CHAPTER XLVII.--HOW TO MAKE A CAGE FOR WHITE MICE.

BY W. G. CAMPBELL.

To make a cage with sleeping-boxes in the upper part, and a ladder for

the mice to ascend and descend by, is by no means a difficult operation,

nor does it cost an exorbitant price; and it is very pleasant to watch

the inhabitants climbing up and down, and running in and out of the

holes in their upstairs rooms, and also to see the small animals

swinging about in their boat-swings; nor, after one or two days, do they

seem at all to wish to get out, or to gnaw their bars, as many mice do

if confined in a narrow space.

I will first give a list of the materials and their cost, and after that

proceed to describe how the cage is to be made:--

_s._ _d._

Thick wire 0 5

Thin do. 0 1

Zinc 0 8

Perforated ditto 0 1

Hinges 0 2-1/2

Screws for ditto 0 2

Staples 0 1

Brads 0 3

Tacks 0 2

Emery-paper 0 1

Handle 0 3

Screws for ditto 0 0-1/2

Iron bar 0 6

Screws for ditto 0 0-1/2

----------

3 0-1/2

----------

Without handle and bar 2 3-1/2

These articles can be readily obtained at any ironmonger’s or smith’s,

except the emery-paper, which an oilman would supply. The thick wire

should be about as thick as a thin knitting-needle, the other wire, as

it is for binding purposes, should be as thin as possible; so also

should the zinc; the hinges ought to be about an inch long; the iron bar

will be described as hereafter.

The following are the sizes and descriptions of pieces of wood for a

cage 18 in. long by 13 in. high and 10 in. deep:--

FRAMEWORK.

A. 11 inches by 18 inches. Bottom.

B. 10 „ „ 12-1/2 „ } Ends.

B´. 10 „ „ 12-1/2 „ }

C. 5 „ „ 18 „ Front half of cover.

D. 3-1/2 „ „ 18 „ Upper half of back.

SLEEPING-BOXES.

E. 6-1/2 inches by 17 inches. Bottom.

F. 3 „ „ 17 „ Front.

G. 4-3/8 „ „ 3 „ } Divisions.

G´. 4-3/8 „ „ 3 „ }

DOORS.

H. 9 inches by 18 inches. Lower part of back.

K. 4-7/8 „ „ 5-3/8 „ }

K´. 4-7/8 „ „ 5-3/8 „ } Cover of sleeping boxes.

K´´. 4-7/8 „ „ 5-3/8 „ }

The wood should be 1/2 in. thick. The cage that I made, and which was a

very neat one, was formed from a box and some loose pieces of wood

obtained from a grocer for 4d.

First of all the pieces B B should be nailed at the ends of A, leaving 1

in. of A projecting at back, and then from the top of each of them a

strip 5 in. by 1/2 in. should be cut, so that the piece C can now be

nailed to join the ends and form front half of cover; across upper half

of back we will next nail D: the framework is thus finished.

[Illustration]

Now let us make the sleeping-boxes. First we must with a centrebit bore

three holes an inch in diameter in piece F for entrances to nests; then

let us nail G and G´ on one side of F to divide sleeping-box into three

equal compartments; to these we should next nail E, projecting 1-5/8 in.

beyond F to form run in front of nests. Two holes should then be bored

with a bradawl near the front edge of this run, opposite middle hole to

F, to receive ends of ladder, which will be described hereafter. Next we

must tack a strip of zinc along this run with eight or nine tacks,

punching small holes just above those bored with bradawl; then nail the

sleeping-boxes thus made to B B´ and D as shown in drawing, leaving a

slit of 1/8 in. between F and back edge of C through which a piece of

zinc 4 in. by 17 in. is to be slipped, to keep the mice in their boxes

while cleaning out the cage. The ends, bottom, and large door should

then be lined with zinc inside, leaving a space of 1/2 in. all round

front of cage, where the wires are to come; and just under the holes

bored in the run outside sleeping-box punch two others the same distance

apart in the zinc which lines the bottom--these are to hold the lower

spikes of the ladder. The zinc should be tacked down as much as possible

as well in the middle as at the edges, having holes punched in it for

the tacks to go through.

Now bore holes 1/4 in. apart along C, and same in but not through A,

about 1/4 in. from front edge of each, then cut off from your wire

enough pieces 12-3/4 in. long to go through these holes, which will be

about sixty-eight in number. Let the wood of A be quite 1/2 in. thick or

a little more, so that the wires can have as much hold in it as

possible. Straighten your wires, emery-paper them, and push them through

the top holes, and bring them down to the corresponding ones in the

bottom; then fix two longitudinal wires from B to B´ across the front of

the others, and bind these upright wires to them with the pliant wire.

