BLOWING THE GAFF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 46, 23 February 1935, Page 8 (Supplement)

BLOWING THE GAFF.

A CONJURER'S CONFESSIONS.

FAMOUS 11/LTJSIONS. CHUNG LING SOO'S END. In 1018 Chung Ling Soo, the "Chinese" illusionist—actually William E. Robinson, a Scots-American —was mortally wounded on the stage of the Wood Green Empire by a rifle used in Ms most spectacular illusion. Great showman to tho last, he called out in his death agony, "King down the curtain!"

What exactly had happened? Suicide —probably the most ingenious ever contrived —is tho theory advanced by Mr. Will Gokl3ton, founder of tho Magicians' Club, says Trevor Allen in "John o' London's Weekly." First, members of the audience examined and marked four bullets handed them by Soo's assistant. They were taken to Soo, who openly loaded them into four rifles after he had put in charges of powder and cotton wool plugs. The rifles were fired by four assistants, and ho caught the marked bullets on a plate hold in front of him. That is what tho audience saw. What it did not see was that in returning to the stage the assistant had no difficulty in retaining tho marked bullets in her hand and letting- four others roll on to the plate. The four marked bullets were secretly dropped into Soo's hand when the plate was handed to him. The barrel of each riflo was divided down the centre with a partition—there wore really two tubes in one large tube. Into the uppermost tube tho powder was poured and rammed down with a plus of cotton wool. The bullet was dropped into the lower tube and thus, was never near the powder. As an additional precaution tlio bullet was lield in place by a clip. Evidence for Suicide. Tho accident, says Mr. Goldston, was due to a minute hole between the two tubes in the barrel of one rifle; the bullet, in spite of the clip, being fired by the explosion. And Soo himself arranged it by opening the sealed barrel. On the night in question he loaded the rifle himself, although this was usually done by an assistant. He had taken pains to clear up his personal affairs during the week. He was worried by domestic troubles. The fatality occurred at the final performance on the Saturday night. A friend, Mr. Goldston declares, happened to call on Soo in the interval between the two performances. "As my friend entered the dressing room lio found the magician toying with the rifle. This, fact takes on an added importance when one considers that any damage done to the rifle must have been done during the first and second performances on tho Saturday night."

The Mad Magician. Another illusionist who met a tragic end was "The Great Lafayette," burned to deatli in a fire at the Empire Theatre, Edinburgh, in 1911. It had been popularly supposed that Lafayette perished in the flames because, although escape was open to him, he insisted on trying to rescue his horse. A more likely explanation is that it was his insistence on the "pass (the iron door leading from tho stage into the auditorium) being locked during his performance that cost him his life.

This locking of the pass door was one of Lafayette's idiosyncrasies. He always insisted on it, to prevent any leakage of his secrets.

Mr. Goldston calls Lafayette "the most hated magician that ever lived," and considered him quite mad. He drilled his assistants like soldiers, and demanded that they should salute him in the street. He bought a diamond collar for his dog. He paid even the smallest accounts by cheque, no matter if the debt was only a penny. His dog. Beauty, was his great weakness. It was this animal whose portrait was on all the magician's cheques and theatrical contracts. A special bathroom was built for the dog at Lafayette's house in Torrington Square, and at night time tlie animal was served with a regular table d'hote meal, complete from soup to sweets. Beauty's portrait hung outside the house with this inscription beneath: "The more I see of men, the more I love my dog." The Appearing Children. Mr. Goldston divulges the machinery of so many famous tricks that his book "Secrets of Famous Illusionists" might be called "Magicians Debunked." In an age of disillusion he does not permit us to preserve our illusions even about illusionists. Lafayette, for example, dressed as an Egyptian, produced two children from an empty cylinder. His walk across the stage was slow and deliberate, in harmony with the part, chiefly because the children were inside his robe, hanging from a belt —and the back of the cylinder, away from the audience, was fitted with spring doors through which they could creep.

He displayed a girl sitting in'a bath, threw a bath towel over her head, whisked it away, and—presto! the girl had vanished. The bath was on short legs, aiul the audience could see beneath it. No one ever imagined that there could be other means of exit, namely, right through one end; but it was in that way, under cover of the towel, that the girl/escaped —through one end of the bath and through 'little doors in the scenery. The towel had a wire frame concealed in it to represent the girl's head during the few moments occupied by her escape.»

In the role of "The Sculptor," he also, like Pygmalion; modelled a girl on a trestle and brought lier to life. The girl was concealed in the table, tho top of which had a sliding trap. Simple! —- especially with lumps of clay at the sides to cover her emergence.

One of Novil Maskelyne's most famous illusions 'was "Psycho," an automat'.': figure that played whist with members of the audience. Under the figure, which sat with crossed legs, was a small box

of machinery. The model was always given out for examination. Then a small stool, under which the audience could see, was placed on the stage. On this stool was placed a large glass cylinder, and on the top of the cylinder rested Psvclao.

I These apparently elaborate precautions to isolate the figure from tlie stage were really a connecting link. Tho motive power was compressed air, which could operate quite invisibly through the glass cylinder. The magician, who knew the players' cards, communicated by code with an assistant below the stage, and the assistant worked the bellows that worked the figure. Wonderful! Was Houdini Defeated ? Holulini, that arch-escaper, was once challenged by a newspaper to escape from handcuffs which a Birmingham blacksmith had taken five years to perfect and could be opened only by a special key. He toiled and moiled in his cabinet for an hour. Then ho asked his wife to bring him a glass of water, which she did. Ten minutes later he emerged triumphant and flung the bracelets on the stage. The London .Hippodrome audience thundered applause. / A

man "whose sources of information were usually correct" told Mr. Goldston that after an hour's struggling the magician realised he would never escape. So he asked his wife for a glass of water, and gave lier to understand she would have to procure the key at all costs. Bessie called one of the journalists aside, and frankly told him that her husband was beaten. Since failure would have meant the end of everything for Houdini, whilst to the paper it meant but little, she asked to be given the key to pass on to her husband. ' This request was granted. It was rumoured that Bessie placed tho key in the glass of water and took it to Houdini on the stage. Mr. Goldston thinks this story an exaggeration.

Magicians are lucky people. The more they give each other away the more we want to see them perform.