The Old and the New Magic

by Henry Ridgely Evans

Le Commandeur, Marius Cazeneuve

“As before mentioned, the whole of this takes place in darkness, obtained by the chamber being draped in black velvet and the floor covered with black felt. The brightness of the lights turned towards the audience, contrasting with the denseness of the black behind, dazzles the eye to such an extent that it cannot discern anything in the chamber that is not white or of a very light color. The stage is all arranged before the act, and the tables are in their respective places, but cannot be seen on account of their being draped with black velvet. The goblets, frame, lady, ghost, etc., are all placed in readiness behind a black screen, also draped. None of this can be seen while they are behind the lights, if kept covered in black, no matter how near to the front they are placed. But how do they float about and appear so mysteriously? An assistant is within the chamber, dressed in black velvet throughout, with black gloves and mask, covering all signs of white about him and making him perfectly invisible. He wears no boots, and the felt {297} upon the floor deadens the sound of all his movements. He it is who really produces all the articles. When the performer stretches his hand out for the wand, the assistant brings it from behind the screen and hands it to him with a floating movement. As the performer taps the floor he immediately pulls away the black covering and the table instantly appears to view. The goblets are painted black inside, allowing him to hold them at the back with his fingers inside, unnoticed. After the tables are both produced he places the goblets upon them at the right moment with one hand while he pulls off the velvet with the other. The exposition is so quick and sudden that nothing suspicious can be noticed. The turning of the goblet is also the work of the invisible assistant, and is quickly changed from one hand to another when the ring is being passed over it. The watches, etc., are not placed in the goblet as they appear to be, but dropped behind it into the assistant’s hands, who takes them over to the other while the performer is exhibiting his empty hands. The picture-frame is also handed by the assistant, and when it is apparently placed in mid-air is really passed to the assistant, who quickly hangs it up. When it is covered the lady steps from behind the screen to the frame, and stands upon a swing which nearly reaches to the floor behind it, and catches hold of the frame sides; the assistant draws away the velvet which draped her, and keeps the swing in motion. The frame is attached to the wires of this swing. The lady is dressed in white to the waist, which exactly reaches the bottom of the frame. Below the frame she is dressed in black velvet. When the frame is again covered she steps back behind the screen while the assistant fits the Union Jack in the frame. In the decapitation act there are two ladies, one dressed all in white, the other standing behind her dressed in black, with her head covered by a black hood. When the performer swings the sabre the assistant covers the white lady’s head with a black velvet hood, at the same time pulling the hood quickly from the other lady’s head, who immediately falls to her knees. The illusion looks perfect—a body apparently standing without a head and the head apparently falling. When the wings are put on she flaps them by means of a wire and runs round the {298} chamber, stooping at intervals, so as to take an irregular course. The beheaded lady is restored by exactly the reverse method, and she disappears behind the screen. The ghost is danced about on a stick by the assistant, and when its skull is thrown into the air it is caught in a black bag. The performer takes the sheet and goes behind it and hands it to the assistant, and it is the latter who is seen draping himself, the performer running around to {299} the back of the hall meanwhile, where he waits to see the sheet drop. The assistant, allowing time for this, simply lets go the top of the sheet, and, of course, cannot be seen behind it. The performer runs in before it has time to reach the ground, his invisible flight and immediate reappearance greatly astonishing the spectators.”

CAZENEUVE PERFORMING A TRICK.

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VII.

Cazeneuve, better known as le commandeur Cazeneuve, the great card expert and magician, was born in Toulouse in 1840. He adopted magic, after witnessing a performance of that original genius, Bosco. His chivalric title (commander of the imperial order of Medjidie) was conferred upon him by the Sultan of Turkey, with whom he was a favorite. At the Court of Russia he and his charming wife made a great sensation with the second-sight trick. When the Franco-Prussian war broke out, Cazeneuve returned to Toulouse and raised two companies of soldiers, one of which was composed entirely of theatrical people. He served as captain of the 1st regiment of Tirailleurs d’Elite, under the command of Colonel Riu, and fought bravely for France. After peace was declared he prepared a new programme of magic and toured Europe and the Americas. He has a handsome home in his native city of Toulouse, where he has collected many rare curios. In the year 1905, Cazeneuve was touring Algeria with a magic show. He is a member of several scientific societies, and manifests great interest in physics.

I first saw Carl Hertz in Baltimore at the old vaudeville theatre “across the bridge,” some twenty years ago. I remember him as a clever, good-looking young fellow, possessed of considerable dash, and very neat in the performance of card tricks. His specialty was the “bird-cage trick,” which he did to perfection. He was born in San Francisco, of German parents. His first manager was M. de Frère. Hertz has traveled extensively in the Orient. With the bird-cage trick he puzzled the best informed fakirs of India. In Borneo he met with a most romantic adventure. He is probably the only man who has had to offer himself as a burnt-offering to escape an amorous Princess. He was giving a series of magical entertainments before a Malay Sultan and Court, and not only succeeded in fascinating the yellow-skinned monarch, but his daughter as well. The young princess proposed marriage to the conjurer. “On Mr. Hertz informing the lady, through an interpreter, that he was already wedded, she replied that made no difference to her, as she would rule his other ladies. Here was a fix. However, with the {301} connivance of the British Vice-Consul, Mr. Hertz took the place of his lawful spouse in the Phœnix illusion, and jumping into the blazing caldron waved an affectionate adieu to the astonished and dismayed Princess. Mrs. Hertz had to keep up the delusion by weeping copiously while her husband was being conveyed to the coast in a basket.”

In the Sandwich Islands, on one occasion, a chief leaped upon the stage where Hertz was performing and began worshiping him as a god. How very real must have been the effect of Hertz’s magic upon the untutored mind of that simple native.

In the year 1904, a troupe of Hindoo jugglers, acrobats and snake charmers were brought to the United States to entertain lovers of the marvelous at the St. Louis Exposition. Among them was a man with an unpronounceable name, whom the management dubbed “Alexander.” I met the dusky necromancer at Martinka’s in the summer of 1904. He went about the streets of New York garbed in his rich Oriental costume. The street gamins always followed him from his hotel to the Palace of Magic and stood about the doorway in crowds, awaiting in breathless astonishment some feat of wizardry. But the impassive Hindoo paid no attention to his youthful admirers, but went on blowing wreaths of smoke from Egyptian cigarettes, and making purchases of magical apparatus with which to astonish the natives of his beloved India. Taking magic tricks to India is like carrying coals to Newcastle. But Alexander had a very high opinion of Occidental conjuring, and fully realized the fact that the sorcerers of the West, aided by all the resources of modern science, were the superiors of the Hindoo fakirs, except perhaps in one particular—feats of hypnotism and apparent death. I saw Alexander, in Martinka s little back shop, support a couple of heavy iron weights, which were fastened at the ends of a cord, upon his eyelids. The cord rested on the lids, the weights dangling at the ends of the string. The pressure upon the eyeballs must have been tremendous. Alexander presented Dr. Ellison with a wand—the thigh-bone of a sacred simian from the famous monkey temple of India. The bone was inscribed with cabalistic characters and Sanskrit sentences. The monkey is famous for playing {302} tricks, and the thigh-bone of a sacred monkey consequently ought to make an admirable mystic wand for a conjurer. The doctor prizes this unique relic very highly, and is thinking of building a shrine of Benares copper for its reception. In the future, crowds of wandering wizards will doubtless make pilgrimages to this shrine to gaze in ecstasy at the holy relic, just as crowds of East Indians visit the temple where Buddha’s wisdom tooth is displayed for the delectation of the faithful.