THE SKIIIT 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 HENKY RIDGELY EVANS AUTHOR OF " HOURS WITH THE GHOSTS ; OR, XIX. CENTURY WITCHCRAFT," ETC. WITH FOUR HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON AND COMPANY LIMITED Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.G. 1897 COPYKIGHT, 1897, BY MUNN & CO. NEW TORE ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL, LONDON, ENGLAND All lights reserved The articles used from the Scientific American and the Scientific American Supplement are copyrighted Prinlod in tlic U. S. A. by J. J. I-ittlc & Co., New York City /r-^- ^77„ /My PREFACE It is believed that the present Avork occupies a unique field in the exten- sive 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 expose of stage illusions, which are of great interest as they are so largely based on ingenious applications of scientific j^rinciples. Optics, mechanics, sound, and electricity have all been pressed into service by the fiti de Steele prestidigitateur. In the present work great attention has been paid to elaborate tricks of this nature, and in many cases the exposes 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 tlie 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 produc- ing 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 wdiich are here presented for the first time. Thus an entire opera, "Siegfried," is taken up, and the methods by which the won- derful effects are obtained are fully illustrated and described. Such amuse- ments as cycloramas, the nautical arena, and fireworks with dramatic acces- sories are not neglected. The chapters on " Automata " and " Curious Toys " describe many inter- esting 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 aiul deceptions which may be performed by the aid of photography. The practical side of scientific photography will also be found represented. The chapter 1CS9560 vi PREFACE. on " Chronophotography " describes the photography of moving objects of all kinds, and shows how the results obtained are of valne 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 Eidgely Evans, of AVashington, 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. Tliis Introduction will be found one of the most entertaining parts of the present book. Mr. Evans has also contribnted two chapters — one on "^ Shadowgraph y," or "Treweyism," as it has been called, in honor of M. Felician Trewey, the classic exponent of the art ; the other on "Mental Magic," or second-sight exjjerimeuts. The chaj)ter on " Shadow- grapliy " is not only interesting because of the expose of the art of theatrical silhouette-making, but on account of the sketch of the life and adventures of M. Trewey, who is a jiersonal 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 acknowledgmeiits are due to Mr. William E. Eobinsou, the well-known j^restidigitateur, for many suggestions and favors and for important help in connection with tlie Bibliography; Mr. Eobinson having a very remarka])le 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. I>urlingame, 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 unpub- lished. Especial acknowledgments are due to our French and German con- temporaries, particularly " La Nature.'''' The section on "Ancient Magic " is taken almost wholly from the articles of Colonel A. de Rochas in " La Ndtiirr.'''' These articles were afterwards amplified by him and published in a most interesting book entitled " Zes Oritjiues de la Science.'''' It is hoped that the present work will prove entertaining to those who are fond of the art viiifjifjve. ^'KW YfdiK, Si'pl ember, 1897. t*' TABLE OF CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. THE 3IYSTERIES OF MODERN MAGIC. PAGE Ancient Magic — Division qf Magic — Cagliostro — Robertson — Comte de Grisi — Robert- Houdiu — Carl Herrmann — Signor Blitz — Robert Heller — Alexander Herrmann — Bautier de Kolta — Harry Kellar, , . . . 1 BOOK I. CONJURERS' TRICKS AND STAGE ILLUSIONS. CHAPTER I. Mystekioijs Disappearances. " Vanity Fair " — " After the Flood " — " The Magic Palanquin " — " Cassadaga Propa- ganda" — "The Appearing Lady" — "The Disappearing Lady" — "The Mys- terious Trunk " — " The Indian Basket Trick " — " Decapitation " — " Spiritualistic Ties," 37 CHAPTER H. 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 in. Miscellaneous Stage Tricks. •' Trilby "—The "Haunted Swing" — Tlie " Scurimobile " — TheXeooccultism — "The Mask of Balsarao " — The Invisible Woman — Magic Harps, , .... 89 ^ viii CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. Conjuring Tricks. PAGE Trick witli 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 Travel- ing 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 — Swcjrd Walker — Dancers on Glass, ..... 149 CHAPTER VII. Ventriloquism and Animated PurrETs, 164 CHAPTER VIII. SlIADOWGRAPIIY. Sliadowgrai)hy — French Shadows, , . . . 173 CHAPTER IX. Mental Magic. Hol.irt Il.-lier- Sfcond Sight— 'I'lic Hsildwiiis juid Second Sight— Silent Thought Trans- ference, 184 CONTENTS. IX BOOK II. ANCIENT MAGIC. CHAPTER I. Temple Tricks op the Greeks. PACE Puppet Sliows among tlie 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 — Apjiaratus for Permitting the Mixing of Wine and Water in Definite Proportions — The Magical Bottle — Ancient Organs, ............. 221 CHAPTER III. The Origin op 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 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER II. Some Remakkable Stages, Ancient and Modern. PAGE 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 Olym- pian 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. Theatek 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 VL A Tkii' to the Moon, c . 