DEFIED GALLOWS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 99, 29 April 1933, Page 4 (Supplement)

DEFIED GALLOWS.

MESSAGES FROM BEYOND.

HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE TRICKED

A BURLESQUE OF DEATH,

Bon Mahomet Abu, the hero of the following amazing story, was the world's greatest gallows wonder. Nightly, for several years, he would be hanged from a gallows on the stage in full view of hundreds of people. And, though the audiences could see Ben dangling for fifteen minutes at the end of a rope —he was always alive when they cut him down!

The scene, enacted in the little town of Middleboro', in the United States, on the memorable night when Ben made his first appearance there, is reconstructed as follows: —

The hall was packed to capacity. From miles around men and women had flocked to see "The Man Who Cannot Die." When the curtain rose, a great gruesome gallows could be seen in the ce_utre of the stage. A heavy rope, with a hangman's noose at its end swung menacingly from the beam. Every light in the hall was shut off, and in their place shone a solitary green ray which bathed the gallows in an unearthly glow. • Tom-toms. Suddenly, from the right side of the platform, came a beat of African _ tomtoms. And to this weird accompaniment Mahomet Ben Abu, a gigantic negroid type of humanity, was solemnly introduced by his managers —Professor _ and Mme. Fitzhugh, two spiritualistic mediums. "Ladies and gentlemen!" Ben began, speaking a strange jumble of broken English, "I am about to be hanged by the neck until I am what is called 'dead.' And while I am in this state, my mediums will bring messages to you from me, spoken from the other side of the grave. Madame Fitzhugh—will you kindly go among the audience and have the questions written? Remember, my friends, let nobody see what you write. I will go now and prepare for the ordeal."

After a few moments' absence, Ben, wearing only a loin cloth, appeared again on the stage, arm in arm with Professor Fitzhugh. In an eeri s silence, a black bag was placed over the "doomed" man's head. The noose was placed about his neck, and a shiver of apprehension went through the entire audience. Six • lusty men were invited on to the platform, and they were bidden to haul on the rope.

"You have seen the noose about Ben's neck. We will now tie his hands behind his back so that he cannot touch the rope. A condemned man is allowed to swing for five minutes after he is dead. Ben will hang for fifteen!" the professor announced:

Then the signal to pull was given. With a heave, the men yanked. The body flew high into the air. It swung and contorted. The black hooded figure was well and truly hanged!

A woman screamed. Another giggled hysterically. They were watching something unreal, uncanny—the hanging of a fellow being. Swiftly the professor and his partner went about through the audience, collecting the written questions from those who wished to receive messages from the "dead." Fifteen minutes later they cut Ben down. With a thud the inert body

crashed to the floor. Both mediums leaned over the figure. The black hood was removed, and, while the audience gasped in revulsion, Mme. Fitzhugh took Ben's head on her lap and gently splashed his face with water. Just a Fake. Ben was back from the dead. At least so it seemed to every man and woman in that crowded hall. But —the whole thing was one of the most astonishing fakes in the history of theatrical spoof! Mr. Julian J. Proskauer, who solves the riddle of "The Man Who Could Not Die" in his book, "Spook Crooks!" states that the rope and gallows are absolutely the same as those used by hangmen in executions —but in the noose and blaek mask lies the secret. When the black mask was put on Ben's head he raised his hands inside the cloth covering as though to straighten out the noose.

But when he put his right hand up he took from a hidden pocket in the mask an apparatus known in circus parlance as a "tooth-bit."

A "tooth-bit" is a hard rubber and metal clip that circus acrobats use in their mouths when doing flying trapeze acts. Ben was a former circus performer. He placed the "tooth-bit" in his mouth, moved the noose over from behind his ear, inserted the metal clip attached to the mouthpiece deeply between the strands of the rope, and was all ready to be hanged.

It would have been impossible for him to hang for fifteen minutes suspended by his teeth, but when the light changed from green to white at one interval of the performance, there was a momentary blackout. And in that moment the hanging man swung back into the black background, and a dummy was substituted. At the end- of the . question-writing business there was another momentary black-out, and Ben himself took the piace of the dummy.

The written questions were adroitly read by the "mediums" by means of a hidden apparatus inserted in the block-pads handed out to the unsuspecting audience! This is only one of the scores of instances of impudent fakes worked by the "Spook Crooks," whose methods Mr. Proskauer so cleverly unmasks.

Anther interesting method of the "Spook Crooks," is revealed by an official of the Society of American Magicians.

It's Easy.

A sitter is requested to write a question on a small piece of paper. The medium isn't anywhere near. The sitter is asked t.» roll the paper into a small pellet, drop it into an.envelope And seal the envelope, the medium remaining at the distance all the time. Only after the envelope is se<urely sealed, does the medium walk over. l Then he picks up a pair of liretongs such as you find in front of almost any fireplace, and the sitter, not the medium, is asked to place the envelope into the prongs of the tongs, which are then immediately held into the fire by the medium. The envelope, always in iull sight, is thoroughly consumed by the flames. Yet, after a few moments, the medium is able to "answer" the question.

The secret, as this "magician" discovered, was that the paper on which the message was written was dropped into a corner of the envelope, and this was the corner held by the tongs. All but this small part of the envelope in the tongs was consumed by the lire, the question pellet remaining uninjured. Later, it was a comparatively simple matter for the medium to retrieve and read the question, ahd so give a suitable answer.