Hinge the doors to D, as shown in drawing, and splay front edge of each

of small doors, K, K´ and K´´, and top edge of F, so that these doors

may shut closely. Each small door should also have a hole made with the

centrebit in the middle, and a piece of perforated zinc should be tacked

over them inside to ventilate the nests. We now come to the ladder. Get

two pieces of wood 8-3/4 in. long by 1/4 in. broad and 1/4 thick, and

make holes every 1/2 in. along them, and in each end of them bore a

hole, and drive a piece of thick wire 5/8 in. long in all these end

holes, leaving 3/8 in. projecting from top ends, and 1/4 in. from

bottom; then break off enough pieces 1 in. long to go into remaining

holes of one of your sticks, and drive them in, but not so as to come

through the other side; then drive the other ends into the remaining

stick, and your ladder is finished. The boat-swings can be easily made

in the same manner after looking at drawing, and fastened at the top of

the wire that they are hung by with two staples to floor of

sleeping-box. The fastenings can be made from staples, those marked _a_

for large door, and _b_ for small doors; the hooks of _a_ should be put

a little lower than middle of large door and the catches in ends of

cage.

Thin strips of zinc should be tacked in any places where the mice could

gnaw the wood.

Now, if you are going to have a handle, get as small an iron one as will

comfortably lift your cage, and screw it on to C, as near sleeping-boxes

as possible; then, as you will find the sleeping-box side will be the

heavier, you might get a bar of old iron from an ironmonger or smith 18

in. long, between 1/4 in. and 3/8 in. thick, and broad enough to make

your cage weigh equally; have three holes drilled in it, and screw it

underneath the cage in front.

A few remarks more about the cage and its inhabitants, and I shall have

finished.

The cage must have sawdust strewed on the floor and hay in the nests;

the former must be changed once a day, and the latter every other day,

or at least twice a week. If you cannot get sawdust anywhere else, an

oilman will let you have enough to last you a month for twopence. In

such a cage as I have described a ‘boar’ and six ‘sows’ may be kept.

When a sow is about to have young it should be put in a small cage by

itself, and as soon as the young are old enough to eat and run about

they may be turned with their mother into this big cage. Perhaps they

will get chased about a little at first, but they will not be hurt, and

will be all right by the next morning. As soon as they are a month or

six weeks old they should be removed elsewhere. Only one _full-grown_

boar should be kept in a cage.

When mice are first put in such a cage as I have described, the ladder

appears steep for them, but they soon get used to it, and reach their

nests in two or three bounds from the ground.

[Illustration: Heus! incaute puer--silvis latet ursus in altis]

SECTION VIII.

MUSIC AND MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND TOYS.--HOW TO MAKE THEM AND HOW TO

PLAY THEM.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XLVIII.--MUSICAL GLASSES AND THE WOOD HARMONICON.

I.--THE GLASS HARMONICON.

The harmonicon is not a very difficult instrument to make. It consists

of a box and a series of plates--of metal, stone, or glass--to give the

sounds.

[Illustration: FIG 1]

[Illustration: FIG 2]

Take a piece of deal free from knots and shakes, and plane it smooth and

true. Let it be of the shape of Fig. 1, three-sixteenths of an inch

thick, six and a half inches wide at the top, four and an eighth inches

wide at the bottom, and twenty-three and a half inches along the side

which is at right angles to the ends. The slope will be just a trifle

longer.

This piece of wood is for the bottom of the box. Now for the sides. Make

them out of quarter-inch stuff, twenty-three and a half inches long and

one inch and five-eighths wide. For the ends take two pieces of

three-eighths stuff an inch and five-eighths wide; and let one be six

and a half inches and the other four inches long. For the tops, as shown

in Fig. 2, take two slips a quarter of an inch thick and two inches wide

at one end, and an inch and a half wide at the other.

Let the wood be as perfect in quality and equal in thickness as

possible, and glue up the box--without the tops--as evenly as you can.

The box can be nailed or screwed if you think it will be easier for you,

but the result will not be so satisfactory. The box is like a fiddle,

and the more of a perfect shell it is the truer and fuller will be the

sound.

[Illustration: FIG 3]

[Illustration: FIG 4]

In the centre of the box glue in the bridge, which will be about five

and a quarter inches long and half an inch wide, and should stand clear

of the bottom and clear of the tops. Then in the broad end, at two and a

quarter inches from its sides, cut the slots, as shown in Fig. 3; and at

the other end, as shown in Fig. 4, cut the slots one inch and a quarter

from each side. Below each slot is shown a small circle. This represents

the head of the screw or tack round which the twine is strung on which

the musical plates are to rest.

For the string use very fine twine, crochet cotton, or silk, and stretch

it very tightly, and fasten it off at the end it started from; that is

to say, fix it at the broad end under the tack, then pass it under the

tack at the narrow end, then under the other tack at the narrow end,

and then bring it up to the broad end and there finish it off. It should

be very tight, and just rest on the bridge in the middle.

The next thing is the glass, which should be cut in inch strips, and

fixed on to the strings with a drop of sealing-wax. Let us have eighteen

notes ranging from B to E in the key of C. The true dimensions and

position will have to be found by experiment, but for glass a sixteenth

of an inch in thickness the following will be found the suitable

lengths. B should measure five and three-eighths; C, five and a quarter;

D, five; E, four and seven-eighths; F, four and five-eighths; G, four

and a half; A, four and three-eighths; B, four and a quarter; C, four

and an eighth; D, three and three-quarters; E, three and five-eighths;

F, three and a half; G, three and three-eighths; A, three and a quarter;

B, three and an eighth; C, three and an eighth; D, three and an eighth;

E, two and three-quarters. These are the lengths for glasses an inch in

width.

[Illustration: FIG 5]

The glasses should be laid on the strings, which gradually approach each

other, and they should be shifted about until the correct note for each

is obtained. In Fig. 1 we have shown how they rest on the strings, and

in Fig. 2 we have boxed them in and shown by the space at the end how

they may have to be closed up to keep the proper intervals. As soon as

the notes are right, fix the glasses on to the string with a tiny drop

of sealing-wax. And also fasten the string on to the bridge with wax so

as to make everything secure. Then glue on the tops to hide the ragged

ends, and the harmonicon is complete. For the hammers glue a piece of

cork or wood on to a length of whalebone or split cane, or any springy

stick about eight inches long. A convenient shape is that shown in Fig.

5, where the black head represents the cork cut to a wedge.

Although many tunes can be very pleasingly played on this simple

instrument, do not let it be supposed that it at all resembles the

harmonica for which music was written by the great composers. That was a

different affair altogether. Perhaps a few notes concerning it may not

be uninteresting.

One of the first allusions to an instrument of the sort is by Harsdörfer

in 1677, though among savage nations, Burmese and what not, rock, bone,

and wood harmonicas have existed for ages. On St. George’s Day in 1746,

Gluck played a concerto on twenty-six drinking-glasses, ‘tuned with

spring water.’ The instrument was of his own invention, and he played it

accompanied by the whole band. It was said to be capable of producing

all the effects of the violin and harpsichord.

When Benjamin Franklin was in London in 1762, he saw Puckeridge and

Delaval amusing themselves by playing tunes on ordinary

drinking-tumblers. The tumblers were tuned by the water poured into them

up to different levels--the higher the water the lower the note--and

were sounded by wiping a wet finger round their brims. Franklin was so

much struck with this that he straightway took the matter in hand and

invented the harmonica, for which the music used to be written, and of

which a specimen now rests in the South Kensington Museum.

The harmonica--Franklin called it the ‘armonica’--consisted of a series

of glass bells fixed in regular order on an iron spindle made to revolve

like a lathe with a treadle. The sound was produced by pressing the wet

fingers on the bells as they rotated, and it could be increased or

decreased in volume and tone by varying that pressure.

Franklin presented his invention to the Davies family, with whom he was

connected, and one of them, Marianne, performed on it with great success

in London, Paris, Florence, and Vienna. The constant thrilling of the

fingers affected her nerves, however, and she had to abandon it, just in

the same way as had Naumann, the composer, who ‘found it necessary to

restrict himself in practising.’

Some of the music played by Miss Davies was specially written for the

instrument by Hasse; and when, in 1791, the blind Kirchgässner went to

Vienna, Mozart wrote an adagio and rondo in C for harmonica, flute,

oboe, violin, and violoncello. Who in these days would imagine that the

‘musical glasses’ once stood so high in the world?

Three years afterwards Kirchgässner came to London, and there played on

a new harmonica built by Fröschel. At Darmstadt the harmonica held its

place in the Court orchestra, and C. F. Pohl ‘professed’ it. Beethoven

even condescended to write for ‘the glasses,’ and Naumann’s half-dozen

sonatas for them still exist.

The instrument, however, has been laid on the shelf--or rather consigned

to its case as a curiosity--and the musical glasses of to-day are the

harmonicon we have described, and the tumblers about which we may now

say a word.

II.--MUSICAL TUMBLERS.

Musical glasses have been arranged in many ways. Sometimes they have

been all of one size, and the different tones have been produced by

varying quantities of water placed in them. This, however, was a

troublesome and clumsy way of getting effects.

Another method was to place forty-one parallel glass cylinders of equal

length and thickness on a perpendicular sounding-board. These tubes were

wetted and stroked, the music varying by the greater or less pressure of

the performer’s fingers. This, it is obvious, must have been a difficult

instrument to play.

The musical glasses originally arranged by Dr. Arnott are undoubtedly

the best, and with a little patience can be easily and cheaply made by

anyone. The patience is required to hunt up glasses having the required

notes on them.

[Illustration]

We give a drawing of this above. The open circles represent the mouths

of the glasses standing in a wooden case. The relation of the glasses to

the written musical notes is shown by the lines and spaces which connect

them. The learner will see at once that one row produces the notes

written upon the lines, the other row those in the spaces. There are two

octaves, and the player stands by the _side_ of the case, with the notes

ascending towards the right hand, as in the pianoforte. The sounds are

produced by passing the moistened fingers round the edges of the

glasses. A little gum dissolved in the water makes the fingers ‘bite’

better, and produces a greater volume of sound.

III.--A WOOD HARMONICON.

In the section on ‘The Musical Glasses’ we gave at length the details of

construction of a glass harmonicon. An instrument of the same character

made of wood is now, it seems, taking a place in the French orchestras,

and we herewith give an illustration of the latest form of the so-called

‘Xylophone’ as used in Paris, with the names of the notes marked in the

French manner, wherein the ancient ‘Ut’ does duty for the modern ‘Do.’