348 CHAPTER Vn. Cycloramas. The Electric Cycloraiiia— The Painted Cyclorama, 354 CHAPTER VIIL FiUEW(»HKs with Dramatic Accessories 363 CONTENTS. xi BOOK IV. AUTO 21 AT A AND- CURIOUS TOYS. CHAPTER I. Automata. PAGE Automaton Chess Players — Tbe Automaton Cliess Player — A Curious Automaton — The Toy Artist— A Steam Man, 367 CHAPTER II. CuRiors Toys. An Optical Illusion — The Money Maker — Experiments in Centrifugal Force and Gravity — The Magic Rose — Electrical Toys — The Electric Race Course — Mag- netic Oracle — The Dancers — An Ancient Counterpart of a Modern Toy — Un- balanced 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 A]iparition 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. PHOTOORAPIIIC DIVERSIONS. CHAPTER I. Trick Photography. Lavater's Apparatus for Taking Silhouettes — Photography upon a Black Ground — Spirit Photography — Artificial Mirage — Duplex Photography — Illusive Photog- raphy — 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 — Com- posite Photography, 423 xii CONTENTS. CHAPTER II. Chronophotography. PAGE Chronophotograpliy — The Registration and Ailalysis 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 Denien}-, Jenkins, Lumiere, 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 Siiider and the Fly— The Trunk Trick—" La Stro- beika 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. 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 magi- cians of Egypt, according to the Bible chronicle, contended against iVaron, 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 Tipon 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 tliat 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 unfathomal)le eyes, where the mise en scene is awe-ins])iring — 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, whicli contains an account of a magical seance 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 ii INTRODtJCTlON. 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 an- tiquity. It was an art cultivated by the Egyptian, Chaldean, Jewish, Eoman, 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 auto- mata and magical appliances, used in the ancient temples. Colonel A. De Eochas, in an interesting work, Les Origmes 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 Dexteeity, Tbe bauds 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 com- ])elled to take a particular direction l^y certain subtle artifices. 4. Pretended Mesmerism. Imitation of mesmeric phenomena, second- sight, clairvoyance, divination, trance, catalepsy. 5. Mediumhiiip. 8pii-itualism or pretended evocation of spirits, table- Inruiitg. rai)i)ijig ;ind writing, mysterious cabinets, etc. In I lie ^liddlo Ages magic was greatly in vogue and we read strange stories of gliosis, 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 ])ovvers of darkness, and grimy' idchcmisls toiled djiy and night over the red fires of their furnaces, seeking in vain for the talisinsuiic ])hilosopher's stone and wondrous elixir of life. With the aid of the concave inirror, magicians of the period were able to produce very fair ghost illusions to gull a susceptible public. IJenvenuto Cellini chron- icles one in his fascinating auiobiogra])hy. Cellini, as guileless as a (hild in matters of science, desiring to study sor- cery, applied to a Sicilian priest who was a professed dabbler in the occult INTRODUCTION. 3 art. One dark night they repaired to the ruins of the Coliseum, at Eome; the monk described a circle on the ground and placed himself and the great gold- smith 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 seance reads like an A-rabian tale, but it is easily explainable. The priest had a brother confederate concealed among the ruins, who manipu- lated a concave mirror, by means of which painted images were thrown on the smoke. Later on ISTostradamns conjured uj) the vision of the future King of France for the benefit of the lovely Marie de Medicis. This illusion was ac- complished by the aid of mirrors adroitly secreted amid hanging draperies. II. The history 6i magic would be incomplete withont 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 numl)ers in the lottery, trans- muted metals, and founded occult lodges of Egyptian Masonry for the regen- eration 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 robl)od a goldsmith named ]\rarano of a sum of money. Balsamo pretended that a secret treasure lay buried in a cer- tain rocky chasm just outside the city of Palermo, and tlurt he, for a considera- tion, 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 Avhere the treasure lay hid from mortal gaze. Joseph drew a magic circle of phosphorus on the earth, pronounced some spells in a peculiar gib- berish known only to himself, which he denominated iVrabic, and bade the goldsmith dig away for dear life. ]\rarano went vigorously to work with pick and spade. Suddenly terrific yells were heard, whereupon a legion of 4: INTRODUCTION. 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, Ehodes, 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 Eeliciani, 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 Csesar; 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 Regime which went out forever with the French Revolution. This was in 1785. All Paris went wild over the enchanter, and thronged to his magical soirees at his residence in tlie Rue St. Claude. Cagliostro coined money in the French capital with liis 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 tlie End of the Old L'egime," says (Scribner Edition): "The mania for the supernatural, the rage for the marvelous, prevailed in the last years of the eigbteenth century, ^\'liicli bad wantonly dei'ided every sacred thing. Never were tlic Rosicrucians, the adejjts, sorcerers, and proj)hets so numerous and so respected. Serioiis and educated men, magistrates, courtiers, declared tbein- selvcs eye-witnesses of alleged iiiii-acles. . . . Wlien Cagliostro came to France, be found tlie ground pre])ared for bis magical operations. A society eager for distractions and emotions, indulgcMl to every form of extravagance, neeessiirily welcomed sneli a niiin and bailed bim as ils guide. Whence did he conie? What was bis counlr'v, bis age, bis origin? Wb(>re did he get tliose exfraordinary diamonds wbiclv adorned bis dress, the gold wdiich he squandered so freely? It was all a mystery. ... So far as was known, Cagliostro had no resources, no lettcsr of credit, and yet he lived in luxury. He treated and cured tlu' ])oor witbout y)ay, and not satisfied with restoring them to health, he made them large presents of money. His generosity to the poor, his scorn for INTRODUCTION. 