The metempsychosic era at the Polytechnic in 1879 was marked by the production of various stories, which were nicely edited and corrected by a lady of well-balanced, tasteful, and poetic mind—viz., by Miss Walker, the sister of the author’s very able coadjutor.
The entertainment opened with a vacant stage, disclosing a sort of inner apartment about twelve feet square, tastefully upholstered, and closed by a curtain which could be lowered at pleasure, without interfering with the great roller and white curtain upon which Dissolving Views were shown. The author’s adopted son, for he never had any children of his own, was now seen walking through the inner apartment to the foot-lights, where he bowed and, addressing the audience, had hardly got as far as the words, “Ladies and Gentlemen,—I am sorry to inform you that something has detained Professor Pepper—” when my voice was heard crying out: “Stop, stop; I am here!” and, appearing out of nothing and without the aid of trap doors or descent by the help of the copper wires, the author stood in the midst, and bowed his acknowledgments for the hearty greeting kindly given him by his audience. The entertainment now proceeded, and, after apologising for the gloom he was about to cast upon the meeting by the harassing story he was about to relate, finally stated that his subject would be those “fearful bags of mystery” called “sausages,” remarking incidentally that though, thanks to Government analysts, many persons had heard of the examination and analyses of this dietetic refresher of the inner man, no one probably had ever seen sausages put together again, as it were, and formed into the very animal from which they were originally educed. A large white dish of sausages was now produced. They were placed in a wire basket, such as pot-plants are suspended in from windows and verandahs, and hung up in the inner chamber. About one minute elapsed; the sausages were gone, and out of the basket came the author’s dear little sagacious white poodle, with his blue ribbon and little bells, wagging his tail, barking at the audience, and coming down to lick the hand of his master. The poor little creature was accidentally poisoned by eating bits of meat the rats had dropped whilst scuttling to their holes to die of the too rapid poison prepared by the author for those pests of domesticated people.
Then the metamorphoses proceeded. Oranges were changed into pots of marmalade, and given away to the boys, and a chest of tea was converted into a tray carrying a steaming teapot, sugar, milk, cups of tea, and handed by the attendants to the ladies in the reserved seats only—such is the blighting influence of cash, which caused the one-shilling people to be neglected and the eighteenpenny-reserved-seat folks to have their teas. The ghost of Banquo in “Macbeth,” and the ditto in “Hamlet” followed, with the curious change of a deserted piano into one at which played and sang a living member of the fair sex, attended by a gentleman in faultless black coat and white tie, who turned over her music; and this Part. I wound up with the change of a gentleman into a lady, who walked down to the foot-lights, sang a song, and then vanished into “thin air.”
But all these changes could only happen in the smaller inner apartment, the actors might walk anywhere else at pleasure, and out of the charmed circle Walker could not change to Pepper, or the latter refer to the living beings when they faded out of sight as regular “Walkers.”
So much for what was done, and now the anxious reader is getting impatient, and if a lady is doubtless curious (the poor men never are so) to know how it was all done, and as the illusion has apparently left the domain of optical science and is now relegated to the conjuring profession, the author has no hesitation in fulfilling his long-ago promise made to the public to let, as Mr. Cremer, jun., says in his most amusing book on “Conjuring,” the cat out of the bag.
Before the illusion can please the eyes, the proper apparatus for producing it must be constructed; and the key to the result consists in the use, not of clear plate glass employed in the ghost illusion, but of engraved silvered glass.
Ordinary looking-glass, such as is used for common mirrors or looking-glasses, is usually made by attaching an amalgam of tin-foil and quicksilver to one side of a clean sheet of plate or other glass.
Glass prepared in this way cannot be successfully engraved, and when the chisel or other tool is drawn with pressure across it, is liable to chip; and instead of clear, sharp engraved lines being obtained, they are ragged, and, in most cases, large patches of the amalgam are torn off.
This is not the case when glass really silvered by successful chemical processes is used, and when pure metallic silver is precipitated on to the surface of the best and flattest plate glass. When Mr. Walker and myself commenced our experiments in March, 1879, the so-called “Patent Silvered Glass” was expensive and confined to moderate-sized pieces of plate glass. Our first care, therefore, was to construct a table that could be brought by screws to a perfect level, and one that would carry a plate of glass at least twelve feet six long by six feet eight wide. Such a plate being most carefully cleaned, and quite free from grease, was placed upon the table, and levelled by means of spirit levels, just as a plate of glass used for the old collodion process would be levelled, in order that the fluid should not run off at one edge, leaving the other comparatively dry; and now came the knotty point—Which was the best silvering process to use? On consulting the best records of this art, we found valuable information in the English Mechanic, Vol. xxi., No. 542.
The reader will find the following process very successful if minutely carried out in all its technical details—