[Illustration]

The curious in such matters must have noticed the wide distribution of

the bamboo harmonicon. Some such instrument for the production of sharp,

short sounds can be traced back to the old Greeks and Hebrews, and is

found to-day amongst the Russians and Cossacks and Tartars of the

Steppe, and the mountaineers of the Urals and Carpathians. Even in

Sicily, in 1742, a wooden harmonicon was described under the name of the

Xylonganum, and the wooden slips analogous to the nigger-bones laid on

strings are mentioned as forming a German ‘music-maker’ more than three

centuries ago. In 1830 Gussikow, a Russian, made a tour of Europe with a

xylophone composed of wood and straws, the straws taking the place of

the strings and tapes; and straws, it may be as well to observe, are

excellent substitutes for the strings in a glass harmonicon. There is no

difference in the treatment of these suspenders, and the arrangement

given in our plan herewith does equally well for both.

Of the instrument very little explanation is required. A number of

pieces of wood, metal, bones, or stones are selected which will give the

required tone when struck by a small hammer, and these are arranged on

strings which are tightened over a shallow wooden box, being fastened

with a small lump of sealing-wax to keep them in position. The harder

the wood chosen for the palettes the better will be the sound; and if

one good piece can be met with to give the set, the various sizes will

give the tones almost without any variation. The straighter the grain

the truer the sound; and though hard wood, such as oak and mahogany, is

as a rule the best, yet pieces of ordinary deal will sometimes be found

more musical. Some years ago we remember hearing a harmonicon made

entirely out of a bundle of firewood scattered along a couple of waxed

threads, and admirably was it played by the maker. There being no

sustaining power in the materials, only very rapid tunes could be

performed satisfactorily, but the sailor’s hornpipe on this bundle-wood

harmonicon was quite a success. The notes being clear, sharp, and

unmistakable, the very quick country dance and marching tunes could be

delivered with great effect owing to there being no blurring of sounds.

In combination with a piano or violin the xylophone is not to be

despised, and in the orchestras wherein it has now been introduced it

will probably prove more effective than is generally supposed. Being

cheap, and easily made, it is worth having a try at.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XLIX.--ÆOLIAN HARPS, AND HOW TO MAKE THEM.

The simplest pattern of Æolian harp is that which fits into any ordinary

window frame. A box of thin straight-grained, well-planed deal is glued

together, having a length equal to that of the width of the window for

which it is destined, a depth of four or five inches, and a breadth of

five or six inches. The wood of which it is made is carefully planed on

both sides, and is not over an eighth of an inch in thickness, and the

joints are as true and clean as it is possible to make them. The more

carefully this box is made the better will be the tone of the

instrument.

The bridges in all Æolian harps are of some hard wood, such as oak, box,

or elm, and are glued on to the face of the sounding-case. They are

about half an inch high and a quarter of an inch thick. The strings are

of catgut tightened by pegs screwed into the edges of the case, which

are occasionally strengthened for the purpose by a thin fillet of beech.

The strings are tuned in unison. Three inches above them is placed a

thin board, supported on four pegs, one at each corner of the case. The

harp is rested on the bottom of the window frame, and the sash is

brought down on the upper board. The air passes in and out between it

and the sounding-box, and the strings being set in vibration give off

that soft, melodious murmur which, in a more subdued tone, is heard

near telegraph posts when the wires are shaken by the wind.

[Illustration: Fig. 1.]

This is the ordinary Æolian harp, but in this country and on the

Continent there are many more complicated forms of the instrument in

existence. The Æolians of the four Strasburg Cathedral towers, for

instance, are well known to tourists. At the castle of Baden Baden also

the harps are a great attraction, and we here give a sketch of one of

the loudest of these celebrated instruments.

[Illustration: Fig. 2.]

It is set well back in the gallery, and the window opening is gradually

contracted by the curious shed, of which one side is removed to show the

construction, the air passing out through the grating, which is only

slightly wider than the harp. Of the harp itself we give the plan and

section, and to avoid fractions we retain its original measurement in

mètres and centimètres--sixty-one centimètres being as nearly as

possible two feet, and a mètre being a hundred centimètres, or

thirty-nine inches and three-eighths.

It will be noticed that this pattern of the instrument has strings on

both sides, and that the inner edge of the box is fitted with narrow

sound-holes. The front of the box is of thin wood steamed into shape,

and fitted round the curved ends as carefully as the sides are built

into the back and belly of a violin.

[Illustration: Fig. 3.]

In Kircher’s harp, the older form, the screen fits into a window, the

instrument is hung on an iron rod, and has a great many strings

stretched over broad sound-holes. The case is freely perforated, and is

hung so as to half overlap the aperture which gives admittance to the

air.

[Illustration: Fig. 4.]

Kircher for a long time had the credit of being the inventor of the

Æolian harp, but it is of much earlier date. It is, in truth, a very

obvious contrivance, easily made, and not susceptible of much

improvement. In our last figure we give its latest form, which differs

from the others only in the arrangement of the screens. These are

devised to throw a strong draught on to the strings, without having to

be fitted into a window frame; but in this, as in all the other forms of

the wind harp, it requires a pretty strong breeze to bring out its full

tone.

