.
In England, the leading exponent of the magic art is J. N. Maskelyne,
who has held forth at Egyptian Hall, London, for many years. He has done
more to unmask bogus spirit mediums than any conjurer living.
Apprenticed like Houdin to a watchmaker, Maskelyne became acquainted
with mechanics at an early age. He is the inventor of some very
remarkable automata and illusions, for example “Psycho” and the “Miracle
of Lh’asa.” At the juggling feat of spinning dessert plates he has but
few rivals. To perform this requires the greatest skill and delicacy.
One of the best performers in the United States of anti-spiritualistic
tricks and mind-reading experiments is Mr. Harry Kellar, a
Pennsylvanian, who at one time in his career acted as assistant to the
famous Davenport Brothers, spirit mediums. Kellar is exceedingly clever
with handkerchief tricks, and his “rose-tree” feat has never been
surpassed for dexterous and graceful manipulation. Like Houdin, De
Kolta, and Maskelyne, he is an inventor, always having some new optical
or mechanical illusion to grace his entertainments.
Of late years he has made the fatal mistake of exposing the methods of
palmistry to the audience, thereby offending one of the cardinal
principles of the art of legerdemain--never explain tricks, however
simple, to the spectators. People go to magical entertainments to be
mystified by the pretended sorcery of the magician, and when they learn
by what absurdly simple devices a person may be fooled, they look with
indifference at the more ambitious illusions of the performer. Palmistry
is the very foundation stone of prestidigitation. No magician, unless he
confines himself to mechanical tricks, can do without it in a
performance.
Last but not least in the list of modern fantaisistes is the French
entertainer, M. Trewey, an exceedingly clever juggler, sleight-of-hand
artist, and shadowgraphist.
VI.
In his advertisements, Robert-Houdin was extremely modest. His
successors in the _art magique_, however, have not imitated him in this
respect. We have Wizards of the North, South, and West, White and Black
Mahatmas, Napoleons of Necromancy, Modern Merlins, etc. Anderson, the
English conjurer, went to the extreme in self-laudation, but managed to
draw crowds by his vainglorious puffery and fill his coffers with gold,
though he was but an indifferent performer. The following is one of his
effusions:
“Theatre Royal, Adelphi ----. The greatest wonder at present in London
is the Wizard of the North. He has prepared a Banquet of
Mephistophelian, Dextrological, and Necromantic Cabals, for the Wonder
seekers of the approaching holidays. London is again set on fire by the
supernatural fame of the eximious Wizard; he is again on his magic
throne; he waves his mystic scepter, and thousands of beauty, fashion,
and literature, rush as if charmed, or spell-commanded, to behold the
mesteriachist of this age of science and wonder! Hundreds are nightly
turned from the doors of the mystic palace, that cannot gain admission;
this is proof, and more than proof, of the Wizard’s powers of charming.
During the last six nights, 12,000 spectators have been witnesses of the
Wizard’s mighty feats of the science of darkness, and all exclaim, ‘Can
this be man of earth? is he mortal or super-human?’
“Whitsun-Monday, and every evening during the week, The Great
Delusionist will perform his Thousand Feats of Photographic and Alladnic
Enchantments, concluding every evening with the Gun Delusion!!”
The Theosophical craze of recent years has had its influence on
prestidigitation. A modern conjurer who does not claim some knowledge of
the occult, or, at least, who has not traveled in the Orient, cuts but
little figure in public estimation. Every now and then some enterprising
wizard rushes into print and exploits his weird adventures in Egypt and
India, the birthplaces of magic and mystery. Every intelligent reader
reads between the lines, but the extravagant stories of Oriental
witchery have their effect on certain impressionable minds. The magician
Kellar is a reputed Oriental tourist. He has journeyed, according to his
own account, in the wilds of India, witnessed fakir-miracles at the
courts of Mohammedan Rajahs, hobnobbed with Mahatmas in Tibetan
lamaseries, and studied the black, blue, and white art in all its
ramifications. In one of his recent advertisements he says: “Success
crowns the season of Kellar, the Great American Magician. His Oriental
magic, the result of years of original research in India, enables him to
present new illusions that are triumphs of art, and attract enormous
houses--dazing, delighting, dumbfounding, and dazzling theater-goers.”
BOOK I.
_CONJURERS’ TRICKS AND STAGE ILLUSIONS._
CHAPTER I.
MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES.
The fascination which the general public finds in clever tricks and
illusions is little to be wondered at, but it is a mistake to suppose
that all the outfit which the modern magician needs is a few paper
roses, a pack of cards, some coins, and a wand. The fact of the matter
is, that usually the most entertaining tricks are those which are
produced at considerable expense in the way of apparatus and stage
fittings. It is for this very reason that the secret of the illusion is
always so closely guarded by the prestidigitateur. After a series of
sleight-of-hand tricks the magician usually leads up to what might be
called “set pieces” in contradistinction to the sleight-of-hand tricks.
Chief among the more important illusions are the wonderful cabinets and
other articles of furniture which enable the wizard to make away with
his assistants. We will describe a number of these arrangements for
“mysterious disappearances” before proceeding with the mirror and other
optical tricks to which the _fin de siècle_ magician is so largely
indebted. All of these illusions, as they depend upon pre-arranged
machinery, afford an introduction to the tricks which, though much
simpler, require a certain amount of aptness in manipulation.
“VANITY FAIR.”
The first illusion presents the disappearance of a lady, apparently
through a solid looking glass. The method used is remarkably ingenious.
A large pier glass in an ornamental frame is wheeled upon the stage. The
glass reaches down within about two feet of the floor, so that every one
can see under it. The only peculiarities which a skilled observer would
be apt to notice are a wide panel extending across the top of the frame
and a bar crossing the glass some four feet from the floor. The first is
ostensibly for artistic effect--it really is essential to the illusion.
The horizontal piece purports to be used in connection with a pair of
brackets to support a glass shelf on which the lady stands--it also is
essential to the illusion.
[Illustration: SCREENING THE LADY.]
Brackets are attached to the frame, one on each side, at the level of
the transverse piece, and a couple of curtains are carried by curtain
poles or rods extending outward from the sides of the frame. Across the
ends of the brackets a rod or bar is placed and a plate of glass rests
as a shelf with one end on the rod and the other on the horizontal
piece, thus impressing upon the audience the utility of the crosspiece.
Its real function is not revealed.
A lady steps upon the shelf, using a step-ladder to reach it. She at
once turns to the glass and begins inspecting her reflection. The
exhibitor turns her with her face to the audience and she again turns
back. This gives some byplay, and it also leaves her with her back to
the audience, which is desirable for the performance of the deception. A
screen is now placed around her. The screen is so narrow that a
considerable portion of the mirror shows on each side of it. All is
quiet for a moment, and then the screen is taken down and the lady has
disappeared. The mystification is completed by the removal of the
portable mirror, it being thus made evident that the performer is not
hidden behind it.
[Illustration: THE DISAPPEARANCE EXPLAINED.]
Two of our cuts illustrate the performance as seen by the audience, the
second explains the illusion. The mirror is really in two sections, the
apparently innocent crossbar concealing the top of the lower one. The
large upper section is placed just back of the lower piece, so that its
lower end slides down behind it. This upper section moves up and down in
the frame like a window sash, and to make this possible without the
audience discerning it the wide panel across the top of the frame is
provided. When the glass is pushed up, its upper portion goes back of
the panel, so that its upper edge is concealed.
Out of the lower portion of the same mirror a piece is cut, leaving an
opening large enough to admit of the passage of the person of the lady.
The second cut, with this description, explains everything. The mirror
as brought out on the stage has its large upper section in its lowest
position. The notched portion lies behind the lower section, so that the
notch is completely hidden from the audience. When the glass shelf is
put in place, the performer steps upon it and is screened from view. The
counterpoised glass is raised like a window sash, exposing the notch.
The screen is just wide enough to conceal the notch, the fact that a
margin of the mirror shows on each side of the screen still further
masking the deception. From the scene piece back of the mirror an
inclined platform is projected to the opening in the mirror. Through the
opening the lady creeps and by the assistant is drawn away behind the
scene; then the platform is removed, the glass is pushed down again,
and, the screen being removed, there is no lady to be seen. The fact
that some of the mirror was visible during the entire operation greatly
increases the mystery. The lady passes through the notch feet foremost,
and her position, facing the mirror, makes this the easier.
[Illustration: THE LADY HAS VANISHED.]
“AFTER THE FLOOD.”
In this illusion the curtain rises and shows upon the stage what is to
be interpreted as a representation of Noah’s ark, a rectangular box with
ends added to it, which, curving upward, give it a boat-like aspect. It
stands upon two horses or trestles. The cut, Fig. 3, shows the ark in
its entirety. The exhibitor opens it on all sides, swinging down the
ends and the front and back lids, and raising the top as shown in Fig.
1. It will be noticed by the observant spectator that the back lid is
first dropped and that the assistant helps throughout, the reason of
which will be seen later. The skeleton or frame of the structure is now
disclosed and it is seen to be completely empty. It is now closed, this
time the back lid being swung into place last, and all is ready for the
flood. This is represented by the water poured in _ad libitum_ through a
funnel inserted in an aperture in the upper corner. To the audience it
seems as if the ark were being filled with water. In reality, the water
simply runs through a pipe, carried through one of the legs of the
trestle, and so down beneath the stage. The management of the flood is
illustrated in our cut, Fig. 2.
[Illustration: THE ARK OPENED FOR INSPECTION.]
[Illustration: THE FLOOD.]
[Illustration: TAKING OUT THE BIRDS AND ANIMALS.]
After the flood the exit of the animals from the ark is next to be
attended to. Opening windows in its front, a quantity of animals and
birds are taken out as shown in Fig. 3. Ducks, chickens, pigeons, cats,
dogs, and a pig are removed and run around on the stage or fly about,
and it is wondered how so small an inclosure could contain such a
collection. It is also to be observed that none of the animals are
wet--the water has not reached them. More, however, is to follow, for
the exhibitor now lets down the front, and a beautiful Eastern woman,
Fig. 4, reclines gracefully in the center of the ark, which has only
room enough to accommodate her. Where the animals came from, and how
they and the woman could be found in the ark, which, when opened before
the audience, seemed completely empty, and how they escaped the water,
are the mysteries to be solved.
[Illustration: THE LADY TENANT OF THE ARK.]
Our cut, Fig. 5, completes the explanation. The ends which are swung up
and down in the preliminary exhibition of the ark are the receptacles
which accommodate the animals and birds. They are stowed away in these,
are swung up and down with them, and are taken out through apertures in
their fronts.
[Illustration: THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED.]
The woman, the other tenant, is fastened originally to the back lid.
When the ark is opened for inspection, this lid is swung down,
ostensibly to enable the audience to see through the ark--in reality to
prevent them from seeing through the illusion. For, as stated, it is
swung down before the front is opened, and as it goes down the woman
goes with it, and remains attached to it and out of sight of the
audience, who only see the rear side of the door as it is lowered. Fig.
5 shows the rear view of the ark when open, with the woman in place on
the rear lid, and also shows the animals in place in the side
compartments.
The illusion is exceedingly effective, and is received with high
appreciation by the audience. To those who understand it, the
performance is of heightened interest.
“THE MAGIC PALANQUIN.”
The heroine in this play was presented on the stage in a palanquin
carried by four slaves. At a given moment the curtains were drawn and
then immediately opened, when it was seen that the actress had
disappeared; and yet the palanquin was well isolated on the shoulders of
the carriers, who resumed their journey and carried it off the stage.
[Illustration: THE MAGIC PALANQUIN.]
This trick, which preceded by many years Buatier de Kolta’s experiment,
in which also a woman was made to disappear, but by an entirely
different process, as will be explained later on in this chapter, was
performed as follows: The four uprights arranged at the four corners of
the apparatus were hollow, and each contained at the top a pulley over
which a cord passed. These cords were attached by one end to the double
bottom of the palanquin, and by the other end to a counterpoise
concealed in the canopy.
