THE OPENING OF SLADE’S SLATE BY MEANS OF A HEATED WIRE.
(After Willmann.)
Professor Zöllner, the most famous victim of the bold medium, lacked entirely the necessary critical faculty, and became an easy prey of fraud. One of his colleagues, a professor of surgery in the University of Leipsic, had entered upon a bet with Professor Zöllner that a slate carefully sealed and watched by himself could not be written upon by spirits; he had left the slate in Professor Zöllner’s hands in the confidence that the latter would use all necessary precautions. Professor Zöllner, however, not finding Dr. Slade at home, saw nothing wrong in leaving the sealed slate at the medium’s residence and thus allowing it to pass for an indefinite time out of his own control, thinking that the seals were a sufficient protection. It goes without saying that his colleague at once cancelled the bet and took no more interest in the experiment. {xxvii}
The foot and hand prints which Dr. Slade produced were apparently made from celluloid impressions, which could easily be carried about and hidden in the pocket. This explains why these vestiges of the spirit were not of the size of Dr. Slade’s hands or feet.
Mr. Willmann calls attention to the fact that the footprints, as published by Professor Zöllner, were made from feet whose stockings had been removed but a few moments before, for they still show the meshes of the knitting which quickly disappear as soon as the skin of the foot grows cold. Professor Zöllner did not see such trifles, and yet they are important, even if it were for the mere purpose of determining whether the spirits wear stockings made in Germany or America.
The accounts of travelers are, as a rule, full of extravagant praise of the accomplishments of foreign magicians; thus, the feats of our American Indians are almost habitually greatly exaggerated. The same is true in a greater measure of fakirs and Hindu magicians. Recent accounts of a famous traveler are startling, but the problem is not whether or not what he tells is true (for only a little dose of good judgment is sufficient to recognize their impossibility), but whether or not he believes his tales himself. The problem is neither physical nor historical as to the reality of the events narrated; the problem is purely psychological as to his own state of mind.
The primitive simplicity of the methods of the Hindu jugglers and the openness of the theatre where they perform their tricks cause wonderment to those who are not familiar with the methods of legerdemain. Mr. Willmann, who had occasion to watch Hindu magicians, says in his book, Moderne Wunder, page 3: “After a careful investigation, it becomes apparent that the greatest miracles of Indian conjurers are much more insignificant than they appear in the latest reports of travelers. The descriptions which in our days men of science have furnished about the wonderful tricks of fakirs, have very little value in the shape in which they are rendered. If they, for instance, speak with admiration about the invisible growth of a flower before their very eyes, produced from the seed deposited by a fakir in {xxviii} a flower-pot, they prove only that even men of science can be duped by a little trick the practice of which lies without the pale of their own experience.”
Eye-witnesses whose critical capacities are a safeguard against imposition, relate more plausible stories. John T. McCutcheon describes the famous trick of growing a mango tree, as follows:
“The further away from India one is the greater appears the skill of these Hindu magicians. How often have we read the traveler’s tales about the feats of Indian jugglers, and how eagerly we have looked forward to the time when we might behold them and be spellbound with amazement and surprise. When I first saw the Indian juggler beginning the preparations for the mango trick I was half prepared by the traveler’s tales to see a graceful tree spring quickly into life and subsequently see somebody climb it and pick quantities of nice, ripe mangoes. Nothing of the kind happened, as will be seen by the following description of the mango trick as it is really performed:
THE SINGALESE CONJURER BEN-KI-BEY.
(After Carl Willmann.)“The juggler, with a big bag of properties, arrived on the scene and immediately began to talk excitedly, meanwhile unpacking various receptacles taken from the bag. He squatted down, piped a few notes on a wheezy reed whistle and the show began. From his belongings he took a little tin can about the size of a cove oyster can, filled it with dirt and saturated the dirt with water. Then he held up a mango seed to show that there was nothing concealed by his sleeves; counted ‘ek, do, tin, char,’ or ‘one, two, three, four,’ and imbedded the seed in the moist earth. He spread a large cloth over the can and several feet of circumjacent ground. Then he played a few more notes on his reed instrument and allowed the seed a few minutes in which to take root and develop into a glorious shade tree. While he was waiting he {xxix} unfolded some snakes from a small basket, took a mongoose from a bag and entertained his audience with a combat between the mongoose and one of the snakes.
“ ‘Ek, do, tin, char; one, two, three, four—plenty fight—very good mongoose—biga snake—four rupee mongoose—two rupee snake—mongoose fight snake. Look—gentlymans—plenty big fight.’
MODERN SNAKE CHARMERS. (From Brehm.)
“All this time the cloth remained peaceful and quiet, and there were no uneasy movements of its folds to indicate that the mango crop was flourishing. The juggler now turned his attention to it, however, poked his hands under the cloth, and after a few seconds of mysterious fumbling triumphantly threw off the cloth, and lo! there was a little bunch of leaves about as big as a sprig of water cress sticking up dejectedly from the damp earth. This was straightway deluged with some water and the cloth again thrown over it.
“Once more there was a diversion. This time an exhibition of a shell game, in which the juggler showed considerable dexterity in placing the little ball where you didn’t think it would be. Still the cloth revealed no disposition to bulge skyward, and a second time the juggler fumbled under it, talking hurriedly in Hindustani and making the occasion as interesting as possible. After much poking around he finally threw off the cloth with a glad cry, and there was a mango tree a foot high, with adult leaves which glistened with moisture. When his spectators had gazed at it for awhile he pulled the little tree up by the roots, and there was a mango seed attached, with the little sprouts springing out from it.
“The trick was over, the juggler’s harvest of rupees and annas began, and soon his crowd faded away. A few minutes later, from a half-hidden seat {xxx} on the hotel veranda, I saw the wizard over across the street, beneath the big shade trees, folding up the mango tree and tucking it compactly into a small bag.”[2]
To conjure ghosts has always been the highest ambition of performers of magical tricks, and we know that the magic lantern has been used for this purpose since mediæval days, but modern necromancy has been brought to perfection by Robertson and Pepper, through the invention of a simple contrivance, known under the name of Pepper’s ghost, by which impalpable specters become plainly visible to the astonished eyes of the spectators.