Henry Ridgely Evans

“If this be magic, let it be an art.”—SHAKESPEARE.

I.

At the theatre not long ago, I heard the orchestra play Mendelssohn’s exquisite “Spring Song,” and immediately I was carried back in fancy to my boyhood days under the old roof-tree at Glen Willow, on the heights of Georgetown, D. C., where I spent such happy years. The rain is gently pattering upon the shingled roof; the distant woods are waxing green under the soft influences of the season; the blackbirds are calling in the tree tops. O sweet springtide of youth, made more beautiful still by the associations of books, by the free play of the imag­i­na­tion in realms of poetry and fantasie—

“A boy’s will is the wind’s will.

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

The intervening years are all blotted out. I am young again, and have just returned to the old home, after witnessing an exhibition of magic by Wyman the Wizard at the town hall. To a boy fresh from the delights of the Arabian Nights this is a wonderful treat. My mind is agitated with a thousand thoughts. I, too, will become a conjurer, and hold the groundlings spellbound; bring bowls of goldfish from a shawl; cook puddings in a borrowed hat; pull rabbits from old gentlemen’s pockets.

Dear old Wyman, ventriloquist as well as pre­sti­di­gi­ta­teur, old-time showman, and the delight of my boyhood—what a weary pilgrimage you had of it in this world; wandering up and down, never at rest, traveling thousands of miles by stagecoach, steamboat, and railroad, giving entertainments in little villages {202} and towns all over the United States, and welcomed everywhere by happy children. The big cities you left to your more ambitious brethren. But what of that? You brought thereby more pleasure into humble lives than all of the old conjurers put together. Well have you earned your rest. Though your name is quite forgotten by the present generation, a few old boys and girls still hold you in loving remembrance.

WYMAN, THE MAGICIAN.

(From an Old Print, Ellison Collection.)

Wyman was born in Albany, N. Y., and was reported to be sixty-five years of age at the time of his death. Just when he went on the stage, I have been unable to ascertain. Mr. George Wood, who is now running a small curio shop on Filbert Street, Philadelphia, was for sixteen years Wyman’s manager. He afterwards went with Pharazyn and Frederick Eugene Powell. Thanks to my friend, Mr. C. S. Eby, who interviewed Mr. Wood during the summer of 1905, I have obtained a few facts concerning Wyman’s career. After giving exhibitions all over the United States in school houses and small halls, Wyman went abroad and brought back with him quite an outfit of apparatus, most of it purchased, I presume, from Voisin’s Repository in {203} Paris. Voisin was the only manufacturer of magical novelties in those days. About 1850 Wyman played in New York City under the management of P. T. Barnum. When the magician Anderson sold out, Wyman bought considerable of his paraphernalia, such as the “Magic Cauldron” (Phillippe’s old trick), the “Nest of Boxes,” “Aerial Suspension,” “Inexhaustible Bottle,” and “Gun Trick.” In 1867 Wyman started the “gift show” in connection with his magic entertainment, sometimes giving away building lots as a first prize. He introduced the Sphinx illusion in the South for the first time and made a tremendous hit. People would come twenty miles to see it. He had a wonderful memory, which he applied to a second-sight act. The articles were placed in a handkerchief by the boy who borrowed them and the professor managed to get one secret look at the collection. From his remembrance he would later describe the articles while they were held aloft still tied in the handkerchief. Another favorite illusion was the borrowing of a watch, which was pounded and afterwards found under one of the spectators (not a confederate). It was one of the duties of Wood to slip the borrowed watch in place while ostensibly selling magic books.

Wyman retired from the stage eventually, and lived in Philadelphia for several years at 612 North Eleventh Street. Afterwards he moved to Burlington, New Jersey, where he bought an imposing country place. He owned considerable real estate. He died July 31, 1881. A few days before his death he called to see his old friend Thomas W. Yost, the manufacturer of magical apparatus, of Philadelphia. He must have had a premonition of his demise, for he remarked to Mr. Yost, as he left the store: “You will not see me again. This is the last of Wyman.” In a few days he was dead. He was buried at Fall River, Massachusetts, the home of his wife. Wyman’s show consisted of ventriloquism, magic, and an exhibition of Italian fantochini (puppets). He was one of the best entertainers of his day.

