Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/226

Rh .208 MAGIC [WHITE MAGIC. William of Malmesbury) a brazen head which answered questions; and similar inventions are ascribed to Roger ! I!acon, Albertus Magnus, and others. In the first half of the 17th century the philosopher Descartes made a speak ing figure which he called his daughter Franchina ; and the superstitious captain of a vessel had it thrown over board. In the latter part of the same century Thomas Irson, an Englishman, exhibited at the court of Charles IL a wooden figure with a speaking-trumpet in its mouth; and questions whispered in its ear were answered through a pipe secretly communicating with an apartment wherein was a learned priest able to converse in various languages. Lleckmann, in his History of Inventions (about 1770), relates his inspection of a speaking figure, in which the words really came through a tube from a confederate who held a card of signs by which he received intelligence from the exhibitor. Somewhat later was shown in England the figure of an infant suspended by a ribbon, having a speaking-trumpet in its mouth, an illusion in which two concave mirrors were employed, one of them concentrating the rays of sound into a focus within the head of the figure ; and the mirror nearest the figure was hidden by a portion of the wall-paper which was perforated with pin- holes. In 1783 Giuseppe Pinetti de Wildalle, an Italian conjuror of great originality, exhibited among his many wonders a toy bird perched upon a bottle, which fluttered, blew out a candle, and warbled any melody proposed or improvised by the audience, doing this also when removed from the bottle to a table, or when held in the performer s hand upon any part of the stage. The sounds were pro duced by a confederate who imitated song-birds after llosgignol s method by aid of the inner skin of an onion in the mouth ; and speaking-trumpets directed the sounds to whatever position was occupied by the bird. About the year 1825 Charles, a Frenchman, exhibited a copper globe, carrying four speaking-trumpets, which was sus pended in a light frame in the centre of a room. Whispers uttered near to this apparatus were heard by a confederate in an adjoining room by means of a tube passing through the frame and the floor, and answers issued from the trumpets in a loud tone. And of late years have appeared more than one illusion of a similar order, in which the talking and singing of a distant person issue from an isolated head or figure by aid of ear-trumpets secretly contained within parts in which, from their outside form, the presence of such instruments would not be suspected. It is probable that the automaton trumpeters of Kaufmann and of Maelzel were clever deceptions of the same kind. As described in the Journal de Mode, 1809, Maelzel s life-size figure had the musical instrument fixed in its mouth ; the mechanism was wound up, and a set series of marches, army calls, and other compositions was performed, accompaniments being played by a real band. Mechanical counterparts of the human lips, tongue, and breath, both in speech and in playing certain musical instruments, have, however, been constructed, as in Vaucanson s celebrated automaton flute-player, which was completed in 1736; the same mechanician s tambourine and flageolet player, which was still more ingenious, as, the flageolet having only three holes, some of the notes were produced by half-stop ping; Abbe&quot; Mical s heads which articulated syllables, and his automata playing upon instruments ; Kempelen s and Kratzenstein s speaking-machines, in the latter part of last Century ; the ( speaking-machine made by Fabermann of Vienna, closely imitating the human voice, with a fairly good pronunciation of various words; the automaton clarionet-player constructed by Van Oeckelen, a Dutchman, and exhibited in New York in 1860, which played airs from a barrel like that of a crank-organ, and could take the clarionet from its mouth and replace it ; and, lastly, Maskelyne s two automata, &quot;Fanfare&quot; (1878) playing a cornet, and &quot;Labial&quot; (1879) playing a euphonium, both operated by mechanism inside the figures and supplied with wind from a bellows placed separately upon the stage. Lucian tells of the magician Alexander in the 2d cen tury that he received written questions enclosed in sealed envelopes, and a few days afterwards delivered written responses in the same envelopes, with the seals apparently unbroken ; and both he and Hippolytus explain several methods by which this could be effected. In this deception we have the germ of &quot; spirit-reading &quot; and &quot; spirit-writing,&quot; which, introduced in 1840 by Anderson, &quot;The Wizard of the North,&quot; became common in the repertoire of modern conjurors, embracing a variety of effects from an instan taneous substitution which allows the performer or his confederate to see what has been secretly written by the audience. The so-called &quot; second-sight &quot; trick depends upon a system of signalling between the exhibitor, who moves among the audience collecting questions to be answered and articles to be described, and the performer, who is blindfolded on the stage. As already stated, the speaking figure which Stock showed to Professor Beckmann, at Gottingen, about 1770, was instructed by a code of signals. In 1783 Piuetti had an automaton figure about 18 inches in height, named the Grand Sultan or Wise Little Turk, which answered questions as to chosen cards and many other things by striking upon a bell, intelligence being communicated to a confederate by an ingenious ordering of the words, syllables, or vowels in the questions put. The teaching of Mesmer and feats of alleged clair voyance suggested to Pinetti a more remarkable performance in 1785, when Signora Pinetti, sitting blindfold in a front box of a theatre, replied to questions and displayed her knowledge of articles in the possession of the audience. Half a century later this was developed with greater elaboration, and the system of telegraphing cloaked by intermixing signals on other methods, first by Robert- Houdin in 1846, then by Hermann in 1848, and by Anderson at a later period. Details of the system of indicating a very large number of answers by slight and unperceived variations in the form of. question are given by F. A. Gandon, La Seconde Vue Devoilee, Paris, 1849. Fire tricks, such as walking on burning coals, breathing flame and smoke from a gall-nut filled with an inflammable composition and wrapped in tow, or dipping the hands in boiling pitch, were known in early times, and are explained by Hippolytus (iv. 33). At the close of the 17th century Richardson astonished the English public by chewing ignited coals, pouring melted lead (really quicksilver) upon his tongue, and swallowing melted glass. Strutt, in /Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, relates how he saw Powel the fire-eater, in 1762, broil a piece of beefsteak laid upon his tongue, a piece of lighted charcoal being placed under his tongue which a spectator blew upon with a bellows till the meat was sufficiently done. This man also drank a melted mixture of pitch, brimstone, and lead out of an iron spoon, the stuff blazing furiously. These per formers anointed their mouths and tongues with a pro tective composition. Galen speaks of a person in the 2d century who relighted a blown-out candle by holding it against a wall or a stone which had been rubbed with sulphur and naphtha ; and the instantaneous lighting of candles became a famous feat of later times. Baptista Porta gave directions for perform ing a trick entitled &quot;many candles shall be lighted pre sently.&quot; Thread is boiled in oil with brimstone and orpiment, and when dry bound to the wicks of candles ; and, one being lighted, the flame runs to them all. He says that on festival days they are wont to do this among the Turks. &quot; Some call it Hermes his ointment.&quot; In 1 783