The Learned

Pig Project

Famous Tricks of Famous
Conjurers

By
David Devant

The oldest trick in the world is
known to conjurers as the "Cups
and Balls." The conjurer has three
small cups, usually made of brass,
and three small cork balls, about
the size of a filbert. All sorts of
things happen with these simple
articles. The conjurer can make a
ball pass invisibly through the top
of each cup, or he can make all

three balls go invisibly from one cup to another, and so
on.

There is practically no limit to the effects which the
conjurer can produce with three cups and three balls, and
as the trick is one of pure sleight of hand it has always
been admired alike by magicians and the public. Who are
the famous magicians who have done this trick? Well,
they are mostly anonymous, for they have performed on
race courses. The trick is peculiarly suited to the
racecourse conjurer, for it can be done in the center of the
audience and no preparation is needed. The foundations of
magic are laid in this one little trick, and if I were writing
for magicians I could prove the truth of that statement.
For many years dishonest men have made a precarious
living by this one trick alone, for the "cups and balls" was
the ancestor of the more familiar "three thimbles and a
pea" swindle.

There is but one drawback to the fine old trick: Its effect
is lost in a large room; the audience must be close to the
conjurer's table. The racecourse conjurer has his audience
standing up near him--the right position for a spectator
who would appreciate the trick properly.

One of the most popular tricks of modern times has been
"The Magic Kettle." It created quite a sensation a few
years ago, but I fancy that most magicians were rather

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displeased with it, for it was more of a scientific toy than
a trick. The chief effect consisted in making the kettle boil
water when it was standing on a block of ice.

Magic kettles being all the rage, I, naturally, had to have
one; but I was determined that my magic kettle should be
a little different from anybody else's. Therefore I
borrowed an idea from a very old trick--the inexhaustible
bottle: a bottle from which the conjurer can pour any
drink asked for by the audience. In place of the bottle I
used a kettle, and from it I poured spirits, wines, liqueurs,
and milk and water (in separate glasses; my milk was the
real thing).

I nearly had a terrific failure with the magic kettle. The
trick itself never failed me, it was just a little too good for
the audience. The trouble occurred at Leicester. The trick
had been well advertised all over the town, and a large
balloon, in the form of an elephant, floated over the
Temperance Hall, in which I was to perform. The name of
the hall ought to have been a warning to me, but it was
not. At the last moment I was prohibited by the
proprietors from doing the magic kettle because of the
intoxicating drinks it produced. It appeared that the man
who built the hall had given it on the condition that no
intoxicating drinks were consumed on the premises, and
there was a clause in my agreement telling me of this
condition, but I had overlooked it.

What was to be done? I could not possibly break faith
with the public, for the kettle was the leading item in my
programme. I hurriedly decided to make the kettle a total
abstainer for the time being and to cause it to produce
only temperance drinks: tea, coffee, cocoa, milk,
lemonade. Some people marvelled at the idea of having
hot lemonade served to them; but I did not, for I knew that
it was beyond the powers of my trusty kettle to serve a hot
drink one moment and an iced drink the next, and so on.

Now for the sequel to that story. I have performed only
twice out of England, and on both occasions in Vienna.
During my second visit to Vienna--twenty-five years after
the first--I wanted to do the kettle trick, but I found that
there was such a very large variety of non-temperance
drinks in Vienna that I could not possibly remember them
all. To offer to produce any drink named by the audience
was out of the question altogether. So I fell back on the

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old idea of making the kettle a total abstainer, and found
to my joy that hot lemonade was a regular drink in
Vienna. The audiences thought that I had paid them a
compliment by remembering that they liked their
lemonade hot, and it was with great difficulty that the
audiences were prevented from mobbing me and the
kettle as I rushed about the hall pouring out any drink I
was asked for. Never has the kettle made a bigger success
than it made in Vienna, and I take this opportunity of
thanking the proprietors of Temperance Hall, Leicester.

"The Vanishing Lady" was at one time a very popular
illusion. It was invented by a brilliant magician, Buatier
de Kolta, and was shown by him for the first time in Paris.
The performer came forward with a newspaper, which he
spread out on the stage. On the paper he placed a chair. A
lady sat on the chair. The performer covered her with a
silk shawl. Go! She disappeared.

The trick was a great improvement on anything that had
been done before de Kolta's time. He had a wholesome
scorn of cabinets and other cumbersome pieces of
apparatus. "I can do anything," he once said to me, "if I
am allowed to put up a bedstead on the stage," and I
agreed with him that the day of cabinets and other things
which were so obviously tricks, was over.

