Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

MODERN MAGIC. APPENDIX. CONTAINING EXPLANATIONS OF SOME OF THE BEST KNOWN SPECIALTIES OF MESSRS. MASKELYNE AND COOKE. BY ARPREY VERE. ANCIENT AND MODERN MAGIC. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. The wonder excited by the marvellous automatons of Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke has caused many inquiries into the art of mechanical conjuring. Although the productions of those gentleman at the Egyptian Hall have been thought by the general public to be unprecedented, we shall see that their marvels have been produced in ages long gone by, and that the art of conjuring, or producing apparently unaccountable and magical results by means of mechanism, was an art brought to great perfection hundreds of years ago, and long before “Psycho” astonished the metropolis. My readers will perceive that the automatic figures of these caterers of wonders are neither original nor novel. I hope that, as the art of magic is so very popular, a brief exposition of the subject will be found interesting to many readers. It is my intention in this and the following chapters to give a brief summary of the history of mechanical magic in ancient and modern times, and then to furnish a full explanation of how the apparently marvellous results of sleight of hand, second sight, and the mysterious movements of automata of the present day, are attained; and my readers will no doubt reap a harvest of information on the subject, and will be able not only to perform many of the numerous tricks at which they have before been astonished, but will also be in a position to explain to the uninitiated “How it is done.”