Latest Magic, Being original conjuring tricks

THE WIZARD’S POCKETBOOK

This is an extremely small volume, consisting in fact of six pages only, and no letterpress, the instructions for its use being embodied in a separate leaflet. On each of its pages are miniature reproductions of thirty-six playing cards, six in a row; every card of the pack being represented once at least among the whole number. The object of the book is to enable the owner to discover the name of a card drawn (or merely thought of) by some member of the company. The chooser is only asked to look at the book, and state on which one or more of its pages the card in question appears, when the performer, without seeing or handling the book himself, can instantly name the card. The six pages of the book are reproduced in the diagrams which follow. Figs. 37-42.

To be in a position to work the trick, it is necessary in the first place to memorise each of the fifty-two cards of the pack in connection with a particular number. This may at first sight appear a formidable undertaking, but it is not so in reality.

All that really needs to be memorised is the order of the suits; which is as under:

• 1. Clubs.
• 2. Hearts.
• 3. Spades.
• 4. Diamonds.

This order may be instantly recalled by using as a memory-peg the word CHaSeD, which contains the initials of the four suits in the proper order, or the reader may if he prefers it recall them by reflecting that Cool Heads Soon Decide.

The arrangement of each suit follows the natural order, the ace of clubs being No. 1; the deuce 2; and the trey 3; knave 11; queen 12 and king 13. The card next following, viz., the ace of hearts, will be 14; the deuce of hearts 15, and so on, the complete arrangement being as shown below:

• 1. Ace of clubs.
• 2. Deuce of clubs.
• 3. Trey of clubs.
• 4. Four of clubs.
• 5. Five of clubs.
• 6. Six of clubs.
• 7. Seven of clubs.
• 8. Eight of clubs.
• 9. Nine of clubs.
• 10. Ten of clubs.
• 11. Knave of clubs.
• 12. Queen of clubs.
• 13. King of clubs.
• 14. Ace of hearts.
• 15. Deuce of hearts.
• 16. Trey of hearts.
• 17. Four of hearts.
• 18. Five of hearts.
• 19. Six of hearts.
• 20. Seven of hearts.
• 21. Eight of hearts.
• 22. Nine of hearts.
• 23. Ten of hearts.
• 24. Knave of hearts.
• 25. Queen of hearts.
• 26. King of hearts.
• 27. Ace of spades.
• 28. Deuce of spades.
• 29. Trey of spades.
• 30. Four of spades.
• 31. Five of spades.
• 32. Six of spades.
• 33. Seven of spades.
• 34. Eight of spades.
• 35. Nine of spades.
• 36. Ten of spades.
• 37. Knave of spades.
• 38. Queen of spades.
• 39. King of spades.
• 40. Ace of diamonds.
• 41. Deuce of diamonds.
• 42. Trey of diamonds.
• 43. Four of diamonds.
• 44. Five of diamonds.
• 45. Six of diamonds.
• 46. Seven of diamonds.
• 47. Eight of diamonds.
• 48. Nine of diamonds.
• 49. Ten of diamonds.
• 50. Knave of diamonds,
• 51. Queen of diamonds.
• 52. King of diamonds.

The arrangement of the table being once understood, the number associated with any given card in the club suit suggests itself automatically, e.g., the seven of clubs is likewise No. 7 in the list. To ascertain the name of the card corresponding to any of the higher numbers, all that is needed is to subtract from that number 13, or such higher multiple of thirteen as the case will admit, and the difference will represent its position in its own suit.

Suppose, for instance, that the performer desires to know what card answers to the number 20. Deducting thirteen from 20, the remainder, 7, tells him that the card is the seventh (i.e. the seven) of the second suit, viz., hearts. If he wants to know the name of No. 29, he deducts 26, when the remainder, 3, tells him that the card is the three of the third suit, spades. If the card be No. 40, the number to be deducted will be 39, and the remainder, 1, tells him that the card is the first of the fourth suit, viz., the ace of diamonds. After a very few trials, this little exercise in mental arithmetic becomes so familiar that the calculation becomes practically instantaneous.

