EXAMPLES OF DETECTIVE MAGIC.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2293, 5 January 1900, Page 6

EXAMPLES OF DETECTIVE MAGIC.

Magicians abound at the present day in all the great centres of civilisation—Cheiromancers, Spiritualists, Seers of the Crystal, Mahatmas, Thought Readers, Astrologers, interpreters of the cards and the coffee grounds. But they give no assistance to the police. The divine power which animates them refuses to do such mean service. It is a pity. They may scorn the profits which would flow in. But philanthropy is their strong point in general, and they could confer no benefit on a fellow creature more heartily appreciated that the restoration of his lost property. Moreover, they are all anxious to make proselytes, and what means could be more effective ? Savants and personages whose conversion would be a triumph have proclaimed that they are ready to believe all that is asked of them if the adept will perform that miracle. But the spirits or something forbid, and it is no use to argue. Fortunately (says the " Evening Standard, ") there are magicians elsewhere whose protecting genius is not so particular, and very striking feats have been attributed to them by persons whose honesty and intelligence stand above question. We may take for example the evidence of Mr. Swettenham, C.8., now Resident of Perak. Hopeless of recovering some valuable property which had been stolen from him, he followed the advice of friends and vfjjKjijh't a wizard. Two professors assured him they would do his business " in a jiffy, twit they did not keep appointments made.

A third performed his operations privately and denounced the thief to Mr. Swettenham, who expressed a wish to see the process by which he had been identified. A large earthenware bowl was filled with water, and a piece of cotton was tied over the top —as it were a drum. Mr. Sweetenham wrote the name of every person who had been in his house when the robbery was committed, folded up each paper, and laid one of them on the drum. He wrote the names in English, which assuredly no one present could understand, going into a corner to do so, folded the slips exactly alike, and shuffled them together. Two men supported the bowl upon the tips of their fingers, and the wizard read a chapter of the Koran. Nothing happened —so the slip was withdrawn and another substituted. Four names thus dismissed, a fifth was laid upon the cotton. " The reading had scarcely commenced when the bowl began to turn slowly round, the supporters letting their hands go round with it, until it twisted itself out of their fingers and fell on the floor with a considerable bang and a great spluttering of water through the thin cover. It was the name of the person already mentioned by the chief." Mr. Sweetenham did not tell him so, but asked for a repetition of the ordeal—always the same result followed. "It was a curious coincidence certainly. The name disclosed was that of the person whom there was most reason to suspect, but beyond that I learned nothing." Most people would describe the success in • terms more impressive than " curious coincidence. One can only deal with a theme of this sort by telling stories. Many practices of detective magic indeed are nothing more than shrewd tricks, like that which Miss Eden was persuaded to try when robbed "Up country." All her servants paraded, and the Mullah gave each a mouthful of rice flour, which they had each to spit out after certain texts of the Koran had been read. The guilty man would be unable to do so—evidently because fear had dried his mouth. The incantation was quite unnecessary. In this instance one of the servants duly choked, and on opening his jaws they found the flour dry—but it was the one man of whose innocence Miss Eden felt assured. She may have been wrong nevertheless. Such ordeals very often detect the thief, assuredly, but they cannot be made amusing, or even interesting, to the public. The Kaffir Doloss is more promising. Boers in general, and perhaps most Englishmen bred and born on the veldt, have much more confidence in him than in the cleverest policeman. Those who laugh at the supernatural pretensions of the Doloss consult him all the same, believing that any unusual occurrence with which the natives are acquainted comes to his ears. Thus he can answer a question as soon as it is put to him, or before. His art deals especially with lost or stolen cattle. Producing a quantity of bones and pebbles, the Doloss throws them on the ground, and after long study answers the questions put to him. In our time there was one at Bultfontein upon the Diamond Fields, whom numberless legends of the camp declared infallible. Mr. Bain, the Commissioner, laughingly onoe remarked to us that if the good faith of this old nigger could be trusted, Government would do well to appoint him head detective. There was another great Doloss at Old De Beers apparently, for Mr. D. Weber tells how he declared in an instant where two lost mules would be found, after days of search, when hope was abandoned. Lane told an interesting story in his " Modern Egyptians." upon the authority, as he expressly states, of Mr. Salt, H.M.'s Consul-General. This gentleman had been robbed. He sent for a famous magician, who undertook to show the guilty person to any boy who had not reached the age of puberty. A number of boys were working in Mr. Salt's garden. He sent for one, thus satisfying himself that collusion was impossible. Taking the child's right hand, he drew a diagram upon the palm, and in the centr3 of it he made a little pool of ink. Into this pool he told the boy to look steadfastly. Then he burned incense and written charms, at the same time commanding various objects to appear in the ink. Each of these objects the boy saw, as he declared. FiuaiJy the thief was summoned; "he described his stature, countenance, and dresssaid he knew him—and directly ran down into the garden and apprehended one of the labourers, who, when brought before his master, immediately confessed his guilt." No one could question the absolute truth of this story as told, and upon such authority, certified by a high official, it is very striking. But the boy must have been familiar with the ink " business," by report at least, seeing that it is the regular practice of the magicians in Egypt. He and all hiß fellows may very well have known who it was that stole Mr. Salt's goods, and of course he could describe a labourer working in the garden which he had just quitted. The things he had to see in the ink were named —it was only necessary,in fact,to say " Yes." One must ask why any robberies in Cairo remained undetected, if this professor could name the thief with the assistance of any little boy who came along. There were plenty of his sort—Lane had some fascinating adventures with them, as most people know. And they charged a very small fee. But we do not hear that plundered householders applied to them.