5 the great, aroused universal enthusiasm. The Germans, who lived on legends, imagined that he was the Wandering Jew. . . . Speaking a strange gib- berish, 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 scene 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 seance-room was hung with somber draperies, and illuminated with wax lights in massive silver candlesticks which were arranged about the apartment in mystic tri- angles 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 Eosicrucians, 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 kneel- ing seer; that is to say, a young woman ^^'ho, 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, m 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 ^vith delight." Cagliostro became involved in the affair of the Diamond Necklace, and was thrpwn into the Bastille. Though eventually liberated, he was compelled to 6 INTRODUCTION. 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 re- lates. In the year 1789 the enchanter was in Eome, 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, TJrbino. 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 thaupiaturgy 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, mechan- ical and scientific effects. These magicians soon became popular. Towards the middle of the eighteenth century we hear of Jonas, Androletti, Carlotti, Pinetti, Katerfelto, Pliiladelphus Philadelphia, Eollin, Comus I. and II. Pinetti, when he arrived in London in 1784, displayed the following advertisement: " Tbe (^hevalier Pinetti with his Consort will exhibit most wonderful, stupendous, and al)so]ut('ly inimitable, meclianical, physical, and philosopliical ])ieces, wbicli bis recent dec]) scrutiny in those sciences, and assiduous exertions, liave enabled liim to invent and construct; among which Clicvjilicr Pineiti will bave tbe spccin] lioiioi- and satisfaction of exhibiting various cxjx'riinents of new discovery, no less curious tban seemingly incred- ible, particularly tbat of Madame Pinetti being seated in one of the front boxes, wiili a liandkcrciiior over her eyes, and guessing at everything imagined and proposed to ber by any ])erson in the com])any." Here M^e have the first mention of tbe secrtnd-sigbt trick, wbicb in the hands of latter-day artists has become so popular. Houdin i-cdiscovered it, passed it on to Pobcrt Heller who improved it, and at the present time the conjurer Kellar makes it his pikefJeresisfr/nre. ^Kollin had a romaniic cancer. He accumulated a fortune at coiijiiriiig. and purchased the chalcau of h'ontenay-aux-Posos, in the depart- ment of the Seine. Says II. J. Burlingame, an interesting writer on magic: INTRODUCTION. 7 " Eollin incurred the suspicions of the Committee of PuhHc Safety in 1793, and sutfered death by tlie 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.' Eollin 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 exlii- bition of conjuring tricks and automata. His programme announced that the Great Comus would present '' various uncommon experiments with his ' En- chanted Horologium,' ' Pyxidus Literarum,' and many curious oijerations in ' Ehabdology,' ' Stenaganagraphy,' and ' Phylacteria,' with many wonderful performances of the grand ' Dodecahedron,' also ' Chartomantic Deceptions ' and ' Kharamatic Operations.' To conclude with the performance of the * Teretopasst Figure and ]\Iagical 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 seances were conducted by ushers down dark flights of stairs to the vaults of the chapel and seated in a gloomy crypt shrouded -with Ijlack draperies and pictured with the emblems of mortality. An antique lamp, suspended from the ceiling, emitted a flame of spectral blue. AVhen 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. Sud- denly, 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 terril)le 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 8 INTRODUCTION. century to produce the greatest of spectral exhibitions, that of Prof. Pepper, manager of the London Polytechnic Institution. In the year 1863, he in- vented 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 Eobin 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 Loiiis XYL, 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 en- abled 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 Xaples, where he soon became a physician of note. Here his noble birth and aristocratic manners gave him the entree into the best society of the city. Like many enthusiastic amateurs he became interested in legerdemain, and performed for the amuse- ment 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 Avas furious at hav- ing a rival, set about revenging himself on the aiidacious amateur. With- out 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, io say notliing of numerous glasses of cbampagne, De Grisi consented. The greater number of I'inetti's tricks were performed by the aid of confederates in the audience, who loaned various objects of Avhich the magician had duplicates. A diabolif-al trap was laid for De Grisi. One of the accomplices declared that lie liad loaned the young magician a valuable diamond ring to use in a trick, and harl bad returned to him a pinchbeck substitute. Here was a dilemma, but Do Grisi put the man off with an excuse until after the entertainment. Apy)roaching 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 INTROD UCTION. 9 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. Do 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 ven- geance on Pinetti, a most unique vengeance. Says De Grisi: " To have chal- lenged 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, lie 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 Yolhynia, Russia. De Grisi determined to proceed to Eome as a finish to his Italian performances. Pinetti had never dared to enter the Eternal City, since he laid claims to genu- ine necromancy to encompass his tricks. Remembering the fate of the Comte de Cagliostro, he apprehended a trial for sorcery, and a possible auto da f^. 