WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 300, 19 September 1928, Page 10

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

Wellington City Council is at loggerbeads as a result of a catch majority insisting on the unprecedented course of finding out how much money there is to spend on street widening before it spends it.

The fact that Britain’s House of Lords was once called on to give a decision about the merits of a conjuring trick is recalled by the death of Captain Clive Maskelyne, recorded in this morning’s news. It was the famous box trick of Captain Maskelyue’s grandfather that was iu dispute ou this historic occasion, thirty-odd years back. Mr. John Nevill Maskelyne, magician-in-cliief to London for nearly half a century began life as a watchmaker. Away back in 1559 he attended a seance given by the allegedly spiritualistic Davenport Brothers, who took off their coats while tightly bound liand-and-t'oot in a dark cabinet and achieved other marvels with the aid. as was generally supposed, of obliging spirits. It so chanced that when Mr. Maskelyn was watching these marvels a tiny ray of sunlight came through a clumsily-cur. lined window, and gave him a glimpse of how it was all done.

This ray of sunlight made Mr. Maskelyne a famous man. if not a wealthy one. for when he died in 1917. after many years before the publie as a worker of wonders, his magician's wand had only left a little over £5OOO in his pocket, and his son. who carried' on the business died four years back worth half that. This shows us that even producing cannon-balls out of champagne glasses is a lot easier than getting pound-notes into tiie bank. However, Mr. Maskelyne senior, after glimpsing how the Devonports got along i ithout the aid of spirits, pro needed to try it out himself. He amazed London by giving it an exhibition of himself floating in mid-air suspended apparently on nothing, and accomplished other feats making the Davenport seances seem very tame affairs by comparison.

The next year Mr. Maskelyne had London completely nonplussed with his famous box trick. In this box. a heavy oaken chest, he packed himself in in a close-fitting and cramped position, and the box was then wrapped in a canvas cover and corded with any length of rope that anyone desired, th® rope being tied in as many complicated knots as might be fancied. The job complete, a curtain was drawn around the box. and in seven seconds Mr. Maskelyne was out. He had a variation on this trick by which th® curtain was drawn while he v .is standing outside the box. and when in a few minutes it was drawn aside again the box was there wrapped and corded and with the conjurer inside.

London puzzled itself for years as to how the box trick was done. Mr. Maskelyne had a standing offer of a reward of £5OO to anyone who could perform "a correct imitation” of it. Two young men constructed a box and applied for permission to give a performance with it at. Mr. Maskelyue’s show. This was refused, so they performed their box trick privately before some friends and then claimed the £5OO. Mr. Maskelyne refused to pay. and the case went to Court before Mr. Justice Laurance and a jury. Mr. Maskelyne produced his box in Court and challenged the plaintiffs to disclose the secret. The jury could And nothing secret about the Maskelyne box. The imitation box was not produced is Court, and it was generally supposed that it had a sliding panel. Mr. Maskelyne contended that unless the secret of his box could be disclosed a correct imitation of bis trick could not be made. The other side said they did not care what the secret of Mr. Maskelyue’s box was. they had done the trick and wanted the money. The Judge, after examining the Maskelyne box carefully, expressed the opinion that the secret of it must be that Mr. Maskelyne did not get inside it at all. The jury disagreed about the claim and were discharged. In a second trial the jury, after long deliberation, found for the plaintiffs. A juryman afterwards explained that this result had been reached not because they thought the imitation box-trick was anything like as good as the Maskelyne box, but because the way Mr. Maskelyne had worded his challenge.

Mr. Maskelyne was not satisfied with this dose of law and went ahead with an appeal to the House of Lords and had the satisfaction only of losing it and having another long lawyer’s bill to pay as well as the £5OO claimed. As one writer said: "The majority of tho law lords, while fully admitting that the secret had never been discovered, were of opinion that the trick had been correctly ‘imitated.’ To people dealing with mechanical devices this decision is bound to appear a little curious. A mechanical trick is a mechanical invention, and when we have two absolutely different inventions, although they may produce more or less similar results, one is by no means an imitation of the other—to say nothing of a ’correct imitation.’ Applied to inventions generally such a ruling would produca disastrous results.” However it is the privilege of the law to be inconsistent. Although the case was lost, Mr. Maskelyne subsequently demonstrated that he could do his box-trick under difficult conditions that defeated his rivals completely.

“Church Life,” which ought to knowbetter, says that a grammar-school boyhanded in the following composition on “Cats that’s meant for little boys to maul and tease is called Maultese cats. Some cats is reckernized by how quiet their purrs is and these is named Persian eats. The cats what has very bad tempers is called Angoiie cats, and cats with deep feelins is , called Feline cats. I don’t like eats.’

The old family retainer has always held a privileged position iu a Scottish household, and he was allowed to take many liberties. Dean Ramsay tells of an old servant who became at last so weary of Ids master’s irascibility that he'declared he must leave, and gave as his reason the fits of anger which came on and produced such great annoyance that he could not stand it any longer. His master, unwilling to lose him, tried to coax him bv reminding him that the auger was soon off. "Ay,” replied the other, very shrewdly, “but it’s uae suner all than it’s on again.”

GOLD. •Fragile and fleeting Is its hour, Like fields of dandelion, One day in flower— Then grisly four-o’clocks, 'l’hat drift to death, Blown windward By tho puffing of :1 breath. -Edith Mii’ick iu the “Echo."