CHAPTER L.--THE PENNY WHISTLE, AND HOW TO PLAY IT.

BY W. J. GORDON.

The best penny whistles are tuned in D, and we shall assume that ours is

so. Occasionally, however, they are in a different key, but this does

not alter the fingering, as the intervals are the same, and the same air

will be played with the same stopping. There are six holes, which,

commencing from the mouthpiece end, we will number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Of these holes, 1, 2, and 3 should be worked by the fingers of the left

hand; 4, 5, and 6 by those of the right.

The lowest note of the instrument is sounded when all the holes are

stopped--the reason, of course, being that the vibration takes place

along its whole length. To get this note is, however, not easy, as there

is a great tendency to blow too strongly, and so get into overtones.

‘The very gentlest breath will give the dulcet note we seek.’ Having got

the D, and it must be a good full note, unstop 6, so as to keep only 1,

2, 3, 4, and 5 shut, and you will with the same strength of wind sound

E, the note that comes just above it in the scale.

F-sharp, the next note, is got by unstopping 5 and 6; G, the next, by

unstopping 4, 5, and 6; A, the next, by unstopping 3, 4, 5, and 6; B,

the next, by unstopping 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6; C-sharp by unstopping all the

holes.

Nothing can be easier of remembrance than this. The fingers are lifted

from the holes one after the other, beginning at the bottom of the

instrument, and with every finger you lift you rise to a higher note.

But we have not quite finished the octave. How do you get the D? By

leaving 1 open and closing the rest. And one note we passed, C-natural,

how is that obtained? By unstopping 1, 5, and 6.

We have thus gone from D to D and got our first octave. How do we get

the next? By blowing a little stronger, a very little, and unstopping on

the same principle as before. Beginning with D, we have 1 unstopped, and

then closing 1 and opening 6 we get E; opening 5 and 6 we get F-sharp;

opening 4, 5, and 6 we get G; opening 3, 4, 5, and 6 we get A; and

opening 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 we get B, just as we did before, the fingering

being the same, but the notes, owing to the stronger blowing, being an

octave higher. The next note, C-natural, is obtained by unstopping 1 and

6; the next, C-sharp, is given by clearing 1, 5, and 6; the next, D, by

clearing 1, 4, 5, and 6. And so we have completed our second octave. But

we have four more notes yet that can be safely sounded without giving

our audience the ear-ache, and of these E is got by unstopping 3 and 6,

F-sharp by unstopping 2 and 5, G by unstopping 2, 4, 5, and 6, and A by

unstopping 1 and 6. We thus have a range of twenty-one notes, including

the two C-sharps and three F-sharps, so that our instrument is by no

means a defective one, and the only difficulty in playing it is the

avoidance of overtones where the artistic merit comes in at the middle

D. It is, however, easy to remember that if you blow softly you get the

lower octave, if you blow firmly you get the higher octave, if you blow

wildly you get the peculiarly metallic screech which has made the penny

whistle the abhorred of civilised men.

And now, having cleared the ground--for it is not our place here to

teach the ‘rudiments of music,’ and in showing how to produce the notes

we have gone as far as we need in a ‘monograph’ such as this--we will

unfold the little scheme we had in view when we started on this

description, and introduce to our readers the Boy’s Own Mechanical Penny

Whistle!

The principle of the whistle, and, indeed, of all instruments of the

flute and flageolet type, being that certain of the holes in different

combinations should be left open in order to give the different notes,

and that the expression should be given by the modulation of the wind

strength, it follows that the fingering is merely mechanical. A

substitute for the fingering can therefore be found, and the simplest

substitute we have come across is a sheet of wrapping-paper!

Take a strip of brown paper or manilla paper, just wide enough to cover

the holes on the whistle, or rather overlapping about half an inch on

each side of the end holes. Mark off on the paper at each end of the

strip where the centres of the holes come, and rule parallel lines the

whole length of the paper, so that as it pulls over the whistle each of

the six lines will pass exactly over the centre of each of the six

holes. On each side of these six lines draw a line so that the space

between the two new lines on each side of the central one may be half as

wide again as the diameter of the hole across which it is to move.

Now rule the paper crossways in lines three-sixteenths of an inch apart

parallel to each other, and strictly at right angles to the lengthway

lines. The strip is now ready for you to stop out your tune on the

principle of the Jacquard loom or the American organettes now so common

amongst us.

[Illustration: Fig. 1.]

First find the shortest note the air contains--in our example, the ‘Blue

Bells of Scotland,’ this is a quaver--and each of the ruled spaces cut

by the lines through the whistle-holes must represent this interval of

sound. Double the space will give double the interval of sound, and

hence, if one space represents a quaver, two spaces will represent a

crotchet. In the Blue Bells the first note is D, a crotchet; and as D is

produced by unstopping 1, we fill up on the first line a double space.

