I took to magic at an early age—not the magic of the sleight of hand artist, however, but the real goetic or black magic, {204} as black as any old grimoire of mediæval days could make it. Aye, darker in hue than any inveighed against in the famous Dæmonologie of King James I. of Protestant memory. I believed firmly in witches, ghosts, goblins, voodoo spells, and conjure doctors. But what can you expect of a small boy surrounded by negro servants, the relics of the old régime of slavery, who still held tenaciously to the devil-lore of their ancestors of the African jungle? At nightfall I dared not go near the smoke-house for fear of the witches who held their revels there. One day my father brought home a book for his library. It was Mackey’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions; or, The Madness of Crowds. That work of absorbing interest opened my eyes to the unreality of the old superstitions. I read it with avidity. It became a sort of Bible to me. It lies on the table before me, as I pen these lines; a much-thumbed, faded, old book.
The first amateur sleight of hand show I ever took part in, was given by a boy named Albert Niblack. The matinée magique was held in a stable attached to my father’s house. The entrance fee was three pins, orchestra chairs ten pins. The stage was erected in the carriage house, and the curtain consisted of a couple of sheets surreptitiously borrowed from the household linen closet. I acted as the conjurer’s assistant. The success of the entertainment was phenomenal. The audience consisted of some thirty children, with a sprinkling of negro nurses who came to preserve order among the smaller fry, and an old horse who persisted in sticking his head through a window near the stage, his stall being in an adjoining compartment. He occupied the only private box in the theatre. Among other tricks on the programme, young Niblack produced a small canary bird from an egg which had been previously examined and declared to be the real product of the hen by all the colored experts present, who tested it on their teeth. One fat old mammy, with her head picturesquely done up in a red bandana handkerchief, was so overcome by the trick that she shouted out: “Fo de Lawd sake! Dat boy mus’ be kin to de Debbil sho,’ ” and regretted the fact that she did not have a rabbit’s foot with her, to ward off the spells. Years have passed since then. Young Niblack is now Lieut. Commander Niblack, U. S. N., erstwhile naval attaché {205} of the American embassy at Berlin, etc. I wonder if he still practises magic. He obtained his insight into the mysteries of conjuring from a little book of sleights, puzzles and chemical experiments, a cheap affair and very crude. Like Houdin, he had to create the principles of legerdemain himself, for the book contained no real information on the subject. It was manufactured to sell in two senses of the word, and to the best of my belief, was purchased at the circus. Among that audience were several children who have since become famous, to a greater or less extent. There was Umei Tsuda, a diminutive Japanese girl, sent to this country to be educated, and who now presides over a great normal school in Japan; Waldemar Bodisco (son of Count Bodisco, the Russian Minister to the United States), now an officer in the Czar’s navy; and, if I mistake not, Agustin de Iturbide, the adopted son of the ill-fated Maximilian, who attempted to found an empire in Mexico, bolstered up by French bayonets. Young Iturbide’s mother, after the tragic death of Maximilian, came to Georgetown to reside and educate her son, the heir to the throne of Mexico. Poor fellow, he was a prince, but he did not plume himself because of the fact, for he was in reality a “boy without a country.” We were classmates in the preparatory department of Georgetown College. His career is one of the romances of history. He is now living an exile in an old country house in the District of Columbia, where he spends his time reading and dreaming.
III.
I entered upon the practise of sleight of hand in the year 1877, after reading Hoffmann’s Modern Magic. I adopted Houdin’s method of carrying a pack of cards and other articles in my pockets. On my way to school, over a long country road, I put in some hard practise, learning to sauter le coupe, and palm most any small object. While in class one day, I was caught in flagrante delicto, with a pack of cards in my hand, by the dignified old Latin professor. I was sent to the Principal of the Academy for punishment, which I received like a stoic, but vowing vengeance on the Latin pedagogue, who was a very {206} orthodox religionist, the principal of a Baptist Sunday school, and consequently held cards in abhorrence. I often heard him remark that cards were the “Devil’s Looking Glasses.” One day, I slipped a couple of packs of cards in the sleeve of the professor’s overcoat, which hung upon the wall back of his desk, and tipped the wink to the boys. They were astounded at my audacity. When the class was dismissed, the scholars lingered around to see the fun. The professor went to put on his coat, whereupon the cards flew about the room in a shower, being propelled by the impact of his arm, which he thrust violently into the sleeve. The boys, with a great shout, began picking up the scattered pasteboards, which they presented to the teacher, commiserating with him in his trouble. The old man, who was very angry, disclaimed ownership of the detested cards, and got out of the room as speedily as possible. Perhaps it is needless to remark that I failed miserably in the Latin examinations that year. But it may have been owing to my stupidity and not to any animus on the professor’s part. Let us hope so.
