Chapter XVII: Stage Tricks (3)

The box measures about ten inches in length, by five in breadth and five in depth, so that its back, front, top, and bottom are of exactly the same size. On the top, which slides out, in order to give access to the interior, is an ornamental design, measuring about four inches by three. This renders this particular portion of the top or lid opaque, and it is beneath this portion that the half-crowns are placed. Slips of glass are cemented to the under side of the lid (_see_ Fig. 309), so as to inclose a space just large enough to allow eight half-crowns to be placed, in two layers of four each, within it. The slips of glass serve to keep the coins in position laterally. Vertically, they are supported as follows:--The front of the box (_i.e._, the side which, when the box is suspended, is nearest to the spectators) is made double. The outer portion is a fixture, but the inner is attached by hinges _a a_ to the upper edge of the box, and may therefore be folded at pleasure against the top, though when released it falls back to its normal position against the front, in which position it is secured by a spring catch until again raised. It is upon this moveable side, thus folded up against the top, that the eight half-crowns are supported. The opposite edge of the top of the box is arranged as follows: _b b_ is a metal tube, with an opening of about half-an-inch in length between _d d_; _c c_ are two metal hooks or rings by which the apparatus is suspended, and through which the current passes. Each of these communicates with a piece of insulated copper wire, extending from _c_ to _d_. The space between _d d_ is filled up by a round plug or pencil of wood (_see_ enlarged view in Fig. 310), along which lies a small piece of very fine platinum wire _e e_, connecting the ends of the two copper wires. The moveable glass flap is held up against the top by means of a little piece of black cotton _f_, which, passing through a minute hole in the outer edge of the flap, is made to pass round the wooden plug, and thus to cross the platinum wire at right angles, and in immediate contact with it. The practical application of the scientific principle to which we have alluded will now be obvious. At the moment of completing the circuit, the platinum, becoming red-hot, instantly severs the cotton, when down falls the flap, not altering in the least the general appearance of the box, but allowing the half-crowns to fall loose into its interior.

In order to prepare the apparatus for use, it is necessary first to remove the sliding lid, to place the moveable flap in position, and to fasten it with cotton as already described. The lid should then be turned upside down, and the half-crowns placed in position, after which the box also is turned upside down, and the lid allowed to slide gently into its place. The half-crowns are now secure, and the box may be brought forward and set swinging, without any danger of their making a premature appearance.

In some boxes the double flap is omitted, the front being single, but moveable, and working as already explained. In this case the box, when first brought forward, has the glass of the side towards the audience missing, but at a little distance its absence cannot be detected.

THE MAGIC DRUM.--This is in appearance an ordinary side-drum, but being hung up by cords from the ceiling, it will forthwith, without any visible drumsticks, give either a single rap or a roll, or keep time to any piece of music. It will further answer questions and tell fortunes, indicate chosen cards, etc., after the manner of the magic bell.

These mysterious effects are produced by two hammers or drumsticks, fixed against one end of the drum on the inside. Each of these is attached to the keeper of an electro-magnet, but there is a difference in the mode of their working. One works after the manner of the bell, giving a single tap whenever contact is made, but thenceforward remaining silent until the circuit is again broken and again completed. In other words, each pressure of the connecting stud produces one rap, and no more. The second hammer is differently arranged. By means of what is called a “contact-breaker,” the movement of the keeper, when attracted by the magnet, of itself breaks the circuit. The circuit being broken, the iron is no longer magnetic, and the keeper flies back to its old position, thereby once more completing the circuit. As long as the pressure on the stud continues, therefore, the circuit is alternately made and broken in rapid succession, involving a corresponding movement of the keeper and hammer, and producing a “roll” of the drum. The use of the two hammers involves the necessity of two electrical circuits and two connecting studs, and of three cords to suspend the drum (one being common to both circuits). With a little practice in the management of the two studs, the single rapper may be made to beat time to a tune, while the other stud brings in the roll at appropriate intervals.

There are some drums (of an inferior character) made with one hammer only; such hammer being arranged for the roll. Where it is desired to give a single rap, this may be effected by pressing and instantly releasing the stud with a light, quick touch; but some little dexterity is required.

In the case of all these appliances for magically answering questions, it is necessary that the assistant who has the control of the apparatus should be in such a position as to distinctly hear the questions asked. In fortune-telling matters the answer may generally be left to his own discretion; but for indicating what card is chosen, etc., it is necessary either that an agreed card be forced, or that a carefully arranged code of verbal signals should be employed, whereby the form of the question may itself indicate the proper answer.[P] Considerable fun may be caused by the magician selecting an evidently “engaged” couple, and after asking how many months it will be before they are married, etc., inquiring, in a stage whisper, how many children they are destined to be blest with. The drum raps steadily up to (say) five, and this is accepted as the answer, when, after a moment’s pause, two more raps are heard _in quick succession_. This alarming omen is received with general laughter, amid which the drum gives another rap, and then another, continuing until the performer, scandalized at its behaviour, unhooks it from the cords, and carries it, still rapping, off the stage. This last effect is wholly independent of electricity, being produced by the performer tapping with his fingers that end of the drum which for the time being is farthest from the audience.