Going a step further; with each of the six pages of the pocket-book is associated a special number, known as its “key” number. These are as under:

The memorising of these is also a very simple matter, for it will be noted that the key numbers are the first six factors of the familiar geometrical progression, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32. Printed as below:

the upper figures, in ordinary type, expressing the numbers of the pages, and the lower, in black type, the corresponding key numbers, a very small amount of study will associate them so closely in the mind as to fix them firmly in the memory.

Having mastered these two simple lessons, the learner is in a position to use the pocket-book. To ascertain the card chosen, he has only to add together the key numbers of the pages in which he is told that such card appears. The total will be the number at which that card stands in the list given on page 185, and, this being known, it becomes an easy matter to name the card itself.

We will suppose, for instance, that performer is told that the chosen card appears on the second page, and no other. The key number of this page being 2, the card must be the second in the list, viz., the deuce of clubs. If he is told that the chosen card is to be found on pages 1, 3 and 6: the key number of these three pages being 1, 4 and 32: together making 37, and thirty-seven less twenty-six being eleven, he knows that the card must be the eleventh of the third suit, otherwise the knave of spades. If he is told that the card is on the third, fifth and sixth pages, the key numbers of which are 4, 16 and 32, total 52, it is clear that the card must be the last in the list, viz., the king of diamonds.

So much for the working of the trick. But the reader, if of an enquiring mind, will naturally ask, “How is this result obtained?” The answer rests upon a special property of the geometrical progression which forms the six key numbers. It is a curious fact that by the use of these six numbers, either singly or in combination with others of the series, any number, from unity up to 63, can be expressed. Thus, the numbers, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 we already have, these being numbers of the series. As to other numbers:

• 1 + 2 = 3
• 4 + 1 = 5
• 4 + 2 = 6
• 4 + 2 + 1 = 7
• 8 + 1 = 9
• 8 + 2 = 10
• 8 + 2 + 1 = 11
• 8 + 4 = 12
• 8 + 4 + 1 = 13

and so on throughout up to 52, which being the limit of the pack, is the highest number with which we need concern ourselves.

In making up the pages of the pocket-book, advantage has been taken of this principle. A given card is inserted on that page or pages (and those only) whose key numbers, alone or added together, correspond with the position which the card holds in the list. Thus the ace of clubs will appear on the first page (not because it is the first card, but because the key number of that page is 1) and on no other. The deuce of clubs, in like manner, on page 2, the key number of that card being two. The next card, the three of clubs, must appear on page 1 and page 2, their key numbers together amounting to 3. The process as to cards standing at higher numbers is the same. Thus, the ace of spades, being the twenty-seventh card, and twenty-seven being the aggregate of 16, 8, 2 and 1, will appear on the first, second, fourth and fifth pages. Conversely, if the performer is told that the card appears on the four pages last named, he knows that it is the twenty-seventh card, i.e., the ace of spades. Any spaces remaining vacant on the page after the whole pack has been dealt with, are filled up by duplicates of cards already figuring on the same page, their appearing under these conditions making no difference to the calculation.

I am indebted to an ingenious amateur, Mr. Victor Farrelly, for the idea of a novel method of using the pocket-book. Mr. Farrelly does not offer of his own accord to show what can be done with it, but keeps it in reserve, for use in a special emergency. Every conjurer meets now and then with the pig-headed person who absolutely declines to have a given card forced upon him, and persists in endeavouring to extract one from some other part of the pack. Armed with the pocket-book, the performer can set such a person at defiance, and indeed get additional kudos from his objectionable behaviour.

He cheerfully gives up the struggle, saying “You seem to think, sir, that I wish to influence your choice in some way. To prove the contrary, I give the pack into your own hands. Shuffle it well. Thank you. Now take from it any card you please. Look at it, and put it in your pocket. You are satisfied, I presume, that I do not know that card? You are quite right. I have not the smallest idea of it, but I shall discover it without the smallest difficulty by a process of mathematical magic. I have here” (producing pocket-book) “a little book of six pages, on each of which thirty-six cards are illustrated. Will you kindly see whether the card you chose is represented among those on the first page? Meanwhile I will divide the pack, which please remember I have not touched since you shuffled it yourself, into six portions, one for each page of the book.” This is done, the six packets being turned face down on the table.