Some time after de Kolta's death I tried to go one better
than "The Vanishing Lady." I wanted to make the lady
vanish without covering her up, and after many
experiments I produced "The Mascot Moth." A lady took
the part of the moth. On a fully lighted stage, without
covering the lady, I just picked her up in my arms and she
disappeared.

Buatier de Kolta invented several tricks which have made
the name of more than one magician. One of the tricks
was "The Disappearing Birdcage." The cage, with a bird
inside it, disappeared from the inventor's hands. Another
of his famous tricks was the production of vast quantities
of paper flowers from a sheet of paper which he twisted
up into a cone-shaped bag. This trick baffled conjurers for
a long time, but one evening a draught on the stage caught
one of the flowers and blew it into the orchestra. The
secret of the trick was given away, and it is now known to
every conjurer.

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The "Bullet-catching Trick" will be fresh in the minds of
my readers, for it was by performing that trick that Chung
Ling Soo, the famous Chinese magician--(an Englishman
off the stage, actually born in New York City; his father
was a Scot, his mother a Briton)--recently met his death.
He was warned over and over again by his friends against
doing that trick, and he must have known that at least
half-a-dozen conjurers have been killed by doing the same
trick. A bullet, marked by the audience, is fired at the
magician, who catches it between his teeth. Soo used a
plate for the purpose. The trick is always sensational and
effective.

Curiously enough, Soo made his name in this country
with a trick of a totally different kind--the "Aerial Fishing
Rod." He would stand in the center of the stage with a rod
and line in his hand and make a cast into the auditorium.
Suddenly the audience would be startled to see a fish
caught on the end of the line over their heads. Soo would
then take in the line, remove the fish, drop it into a glass
bowl of water, and everybody could see it swimming
about--quite happy and comfortable. The trick was
invented by an amateur conjurer. Professional magicians
are indebted to amateurs for several good tricks. Amateurs
seldom realize the effectiveness of a trick until they see it
performed by a professional, who, of course, makes every
point tell.

Conjurers are also indebted for some of their tricks to the
bogus spiritualists. Dr. Slade, the famous medium,
provided conjurers with an excellent slate trick, but the
conjurers simplified his method. The conjurer shows a
clean slate and produces on it any writing--figures or
words--which he requires.

The "spiritualists" have one very effective trick which
they use to prove the presence of spirits. The medium
allows someone to tie one end of a cord round his wrist in
any way he pleases and to seal the knots. Having done
this, the assistant holds the other end of the cord in his
hand. The lights are lowered for a few moments; when
they are turned up the assistant sees a knot in the middle
of the cord. How does the knot get there? One end is tied
tightly round the medium's wrist, the assistant holds the

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other end. The knot must be spirit-tied. But it never is.

The drawing-room performer of today has improved on
that trick. He will have a piece of string tied tightly round
both his wrists with about a yard of string between them.
The knots may be sealed. The conjurer borrows a ring and
retires behind a screen for a moment. When he emerges
the audience sees that the ring is not only on the string but
tied on it, and the knots on the wrists have not been
tampered with. No, it is not done by spiritualism! And the
knots are perfectly fair, including the knot that ties the
ring in its place.

The Davenport Brothers, the famous mediums, made the
name of more than one conjurer, for they originated some
excellent rope-tying tricks. I rather fancy that my friend,
Mr. Harry Kellar, America's most famous magician, owes
his celebrated "Kellar-tie" to an idea of the Davenport
Brothers. In Mr. Kellar's expert hands it is a most
mystifying trick. He has his hands tied together behind his
back by a member of the audience. In a second he is ready
to shake hands with his volunteer assistant, for his hand is
free. Is it? Mr. Kellar turns round instantly, and shows his
hands still tied tightly together in their original position.
Then just as the assistant is wondering if "seeing is
believing" he is startled by being patted on the back by
Mr. Kellar. He looks round. Mr. Kellar's hands are still
tied behind his back. Let me add that this bald description
does not do justice to the splendid effect Mr. Kellar
produces with his "tie," for which every magician has a
profound admiration.

A few good tricks have come to us from India. The Indian
conjurers content themselves with doing a few good tricks
and doing them very well, a fact which amateur conjurers
should remember, but never will!

I regard the famous Indian rope trick as a myth. I do not
believe that any conjurer ever stood in the open air, threw
up a rope, made it rigid in that position, and then caused a
boy to climb up the rope and disappear at the top of it. It
is said that the Indian performer of this trick hypnotizes
his audience, but I am not a believer in that explanation.

