Show 1 trick tricks of the stiff WHAT a subjects and how much might be written U upon pon it how much indeed haa has been written up on ill and yet there are many variety stage tricks of which very few people know the secret that little dodge of catching a ball fired from a cannon for ex am ample p le how low many readers know th that t an explanation of this trick was published so 80 long ago aa as 1772 in tha A annual register for that year however the whole matter is thus disposed of when you have the proper quantity of powder for a charge I 1 put a very lift little e of it into the cannon then pu put t in a ball and after it put in the rest of the powder d er then put in the wadding and ram i it t down dow 1 i aa as hard bard as usual this is ia the whole mystery A cannon thus charged will not carry a ball twenty yarda yards the report of a cannon when loaded in this manner ia is as loud aa as when loaded in the other borall for all the pow powder deris 13 discharged char aged another n other t trick rick which doty not seem to ba be widely known ij is hat that of 1 I lightning sketching He here reagain again the explanation is 13 very simple supposing that tho the subject to be produced ia is mr gladstone all the essential outlines will be on t the he blackboard though the audience cannot see them and all that the 0 operator aerator haa has to do is to run hia his milk chalk or crayon over the marks this of course is simplicity itself everybody has seen the gentle man W who ho professed to be able to produce extempore verses on persons and things of topical interest and everybody will certainly admit that h his is method seems to pre elude the possibility of any trickery y he do invites the attai audience ence to select a subject and then pours forth his unpremeditated lay this seems fair enough observant people may have noticed however that although the versifier asks for sub ejects he does not necessarily accept them if one or other of them should be on themes touching which he be has previously committed a few lines to memory well and good then you can be favoured favour ed with poetry on your own subject failing this cor correspondence nce however ho he makes a selection fro from in some hrag imaginary inary person at a distance from the stage and so quickly and cleverly is this generally done that the audience are fully under the impression that one of their number had bad suggested the subject an and d would hardly believe that the man had deceived them all variety stage tricks arc are not so simple as these three very f frequently elaborate apparatus is brought into play and in au such ell cases eases it is not always easy to give a description in non technical language 0 of f the means by which certain results t s are brou brought R bt about this M mechanism echan ism is often paten patented to do or the title odthe of the trick re registered it is not necessarily the invention of the mah man who exhibits it at many any such things are designed or bought outright by agents who have ands of performances of all kinds on their book books and when these men instruct instruct an employed an agree ment is is drawn up tip of so strict a nature that any evasion is almost imp sible yomo home people may remember the sphinx I 1 au E egyptian r tian head that rose out of the bavle tavle table after the removal of a box the table stood in the center of the stage and anti w was Is apparently perfectly clear underneath and and although tho head talked and in d was 28 obviously very much alive I 1 there was no po liblit y ot of its being connected wi with tit a body because the top of the ta tabe ble IV was a a not I 1 H I 1 in thick various devices were resorted to in order to solve the mystery of this speaking head until one night a spectator threw a ball made from a yec flower c ower he be carried in the direction of the table to hii great delight it appeared to lodge in the air and he was not long in arriving at the conclusion that the table had a lookingglass looking glass between each legand that the operator took great care not to be caught in the reflection and to see that there was no surroundings roun dings of hellers psycho only one expose has bas we believe been published the pigmy figure of a half body with a bead head and arms and a section shelf of figures across the front was gome some readers may recall placed on a hollow glass cylinder at command this figure masters the most inari cate cubes and squares tle head bead and arm moving from side to side and the former select ing figures and placing them so as to ave give a correct answer it was rashly surmised that the bead and arm were worked by electric wires but tho the glas support renders that theory quite untenable really the figure was worked by compressed air rie circulating in the glass cylinder from one of the feet of the pedestal heller the magic ian who was a lightning calculator wore on the small of the back of his big dress coat an electric button which was connected with a pocket battery and which emitted sparks an and d by this means he signalled signal led to an assistant in the wings the gentleman worked the air tube by a ball one pressure put the arm in motion two draped it on a figure a third made it pick the figure up then the arm moved aimlessly until a it double pressure dropped the numeral in its place for an example of another kind of trickery we take that wonder moving sight eight the firing of a living livin hod body from rom a cannon th this is is re really ly ona ono of the most trumpery and t transparent of dod dodges 9 es an and it is rather surprising that it should continue to draw good houses the greatest sensation in this line was created by lulu who performing was a fair young IV lady with ith blonde locks long BU and in in private lifo life a spectacled young fellow of about twenty eight eight young or t thirty airty sho she or he be was a shot ot from a truly terrible cooki looking cannon callnon into an eno enormous rinous net net but the force necessary for the propulsion camo came from a spring and not from gunpowder though of course sufficient of that commodity was fired to creat a loud report eijiu ceiling v walking king which at one ti time no cm created gi d a great sensation has ha been acco accounted un ted for both by mag map netiam and atmospheric pressure I 1 afim hf iM 1 I 1 I 1 I 1 it ilia is aid however that springs or hooks have always been employed walking pure and simple is not often seen in connection with the variety stage in thia this country but in iha the Ame american dime tau museum seum it appears to be common enough writing in a recent cumber number of a transatlantic piper tho the pr proprietor 11 r ip or of one be of places gilp gives 1 what l t ho he calls some inside figures T con a berning ft a tireless walker this in man all to walk night and day could not stop and would havo have died if he had bad been off the track fifteen minutes so the crowds of keople people who flocked to see him tully believed eli eved the explanation 0 of f t the lie whole matter according to tho the showman eh is thia this there were two walkers twin brothers who looked and dressed just alike when one was taking a quiet sleep the other waa was spinning around the tape as if he be were chased by bloodhounds it is truly remarkable all thin things ga co considered 11 si dered that conjurers and variety artists manage to keep their secrets so closely think for example of the number of people who must have been taken into the tile confidence of arne era in in respect of a certain trick alone we refer to the stock dodge of a wizard taking a cab driving to a hotel and then refusing to pay the fare A row arises the pa police ll 11 ce are summoned the professor gives his card and not only states that he has paid already but that tha to 0 owing wing to absence of mind he it has 11 passed the fare into the callmann carmans cab call mans manS hat or boot and there sure enough it is found now it need bardl hardly be said that no earthly power cou could T d get a it coin into a mans mana boot without his know ing of it As a matter of fact this little trick is always arranged during a few minutes private conversation between the conjurers servant and the cabman the con federates to this simple dodge however never tell or if they do tell nobody believes them at the same time there is one instance on record of how a conjurer was fair fairly ay outwitted in connection n with hia his trick at a town in the south of france the usual preliminaries pre luminaries limin aries had been duly arranged but the cabman obstinate obstinately refused to play his part and in ze the end the conjurer was taken before the local judge where he be told the usual tale the cabman admitted that there 7 was as money mon ey in his boot as according to his story he was in the habit of using that covering as a cash box and indeed when hia his boot was taken off several coins much more in amount th than an the conjurer asserted was there dropped out thereupon the conjurer frer had to pay his fara fare a beco second bd time in e and look aa as pleasant as possible |