Secrets of Wise Men, Chemists and Great Physicians

by William K. David

Magic Cabinets, Boxes, Etc.

Magic cabinets are much employed by magicians. The following is an example of one of the scenes that may occur with them:

When the curtain rises there is seen in the center of the stage a large dark colored cabinet, ornamented with mouldings, and mounted upon legs that are a little longer than those of ordinary cabinets, the object being to remove all possibility of a communication with the stage beneath. These legs are provided with casters. The showman turns this cabinet around and shows that there is nothing abnormal about it externally. He then asks some of the spectators to come up close to it, and lets them examine its interior, which is entirely empty. There is no double bottom, nor any hiding place. When the witnesses have made themselves certain of this fact they station themselves around the stage, and a certain number of them even consent to remain behind the cabinet and see nothing of the experiment. The cabinet being thus surrounded on all sides, and even one being able to look under it, fraud would seem to be an impossibility.

FIG. 1.

A young woman dressed as a danseuse then comes onto the stage and enters the cabinet (Fig. 1), and the doors are closed upon her. In a few moments the doors are opened again, when, lo and behold! the closet is empty, the young woman having disappeared. Then the doors are closed again, and then opened, and the danseuse makes her appearance; and so on. At the end of the experiment the witnesses examine the cabinet again, and, finding nothing changed therein, are justly stupefied.

In another style of cabinet there is no bar in the center, as shown in Fig. 1, but there is observed on one of the sides in the interior a bracket a few centimeters in length, and back and above this a shelf. This arrangement permits of performing a few experiments more than does the one just described. Thus, when the woman has disappeared the showman allows a young man to enter, and he also disappears, while the young woman is found in his place. This is a very surprising substitution.

The box into which the harlequin takes refuge, and which appears to be empty when Pierrot or Cassandra lifts the curtain that shields its entrance, is also a sort of magic cabinet.

In a series of lectures delivered a few years ago at the London Polytechnic Institution, a professor of physics unmasked the secret of some of the tricks employed on the stage for producing illusions, and notably that of the magic cabinet. The lecturer, after showing the cabinet and causing the disappearance therein of an individual while the doors were closed, repeated the same experiment with the latter open. But in the latter case so quick was the disappearance that the spectators could not even then see how it was done.

FIG. 2.—PLAN EXPLANATORY OF THE CABINET.

The illusion produced by these apparatus is the result of a play of mirrors.

In the first cabinet described (Fig. 1), when the exhibitor has closed the doors upon the young woman, the latter pulls toward her two mirrors that are represented in Fig. 2 by the lines G G. These mirrors are hinged at O O, and when swung outward rest by their external edges against the bar P, and then occupy the position shown by the dotted lines G′ G′. When the cabinet is again opened the woman, placed at A, is hidden by the two mirrors; but the appearance of the interior of the cabinet is not changed, since the spectators see the image of each side reflected from the corresponding mirror, and this looks to them like the back of the cabinet.

The illusion is perfect. When the experiment is ended and the mirrors are again swung against the sides, at G G, the spectators see nothing but the backs of them, which are covered with wood; the cabinet is really empty, and no one can discover what modification has taken place in its interior during the disappearance of the woman.

FIG. 3.—SECTION EXPLANATORY OF THE CABINET.

In the second arrangement, which is shown in vertical section in Fig. 3, the young man gets up onto the shelf c n, at the upper part of the cabinet, by the aid of the bracket T, and then pulls down over him the mirror b c, which was fastened to the top of the cabinet. This mirror being inclined at an angle of 45 deg. reflects the top, and the spectators imagine that they see the back of the cabinet over the shelf just as they did before.

The box which the harlequin enters is based upon precisely the same principle. Its interior is hung with paper banded alternately blue and white. When the harlequin enters it he places himself in one of the angles and pulls toward him two mirrors which hide him completely, and which reflect the opposite side of the box, so that the spectator is led to believe that he sees the back of it. In this case one of the angles at the back of the box is not apparent, but the colored stripes prevent the spectator from noticing the fact.

The Magic Portfolio.

This is an apparatus which an itinerant physicist might have been seen a few years ago exhibiting in the squares and at street corners. His method was to have a spectator draw a card, which he then placed between the four sheets of paper which, folded crosswise, formed the flaps of his portfolio. When he opened the latter again a few instants afterward the card had disappeared, or rather had become transformed. Profiting then by the surprise of his spectators the showman began to offer them his magic portfolio at the price of five sous for the small size and ten for the large.

The portfolio was made of two square pieces of cardboard connected by four strings, these latter being fixed in such a way that when the two pieces of cardboard were open and juxtaposed the external edge of each of them was connected with the inner edge of the other.

This constituted, after a manner, a double hinge that permitted of the portfolio being opened from both sides. To one pair of strings there were glued, back to back, two sheets of paper, which, when folded over, formed the flaps of the portfolio. It was only necessary, then, to open the latter in one direction or the other to render it impossible to open more than one of the two sets of flaps.

This device is one that permits of a large number of tricks being performed, since every object put under one of the sets of flaps will apparently disappear or be converted into something else, at the will of the prestidigitator (Fig. 4).

Magic Envelopes.

This trick is a simplification of the foregoing. The affair consists of several sheets of paper of different colors folded over, one upon the other. A card inclosed within the middle envelope, over which have been folded all the others, is found to have disappeared when the flaps are opened again. The secret of the trick is very simple. One of the inner sheets of paper—the second one, usually—is double, and, when folded, forms two envelopes that are back to back. It is only necessary then to open one or the other of these latter to cause the appearance or disappearance or transformation of such objects as have been inclosed within it. (Fig. 4.)

FIG. 4.—MAGIC PORTFOLIO, ENVELOPES, AND BOXES.

Magic Boxes.

Magic boxes are of several styles, according to the size of the objects that one desires to make disappear.

There is no one who has not seen a magician put one or more pigeons into the drawer of one of these boxes, and after closing it open it to find that the birds have disappeared. Such boxes contain, as shown in Fig. 4, two drawers, which, when pulled out, seem to be but one; and it is only necessary, then, to pull out the inner one or leave it closed in order to render the inclosed birds visible or invisible.

In order to cause the disappearance of smaller objects trick performers often employ a jewel box, and, after putting the object (a ring, for example) into this, they hand it to some person and ask him to hold it, requesting him at the same time to wrap it up in several sheets of paper. But this simple motion has permitted the performer to cause the ring to drop into his hand through a small trap opening beneath the box. Yet, while he is doing this, the spectators think that they hear the noise made by the ring striking against the sides of the box. But that is only a delusion; for the noise that is heard proceeds from a small hammer which is hidden within the cover under the escutcheon, and which is rendered immovable when the latter is pressed upon by the performer. The box can thus be shaken without any noise being heard within it, and the spectators are led to believe that the object has disappeared.

Double-bottomed boxes are so well known that it is useless to describe them. Sometimes the double bottom is hidden in the cover, and at others it rests against one of the sides. Such boxes permit of the disappearance or substitution of objects that are not very thick, such as a note, an image, or a card.—La Nature.