I took to magic at an early age—not the magic of the sleight of hand artist, however, but the real goetic or black magic, {204} as black as any old grimoire of mediÆval days could make it. Aye, darker in hue than any inveighed against in the famous DÆmonologie of King James I. of Protestant memory. I believed firmly in witches, ghosts, goblins, voodoo spells, and conjure doctors. But what can you expect of a small boy surrounded by negro servants, the relics of the old rÉgime of slavery, who still held tenaciously to the devil-lore of their ancestors of the African jungle? At nightfall I dared not go near the smoke-house for fear of the witches who held their revels there. One day my father brought home a book for his library. It was Mackey’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions; or, The Madness of Crowds. That work of absorbing interest opened my eyes to the unreality of the old super­sti­tions. I read it with avidity. It became a sort of Bible to me. It lies on the table before me, as I pen these lines; a much-thumbed, faded, old book.

The first amateur sleight of hand show I ever took part in, was given by a boy named Albert Niblack. The matinÉe magique was held in a stable attached to my father’s house. The entrance fee was three pins, orchestra chairs ten pins. The stage was erected in the carriage house, and the curtain consisted of a couple of sheets sur­rep­ti­tious­ly borrowed from the household linen closet. I acted as the conjurer’s assistant. The success of the entertainment was phenomenal. The audience consisted of some thirty children, with a sprinkling of negro nurses who came to preserve order among the smaller fry, and an old horse who persisted in sticking his head through a window near the stage, his stall being in an adjoining compartment. He occupied the only private box in the theatre. Among other tricks on the programme, young Niblack produced a small canary bird from an egg which had been previously examined and declared to be the real product of the hen by all the colored experts present, who tested it on their teeth. One fat old mammy, with her head picturesquely done up in a red bandana handkerchief, was so overcome by the trick that she shouted out: “Fo de Lawd sake! Dat boy mus’ be kin to de Debbil sho,’” and regretted the fact that she did not have a rabbit’s foot with her, to ward off the spells. Years have passed since then. Young Niblack is now Lieut. Commander Niblack, U. S. N., erstwhile naval attachÉ {205} of the American embassy at Berlin, etc. I wonder if he still practises magic. He obtained his insight into the mysteries of conjuring from a little book of sleights, puzzles and chemical experiments, a cheap affair and very crude. Like Houdin, he had to create the principles of legerdemain himself, for the book contained no real information on the subject. It was manufactured to sell in two senses of the word, and to the best of my belief, was purchased at the circus. Among that audience were several children who have since become famous, to a greater or less extent. There was Umei Tsuda, a diminutive Japanese girl, sent to this country to be educated, and who now presides over a great normal school in Japan; Waldemar Bodisco (son of Count Bodisco, the Russian Minister to the United States), now an officer in the Czar’s navy; and, if I mistake not, Agustin de Iturbide, the adopted son of the ill-fated Maximilian, who attempted to found an empire in Mexico, bolstered up by French bayonets. Young Iturbide’s mother, after the tragic death of Maximilian, came to Georgetown to reside and educate her son, the heir to the throne of Mexico. Poor fellow, he was a prince, but he did not plume himself because of the fact, for he was in reality a “boy without a country.” We were classmates in the preparatory department of Georgetown College. His career is one of the romances of history. He is now living an exile in an old country house in the District of Columbia, where he spends his time reading and dreaming.

I entered upon the practise of sleight of hand in the year 1877, after reading Hoffmann’s Modern Magic. I adopted Houdin’s method of carrying a pack of cards and other articles in my pockets. On my way to school, over a long country road, I put in some hard practise, learning to sauter le coupe, and palm most any small object. While in class one day, I was caught in flagrante delicto, with a pack of cards in my hand, by the dignified old Latin professor. I was sent to the Principal of the Academy for punishment, which I received like a stoic, but vowing vengeance on the Latin pedagogue, who was a very {206} orthodox religionist, the principal of a Baptist Sunday school, and consequently held cards in abhorrence. I often heard him remark that cards were the “Devil’s Looking Glasses.” One day, I slipped a couple of packs of cards in the sleeve of the professor’s overcoat, which hung upon the wall back of his desk, and tipped the wink to the boys. They were astounded at my audacity. When the class was dismissed, the scholars lingered around to see the fun. The professor went to put on his coat, whereupon the cards flew about the room in a shower, being propelled by the impact of his arm, which he thrust violently into the sleeve. The boys, with a great shout, began picking up the scattered pasteboards, which they presented to the teacher, commiserating with him in his trouble. The old man, who was very angry, disclaimed ownership of the detested cards, and got out of the room as speedily as possible. Perhaps it is needless to remark that I failed miserably in the Latin examinations that year. But it may have been owing to my stupidity and not to any animus on the professor’s part. Let us hope so.