The best of all Indian tricks, to my mind, is the
mango-tree trick. The tree is made to grow from a seed

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planted in the ground, and eventually the first shoot grows
into a large tree--by means of a series of very clever
substitutions. This trick is the forerunner of the
orange-tree performed by many European conjurers. The
tree puts forth blossoms, which develop into fruit in front
of the audience. Robert-Houdin, the famous French
conjurer, claimed this trick as his invention, but my
friend, Mr. Harry Houdini, the famous "handcuff king,"
shows clearly enough in his book, The Unmasking of
Robert-Houdin, that the trick was invented in the
eighteenth century by Christopher Pinchbeck, an
Englishman.

The conjurer who sits down to invent a new trick is
seldom successful in thinking of an entirely new effect.
The most he can hope to do, in nine hundred and
ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, is to eliminate some
of the crudities of an old trick and bring it up to modern
requirements.

For example, many years ago there was a little trick,
obviously very mechanical, in which differently coloured
liquids, mixed together, were made to magically separate
themselves and reappear in their original places. My
version of the trick is as follows:

I have three assistants on the stage. Each holds a large
glass goblet. Into one goblet I pour some milk; into
another some wine. The two liquids are then poured from
the goblets into a third goblet. I hold a flag, on a stick, in
front of this goblet for half a second. Then the flag
disappears from the stick and is taken at once from the
goblet in which wine and milk were mixed, and the wine
and milk separate and return to their two goblets, which
are not covered at any time in the trick. In one sense I was
the inventor, for the trick had never been before done in
that form; in another sense I was not the inventor, for the
idea of magically separating two liquids was not mine.

One little trick has been doubly famous. The inventor of it
was Verbeck, a very clever conjurer who performed in
London in the 'eighties. He used a wedding-ring,
borrowed from the audience, and one of his own
programmes for the trick. This is one of the tricks by
which my friend, the late Charles Bertram, will always be
remembered. In place of the ring Bertram used a shilling,

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borrowed from the audience, and in place of a programme
the cover of a copy of Tit.Bits. Having persuaded
someone from the audience to help him in the trick,
Bertram would tear the cover of Tit-Bits in halves, hold
one in his hand, and ask his volunteer assistant to put the
shilling on the paper.

Bertram then rolled the shilling in the paper and gave the
parcel to his assistant, together with a piece of
sealing-wax. The assistant was asked to touch the back of
his hand with the sealing-wax and open the parcel. The
paper had been converted into a large envelope, closely
sealed. From this two more sealed envelopes were taken.
The innermost one contained the shilling.

Suggesting that if he did the trick again his assistant
would see how it was done, Bertram repeated the
performance with the remaining half of the cover of
Tit-Bits. Finally he would take all six envelopes and hand
them to his assistant with the assurance that if he looked
at them closely he would see how the trick was done. The
assistant would take the parcel and open it. The six
envelopes had been restored to their original state--the
cover of Tit-Bits. This was one of Bertram's best tricks
and he certainly improved upon the trick as it was
originally invented.

Some excellent tricks have come to us from the Chinese.
The trick known as "The Chinese Rings"--in which a
number of solid metal rings, examined by the audience,
become linked and unlinked when the conjurer handles
them--is still one of the best tricks we have. Another old
Chinese trick is the magical production of a number of
glass bowls full of water, with fish swimming in them.
The suspension of a person in midair is a very old Eastern
trick. These three tricks, and several others from the East,
have been performed by generations of conjurers all over
the world, and audiences are still interested in them.

"Second sight" is a more modern trick. It really consists in
the performer secretly transmitting a message to his
assistant. Some of the early methods of bringing about
this mystery would hardly pass muster today, but in the
latter part of the eighteenth century, when Pinetti
performed the trick in London, a magician's labors were a
little less arduous than they are now. Robert Heller, an

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Englishman who performed in the middle of the
nineteenth century, achieved much fame with this trick,
and yet the Zancigs made a new trick of it when they
performed a few years ago at the Alhambra.

A very famous automaton was known as "The
Pastry-Cook of the Palais Royal." A figure of the
pastry-cook would emerge from the model of a
confectioner's shop, receive the orders of the audience for
any kind of sweetmeat or pastry, and then go inside and
execute them. Houdini, in the book ! have already
mentioned, traces this trick back to 1796, in which year it
was presented by Haddock, an English performer, who
used a model of a fruiterer's shop for the trick. The
audience could ask for any fruit they liked.

There are countless other tricks which have been famous
in their day and have helped to make conjurers famous.
And when all is said and done some of the oldest tricks,
performed by modern methods, remain the most popular
alike with magicians and the public. I have not space even
for their names!

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