[P] This is the principle of the well-known “second sight”
trick, a detailed explanation of which we are compelled
from considerations of space to omit, the system, as
perfected by Robert-Houdin and others, being so elaborate,
that an independent treatise would be needed to do it
justice. An admirable account of the system, as applied
to the French language, will be found in a work by F. A.
Gandon, “_La seconde vue dévoilée_,” published in Paris in
1849.

There are some few other tricks performed by the aid of electricity, but any one who understands the principle of those above described may make a very shrewd guess at the working of the remainder. All tricks of this class, though ingenious and effective, are open to one or two serious objections. In the first place, the apparatus is very costly, and, secondly, they are unpleasantly liable, from the nicety of their mechanism and the absolute necessity of perfect electrical connection in all their parts, to hang fire at the critical moment, and leave the operator in a very embarrassing position. Imagine the feelings of a performer who, having just introduced his wonderful drum, which is to display unheard-of oracular powers, finds that the instrument remains as mute as the celebrated harp in Tara’s halls, and refuses to bear out, in the smallest degree, his grandiloquent assertions. Yet this unpleasant result may occur at any time from the simple breaking of a wire, or some even slighter cause. This, it appears to us, is a serious drawback to electrical tricks, though where they are exhibited at their best no illusions are more beautiful, or have more of genuine magic about them.

We should mention, before quitting the subject of these tricks, that in order to avoid the trouble and expense of fixing the necessary conducting wires in a building not specially appropriated to magical performances, an upright brass rod (which may be detached at pleasure) is sometimes fitted on each side of the performer’s table (_see_ Fig. 311), and the apparatus in use (drum, bell, cash-box, etc.) is suspended by appropriate cords between these rods. The conducting wires are connected within the table with the lower ends of the brass uprights, and thence pass down its hinder legs to the battery behind the scenes. There are many considerations of convenience in favour of this arrangement, but the tricks performed are less effective than where the apparatus is hung fairly from the ceiling, and apparently out of all possible reach of mechanical influence.

THE AËRIAL SUSPENSION.--This is a very old trick, performed originally by the Indian jugglers, who kept the _modus operandi_ a profound secret. The ingenuity, however, of Robert-Houdin penetrated the mystery, and in 1849 made it a special feature of his _séances fantastiques_. At that time the public mind was much interested in the anæsthetic qualities of ether, which had then recently been discovered. Robert-Houdin manipulated this fact into a valuable advertisement. He gave out that he had discovered in the popular anæsthetic a still more marvellous property, viz., that when inhaled under certain conditions, it neutralized the attraction of gravitation in the person inhaling it, who became, for the time being, light as air. In proof of this, he brought forward his youngest son, then a child of ten or thereabouts, and after having made him smell at a small phial, really empty, but supposed to contain ether, caused him to recline in mid-air, with no other support than that afforded by, to all appearance, an ordinary walking-stick, placed in a vertical position under his right elbow. It is characteristic of Robert-Houdin’s minute attention to the _mise en scène_ of a trick, that while his son sniffed at the empty bottle, his assistant, behind the scenes, poured genuine ether upon a hot shovel, so that the fumes, reaching the nostrils of the audience, might prove, indirectly but convincingly, that ether was really employed. After the retirement of Robert-Houdin from the stage, the trick fell comparatively out of notice, till it was revived in a new form by the Fakir of Oolu (Professor Sylvester) in England, and contemporaneously by De Vere on the Continent. A full-grown young lady was in this case the subject of the illusion, and was made, while still suspended in air, to assume various costumes and characters. The illusion, in this new form, took the fancy of the public, and brought forth a host of imitators; but few have presented it with the same completeness as the two performers named. For a time it produced quite a marked sensation, equal crowds thronging to see Sylvester in London, and De Vere in Paris, St. Petersburg, Brussels, Pesth, Dresden, Strasburg, and other continental cities. Recent mechanical improvements, to which the last-named Professor has materially contributed, have greatly heightened the effect of the trick--the lady being made to rise spontaneously from the perpendicular to the horizontal position, and to continue to float in the air after her last ostensible support has been removed.

