The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-01-17

N MANUFACTURER of magicians'
 PN paraphernalia states that the black art is becoming more popu- lar every day, and strange to say, there are more women converts than men. In fact. the fair sex is becoming adept at performing those tricks which entertain and mystify without having any evil ef- fleets.
 There are quite number of professional women magicians, or prestidgitateurs, who have won marked success both in this country and abroad. Mime. Herman is perhaps most widely known in America. She has made many successful tours, and has an assortment of tricks that puzzle the most skeptical of her audiences. Mime. Herman has appeared in the south quite often and is a decided favorite. Across the water there are many noted women magicians of various nationalities. In Eng land Mime. Patrice stands foremost. France has Mme. Nicolo. Bleanora Orlowa has won fame in Germany, while Olsita is without rival in the fiowery kingdom of Japan Queen Henrietta of Belgium was
 
 sons from the great Herman while he was staying at ostend for the purpose of drinking the waters, and she showed such quickness in learning the thousand de- tails of prestidigitation that she soon De- came quite proficient The queen was &C., customed to give performances in her own private theatre. much to the delight Of her friends and relatives.
 Although we smile in a superior way when the 'black art'' is mentioned. 1t is really most entertaining and harmless amusement. If the people never witnessed worse performances their morals would be safe That there is a public demand for shows of magic is evidenced by the popu- larity of Herman and other magicians mystified, even though the tricks date from the time of Cagliostro.
 How anyone can complacently give vent to that old fallacy of there being nothing new under the sun is hard for thinking people to understand Just because the Chinese happened to discover gun powder several thousand years before our time and the ancient Egyptians knew few arts that we have not learned yet an in sane individual immediately sat himself down and remarked that there is noth- ing new under the sun' Of course there Is something new every day If there were not we would retrogade, or else stand still like the Chinese We would certainly not advance. A certain profess sor at Columbia university recently at tempted to prove that Americans are not an original people at all and that their ingenious inventions heralded abroad are simply notifications of ideas old as the hills of Persia. Although this may be true of some inventions it certainly does not apply to all of them. If the races of earth knew anything about practical cleo tricity before the time of Benjamin Franklin we have no evidence of 1t and If the Ptolemys regaled their subjects with the originals of Edison's talking ma chimes they certainly neglected to leave any record of that fact. Nor yet did the Hebrew fathers herd their fiocks or go down into Egypt in airsnips though San tos Dumont has made repeated trips and lives to tell the tale. The world is rushing onward every day. Every day there are new inventions discovered and improve ments made on old ones. That modern civilization is tending toward that point where there will be little more to learn is quite certain. Whether international wars or unforeseen contingencies will interfere to check this progress remains for the fu- ture to disclose.
 Although protest Is worse than useless one cannot resist the desire to raise dispairing vail against the use and abuse of the word "cute," especially by the fair sex Cute, in it's modern acceptation, can mean anything under the sun that is commendatory or gushing and it's use by a person is a sure index of that per- sons mental calibre When George Eliot first gave credence to the word in the sense of acute. using 1t to signify the shrewdness and subtleness of certain of her characters, she little dreamed of the infiction she was preparing for an un- suspecting public. Nowadays. among cute. There are gushing females who have no other adjective If man is handsome he is cute. If he Is bow legged he Is cute. All degrees of physical beau ty. whether in man. woman or child, are merely varying degrees of cuteness. If they read a masterpiece of prose or poetry to their vacuous intellects 1t is cute. If calf frohcs across their vision he is cute An inspiring bit of scenery a costly bunch of feathers called a hat. a stylish dress. or a diamond sunburst- everything 2nder the bright sun is cute.