At the precise moment at which the curtains were drawn, the carriers
disengaged the counterpoises, which, sliding within the uprights,
rapidly raised the double bottom, with the actress, up to the interior
of the canopy. The person thus made to disappear was quite slender and
took such a position as to occupy as little space as possible. By making
the shadows of the mouldings of the canopy and columns more pronounced
through painting, and by exaggerating them, the affair was given an
appearance of lightness that perplexed the most distrustful spectator.
“CASSADAGA PROPAGANDA.”
One of the most mysterious among Kellar’s repertory of successful
illusions is the “Cassadaga Propaganda,” an explanation of which is
herewith presented.
[Illustration: THE CABINET OPEN FOR INSPECTION.]
The effect as produced on the spectators will first be outlined. A sheet
of plate glass about sixteen by sixty inches in size is placed upon the
backs of two chairs, and on it is erected a small beautifully finished
cabinet consisting of four pieces, of which the sides are hinged to the
back, and which, with the front, are seen resting on a chair at the side
of the stage. When erected, the cabinet is forty-two inches high,
thirty-six inches wide, and fourteen inches deep.
Tambourines and bells are placed in the cabinet and the doors closed,
when the instruments instantly began playing and are then thrown out at
the top of the cabinet. The cabinet is now opened and found to be empty.
A slate placed in the cabinet has a message written thereon. In fact,
all manifestations usually exhibited in the large cabinets are produced,
and yet this cabinet is apparently not large enough to contain a person.
We say apparently not large enough; for, in reality, the whole secret
consists in a small person, or an intelligent child of ten or twelve
years of age, being suspended by invisible wires behind the back of the
cabinet, where there is a small shelf on which the concealed assistant
is sitting Turkish fashion. This folded cabinet is hung on two fine
wires which lead up to the “flies” and over rollers or pulleys to the
counterweights. When proper wire is used on a brightly illuminated stage
the wires are absolutely invisible.
[Illustration: THE SPIRIT MANIFESTATIONS.]
After showing the chairs and placing the glass plate upon them, the
performer picks up the folded part of the cabinet and places it on the
glass, the counterweights overcoming the extra weight of the concealed
assistant. He then opens out the sides, places the front containing the
doors in position, fastening same by hooks to the sides.
The inside of the cabinet and panels of doors are lined with pleated
gold silk. There is a concealed opening in the silk at the back of the
cabinet, for the assistant to pass his arm through, in order to handle
whatever is placed within it.
Everything being in readiness, the tambourine and bell are placed in the
cabinet and the doors are closed. The assistant now passes his hand and
arm through the opening in the back and shakes the tambourine, rings
the bell, and throws both out over the top of the cabinet. When the
doors are opened the cabinet is shown to be empty. Clean slates placed
in the cabinet are removed with messages written on them; in fact, the
manifestations that can be produced in the cabinet are limited only by
the intelligence of the concealed assistant.
One of the cuts shows the cabinet with open doors as seen by the
audience. The second cut is an end view looking from the side of stage,
showing the assistant on a shelf at the rear of the cabinet, and the
wires leading up and over to the counterweights.
[Illustration: CHEV. THORN’S MAGIC CABINETS.]
The clever illusionist Chev. E. Thorn made great use of a variation of
the “Cassadaga Propaganda.” He used two cabinets, each large enough to
receive a person in an upright position. They were constructed of slats
and were provided with curtains. Screens of the same color as the rear
of the stage served to close the space between the slats. The magician
deceived the audience by walking behind the cabinet or cage as often as
possible when the screens were open so that the audience could see him
through the slats. The carpet on the stage, the back of the stage, and
the screen were all of the same shade of green.
The performers, usually a caliph and an odalisk, appear and disappear at
will, really taking up the place on the wooden stage at the back of the
cabinet. Usually two cages were used, one being suspended, and by the
use of confederates who were dressed alike some very clever illusions
were produced.
When the curtain rises the caliph stands on a little platform on the
cage at the left, hidden by the cage and the screens. Attention is then
called to the cage at the right whose screen is open so that the
performer can be seen when he passes behind it.
After the performer has demonstrated this he pulls down red silk
curtains over the side walls and the doors; the rear wall, however,
remains uncovered. Now a brilliantly dressed odalisk steps into the box
at the left. The doors have scarcely closed behind her when they open
again, the curtains fly up, and it is seen that the woman has
disappeared, and in her place stands a white-bearded caliph, while she
appears at the rear door of the parquette smiling behind her veil. She
passes down through the audience to the stage again. In the meantime the
caliph has left the stage.
What follows is even more surprising. The curtains of both cages are
pulled down, the caliph goes into the cage at the left and the odalisk
into that at the right. The cage containing the odalisk is raised on a
hoisting rope so that it hangs in midair with the doors open. The doors
are closed, a shot is fired; at the same instant the doors of both cages
spring open and the curtains are raised; the odalisk has disappeared
from the cage, which stands again on the floor of the stage, but, at the
same instant, she steps, as smiling as ever, from the cage at the left,
from which the caliph has vanished. The two cages stand open and the
audience can see right through them. The curtain falls and the
spectators rub their eyes in bewilderment.
The pulling down of the curtains serves to conceal the entrance of the
caliph in the box. When the odalisk is to vanish and the caliph to
appear he slips in from the board on the outside, while the odalisk
takes her place on the board behind the screen. The odalisk who appears
at the door of the auditorium and walks down through the audience is an
exact double of the real odalisk who is standing invisible behind the
screen on the board of the cage at the left. Owing to the peculiar
costume of the odalisk this disguise is rendered very easy. While the
real odalisk is standing behind the screen on the board of the cage at
the left, the caliph installs himself in the cage. The false odalisk is
then raised in the air in the second cage, through which the audience
has been able to see up to this time. A shot is now fired and just at
that time the odalisk moves very quickly on a board behind the screen
and the cage is let down and stands firmly on the floor, at the same
moment the odalisk in the other cage changing places with the caliph.
The swinging cage appears to be empty and apparently the odalisk has
passed through the air to the other cage. The success of the trick
depends upon making the spectators believe that everything is done in
cages through which they can see.
“THE APPEARING LADY.”
Of the many new illusions recently presented in Europe, an ingenious one
is that of the appearing lady, the invention of that clever Hungarian
magician Buatier de Kolta.
[Illustration: TABLE READY FOR THE APPEARANCE.]
On the stage is seen a plain round top four-leg table, which the
magician has been using as a resting place for part of the apparatus
used in his magic performance. Eventually, the performer removes all
articles from the table and covers it with a cloth that does not reach
the floor. Our first engraving represents the table in this condition.
On command, the cloth gradually rises from the center of the table as
though something were pushing it up. In a few moments it becomes very
evident that some one, or something, is on the table covered by the
cloth. The magician now removes the cloth and a lady is seen standing on
the table, as shown in our second illustration.
[Illustration: THE APPEARING LADY.]
The secret of this, as in all good illusions, is very simple, as the
third illustration will show. In the stage there is a trap door, over
which is placed a fancy rug that has a piece removed from it exactly the
same size as the trap, to which the piece is fastened. When the trap is
closed the rug appears to be an ordinary one. The table is placed
directly over the trap. Below the stage is a box, open at the top, with
cloth sides and wood bottom. To this box are attached four very fine
wires, that lead up through the stage by means of small holes where the
trap and floor join, over small pulleys in the frame of the table and
down through the table legs, which are hollow, through the stage to a
windlass. In the table top is a trap that divides in the center and
opens outward. The top of the table is inlaid in such a manner as to
conceal the edges of the trap. The lady takes her place in the box in a
kneeling position, the assistant stands at the windlass, and all is
ready. Fig. 1 of our third engraving shows the arrangement beneath the
stage, and Fig. 2 the under side of the table top.
[Illustration: DETAILS OF THE APPARATUS.]
The magician takes a large table cover, and, standing at the rear of
table, proceeds to cover it by throwing cloth over table, so that it
reaches the floor in front of the table, then slowly draws it up over
the table top. The moment that the cloth touches the floor in front of
the table, the trap is opened and the box containing the lady is drawn
up under the table by means of the windlass, and the trap closed. This
is done very quickly, during the moment’s time in which the magician is
straightening out the cloth to draw it back over the table. All that now
remains to be done is for the lady to open the trap in table and slowly
take her place on top of the table, and close the trap.
The top and bottom of the box by means of which the lady is placed under
the table are connected by means of three strong elastic cords placed
inside of the cloth covering. These elastics are for the purpose of
keeping the bottom and top frame of box together, except when distended
by the weight of the lady. Thanks to this arrangement of the box, it
folds up as the lady leaves it for her position on the table top, and is
concealed inside of the frame of table after her weight is removed from
it. A somewhat similar trick is called “The Disappearing Lady.” In this
illusion the process is worked in the reverse order.
“THE DISAPPEARING LADY.”
The accompanying figures illustrate a trick in which the
prestidigitateur, after placing a chair upon an open newspaper and
seating a lady thereon, covers her closely with a silk veil, and after
the words “one, two, three,” lifts the veil and shows that the lady has
disappeared.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
The newspaper is provided with a trap, which is concealed by the printed
characters (Fig. 1). This trap is of the same size as the one that must
exist in the floor upon which one operates. As for the chair, that is
generally an old affair, without any cross rod in front (Fig. 2). It is
provided with a movable seat that lowers in order to allow the lady to
pass between the two front legs. It is provided, besides, with a frame
of wire which is invisible on account of the feeble diameter of the
latter, and which, attached to the back, is turned backward on the side
opposite the spectator. As soon as the lady who is to be made to
disappear is seated (Fig. 3), she causes the frame to tilt and cover her
head and shoulders. This operation is hidden by the veil that the
prestidigitateur spreads out at this moment in front of the lady.
At this instant the operator actuates a spring, which opens the trap in
the floor. The lady passes between the legs of the chair (Fig. 4), and
then through the two traps, the one in the paper and the one in the
floor. As soon as she reaches the floor beneath the stage she closes the
trap in the newspaper with gummed paper, and shuts the one in the floor,
and it might be thought that she was still on the stage, although she
has disappeared. In fact, the veil, on account of the wire frame, seems
always to outline the contours of the vanished subject.
After the operator has said “one, two, three,” he lifts the veil and
causes the wire frame to fall back.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.]
Since this trick was first introduced it has been more or less perfected
or modified in its form, but the preceding description states the
methods generally employed in performing the trick. In some cases if the
newspaper is carefully examined, it will be found to be made of India
rubber and to contain a large rent at about the center. In the next
chapter will be described an interesting illusion called “She,” in which
the lady disappears while being supposed to be cremated. This ingenious
trick depends for a portion of the effect upon mirrors, so it is placed
with the other illusions requiring the aid of mirrors.
“THE MYSTERIOUS TRUNK.”
A trick known by the name of the Indian Trunk, the Mysterious Trunk, the
Packer’s Surprise, etc., formerly had much success in theaters of
prestidigitation. This trick, which may be presented in several ways, is
executed by different means, one of which we shall describe.
The following is in what the experiment consists: The prestidigitateur
has a trunk brought to him, which he allows the spectators to examine.
When every one is certain that it contains no mechanism, a person comes
upon the stage and enters the trunk. It is found that he fills it
entirely, and the cover is shut down. A spectator locks the trunk and
guards the padlock.
The trunk is afterward wound in all directions with rope, the
intersections of the latter are sealed, and the whole is introduced into
a bag provided with leather straps, and which may in its turn be sealed
at each of its buckles. When the operation is finished, the spectators
who have aided in the packing remain on the spot to see that nothing
makes its exit from the trunk, which has been placed upon two wooden
horses. The prestidigitateur then fires a pistol over the trunk, which,
when divested of its covering, ropes, and unbroken seals, is found to be
entirely empty.
The whole credit of the trick is due to the cabinet maker who
constructed the trunk. The latter, in the first place, is exactly like
an ordinary trunk, and the closest examination reveals nothing out of
the way about it. Yet one of the ends, instead of being nailed, is
secured by a pivot to the two long sides, so that it can swing. The
swinging motion is arrested by a spring plate bolt. When the person in
the interior presses upon a point corresponding to this bolt, the pivot
turns freely and the end of the trunk swings.
