THE FINISH.
The operation of the apparatus is now obvious. When the victim is inclosed by the cylindrical screen, she immediately escapes through a trap door in the table top, places the bones and the fireworks upon the table, and at the firing of the pistol ignites the latter and retires, closing the trap door after her.
“THE QUEEN OF FLOWERS.”
MR. KELLAR’S ILLUSION, “QUEEN OF THE FLOWERS.”
One of Mr. Kellar’s recent illusions is what he is pleased to call “The Queen of Flowers.” Our first [engraving] represents the stage as the audience sees it, and the last [cut] will help to explain it to the reader. The background, set against curtains, is about ten feet long and eight feet high, and represents a mass of flowers and bushes indiscriminately thrown together, with blue sky above. There is a little flat roof which projects out about three feet from the bottom of the screen and is supported by four red poles. The bottom is a floor raised about a foot from the stage, and in front of each of the three divisions made by the poles between the stage proper and the floor of this improvised summer house is placed an electric light. The audience usually wonders what these lights are for in this strange place; but as audiences always accept anything shown them by the prestidigitateur, these lights do not disturb them very much except by dazzling them, as they are meant to do. So much for the setting. There being no doors or screens or curtains of any kind, the spectators have the satisfied feeling that there is no deception there, for they can see all there is to see. They can, that is true, only they don’t realize how much they are seeing.