We will suppose that the chosen card is not found on the first page. “Then,” says the performer, “this first packet will tell me nothing, and may be disregarded. Now, for the second page, is your card upon that? It is? Then I draw two cards from the second heap, and turn up one of them. And now for the third page. Do you find your card there? You do? Then I take up three cards from the third packet, and again turn up the last one.”

We will suppose that the chosen card is not found in either the fourth or the fifth page, but re-appears on the sixth, whereupon six cards are counted off from the corresponding packet, and the last of them turned up. The performer has by this time mentally added up the key numbers of the second, third and sixth pages: viz., 2, 4 and 32, together making 38, and knows therefrom that the card is the thirty-eighth in the list, viz., the queen of spades. He does not however at once display his knowledge, but pretends to make a mental calculation from the cards exposed upon the table, giving, if he so pleases, and the cards lend themselves to it, some fanciful explanation of his method. It seems to me, however, that this last is a needless elaboration. Personally, I should prefer merely to call attention by name to the cards exposed, and say, “When these three cards appear in conjunction, it is clear that the card drawn was the queen of spades” (or whatever it may happen to be). Any one deluded, as the majority will probably be, into believing that you really infer the name of the drawn card from those on the table, will be farther from the real solution than ever.

CONCERNING PATTER

It will doubtless have been observed that I have in the foregoing pages been somewhat lavish in respect of patter. I have done so for two or three reasons.

First, in order to enable the reader to form a better estimate of the effect of the trick presented, duly clothed and coloured, to the mind of the spectator. A trick described, however minutely, from the mere mechanical or technical point of view, gives scarcely more idea of its actual effect than the rough charcoal sketch of the artist does of the finished painting. Secondly, because ready-made patter, if the reader cares to use it, will save him a considerable amount of trouble. My third reason is more personal, namely, that it has been a labour of love to do so. To my mind the devising of some little bit of appropriate fiction to serve as introduction to a trick is the pleasantest part of the inventor’s work.

It may perhaps be thought that I have, in some of the more ambitious tricks, been overliberal in this particular. I remember thinking, after witnessing a “show” by Dr. Lynn, a popular performer of the last generation, that he had talked a great deal, and done very little, and that I had had very little real magic for my money. On the other hand, the loquacious doctor was always amusing, and it must not be forgotten that to amuse, even more than to puzzle, is the raison d’être of the modern magician. It seems to me therefore quite legitimate to use, to a reasonable extent, the art of the raconteur to supplement that of the magician.

If my own patter is in some cases found superabundant, I have at any rate done my best to make it amusing, and if the reader opines that I have not paid sufficient regard to the late Mr. Ducrow’s celebrated maxim, “Cut the cackle, and come to the ’osses,” he is quite at liberty to cut my cackle to what he may consider more reasonable proportions. No doubt, time would be saved thereby. If, for instance, he were to cut out the little romantic fictions with which I have introduced “The Miracle of Mumbo Jumbo” and “The Story of the Alkahest,” and start “right away” with the bare performance of the trick, both could be exhibited in little more time than I have allotted to either alone. Which treatment is likely to give the greater satisfaction to his audience, he must decide for himself.

Where the performer has the gift (for a “gift” it undoubtedly is) of devising effective patter for himself I am strongly in favour of his doing so. Borrowed patter may be likened to a borrowed dress-coat. It is never likely to be an exact fit, and a “giant’s robe upon a dwarfish thief,” or the reverse, cannot be expected to be a becoming garment. Every man has, or should have, a style of his own, and it is rarely good policy to imitate that of somebody else. If a low comedy man were to essay to play Hamlet, or a tragedian, however eminent, were to try to give an imitation of Harry Lauder, the result would be likely to be disappointing.

The reader, undertaking to write his own patter, and desirous of making it just what patter should be, will find counsels of perfection in “Our Magic,” and the more nearly he can approach them the better. As, however, all have not the good fortune to possess that admirable work, I venture to indicate what to my own mind seem to be the chief points to be aimed at.