The following is the way that the operation is performed in order that
the spectators may not perceive the opening of the trunk. The operator’s
assistant takes his place in the trunk, which is closed and locked and
the padlock sealed. Some obliging spectators then aid in tying the
trunk, around which the rope is passed twice lengthwise, beginning at
the side opposite the opening part. The rope is then passed over this
part and runs in the axis of the pivots. Then the trunk, for the
convenience of tying, is tilted upon the end where the rope passes. It
is then that the assistant inclosed in the interior presses the bolt.
The end of the trunk then has a tendency to open, and as the
prestidigitateur has taken care to tilt the trunk at a carefully marked
point of the stage floor, the movable end meets in the latter with an
exactly similar trap that opens at the same time, and it is through
these two traps that the invisible vanishing takes place. As soon as the
assistant has passed through the trap, he pushes up the latter, and
consequently the movable end of the trunk, which closes upon its spring
plate bolt.
[Illustration: THE MYSTERIOUS TRUNK.]
The time that it takes the man to pass through the trap is
insignificant, and while the ropes are being crossed the operation
might be performed several times. Afterward, there is nothing to be done
but to proceed with the experiment as we have said, care being taken,
however, not to abuse the complaisance of the spectators, and not to
allow them to try the weight of the trunk.
When the vanished person descends beneath the stage, he is supported by
some other individual if the theater is not well appointed, and by a
trap with a counterpoise if the construction of the stage admits of it.
This trap permits of expediting things in certain cases of the
reappearance of the confederate, but is useless in the process described
above.
Such is one of the artifices employed. Whatever be the process, the
presentation of it is often complicated by causing the person who has
vanished to reappear in a second trunk that has previously been
ascertained to be empty and that has been sealed and enveloped under the
eyes of the spectators. It will be easily comprehended that the
operation here is reversed, and that the confederate beneath the stage
awaits the proper moment to be lifted into the interior of the second
trunk, whose movable end is opened outwardly by the prestidigitateur at
the desired moment.
Boxes with glass sides also have been constructed. The management is the
same, but, as the person inclosed is visible up to the last moment, care
must be taken to so pass the ropes as not to interfere with the trap of
the trunk, which then consists of one of the sides, and which operates
at the moment when the trunk, bound with ropes, sealed and laid upon
this side, is about to be wrapped up. This presentation has still more
effect upon the spectators than the preceding, and seems to present
greater difficulties.
“THE INDIAN BASKET TRICK.”
Among the most remarkable experiments performed by prestidigitateurs
should be cited that of the Indian basket, which, as its name indicates,
is of Asiatic origin. Travelers in Hindostan have often told us that the
Indians practice this wonderful trick upon the public places. The Indian
magician makes use of an oblong osier basket provided with a cover. He
takes a child and incloses it in this basket, and around the latter
buckles a belt. Grasping a sword, he thrusts it into the basket here and
there, and pulls out the blade all dripping with blood.
The spectacle is shocking, and the feelings of the spectators become
wrought up to a high pitch. The magician then opens the basket, which,
to the surprise of all, is empty.
At a few yards distance cries are heard proceeding from the child who
had been inclosed in the basket, and who is now running forward sound
and happy. Robert-Houdin, who studied this juggler’s trick, explained it
perfectly, and was able to perform it himself. The basket used by the
Indian prestidigitateurs is represented herewith.
Fig. 1 shows the basket open ready to receive the child. For the sake of
the explanation we have cut away one end. This basket is provided with a
double movable bottom, A C B, the center of motion of which is at C. In
order to make the child disappear, the cover being closed, the top of
the basket is lowered by turning it toward the spectators (Fig. 2). But
the bottom, B, and the part A, that depends upon it, do not take part in
this motion. The weight of the child lying upon the bottom forces the
latter to remain in place, and by this fact the part A C shuts off the
bottom of the basket (Fig. 2).
[Illustration: THE INDIAN BASKET TRICK.]
In order to turn the basket over, the Indian fastens it with strips of
leather, and, to facilitate this operation, places his knee on it. The
child can then easily hide himself under the robe worn by the magician.
Replacing the basket in its first position, the Indian inserts his sword
and sticks the blade into a small sponge fixed within and saturated with
a red liquid. While the attention of the spectators is absorbed by this
exciting operation, the little Indian escapes from beneath the robe, and
runs a short distance from the spectators without being seen. Houdin
says that when this trick is well performed, it has a startling effect.
In all the preceding tricks the magician has made way bodily with
assistants, we now come to a case of mutilation in which the luckless
clown must suffer decapitation.
DECAPITATION.
The means employed in this illusion is the old-fashioned “defunct”
method of decapitation, and although this lacks the refinement and
scientific interest of execution by electricity, it has a certain
precision.
[Illustration: A NOVEL STAGE TRICK--DECAPITATION.]
The poor clown who suffers the death penalty twelve times a week usually
enters the circus ring, or appears on the stage, as the case may be, and
after performing certain acrobatic feats, commits some crime against his
fellows, for which he is condemned to die. He is placed upon the block;
his head is covered with a cloth. Harlequin approaches as executioner,
and begins to cut with a huge knife across the victim’s neck. In a
moment all is over, the cloth is removed, and Harlequin lifts in the air
the severed head. Delighted with his trophy, he carries it about under
his arm, places it in a charger in the center of the ring, and finally
takes it back to the block wrapped up in the cloth, and places it by the
side of the headless trunk. He removes the cloth, and then in sport
places a lighted cigarette in its mouth. In a little while you notice
that the cigarette begins to glow, smoke comes from the nose, and the
eyes roll. Evidently the head has come to life. Not able to bear the
horrible sight, he throws the cloth again over the head, seizes it,
places it in its original position on the shoulders of the victim,
kneads it to the body, and suddenly the figure rises, head and all, and
bows to the audience--an orthodox clown. The trick is a good one, and
takes with the audience. The way in which it is done is explained in the
second cut.
[Illustration: EXPLANATION OF THE DECAPITATION TRICK.]
As soon as the clown lies on the box and his head has been covered with
the cloth, he passes his head through an invisible opening in the top of
the box. An assistant inside of the box passes up the dummy head, which
is an exact facsimile of the clown’s head and face. This is seized by
Harlequin, who makes such sport of it as he sees fit. When he places it
by the side of the trunk, in reality he passes it through an opening in
the top of the box to the assistant within, who substitutes his own head
(which is painted to match the other two) in place of it. The other
steps in the performance readily follow. The cloth which the harlequin
always carries conceals all the sleight of hand, and the whole
performance is a series of surprises.
Another performance of a somewhat similar character was recently
performed at a theater in New York, in which a clown throws himself on a
sofa and is cut in two by a harlequin. One part of the sofa with the
body remains in one part of the stage while the other part with the legs
and feet (which are all the time vigorously kicking) disappear through a
wing at the other end of the stage. The action is very sudden and the
effect startling. Of course, in this case there are two men similarly
dressed. The head and body of one of them appears at the head of the
sofa, while the body of the second clown is concealed in the box under
the seat at the other end of the sofa, the feet and legs alone being
exposed.
SPIRITUALISTIC TIES.
The following article is not written with the intention or desire to
antagonize any believer in Spiritualism, but merely to explain how
anti-spiritualists, as well as several professional “mediums,” secured
their release after being fastened in their cabinet. During the years
the writer (Mr. Caulk) has been before the public as a magician and
cabinet performer, he has met a number of cabinet test “mediums,” and
can safely say that all of these people who have come under his
observation have been imposters. This may be due, however, to the bad
fortune of the writer.
The writer has been tied with ropes, fastened with handcuffs, brass
collars, and chains, many times in many different cities, and by people
who were just as alert as any investigator of spiritualistic phenomena,
yet, unlike many “mediums” he has met with, was never exposed.
The methods used are many, some simple, others complicated, but all
mystifying. To the average auditor the most wonderful point is, how does
the performer release himself after being so securely bound? For the
benefit of the curious the writer will explain a few of the methods by
which he has secured his release after being fastened by a committee
from the audience. All anti-spiritualists, as well as several “mediums”
personally known to the writer, make use of these same methods of
release, or others founded on the same principle.
Among the many successful rope tests, the following is about the best. A
piece of soft cotton rope about six feet long, and of the size known as
sash cord, is securely tied around the performer’s left wrist, dividing
the rope so that the ends will be of an equal length. When the committee
is satisfied that they have made the knots secure, the performer places
his hands behind him, with the right wrist resting over the knots on the
left wrist, and the ends of the rope are securely tied together,
bringing the knots down tight on the right wrist. This appears fair
enough, but it is not as fair as it appears, because, while the knots
are secure enough, there is sufficient slack between the wrists to
enable the performer, by giving his right wrist a half turn, to withdraw
this hand from the rope encircling it.
The reader may say, “That is all well enough, but how and by what means
does he secure this slack?”
[Illustration: A ROPE TEST.]
In placing his hands behind him after the rope is tied about the left
wrist, he gives the rope a twist and knot with over the other, pressing
the twist down on the knot and covering the twist and knot with the
right wrist, which is then tied. When ready to release himself, the
performer gives his right hand and wrist a half turn, releasing the
twist lying on the knot, which thus becomes a part of the loop tied
around the right wrist, and enlarging it sufficiently to enable the
performer to pull the right hand free from the rope, when he can perform
any trick he chooses with the free hand. Our first and second engravings
show the formation of the twist, thus making the above explanation
clear. By replacing the hand in the loop and giving the hand a half turn
the knots can be shown as secure as when first tied.
[Illustration: EXPLANATION OF THE ROPE TEST.]
The “Spiritualistic Post Test” is among the latest and most successful
of mechanical fastenings. A piece of wood four inches square and three
feet long is given to the committee, who bore a hole through it near one
end, and then pass an ordinary rope through the hole, tying a knot in
the rope on each side of the post, pressing the knots against the post
so that the rope cannot be drawn through the post. The ends of the rope
are now unraveled, and the post secured to the floor of the cabinet.
[Illustration: THE SPIRITUALISTIC POST TEST.]
The performer, standing behind the post, places his wrists against the
knots in the rope, one on each side of the post, and the unravelled ends
of the rope are bound around his wrists and tied securely, and all knots
are sealed with wax. A large nail is driven in the top of the post, to
which are fastened cords that are passed out through the cabinet and
held by members of the committee in order that they may know if the
performer moves the post in any manner during the performance of any
test, such as the ringing of bells, etc. Fig. 2 of our third engraving
shows the performer tied to the post and the committee holding the
cords. The curtains of the cabinet are closed and the usual
manifestations take place.
Before the performance a hole is bored in the center of the end of the
stick or post, in which is placed a chisel-shaped piece of steel
sharpened at the lower end and blunt at the upper end, as shown in Fig.
3. The opening in the end of the post is now carefully closed and all
signs of such an opening are concealed by the aid of glue, sawdust, and
a little dirt rubbed over it.
When the committee are invited to bore a hole in the post, the performer
takes care to start the bit, in order that there will be no mistake
about getting the hole directly beneath the chisel concealed in the
post. When the rope is passed through the hole and knotted it is
directly under the sharp edge of the chisel, with a thin layer of wood
between. When the nail is driven in the top of the post it strikes the
chisel, forcing it through the thin shell of wood above the rope and
through the rope, thus releasing the performer, who can withdraw his
hands from the post and do any trick he chooses, and when finished, by
merely replacing the ends of the rope in the holes from which he removed
them, and holding the hands tight against the post, can allow a most
rigid examination of the seals to show that it was not possible for him
to have released his hands, and the persons holding the cords that are
fastened to the nail testify that they did not feel any movement of the
performer or the post.
The Handcuff Test is a great favorite of the “medium.” In this test the
performer uses any pair of handcuffs furnished by the audience, and by
them put on him. Yet, in a very few moments after he takes his place in
the cabinet, his coat is thrown out, but on examination the handcuffs
are found to be on his wrists just as they were placed by the audience.
