210 M AGIO [WHITE MAGIC. liqueur glasses being provided on trays, and containing drops of certain flavouring essences, enabled him to supply imitations of various wines and liquors, according to the glasses into which he poured syrup from the bottle ; while by a skilful substitution of a full bottle for an emptied one, or by secretly refilling in the act of wiping the bottle with a cloth, he produced the impression that the bottle was "inexhaustible." In 1835 was first exhibited in England a trick which a Brahman had been seen to perform at Madras several years before. Ching Lau Lauro sat cross- legged" upon nothing, one of his hands only just touching some beads hung upon a genuine hollow bamboo which was set upright in a hole on the top of a wooden stool. The placing of the performer in position was done behind a screen ; and the explanation of the mysterious suspension is that he passed through the bamboo a strong iron bar, to which he connected a support which, concealed by the beads, his hand, and his dress, upheld his body. In 1849 Robert-Houdin reproduced the idea under the title of ethereal suspension, professedly rendering his son s body devoid of weight by administering vapour of ether to his nose, and then, in sight of the audience, laying him in a horizontal position in the air with one elbow resting upon a staff resembling a long walking-stick. The support was a jointed iron frame under the boy s dress, with cushions and belts passing round and under the body. Subsequently the trick was improved upon by Sylvester the suspended person being shown in several changes of position, while the sole supporting upright was finally removed. For the latter deception the steel upright was made with polished angular faces, apex toward the spectators, and acted in a dim light on the same principle as the mirrors of a Sphinx table. Before lowering the light, the reflector bar is covered by the wood staff set up before it. The mysterious vanishing or appearing of a person under a large extinguisher upon the top of a table, and without the use of mirrors, was first performed by Comus, a French conjuror very expert in the cups-and-balls sleight-of-hand, who, appearing in London in 1789, an nounced that he would convey his wife under a cup in the same manner as he would balls. The feat was accom plished by means of a trap in a box table. Early in the present century Chalons, a Swiss conjuror, transformed a bird into a young lady, on the same principle. In 1836 Sutton varied the feat by causing the vanished body to re appear under the crust of a great pie. Houdin " vanished " a person standing upon a table top which was shown to be only a few inches thick ; but there was a false top which was let down like the side of a bellows, this distension being hidden by a table-cloth hanging sufficiently low for the purpose, and the person, when covered by the extinguisher, entered the table though a trap-door opening upwards. Robin, in 1851, added to the wonder of the trick by vanishing two persons in succession, without any pos sibility of either escaping from the table, the two persons really packing themselves into a space which, without clever arrangement and practice, could not hold more than one. The sword-and-basket trick was common in India many years ago. In one form it consisted in inverting an empty basket over a child upon the ground ; after the child had secreted himself between the basket-bottom and a belt concealed by a curtain painted to look like the actual wicker bottom, a sword was thrust through both sides of the basket, the child screaming, and squeezing upon the sword and upon the ground a blood-coloured liquid from a sponge. When the performer upset the basket, the child could not be seen ; but another child similarly costumed suddenly appeared among the spectators, having been up to that time supported by a pair of stirrups under the cloak of a confederate among the bystanders. In another form an oblong basket is used large at the bottom and tapering to the top, with the lid occupying only the central portion of the top, and the child is so disposed round the basket that the sword plunged downward avoids him, and the performer can step inside and stamp upon the bottom to prove that the basket is empty. In 1865 Stodare introduced the trick into England, but in a new manner. Upon light tressels he placed a large oblong basket; and after a lady attired in a profuse muslin dress had composed herself and her abundance of skirt within, after the lid had been shut and the sword plunged through the sides, the basket was tilted towards the audience to show that it was empty, and the lady reappeared in a gallery of the hall. The basket was formed with an outer shell to turn down, leaving the lady with her dress packed together lying upon the basket bottom and behind what had formed a false front side, the principle being the same as in the clown s box, which, when containing a man, is rolled over to display the inside empty. The reappearing lady was a double, or twin sister. Among the most meritorious and celebrated mechanical illusions have been automaton figures secretly influenced in their movements by concealed operators. In the 17th century M. Raisin, organist of Troyes, took to the French court a harpsichord which played airs as directed by the audience ; but, upon opening the instrument, Louis XIV. discovered a youthful performer inside. In 1769 Baron Kempelen, of Pressburg, in Hungary, completed his chess player, which for a long time remained the puzzle of Europe. It was an illusion, the merit consisting in the devices by which the confederate player was hidden in the cabinet and body of the figure, while the interior was opened in successive instalments to the scrutiny of the spectators. The first player was a Polish patriot, Worousky, who had lost both legs in a campaign ; as he was furnished with artificial limbs when in public, his appearance, together with the fact that no dwarf or child travelled in Kempelen s company, dispelled the suspicion that any person could be employed inside the machine. This automaton, which made more than one tour to the capitals and courts of Europe, and was owned for a short time by Napoleon I., was exhibited by Maelzel after the death of Kempelen in 1819, and ultimately perished in a fire at Philadelphia in 1854. A revival of the trick appeared in Hooper s " Ajeeb," shown a few years ago at the Sydenham Crystal Palace and elsewhere. Still more recently a chess- playing figure, " Mephisto," designed by Gumpel, has been on view. No space exists for the accommodation of a living player within ; but, as there is no attempt at isolating the apparatus from mechanical communication through the carpet or the floor, there is nothing to preclude the moving arm and gripping finger and thumb of the figure from being worked by any convenient connexion of threads, wires, rods, and levers. In 1875 Maskelyne and Cooke produced at the Egyptian Hall, in London, an automaton whist-player, " Psycho," which, from the manner in which it is placed upon the stage, appears to be perfectly isolated from any mechanical communication from without ; there is no room within for the concealment of a living player by aid of any optical or other illusion, and yet the free motions of both arms, especially of the right arm and hand in finding any card, taking hold of it, and raising it or lowering it to any position and at any speed as demanded by the audience, prove that the actions are directed from without. The arm has all the complicated movements necessary for chess or draught playing ; and Psycho calcu lates any sum up to a total of 99,000,000. What the mysterious means of connexion are has not been dis-
co ered ; or, at any rate, down to the time of writing