The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-01-01
BUTTE NEWS.
TRICKS OF A MAGICIAN.
Keller Gives Away Some Of His
Secrets.
The CABINET DELUSI0N
Some of the Easy Things by Which an
Amateur Can Make an Evening
Pass Pleasantly Sim
pie and Clever.

When Harry Keller, the great ma
gician, gave his exhibition at the Grand
opera house recently. he presented so
many new tricks that they kept his
auditors guessing, and some of them
are still figuring on them. A few days
ago Keller wrote an article for the San
francisco Examiner, in which he ex-
plains many of his minor tricks, but
the readers of that article will look in
vain for an explanation of his greatest
vet simplest delusion-the suspended
cabinet trick. The trick is to put a
young girl into cabinet, close it, and
upon opening it again the girl has dis
appeared. The cabinet is then suspend
ed above the stage floor and another is
brought out, into which apparently the
same girl is again placed and is trans
ferred to the suspended cabinet An
explanation of the trick is that Keller
has, of course, two girls, dressed alike
and resembling each other. The back
OF the stage, Is in all entertainments
Ct magic, is hung with dark curtain.
The performers cabinets are hung on
the inside with curtains of a different
sIiddS, Dut DSIllilu tLnOSG curtains, IN
the rear of the cabinet, is a narrow
apartment, just wide enoueh to conceal
one or two persons. This apartment
is fitted with curtains of the same
shade as the large curtain at the back
OF the stage. so that when the lighter
shaded curtains in the cabinet are
raised the people in the audience i'm
agine that they look through the APP
parently open cabinet when really they
are looking only against the dark cur
tain which conceals the persons in tile
narrow apartment Thus the person in
the cabinet can appear and reappear
and accomplish some of the most as
tonishing manifestations All Of KEEL
ler's cabinet tricks are explained in the
same way. In his article in the San
Francisco paper, the great magician
says:
I have been asked scores of times
by friends to explain how some of the
small tricks are done, which are in
cluded in my programme of small
magic, and which can be performed by
almost any one with little practice.
as they do not require that degree of
digital dexterity necessary to the ac-
complishment of the more intricate eX-
periments in sleight of hand, which can
only be perfectly rendered after long
and careful practice.
Wherever an evening company is
gathered, amusements Of all sorts are
popular; but the amateur, ma gician, II
he present new tricks and executes
them even passably well, is always re-
ceived with delight.
For our first experiment. let us i'm
asine a parlor gathering, ready to be
entertained. The company is grouped
at one end of the room, and of course
the larger space, the better for the per-
former We will select one of the
lighter chairs, frail, light. ornamental
gilt chair, for instance, and will an
nounce that the chair is a past master
of the terpischorean art; that it will
waltz to the magical command of the
wizard. and continue entirely across
the room. perhaps, to the enhancing
strains of the waltz, played by one of
the young ladies. This promise can be
readily carried out. Around the legs
of the chair are wound several coils of
fine silken thread, the end of which is
hooked over headless pin near one of
the feet. When the music begins, and
the gyfating motions of the young ma
gician's arms apparently contribute in
visible force to the inanimate furniture,
a confederate, lounging in the hallway,
just beside the door, pulls the string.
The chair naturally rotates as the
thread is unwound, although in an APP
parently inexplicable manner.
Over by the music rack, we will, sup
pose there is small table, lightly con-
stfucted and dark in color. If there
isn't, the operator may furnish one for
himself, which of course must be exam
ined by all who care to take the trouble.
Announce that the table will follow the
performer wherever he wills, and then
proceed to make it obey. To the as
constituent of every one, the table, after
having been examined and placed upon
the floor, moves after the magician
as he passes to and fro, waving his
hands in a highly nesmeric attitude
c Ci n a Iicln IT,
the inside seam of either leg of his
trousers, a little above the knee a black
silk thread has been fastened, SO as to
allow loop to fall to the floor. This
in no way hampers the movements of
the performer, who, after receiving
the table from the hands of one of his
audience, is careful to place it SO that
one leg goes through the Topped thread
His own movements, after slight prac-
tice, will cause the table to move after
him in a seemingly miraculous man.
ner.
ford much amusement, especially if you
can get the ladies interested The trick
consists in blowing a small piece of cork
as large as pea into an empty bottle,
laid upon a table horizontally. The
ladies will blow delicately at first, and
when the cork won't go in they will
blow until they get red in the face The
persistence of some ladies, you know, is
remarkable, and when you get a good
one started she will blow hard enough
to burst the bottle, but that impertin-
ent piece of cork will only fly out and
hit her in the face. After as many as
care to have tried the trick, tell them
that it is as easy as rolling off the pro-
verbal log, and show them how to do it,
by placing lemonade straw close to
the cork and by blowing very gently,
roll the cork into the bottle. The trick
will cause no end of amusement.
Another neat experiment is to drive a
cambria needle through a copper cent
with hammer To accomplish this,
break the needle in half and force the
pointed half almost through cork.
Place the coin on a cube of lead and
then place the cork with the needle in