On a raised platform is found a box about four feet long, three feet wide, and six inches deep, the bottom of which is covered with broken glass. In a few moments a man dressed in the Mexican costume appears on the platform and proceeds to break a few old bottles and throw the broken glass in the box, then removes his shoes, shows his feet to be free from any covering, steps in the box, and dances among the glass. After he has finished dancing he shows his feet to be uninjured, and retires. The trick is performed in the following manner:

Secure a number of thick glass bottles, break them in rather small pieces and file or grind all the sharp edges round. This stock of glass you place in the center of a box made according to above measurement. Now soak your feet in strong alum water and wipe dry, and give them a thorough rubbing with pulverized rosin. Dust the inside of your shoes with rosin, put them on, and go upon the platform. Take some old lamp chimneys and bottles, break them in bits, and throw this fresh broken glass in the box, around the edges and in the corners, not in the center. Remove your shoes, step in the center of the box, among the prepared glass, and do your dancing. Avoid the sides or corners of the box, where you have thrown the glass, and you run no risk of cutting your feet, especially if you use plenty of rosin. The amateur hardly needs to be informed that such tricks should be left entirely to professionals.

CHAPTER VII.
VENTRILOQUISM AND ANIMATED PUPPETS.

Ventriloquists may, according to their specialties, be divided into various categories. Some devote their talent to the imitation of the cries of animals, the songs of birds, the noise of tools, etc.; others imitate the sound of musical instruments; some mock the noise produced by a crowd, a regiment, or a procession; while others, again, make dolls or dummies speak.

Certain ventriloquists imitate the sound of musical instruments, from that of the violin up to that of brass instruments with the most piercing notes. Others excel in imitating the noise of the plane, saw, etc.

Certain ventriloquists, while hidden by a screen simply, have the faculty of making their audience believe that several persons, or even a crowd, are in the vicinity.

At Egyptian Hall, London, a magician recently made his appearance upon the stage, carrying a doll, with which he held a somewhat uncouth conversation. The lips of the doll were observed to move, and the illusion was complete, when all at once the doll’s head was strangely transformed. The magician had just opened his hand, showing that it was the latter alone that—inclosed in a white glove upon which were a few colored marks—formed the doll’s head.

In our engraving may be seen two methods of arranging the fingers for forming a doll’s head with the hand. The illusion is produced by making a few simple lines with charcoal, and wrapping a handkerchief or napkin around the hand; then, if one has a little aptness for ventriloquism, he may hold a conversation with the head.

In our time, most ventriloquists who exhibit in public considerably facilitate the illusion that they desire to produce by using large articulated dummies, which they make speak and sing, and talk to one another—each in a different voice. These figures are so constructed that the ventriloquist’s hands can move their arms and legs, turn their heads to the right or left, give their shoulders a shrug, open or close their eyes, and move their lower jaws in such a way that their mouths seem to utter the words that the spectator hears.

We may say, in a general way, that these ventriloquists, thanks to the use of their dummies, succeed in producing so complete an illusion that people are frequently persuaded that the voice heard actually comes from the mouth of the figure, and that it does not proceed from the ventriloquist standing near the latter, but from a confederate hidden somewhere about, whose voice is heard through the intermedium of a speaking-tube.

Explanation of Ventriloquism.—The art of ventriloquism is primarily based upon an acoustic phenomenon—the difficulty that the ear experiences in determining the exact point whence comes the sound that it hears. That there is such an incertitude as to the direction of sounds is easily verified, and the following are a few cases in proof of it. Mr. Stuart Cumberland, a mind reader, who exhibited at Paris a few years ago, performed a little experiment in the drawing-room, after his “second-sight” séances, which usually resulted in surprising and amusing his auditors. In this experiment, a willingly disposed person, being seated in the middle of the room, allowed his eyes to be bandaged. Then Mr. Cumberland took a five-franc piece and made it jingle by striking it with a hard object, say a key or another coin. The person submitted to the experiment then had to tell the direction from whence the sound emanated, and to give the distance at which it seemed to him to have been made. In almost all cases the individual guessed a direction and distance very different from the real one, and the error, which was ofttimes great, naturally provoked great hilarity from the spectators. Moreover, Mr. Cumberland, by varying the position of his hand in such a way that the latter formed a screen between the coin and the ear of the blindfolded person, caused the latter’s perception as to the direction of the sound to vary, although, as a matter of fact, the experimenter had not budged from his first position.