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 v^'itchcraft 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 jewel- er'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 Bregnet of Paris," said the jeweler. " Is there another time- piece 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 pur- chase the Avatch 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 C^ardinals 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 10 INTRODUCTION. by accident and set liis 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 pre- clude 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 mor- tar in the most approved order of diabolism; all crowded around to watch the result. Watching his opportunity, the wizard surreptiously slipped the dupli- cate 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 reputa- tion of the French artist. The Pontiff presented him the day after the seance with a magnificent diamond-studded snuff-box as a mark of esteem. Yeare 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 Dobler, whose principal trick was the lighting of one hundred candles hy 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 Conite, 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 tlie part of the magician. Tlie card was torn up, and rammed into a pistol. '' Loftk, your majesty," said Comte, pointing to a vase of flowers which slot'd ii|)(in a talile in tlie center of the stage. "I shall fire tliis pistol at the vase and the king of hearts will appear just above. the flowers." The weapon Avas lii-ed, whereupon a small bust of Louis XVIII appeared instantaneously out of the center of the Ijoucpiet. "Ah," exclaimed the king to the conjuror, in a slightly sarcastic tone of voice, "I think. Monsieur Magician, that you have made a slight mistake. You promised to make Ihe king of hearts appear, but " "Pardon me, yonr majesty," interrupted Ihe conjurer, "but I have ful- (ilh'd my |)romiso to the letter. Behold, there is your likeness! — and are you not tli(! acknowledged king of all our hearts, the well-beloved of the French people?" INTRODUCTION. 11 The king bowed liis 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. PREMIERE REPRESENTATION DES SOIREES 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, " ]\I. Robert-Houdin, Pendules de Precision." 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 be- smeared 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 Soirees Fantastiqiies. When Re went abroad on business or for pleas- ure 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 I'Escalopier. The Count, who was an ardent lover of the art amusante, or science wedded 12 INTRODUCTION. 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 Regime. 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 oppor- tunities for practice, so that he might acquire the confidence which he lacked, constantly invited him to pass the evening at the De I'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 Afl:re, Archbishop of Paris, who was killed at the barricades during the Revolution of 1848, Houdin performed his clever trick of the " burnt Avriting 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 sen- tence, 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 iVrchbishop, I re- quested 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 I'Escalopier, after the incident at the memorable dinner, urged Houdin to start out immediately as a conjurer. One day the watch- maker, after considerable hesitation, confessed his inability to do so on account of povc]-ty. "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 Hondin, and begin your career." But Houdin, loath to incur the responsibility of risking a friend's money in a theatrical specidation, wiiliont some guarantee of its being repaid, refused the generous offer. Again and again De rEsealoi)ier urged him to take it, but without success; finally the nobleman, annoyed at the mechanician's obstinacy, loft llic shop in a state of ])i(|ue. But after a few days he returned, saying, as he (sntered: " Since you are determined not to acept a favor from me, I have come to ask one of you. Listen! For the last year an escritoire in my sleeping- apjiriinent has ])een ro])bcd from time to iime of large sums of money, not- INTRODUCTION. 13 withstanding the fact that I have adopted all manner of precautions and safe- guards, 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 I'Escalopier; "you a mechanician, and ask how? Come, come, my friend; can you not devise some mechanical means for appre- hending 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 a\\'are of the mechanician's visit. While Houdin was placing his apparatus in position, the Count frequently expressed his w^onderment 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 un- locks 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 tlie l)ack of the criminal's hand." " How is that accomplished ? " said De rEscalo})ier. " Simplest thing in the world," replied Houdin. " The claw consists of a number of very short but sharp points, so fixed as to form tlie word; and these points are shoved through a pad soaked with nitrate of silver, a portion of which is forced by the blow into tlie punctures, thereby making tlie scars in- delible for life. A peur dc li/s staiii])('(l by an executioner with a red-liot iron could not be more effective." " But, M. Houdin," said the Count, horror-stricken at tlie idea. " I liave no right to anticipate Justice in this way. To brand a fellow-being in sucli 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." 