Magic, Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, Including Trick Photography. Albert A. Hopkins
The magician, it will be seen, can only walk completely around the reclining lady before the bar is in place or after it is withdrawn. When the bar is in place, he can walk behind her, but cannot go completely around her. Hence his complete excursions are restricted to the time when she is resting on the chairs, before the bar is in place or after it has been withdrawn.
After the board is vacated, Svengali throws it down upon the stage, its fall, with accompanying noise and disturbance, showing that there is no deception about that portion of the display.
THE “HAUNTED SWING.”
TRUE POSITION OF THE SWING.
ILLUSION PRODUCED BY A RIDE IN THE SWING.
The supreme happiness of sitting in a swing which apparently whirls around its points of support, giving the occupant what is most properly described as a new sensation, may now be enjoyed by all. It is termed the “haunted swing,” and has been in most successful operation at Atlantic City and at the Midwinter Fair near San Francisco. Those who are to participate in the apparent gyrations of the swing—and there may be quite a number who enjoy it simultaneously—are ushered into a small room. From a bar crossing the room, near the ceiling, hangs a large swing, which is provided with seats for a number of people. After the people have taken their places, the attendant pushes the car and it starts into oscillation like any other swing. The room door is closed. Gradually those in it feel after three or four movements that their swing is going rather high, but this it is not all. The apparent amplitude of the oscillations increases more and more, until presently the whole swing seems to whirl completely over, describing a full circle about the bar on which it hangs. To make the thing more utterly mysterious, the bar is bent crank fashion, so that it seems demonstrably impossible for the swing to pass between bar and ceiling. It continues apparently to go round and round this way, imparting a most weird sensation to the occupants, until its movements begin gradually to cease and the complete rotation is succeeded by the usual back and forth swinging, and in a few seconds, as the children say, “the old cat dies.” The door of the room is opened and the swinging party leave. Those who have tried it say the sensation is most peculiar and the deception perfect.
The illusion is based on the movements of the room proper. During the entire exhibition the swing is practically stationary, while the room rotates about the suspending bar. At the beginning of operations the swing may be given a slight push; the operators outside the room then begin to swing the room itself, which is really a large box journaled on the swing bar, starting it off to correspond with the movements of the swing. They swing it back and forth, increasing the arc through which it moves until it goes so far as to make a complete rotation. The operatives do this without special machinery, taking hold of the sides and corners of the box or “room.” At this time the people in the swing imagine that the room is stationary while they are whirling through space. After keeping this up for some time, the movement is brought gradually to a stop, a sufficient number of back and forth swings being given at the finale to carry out the illusion to the end.
The room is as completely furnished as possible, everything being, of course, fastened in place. What is apparently a kerosene lamp stands on a table, near at hand. It is securely fastened to the table, which in its turn is fastened to the floor, and the light is supplied by a small incandescent lamp within the chimney, but concealed by the shade. The visitor never imagines that it is an electric lamp, and naturally thinks that it would be impossible for a kerosene lamp to be inverted without disaster, so that this adds to the deception materially. The same is to be said of the pictures hanging on the wall, of the cupboard full of chinaware, of the chair with a hat on it, and of the baby carriage. All contribute to the mystification. Even though one is informed of the secret before entering the swing, the deception is said to be so complete that passengers involuntarily seize the arms of the seats to avoid being precipitated below.
THE “SCURIMOBILE.”
THE SCURIMOBILE.
The peculiar gun shown in the cut is named after its inventor, Alessandro Scuri, of Liège, Belgium. M. Scuri is also known as the inventor of a unicycle and a quadruple cornet. The “scurimobile” is a gun with two barrels which can be aimed at different objects, the angle between the barrels being adjustable. The adjustment is effected by moving a ring located on the under side of the gun. The pivot of the barrels is so arranged that it is easy to sight two objects at the same time. Both cartridges are automatically ejected after each shot fired. It is also possible to use only one barrel in the ordinary way. In the cut the inventor is shown aiming at two balls placed about a yard apart. Another valuable feature of this new gun is its applicability as a range finder. The observer first sights two objects which are at about equal distances from him, and measures the distance or angle between the two barrels, a graduation being provided for this purpose. Then the same operation is made from a point more distant from the objects first sighted. If the observer steps back ten yards, and finds that the graduation indicates just one-half of the value obtained at first, he will know that in the second position he was just twice as far from the objects as in the first position, so that the objects are ten yards from the observer’s first position. This operation will give distances with sufficient accuracy in most cases, but more exact results can be obtained by means of a simple trigonometric formula when the angle between the barrels is measured.
“THE NEOÖCCULTISM.”
The X rays, after becoming the indispensable coadjutors of surgeons, and even of physicians, are now competing with the most noted mediums in the domain of the marvelous.
M. Radiguet, the well known manufacturer of physical apparatus, has been devoting himself for a long time to experiments with the Roentgen rays in the laboratory, which is encumbered with electric lamps, lamp globes, and glass apparatus of all kinds. One day he perceived that these glass objects, under the action of the X rays, shone in the darkness. Here again was an amusing and perhaps a useful experiment due to accident. Useful, because the radiographs obtained up to the present, by means of artificial screens, have been really good only when the sensitive bodies have been in small crystals. In a pulverulent state they are nearly insensible to the X rays, and it is almost impossible to obtain the grain of the screen upon the photographic plate. It is easy, on the contrary, to work the glass in such a way as to prevent any irregularity in the radiograph. Such experiments will certainly be made ere long, but, for the present, it is the fantastic side of the discovery that we shall present to our readers.
Porcelain, enamels, and diamonds, and also objects covered with platino-cyanides (used by Roentgen) and with calcium tungstate, zinc sulphate, etc., have, like glass, the property of becoming luminous in darkness under the action of the X rays. We have, therefore, only the trouble of selection in order to get up a “spirit séance” with every certainty of success, while genuine spiritual séances fail in most cases, as well known, because the spirits are in an ill mood and disposed to be coyish.
ARRANGEMENT FOR A STRIKING EXPERIMENT WITH THE X RAYS.
The following will prove a scene sufficiently weird to put the most intrepid worldlings in a flurry if some one of our friends takes it into his head to give them the mysterious spectacle thereof before they have read an exposure of the trick.
THE APPARITION.