At a soirée, we have seen a member of the Institute, who had cheerfully submitted himself to the experiment, extremely surprised, when his bandage was removed, at the gross errors in auditory perception that he had just committed. The illusion that it is thus possible to produce by varying the positions of the hand in which a coin is jingled is, in the main, analogous to that obtained through ventriloquism. Another example: If several persons be standing in the same line, at a few feet from a spectator, and one of them emits a prolonged sound—a vowel, for example, say a a a—that requires no motion of the lips, the spectator will be unable to determine from which of the persons the sound proceeds; or if, moreover, he tries to point the one out, he will be almost certain to commit an error, the person designated by him being the third or fourth to the right or left of the one who actually produced the sound.

In the choruses of operas, an endeavor is made to have an agreeable aspect in addition to vocal qualities; and, as a beautiful voice is not always accompanied with a pretty face, it often happens that in the first row of a chorus they will place pretty supernumeraries, who, although not obliged to sing, open their mouths and make believe pronounce words, while in reality the singing is being done only by their companions in the rear. This fraud is very rarely detected by the audience.

If a man standing near a child should, without moving his lips, speak with a squeaking voice, while the child was making believe pronounce words, it might easily be believed that the words heard were being spoken by the child. It is possible to teach a dog to open his mouth and follow the motions of his master’s hand; and if the master be any sort of a ventriloquist, he can easily make believe that he has an animal endowed with speech.

The ventriloquist who, standing near his dummies, succeeds in keeping his facial muscles absolutely immovable, while his figures become animate and move their lips and seem to speak, produces such an illusion among the spectators by virtue of the acoustic principle that we have just noted; that is, the difficulty that the ear experiences in determining the precise point whence emanates the sound that it hears.

It is to be remarked that the chief difficulty in the art of ventriloquism is to keep the countenance immovable, and to speak without causing any of the facial muscles to act.

The ventriloquist who talks with a dummy that is interrogating him, addresses his questions in an ordinary voice, articulates distinctly, and plainly moves his lips; but when the dummy answers, the ventriloquist’s face no longer contracts, and his lips scarcely part except to smile. The facial immobility preserved by him while he is really speaking, then, can be explained by recalling a few principles of grammar, which are merely applications of the physiology of the voice.

Articulate speech, which separates the language of man from that of the lower animals, is divided, as grammar teaches, into sounds and articulations. The sounds or vowels are made up of all the continuous and uniform noises that the vocal organs can emit. Thus a, e, i, o, and u are vowels, because they may be infinitely prolonged; a a a a a a, for example. There are a greater number of vowels than is usually admitted in writing; it is possible, in fact, to modify them to infinity, so to speak, by a slightly more open or more closed sound. They may be classified in the form of gamuts, each having a typical vowel, the entire corresponding series of which is but the result of a more and more pronounced contraction of the lips, without the tongue and other vocal organs having to undergo the slightest modification.

These type-vowels and their descending gamuts are shown in Fig. 2.

If, in pronouncing each of these vowels, we draw the base of the tongue toward the back of the throat, without changing the position of the lips or tongue, we shall obtain the nasal sound thereof. The chief of such sounds are:

an, nasal sound of a;
on, nasal sound of o;

then,

en, in nasal sound of é;
eun, un, nasal sound of eu.

The vowels i and u have no nasal sounds, because of the back position that the base of the tongue naturally occupies in pronouncing them, and which is but slightly modified when we endeavor to give them a nasal sound.