14 INTRODUCTION " 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, lioudin 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 I'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? ' T returned to the library. My valet was holding liis right hand behind liiiii, hut \ dragged it forward, and saw the imprint of llic claw thereon. Hu; wound was bleeding profusely. Finding himself convicted, tlie wretch fell on liis knees and begged my forgive- ness. " * How long have you been robbing nie? ' I asked, " ' For nearly two years,' he said. " ' And how much have you taken? ' 1 in(|uii-('d. "'Fifteen tlioiisand francs, wliich 1 invested in Government stock. The scrip is in my desk.' "I found the securities correct, iind in tlie presence of another witness, made Bernard sign the fcjliouing confession: INTRODUCTION. 15 " ' I, the undersigned, hereby admit having stolen from the Count de I'Esca- lopier the sum of 15,0UU francs, taken by me from his deslv by the aid of false keys. *'* Bernard X . " ' Pakis, 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 Iloudin's hands. The mechanician, overcome by the Count's generosity, emliraced him in true Gallic style, and this embrace, Houdin says, " was the only security De I'Escalopier would accept from me." Without further delay the conjurer had a little theatre constructed in the Palais Royal, and began his fajnous performances, called by him: " Soirees Fantastiques de Bolert-Houdin," which attained the greatest popularity. He was thus enabled within a year to pay back the money borrowed from the Count de I'Escalopier. Jean Eugene Eobert, 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 me- chanics, and was handed by mistake a work on conjuring. The marvels con- tained 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 I'Escalopier came to his aid. In his early study of sleight-of-hand Ploudin soon recognized that the organs performing the princi})al part are the sight and touch. He says in his memoirs: "I had often l)een struck by the ease witli wliicli pianists can read and perform at sight the most difficult pieces. I saw tliat. 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 comiilicated task. This faculty I wished to acquire and ap])ly to sleight-of-hand; still, as music could not afford me the necessary element, I had recourse to the juggler's art." Resid- ing 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 16 INTRODUCTION. 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 cer- tainty, while my eye was at the same time acquiring a promptitude of percep- tion that was quite marvelous." On Thursday evening, July 3, 1845, Houdin's first Fantastic Evening took place in a small hall of the Palais Eoyal. 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 Avas 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 seances. A chandelier and elegant can- delabra 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 con- federate boxes. Conjuring under such circumstances was child's play, as com- pared 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 ofl'end good taste, by presenting his illusions in any other costume than that of a gentleman habited a 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 elaliorate apparatus, many of them using simple little gueridons 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 tul)e, according as it was drawn down by a sj)iral s])ring or pulled up by a whip-cord which passed over a ]>ulley at the top of the tu])e and so down the table log to the hiding place of the confederate." Tiien; Avere " ten of these ])istons, and the ten cords, passing under the floor of tlie stage, terminated at a keyboard. Various ingenious automata were actu- ated ])y this means of ii-ansniitting motion.'' M^'lie consoles were nothing more than sliallovv wooden boxes with opcMiiugs ilirougli the side scenes. The tops of the consoles were ])erforated with tray)s. Any ol)ject Avhich the wizard desired to woi-k ofl" secretly to his confederate' behind the scenes was placed on one of these tra])S and covered with a ])aper, metal cover, or a handkerchief. Toucliing 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 INTRODUCTION. 17 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 in- vented anything so daringly ingenious." The conjurer came forward with a little wooden box, to the top of which was attached a metal handle, and re- marked 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 nian cannot lift it. Let us try the experiment." He placed the box on tlie 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 miglit, 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 l)ottoni 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 gen- eral 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 addi- tional effect, in order to throw the public off the scent as to the principle on which the experiment was based. After first having exhil)ited tlie trick on the " run-down," he hooked the liox to one end of a rope which passed over a pulley attached to the ceiling of the hall. Several gentlemen were noAV invited to hold the disengaged end of the rope. They were able to raise and lower the iwx with perfect ease, but at a wave of the magician's wand the little chest descended slowly to the floor, lifting ofi' their feet the spectators who were holding the rope, to the astonishment of everyone. The secret lay in tlie pulley and block. The rope, instead of passing straight over tlie pulley, in on one side and out on the other, went through the block and through the ceiling, working over a doulile pulley on the floor above, whore 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 audi- ence, was a clever piece of mechanism. The blossoms, constructed of tissue 2 18 INTRODUCTION. 