The next note is G, a minim; and, as G is produced by unstopping 4, 5,

and 6, we fill up space on those lines, making them double the length of

the first space, the note being double as long. The third note is a

crotchet, F-sharp, and this is marked by blacking in 5 and 6. There is

no need to continue this explanation in detail, as the method is

sufficiently clear, and the notes are given in Fig. 1, and can be

compared with the scale. One space equals a quaver, two spaces a

crotchet, four a minim, in this instance; but should a quicker tune be

selected the spaces may have to be given values of less interval. The

simplest plan is to find the shortest note, and then, seeing how many of

it would go to a bar, to mark off the bars along the edge of the scale,

and then fill in at your ease. In our example eight spaces go to a bar,

because the shortest note is a quaver, and eight quavers make the

semibreve. Having filled in the notes, take a sheet of glass, lay the

paper on it, and with a sharp penknife cut away all the spaces you have

blacked--in short, make a stencil of your brown paper.

We are now ready to commence. Hang the stencil over the whistle so that

the holes you have made in it pass over the whistle holes, and blow

gently as you drag it along. As the holes are cleared one after the

other the notes are given forth, and the whistle can be played almost as

easily as a barrel-organ--if you can only keep the paper straight and

flat on to the tin. But this is not always easy to do, and so we require

a further invention, which the accompanying sketches sufficiently

describe.

[Illustration: Fig. 2.]

[Illustration: Fig. 3.]

[Illustration: Fig. 4.]

Fig. 2 is a piece of deal, the shaded part of which shows where it is to

be cut away. Two of these blocks, each of them about three inches long

and two inches wide, are required. Fig. 3 shows one of the blocks after

it is in shape. The top groove in one must be larger and deeper than

that in the other, owing to the tapering form of the whistle--for the

whistle must fit firmly. Two rollers, made by sawing pieces off a

broomstick, are taken of sufficient width to carry your stencil easily,

and these are fixed as shown in Fig. 4. One has a handle made of bent

wire, with the point that is driven into the roller flattened out and

hammered in straight, so as to give a firm hold; the other has two

spindles only.

The rollers are fitted with an elastic band, so as to keep them close

together and make them act as a miniature mangle. A slip of wood is

fastened beneath the blocks to keep them in position. If it is intended

to play the air through only once, and to shift for each repetition, a

weight is affixed to one end of the paper to keep it flat; if, however,

the air is to be repeated without a pause, the ends of the stencil have

simply to be pasted together, and a flanged roller hung in the loop, as

shown in the cut.

This is all the contrivance consists of. It is effective, and easily

made. The only difficulty in playing with it is the need of the stronger

blow in the upper octave, a difficulty soon mastered after a little

careful practice. The principle of the perforated keyboard is applicable

to so many instruments that these rough notes on its construction may

prove valuable, even if it be not applied to the humble whistle. The

humble whistle! Alas! But let it not be imagined that squeals and

screeches are the sounds the poor whistle was made to produce. Any other

instrument, if improperly used, will give forth its appalling overtones.

Treat it properly, gently, and firmly, and you will find it as

sweet-toned as a flageolet.

SECTION IX.

ELECTRICITY, AND HOW TO USE IT IN PLAY AND EARNEST.

[Illustration: HOW VERY FUNNY!]

CHAPTER LI.--CURIOSITIES OF ELECTRICITY.

BY DR. ARTHUR STRADLING.

In the whole history of science, from the Dark Ages down to the present

time, there has been no record of any parallel to the extraordinary

progress which electricity has made of late years.

It is comparatively but a short time since that people were marvelling

at the telegraph, and the newspapers used to write gushingly about

‘compelling the lightning to bear our messages,’ and all that sort of

thing. I dare say many boys who read this can remember what a sensation

the electric light made when displayed on the top of one of the

buildings in the Strand--they need not be very old boys to have seen it

there. Nobody would be very much attracted by such a light anywhere now.

There is scarcely a single art, manufacture, or science into which

electricity has not been pressed to do good service. Electric lighting

has become a matter of course, both indoors and out; and, while it has

been proposed to _annihilate night_ in the city of Washington by setting

up four huge electric ‘suns’ on the hill of the Capitol, so rendering

any other illumination in the streets and houses as unnecessary as in

the day-time; a modified lamp of a few ‘candle-power’ has recently been

devised for small rooms, supplied by a little battery which might stand

on the mantel-piece. Tennis is played and photographs are taken by the

electric light; electric bells are as common as door-knockers;

electricity is proposed as a means of killing sheep and bullocks in the

slaughter-house and criminals on the scaffold, and is used by the

physician as a remedy for the preservation of life.

On board some of our great men-of-war the captain can sit in his cabin

and not only see the position of the helm, the speed of the ship, and

the direction in which she is steering, but can fire every gun she

carries--all by electricity. Electricity springs the deadly mine on the

field of battle, and animates a sixpenny toy sold in the Lowther Arcade.

Even the railway engines, tram-cars, and screw-boats propelled by

electric force which have been lately invented cause but little surprise

now, so habituated have we become to the gigantic strides of this

nineteenth-century infant!

I am not going to preach a sermon upon it, however, as you may be

expecting from this terrific introduction; nor am I going to bore you

with a lecture on coils and currents and poles and induction, or any

other technical details. But it occurs to me that a brief mention of one

or two of what may be termed the minor applications of electricity--one

or two only out of thousands--will perhaps interest you, as illustrating

how widely spread the influence of the science has become, and how it

penetrates into nearly all the affairs of life. To my mind, the fact of

telegraph and telephone wires stretching for hundreds of miles across

uncleared jungles and through virgin forests, as they do, is not half so

strong an evidence of the pitch to which it has arrived as its being

adapted to a conjuring trick.