What precedes may be called the theory of the vowels. From the standpoint of ventriloquism, we must remark that, in order to pronounce the vowels, no motion of the lips is necessary; but it will suffice to allow the latter to remain slightly parted in order to give passage to the sound—this being generally done by the ventriloquist through the aid of a smile, that seems to be provoked by the interest that he takes in the talk of his dummies.

All the modifications in the organs necessary for passing from one vowel to another, as in the diphthongs oa and aé, or when they suppress certain intermediate articulations, are easily obtained by the ventriloquist by the aid of the tongue and the interior organs of the mouth, without causing the lips and facial muscles to undergo the slightest motion or the least contraction; or, in other words, without any visible sign exhibiting itself to the eyes of the spectators. The pronunciation of the vowels, then, constitutes no difficulty for the ventriloquist. The same is not the case with the articulations or consonants, the pronunciation of some of which is a difficulty that the ventriloquist can overcome only by virtue of practice and skill, or again by an approximate pronunciation—the articulation difficult to pronounce without moving the facial muscles being replaced by another which gives nearly the same sound, but which is obtained with the internal vocal organs of the mouth.

The consonants may be classed by categories, according to the vocal organs employed for pronouncing them. In each category they are divided into strong and weak, and, as regards ventriloquism, they comprise two series. A classification of them is given in Fig. 3.

Upon examining this table, it will be seen that, in the entire first series of these consonants, the tongue, acting upon the pharynx, bearing against the teeth, or taking different shapes, can act and articulate without the aid of the lips, and without the necessity of the facial muscles contracting. The ventriloquist, then, will be able to pronounce any word in which none but these vowels and consonants enter, without moving his facial muscles.

The same is not the case with the consonants of the second series, that is to say, with the five labials, f, v, p, b, m. The ventriloquist’s art consists in pronouncing these without moving the lips or facial muscles. With a little practice it is easy to reach such a result with f and v, which may be pronounced by causing only the interior muscles of the lips to act; p and b, and m especially, present a greater difficulty, and we may say that, in most cases, ventriloquists who wish to keep their lips perfectly motionless pronounce none of these three consonants distinctly, but usually substitute for them a sound bordering on that of the letter n.

It is partly for this reason that ventriloquists succeed much better in imitating the language of children, or that of persons of slight education.

So, upon the whole, the illusion produced by ventriloquists is the result, primarily, of an acoustic phenomenon, the uncertainty of the sound’s direction, and, secondarily, of a habit acquired of speaking without moving the facial muscles.

Those ventriloquists who, without accessories, have the power of throwing their voices almost anywhere, succeed therein by utilizing the same principle of acoustics that we have explained above. As for the exact point whence the sound proceeds, the ventriloquist usually takes care to show that by an expressive motion and by looking in that direction, and by designating it, too, with his finger, while his face expresses great fear, interest, or surprise. So the spectator easily persuades himself that the sound does really come from the exact spot that is thus pointed out to him in a seemingly unintentional manner.

The words are often pronounced very indistinctly by the mysterious voice, but the ventriloquist takes care, as a general thing, to render them intelligible by repeating them in his ordinary voice, by accenting them, and by commenting upon them. He thus persuades his auditors that these are the very words that they heard.

As for the modifications to be introduced into the usual position of the organs in order to obtain the voices of aged people or children, hoarse or nasal voices, the cries of animals, sounds of musical instruments, the noises of tools, and so forth, they are easily effected, owing to the mobility, perfection, and resources of such organs; and it is by practice and feeling his way that the ventriloquist comes to know them and repeat them, so as to obtain the voice that he desires, with certainty. Moreover, in order to get a good idea of the modifications that may be introduced in the voice by regulating the breathing, the opening of the pharynx, and the position and curvature of the tongue, it is only necessary to devote ourselves to this exercise for a few minutes, when the processes used by ventriloquists, and the illusions that it is possible for them to produce, will be easily understood. Perhaps, indeed, such an exercise will reveal to the experimenter that he has an aptness for ventriloquism that he was far from suspecting.