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 Ijorrowed 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 elfected, 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 l)elonging 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-a-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 sou- venirs. The conjurer found time to edit and publish a small comic news- paper, " Cagiiostro," 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 V Interienr ne recevra pas demain, mais le Ministre des Fitiances recevra tous les jours . . . et jours suivaiits. The crowning event of Houdin's life was his embassy to Algeria to counter- act the influence of the Marabout priests over the ignorant Arabs. The Mara- bouts are Mohammedan miracle workers, and are continually fanning the flames of rebellion and discontent against French donvination. The French Government invited Eobert-Houdin to go to Algeria and perform before the Ara])s in order to show them that a French wizard was greater than a Mara- bout fakir. It was pitting Creek against Greek! ^'ho marvels of optics, chemistry, electricity, and mechanics which Houdin liad in his repertoire, coii])l('d wKli Ills digital dexterity, were well calculated to evoke astonishment and awe. How well tlu' famous French wizard succeeded in his mission is a matter of liislory. A Cull account of his adventures among the Arabs is con- tained in bis memoirs and makes very entertaining reading. After his success- ful embassy to the land of \}\q. white bournous and turban, Houdin returned to France and settled down at St. Gervais near Blois, giving his time to elec- trical studies and inventions. INTRODUCTION. 19 He received several gold medals from the French Government for the suc- cessful application of electricity to the running of clocks. The conjurer's house was a regular ]\lagic Villa, being full of surprises for the friends who visited the place. There were sliding panels in the walls, trap doors, auto- matons 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. Hamil- ton, 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 " Theatre Eohert-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 watch- maker. V. One of the best sleight-of-hand artists that ever lived was Carl TTornnann, who styled himself the " Premier Prestidigitateur of France and First Pro- fessor 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 Herr- mann traveled extensively, and many conjurers adopted his name as a nom de thedtre. 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 20 Il^TRODUCTION. 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. Eobert 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 Acad- emy 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 travel- ing 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 soiree 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 ISFew York, where he opened Heller's Hall, in a building which then stood opposite Niblo's Garden, on Broadway. His second delmt 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 tlie Continental Hotel, I'liiliidGl])]iia, at the height of his fame. Like most of his CO »/rcre.s, Heller was a clever advertiser. His theatrical posters usually bore the following amusing verse: '' SliakoRpoave wi'oto well, Dickens wrote Weller ; Anderson was , But the greatest is Heller." His entertainments consisted of magic, mnsic, and an exhilntion of pre- tended clairvoyance. Those w]io were not interested in liis feats of leger- demain flocked to bear his snperb performances on the ])iano. Heller, lik(! Iloudin. made great use of electricity in his magical seances. Many of his eleclricnl iricks were of his own invention. In his will he directed his execniors to destroy all of his apparatus, so that it might not come into the possession of any other conjurer. INTRODUCTION. 21 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. Kobinson, 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, 189G, while en route from Eochester, N". Y., to Bradford, Pa. He came of a family of eminent prestidigitateurs, h i s father, Samuel Herr- mann, being the most famous conjurer of his day. Samuel Herr- mann was a great fa- vorite with the Sultan of Turkey, who fre- quently sent for him to give entertainments in the royal palace at Constantinople. "The next in the family to wield the magic wand was (,.'arl Herrmann, who was the first of the Herr- manns to visit Amer- ica, and the first to use and introduce t h e n a m e ' prestidigita- teur ' in this country. Carl, Alexander's eld- est 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 ALEXANDEK llKUIOrANN. 22 INTRODUCTION. parental roof; lie had been kidnapped and taken away by Carl, with whom he made his first public aj)pearance, at the age of eight, at a performance in St. Petersburg, llussia. Even at that early age his great dexterity, ingenuity, and presence of mind were simply marvelous. The sudden ajjpearance of the father disiDelled the visions of the embryonic magician, and he was compelled to return home. But the youth's attention could not be diverted from his pur- jjose, and again he became his brother's assistant. This time, the father com- jiromised 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, Eussia, and the surround- ing 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 xVlexander to the audience as his brother and successor. When this engage- ment terminated, the brothers separated; Carl made a short tour of this coun- try, 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 jr)uriia]s of ihis country, immediately after bis death, sliowed 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 i)owers 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 liis 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 ])eyond expression. If liis Inininous 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. INTRODUCTION. 33 " 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 Russias. 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 wdth his tongue as with his hands, having mastered French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Dutch, and English. He also had a fair knowledge of Portu- guese, 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 pre- sented 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 M-ine, to his lips, when suddenly, to his apparent surprise and consternation, the glass of wine would disappear from his hand and be reproduced imme- diately 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 cliange 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 lu' did not exhibit these talents in public. "The lines in Herrmann's hands were studies for adepts in cliirograpby. 