The Old and the New Magic

by Henry Ridgely Evans

Robinson calls himself “Chung Ling Soo, he of the One Button [mandarin], Royal Chinese Conjurer.” Chung Ling Soo, in the vernacular of Confucius, means Double Luck, or extra good luck. Wherever he goes he puts on exhibition in the lobby of the theatre the resplendent robes of his ancestors—“a piece of sacrilege,” says an English paper, “no Chinaman the world has ever known has been guilty of before. Some of the exhibits are from the Imperial palace at Pekin.” These gorgeous garments were doubtless purchased in some Chinese bazaar in London. According to a Holloway journal, Robinson is the possessor of a wonderful collection of Oriental embroideries, carvings, armor, and swords, and last but not least, “a splendid {286} palanquin which cost the Chinese equivalent of 1,000 guineas. It was presented to him by the late Dowager Empress of China, and is constructed of solid ebony inlaid with gold and precious stones.” In this palanquin, Robinson comes on the stage to perform his bullet-catching feat, supposed to be a replica of a similar adventure when he was attacked by “Boxers” in China. This is Herrmann’s old trick, with an Oriental setting. Some years ago, a German-American wizard, Prof. Mingus, invented a method of catching live gold fish on the end of a line fixed to an ordinary bamboo fishing rod. The line being cast in the air, a gold fish appeared dangling upon the hook. The fish was then thrown into a bowl of water and shown to the audience. Several fish were caught in this manner. Robinson adopted this trick with great success. Pestered to death for an explanation of the mystery by his journalistic friends, he finally condescended to explain (?) it. He thus described it in the News of the World, Holloway, England, April 9, 1905:

“Anyone may know how Chung does the goldfish trick, but it does not follow that having been told one can do it. When Chung Ling Soo makes casts in the air with his rod and line, little Suce Seen, the Celestial handmaiden, stands meekly some yards away, holding a glass bowl of water. The hook is a powerful magnet, and if one could examine the goldfish caught, one would detect pieces of metal attached to the bodies of the finny captures. The live goldfish repose in little Suce Seen’s sleeve, and when a more than usually skillful cast brings the magnetic bait for a second into the interior of the girl’s sleeve, a ‘catch’ has at once been effected, and the fish is seen dangling and wriggling in the air at the end of the line.”

It is needless to remark that this is a fish story. Chung Ling Soo is romancing. The gold fish are concealed in the handle of the rod. The fish that appears on the hook at each cast of the line is an imitation affair of silk, which is hidden in the hollow lead sinker. A substitution is made, and the real fish thrown into the bowl by the conjurer. The dainty little Chinese maiden (Mrs. Robinson) has nothing more to do with the trick than the people in the audience. She merely holds the bowl and looks cute.

The following is a sample of some of the nonsense published {287} about Robinson, taken from the Weekly Despatch, April 9, 1905:

“Chung Ling Soo rose from the ranks, and his fame as a sorcerer penetrated to the Chinese Empress Dowager, who commanded him to court, where, after years of service, he was promoted to many Celestial honors, and ultimately the rank of Mandarin was bestowed upon him. His skin is yellow, his eyes are black and oblique, and his teeth are absolutely inky, as all true Celestials of rank should be.” Any one acquainted with the art of stage “make-up” knows how easily these facial effects can be produced. There is even a black paste for the teeth. I don’t doubt this much of the journalist’s story—but the “Celestial honors” and the “rank of Mandarin”—shade of the illustrious Münchausen preserve us! Poor old Ching Ling Foo, the original Chinaman, has doubtless devoted his ingenious rival and “foreign devil” to the innumerable hells of the Chinese Buddhists.

So much for the Oriental ancestry of my old friend, Billy Robinson, the “One Button Man” of the Celestial Empire (Theatre of London, England).

Robinson is the inventor of the clever stage illusion “Gone,” which Herrmann exhibited, and which still forms one of the principal specialties of Kellar. I am indebted to my friend, Henry V. A. Parsell, for an accurate description of the trick, as at present worked by Mr. Kellar.

“At the rise of the curtain the stage is seen to have its rear part concealed by a second curtain and drapery, which, being drawn up, discloses a substantial framework. This framework, at the first glance, gives one the impression that it is that horrible instrument of death, the guillotine. As will be seen, it consists simply of two uprights, with a bar across the top and another a little below the middle. Just below the centre bar is a windlass, the two ropes of which pass through two pulleys fixed to the top bar. The machine stands out boldly against a black background, the distance from which is indeterminate.

“After the introduction of the fair maiden ‘who is to be gone,’ an ordinary looking bent wood chair is shown. The chair is then placed on the stage behind the framework, and by means of snap hooks the two ropes from the windlass are attached {288} to the side of the chair. The maiden is now seated in the chair and her skirt adjusted that it may not hang too low.