At one of the places of amusement in Paris some ‘sprites’ carry wands

which sparkle out and fade again as required, flashing in time to the

music. But a much prettier and more elaborate arrangement has been

brought out since, though I believe it has not yet been presented to the

public. The performer--magician, fairy, or whatever he or she may

be--wears a fancy dress, which is embroidered all over with what look

like large glass beads or imitation pearls. These are in reality tiny

electric lamps, all connected with each other by wires covered with silk

in the texture of the dress, and communicating with two little iron

plates in the heels of the fairy’s boots. Nothing remarkable, of course,

is seen until these two iron discs come into contact with a certain

spot--which is reached just at the appropriate moment--when every bead

bursts into dazzling light, and the fairy becomes clothed with white

living fire in an instant! Then she steps away from the communication

with the batteries below, and the beads are as suddenly dead again.

Electric alarums for the detection of burglars have long been in vogue

in the shape of bells and gongs, so arranged as to be sounded directly

the fastening of a door or window is tampered with, and electric

‘booby-traps’ have even been tried, designed to give the thief a severe

shock or take him prisoner--the result generally being that the master

of the house or the servants get caught in the snare themselves

half-a-dozen times, after which its use is discontinued.

The weak point in all these things has been that, from their costly and

intricate nature, they could not conveniently be applied to every

accessible situation, and that the mechanism was always liable to be

thrown out of order. The burglars would carefully avoid meddling with

the shutters and doors to which these appliances were known to be

affixed, and would gain an entrance at some unprotected spot. Now,

however, somebody has patented an electric mat, which can be put down

anywhere at night, and which sounds an alarm directly an intruder steps

upon it.

Galvanism is employed, as is well known, by medical men, to restore

power to paralysed limbs, to revive people who are faint almost to

death, and to cure diseases. Dentists owe a good deal to electricity,

and their patients owe still more. When a surgeon wants to cauterise

some very small spot deep down in the flesh, instead of cutting and

burning all the way down, he now inserts a wire, which is shielded,

except just at the part which will come in contact with the bad place;

an electric current is sent through it, and the wire becomes red-hot.

Neater still is the way in which a needle is detected underneath the

skin. I dare say you know that such a thing often gives a doctor a great

deal of trouble, and it is an accident which you should be very careful

to guard against. It frequently occurs to boys who run about the house

with bare feet. The needle, having no head like a pin to stop it, slips

right into the flesh. Sometimes the patient is not certain whether it is

there or not, as it may have worked out again, for the danger in these

cases arises from the tendency of the needle to _travel_ through the

flesh, doing great mischief as it goes along. What is the doctor to do?

If he is quite sure that it is there and can feel it, he will of course

cut it out; but he has to be very cautious. A needle is so fine and

slender, that sometimes, even when he thinks he can feel it with the

point of a probe, he finds himself mistaken. It has been suggested that

a magnet hung over the part will turn if any steel lie concealed

beneath--a very pretty theory, but one that does not answer when put

into practice. But one may make _quite_ certain about it by probing the

flesh with a little instrument which is connected with a battery in such

a way that directly the point touches metal the circuit is completed and

a bell rings.

Perhaps this was founded upon the very ingenious probe, by means of

which the great French surgeon, Nélaton, discovered the bullet in

Garibaldi’s foot. He could feel _something_ there, at the bottom of the

wound; but whether it was only the bone, or a bullet embedded in it, he

could not say. So he made a slender probe of rough, unglazed porcelain,

and rubbed it against the hard substance. On withdrawing it, he found it

marked with lead!

Still more wonderful are the medical uses of the electric light. Not

only is it made to illuminate the eye to the very back, but the throat

as well. A little glass-bead lamp at the end of a rod is passed into the

mouth, the current turned on, and there you can see the tonsils, gullet,

windpipe and all, a great deal more distinctly than the interior of St.

Paul’s Cathedral on a foggy day: while, to a bystander, the patient’s

cheeks and throat look as if they were made of pink glass and filled

with fire inside. Further, a similar rod and bead have been actually

lowered into the stomach of a very thin person, and were found to be

plainly visible through the semi-transparent skin; and it is thought

that this may be valuable at times in the detection of disease.

From surgery to sleight-of-hand is a long step, but we find conjurers

quite as eager to avail themselves of the assistance of electricity as

doctors. Robert Houdin’s book on Magic gives an account of the

marvellous adaptations of this science, wherewith his private house and

park were furnished. He invented many of the tricks performed with

electric apparatus by his successors at the present day--not such

comparatively simple ones as ‘spirit-rapping’ hammers and drums which

answer questions; but clever mysteries like the iron chest which a child

can lift, yet which defies the strength of a man, and the crystal

cash-box. These are things which might puzzle even scientific

electricians who are not in the secret. By means of the first the great

wizard acquired extraordinary influence over the Arabs in Algeria,

because it seemed to them that he could at pleasure take away the

strongest man’s power in a moment and cause him to become as weak as a

baby, restoring it again as suddenly. It depends upon the fact that a

current of electricity passed through a bar of soft iron makes it into a

huge magnet for the time being. The little iron box, which is to be

raised or remain immovable as the conjurer wills, is placed upon a

pedestal, within which is the iron bar, connected with wires to a

machine outside in charge of an assistant, who, at a given signal, turns

on the current.