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 slwrt hand, owing to the fact that in death the fingers had curled inward somewhat. In life his hands were long, slender, and tapering." 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 con- juring. 24 INTRODUCTION. 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 ahnost 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 Ke>lar. In England, the leading exponent of the magic art is J. N". Mas- kelyne, who has held forth at Egyptian Hall, London, for many years. He has done more to unmask bogus spirit mediums than any con- jurer living. Appren- ticed like Houdin to a watchmaker, Maske- lyne became acquainted with mechanics at an early age. He is the inventor of some very remarkable automata and illusions, for ex- ample " Psycho " and the "Miracle of Lh'asa." At the juggling feat of spinning dessert plates he has but few rivals. To perform this re- quires the greatest skill ajul delicacy. One of the best per- formers in the United Slates of anti-Ki)iritualistic 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 Mas- kelyne, he is an inventor, always having some new optical or mechanical illu- sion to grace his entertainments. f; V, IMlMiKSSION OK lIKKKMANiN S HAM). INTRODUCTION. 25 Of late years he has made the fatal mistake of exposing the methods of palmistry to the audience, thereby olt'ending 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 fantaisistcs is the French enter- tainer, M. Trewey, an exceedingly clever juggler, sleight-of-hand artist, and shadowgraphist. VI. In his advertisements, Eobert-IIoudin was extremely modest. His suc- cessors 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 con- jurer, went to the extreme in self-laudation, but managed to draw crowds by his vainglorious puffery and fill his coffers with gold, though he Avas but an indifferent performer. The following is one of his effusions: " Theatre Eoyal, 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 ap- proaching holidays. London is again set on fire by the supernatural fame of tlie 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 s])ell-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 cliarming. 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 Delu- sionist will perform his Thousand Feats of Photographic and Alladnic En- chantments, concluding every evening with the Gun Delusion! ! " The Theosophical craze of recent years has had its influence on prestidigita- tion. 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 26 INTRODUCTION. and exploits his weird adventures in Egypt and India, the birthplaces cf magic and mystery. Every intelligent reader reads between the lines, but the extravagant stories of Oriental witchery have their effect on certain impres- sionable minds. The magician Kellar is a reputed Oriental tourist. He has journeyed, according to his own account, in the wilds of India, wit- nessed fakir-miracles at the courts of Mohammedan Bajahs, 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 ilkisions 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 entertain- ing 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 " mysterioiis disa])i)earances " before proceeding with the mirror and other optical tricks to which the fin de siecle magician is so largely indebted. All of these illusions, as they depend upon pre-arranged machinery, afi^ord an introduction to the tricks wliicli, though much simpler, require a certain amount of aptness in manipulation. "VANITY FAIE." The first illusion presents tlie disappearance of a lady, ai)i)arently 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 pur- 28 MAGIC: STAGE ILLUSIONS AND SCIENTIFIC DIVERSIONS. ports to be used in connection with a jjair of brackets to support a glass shelf on which the lady stands — it also is essential to the illusion. 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 brack- ets a rod or bar is placed and a plate of glass rests as a shelf with one end on SCUKKNING THE LAUY. tlio ntd and ilie otlicr on tlic Jioj'izoiital })iece, thus imjn'ossing U})on the audi- ence; 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 witli Iut face to the audience and she again iiirns back; This gives some l)yi»lay, and it also leaves her with her back to the audience, which is desirable for the performance of tlio deception. A screen is now ])laced around her. 'J'he screen is so narrow tliat a considera])le portion of the mirror shows on MYSTERIO US DISA PPEARANCES. 29 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. 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 a[»par- THE DISAPPEAKANCE EXPI.ATNKD. ently 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 up])er edge is concealed. Out of the lower portion of the same mirror a piece is cut, leaving an open- 30 2IAG1C: STAGE ILLUSIONS AND SCIENTIFIC DIVERSIONS. iiig 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 por- tion 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 TIIR I,ADY HAS VANISHED. aO.^^^\^; sash, ex])osing the notch. Tlie 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 itlatl'oi'in is projected to llie opening in the mirror. Tln\)Ugh tlie opening the lady creej)S and by tlie assistant is drawn away behind the scene; tlien the platform is removed, tlie glass is pushed down again, and, the screen being removed. Ihere is no lady to l)e seen. The fact that some of the mirror was visible during the entire operation greatly increases the mystery. The lady passes through Ihe notch feet foremost, and her position, facing the mirroi-, makes this tlie easier. MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES. "AFTER THE FLOOD." S^\V^X- THE AKK OPENED FOR INSl'Et'TIOX. In this illusion the curtain rises and shows upon the stage wliat is to he interpreted as a representation of Noah's ark^ a rectangular hox with ends added to it, which, curv- ing upward, give it a / ^^v- ,,,^.,1;,,,., ..r,, hoat-like aspect. It stands i upon two liorses or tres- tles. The cut, Fig. 3, shows the ark in its en- tirety. The exhibitor opens it on all sides, swinging down the ends and the front and hack lids, and raising the to]) as shown in Fig. 1. It will he noticed by the observant spectator that the back lid is first dropped and that the as- sistant 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 l)y the water poured in ad libitum through a funnel inserted in an aper- ture in the upper corner. To the audi- ence 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. 