ANIMATED PUPPETS.

Puppets have been in use since antiquity, and when skillfully constructed and operated the effect is very amusing. The French painter M. G. Bertrand devised some very ingenious puppets, which he calls “animated models,” which he exhibited for a long time in Paris. When the characters make their appearance and walk and approach each other, they appear to be real. One of the most charming of the puppets was a violoncellist who bows, rubs resin on his bow, and plays a march. After the player has finished, he bows and repeats the piece for an encore. M. Bertrand’s danseuses are no less wonderful. Fig. 3 shows one of them while she is executing a difficult scene. The little puppets are about half life size, being twenty-two inches in height. They are suspended from the upper part of the theater by very fine wires fixed to a rubber spring. Left to itself the puppet is suspended about three feet from the floor of the stage. It is from beneath that the operator holds it by means of wires attached to its feet, which keep it on the floor and make it walk, jump, or dance. Lateral wires are attached to the hands, and are manipulated from the side scenes. Each figure is built up on a skillfully wrought skeleton.

The fifth figure shows that the fundamental osseous framework is made of hard wood, and the articulations formed of steel springs. When this wooden skeleton is made to dance upon the stage, it has the attitude of an animated being; all of the articulations operate of themselves, with perfect suppleness. The covering of tow and dress materials give the external human form. Our last engraving shows the clown, who, at the rising of the curtain, recites the prologue. He is capable of showing his own skeleton to the spectators and of saying, “This is the way I am made. Look at my framework!”

CHAPTER VIII.
SHADOWGRAPHY.

By Henry Ridgely Evans.

Paris is the home of the fantaisiste. These rare exotics flourish in the genial atmosphere of the great French capital, and cater to the most critical, as well as the most appreciative, public in the world. No matter how trivial your profession may be, if you are an artist in your particular line, you may be sure of an admiring audience. To-day you are a performer in the cafés; to-morrow you tread the boards of some minor theater, and the journals duly chronicle your début, sometimes with as much elaborateness as they would “write up” that of a new singer at the Grand Opera. Two of the greatest entertainers in Paris to-day are Yvette Guilbert, chanteuse eccentrique, and M. Félicien Trewey—fantaisiste, mimic, shadowgraphist, and juggler. It is M. Trewey and his wonderful art I wish to introduce to the American reader. The clever Frenchman is one of the best sleight-of-hand artists in France, but his lasting fame has been made through his ombromanie, or shadowgraphy, the art of casting silhouettes with his hands, on an illuminated screen. These silhouettes are projected with marvelous dexterity of manipulation.

The idea of projecting the shadows of different objects (among others the hands) upon a plane surface is very ancient, and it would be idle to attempt to assign a date to the creation of these animals and classic figures, such as the rabbit, swan, negro, etc., that have served to amuse children in the evening since time immemorial.

Within a few years these rude figures have been improved, and the play of shadows has now become a true art instead of a simple diversion. The Italian painter Campi was one of the first who thought of adding new types to the collection of figures capable of being made with the shadow of the hands. He devised amusing forms of animals that delighted the school-children before whom he loved to exhibit them. His imitator, Frizze, imported the nascent art into Belgium, and it was in this latter country that Trewey got his knowledge of it.

Trewey was not long in discovering that ombromanie was capable of improvement, and, after patient exercise of his fingers to render them supple, he succeeded in producing new silhouettes, which are, each in its kind, little masterpieces.

Trewey has made his hands so supple that he not only can form the most diverse figures upon a screen, but can also give them motion and life. The swan smoothing its plumage, the bird taking flight, the cat making its toilet, the tight-rope dancer, who, after saluting the public, rubs chalk on her feet before walking on the rope, are true wonders, and it is hard to believe that these perfectly accurate profiles are obtained solely by means of the shadow of the hands. The artist has thus far devised more than three hundred figures, and his inventive mind is leading him to get up new ones every day.