It is almost a commonplace to say that the main object of patter is misdirection. As the term is more usually applied, this means something said or done midway in the course of a trick to draw away the attention of the audience at some critical moment, and to create what the French conjurers call a “temps” i.e., an “opportunity” for doing, unnoticed, some necessary act. But misdirection may very well start at an earlier stage than this: in fact, well in advance of the actual execution of the trick. Each trick should have some sort of introduction, and the patter serving this purpose should be such as to lead the mind of the hearer away from the true explanation of the marvel, and to suggest, in a more or less plausible way, some other, remote from the real one.

The suggested explanation may be either pseudo-scientific, where possible based on some generally accepted truth (and it is surprising what a long way even a few grains of truth go in such cases); or it may be downright “spoof,” delivered however with due appearance of seriousness. The explanations will naturally fall a good deal short of the George Washington standard of truthfulness, but the most tender conscience need not in such a case have any scruples on the score of veracity. No sane person expects truth in a fairy tale, and a magical entertainment, from beginning to end, is but a fairy tale in action. To put the matter in an epigrammatic nutshell:

This function of patter, the leading away the minds of the audience from the true explanation of the puzzle offered them, may be materially assisted by the introduction, among the “properties” used, of some object professedly essential to the trick, but as a matter of fact having no real concern with the effect produced. The audience take for granted that it must have something to do with the effect, or it would not be used, and are thereby led away the more effectually from the actual explanation. Numerous illustrations of the use of this device will be found in the foregoing pages.

If, in the case of a given trick, the performer is absolutely at a loss to produce a satisfactory fable to introduce it, he may evade the difficulty by stating that he is about to produce an effect for which he cannot himself account, and inviting the assistance of his audience in doing so.

The second function of patter is the calling of the attention of the audience to matters which you desire them to take note of, and to give opportunity to do so. There is small credit to be gained by changing the ace of clubs into the ace of hearts, or making a given article pass invisibly from one spot to another, unless the spectators have been first made to realise the original state of things, and they must be allowed sufficient time to do so. I have more than once seen an otherwise brilliant show spoilt by being rushed through at railroad speed. The mind of the spectator had not been allowed time to receive clear impressions. The company in such a case disperses with a consciousness of having had a rapid succession of surprises, but with only a cloudy recollection as to what they were.

In devising, as is sometimes desirable, new patter for an old trick, an endeavour should be made to look at the effect from an entirely fresh point of view, so as to make the trick practically a new one. A remarkable instance of such a transformation is furnished by an incident in the life of Robert-Houdin. At one period of his career he was entrusted by the French Government with a very important mission. He was sent to Algeria, specially charged to “astonish the natives,” and by his greater wonders to destroy their belief in the pretended miracles of the Aissoua.

Among other surprises, he decided to make use of his “Light and Heavy Chest,” a chest which, as the reader is doubtless aware, became at command, by means of an electro-magnet in the pedestal on which it rested, so “heavy” that the strongest man could not lift it from its base. This trick, produced at a time when the phenomena of electricity were but little understood, has produced an immense sensation at his Paris performances. But the Master instinctively felt that the trick in that shape would produce little or no effect on the more primitive mind of the Arab. He would simply have taken for granted some mechanical means of holding down the chest, beyond his own comprehension, no doubt, but by no means to be regarded as miraculous. Robert-Houdin decided to change the mode of presentation altogether, and to make the illusion no longer objective, but subjective. He announced that by means of his magic power he could take away the strength of the strongest man, and render him weak as a little child. The “chest” was in this case merely brought forward in a casual way, as a convenient object wherewith the assertion of the magician could be tested. The strongest man in the company was invited to come forward, and try whether he could lift that little box. Of course he could, and did; a child could have done the same. “You lifted it because I permitted you to do so,” said the magician. “But I take away your strength. Try to lift it now!”

Again the athlete tries his strength, but now he fails. With teeth set, and every muscle tense, he strains, and strains, but in vain, and he has to confess that the infidel wonder-worker has, for the time, taken away all his strength. Here was a wizard indeed!

In arranging your patter, be humorous if you can, but if, like the gentleman we have all heard of, you “joke with difficulty,” don’t force yourself to be funny. That it is possible for a man lacking humour still to be a great conjurer is proved by the case of Hartz, who was notably deficient in this particular, but by his excellence in other directions won a place in the very first rank of his profession. But if you cannot be humorous, at any rate be cheerful. Geniality of manner is one of the most valuable assets of the conjurer. Above all, don’t be nervous. You may say “I can’t help it,” but to a great extent you can. It is largely a matter of will. Start with the idea that all will go well, and it will probably do so. On the other hand, a low-spirited conjurer always makes a low-spirited audience.

