Magic, Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, Including Trick Photography

by Albert A. Hopkins

It is very evident that, in order to reach such a degree of perfection, the artist must be naturally endowed with great manual dexterity. There are signs by which such dexterity is recognized, and an attentive examination of Trewey’s hand has enabled me to verify the laws laid down by M. Henri Étienne upon the native perfection of the senses. Thirty-five years of research have permitted M. Étienne, who has been continuously in contact, in shops, with Swiss watchmakers’ apprentices, experienced workmen, and artists even, to find a certain criterion by which to judge of aptitudes in different trades and several professions.

One day M. Étienne was present in the shop of a skillful master watchmaker, when there entered a young Frenchman, an ex-law student, who was desirous of apprenticing himself to the watchmaking trade. The neophyte, who was very intelligent looking, received a cordial reception. While pressing the hand of the future workman, a cloud passed over the placid face of the master-watchmaker. “What did you feel, then, in pressing the hand of that young man who has just gone out?” asked M. Étienne. “With hands like his we don’t make a watchmaker,” was the reply, and the prediction came true. It was as a consequence of this conversation that M. Étienne sought and discovered the following rules:

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.

FIG. 2.—THE FISHERMAN.

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.