NECROMANCER AND ILLUSIONIST.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVII, Issue 1008, 1 July 1909, Page 9

NECROMANCER AND ILLUSIONIST.

CHUNG LING SOO’S REMARKABLE CAREER. THE “BLACK ART” DOWN TO DATE.” “ Pleased to meet you,” said Chung Ling Soo, as, introduced by Mr. Allan Hamilton at the Central Hotel, he rose to meet the “ Review ” representative, holding out his hand in friendly greeting, with all the easy affability of the well-bred man of the world. “ Not the least bit like a Chinaman,” was the unspoken thought of the newspaper man as he responded to the cordial handshake, and noted the pure English spoken by the celebrated Celestial conjurer, who has mystified and bewildered great multitudes in all parts of the world during his brilliantly successful career, extending now considerably over thirty years. A pleasant featured, gentlemanlylooking man, still the right side of fifty, is Chung Ling Soo. There is the look of a good-humoured Scotchman about h'm, his mouth and chin more particularly displaying his Celtic origin. He has a friendly smile for everyone, and even when he tells you he is vexed over something that has gone wrong, you feel he has perfect command over himself, and he remains the courteous gentleman. He has sharp, observant eyes that miss nothing, and restless fingers that appear to be always anxious to get at some new thing. You are not long in his company before you are impressed by his personality, and feel that he is a man of great resourcefulness, and of a resolute and indomitable will —one given to overcoming obstacles, as much for the pleasure of achieving the seemingly impossible, as of convincing the sceptical that there are few things which cannot be done by a man who sets his mind to accomplish them.

Mr. Chung Ling Soo was born in Canton on April 2, 1861. His father was a Scotch engineer named Campbell, who married a Cantonese lady, a member of the great Chung family, and died when young Campbell was only seven years old. As is the custom in China, his widowed mother returned to her father’s home, taking her boy with her, and he was reared as a member of the Chung family. When the lad was but twelve years of age, his mother died, and Chung Ling Soo, as he was now called, was apprenticed to a Chinese juggler named Arr Hee. In taking up the calling of a conjurer, Chung Ling Soo seems, as he himself puts it, to have followed the natural bent of his mind. He inherits a good deal of his father’s ability as a mechanician, and says that, after all, conjuring tricks of almost every description, and more particularly “ the big things,” are based upon mechanics. During his apprenticeship young Soo accompanied Arr Hee from Canton to South America, and travelled with him through that continent until he was fifteen years of age. Then, his master considering that he had made enough in the business, retired, and handed over his “ bag of tricks ” to his erstwhile apprentice, who decided to continue on his own account, and went through Mexico to tne United States, remaining in America for 12 years. While there he was married to a Chinese lady, who, in her way, is every bit as clever as her husband. From the States he went to British Columbia and Canada, touring those countries for four years, and then going on to Europe, travelling through England, France, Germany, and other countries, and spending between eight and nine years in England alone. In London he accepted Mr. Rickards’ offer to visit the leading Australasian centres, and is delighted with the warmth of the welcome everywhere extended to him in these Colonies. On the present occasion he has only been able to show at Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, and Auckland, but puts in a night at Hamilton next week, prior to returning to Sydney and Melbourne, where his Australasian tour ends, as he has to be back in England on November Ist, to open up on the Stohl Circuit, his engagements there extending over into June, 1911. Speaking of his special line of business, Mr. Soo told the interviewer that he could do almost any tricks that merely required sleight of hand, but he had long ago found out that what the public liked best—and that was, therefore, what they wanted most — was something big and sensational. They preferred the spectacular effects to the lighter tricks of legerdemain, and he determined they should have them. One of his tricks —the great lamp illusion —cost him over £5OO to prepare, and he carries with him a staff of highly trained assistants, in-

eluding his own electrician, his own cabinetmaker, his own carpenter, and his own blacksmith, who are continually working with Mr. Soo on new tricks or in improving the old ones. Mr. and Mrs. Soo are naturalised American citizens, and are not, therefore, subject to any of those restrictions at the Colonial Customs Houses imposed upon subjects of the Celestial Empire. But everywhere he goes Mr. Soo makes, and is made much of by the Chinese. In Sydney he was entertained in characteristically hearty fashion. In Wellington also hospitalities were showered upon Mrs. Soo and himself, and he was further the guest of the Chinese Consul at a banquet given in his honour. He has a flag that was presented to him by the Chinese of Sydney, and enjoys in singular fashion the confidence of Chinamen wherever he goes. We were not long in Mr. Soo’s company before we had a taste of his quality, the tricks he played being ofthe bewildering and mystifying order. To recite them all would be too long a task. From numbers ranging from one to nine, the writer struck out first three numbers, then two, then one, leaving the ‘ ‘3,” the “ 4,” and the “ 7 ” alone visible on the paper. “ Now then,” said Mr. Soo, “strike out the one you want,” and the pencil went through, the “ 4.” “ Turn the paper -over,” said the conjurer. The pressman did so, and there the figure “ 4 ” was visible in quite another part of the paper. The same thing happened in regard to three Christian names—- “ Charles,” “William,” and “Henry,” written on a slip of paper by the pressman, in response to the conjurer’s invitation to write down three Christian names. When asked to “Strike out the name you want,” the writer drew his pencil through “William,” and on turning the paper over found that name also written on the back. Of a different order was the trick played with a bedroom tumbler, which was enveloped in a newspaper rolled tightly around it, and placed on a toilet table within reach of the pressman, at which Mr. Soo was seated and under which he first passed a penny from the one hand and then removed it without lifting the glass, completely mystifying the writer by bringing one hand smartly down upon the paper, and apparently upon the glass also, smashing the paper as flat as a pancake, and drawing the glass, without a vestige of paper upon it, from under the table with the other hand, immediately afterwards bringing the penny out, also from under the table. But these are “ little tricks,” and Mr. Chung Ling Soo is seen at his best in the big things he accomplishes in the blaze of the footlights. There he shines as a magician of the first water. Three hundred, possibly even fifty years ago, he would have been regarded as an exponent of the “black art,” and would have run the risk of being prosecuted as a sorcerer. We know better nowadays, and are aware that all of his tricks are capable of being simply explained. The difficulty is to supply the explanation and to say how they are done.