In any case, be sparing of puns, which have been deservedly described as the lowest form of wit. A single pun, if good enough (or bad enough) may win a laugh, and score to your credit, but to pepper an audience with verbal shrapnel in the shape of puns is an outrage on good taste.

Passing to the third function of patter, the misdirection of attention in the course of a trick, we will assume that you have made a start in the right direction at the outset, by suggesting some fanciful explanation of the effect you intend to produce, so that your audience, starting from wrong premises, do not know the points at which their too close observation would be inconvenient. The best way of diverting their attention at one of these critical points is obviously to attract it to some other direction. A mere sentence, particularly if accompanied by appropriate action, will suffice. Supposing, to take an elementary instance, that the performer desires to drop unseen into the profonde from his left hand some small article for which he has just deftly substituted a duplicate, now exhibited in the right hand, he has only to say, “Now I want you particularly to keep an eye on this”—whatever the article in the right hand may happen to be. All eyes are for the moment, instinctively drawn to the object in question, and in that moment the deed is done. The artifice is ridiculously simple, but it is effective, and it is on being fully prepared with the right thing to say and do at the critical moment that the success of a magical entertainment largely depends. Careful rehearsal, preferably before an expert friend, will furnish the best hints as to the danger-spots in the working of a trick, and how best to devise patter to meet them.

A final word of advice—advice that has been often given, but cannot be too often repeated if you really aim to carry your audience with you. Never lose sight of the fact that you are, in the words of Robert-Houdin, “an actor playing the part of a magician,” and take your office seriously. In particular, never before an audience use the word “trick,” which at once gives away all your pretension to magical power. An actor never tells his audience that he is an actor or that he is playing a part. He does not call their attention to his make-up, however excellent, or tell them that his wig comes from Clarkson. On the contrary, he does his best to make his audience for the time forget that he is Hubert de Barnstormer, or whatever his stage name may be, and to keep up the illusion that he is actually the person whom he represents. The modern magician should do the same. If he has enough of the true artistic spirit to imagine, when he steps forward on the platform, that he is a magician, and that his miracles are genuine, he will go a long way towards producing a like impression in the minds of his audience. Bearing this in mind, describe what you propose to do as an “effect,” a “marvel,” an “experiment,” or a “phenomenon”; never by any chance as a “trick.”

It may be objected that I have myself repeatedly used the obnoxious word in the course of the foregoing pages, but that is another matter. This book is written by a conjurer for conjurers: and as between ourselves we are forced to admit, painful though it be to do so, that our greatest miracles are only tricks. But we need not tell the public so. Logically-minded, persons know it well enough, if they are allowed to think about the matter. Our business is to make them, for the time, forget it. A wise old Roman said: Populus vult decipi: decipiatur. Your audience wish to be deceived; in fact they have come together for that purpose. By all means let them be deceived to the top of their bent; and the first step towards effectually deceiving them, is to persuade them, if possible, that there is “no deception.”

The patter for a given trick, once composed, and tested by a few performances in public, may thenceforth, so far as the professional is concerned, be left to take care of itself. It should automatically improve with each of its earlier repetitions as good wine improves in bottle. Faults will correct themselves, and being made perfect by practice, the performer will thenceforth be able to “speak his piece” without effort, and devote his whole energies to the actual working of the trick.

To the amateur, only performing on special occasions, with perhaps considerable intervals between them, I commend a plan from which I myself derived great benefit, viz.: Write out from memory the patter for each trick on the programme a day or two before a coming performance. After you have given your show, go through your manuscript again carefully, noting and correcting it in any point in which the patter failed to be exactly right. The interpolation of a single sentence, the transposition in point of sequence of two movements, or the alteration of some trifling detail, such as standing at a different angle to your table at a given moment, may make all the difference between partial failure and complete success.

THE USE OF THE WAND

Closely connected with the subject of patter is the use of the wand, which in my own opinion cannot be too sedulously cultivated. To the cases in which the wand itself forms the prominent item of the trick, I devoted a special chapter in “Later Magic.” To these therefore I need not further refer. More important, however, is the part played by the wand from the point of view of general utility.

