The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1881-09-30
zAMLOCHs ASSISTANT.
The TribuIations of a Magician.


When zamloch, the popular magician,
was in San francisco some time ago,
says the Laramie Boomerang, he was
short an assistant, and, as he had big
engagement at the Standard Theater, he
had to skirmish around and get one on
short notice.
Fate threw in his way man whom
we will call Higgins, because that was
his name.
Higgins walked over to tie magician's
house andwent through Sc veral rehears !.
ais o. K, but at about s. qurter of s in
the evening, and while the orchestra
was playing, he told Zs.mloch that he
was so near-sighted thai he couldn't tell
across the street the difference between
black tom cat and the solar eclipse.
This seemed to throw shade of sad
ness over the mind of the conjurer, for
the assistant In a performance of this
kind has got to be man with every
sense on the alert, and with touch at
once delicate and certain. 1t won't do
to go across the stage like blind mule,
falling over chairs and knocking choice
illusion gallery west every few minutes.
any degree of accuracyis liable to mar the
magic Of a choice performance, and the
audience will see that, instead of being
supernatural power, it is only club
footed assistant who ought to be skinning
mules at 81 a week, who is doing the
business.
So the professor told Higgins that he
had better go down town and get him a
pair of glasses, as he didn't want to ex-
pose all his expensive tricks to San
Francisco audience at regular prices OF
admission. He said he might want to
use these same tricks again some time
and he hated like blazes to give himself
dead away while he was doing so well.
just as the curtain rang>up, Higgins
came back with his goggles and Joy was
unconfined. He got along pretty well
till there was an illusion introduced in
which the magician took bird cage
and lot OF other furniture out of port
folio lying on the table, winding up by
picking live boy out of the volume.
The portfolio lay on an ordinary table,
and Zamloch had cut trap-door under
meath this, and provided Higgins, who
was under the stage, with a short lad
der. Upon given signal the assistant
was to open the trap, and, showing up
the ladder, scoot the boy through the
table, the magician then taking him out
of the portfolio to slow music and deaf
ening applause.
Zamloch had taken out Just before
four or five large Autographs, and stood
legs of the table, when he gave the sig
nal to his assistant to jab the boy
through the floor and table into the
portfolio. .s.
Higgins, whose eyesight was about as
good as that of plaster cast of Milton,
rammed the ladder up against the litho-
graphs and knocked them down, so that
the most attractive feature of the illu-
sion was the dissolving view of a
freckled-nosed boy shining up a 81
ladder through the trap-door.
Most everybody In the theater seemed
pleased about something except Fam
Ioch, Higgins and the boy. The utmost
good feeling seemed to reign throughout
the audience. ...a at5s
Zamloch, however, seemed to have
preoccupled and far-aWay look. Hlg-
gins, too, seemed to feel as though per-
haps he might have made q miss-lick
somehow.
The boy thought the spectators were
laughing at the red flannel conclusion of
his shirt, which in the excitement had
become disarranged, and was at that mo-
ment in perihelion with the disk of his
pantaloons,
Zamloch said he would conclude the
entertainment with a mirth-provoking
illusion, in which he would ram q full
grown man into double-barreled shot
gun and shoot at mark. No one in
the audience apparently hankering for
the notoriety, the magician decided to
useHiggins.
Higgins has not been seen in Califor-
MIA since then, and the janitor, who
found large wart on the stage which he
said he could identify, thinks that there
has been foul play somewhere.-Boom-
eTO3lQ.