The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1886-11-19
THE WONDER OF TO-DAY.
The Trick of "Thc Vanishing Lady.
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How IL is Said to be Performed.
The vanishing lady is the wonder of
the town. She was invented by Latter
de kalta, a Paris conjurer, and she has
been performing at the Eden theatre
there. She is also puzzling the public
i'm London and Berlin. The secret of
her illusion has been kept in those cities,
and scientists have written theories
about her as learned and conjectural as
those which Poe devoted to the Chess
AutOmatOn. The inventor has an agent
in New York to sell her at 800 per copy.
He has made a dozen sales. Every pur-
chaser is astOnished by the simplicity of
the trick he has acquired, and puzzled
anew to command the manual skill to
utilize it. DeXterously performed, the
feat is like this: The necrOmancer APP
pears in full dress. A pretty girl accom-
panies him. He talks to her pleasantly
while he moves about the stage, and
presently he picks up chair. With
seeming carelessness he places it in about
the middle of the stage on an open
newspaper. The girl seats herself,
assuming the ordinary, womanly, restful
position. From table he takes a large
piece of fOulard silk, n fabric not trans
parent, but sufficiently soft to show the
form of the girl after it has completely
enveloped her and the chair. Still talk
ing, he in an instant quickly lifts the
veil. The girl is not there. The chair is
left exactly as it stood before she sat in it;
the newspaper is beneath it, precisely as
it was placed. No sounds have been
heard in the meantime; there is no
darkening of the stage; even the silk
covering has shown no shrinkage, but
preserved its form up to the moment it
vas lifted by the fakir.
How is it doneS Very simply. Every
body correctly guesses that n trap is used,
but the investigator stops there, defeated.
The chair, the newspaper, the trap the
confederate below the stage, and bright
slim girl are the things that are used.
The chair is not. as it looks, an ordinary
article. 1t is of the heavy old fashioned,
mahogany kind, without rounds, thickly
upholstered on the seat, with an open
back. 1t is SO built that by touching a
concealed spring the seat is made to drop
down from the rear on hinge, leaving
the girl free to sink down the trap, which
is manipulated by the confederate below
the stage. There being no rungs on the
chair the girl has an easy job, When
the illuSionist has seated her he throws
over her head the silk veil. At the mo-
ment she feels herself completely covered
she works another spring, which causes
a thin wire framework to rise up from
the back of the chair and spread itself
about her form, thus preserving undis-
trubed the outlines of the sloth and de-
ceiving the audience into the belief that
she is still seated.
The mystery of the open newspaper
spread under the chair, to kill any sug-
gestion of q trap, is even simpler. The
paper has been dcftly cut so rs to contain
n trap opening in itself 1t is so handled
by the operator as to reveal the slit, and
when he gathers it up after the trick he
Is careful to fold it, partly ut least. Ills
own work consists, first, in spreading the
newspaper so that the trap cut in it shall
cover exactly the trap in the stage, and,
second, in setting the chair precisely over
both traps. He ought to be clever in
talking to divert the spectators attention
from both newspaper and chair, and the
more he speaks of the absence of trap
the better he can puzzle those who are
watching him. OF course, he cannot
submit either the chair or newspaper to
inspection. The trap used in the stage
is the ordinary demons drop of good
size. After the girl has passed through,
the confederate below the stage puts his
hand up and springs to its place the
hinged seat in the chair. Then he raps,
and the illusionist above knows all is
ready for him to pull away the veil.
Added mystery is gained by making the
girl run out into the auditorium as soon
us she can. A neat sleight of hand man
can also cause the veil itself to disappear
up his sleeve after he has lifted it.
Franklin File in Chicago Tribune.
compound Medicines in Darmstadt.
Hereafter Darmstadt, Germany, will