The age-herald., 1900-12-11
SKETCHES FROM
 EVERYDAY LIFE

ing of fakirs People will pay their money to see the most commonplace fakes, which admit appear wonderful until you know how they are done So did Her mann's tricks for that matter, but Her mann never claimed to possess any super natural pawers. One of his best tricks was throwing silver dollar in the air and making it disappear. He would toss it up twice in rapid succession, catching it in his hand each time it came down, and the third time he tossed it up it apparently dis appeared. As a matter of fact it never left his hand at the third toss, but the pics ture of the coin in the air had become fixed on the retina and everybody thought they saw it tossed for the third time. Had he pretended to make it disappear at the first toss everybody would have caught on to the trick. The whole art of slight of hand, said Hermann, consisted in moving the hand faster than the eye could follow it.
 One of the best executed fakes I have seen is the woman who is tied hand and foot by a committee from the audience and also tied to a chair. A cabinet is then placed around her. hiding her from view, and forthwith bells are rung and tampor- ines played inside the cabinet. The cabinet is then opened and the lady appears tied as before As 1t is quite impossible for any person with their hands tied behind them to the back of a chair to play tamborines and ring bells placed in front of them and as the manager makes it plain that no one else is in the cabinet, it must follow that the lady's hands are not tied however much they may appear to be- In this trick there is an arrangement which allows the cords to slip about a yard, giving the lady ample use of her arms.
 
 "A popular fake is to have people in the audience during the first part of the per formance write questions on pieces of pa- per and sign their names to them and the lady with the mysterious powers will later on call their names and tell them what the questions are and give some sort of an answer. What are apparently pastboard pads are passed around the audience by attendants, the curious use them in writin their questions, which they put in their pockets. Towards the end of the performance the lady appears on the stage, announces the ques- tions and gives the persons names and some answer. At a performance of this sort that I attended recently one of the questions was, What will be doing on March 16th? and the answer was, Get ting your clothes ready for St. Patrick's Day.
 If the performer possesses any powers of mind reading this trick is very simple. If she does not, the pastboard pads which have been chemically treated are taken be- hind the scenes and heated when an im- pression of everything that has been writ ter on them appears and the performer is thus provided with copies of the names and questions and selects such as she wishes to answer.
 Another fake is that of the lady who is hypnotized and hangs in the air supported by a steel rod under her right arm She first mounts a little platform, steps on a foot-stool and a steel rod fs placed under each arm like a pair of crutches She is then apparently hypnotized, the stool re- moved from under her feet, and the rod from under her left arm, leaving one rod to support her entire weight To the surprise of all she does not budge an inch If you have ever tried to hang from horizontal bar by throwing one arm over it and then making your arm and body rigid you will recall how the body will hang at an inclined position Yet in this trick the lady main- tains perfectly upright position with all her weight resting on the rod under her right arm, her body nowhere else touching 1t The position is as impossible under the law of gravity as if you extended your arm at right angle put your hand on the mantlepiece jumped up foot in the air and expected to stay there. Not satisfied with this violation of the law of gravity, the managing fakir takes a fan and getting on the ladys right with the rod between the two he proceeds to fan her feet, when behold! the feet begin to recede from him anu the lady gradually assumes horizontal position He then gets on the other side and fans her back into her former upright position Then he takes a rod and makes few passes over her head to show that there are no wires. She is, of course, raised by wires or mechanism of some sort, gen. erally the former.
 q was on the stage once when this trick was being done and offered the man s if he would let me pass the rod around to see if there were wires. He refused and I raised my bid to S5. He then took me aside: Look here, my friend,' he said, T make my living by this trick and I don't propose to have anyone but myself waiving any rods You understand?" This trick is very simple. The lady has a flat steel band which runs down her side from her arm-pit to her thigh, and is strapped to her body. This is fastened to the steel rod under her arm and enables her to maintain her up- right position. When she is famed into aa horizontal position she is generally drawn up by an invisible steel wire, which the fakir carefully avoids touching.
 
 "rhe fallir is always perfectly safe in calling for a committee from the audience to come on the stage and see that there is no trickery. The committee as rule do not feel at ease on the stage with the audience looking on, and will not ven- ture to do anything except what they are asked to do by the fakir. They can be moved around like autometons and the fakir knows that there Is not the slightest danger in their finding out anything. If