In the first place, it is the only remnant of the traditional outfit of the magician. Time was, when the regulation costume of the wizard was a sugarloaf hat, and a robe embroidered with highly coloured mystic symbols. Such a robe is still worn as part of their make-up, by Chung Ling Soo and a few other Orientals, but the orthodox costume of the latter-day wizard is ordinary evening dress. The wand alone remains; the symbol and the professed instrument of his mystic powers, and from its traditional connection with magic, there is a special prestige attached to it.

For these reasons alone it would be desirable to retain the use of the wand, but apart from them, its practical uses are many and various. One of the first difficulties of the novice, as he comes forward to introduce himself to his audience, is to know what to do with his hands. He can hardly advance with hand on heart, within his vest, à la Pecksniff. Held open, with arms hanging down by the sides, the hands look too stiff, and to advance with them in his pockets would hardly be good form. By coming forward wand in hand, he avoids these difficulties. The hand holding it automatically assumes an easy and natural position, and he ceases to think about the other. With the wand held in the right hand across the body, its free end resting on the palm of the opposite hand, he is in an ideal attitude for delivering his introductory patter. Later on, by holding the wand in the hand, he effectually disguises the fact that he has some object, a card, a coin, or a watch concealed therein. If he has occasion to call attention directly to any object, the wand forms the most natural pointer. If he finds it necessary, for some reason connected with the trick in hand, to make a turn or half-turn away from the spectators, the fact that he has left his wand upon the table affords him the needful opportunity.

Lastly, if the wand is habitually used as the professed instrument of a desired transposition or transformation, a certain portion of an average audience gradually becomes impressed with the idea that there really must be some occult connection between the touch of the wand and the effect produced. There is much virtue in what may be called a magical atmosphere, and after the wizard has proved his magical power by performing two or three apparent impossibilities, the mind of the spectator (though in his calmer moments, he knows, or should know, better), is led to adopt in a greater or less degree the solution “forced” upon him by the conjurer. Habitual use of the wand, with apparent seriousness, goes far to create the desired atmosphere.

A good effect may be produced by “electrifying” the wand now and then, by rubbing it with a handkerchief. The main uses of electricity are so widely known, and so little understood by the million, that they are quite ready to give it credit for still more marvellous possibilities.

My friend Mr. Holt Schooling, mentioned in connection with The Secret of the Pyramids, finds an additional use for the wand. He uses, not one only, but half a dozen, of different appearance, each credited with some special magical virtue. At the outset of his show these are arranged horizontally, one above another on pins projecting from a small sloping blackboard. For each fresh trick the wand professedly appropriate to it is brought into action, the one last used being at the same time replaced on the stand. The spectators do not suspect that behind each top corner of the board is a small servante, enabling the performer, under cover of the change of wands, to change a pack of cards, or to effect some other substitution necessary for the purpose of his next item.

Verbum sap, by all means cultivate the use of the wand, and for the sake of effect, let it be of an elegant and distinctive character. An office-ruler or a piece of cane would serve many of its mechanical purposes, but would lack the prestige attached to what is, professedly, the genuine article.

One of the most striking proofs of the extensive use and appreciation of the wand by modern magicians is furnished by the remarkable collection of such implements got together by Dr. Saram R. Ellison, of New York.

Dr. Ellison[20] is an eminent and popular physician, whose ruling passion is wanting to know things, particularly things that other people don’t know. Such being his temperament, it goes almost without saying that at an early period of his career he became a Freemason. Having been duly initiated into the mysteries of the ordinary lodge, and learnt all it had to teach him, he still yearned for “more light,” and accordingly worked his way up step by step through intervening degrees in masonry till he reached what is known as the thirty-third degree, an order even more exclusive than that of the Garter, and claiming to possess secrets as to which the ordinary “blue” mason, even though he be a Past Grand Everything, knows no more than the veriest outsider.