GLEN WILLOW, GEORGETOWN, D. C.
After long practise in legerdemain, I determined to give an entertainment, and selected as my assistant, my school chum, Edward L. Dent, a boy who possessed great mechanical genius. Later in life he graduated with honors as a mechanical engineer {207} from Stevens’ Institute, New Jersey, and founded a great iron mill in Georgetown. Poor fellow, he met with business reverses and lost a fortune. He died some five or six years ago. Young Dent lived in a historical mansion on the heights of Georgetown, surrounded by a great park of oaks. It was the home of John C. Calhoun, when he was Secretary of State of the United States. In the great attic of the house, Judge Dent had fitted up a superb carpenter shop and forge for his son.
Here my chum and I manufactured our apparatus: the Washerwoman’s Bottle, the Nest of Boxes à la Kellar; the Card Star; the Coffee and Milk Vases; the Sphinx Table, etc. When all was ready, about two hundred invitations were sent out for a Soirée Magique. The great drawing-room of the house was fitted up as a theatre, with a stage at one end and drop curtain. We fenced in the stage with rich draperies, after the style of Robert Heller, and our gilded tables and silver candelabra with wax tapers looked very fine against the crimson background. It was the most elaborate amateur show I ever saw. Twenty minutes before the curtain rang up, both magician and assistant were seized with stage fright. We had peeped through a hole in the curtain and taken in the sea of faces. We dared not confront that crowd of youngsters without a mask of some kind. Happy thought! We decided to blacken our faces with burnt cork and appear as negro necromancers. The performance went off very well indeed, until we came to the “Card Star.” O fatal Pentagram of Pythagoras! The cards were chosen from a pack and rammed down the mouth of a big pistol, preparatory to firing them at the star, on the points of which they were to appear. I began my patter, facing the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, I will give you an exhibition of magic marksmanship. I will fire this pistol (laughter) at the star on yonder table (renewed laughter), and the cards”—(ironical cat calls). I turned around, and to my horror, the duplicate cards were already sticking to the star; my assistant had let off the apparatus too soon. The curtain fell. I shed tears of rage at the fiasco. But, later on, I learned to act more philosophically. Magicians are subject to these mistakes. I have seen Alexander Herrmann’s {208} calculations all upset by comical contretemps of like character to the above, but he smiled benignantly and went right along as unconcernedly as ever. Conjuring certainly gets on the nerves of its devotees.
IV.
Amateur magicians are called upon to exhibit their skill in all sorts of places. I once gave a performance in a Pullman car, going at full speed. It was on the occasion of a pilgrimage to the Scottish Rite temples of the Southwest, with a party of eminent members of the fraternity. This was in the spring of 1904. Among those who went on the journey were the Hon. James Daniel Richardson, 33°, Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry for the Southern jurisdiction of the United States, and Admiral Winfield Scott Schley, 32°, the “hero of Santiago,” a most genial traveling companion and raconteur. Mr. Richardson had jocularly appointed me Hierophant of the Mysteries, so I took along with me a box full of magic apparatus, to amuse the Initiates when time hung heavy on their hands. My first performance was given while speeding across the State of Kentucky. At one end of an observation car I arranged my table and paraphernalia. In honor of the Admiral, I got up an impromptu trick, which I called, “After the Battle of Santiago.” Borrowing a silk hat, and showing it empty, I began as follows: