  EVIDENTLY second sight was the foundation-stone of Robert-Houdin’s success. Reading between the lines of his autobiography, one finds that this was the trick which carried him into the salons of fashion and royalty. Before he introduced second sight into his rÉpertoire, his tricks were so commonplace that they did not arouse the interest of the court circle, whose approval furnished the seal of success. This trick of second sight he claims body and soul, as the favorite child of his brain. He even goes as far as to relate a story to prove that the trick came to him in the form of an inspiration. I quote directly from the American edition of his “Memoirs,” page 255: “My two children were playing one day in the drawing-room at a game they had invented for their own amusement; the younger had bandaged his elder brother’s eyes and made him guess the objects that he touched, and when the latter happened to guess right they changed places. This simple game suggested to me the most complicated idea that ever crossed my mind. Pursued by the notion, I ran and shut myself in my workshop, and was fortunately in that happy state when the mind follows easily the combinations traced by fancy. I rested my head in my hands, and in my excitement laid down the first principles of second sight. enlarge-image Then, picking up the long idle quill of Baron Munchausen, he proceeds to explain the methods by which he perfected the trick and trained his son. To the layman these methods read most entertainingly. To the experienced conjurer or his humblest assistant they appeal as absurd and impossible, a sheer waste of time, of which a man who reproduced the tricks of his predecessors as rapidly as Robert-Houdin did, would not be guilty. enlarge-image He claims to have trained the eye and memory of his son, by leading the latter past shop windows, and after allowing him one glance, demanding the names of articles seen at this single glance. When the boy could mention forty things after passing the window, his education was pronounced good. Robert-Houdin also tells in his The only knowledge required about coins is to recognize a coin when you see it. Some one may hand a coin of peculiar stamp, and the operator must signal to his medium the metal and all he knows about it. Of course, if both know the various coins, then they can understand each other with less signaling than if the coins were unfamiliar to either. Inaudi, the French calculator, can look at a blackboard filled with numbers for a few seconds, then turn his back upon them and add the entire amount that he has just seen and memorized. But let the reader understand that Inaudi is peculiarly gifted by nature, while second sight is a trick in which the person on the stage known as the medium is assisted by words, signs, prearranged movements, or articles or figures in rotation, which to the layman have the appearance of being unprepared. At a familiar cue, however, the operator touches articles that have been memorized, a ring, a watch, a scarf-pin, a lady’s fan, an opera glass, all in rotation. At a snap of the fingers the medium will know that the articles are to be named in consecutive order, and only after the snap of the fingers or another cue agreed upon. enlarge-image Robert-Houdin presented the trick for the first time A mysterious bell was used in this connection, but he admits that it mattered not whether the bell struck or was silent, his son could name the object under consideration or answer the question. While Robert-Houdin asserts that he did not employ electricity for working his silent code, investigations make it almost certain that this was the method used. It is known throughout the world of conjuring that in 1850-51 Robert Heller (William Henry Palmer) reproduced Robert-Houdin’s entire rÉpertoire of tricks, with the exception of the suspension, and all worked precisely by Robert-Houdin’s methods. In the second-sight trick, which he first presented with a young man as the medium, then later with Miss Haidee Heller, the medium was seated on a sofa fully equipped with wires and electric batteries. Heller’s second sight was worked with both the speaking and silent codes. His confederate was concealed behind the scenes watching Heller through a peep-hole, or possibly he used another, seated in the audience, and had the wires strung under his chair, arranging enlarge-image After travelling with Mortimer some time, Dale eventually returned to England, and retired from the profession. He opened a large shop in London under the firm name of H. & E. J. Dale, Manufacturing Electricians, 4 Little Britain, E. C., in October, 1882. It was the easiest thing imaginable for Robert-Houdin to have his theatre arranged with secret confederates and wires back of the scenes, where a man with powerful opera-glasses could stand. The place being small, he could look all over the room and see the minutest article. When not making use of the talking code, the simplest method employed by second-sight artists is to have a confederate in the audience, with either an electrical push button or a pneumatic bulb, who gives the medium the signal. This is received by a miniature piston, which requires only a small hole in the stage, while the medium has a matching hole in the sole of his shoe. This allows the enlarge-image From this array of facts it will be seen that second sight is and always has been a matter of well-drilled phrases or signals, prearranged rotation of articles, well-built apparatus or well-trained confederates, but never a feat of actual thought-transferrence. Some of Robert-Houdin’s ardent supporters insist that in claiming the invention or discovery of second sight, the French conjurer was merely an unconscious plagiarist, Such a statement is illogical and absurd. Books of magic to which Robert-Houdin had access and which he admits having read describe the trick in a more or less crude form. Pinetti, whose tricks were fully described to Robert-Houdin by his old friend Torrini, used the second-sight mystification with excellent effect. Robert-Houdin could not have been ignorant of its existence as a trick. In making the claim to its discovery in his “Memoirs” he simply trusted to the ignorance of the reading public in the history of magic. According to programmes and newspaper clippings in my collection, Philip Breslaw was the first conjurer to feature second sight in his performance. Breslaw was a clever German who so established himself in the hearts of amusement-loving Englishmen that he remained in England for forty years, dying in Liverpool in 1803. In 1781, while playing at Greenwood’s Rooms, Haymarket, London, he announced as Part One of his entertainment: “Mr. Breslaw will exhibit his new magical deceptions, Letters, Medals, Dice, Pocket pieces, Rings, etc., etc., and particularly communicate the thoughts of any person to another without the assistance of speech or writing.” Pinetti comes next as an eminent presenter of second sight. Between these two well-known conjurers there may have been various unimportant, unchronicled performers who made use of Breslaw’s trick, but they have no place in the history of magic. The trick appeared on a Pinetti programme at the Royal Haymarket, London, England, December 1st, 1784, enlarge-image The London Morning Post and Daily Advertiser of December 1st, 1784, contains the above advertisement, reproduced from my collection. The talking code employed by Pinetti was not original with him, as it dates back to the automaton worked by a concealed confederate who controlled the piston for the mechanical figure or pulled the strings to manipulate the dancing coins or moving head. It was novel only in its application to the supposed thought-transferrence by a human being instead of an automaton. This code is described by various reliable authors. On page 388, Volume III. of Hooper’s “Recreations,” edition 1782, it is stated that the confederate worked the apparatus from another room. “By certain words, previously agreed on, make it known to the confederate,” is the advice given to would-be conjurers. Beckman in his “History of Inventions” relates that he knew an exhibitor of a “talking figure” whose concealed confederate was cued to answer certain questions, the answers being given in the manner of putting the question, also by different signs. These instructions will be found on page 311 of Volume II., edition of 1817. enlarge-image Decremps undertook to expose Pinetti’s method of working the second-sight trick in his famous book, but in this attempt he scored one of the few failures which marked the bitter fight he waged against Pinetti. In his book “La Magie Blanche DÉvoilÉe” (White Magic Exposed), first edition, 1784, he offers on page 40 “Les Cartes dÉvinÉes, les yeux bandÉs” (The Divination of Cards with the Eyes Blindfolded). In this feat Decremps explains that Pinetti would allow cards to be drawn, then a lady (Signora Pinetti) would appear on the stage, would be blindfolded, and would name all the cards that were drawn. Decremps explains the prearranged pack of Pinetti’s code must have been clever, as Decremps was unable to explain the entire second-sight act. He has omitted the principal part of the mystification, that is, naming the articles held up for the performer to see. That the card trick was only one test of his second-sight performance, and that Pinetti’s medium did not retire after naming the cards, are facts shown by the following clipping from one of his announcements: “Signora Pinetti will have the special honor and satisfaction of exhibiting various experiments of new discovery, no less curious than seemingly incredible, particularly that of her being seated in one of the front boxes with an handkerchief over her eyes, and guess at everything imagined and proposed to her by any person in the company.” Third on the list of second-sight performers, according to the data in my collection, was Louis Gordon M‘Kean, who created a sensation at the Egyptian Hall Bazaar, Piccadilly, London, in 1831, or fifteen years before Robert-Houdin, according to his claims, “discovered” second sight. Young M‘Kean was featured as possessing double, not second, sight, and one of his bills is reproduced on page 212. Another programme in my collection, dated the ThÉÂtre Scarboro, Friday evening, August 4th, 1837, announces “For a limited engagement of three nights the Three enlarge-image These lads, I believe, were three brothers, one the original M‘Kean, or the latter working in conjunction with two other boys trained to the tricks in order to secure more impressive results. The trio appeared eight years before Robert-Houdin became a professional entertainer. Holland also contributed a successful performer of second-sight tricks, the medium in this case being a Dutchwoman who created a profound sensation while It is now a part of my collection and reads as follows: enlarge-image enlarge-image “The Holland Maid, Twenty Years of Age, from Amsterdam, whose powers, both in her residence there and in all other places to which she has gone, have excited great astonishment and much applause, and she will also in this place endeavor to obtain the same tribute of public applause. She will after the exhibition place herself before the eyes of all the spectators on the outside and gravely stand thereon and at all times give an answer of assurance to any one present to whom her judgment in all questions gives the most accurate response. She contrives also by her acuteness to discover and reply to the This wordy announcement is signed by W. Sahm, of Holland. In my collection there is also an interesting handbill advertising the tour of “The Mysterious Lady” who offered second-sight tricks in the eastern part of the United States in 1842-43. Her name was never stated on the programmes, but the latter, together with a clipping dated Boston, February 20th, 1843, will suffice to prove my claim that she was offering second-sight before Robert-Houdin did, and therefore could not be copying his trick. She also appeared in England fully a year before Robert-Houdin “discovered” second sight. Henri Robin and his wife featured second sight in Italy just when Robert-Houdin first offered it in Paris. It is barely possible that they antedated Robert-Houdin in the production of this trick, for I have in my collection a brochure entitled “Album des SoirÉes de M. et Mme. Robin,” which contains an engraving of the couple offering second-sight, a short poem in honor of Mme. Robin’s remarkable gifts as a second-sight artist, and a poem generally eulogistic of M. Robin’s talents dated distinctly February 7th, 1846. Robert-Houdin presented second-sight for the first time, according to his own “Memoirs,” on February 12th, 1846. enlarge-image To prove the utter folly of Robert-Houdin’s claims to Two rare old bills in my collection advertise the marvellous “mind-reading” performances of a goose and a blindfolded dog respectively. The first, dated 1789, announces that a Mr. Beckett, a trunk-maker of No. 31 Haymarket, is exhibiting “a Learned Goose, just lately arrived from abroad. “It performs the following tricks: performing upon cards, money, and watches, telling the time of the month, year, and date, also the value of any piece either English or foreign, distinguishing all sorts of colors and (most prodigiously and certainly unbelieving to those who know the intellects of a goose) she tells the number of ladies and gentlemen in the company or any person’s thoughts; any lady or gentleman drawing a card out of the pack, though ever so secret, the Goose, blindfolded at the same time, will find out the card they drew. Admittance two shillings each person.” The second bill features Don Carlo, the Double-Sighted dog, which gave an exhibition of his mysterious skill at the Pavillion by special command, before King William and the royal family on December 17th, 1831. This dog was blindfolded and could present almost in duplicate the second-sight tests offered by the Highland lad who five days later gave a similar exhibition before the royal family at the same place. enlarge-image This proof regarding the use of animals as “mediums |
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