GLEN WILLOW, GEORGETOWN, D. C.

After long practise in legerdemain, I determined to give an entertainment, and selected as my assistant, my school chum, Edward L. Dent, a boy who possessed great mechanical genius. Later in life he graduated with honors as a mechanical engineer {207} from Stevens’ Institute, New Jersey, and founded a great iron mill in Georgetown. Poor fellow, he met with business reverses and lost a fortune. He died some five or six years ago. Young Dent lived in a historical mansion on the heights of Georgetown, surrounded by a great park of oaks. It was the home of John C. Calhoun, when he was Secretary of State of the United States. In the great attic of the house, Judge Dent had fitted up a superb carpenter shop and forge for his son.

Here my chum and I manufactured our apparatus: the Washerwoman’s Bottle, the Nest of Boxes À la Kellar; the Card Star; the Coffee and Milk Vases; the Sphinx Table, etc. When all was ready, about two hundred invitations were sent out for a SoirÉe Magique. The great drawing-room of the house was fitted up as a theatre, with a stage at one end and drop curtain. We fenced in the stage with rich draperies, after the style of Robert Heller, and our gilded tables and silver candelabra with wax tapers looked very fine against the crimson background. It was the most elaborate amateur show I ever saw. Twenty minutes before the curtain rang up, both magician and assistant were seized with stage fright. We had peeped through a hole in the curtain and taken in the sea of faces. We dared not confront that crowd of youngsters without a mask of some kind. Happy thought! We decided to blacken our faces with burnt cork and appear as negro necromancers. The performance went off very well indeed, until we came to the “Card Star.” O fatal Pentagram of Pythagoras! The cards were chosen from a pack and rammed down the mouth of a big pistol, preparatory to firing them at the star, on the points of which they were to appear. I began my patter, facing the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, I will give you an exhibition of magic marksmanship. I will fire this pistol (laughter) at the star on yonder table (renewed laughter), and the cards”—(ironical cat calls). I turned around, and to my horror, the duplicate cards were already sticking to the star; my assistant had let off the apparatus too soon. The curtain fell. I shed tears of rage at the fiasco. But, later on, I learned to act more philosophically. Magicians are subject to these mistakes. I have seen Alexander Herrmann’s {208} calculations all upset by comical contretemps of like character to the above, but he smiled benignantly and went right along as unconcernedly as ever. Conjuring certainly gets on the nerves of its devotees.

Amateur magicians are called upon to exhibit their skill in all sorts of places. I once gave a performance in a Pullman car, going at full speed. It was on the occasion of a pilgrimage to the Scottish Rite temples of the Southwest, with a party of eminent members of the fraternity. This was in the spring of 1904. Among those who went on the journey were the Hon. James Daniel Richardson, 33°, Sovereign Grand Commander of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry for the Southern jurisdiction of the United States, and Admiral Winfield Scott Schley, 32°, the “hero of Santiago,” a most genial traveling companion and raconteur. Mr. Richardson had jocularly appointed me Hierophant of the Mysteries, so I took along with me a box full of magic apparatus, to amuse the Initiates when time hung heavy on their hands. My first performance was given while speeding across the State of Kentucky. At one end of an observation car I arranged my table and paraphernalia. In honor of the Admiral, I got up an impromptu trick, which I called, “After the Battle of Santiago.” Borrowing a silk hat, and showing it empty, I began as follows:

“Gentlemen, stretch your imag­i­na­tions, like Jules Verne, and let this hat represent the cruiser Brooklyn, Admiral Schley’s ship. This oscillating Pullman car is the ocean. The great battle of Santiago is over. Victory has crowned the American arms. An order comes from the flagship to decorate the vessels of the fleet with bunting. The sailors of the Brooklyn dive down into the hold and bring up a variety of flags. (Here I produced from the hat the flags of all nations.) They are not satisfactory. Roll them together, says the commander, and see what the composition will make. (I rolled the flags into a bundle, which I proceeded to throw in the air, whereupon a big silk American flag appeared, the smaller ensigns having disappeared.) Ah, the Star {209} Spangled Banner, under whose folds the men of many nations live in amity as fellow citizens.”

I waved the flag in the air, amid the plaudits of the spectators. Just then the car gave a terrific lurch, while rounding a curve; I lost my balance and was precipitated head first like a battering ram against the capacious stomach of an old gentleman, seated in the front row. He doubled up with pain.

“Say, what kind of a trick do you call that?” he gasped out.

