The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1921-07-14
event of his life is recorded verbatim.
Branded Agent of Devil.

event OF MS lie IS recOrQeQ VerDdllm
Branded Agent of Devil.
He told how he was stranded in In
diana in the early seventies; hiw he
walked to Chicago, tried to steal
ride on a train and was put off in a
cemetery, how he walked to Wauke-
gan, Illinois, and was staked to bed
bv a good-hearted bartender who also
| went good for the town hall the next
evening. where Keller gave a show
without single prop except what he
himself was able to make during the
day. He packed the hall for three
nights in succession and was able to
make enough to start him out again
on the road. He told of another time
| when he was broke in Brazil and by
enlisting the aid Of the king, Don
Pedro, he was able to fill the largest
| theater in Rio and took away more
than $4,000 for the engagement.
Another time when he was landed
| in a city without any props he had to
substitute kitten for pig in one of
his tricks. The kitten began to new
before it was time for the denoument
and to drown out it's walls Keller was
compelled to new with it.
He played in Mexico City in 1874
| when Mexico was even wilder coun-
try than it is today. The church is
sued a warning to it's members that
| Keller was an agent of the devil sent
on earth to trick men. The result
was that the superstitious natives
packed the theater at every perform
ance and although every stagecoach
that left the city was regularly rob-
| bed Keller never had to elevate his
| hands once while he was in the coun-
try.
He took more than five thousand
dollars in gold doubloons out Of the
country packed in asphaltum and af-
ter nerve-racking experiences sue
ceeded in evading both the robbers
and the government officials.
Keller has played before Queen
Victoria, Gar Nicholas of Russia,
nearly all the principal rulers of Eu-
rope, the rajahs of India, the mobiles
of China and Japan as we'll as the big
men of South Africa, Australia and
South America. He has been staked
when financially embarrassed by sone
of the greatest financiers of the world
Including the grandfather of the pres
ent PierroE+ Morgan.
Successor Works With Inventions.
Keller was never especially clever
with his hands. His hands are large
and his fingers thick like a coal
heavens as he described them to me.
Because of this physical handicap he
| was driven to invent mechanical de-
vices for most of his illusions. And
as result Keller is today the invent
| or of the greater part Of the modern
nagician's paraphernalia.
Most of these inventions he has sold
or bequeathed to his successor. Keller
was the inventor of the famous levlta-
ton trick where a body is apparently
suspended in the air. The trick while
widely initiated has never been done
the way Keller does it but by one per-
son to whom the old master told the
secret.
Although retired, Keller, true to
the ethics of his profession, refuses to
explain the thousand and one stunts
of the illusionist. He makes one eX-
ception. He will expose any person
who claims to do his tricks through
supernatural aid. He has no use Tor
anyone who uses his art to play upon
superstition.
For years he exposed the tricks of
so-calIed spiritualistS and other noted
fakirs.
There is nothing spiritualist can
do" he says, that I cannot do and
show how It is done. 1t is all tricks.
Like puzzles they are difficult until
YOU understand them and then you
wonder how you, could have been SO
dense. Even an amateur magician can
fool me with a new trick for little
while but will eventually solve it by
the process of elimination or figuring
out the ways it couldn't have oeen
done. .'-Dearborn Independent.