As a final test, the performer comes out of the cabinet holding the
handcuffs in his hand, removed from the wrist but locked.
The explanation of this trick is very simple, but, like many simple
tricks, very mysterious. There are only a few styles of handcuffs made
in this country, and all that a “medium” has to do is to secure the
proper key for each style, which keys are concealed about the person,
and by the aid of fingers and teeth the proper key can be fitted to the
handcuffs. In some types of handcuffs it is impossible to get the
fingers to the key-hole. If such a pair is placed on the performer and
he cannot use his teeth to hold the key, he slips the key in a crack in
the chair or cabinet, which crack he makes sure is there before
undertaking the test, thus holding the key and unlocking the handcuffs.
As the space allotted for this article is limited, the writer will
explain but one other piece of apparatus used to secure the “medium,”
which is known as the Spirit Collar.
[Illustration: THE SPIRIT COLLAR.]
The collar is made of brass, and fits closely about the performer’s
neck. Through the openings in the ends of the collar is passed a chain,
after the collar is on the performer’s neck, and this chain is passed
around a post, carried back and through the padlock which is used to
lock the collar. By this arrangement the performer is fastened securely
to a post, at least it appears so to the audience. This collar is shown
in our fourth engraving. As seen by the cut, the collar is decorated
with a number of small bolts, which impart to it an additional
appearance of strength.
These bolts are all false with one exception. This genuine bolt can be
removed by the performer when the collar is on his neck, thus allowing
the collar to come apart at the hinge, as shown in the cut, thus
releasing the performer, allowing him full liberty to perform any trick
he wishes, and permitting him to again apparently fasten himself
securely. This loose bolt fits so securely that there is no danger of
any of the committee removing it with their fingers. The performer uses
a small wrench to remove the bolt.
CHAPTER II.
OPTICAL TRICKS.
The prestidigitateur has always been indebted more or less to the use of
reflection from mirrors and plate glass as an important adjunct in
conjuring. Many of the illusions in the succeeding pages have often been
used as an entertainment in themselves so that it might really be termed
“side show science.” Without doubt the most famous of all the illusions
in which effects of lighting are used is “Pepper’s Ghost” which was
devised by that eminent experimentor on physical and chemical science,
John Henry Pepper. There are a number of variations of the Pepper Ghost
of which the “_Cabaret du Neant_” is an excellent example.
THE “CABARET DU NEANT.”
The name “_Cabaret du Neant_,” or “Tavern of the Dead” (“non-existing”),
has been given by the proprietors to a recent Parisian sensation; it was
also exhibited in New York. The interest of course centers in the ghost
illusion.
The spectators on entering the _Cabaret_ pass through a long hall hung
with black and find themselves in a spectral restaurant. Along the walls
coffins are placed for tables, and on the end of each coffin is a
burning candle. From the center of the ceiling hangs what is termed
“Robert Macaire’s chandelier,” made to all appearances of bones and
skulls. The spectators are here at liberty to seat themselves at the
tables and are served with what they desire by a mournful waiter dressed
like a French mourner with a long crape streamer hanging from his silk
hat. Around the walls of the room are placed pictures to which the
spectator’s attention is called by the lecturer. Seen by the light of
the room these pictures are ordinary scenes, but a new aspect is given
to each when lights directly behind it are turned on; the figures in it
appear as skeletons, each picture being in fact a transparency giving a
different effect as it is lighted from the rear or as seen simply by
reflected light. The second chamber is now entered; it is hung with
black throughout. On the walls tears are painted, and in close
juxtaposition are two somewhat incongruous inscriptions, “_Requiescat in
pace_,” and “No smoking.” The reason for the latter admonition, which
is also given by the lecturer, is that for the success of the illusion
an absolutely clear atmosphere is essential. At the end of this second
chamber, at the back of a stage, is seen a coffin standing upright, in
which one of the audience is requested to place himself. Entering the
stage by the side door, he is conducted by an attendant to the coffin
and placed in it. Blocks of wood are placed for him to stand on in
quantity sufficient to bring his head to the right height so that the
top of it just presses against the top of the coffin, and the attendant
with great care adjusts his height according to the predetermined
position. Two rows of Argand burners illuminate his figure, which is
then wrapped in a white sheet. Now, as the spectators watch him, he
gradually dissolves or fades away and in his place appears a skeleton in
the coffin. Again, at the word of command the skeleton in its turn
slowly disappears, and the draped figure of the spectator appears again.
The illusion is perfect to the outer audience; the one in the coffin
sees absolutely nothing out of the common. His interest, if he knows
what is going on, is centered in watching the changing expression of the
spectators, being increased by the fact that at their period of greatest
astonishment he is absolutely invisible, although directly before them
and seeing them more plainly than ever. After the restoration to life
one or more auditors are put through the same performance, so that the
recent occupant of the coffin can see what he has gone through.
[Illustration: THE SUBJECT AND HIS SKELETON.]
[Illustration: THE SHEETED GHOST.]
The third chamber is now entered, somewhat similar to the second, but
on its stage is a table and seat, all the walls being lined with black.
One of the auditors is invited to seat himself at the table on the
stage. He does it, and, as before, sees nothing. While the description
of the lecturer and the appearance and comments of the audience tell him
that something very interesting is going on, the remarks will probably
disclose to him the fact that this time at least he is never out of
their sight. He leaves the stage and his place is taken by another, and
then he understands the nature of the drama in which he has been an
unconscious participator. He sees the other spectator seated alone at
the table. Suddenly a spirit, perhaps of an old man, appears at the
other side of the table, while a bottle and glass are seen upon the
table. When exhorted to help himself to the liquid, the performing
spectator’s idle gestures show that he certainly does not see the glass,
through which his hand passes unobstructed. Or perhaps it is a woman who
appears and makes the most alluring gestures toward him who never sees
her. This concludes the exhibition, which as accessory has the strains
of a funeral march, the ringing of deep-sounding bells as room after
room is entered, and the appearance of a brown-robed monk who acts as
Charon to introduce the spectator to his place in the coffin. In one of
our illustrations we show, side by side, the coffin with its living
occupant draped in a sheet and in the other the skeleton which appears
in his place. Two other cuts show the scenes between the spectator at
the table and the specters, illustrating how active a part the specters
take, they being no mere painted appearances, but evidently living,
moving things. Our large illustration shows precisely how it is done and
so clearly that an explanation is hardly needed. The floor of the stage
is represented. To the left are seen the spectators and the performer at
the piano discoursing his lugubrious melodies. To the right is seen
Charon, and directly in front of him the coffin with its living
occupant. When lighted up by the burners shown near him, the other
burners being turned down, the coffin with its occupant is all that is
seen by the spectator. Directly in front of the coffin, crossing the
stage obliquely, is a large sheet of the clearest plate glass, which
offers no impediment to the view of the coffin with its occupant, when
the latter is fully illuminated. At one side of the stage, in the back
of the picture, is a painting of a skeleton in a coffin with its own set
of Argand burners. It is screened from view. When strongly illuminated,
and when the lights of the real coffin are turned down, the spectators
see reflected from the glass a brilliant image of the pictured coffin
and skeleton. By turning up one set of burners as the others are turned
down a perfect dissolving effect is obtained, skeleton replacing
spectator and _vice versa_ at the will of the exhibitor.
[Illustration: AN X-RAY ILLUSION UPON THE STAGE--CONVERSION OF A LIVING
MAN INTO A SKELETON.]
[Illustration: THE FEMALE SPIRIT.]
The magic lantern operator always realizes that to secure a good
dissolving effect perfect registration is essential. In the securing of
this lies the secret of the coffin exhibit of the _Cabaret du Neant_. By
the blocks on which the occupant of the coffin stands, and by the
adjustment of his head by the attendant, the head is brought into
perfect registration with the reflected head of the skeleton. The
wrapping with the sheet, presumably the enveloping in a shroud, is done
with a purpose. It covers the body from the shoulders down and extends
to the very bottom of the coffin, covering the blocks also, thus doing
away with all defects of registration which would be incurred in the
persons of spectators of different heights. In other words, the
exhibition fits out everybody with a skeleton of precisely the same
height, however tall or short he may be, the draping of the sheet and
accurate position of the head concealing from the spectators this
inaccuracy, the skull occupying precisely the place of the head, the
rest taking care of itself.
Still referring to the large cut, it will be seen that it serves to
explain the exhibition in the other chamber. Instead of the coffin there
is the table and chair, and in place of the pictured skeleton a live
performer is placed. In this act there is no dissolving effect; by
turning up the lights at the side of the stage any object desired and
performers dressed as spirits are made to appear upon the stage, being
reflected from the glass plate. The spectators simultaneously see their
companion sitting at the table and the reflections of the ghosts
apparently executing their movements about him.
From the scientific as well as scenic aspect, the exhibition is most
interesting, and to one who knows how it is performed, the interest is
vastly enhanced. To properly enjoy it, the stage position should be
taken during one or both performances.
THE THREE-HEADED WOMAN.
[Illustration: THE THREE-HEADED LADY.]
In this illusion the spectators are separated from the stage by a
balustrade--behind which is seen the curtain. In a few moments the
latter is drawn back and there is distinctly seen a woman’s body the
lower part of which is hidden by a basket of flowers. This body has
three heads, one in the middle and two others grafted at the base of the
neck of the first. The heads move their eyes, answer questions and sing,
and finally salute the audience, and the curtains are drawn together and
the performance is over. As in many tricks of this kind the showman
usually announces that for an additional admission the secret of the
illusion will be divulged. The visitor then enters the side scene and
perceives that on the little stage where the phenomenal woman just
appeared, nothing is visible but a large plate of glass slightly
inclined towards the audience and its edges hidden by drapery. Behind
the mirror there is a recess whose sides are covered with a jet black
fabric. In front of the mirror on the stage sits the basket of flowers
from which issued the woman’s body. On an inclined board which rests
against the screen or balustrade lie three young girls; one of these,
the middle one, is clothed in a brilliant costume of light-colored silk,
and it is she who in the exhibition makes trunk, arms, and the middle
head. The lower part of her body is covered over with a black fabric
and she is supported by a cushion which permits the two other girls to
place their necks closely against hers. The bodies of these two girls at
the sides are completely covered with fabric of a dead black color. In
front of these three young women are placed powerful lights. The heads,
hair, and arms of the “body” are covered with powder so as to present
completely white surfaces. All the white or light-colored surfaces being
strongly lighted by the lamps reflect the light; the image is thus made
upon the spectator.
“AMPHITRITE.”
This illusion, which is presented under the name of “Amphitrite,” is as
follows: When the representation is about to begin, the curtain of a
small stage rises. There is observed a circular aperture, cut in a
screen, over which is stretched transparent muslin.
[Illustration: AMPHITRITE.]
About six feet behind the latter there is a scene representing the sky
with clouds; below, in the foreground, there is a canvas representing
the sea.
“Amphitrite, come forth!” exclaims the person in charge of the show. All
at once, a woman in the costume of an opera nymph rises from the sea
without anything being visible to support her in space, in which she
turns round and round, gracefully moving her legs and arms, now in one
direction, and then in another. When the exhibition is at an end, she
straightens out in the position of a swimmer about to make a dive, and
plunges behind the curtain representing the ocean.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM EXPLAINING THE AMPHITRITE ILLUSION.]
The illusion that we have just described may be performed as follows:
Amphitrite is an image--a specter analogous to those of Robin. If we
imagine that a transparent glass, M M, in our diagram, is inclined 45°
with respect to the stage, a person clad in light clothing, lying
horizontally upon a black background beneath the stage, and well
illuminated, will exhibit an upright image behind the glass. This image
will appear to be formed in front of the back canvas, T T. Now, as
Amphitrite is lying upon a table, P P, she will be able to go through
her evolutions and bend herself in a circle; and if, during this time,
the table, movable upon its axis, A, is revolved, her image will turn in
all directions. Finally, to cause Amphitrite to appear or disappear, it
will suffice to slide the table upon rails, thus bringing it in front of
or behind the glass. Amphitrite should be placed upon an absolutely
black background. Her costume should be of a light color with metallic
spangles, and she should be illuminated by a powerful electric light.
