CHEV. THORN’S MAGIC CABINETS.
The clever illusionist Chev. E. Thorn made great use of a variation of the “Cassadaga Propaganda.” He used two cabinets, each large enough to receive a person in an upright position. They were constructed of slats and were provided with curtains. Screens of the same color as the rear of the stage served to close the space between the slats. The magician deceived the audience by walking behind the cabinet or cage as often as possible when the screens were open so that the audience could see him through the slats. The carpet on the stage, the back of the stage, and the screen were all of the same shade of green.
The performers, usually a caliph and an odalisk, appear and disappear at will, really taking up the place on the wooden stage at the back of the cabinet. Usually two cages were used, one being suspended, and by the use of confederates who were dressed alike some very clever illusions were produced.
When the curtain rises the caliph stands on a little platform on the cage at the left, hidden by the cage and the screens. Attention is then called to the cage at the right whose screen is open so that the performer can be seen when he passes behind it.
After the performer has demonstrated this he pulls down red silk curtains over the side walls and the doors; the rear wall, however, remains uncovered. Now a brilliantly dressed odalisk steps into the box at the left. The doors have scarcely closed behind her when they open again, the curtains fly up, and it is seen that the woman has disappeared, and in her place stands a white-bearded caliph, while she appears at the rear door of the parquette smiling behind her veil. She passes down through the audience to the stage again. In the meantime the caliph has left the stage.
What follows is even more surprising. The curtains of both cages are pulled down, the caliph goes into the cage at the left and the odalisk into that at the right. The cage containing the odalisk is raised on a hoisting rope so that it hangs in midair with the doors open. The doors are closed, a shot is fired; at the same instant the doors of both cages spring open and the curtains are raised; the odalisk has disappeared from the cage, which stands again on the floor of the stage, but, at the same instant, she steps, as smiling as ever, from the cage at the left, from which the caliph has vanished. The two cages stand open and the audience can see right through them. The curtain falls and the spectators rub their eyes in bewilderment.
The pulling down of the curtains serves to conceal the entrance of the caliph in the box. When the odalisk is to vanish and the caliph to appear he slips in from the board on the outside, while the odalisk takes her place on the board behind the screen. The odalisk who appears at the door of the auditorium and walks down through the audience is an exact double of the real odalisk who is standing invisible behind the screen on the board of the cage at the left. Owing to the peculiar costume of the odalisk this disguise is rendered very easy. While the real odalisk is standing behind the screen on the board of the cage at the left, the caliph installs himself in the cage. The false odalisk is then raised in the air in the second cage, through which the audience has been able to see up to this time. A shot is now fired and just at that time the odalisk moves very quickly on a board behind the screen and the cage is let down and stands firmly on the floor, at the same moment the odalisk in the other cage changing places with the caliph. The swinging cage appears to be empty and apparently the odalisk has passed through the air to the other cage. The success of the trick depends upon making the spectators believe that everything is done in cages through which they can see.