Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

CHAPTER IV. AUTOMATA: PSYCHO. We now come to our own time, and to a description of the various automatic exhibitions of the present day. The most notable and successful, because the most original, exhibitors and inventors of automatic figures at the present day are Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke, now located at that old “home of mystery,” the Egyptian Hall, London. Their first and, in my opinion, their best piece of mechanism was Psycho, the celebrated Whist Player, which they produced in 1865. A description of this interesting figure is scarcely needed. For years they contrived to keep the motive power and mechanical arrangements of this automaton an entire secret, while the public, the press, and the scientific world, saw, wondered, and were puzzled. Many and various were the solutions offered to account for the working of the Whist Player; but the secret of the sinews and muscles, so to speak, of Psycho mystified every one. So thoroughly successful was the figure that, as a natural consequence, mechanicians set about producing something similar. One of these imitations was exhibited under the name of Hankey. This was but a poor and clumsy representation of the original. It consisted of a rudely-constructed figure of a man seated on an octagonally shaped box, in which a boy was concealed, who worked the arms and head. The exhibitor was compelled to indicate the cards to be played by certain signs and motions, which often led to complications and mistakes. This revival of Psycho eventually came into the possession of Signor Boz, and was exhibited in Liverpool and various other towns under the new name of Yorick.