“That,” said I, “is a representation of a sailor on board of the Brooklyn falling overboard.”

“I call it a monkey trick,” he groaned. His dignity and digestive apparatus had been sadly upset. From that time on, he eyed me with suspicion whenever I gave a show, and always took a chair in the back row of seats.

“Speaking of monkey tricks,” said Admiral Schley, “reminds me of an incident that occurred when I was a midshipman on board of the steam frigate Niagara, in 1860. A monkey was the pre­sti­di­gi­ta­teur. We were conveying back to their native land the Japanese embassy that had visited the United States in return for the visit made to their country by Commodore Perry some years before. One of the embassy bought a monkey at Anger Point, Africa, during a stoppage at that place. He (the monkey, not the Ambassador) proved to be a most mischievous brute, and was continually picking and stealing eatables from the cook’s galley. Worse than that, so far as the sailors were concerned, the ‘missing link’ of Darwin took a special delight in upsetting pots and pans of grease on the deck, which the seamen had to clean up. When chased by some irate Jack Tar with a rope’s end, the monkey would take refuge in the rigging, where he would hang by his tail from a spar, and grin with delight at his enemies. We all hated the beast, but respect for our Japanese guests forbade revenge. Finally an old sailor caught the monkey and greased his tail. Soon after, the simian committed one of his daily depredations and hied himself, as usual, up the rigging, where he attempted to swing from a yardarm by his greased tail. But, alas, he fell overboard and was drowned. The verdict rendered was that he had committed suicide. His only mourners were the Mikado’s ambassadors.” {210}

The study of natural magic is wonderfully fascinating. It possesses, too, a decided pedagogic value, which eminent scholars have not been slow to recognize. Those who obtain an insight into its principles are preserved against infection from the many psychical epidemics of the age. The subject is of interest to scientists. Dr. G. Stanley Hall, at one time professor of experimental psychology at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., at present president of Clarke University, Worcester, Massachusetts, used to exhibit conjuring tricks to his classes, to illustrate the illusions of the senses. An eminent German scientist, Dr. Max Dessoir, has written learnedly on the psychology of legerdemain. Prof. Joseph Jastrow, of the University of Wisconsin, subjected the conjurers, Herrmann and Kellar, to a series of careful tests, to ascertain their “tactile sensibility, sensitiveness to textures, accuracy of visual perception, quickness of movement, mental processes,” etc. The results of these tests were printed in Science, Vol. III, page 685–689, under the title of “Psychological Notes upon Sleight-of-hand Experts.”

The literature of natural magic is not extensive. Thirty years ago, first-class works in English on legerdemain were rare. Houdin’s Secrets de la Prestidigitation et de la Magie, which was published in 1868, was out of print, and, says Prof. Hoffmann, “the possession of a copy was regarded among professors of magic as a boon of the highest possible value.” Hoffmann picked up an old second-hand copy of the work in Paris, and translated it in the year 1877. To-day, books on sleight of hand have been multiplying rapidly. Every professor of the art thinks it incumbent upon him to publish a treatise on magic. Strange to say, the good works on the subject have been written by amateurs. Prof. Hoffmann (Angelo Lewis), a member of the London bar, has written the best book, following him have come Edwin Sachs and C. Lang Neill. The autobiography of that arch-master of magic, Robert-Houdin, was translated, in 1859, by Dr. R. Shelton Mackenzie, of Philadelphia. Thomas Frost, in 1881, produced an interesting work on the Lives of the Conjurers, but it is now quite out of date. I know of no really scholarly treatise extant to-day on the history of pre­sti­di­gi­ta­tion. {211}

I have been very fortunate in my researches in the history of magic, to have had access to several private collections of books, old playbills, programmes, prints, etc., relating to the subject. I myself have been an indefatigable collector of books and pamphlets treating of magic and magicians. But my library pales into insignificance beside that of my friend, Dr. Saram R. Ellison, of New York City. Dr. Ellison is a practising physician and, like many others of his profession, a great lover of escamotage, perhaps because of its relationship to psychology. He has {212} in his collection of books, many rare volumes picked up in Europe and elsewhere. At the present writing his library contains nearly one thousand two hundred titles, among them being rare copies of Decremps (1789–1793), Pinetti (1785), Breslaw (1812), Porta (1658), Kosmann (1817), Witgeest (1773), Naudeus (1657), etc., etc. In the year 1902, Kellar visited the Ellison library. He endeavored to purchase the collection for $2,000. Dr. Ellison refused to part with his beloved books. In his will he has left the collection to Columbia University, New York City. One of the doctor’s fads is the collection of wands of famous magicians. He possesses over sixty rods of the modern magi, and has often contemplated sending an expedition to Egypt to discover the wands used by Moses and Aaron. Among his collection are wands formerly wielded by Carl, Leon, Alexander and Mme. Herrmann (four representatives of one family), Willmann, Anderson, Blitz, de Kolta, Hoffmann, Goldin, Maskelyne, Powell, McAllister, Robinson, Kellar, Fox, etc. Each of the wands is accompanied by a story, which will be published in the near future.