3. After the flood the exit of the animals from the ark is next to be attended to. 0])ening 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 THE FLOOD. MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES. 33 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 exhib- itor now lets down the front, and a beautiful Eastern woman, Fig. 4, reclines gracefully in the center of the ark, which lias 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 audi- ence, seemed completely empty, and how they escaped the water, are the mysteries to be solved. 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 a]K'rtures in their fronts. 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- TIIE LADY TENANT OF THE ARK. THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED. 34 3IA0IC: STAGE ILLUSIONS AND SClENTlIIC DIVERSIONS. 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 imme- diately opened, when it was seen that the actress had disappeared; and yet the TIIK MAGIC PALANQUIN. palanquin was well isolated on tlic sliciildci's of the carriers, who resumed tlu'ir jorirncy niul cnrriod it ofT tlie stage. This I rick, which |ti'cci'(lc(l l)y many years Buatier do Ivolta's experiment, in which also a woman was made to disa])])('iu-, hut l)y an entirely different pro- cess, as will be cx))lained later on in this chai)ter, was performed as follows: The four uprights arranged at the four corners of the apparatus were hollow, and each contained al ihc iop a pulley over which a cord pusscd. Tlu-se coi-ds were attached by one end to the double bottom of the ])alan(piin. and by the other end to ;i counterpoise concealed in the cano])y. At llic |»recis(! nionient at which the curtains were drawn, ihc carriers dis- MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES. 35 engaged the counterpoises, which, sliding witliin tlie uprights, rajndly raised the double bottom, witli 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 exag- gerating them, the affair was given an appearance of lightness that perplexed the most distrustful spectator. " CASSADAGA PROPAGANDA." One of the most mysterious among Ivellar's repertory of successful illusions is the "• Cassadaga Propaganda," an explanation of which is herewith i)resented. THE CABINET OPEN FOK 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 tinislied 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 ilie doors closed, when the instruments instantly began ])layiiig and are then tlirown out at tlie top of the cabinet. The cabinet is now opened and found to be empty. A. slate 36 MAGIC: STAGE ILLUSIONS AND SCIENTIFIC DIVERSIONS. placed in the cabinet lias a message written thereon. In fact, all manifesta- tions 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. THK J^l'IKIT MANIFESTATIONS After sliowiiig tlie chairs and ])lacing the glass plate upon them, the per- former 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 artii tlwoiigli, in order to handle whatever is placed within it. Everything hciiig in readiness, llic l:iinl)()iirin(> and bell are placed in the cabinet and the doors are closed. Tlie assistant now passes his hand and arm ^f; BEJiE *•„> ' , ... ,■ l^j -'"Bi'^ ■■■■". ^ ■ * "■' '.«frj?4» : ■.:"* " ^r i h — ■■ -■»— m- », d . ^JHBl 38 31AGIC: STAGE ILLUSIONS AND SCIENTIFIC DIVERSIONS. through the opening in the back and shakes the tambourine, rings the bell, and tlirows botli 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 con- cealed 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. 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 disapjDear 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 confed- erates 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 l)ehind her Avhen they open again, the curtains fly up, and it is seen that the woman has disappeared, and in licr ])lace stands a white- bearded caliph, while she appears at the rear dooi- of llic parquette smiling behind her veil. Slie ])asscs down through the audience io ilie stage again. In tlie meantime the cali])h has left the stage. What follows is even more surj)rising. Tiie ciirtniiis of botli cages are' ])iilled down, ilic calipli goes into ibe cage at the left and the odalisk into that at the riglit. '^^Die cage containing the odalisk is I'aised on a hoisting rope so that it hangs in midair with the dooi-s open. I'he doors arc closed, a shot is fired; at the same instant the doors of both cages s])ring open and the curtains are raised; the odalisk has disap])eared from the cage, which stands again on the floor of the stage, but, at tlic same instant, she steps, as smiling as ever, from the cage at the left, from which the caliph has vanished. The two cages stand MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES. 39 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 i)lace on the board behind the screen. The odalisk who appears at the door of the audito- rium 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 i)eculiar costume of the odalisk tliis disguise is rendered very easy. While the real odalisk is standing behind the screen on the board of the cage at the left, the cali})h 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 a])parently 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 APPEAEING 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. On the stage is seen a "• , , plain round top four-leg table, which the magician has been using as a rest- ing place for part of the apparatus used in his magic performance. Eventually, the p e r - former removes all arti- cles from the table and covers it with a cloth that does not reach the floor. Our first engraving rep- resents 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 / §kJ.vK>