Los Angeles herald., 1907-06-03
.ORPHEUM ACTOR
EATS LIGHTNING
INVESTIGATORS DON'T LEARN
VERY MUCH
Volta Gives a Private Performance
and Does Some Clever Tricks,
but Secrets Are Not
Revealed
rs Volta a fake ?"


This is what every Orpheum patron
is asking. No one seems to have the
answer.
Two doubters watched the perform
ance from the wings of the Orpheum
stage last Friday afternoon. One was
an officer of the fire department-not
Chief Walter Lips. but almost-and the
other reporter for The Herald. They
saw it all at close range-and saw
nothing more than could be seen from
the orchestra chairs.
After his act Volta gave a private
seance for the special benefit of the
two-and by way of good measure
threw in a lecture on electricity.
"Of course you want to know, first
of all, what this machine is" said he,
indicating the immense buzzer which is
the most central feature of his stage
settings. well, that is just the same
kind of thing as the nozzle of garden
hose"
IF you put an inch hose without a
nozzle on the hydrant it will throw
stream only a foot or two. Put on
half-inch nozzle and the stream has
four times the force; with quarter
inch nozzle the stream has nearly six
teen times as much.
Uses Transformer
"My apparatus is a transformer,
which increases the force of the cleo
trio current like the nozzle increases
the force of the current of water
1.-THE current supplied by the power
companies to the theater will give a
spark of about one-sxteenth of an inch.
My apparatus will make the same cur
rent jump a spark of five inches. There
is nothing mysterious about this ap-
paratus-every electrician can explain
it's working.
ITO the transformer is attached a
rheostat, enabling my assistant to con-
troll the strength of the current At
the commencement of each experiment
he gives me weak current, which is
gradually increased to the maximum
needed for each experiment.
"This bracelet on my arm is con-
nected to one pole of the transformer.
1 approach my hand to the other pole.
feel slight tingling or pricking sem
sation as the spark jumps across the
space"
Spark Increases
When Volta begins doing things he
stops talking. At this point he broke
off and his assistant took up the tale.
"That spark was just one-fourth of
an inch. Now the current is increased
the spark lengthens to one-half inch,
inches"
The assistant turned off the juice and
as Volta wiped the perspiration off his
hands --e said: 4
"Those powerful currents cause ex-
actly the same sensation as the weaker
ones. They are different in just one
respect. They all give me bad taste
in the mouth, like copper penny, but
the stronger currents taste worse.
please examine this lamp. 1t is, as
you see, an ordinary thirty-two CANDLE
power incandescent globe. To the CEN
ter core of brass is attached an in
sulated wire connected with one of the
poles of the transformer. This outside
shall of brass with the screw thread is
the other pole of the lamp. which makes
the contact with the socket. Now I
will place the lamp in my mouth as
you would in a socket and switch on
the current
Is Human EIectroIier
He suited the action to the word and
became on the instant living electro
lier.
"a few days ago." said the assistant,
zone of the theater employees who is an
electrical expert boasted that he could
duplicate this trick. He wanted to use
his own lamp, though, and when he
tried to do it with the ordinary every
day incandescent he fell down. We
gave him a gentle current, not enough
to raise the faintest glimmer in the
lamp, but it paralyzed him so COM
pletely that he could not raise his hand
to take the lamp from his mouth, and
his paws were set like a steel trap
Then Volta showed his audience
few more wonders and gave a short
talk on the folly of skepticism, con-
cluding with these convincing words:
Gentlemen, there is no deception.
assure you that what you have seen is
exactly what you saw"
But was it?
"There is no sleight of hand or other
trickery in my act. 1 allow you to ex-
anime every piece of apparatus as
closely as you wish"
Just Little Cautious
This was true enough, but the aver
age committee" does not care to get
very close to live wire that is spit
ting six-inch jets of blue flame.
AS the fireman and the reporter
talked over the matter they decided
that Volta was quite as much of a
mystery as before they saw him in
executive session. AS the fireman said:
"Guess he gets the juice through his
body all right-but that much would
kill man, and he appears to be alive"
Which exceedingly logical conclusion
appears to be the answer-but again,
nerhans if isn't