HELLER'S SECOND-SIGHT TRICK.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 652, 17 March 1879, Page 2

HELLER'S SECOND-SIGHT TRICK.

A contemporary says :— " Robert Helldr, the noted pianist, who died at Philadelphia last November, was the son of Mr. Henry Palmer, a highly respected professor of music of goodsocial standing, and was born at Canterbury, England, m the year 1828. William Henry Palmer, whose itomde guerre was 'Robert Heller,' received a good education at the collegiate school of Professor Stacker, at Boughton, Kent, and afterwards became a fellow of the Royal Academy, London. At the age of ten years he was a musical prodigy, and at sixteen he appeared m concert, and had composed several brilliant studies for the pianoforte. His musical career was hindered by his boyish fancy for the illusions of magic — at first a mere recreation, afterwards an infatuation. His marriage was not a happy one, and he undertook a ' magical' expedition around the world, accompanied by Miss Ada Palmer his step-sister, and who from that time assisted his entertainments as Miss Heller. Mr. Heller leaves a wife and three children, residing m Paris, a married sister m England, and a brother, a lawyer, m Australia. Robert Heller will be remembered for his second-sight trick more than for anything else. That feature of his performances, consisting of the description, by a blindfolded woman on the stage, of articles touched by him m the audience, was not new with him, but he carried it to a greater degree of mystification than any of his predecessors. The late Mr. Anderson and his daughter used to do it cleverly, and many others have tried it with more or lens success. The wildest explanatory theories have been gravely advanced,, but it is altogether likely that the celebrated French juggler, Robert Houdin, by whom the feat was performed, gave m his autobiography the correct solution. Houdin said that, by a complex system of new meanings for letters, syllables, and words, he was able to tell his confederate on the stage what the articles were while using language that to the audience convey no hidden intelligence. That is to say, a language within a language was constructed, so that the question, " What is this 1" might mean, "This is a gold ring with one stone." It is easily conceivable that a man of Heller's quick intelligence could, m a dozen years or more of constant practise, elaborate such a system to a wonderful extent, and devise variations — like the touching of a few previously arranged articles without saying anything — that would mislead a casual observer. One point seemed to prove that he used Houdin'i method. He would never permit anybody but himself to put the questions to the blindfolded woman."