When in this direction there were no more mysteries left for him to conquer, Dr. Ellison naturally turned his attention to Magic: and in accordance with his habitual determination to know all that there is to be known with regard to his hobby for the time being he began to collect books upon the subject. At first there were but few to collect, but the literature of magic has grown, and grown, and side by side with its advance Dr. Ellison’s collection has grown larger and larger till it numbers some hundreds of volumes. Harry Kellar, the dean of American magicians, and himself an enthusiastic collector, yearned to possess it, and offered the doctor for it the handsome sum of two thousand dollars, equivalent in English money to about four hundred pounds. But Dr. Ellison was not to be tempted. In order that the collection should be preserved intact, he donated it, some years ago, to the New York Public Library, also providing a fund for its upkeep and further development.

But Dr. Ellison’s interest in, and services to Magic did not end here. He has made a collection of models, entirely the work of his own hands, of the appliances for over sixty stage illusions. Some are of full size, others quite miniature affairs, but one and all exact to scale. Further, the doctor has a special affection for souvenirs of famous magicians, past and present, especially in the shape of wands, as being the most characteristic possession of the wizard. Accordingly, some years ago, he began to collect wands, and he now possesses more than eighty such, each a wand which has been habitually yielded by some more or less famous magician. By the courtesy of Dr. Ellison I am enabled to furnish particulars of some of them; as given in a very interesting pamphlet by Epes W. Sargent, a well-known American writer.

The catalogue commences with a wand formerly belonging to Professor Anderson, the once famous “Wizard of the North.” Here are found also the wands used by the two Herrmanns (Carl and Alexander), Buatier de Kolta, Lafayette, Martin Chapender, Carl Willmann and others who tread the stage no more. As regards the living, there is here a memento of nearly every English-speaking conjurer of note: besides many others of cosmopolitan celebrity.

The wand here exhibited is not always the conventional ebony and ivory affair, some of the specimens being indeed of a highly original character. For instance, the wand contributed by a Hindu magician consists of the leg bone of a sacred monkey from the temple of Hanuman, the monkey god, at Benares. The wands of Madame Adelaide Herrmann and Chung Ling Soo take the shape of fans. Horace Goldin’s is a cut-down whip-handle, and those of Clement de Lion and Imro Fox are portions of one-while walking-sticks, promoted to a nobler use. Mr. J. N. Maskelyne’s “wand” is an ordinary file, which, from the inventor point of view, he regards as the greatest of wonder-working appliances.

My own contribution may claim to be of exceptional interest, not merely as being in itself a curio, but as a memento of a very remarkable man, so remarkable, indeed, that a brief notice of his career may be interesting. It was presented to me by Professor Palmer, a gentleman who was not, like myself, a bogus professor, but the real thing, and withal an exceptionally eminent man. Skill in sleight-of-hand was the least of his accomplishments. He had a marvellous gift of tongue, there being scarcely a European or Oriental language with which he was not thoroughly familiar. He was born at Cambridge in 1840, and from his earliest years showed indications of his peculiar gift for acquiring languages. As a school-boy he made friends among the gipsies, and learned to speak their queer language so perfectly as to deceive even those to whom it was their native tongue. In later life it was a favourite joke of his to saunter, in company with his equally accomplished friend, Leland, into some gipsy encampment where they were not known, and after paying their footing by having their fortunes told, to ask some of the nomads gathered round the fire, to talk a little Rommany for their benefit. Gipsies are chary of speaking Rommany except among their own people, and the inquisitive strangers were frequently told that there was no such language; whereupon, one of them would turn to the other, and in purest Rommany quietly express an opinion that their temporary hosts were not thorough-bred gipsies, but of some inferior stock. This produced Rommany in plenty, and the visitors were energetically taken to task for that, being themselves gipsies, they should ape the dress and manners of the Gorgio. A friendly explanation made all end happily.

Palmer made his first start in life as a clerk in the City of London, where in his spare time he made himself master of French and Italian. A little later he took up the study of Persian, Arabic and Hindustani, and speedily conquered them. In 1867, after taking his degree at the University of Cambridge, he was elected a Fellow by his College, an honour conferred on him in recognition of his mastery of the Oriental languages. During the years 1868-1870 he was employed on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund, to make a survey of Mount Sinai, in the course of which he became upon friendly and indeed almost brotherly terms with many of the wild Arab tribes, among whom he was known as the Sheikh Abdullah. As in England he had been made free of the gipsy tent, so in Palestine he could drop in upon many a Bedouin encampment, and be sure of a hearty welcome. His skill in sleight-of-hand, which he had in the first instance taken up merely as a pastime, proved to be of immense service to him in his desert wanderings; adding not only to his popularity but frequently gaining for him the prestige of a genuine magician, and thereby increasing his influence.