The better to initiate the reader into the art of ombromanie, let me take, for example, the dog’s head represented in Fig. 1 (No. 1). The ears are erect, the snout is thrust forward, and we conjecture that the animal has just scented a choice bit; in fact, he is snapping at it (No. 2). No. 4 shows us the efforts that he is making to swallow his prey, which is represented by the angle of the bent forefinger that moves in the mouth. After strong efforts, the mouth is seen to close (No. 3), showing the act of swallowing. A progressive motion of the hand shows us the swelling of the throat caused by the descent of the food in the œsophagus. One would imagine that he had before him the shadow of a genuine dog, so wonderful, natural, and accurate are the motions. After this laborious repast, we finally see the animal yawning voluptuously, the middle finger representing the tongue, which cleaves to the palate, and the general profile of the head expressing the completest beatitude.

The characteristic of dexterity is shown in the first place by the curve of the thumb arched outwardly. This is an indispensable condition for the handling of the hammer. The blacksmith, who wields with his arm the heavy striking mass that he lets fall perpendicularly, without deviation, repeatedly upon the same point; the file-cutter, who strikes such regular blows upon the chisel that no flaw is visible in the cut, so equal everywhere is the imprint of the tool—these and all superb workmen, all artists who shape white-hot iron with the hammer, who chisel the precious metals, who sculpture marble and stone, owe the exact precision in the force and accuracy of the blows that they give with the hammer to the suppleness of the first joint of the thumb.

A second characteristic of skillfulness is indicated by the faculty of reversing the metacarpal phalanges of the fingers, so that when the hand is extended it is convex. On the greater or less flexibility of all the joints, either at the base or extremity of the fingers, depend the dexterity and skillfulness displayed in work executed with the file, plane, or lathe.

The two characteristics mentioned above—the curved thumb and the peculiar suppleness of the fingers—are in most cases united in the same person. The more important of these is the first.

Trewey’s hand, reproduced by molding, figures in several English museums. It possesses the faculty of reversal of the phalanges to the highest degree, and the thumb, which is of wonderful suppleness, renders Trewey, as we shall see, the greatest service in the formation of his shadows. Let me add that his fingers, which are long and slender, differ very perceptibly in length, the middle finger, for example, exceeding the ring finger by nearly an inch.

In addition to the profiles of men and animals, the artist, by means of a few accessories, exhibits to us living persons playing amusing pantomimes. Here, for example (Fig. 2), we have a fisherman. A piece of cardboard, properly shaped and held between two fingers, forms the hat; the boat is a piece of wood held in one of the artist’s hands; a metallic ring holds the fish-pole against the thumb of the other hand, and it is opposite this latter, bent as shown in the figure, that we observe all the emotions of the fortunate fisherman, who, phlegmatic at first, and livening up when the fish bites, finally is triumphant when he has it at the end of his line. It is necessary to have witnessed all these little scenes in order to understand how, by means of his fingers alone, the artist can evoke the laughter and applause of hundreds of spectators. Here, now (Fig. 3), we have a scene with two persons. It is a fight between a janitress and one of her tenants. As may be seen, the accessories are here very simple again.