Apart from these special mysteries, which we are not at liberty to reveal, the trick is as follows:--The performer brings forward the girl or boy who is to be the subject of the illusion, and who is dressed in some fancy costume. A low bench or table, say five feet in length by two in width, and on legs about six inches in height, is brought forward, and shown to be wholly disconnected from the floor or stage. On this is placed a small stool, on which the subject of the experiment (whom, in the present instance, we will suppose to be a young lady) mounts. She extends her arms, and under each is placed a stout rod or pole of appropriate length. (_See_ Fig. 312.) The performer makes pretended mesmeric passes over her, and in a minute or two her head is seen to droop, and after a few more passes her eyes close, and she is, to all external appearance, in a mesmeric sleep. The operator now takes the stool from under her feet, when she hangs suspended between the two rods. Again a few more passes, and the operator removes the rod that supports the left arm, and gently mesmerises the arm down to the side. Still the girl hangs motionless, with no other support than the single upright rod on which her right arm rests. (_See_ Fig. 313.) The operator now drapes her in various costumes, still keeping up from time to time the supposed mesmeric passes. Bending her right arm so as to support her head, he next lifts her gently to an angle of 45° to the upright rod (as shown by the dotted line in Fig. 313), and finally raises her to a horizontal position, as in Fig. 314.

An inspection of the diagrams will already have furnished the clue to the mystery. Of the two upright rods, one (that placed under the left arm) is wholly without preparation, and may be freely handed for examination. The other, A, is either of iron throughout (this was the case with the pretended walking-stick used by Robert-Houdin) or of well-seasoned wood with an iron core, and capable of bearing a very heavy weight. The lower end of this sinks into a socket in the low board or table already mentioned, and thus becomes, for the time being, a fixture. In the upper end is hollowed out a small space, about an inch in depth, for a purpose which will presently appear. The subject of the experiment wears, underneath her page’s costume, a sort of iron corset, or framework, similar to that shown in Figs. 313 and 314, and more in detail in Fig. 315. An iron girdle, _a a_, passes nearly round the waist, the circle being completed by a leather strap. At right angles to this, on the right side, is fixed an iron upright, _b b_, extending from just below the armpit nearly to the knee, but with a joint _c_ (working backwards and forwards only) at the hip, a strap _d_, round the leg, keeping it in position, so as to allow of bending the thigh. From the back of the iron girdle, in the centre, proceeds a crutch _e_, also of iron, passing between the legs, and connected by a strap to the front of the girdle. A fourth strap _f_, connected with the girdle in front and rear, passes over the left shoulder, and prevents any risk of the apparatus slipping downwards. To the upper part of the upright, _b b_, immediately below the armpit, is riveted a short flat piece of iron, _g_, working freely upon it. The end of _g_, which forms the joint shown enlarged in Fig. 316, is welded into a semicircular ratchet, with three teeth corresponding with a check _h_, lying parallel with _b b_, and which, in its normal position, is pressed up close into the teeth of the ratchet by a spring, but may be withdrawn by a downward pressure on the hook _i_. The opposite end of _g_ has projecting from its under side, at right angles, an iron plug _j_, which just fits into the cavity before mentioned in the top of the rod A. There is an opening in the under part of the sleeve, to give passage to this plug, which, when inserted in the corresponding cavity of A, makes _g_, relatively to it, a fixture. The remainder of the iron framework (and with it the lady) remains moveable, to the extent that, by means of the joint at _g_, it can be made to describe an arc of 90° to the upright rod.

The mode of operation will now be clear. When the young lady mounts on the stool, and extends her arms, the performer, in placing the upright beneath them, takes care to let the lower end of A sink properly into the socket, and to adapt the plug _j_ to the cavity at top. The apparatus is now in the position shown in Fig. 313, and when the stool is removed, the lady is left apparently resting only on A, but in reality comfortably seated in her iron cage, the different parts of which are all carefully padded, so as to occasion her no discomfort. Her legs and arms, being quite free, may be placed in any position that the performer chooses; and when presently he lifts her into a slanting position, as shown by the dotted line in Fig. 313, the check _h_ drops into the second tooth of the ratchet, and thus maintains her in that position. After a short interval she is lifted into the horizontal position, as in Fig. 314, when the check drops into the third tooth of the ratchet, and so maintains her, apparently sleeping upon an aërial couch. As the support terminates above the right knee, the legs are kept extended by muscular power. This attitude is therefore very fatiguing, and for that reason cannot be continued more than a few moments. To replace the lady in the upright position, the performer places both hands under the recumbent figure, the left hand easily finding (through the tunic) and drawing down the hook _i_, thereby withdrawing the check, and allowing the lady to sink down gently to the perpendicular. The stool is again placed under her feet, and the second upright under her left arm, before the operator begins to demesmerise her, which he does after the orthodox fashion with reverse passes, the lady simulating as best she may the bewildered and half-scared expression of one newly awakened from a mesmeric trance.