The muslin stretched in front of the screen is designed to arrest
anything that jesters might throw against the glass, and which, sticking
thereto might explain a part of the mystery.
“THE MYSTERY OF DR. LYNN.”
In this illusion which was presented at the “Folies Bergères,” at Paris,
the stage is rather larger than in most of the talking heads and other
analogous tricks. At a short distance from the spectator is observed a
woman cut off at the thighs and resting on a small swinging shelf. The
showman moves the shelf laterally, and at a signal the exhibitor removes
the shelf, and the half-length body appears suspended in the air. The
question which every visitor asks is, where is the rest of the body? In
many of the tricks of talking heads, isolated busts, etc., the illusion
is obtained by the aid of mirrors, but the mystery of Dr. Lynn is
obtained in a much simpler manner. All painters know that in a very
strongly lighted picture the bright colors stand out at the expense of
the half-tones and dark colors, and this effect is greater as the light
becomes brighter. It is upon this principle that the Dr. Lynn trick is
based. The lower part of the bust seen is a dummy upon which the upper
part of the woman’s body lies, the remainder of her body being extended
nearly horizontally upon a board which is capable of swinging and
following the motion of the shelf. All this portion is hidden by opaque
black drapery so arranged as not to reflect the light at any point. The
bust and shelf receive a very intense light; then immediately behind
there is seen intense darkness, forming an absolutely dark background.
The latter is rendered still darker by the brilliant cords of the shelf,
a metallic chain and a dagger suspended beneath it, as well as a white
handkerchief which seems to have been dropped upon the stage by
accident. At least six powerful gas burners or electric lights with
reflectors are turned towards the spectators, so that it will be seen
that the latter are in a manner dazzled by everything that strikes the
eye in the foreground, and that beyond this they see absolutely nothing
but a black background.
[Illustration: THE ILLUSION EXPLAINED.]
Another variation of the illusion of the “Decapitated Princess,” which
will be described later on, is obtained without the aid of mirrors. A
young girl appears before the audience, accompanied by an executioner
clad in red, and armed with the traditional axe of his profession. The
curtain then drops, and rises in a few moments, the stage being somewhat
darkened. Near the executioner can be perfectly distinguished the girl’s
head lying on a round table at the back of the stage. The body is seen
lying on the bed a few feet from her head and at her side is the fatal
block that had served for execution. The trick is the same as the
preceding one; it requires, however, two persons of the same size,
wearing the same costume, to carry out the illusion successfully. One of
these, the one who shows herself to the public, makes the head, her body
being hidden behind the cloth in the rear of the stage, which is in
darkness, as has just been explained. The other, who makes the body, has
her head bent far back and hidden in a sort of box, a false cardboard
neck contributing to increase the illusion.
“BLACK ART.”
To the Yogi and Mahatmas of India, the magicians and illusionists of
Europe and America are indebted for the ideas of many of their best
tricks and illusions. While the published reports of many of the alleged
marvelous effects produced by the “wonder workers” of India must be
taken with a very large amount of salt, yet we must give these people
due credit for being the originators of many tricks from which the
modern magician has taken principles on which he has founded and created
several of the grandest and most successful illusions of modern times.
Take, for instance, the illusion known as “Black Art,” or the “Midnight
Mysteries of the Yogi,” made famous in this country by those master
minds of magic, Harry Kellar and the late Alexander Hermann. The weird
illusion is founded on an idea advanced by the Yogi of India.
No doubt nearly all of the readers of this article have seen “Black Art”
presented by one of the above named magicians, yet the number who could
advance a plausible explanation of how it was done, are very few,
because as soon as one thinks that he has discovered the secret, the
performer produces an effect in direct variance with the principle on
which the illusion appears to be founded.
In this illusion the entire stage from the first groove to the rear is
hung with black velvet, the floor covered with black felt, and the top
is covered with black velvet, thus forming a large room lined entirely
in black. The regular footlights are turned out, and a special set are
used, that consist of a row of open gas jets placed on a line with the
boxes, and carried up the outside of the black room, as shown in the
large engraving.
The lights throughout the entire house are either turned very low or put
out, with the exception of the special lights mentioned above.
[Illustration: THE STAGE SETTING FOR BLACK ART.]
The curtain rises, disclosing the black chamber. In a moment the
magician appears, dressed in a white suit; a wave of his hand, and a
white wand appears floating in the air, which the magician secures. A
wave of the wand, and a table appears on the right, then a second table
appears on the left. A large vase appears on one of the tables, and a
second vase appears on the magician’s outstretched hand. Both of the
vases are shown and proven empty, and in one is placed a few orange
seeds, and the wand is passed over the vase, which instantly becomes
filled with oranges. The oranges are poured into the second, then
returned to the first vase, when they disappear as quickly and as
mysteriously as they appeared, and the vases are again shown empty, and
again placed one on each of the tables. A borrowed watch is placed in
one of the vases, from which it disappears and is found in the vase on
the other table. A life-size skeleton now appears and dances around the
stage, becomes dismembered, the separated parts floating about, but they
finally rearticulate themselves, and the skeleton vanishes. Now a rabbit
is seen in one of the vases, from which it is taken by the performer,
and in his hands it becomes two, which are tossed in the air and
disappear.
[Illustration: AN ASSISTANT REMOVING THE TABLE COVER.]
The number and style of tricks performed in the mysterious black
chamber are almost unlimited, but an explanation of the ones mentioned
above will suffice to show how “Black Art” is performed.
While the stage is draped in black, everything that appears is painted
white, and the magician is dressed in white. There is an assistant on
the stage all through the act, but as he is dressed in black, with
gloves on his hands and a hood over his head, made of black velvet, he
is not seen by the spectators, whose sight is somewhat dazzled by the
open gas jets. The tables are on the stage, but covered with pieces of
black velvet, rendering them invisible. The second engraving shows how
the assistant removes the piece of velvet and causes a table to appear
at the magician’s command.
[Illustration: THE DISARTICULATED SKELETON.]
The vases are also sitting on the stage, but covered with pieces of
black velvet. By picking up the covered vases the assistant can cause
them to appear, by removing the velvet, one on the table and the other
on the performer’s hand. The oranges are in a black velvet bag, from
which the assistant pours them into the vase. To cause the oranges to
vanish, the magician, instead of pouring them into the vase, pours them
into the open mouth of a large black bag held by the assistant just over
the lower vase. The transposition of the watch from one vase to the
other is just as easy. The assistant merely removes it from the vase in
which the performer placed it, and places it in the second vase. The
manipulation of the rabbit is equally simple. The assistant places the
first one in the vase by means of a black bag in which it was concealed,
then places the second one in the performer’s hands from a second small
bag. In vanishing the rabbits the performer merely tosses them up into a
large open-mouthed black bag held by the assistant.
[Illustration: THE JOINTED PAPER SKELETON.]
The skeleton is made of _papier maché_, painted white, and fastened on a
thin board that is sawed to shape and covered with black velvet. One arm
and one leg are jointed so as to be readily removed and replaced by the
assistant when he is operating the skeleton. The last two illustrations
fully explain the method of construction and manipulation of the
skeleton.
The tables are made either of wood or _papier maché_ and painted white.
The vases are made of _papier maché_, painted white on the outside and
black on the inside. The reason the inside of the vases are painted
black is to prevent the hand of the assistant beings seen when he places
it in the vase.
This is one of the most expensive of stage illusions, costing several
hundred dollars to properly stage it with the best drapery and
accessories, and unless such are used the proper illusory effect is
lost. In magic as well as in other business, cheap apparatus is dear at
any price.
THE TALKING HEAD.
Probably the most common of all of the illusions which depend upon
mirrors is the Talking Head upon a table. The illustration is almost
self-explanatory. The apparatus consists only of a mirror fixed to the
side legs of the table. The mirror hides the body of the girl, who is on
her knees and seated on a small stool, and reflects the straw which
covers the floor so as to make it appear continuous under the table;
likewise it reflects the front leg of the table so as to make it appear
at an equal distance from the other side and thus produce the illusion
of the fourth leg. It also reflects the end of the red fabric hanging in
front of the table and thus makes it appear to hang down from behind.
The visitor stands only a few inches away from the table and head. Such
proximity of the spectator and actor would seem to favor the discovery
of the trick, but on the contrary it is indispensable to its success.
[Illustration: THE TALKING HEAD.]
THE LIVING HALF-WOMAN.
[Illustration: THE LIVING HALF OF A WOMAN.]
This illusion is a very ingenious improvement on the “Talking Head.” On
entering the small booth in which it is usually exhibited, we perceive
an elegant little room decorated with flowers and lights and hung with
tapestry. In front there are two railings and the floor is covered with
a carpet. In the center is seen a small table on which rests a kind of
three-legged stool supporting a cushion and the half body. The lady
shows she has arrived by moving her arms and head and speaking and
singing. The visitor can see the four legs of the table and can
perfectly distinguish the space under the stool, the whole scene being
brilliantly lighted, contrary to the usual custom in any such illusions.
The secret of the illusion is as follows:
The stool is formed only of a hollowed out disk whose supports are
connected by two mirrors that make with each other an angle of
forty-five degrees. These mirrors rest on the top of the table which was
decorated in regular designs in mosaic and reflect the latter in such a
way that they seem to continue uninterruptedly under the stool. The
table presents an analogous arrangement, its side legs being connected
with the middle one by two mirrors. These mirrors reflect not only the
designs of the carpet which by their continuity produce the illusion of
a vacancy, but also two table legs located on each side behind the
railing, as shown in our small engraving: the mirror to the left
transmits to the spectators on that side the image of the leg placed on
the left and this image seems to them to be the fourth leg of the table.
The mirror to the right plays the same _rôle_ with regard to the
spectators on that side. These mirrors in addition hide the lower part
of the girl’s body.
[Illustration: EXPLANATORY OF THE HALF-WOMAN.]
“SHE.”
During the season of 1891-92, among various interesting things to be
seen at the Eden Musée, perhaps the most interesting, and at the same
time the most scientific, was the weird spectacle entitled “She,”
exhibited by Powell, the well-known illusionist, and suggested by the
Cave scene in H. Rider Haggard’s celebrated novel “She.”
[Illustration: PREPARED FOR CREMATION.]
[Illustration: THE ESCAPE.]
[Illustration: THE BURNING.]
In this scene a beautiful young lady mounts a table arranged in an
alcove formed by a folding screen. Above the victim is suspended a
cylindrical cloth screen. The screen is lowered to the level of the
table, completely inclosing the subject. The table apparently has four
legs, and four candles shown beneath it indicate that the space
underneath the table is open and clear. The cylindrical screen is shown
to be entire, with openings only at the upper and lower ends, and no
openings are seen in the folding screen which partly surrounds the
table. Upon the firing of a pistol the occupant of the table is ignited,
and smoke and flame bursting from the screen indicate that the work of
destruction is going on within. When the fire is burned out the screen
is lifted, and nothing remains upon the table but a few smouldering
embers and a pile of bones surmounted by a skull. Close observation does
not reveal any way of escape for the young woman. It is, however,
obvious that the magician cannot afford to sacrifice such a subject
every evening, and the spectators are forced to conclude that the whole
affair is a very clever trick. In fact, it is simply a modification of
the beheaded lady and numerous other tricks based upon the use of plane
mirrors. The table has but two legs, the other two which appear being
simply reflections. The central standard supports but two candles, the
other two being reflections. Underneath the table, and converging at the
central standard, are arranged two plane mirrors at an angle of 90° with
each other and 45° with the side panels of the screen. By means of this
arrangement the side panels, which are of the same color as the central
or back panel, are reflected in the mirror and appear as a continuation
of the back panel. The triangular box, of which the mirrors form two
sides, has a top composed in part of the table top and in part of mirror
sections for reflecting the back panel, or with a covering of the same
color as the back panel.