To make the shadows sharp, the following things are indispensable: The source of light must be a single lamp inclosed in a projecting apparatus, throwing very divergent rays. The lens must consequently be of very short focus. The electric light or oxyhydrogen lamp necessary in a theater may be replaced at the amateur’s house by a lamp, or, better, by a wax candle, or, indeed, even by a common candle that gives very sharp shadows. The mirrors in the room where the exhibition is given must be veiled in order to prevent reflections, and all brilliant objects must be removed. When the oxyhydrogen lamp is used, the screen is placed ten feet away from the light, and the artist’s hands at three feet from the same, and consequently at seven from the screen. But it will be understood that there can be no absolute rule about this, all depending upon the scale of the figures. It suffices to recall the fact that the nearer the hand is brought to the light, the more the shadow enlarges and loses its intensity, while on bringing the hand nearer the screen, the shadow becomes sharper, but smaller and smaller. Fig. 4 shows Trewey exhibiting the scene of the preacher in the pulpit. The canopy is formed by the arm and the first phalanges of the fingers bent at right angles, while a block of wood affixed to the arm near the wrist forms the pulpit. In order that the preacher may appear smaller than the pulpit, he must necessarily be nearer the screen, and this explains the distance apart of the artist’s arms in the engraving, the screen being situated in front of the arm that forms the preacher. The necessary distances, however, are best determined by experiment.

Trewey’s appearance on the stage is very prepossessing. He is a man of commanding physique, with a jovial countenance, indicative of the comedian. He always appears in full court costume—dress coat, silk stockings, and pumps. On his first appearance on the stage he wears a long Spanish cloak, which he removes before beginning his entertainment of juggling and sleight-of-hand. He is the past grand master of balancing feats, the startling nature of which causes one to hold his breath with dismay at such boldness and audacity. His dexterity in throwing cards is really extraordinary. I have seen him project these little oblongs of glazed cardboard from the stage of the Alhambra, London (the largest hall in Europe) to the farthest part of the top gallery. He also possesses great skill in the unique art of writing backwards any word or sentence chosen by the audience, and he is a lightning sketch artist of no mean ability.

“Tabarin,” or twenty-five heads under one hat, is a performance named after the inventor, a certain M. Tabarin, juggler, mountebank, and quack-salver, who used to frequent the quays of Paris during the early part of the eighteenth century. With the brim of an old felt sombrero, Trewey is able, by dexterous manipulation, to construct every variety of headgear, from the shovel hat of a snuffy-nosed French abbé to the headdress of a Norman peasant girl, to say nothing of the famous chapeau affected by the great Napoleon. It is not these varieties of headgear that astonish the audience, but Trewey’s facial interpretations of the different types of character assumed. His mobile features are an international portrait gallery, and we see represented in the “Tabarin” Irishmen, Scotchmen, Englishmen, Chinamen, and other nationalities. It is a facial pantomime of exceeding skill.

The Paris Figaro has described the work of this fantaisiste as “Treweyism,” and Illustration and La Nature never fail to send their staff artists behind the scenes to make sketches of the ombromanist’s latest creations. Robert-Houdin, in his memoirs, says, the excellence of an artist’s work must never flag, but continue to excite and stimulate public curiosity. Trewey realizes this to perfection. He has something unique and novel from week to week to present for the delectation of his audiences. He is the most tireless experimenter I have ever met on any stage, and gets up early and goes to bed late to think out new problems in the art amusante. I first became acquainted with this versatile artist in the summer of 1893, when he was playing a phenomenally long engagement in the music halls of London, and heard from his own lips the story of his early struggles and hardships before attaining eminence in his chosen profession. I quote the following, contributed by me to the pages of Mahatma, a very clever little periodical devoted to sleight-of-hand, jugglery, and natural magic:

“Trewey was born in Angoulême nearly forty-five years ago. His father was a machinist employed at one of the paper mills of the city, and desired the young Trewey to become engineer in the manufactory. An unexpected incident diverted Trewey’s mind from mechanics to jugglery. He was taken one day to the circus at Marseilles, and saw the performance of a conjurer. He was so delighted with the entertainment of the mountebank that he forthwith determined to become a professional prestidigitateur. Finding that he could not enlist the interest of his son in machinery, Trewey père sent him to a Jesuit seminary at Marseilles to study for the priesthood. One day, after he had completed three years at the seminary, he returned home for a short holiday, and refused to return, whereupon his father sent him to work daily at the factory. During his sojourn at the school, Trewey exhibited his skill as an amateur juggler, and took part in the dramatic exhibitions given by the students from time to time. He kept up his practice while at work at the factory, and then one fine summer’s day, at the age of fifteen, ran away from home with a professional acrobat not much older than himself. The two boys gave performances in the cafés of the neighboring towns, and eventually Trewey succeeded in getting an engagement in one of the Marseilles music halls at the munificent salary of a franc a day. He had to give his own juggling entertainment several times a day, and appear in a pantomimic performance every night. In this same company was Plessis, afterwards one of the greatest of the French comedians. Speaking of this period of his interesting career, Trewey said to me: ‘It was the custom in French places of amusement, when I was a young and struggling entertainer, for the spectators to throw money on the stage to a successful actor. I carefully saved the coin obtained in this way until I was able to purchase two grand new costumes. These costumes and the popularity acquired enabled me to obtain an engagement at the Alcazar, the principal place of amusement in Marseilles.

“‘I traveled from one little town to another, playing various rôles including Pierrot and Cassandre, the clown and pantaloon of French pantomime; danced in the Clodoche, a grotesque quadrille; and took part in a comedy, in addition to giving my own entertainment. It was a bare living only that was gained in this manner for two years, after which an offer of an engagement came to me from Bordeaux. Here I was most successful, and made a hit with a number of new feats of balancing with bottles, etc., with which I had been busy for a long time perfecting myself. It was at this period I invented the ombromanie. An offer quickly came for an engagement at the Concert des Ambassadeurs, in Paris, and my success was complete. I stayed in Paris nine years, and since then traveled all over Europe—in Spain, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Russia, Great Britain, and, as you know, introduced shadowgraphy to the American public in 1893.’

“Trewey’s home in the Rue Rochechouart, Paris, is an interesting place to visit; it is crowded with apparatus and all sorts of new inventions intended for use in his conjuring entertainments. His scrap and memorandum books are unique in themselves and contain hundreds of sketches in water colors of juggling feats either performed by himself or by other artists. Under each drawing is a carefully written description of the particular act.

“‘What are you going to do with all this material?’ I once asked him. ‘I may publish a book one of these days,’ he replied, with a merry twinkle of the eye; ‘who knows? I’ve done worse things.’”

FRENCH SHADOWS.

M. Caran d’Ache, the cartoonist and illustrator, got up a few years ago, at the Theater d’Application, at Paris, a special representation of Chinese shadows which were devised by him, and are so superior to anything that has previously been done in this line that he has been able to call them “French shadows,” in order to distinguish them from similar productions.

M. d’Ache takes pleasure in representing the military scenes of the first republic and first empire. He projects upon the screen an entire army, wherein we see the emperor with his staff at different distances amid the ranks. The defiling of the troops is astonishing, and one would think that he was present at a genuine review. A “Vision in the Steppes” is another series of pictures that represent the advent of the Russian army. The shadows entitled the “Return from the Woods” form a masterpiece as a whole, and the figures are so skillfully cut that the celebrities of the day who are passing in the Avenue des Acacias can be recognized. Two amusing specimens of this part of the representation are given in Figs. 2 and 3. These reproductions are much reduced, the real height of the figures being about eighteen inches.

Says a writer in La Nature, “We were not content to remain in the body of the theater to witness the shadows, but requested M. d’Ache to admit us to his side scenes for the sake of our readers, and to initiate us into the processes of actuating his figures; for, aside from the artistic aspect, there is here a very interesting application of physics.

“The silhouettes, after being composed and drawn, are cut out of sheet zinc, which gives them great rigidity. The cutting is a very delicate operation and requires great accuracy. Some figures, such as those of cavalrymen, hussars, and dragoons of the grand army, have apertures in certain parts, and behind these is pasted colored transparent paper. In this way, the black shadows that move along the screen have certain parts in color, such as the plumes of the helmets and the horses’ saddles.