A Magician Under Fire.

Evening Star, Issue 7652, 30 June 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

A Magician Under Fire.

tfrom, files of ‘ Le Neo-Caledonien ’ which have come to hand by the Wainui, we are placed in possession of a rather sensational episode which occurred at one of Professor Herbert s sleight-of-hand performances in the capital of the French colony. One of the most notable tricks in the wizard’s repertoire is to allow one of his audience to fire at him with a loaded pistol and to catch or pretend to catch the bullet between his teeth, and to exhibit it to the astonished spectators. On the night in question, Professor Herbert was warned by his assistant (Mr Waite, jun.) that the man who had been selected from the audience to fire the shot, and who had placed a triple charge In the weapon, had unconsciously detached a piece of steel from the end of the ramrod, sad left it in the muzzle. The Professor, fearing to spoil the effect oi the feat by having the piece of steel dislodged, resolved to- chance the hazard of the shot, trusting to the man’s likelihood of missing, which he sought to increase by placing him at the end of the hall, a distance of about fifty feet. Unfortunately, the Frenchman was an accurate shot, and the Professor confessed to a very uneasy feeling as he watched him slowly bring the weapon down into position and carefully sight it. As he glanced at the level barrel he saw that it pointed straight at his breast, and that the man was taking very deliberate aim. Still, he held his ground with a hardihood that savored too much of the reckless. As the report rang through the hall he felt a sharp pain in the calf of the left leg as if a red-hot poker had been run through it, and, fearing that the appearance of blood from the wound might apprise hia audience of what had really happened, he ran hastily down amongst them, took the bullet from his teeth, and having exhibited it retired to the back of the stage amid thunders of applause. Once behind the curtain, he applied a ligature to the already bleeding wound, and went e a with his performance as if nothing had happened. Bat* a few keen-eyed persons, and amongst them the reporter of the ‘ Neo-Caledonien,’ had noticed that something unusual had occurred, and, inquiries having elicited the real facts, they were duly placed before the public in the course of a two-column panegyric of the performance, which appeared in the next issue of the local thunderer.—Auckland ‘Star,’