When the citizen-king, Louis Philippe, ruled over the destinies of la belle France, there resided in Paris an old man, by the name of M. Roujol, familiarly known among his confrÈres as “Father” Roujol. He kept a modest shop in the Rue Richelieu for the manufacture and sale of magical apparatus. The professional and amateur conjurers of the French capital made Roujol’s their meeting place. “The Duc de M——,” says Robert-Houdin, “did not disdain to visit the humble emporium of the mystic art, and remain for hours conversing with Roujol and his associates.” It was here that Houdin became acquainted with Jules de RovÈre, of noble birth, a conjurer who abandoned the title of escamoteur, as beneath his aristocratic dignity, and coined for himself the pompous cognomen, pre­sti­di­gi­ta­teur, from presti digiti (activity of the fingers). The French Academy sanctioned the formation of this word, thus handing it down to posterity. Jules de RovÈre also called himself Physicien du Roi. Old Father Roujol is dust long ago. We have replicas of his {213} quaint place in New York, Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia. On Sixth Avenue, not far from Thirtieth Street, New York City, is the shop of the Martinka Brothers. It is located on the ground floor of a dingy old building. In front is a tiny window, with a variety of magical apparatus displayed therein. Above the door, in tarnished gold letters, is the sign, “Palace of Magic.” The second floor is occupied by a Chinese restaurant. The Occident and Orient exist here cheek-by-jowl. The Chinaman concocts mysterious dishes to tickle the jaded palates of the boulevardiers; the proprietors of the Aladdin Palace of Up-to-Date Enchantments invent ingenious tricks and illusions to astound the eyes of their patrons. Here I met Robinson, de Kolta, Kellar, and many other conjurers of note. The Society of American Magicians holds its meetings at Martinka’s.

This society owes its foundation to two practising physicians of New York, Dr. W. Golden Mortimer, an ex-conjurer, and Dr. Saram R. Ellison, the collector of magic literature. Ellison suggested the name, Mortimer wrote the ritual of the order, and {214} the two of them called the meeting for the formation of the society. The first idea of such a fraternity of magicians was formulated by the writer of this book, who endeavored to found a society called the “Sphinx,” but it proved abortive. The leading conjurers of the United States and Europe are enrolled among the members of the S. A. M. The meetings are held once a month, at Martinka’s, usually followed by exhibitions of skill on the stage of the Bijou Theatre, attached to the place. Robert-Houdin, in the closing chapter of his Secrets of Conjuring and Magic, remarks that it would be a superb sight to witness a performance by magicians, where each would show his chef d’oeuvre in the art. At Martinka’s this is realized. Here you may see the very perfection of digital dexterity, mental magic, and the like. Mr. Francis J. Martinka possesses many interesting relics of celebrated performers: Alexander Herrmann’s wand, Robert Heller’s orange tree, and photographs galore of magicians, living and dead. Some of the most important illusions of the day have been built in the shop of the Martinka Brothers. Other manufacturers in New York City are Witmark & Sons, and Mr. Beadle, a veteran mechanic and erstwhile assistant to Robert Heller.

In Boston we have the magic emporiums of W. D. LeRoy and C. Milton Chase; and in Chicago, that of A. Roterberg. Both LeRoy and Roterberg are fine sleight-of-hand performers. Mr. Roterberg is the author of a clever work on card conjuring, which ranks very high in the estimation of the profession, also several little brochures on up-to-date legerdemain. In Philadelphia, Mr. Thomas Yost, a veteran manufacturer of magical apparatus, holds forth. He has built many fine illusions and tricks. In London, we have the well-known firm of Hamley & Co.; in Paris, Caroly and De Vere. There is no dearth of periodicals devoted to the art of magic. Among the leading ones are: Mahatma, Brooklyn, New York; The Sphinx, Kansas City, Missouri; Magic and The Wizard, London; The Magician, Liverpool; L’Illusioniste, Paris; and Der Zauberspiegel, Berlin.