In 1871 he was appointed to the professorship of Oriental languages at Cambridge, his official title being the Lord High Almoner’s Reader of Arabic. In 1882, in anticipation of the Arabi trouble in Egypt, he was entrusted by the then Government with the difficult and dangerous task of winning over the Sinaitic tribes, and preventing the threatened destruction of the Suez Canal.

His first trip, extending from Gaza to Suez, was carried out successfully, but on penetrating farther into the desert, he and his two companions, Captain Gill, R.E., and Lieutenant Charrington, R.N., fell into the hands of a tribe to whom Palmer was unknown, and were barbarously put to death. Happily, their bodies were recovered, and received from the nation the posthumous honour of burial in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

The wand presented to me by Professor Palmer is a curiosity in many ways. It is made of acacia wood (the “shittim” wood of the Old Testament) brought by Palmer himself from Mount Lebanon. Around it, in spiral form, is inscribed an invocation from the Koran, in Arabic characters. The writing of the inscription is a genuine work of art, having been executed as a special favour to Palmer, by Hassoun, an eminent professional “scribe.”

I am reluctantly bound to admit that the Palmer wand, in my hands, did not exhibit any special magical virtues, and when I ceased myself to use it, it seemed to me that it could not find a worthier home than in Dr. Ellison’s fine collection.

Reverting for a moment to the subject of patter, I will conclude by quoting, for the amusement rather than the instruction of the reader, an oration which (with variations) now and then formed my introductory boniment, and might on occasion still serve, in default of better.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, and members of the Royal Family, if any happen to be present, I am about to exhibit for your amusement, a few experiments in Unnatural Philosophy, otherwise Magic.

“Magic in the olden times was a very different thing, as I daresay you know, from what it is at present. In those days every respectable wizard kept a familiar spirit: a sort of magical man of all work. He cleaned the boots and knives, and when his master gave a show, it was the familiar who worked all his miracles for him. The magician only did the talking, and pocketed the takings. But the familiar did much bigger things than that. If his master’s next-door neighbour made himself disagreeable, the familiar would hoist him up and drop him in the water-butt, or into the Red Sea, according to order. If the magician wanted a week at the seaside, he had no need to pay railway fare. The familiar would just pick him up, house and all, and land him gently in the middle of the mixed bathing. The only drawback was that, sooner or later, a time came when there was no performance, because the magician had been carried off by his familiar on a pitchfork.

“As the French say, nous avons changé tout cela. Familiars are as extinct as the dodo. Perhaps it’s as well, but it makes it very much harder to be a magician. In the first place you must know all about astrology, anthropology, Egyptology and all the other ologies. You must be well posted in mathematics, hydrostatics, pneumatics and numismatics. You must know all about clairvoyance, palmistry and thought reading, sympathy and antipathy, magnetism, mesmerism, wireless telegraphy, X rays and all the other kinds of rays. Of course you must be well up in Greek and Latin, and a little Hebrew, not to mention a few other things which I forget for the moment, but I won’t stop to think of them now. When you have studied these little matters fourteen hours a day for nine or ten years, you will be as ‘chock-full of science’ as old Sol Gills himself, and you will be able to do all sorts of wonderful things, some of which I hope to show you this evening.

“Before I begin, there is just one little matter I should like to mention. You hear people talk about the quickness of the hand deceiving the eye. I don’t know whether the quickness of the hand ever does deceive the eye, but I want you to understand that you must not expect anything of that sort from me. I am naturally slow. I was born twenty minutes after I was expected, and I have been getting slower and slower ever since.

“To-night, I intend to do everything even more slowly than usual: so that you will only have to watch me closely to see exactly how it is all done. Then, when you go home, if you do as I do, and say as I say, without making any mistakes, no doubt you will be able to produce the same results. If not, there must be ‘something wrong with the works.’”