[Illustration: THE FINISH.]
The operation of the apparatus is now obvious. When the victim is
inclosed by the cylindrical screen, she immediately escapes through a
trap door in the table top, places the bones and the fireworks upon the
table, and at the firing of the pistol ignites the latter and retires,
closing the trap door after her.
“THE QUEEN OF FLOWERS.”
[Illustration: MR. KELLAR’S ILLUSION, “QUEEN OF THE FLOWERS.”]
One of Mr. Kellar’s recent illusions is what he is pleased to call “The
Queen of Flowers.” Our first engraving represents the stage as the
audience sees it, and the last cut will help to explain it to the
reader. The background, set against curtains, is about ten feet long and
eight feet high, and represents a mass of flowers and bushes
indiscriminately thrown together, with blue sky above. There is a
little flat roof which projects out about three feet from the bottom of
the screen and is supported by four red poles. The bottom is a floor
raised about a foot from the stage, and in front of each of the three
divisions made by the poles between the stage proper and the floor of
this improvised summer house is placed an electric light. The audience
usually wonders what these lights are for in this strange place; but as
audiences always accept anything shown them by the prestidigitateur,
these lights do not disturb them very much except by dazzling them, as
they are meant to do. So much for the setting. There being no doors or
screens or curtains of any kind, the spectators have the satisfied
feeling that there is no deception there, for they can see all there is
to see. They can, that is true, only they don’t realize how much they
are seeing.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE CABINET.]
Mr. Kellar next brings a semicircular stand which he places in front of
the middle panel at the height of the floor. At the roof is fixed a
brass rod in the form of a semicircle, from which hangs a curtain
inclosing the little stand. This, however, cannot do much good, for, as
Mr. Kellar says, those on the extreme right and left of the audience can
still see quite behind the curtain, through the summer house, and they
believe him, not only because he told them so, but because they can see
with their own eyes. What could be more convincing! In a moment the
curtain is withdrawn and a beautiful lady surrounded by flowers is seen
standing on the little platform.
The last engraving will explain matters. The lines extending from the
two center poles to the background represent double mirrors; that is,
each mirror consists of two mirrors back to back, running from the floor
to the roof of the summer house. On account of the indefinite
arrangement of the flowers painted on the back scene in monotonous
design, the spectators do not notice the mirrors. These, of course, form
a passageway through which anyone can walk from behind the scenes to the
stand behind the curtain, while the audience is still keeping guard with
its ever watchful eye.
“THE DECAPITATED PRINCESS.”
[Illustration: ILLUSION OF THE DECAPITATED PRINCESS.]
In this illusion the exhibitor states that it is the head of an Egyptian
Princess who was accused of treason and beheaded. The head is exhibited
in a curtained recess and it reposes upon two swords lying across the
arms of the chair. The chair is upholstered in red plush and is placed
close to the curtain at the back of the recess. At the back of the chair
is an opening just below the level of the tops of the chair arms. This
opening is not seen from the front, as it is concealed by a mirror that
is placed between the arms of the chair at an angle of 45°. The ends of
the mirror rest in folds of the fan-shape upholstering on the inside of
the chair arms. The lower edge of the mirror is resting on the bottom of
the chair and the upper edge is concealed by laying one of the swords on
it, as may be seen in the other illustration. At the proper angle the
bottom of the chair is reflected in the mirror, leaving the impression
that one is looking at the back. The folds in the upholstering of the
inside of the arms effectually conceal the ends of the mirror. There is
a hole in the rear curtain directly opposite the hole in the chair back,
through which there passes a board supported at one end by resting on
the seat of the chair and at the other end by a small box or any
convenient article.
[Illustration: THE DECAPITATED PRINCESS--EXPLANATION OF ILLUSION.]
The lady who is to impersonate the princess takes her position on this
board with her chin just above the edge of the mirror, the second sword
is placed at the back of her head and a wide lace collar that she wears
around her neck is adjusted so as to rest nicely on the two swords. The
second illustration shows the board in position, passed through the
curtain, with the lady lying on it, her head on the swords and the lace
collar in position. The curtain in the rear must be close to the chair,
but the side curtains are removed about five feet. The board is padded
so as to make the lady as comfortable as possible.
“STELLA.”
[Illustration: AN ISOLATED HEAD IN THE CENTER OF A STAGE.]
The following illusion is similar to the “Decapitated Princess.” A small
stage is partitioned off by curtains. In the center of the stage,
suspended in space, is a young girl’s head, the neck of which starts
from a satin collar. This head is isolated on every side. One sees the
rear of the stage, the sides, the top and the bottom, and the brilliant
illumination leaves no portion in shadow. The head speaks and smiles and
finally blows out a lighted candle. The exhibitor then disappears behind
the side scenes with the candle. He now, as it seems, draws out a panel
in the back of the stage, and through the aperture thus formed the
spectator very distinctly sees the top of a table and upon it a candle
which the head has just extinguished. Now this aperture is directly
under the head, but much farther off, and is in the direction the body
would occupy if the head possessed one. The absence of the body is
therefore apparently demonstrated to the visitors.
The illusion was obtained by means of a simple mirror which starting
from the upper part of the back of the stage descended obliquely to the
front. In the center of this there was an opening which was concealed by
the satin collar and through this the young girl passed her head. The
inclination of the mirror was, in fact, indicated by a gold rod designed
to hide the junction of the mirror and the side. The arrangement will be
better understood by reference to the annexed diagram, which belongs to
the same illusion, only the clown is substituted for the girl’s head.
Now, by virtue of the optical law that “an object reflected from a
mirror appears to be behind the latter at a distance equal to that which
separates it from it,” every point of the line, M _l_, reflected from
the mirror, P M, will appear to be situated upon the line, M L.
So, to the spectator located at O, the point, _c_, reflected at C′ will
appear to be the point, C; the distance, _c_ C′ equaling C C′. The
point, _l_, reflected at L′, will appear to be L. And it will be the
same for all the intermediate points. The spectator, then, will believe
that he sees the line, M L, when in reality he sees only the reflection
of M _l_. Now, as we have just said, he will believe that he sees the
back of the stage, when, in fact, he sees nothing but a reflection of
the ceiling in the mirror. In the same way, the reflection from the
front of the ceiling will produce the illusion of the stage floor. This
fact still further contributes to increase the illusion, for the
spectators are not aware of the difference that exists between the
arrangement of the place where the bust appears and of that of the place
where the showman is walking.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM EXPLANATORY OF THE PHENOMENON.]
In the illusion of “Stella” the aperture through which the table was
seen was in reality at the top. The table was vertical and the candle
which was firmly fixed to it was horizontal. The farce of blowing out
the candle and carrying it behind the scenes was only designed to make
the spectators believe it was the same candle that was seen at the rear
of the stage, when in reality it was only a duplicate.
HOUDIN’S MAGIC CABINET.
These apparatus were formerly much employed by magicians--Robert-Houdin,
for instance. The following is an example of one of the scenes that may
occur with them:
When the curtain rises, there is seen in the center of the stage a
large, dark-colored cabinet, ornamented with mouldings, and mounted upon
legs that are a little longer than those of ordinary cabinets, the
object being to remove all possibility of a communication with the stage
beneath. These legs are provided with casters. The showman turns this
cabinet around and shows that there is nothing abnormal about it
externally. He then asks some of the spectators to come up close to it,
and lets them examine its interior, which is entirely empty. There is no
double bottom, nor any hiding-place. When the witnesses have made
themselves certain of this fact, they station themselves around the
stage, and a certain number of them even consent to remain behind the
cabinet and see nothing of the experiment. The cabinet being thus
surrounded on all sides, and every one being able to look under it,
fraud would seem to be an impossibility.
A young woman dressed as a _danseuse_ then comes on the stage and enters
the cabinet, and the doors are closed upon her. In a few moments the
doors are opened again, when, lo and behold! the closet is empty, the
young woman having disappeared. Then the doors are closed again, and
then opened, and the _danseuse_ makes her appearance; and so on. At the
end of the experiment the witnesses examine the cabinet again, and
finding nothing changed therein, are justly stupefied.
In another style of cabinet there is no bar in the center, as shown in
our engraving, but there is observed on one of the sides in the interior
a bracket a few centimeters in length, and, back and above this, a
shelf. This arrangement permits of performing a few experiments more
than does the one just described. Thus, when the woman has disappeared,
the showman allows a young man to enter, and he also disappears, while
the young woman is found in his place. This is a very surprising
substitution.
The box into which the harlequin takes refuge, and which appears to be
empty when Pierrot or Cassandra lifts the curtain that shields its
entrance, is also a sort of magic cabinet.
In a series of lectures delivered a few years ago at the London
Polytechnic Institution, a professor of physics unmasked the secret of
some of the tricks employed on the stage for producing illusions, and
notably that of the magic cabinet. The lecturer, after showing the
cabinet, and causing the disappearance therein of an individual while
the doors were closed, repeated the same experiment with the latter
open. But, in the latter case, so quick was the disappearance that the
spectators could not even then see how it was done. The illusion
produced by the apparatus is the result of a play of mirrors.
[Illustration: MAGIC CABINET.]
In the first cabinet described, when the exhibitor has closed the doors
upon the young woman, the latter pulls toward her two mirrors that are
represented in our plan of the cabinet by the lines, G G. These mirrors
are hinged at O O, and, when swung outward, rest by their external edges
against the bar, P, and then occupy the position shown by the dotted
lines, G′ G′. When the cabinet is again opened, the woman placed at A is
hidden by the two mirrors; but the appearance of the interior of the
cabinet is not changed, since the spectators see the image of each side
reflected from the corresponding mirror, and this looks to them like the
back of the cabinet.
[Illustration: PLAN EXPLANATORY OF THE CABINET.]
The illusion is perfect. When the experiment is ended and the mirrors
are again swung against the sides, at G G, the spectators see nothing
but the backs of them, which are covered with wood; the cabinet is
really empty, and no one can discover what modification has taken place
in its interior during the disappearance of the woman.
In the second arrangement, which is shown in vertical section in our
last engraving, the young man gets up on the shelf, _c n_, at the upper
part of the cabinet, by the aid of the bracket, T, and then pulls down
over him the mirror, _b c_, which was fastened to the top of the
cabinet. This mirror, being inclined at an angle of 45°, reflects the
top, and the spectators imagine that they see the back of the cabinet
over the shelf, as they did before.
[Illustration: SECTION EXPLANATORY OF THE CABINET.]
The box which Harlequin enters is based upon precisely the same
principle. Its interior is hung with paper banded alternately blue and
white. When Harlequin enters it, he places himself in one of the angles
and pulls toward him two mirrors which hide him completely, and which
reflect the opposite side of the box, so that the spectator is led to
believe that he sees the back of it. In this case, one of the angles at
the back of the box is not apparent, but the colored stripes prevent the
spectator from noticing the fact.
A MYSTIC MAZE.
We present an engraving of a very interesting optical illusion produced
with only three mirrors. By multiplying the mirrors the large number of
different effects can be obtained.
Let us imagine that three perfectly plain and very clear mirror glasses,
as large as possible, form a prism whose base is an equilateral
triangle. A person placed in the interior of this prism will see his
image reflected a very large number of times. A very simple geometrical
construction, and one which we recommend our young readers to carry out
as an exercise in optics, by the simple application of the principle
that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection, allows
us to see that the image of any point whatever placed in the center of
this triangle of glass plates will be reproduced indefinitely by groups
of six images distributed symmetrically around points regularly spaced
in the prolongations of the planes of the three glasses.
A person, therefore, sees his image reproduced indefinitely in groups of
six until, the successive reflections attenuating the intensity of the
images, the latter cease to be visible. Three or four persons massed in
one of the angles present the illusion of a compact and mixed crowd
standing upon a sidewalk and awaiting the passage of a procession. The
hats waving in the air convert the peaceful waiting into an enthusiastic
manifestation, which is so much the more surprising in that it is made
by but half a dozen persons at the maximum.
