Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1886-01-22
AN ELECTRIFIED PARTY.
New Years Festival Given by "a
Modern Magician.

MODERN magician.
Mr.. William Hammer gave an electric
supper to few old classmates on Christ
mas Eve. II was like an evening in sheol.
MIR. Hammer has been associated with
Edison, the great electrician, for such a
long time, and has become SO stepped in
electricity that it fairly oozes out at his
finger tips. He carries lightning about
in his pockets as carelessly as boy would
carry toad. His pretty little home at
No. % Rowland street is built upon Lev
den jars and batteries and queer electrical
inventions, and everything about the
place from opening the front gate to
blacking shoes is done by electricity.
You can't walk across the threshold with
out ringing bells or sounding burglar
alarms, or lighting the gas, or doing some
odd thing that you never dreamed of do
ing: Thursday. evening Mr.. Hammer
had all the hidden wires about his house
connected so as to give his twenty guests
lively time. As far as outward appear
ances went, the parlors and dining room
apartments. But hidden beneath the
carpets and in the walls and ceilings
were strange systems of wires and but
tons and signals that made the place like
one oil the enchanted castles we used TO
read about in fairy-tale days. .
You enter the gate and the house APP
pears dark, but as your foot touches the
lower stoop three electric lights blaze out
and the number Of the house appears in
bright relief. The next step sets q bell
to ringing. and the third throws open the
door and lights the gas in the hall by
electricity, transmitted by the pressure
OF the foot. Inside the hall there is an
odd-looking foot rest, attached TO the hat
rack, and by pressing button pair OF
brushes come out and shine your shoes.
Up stairs, where you remove your wraps,
there is bedroom that would be worth
fortune to lazy man. BY touching
your head to the pillow the gas fifteen
feet away is extinguished, and by press
ing mob at the foot of the bed it is lit
again. Outside the door clockwork
attachment sounds drum at the proper
waking time, and If the occupant does
not get up after fifteen minutes. grace.
the bed rises on its hind legs and dumps
the sleeper on the floor.
In the parlors the guests who had come
early stood about in little groups. No
body sat down, although ottomans and
sofas and chairs were scattered through
the rooms. Every newcomer was cor
daily greeted and chair pushed toward
him. If he sat down-as he usually did
the chair either doubled upon him or
started for the door with him, or disap.
reared, or completely exploded. II he
sat on the sofa he set banjo to playing
on the opposite wall, and drum to beat.
ing, or ii he took another seat the move.
ment put out the lights and introduced
queer phosphorescent figures. No man
knew when he was safe, although there
were few apparently safe seats. In one
OF these Humorist Brown was telling g
very funny story He had left electricity
far behind, and just as he reached the
climax q pretty, funnel-shaped japanese
affair, like big Ounce cap, that orna
mented the ceiling overhead, dropped
quietly down andcovered him up, silently
extinguishing the story and the story
teller. Somebody proposed music, ant
half of selection went very nicely OF
the piano. But just as every one becom,
interested something seemed to Civ,
way, and instead OF strings the keys bea
upon horrible jangle OF gongs an,
drums and bells and every kind Of noise
producing implement. But the wors
oarnr in The dining,room About 1
O'CLOCK the twenty guests sat down to
table loaded with the usual delicacies
AT the head u figure Of Jupiter presided
AT signal the great god began to tall
geographically, and made a welcome
address. He wore electric lights for shir
studs, a bibulous red light for nose, an,
his green eyes had the snap of lightnin,
in them, while blue bolts blazed from hi
pocket. The table seemed bewitched
Touch knife or fork and it put out tn,
lights and introduced queer sights. Pu
your spoon into a dish of cream and j
flared up in great columns of green or ret
flames many feet high, like fountain o
fire. Reach for an innocent-lookin;
sandwich and it rang bell inside, where
the meat ought to be. Try to pick up al
orange and a drum beat inside. Hell
yourself to pudding and the dish and al
slid silently into the great unknown. Ash
| for Malaga grapes and find that a.
electric light flashed from each one a
you pulled the stem. Pour a glass O
lemonade and it was incandescent ant
full OF fire as it touched your lips. Anc
yet everything was good to eat and tn,
coffee was cooked by electricity. An,
when the little clock tinkled out IL
ushering in the new year, and the chime
from the distant churches came softl,
into the rooms, pandemonium seemed L
have changed places with the modes
dining-room. Two big cannon unexpect
eddy went off with suddennes
that rolled every man back iron
the table, the lights disappeared
gongs under eaci chair heat tattoo
and two bricks dropped off the chimney
For few minutes every malignant nois
ever invented was piled on top of on
another, and then silence and the light
came back, and supper was resumed a
calmly as ii such thing rs scare ha
never been known. After supper electri
fireworks and Photographic experiment
and luminous chamber OF horrors sen
the guests home with bewildered feel
ing that somehow they had been Twin