The accompanying figure gives an idea of this remarkable effect, and the
three persons, whose images reflected _ad infinitum_ produce the curious
result that we call attention to, would have much trouble to believe
that they were the subject of an illusion.
Upon the whole, the experiment is nothing more than an application of
the principle of the old kaleidoscope enlarged and revived, in the sense
that the observer has before his eyes the successive reflections of his
own image, and that the objects are replaced with living beings movable
at will.
Five or six persons may occupy, at the same time, the triangular prism,
of which the sides are about six feet wide, and which they enter through
a trap in the floor. When these five or six persons are walking about in
all directions, they present the aspect of a tumultuous and agitated
crowd commenting upon grave events.
[Illustration: AN OPTICAL ILLUSION PRODUCED WITH THREE MIRRORS.]
PLATINIZED GLASS.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
Platinized glass plates are no longer a novelty, but the illusion is
very effective. The mirrors give an image in the ordinary way when
looked at by reflected light, but are transparent when observed by
transmitted light. The metalization of glass with platinum was
discovered a great many years ago by the Messrs. Dodé. This property of
transparency by transmitted light affords a very clever surprise. The
mirrors are set in frames. In a panel behind the latter there is an
aperture closed by a shutter. As the glass is transparent there may be
seen through it, when the shutter is open, everything that is on the
other side, so it occurred to the inventors to utilize this transparency
by placing an image or photograph between the panel and the glass. On
exposing the mirror to the light to look at one’s self in the ordinary
way, if the shutter is open, the human head will disappear and may be
replaced by the photographic portrait or a horned devil, which is
placed behind the mirror. In the illustration we illustrate the head of
the devil whose body is hidden by two mirrors inclined at an angle of
forty-five degrees, as in some of the illusions we have already
described. As he moves his head and smiles, the effect is rather
startling. Electric light is used to illuminate the trick.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
STATUE GIVING A DOUBLE IMAGE.
At the Italian exhibition held a few years ago in the Champ de Mars,
Paris, there was a statue that attracted much attention from the
visitors. It represented Goethe’s Marguerite standing before a mirror.
This latter gave by reflection the image of Faust, as shown in our
engraving. The artifice was well concealed by the sculptor. In reality,
it was not a double statue, but the figure of Faust was skillfully
obtained by means of the folds of Marguerite’s robe.
[Illustration: MARGUERITE AND FAUST.]
Marguerite holds her arms in front of her, and these same arms form
those of Faust, who holds them crossed behind his back. Faust’s face is
carved in Marguerite’s back hair, and the man’s figure is obtained, as
before stated, by means of the folds of the woman’s robe.
CHAPTER III.
MISCELLANEOUS STAGE TRICKS.
The tricks in this chapter are no less interesting than those which have
gone before, but are rather of a more miscellaneous nature. The first
trick which we shall describe, is called “The Illusion of Trilby.”
The late Professor Herrmann won for himself a firm place in the regards
of the civilized world, representing the _fin de siècle_ Houdin. His
carefully executed work, with its perfect detail and finish, was a
standard among performances of natural magic, and other exhibitions are
referred to it as the gage of their quality. In Herrmann’s illusion of
“Trilby,” hypnotism is supposed to play a part. As will be seen, it is
really an ingenious application of mechanics.
[Illustration: PREPARING TRILBY’S COUCH.]
A plank is placed upon the backs of two chairs. A lady performer who is
supposed to represent Du Maurier’s “Trilby” enters and, stepping on a
foot-stool, lies down upon the plank. She holds a bouquet in her hand,
which bouquet, unknown to the audience, has its own part to play. The
other performer, Herrmann, who is supposed to be Svengali, carefully
arranges the drapery, walking around her as he does so. Then he makes
some passes, and one by one removes the chairs, and the lady and board
remain in the air. In response to his passes the lady, still resting on
the board, rises, and the position changes to an inclined one and back
to the horizontal one. Finally the chairs are replaced, the lady by
passes is supposed to be waked from her trance and steps down, chairs
and plank are removed, and nothing is to be seen further.
[Illustration: THE AËRIAL SUSPENSION OF TRILBY.]
Two of the cuts show the progress of the performance as seen by the
audience. The third cut explains the mechanism. Behind the scenes is a
strong frame, up and down which a movable slide works. Tackle is
provided to raise and lower the slide; and a workman behind the scenes
is intrusted with its manipulation. A bar carrying at its rear end
handles, and in front a socket, shown in the upper right-hand corner of
the same cut, is journaled in the slide, and can also be thrust in and
out through the journal box.
When Trilby has been placed upon her board couch, the bar is thrust
forward, drapery at the back having hitherto concealed its socket end.
The fair Trilby with her bouquet now effectually conceals it as it
emerges from behind the curtains. The performer, while apparently
sedulously arranging the drapery, guides the socket and causes it to
grip the board. The assistant behind the scene pulls upon the tackle and
works the handle, so that Trilby’s weight leaves the chairs one by one,
which are removed, and, supported by the bar, she seems to float in air.
By manipulating the tackle she can be raised and lowered. By the handles
she can be tilted about, giving a wonderfully good effect. Finally the
chairs are replaced, and the assistant lowers Trilby upon them. During
the waking passes the socket is detached and the bar is withdrawn. A
close observer may notice a slight agitation of the drapery or curtains
behind the stage as the bar is pushed out and withdrawn, but the
attention of the audience in general is so taken up with the performance
proper that this disturbance is overlooked by them.
[Illustration: THE ILLUSION EXPLAINED.]
The magician, it will be seen, can only walk completely around the
reclining lady before the bar is in place or after it is withdrawn. When
the bar is in place, he can walk behind her, but cannot go completely
around her. Hence his complete excursions are restricted to the time
when she is resting on the chairs, before the bar is in place or after
it has been withdrawn.
After the board is vacated, Svengali throws it down upon the stage, its
fall, with accompanying noise and disturbance, showing that there is no
deception about that portion of the display.
THE “HAUNTED SWING.”
[Illustration: TRUE POSITION OF THE SWING.]
[Illustration: ILLUSION PRODUCED BY A RIDE IN THE SWING.]
The supreme happiness of sitting in a swing which apparently whirls
around its points of support, giving the occupant what is most properly
described as a new sensation, may now be enjoyed by all. It is termed
the “haunted swing,” and has been in most successful operation at
Atlantic City and at the Midwinter Fair near San Francisco. Those who
are to participate in the apparent gyrations of the swing--and there
may be quite a number who enjoy it simultaneously--are ushered into a
small room. From a bar crossing the room, near the ceiling, hangs a
large swing, which is provided with seats for a number of people. After
the people have taken their places, the attendant pushes the car and it
starts into oscillation like any other swing. The room door is closed.
Gradually those in it feel after three or four movements that their
swing is going rather high, but this it is not all. The apparent
amplitude of the oscillations increases more and more, until presently
the whole swing seems to whirl completely over, describing a full circle
about the bar on which it hangs. To make the thing more utterly
mysterious, the bar is bent crank fashion, so that it seems demonstrably
impossible for the swing to pass between bar and ceiling. It continues
apparently to go round and round this way, imparting a most weird
sensation to the occupants, until its movements begin gradually to cease
and the complete rotation is succeeded by the usual back and forth
swinging, and in a few seconds, as the children say, “the old cat dies.”
The door of the room is opened and the swinging party leave. Those who
have tried it say the sensation is most peculiar and the deception
perfect.
The illusion is based on the movements of the room proper. During the
entire exhibition the swing is practically stationary, while the room
rotates about the suspending bar. At the beginning of operations the
swing may be given a slight push; the operators outside the room then
begin to swing the room itself, which is really a large box journaled on
the swing bar, starting it off to correspond with the movements of the
swing. They swing it back and forth, increasing the arc through which it
moves until it goes so far as to make a complete rotation. The
operatives do this without special machinery, taking hold of the sides
and corners of the box or “room.” At this time the people in the swing
imagine that the room is stationary while they are whirling through
space. After keeping this up for some time, the movement is brought
gradually to a stop, a sufficient number of back and forth swings being
given at the _finale_ to carry out the illusion to the end.
The room is as completely furnished as possible, everything being, of
course, fastened in place. What is apparently a kerosene lamp stands on
a table, near at hand. It is securely fastened to the table, which in
its turn is fastened to the floor, and the light is supplied by a small
incandescent lamp within the chimney, but concealed by the shade. The
visitor never imagines that it is an electric lamp, and naturally thinks
that it would be impossible for a kerosene lamp to be inverted without
disaster, so that this adds to the deception materially. The same is to
be said of the pictures hanging on the wall, of the cupboard full of
chinaware, of the chair with a hat on it, and of the baby carriage. All
contribute to the mystification. Even though one is informed of the
secret before entering the swing, the deception is said to be so
complete that passengers involuntarily seize the arms of the seats to
avoid being precipitated below.
THE “SCURIMOBILE.”
[Illustration: THE SCURIMOBILE.]
The peculiar gun shown in the cut is named after its inventor,
Alessandro Scuri, of Liège, Belgium. M. Scuri is also known as the
inventor of a unicycle and a quadruple cornet. The “scurimobile” is a
gun with two barrels which can be aimed at different objects, the
angle between the barrels being adjustable. The adjustment is effected
by moving a ring located on the under side of the gun. The pivot of the
barrels is so arranged that it is easy to sight two objects at the same
time. Both cartridges are automatically ejected after each shot fired.
It is also possible to use only one barrel in the ordinary way. In the
cut the inventor is shown aiming at two balls placed about a yard apart.
Another valuable feature of this new gun is its applicability as a range
finder. The observer first sights two objects which are at about equal
distances from him, and measures the distance or angle between the two
barrels, a graduation being provided for this purpose. Then the same
operation is made from a point more distant from the objects first
sighted. If the observer steps back ten yards, and finds that the
graduation indicates just one-half of the value obtained at first, he
will know that in the second position he was just twice as far from the
objects as in the first position, so that the objects are ten yards from
the observer’s first position. This operation will give distances with
sufficient accuracy in most cases, but more exact results can be
obtained by means of a simple trigonometric formula when the angle
between the barrels is measured.
“THE NEOÖCCULTISM.”
The X rays, after becoming the indispensable coadjutors of surgeons, and
even of physicians, are now competing with the most noted mediums in the
domain of the marvelous.
M. Radiguet, the well known manufacturer of physical apparatus, has been
devoting himself for a long time to experiments with the Roentgen rays
in the laboratory, which is encumbered with electric lamps, lamp globes,
and glass apparatus of all kinds. One day he perceived that these glass
objects, under the action of the X rays, shone in the darkness. Here
again was an amusing and perhaps a useful experiment due to accident.
Useful, because the radiographs obtained up to the present, by means of
artificial screens, have been really good only when the sensitive bodies
have been in small crystals. In a pulverulent state they are nearly
insensible to the X rays, and it is almost impossible to obtain the
grain of the screen upon the photographic plate. It is easy, on the
contrary, to work the glass in such a way as to prevent any irregularity
in the radiograph. Such experiments will certainly be made ere long,
but, for the present, it is the fantastic side of the discovery that we
shall present to our readers.
Porcelain, enamels, and diamonds, and also objects covered with
platino-cyanides (used by Roentgen) and with calcium tungstate, zinc
sulphate, etc., have, like glass, the property of becoming luminous in
darkness under the action of the X rays. We have, therefore, only the
trouble of selection in order to get up a “spirit séance” with every
certainty of success, while genuine spiritual séances fail in most
cases, as well known, because the spirits are in an ill mood and
disposed to be coyish.
[Illustration: ARRANGEMENT FOR A STRIKING EXPERIMENT WITH THE X RAYS.]
The following will prove a scene sufficiently weird to put the most
intrepid worldlings in a flurry if some one of our friends takes it into
his head to give them the mysterious spectacle thereof before they have
read an exposure of the trick.
[Illustration: THE APPARITION.]
The first figure that we present herewith exhibits a Ruhmkorff coil,
which is placed here to show the operation in its entirety. But, as the
first effect of its vibrations would be to attract the attention, and
consequently the suspicions of the spectators, whom it is a question of
transporting into the domain of the marvelous, this apparatus is
relegated to some distant room. The current that produces the X rays is
led into the Crookes tube by wires. This apparatus, moreover, which is
not very bulky, may be placed behind a door or be concealed under black
cloth. The objects designed to become luminous are placed as near to the
tube as possible. In the experiment under consideration a diner (who is
doubtless near-sighted, since he wears eyeglasses) is about to do
justice to his breakfast. Armed with a knife and fork, he attacks his
beefsteak; but he is assuredly a greater eater than drinker, since he
contents himself with water, while his light consists of a single
candle.
A black curtain on the other side of the table conceals from the
spectators a skeleton covered with zinc sulphide.
Let us now put out the light and set the Ruhmkorff coil in action. What
a surprise! A plate, a glass, a water bottle, and a candle shine in
space with the light of glow-worms.
A sinister guest in the form of a skeleton sits opposite the place
occupied by the near-sighted gentleman, who has disappeared, and whose
eyeglasses alone have held their own before this ghastly apparition.
Finally, to complete the illusion, hands are seen moving over the heads
of the spectators, and those multiply, and then disappear, only to
appear anew.
It must be remarked that, in order to render the experiment more
conclusive, it is allowable for the most incredulous members of the
party to tie the gentleman tightly to his chair, and, if they desire, to
hold his hands and feet during the entire time of the experiment. It is
scarcely necessary to explain how the latter is performed. The X rays
pass through the black cloth on the door that conceals the Crookes tube
and also through the body of the gentleman, and render luminous the
glass objects covered with zinc sulphide. As for the mysterious hands,
those are simply gloves covered with the same substance and fixed to the
extremity of long sticks that are moved in all directions by
confederates.
Such scenes may naturally be varied to infinity; and the spirit of
invention is so fertile, there is no doubt that before long ladies will
be giving a place in the programme of their soirées to this up-to-date
spiritualism.
“THE MASK OF BALSAMO.”
[Illustration: THEATRICAL SCIENCE. FIG. 1.--The Enchanted Death’s Head.
FIG. 2.--The Mask of Balsamo]
This illusion is a variation of the enchanted “death’s head” which was
for a long time the attraction of the Robert-Houdin Theater. Our
engraving shows both the “death’s head,” the “mask of Balsamo,” and the
method of producing the illusion. Under the influence of the passes of
the prestidigitateur the skull on the glass plate bends forward and
seems to salute the spectators. The nodding of the “death’s head” was
utilized in a number of ways, as, to indicate the number when dice was
thrown. This trick was performed as follows: Upon a table near the
magician was placed a ball of soft wax attached to a string which ran to
the side scenes, where it could be pulled by a confederate. After
passing the skull around to be examined, the prestidigitateur, in laying
it upon the table, fixed the ball of wax at the top of it. After the
experiment a simple scraping with the finger nail removed every trace of
the trick. The Isola Brothers used electricity in a somewhat similar
illusion. The skull is replaced by a wooden mask laid flat on a small
table and the mask answers questions by rocking slightly. The magician
then brings the table into the midst of the spectators, and the mask
still continues to move, to the astonishment of the onlookers. The
secret of the trick is that part of the wood which forms the chin is
replaced by a small strip of iron which is painted the same color as the
mask so that it cannot be seen; an electro-magnet is let into the top of
the table so that the cores shall be opposite the strip of iron when
the mask is laid upon the table. Contact is made by means of a push
button somewhere in the side scenes, the wires run under the stage, and
connection is made through the legs of the table when the legs are set
on the foreordained place. Upon the same principle is Robert-Houdin’s
heavy chest and magic drum. A rapping and talking table may be made by
carrying out the same idea. The battery is carried in the lower part of
the table, where the three legs join. The top of the table is in two
parts, the lower of which is hollow and the top being very thin. In the
center of the hollow part is placed an electro-magnet, one of the wires
of which connects with one of the poles of the battery, while the other
is connected with a flat metallic circle glued to the cover of the
table. Beneath this circle and at a slight distance from it there is a
toothed circle connected with the whole pole of the battery. When the
table is pressed lightly upon, the cover bends and the flat circle
touches the toothed one. This closes the circuit, and the electro-magnet
attracting the armature produces a sharp blow. When the hand is raised
the circuit is broken, producing another sharp blow. By running the hand
lightly over the table the cover is caused to bend successively over a
certain portion of its circumference. Thus contact is made at a number
of places, and the sharp blow is replaced by a quick succession of
sounds. This table is very useful for spirit rappings; as the table
contains all of the mechanism in itself, it can be moved to any part of
the room. The table may be also operated from a distance by employing
conductors passing through the legs of the table and under the carpet.
By substituting a small telephone receiver for the electro-magnet, the
rapping spirits may be made talking ones.
[Illustration: RAPPING AND TALKING TABLE.]
Electric insects may be constructed on the same plan and give a very
life-like appearance when placed on an artificial bunch of flowers in a
flower pot. The battery is concealed in the top. When the pot is raised
a drop of mercury which occupies the bottom of the pot will roll over
the bottom, closing the circuit successively on different insects,
keeping them in motion until the pot has been set down.
THE INVISIBLE WOMAN.
[Illustration: THE INVISIBLE WOMAN.]
At the end of the last century and the beginning of the present, a very
curious experiment, and one which was looked upon as marvelous by the
credulous, was wonderfully popular at Paris. The representation took
place at the old Capuchin convent. The spectator entered a well lighted
hall in which, in part of a window, there was a box suspended by four
brass chains attached by bows of ribbon. The box, which was surrounded
by a grating, was provided with two panes of glass that permitted of
seeing that it was absolutely empty. To one of the extremities was fixed
a speaking trumpet. When a visitor spoke in the latter, he was answered
by a hollow voice; and when he placed his face near the box, he even
felt upon it the action of a mysterious breath. When he presented any
object whatever in front of the mouthpiece, and asked the voice to name
it, an answer immediately came from the speaking tube. The box was
suspended freely from the ceiling, and it could be made to swing at the
extremity of the chains; it was empty and isolated in space. People were
lost in conjecture as to the secret of the experiment. Among the
unlikely theories that were put forth was that of the invisibility of a
person obtained by unknown processes.
As usual in these kinds of impostures, there was here merely an
ingenious application of a scientific principle. A physicist, E. J.
Ingennato, revealed the mystery in a pamphlet published in 1800 under
the title of “The Invisible Woman and Her Secret Unveiled.” This tract,
now rare, had for a frontispiece the engraving which we reproduce
herewith and which explains the whole experiment. The invisible woman of
the Capuchin convent was named Frances, and the following is the
explanatory legend appended to the original engraving:
“Questioner: ‘Frances, what is this that I have in my hand?’
“Frances (after looking through the little peep-hole, D): ‘A stick with
a crooked handle.’
“The entire assembly at once: ‘It is incomprehensible!’”
Ingennato, in his pamphlet, explains that above the ceiling there was a
low, darkish chamber, in which Frances was concealed, and that she
looked at the object presented to her through a small aperture, D, which
was skillfully hidden by a hanging lamp, and then answered through the
speaking tube, B B B, hidden in the wall. The sound traversed a space of
about six inches, that separated the speaking tube from the speaking
trumpet.
MAGIC HARPS.
The experiment which we are about to describe, while it is thoroughly
scientific, was taken up under the name of “Æolian Harps” by
Robert-Houdin, who introduced several modifications of it. When the
experiment was performed by Wheatstone in 1855, four harps were arranged
in a semi-circle on the stage of the Polytechnic Institution. These
harps, at the pleasure of the experimentor, vibrated as if they were
made to resound by invisible hands. This effect was produced by fixing
to the sounding board of each of them vertical rods of fir-wood which
passed through the floor of the stage and ceilings, into the cellar of
the Institution, where one of them was fixed upon a sounding board of a
piano, another upon the sounding board of a violoncello, and two others
upon the sounding boards of violins. In order to render it possible to
interrupt the vibrations between the instruments and the harps, the rods
supporting the latter were divided at two inches above the floor. Each
harp could be cut off from communication with the instrument below by
turning it around upon its axis. When Robert-Houdin introduced the
illusion, he used a stage elevated in the very midst of the spectators.
This stage was traversed by two fir-wood rods which, after passing
through the floor, rested upon harps placed in the hands of skillful
players. At the command of the prestidigitateur two other harps
supported upon the upper extremity of the rods executed a concert which
was very successful, thanks to the careful preparations and the elegant
_mise en scène_. Of course the harps were supposed to operate through
the intervention of mediumistic spirits.
[Illustration: ÆOLIAN HARP EXPERIMENT.]
CHAPTER IV.
CONJURING TRICKS.
Having described some of the illusions which are produced with the aid
of elaborate outfits, we now come to the more simple tricks which are
produced with smaller and less expensive apparatus, and, sometimes, with
no apparatus at all. In the old days the man of mystery appeared on the
stage clad in a robe embroidered with cabalistic figures, the ample
folds of which could well conceal a whole trunkful of paraphernalia. The
table in the center of the stage was covered with a velvet cloth
embroidered with silver, and its long folds, which reached the ground,
suggested endless possibilities for concealment. All of these things
have now passed away, and the modern magician appears clad in ordinary
evening dress, which is beyond the suspicion of concealment. The
furniture is all selected with special reference to the apparent
impossibility of using it as a storeroom for objects which the
prestidigitateur wishes to conceal. Some of the easiest and simplest of
modern tricks that anyone with little or no practice can perform are
very effective. The tricks in this chapter are far from being all which
have been published in the _Scientific American_ and the _Scientific
American Supplement_, but they are believed to be the best which have
been published in those journals.
TRICK WITH AN EGG AND A HANDKERCHIEF.
In this trick we have an egg in an egg-cup, which the prestidigitateur
covers with a hat, and then he rolls a small silk handkerchief between
his hands, as shown in Fig. 1. As soon as the handkerchief no longer
appears externally, he opens his hands and shows the egg, which has
invisibly left the place that it occupied under the hat, while the
handkerchief has passed into the egg-cup (Fig. 3). We shall now explain
how these invisible transfers are effected.
Two eggs, genuine and entire, were truly placed in plain view in a
basket, but it was not one of those that served for the experiment.
Behind the basket was placed a half shell, C, of wood (Fig. 2), painted
white on the convex side, so as to represent the half of an egg, and on
the concave side offering the same aspect as the interior of the
egg-cup, A, to which it can be perfectly fitted in one direction or the
other, as may be seen in the section in Fig. 2. It is this shell,
inclosing a small handkerchief exactly like the first, that the
prestidigitateur placed upon the egg-cup (Fig. 2). Then, while with the
left hand he covered the whole with a hat with which he concealed the
operation, he with the right hand quickly turned the shell upside down.
The shell, therefore, by this means disappeared in the egg-cup, and the
handkerchief, spreading out, assumed the appearance that it presents in
Fig. 3.
[Illustration: TRICK WITH AN EGG AND HANDKERCHIEF.]
The prestidigitateur, having afterward secretly seized with his right
hand a hollow egg of metal, containing an oval aperture (F, Fig. 2),
stuffed into it the handkerchief that he seemed simply to roll and
compress between his hands. It is almost useless to add that the
metallic egg may be easily concealed either with the palm of the hand
that holds it, or with the handkerchief.
THE CONE OF FLOWERS.
In prestidigitation flowers have in all times played an important part,
and they are usually employed in preference to other objects, since they
give the experiments a pleasing aspect. But, in most cases, natural
flowers, especially when it is necessary to conceal their presence, are
replaced by paper or feather ones, the bulk of which is more easily
reduced. Such is the case in the experiment which we are about to
present, and which, it must be confessed, requires to be seen from some
little distance in order that the spectators may, without too great an
effort of the imagination, be led into the delusion that they are
looking at genuine flowers. However, even seen close by, the trick
surprises one to the same degree as all those that consist in causing
the appearance of more or less bulky objects where nothing was perceived
a few moments previous.
The prestidigitateur takes a newspaper and fo
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