The crystal cash-box is a casket, the top, bottom, and sides of which

are made of glass, bound with wire at the edges. No deception seems

possible; it is transparent right through, and is suspended over the

heads of the audience by four slender wires attached to little hooks at

the corners; yet several half-crowns are seen and heard to fall down

inside it at the word of command.

You will naturally guess that the entire affair is under the influence

of a battery ‘behind the scenes.’ The coins are first concealed within a

ground-glass ornamental design in the lid, the glass of which is double.

The lower slip would be just loose enough to allow them to fall, but is

kept up by a bit of black thread, which rests against the wire. Just at

this point the wire is made of platinum, which becomes heated by

electricity much more quickly than copper or iron, being a bad

conductor. Almost the instant the current passes this bit of platinum

becomes red-hot, while the connecting wires are not affected; the thread

is burnt through, down drops the slip of glass, and the half-crowns fall

or slide out with a jingle.

We know that by the telegraph wire we can read what people write

hundreds of miles away, and can hear what they say through the

telephone. At the time when all these ‘phones’ and ‘graphs’ were being

invented, one after another, almost daily, an American paper announced

another novelty--the telegastrograph! You were to hold one end of a wire

in your mouth and taste the orange, plum-pudding, or glass of wine into

which the other end was stuck a thousand miles off! But although this

was a hoax, it would hardly have been more wonderful, had it been true,

than many real facts among the curiosities of electricity.

CHAPTER LII.--THE LEYDEN JAR, AND HOW TO MAKE IT.

Nothing can be easier than to make the Leyden jar. Procure a smooth

glass bottle, that is to say an unpatterned one; and let it have a wide

mouth, though this is not essential. Thoroughly clean it and dry it, and

paste on to it inside and out to the height shown in the illustration

some sheets of tinfoil. Let the tinfoil cover the glass two-thirds or

what not from the base, and leave no breaks below the line.

[Illustration]

The best plan is to coat the inside first. Cut a circular piece of

tinfoil a little larger than the bottom of the bottle, and paste it down

with the edge pressed up against the side. Then drop into the bottle a

well-pasted strip of foil the height you have selected, and just a

trifle longer than the internal circumference of the glass on which it

is to be stuck.

Having finished the inside, do the out. Cut a circular plate for the

bottom, press it up round the edge and paste on the glass the strip for

the exterior circumference, which should be of the same height as that

inside. Then insert a piece of brass through a cork or mahogany stopper,

fix a brass ball to one end and a brass chain to the other just long

enough to rest on the bottom, wax or varnish the stopper, and the jar is

complete.

Instead of lining the bottle with tinfoil, thin gold leaf or copper leaf

can be used; and instead of the brass ball and bar a ball of baked wood

and a copper tube. It was Harris who first used the baked wood;

Hopkinson has experimented with Leyden jars in which sulphuric acid has

taken the place of tinfoil! The form we have described is, however, the

usual one, and as it is the cheapest it would be best to start with it.

To charge the jar the outside tinfoil is connected with the ground, and

the inside is excited by means of the knob from the prime conductor of

the machine. The electricity is, as the phrase goes, ‘bottled off,’

though ‘the fluid’ is no fluid, and is not ‘poured’ at all. Two

conductors of large surface are separated by a rigid insulator, and

hence the conditions are favourable for powerful attraction. That is

all.

This simple apparatus, which takes such a prominent part in electrical

experiments, obtained its name from having been invented at the old

Dutch University, where Muschenbroek was at the time professor. In

Germany it is called Kleist’s jar, from the name of another inventor,

but it has been the custom amongst us to ascribe the honour of invention

to either Muschenbroek, or Cuneus, his assistant.

It seems that Muschenbroek had noticed that excited electrics soon lost

their electricity in the open air, and that this loss was quickened when

the atmosphere was charged with moisture. Hence electricity was retained

by surrounding its retainer with bodies that did not conduct it. To

prove this he poured some water into a glass flask, put it into

communication with the prime conductor of an electrical machine, and for

fear of accidents judiciously handed it over to Cuneus to hold. When

they thought it was charged enough, Cuneus tried to disconnect the chain

from the conductor, and thereupon received such a lively shock in his

arms and chest that he dropped the bottle and smashed it to pieces.

The professor was pleased; the assistant was not. He was ill for two

days afterwards. ‘I would not take another shock for the kingdom of

France,’ he wrote to Reaumur. And all the first experimenters with

electrical apparatus were much alarmed at shocks which to us would seem

hardly worth noticing. Poor Winkler, for instance, was so frightened at

the unexpected experience that he ‘betook himself to cooling medicines

to allay the fever.’

The shock received by Cuneus soon led up to the jar as we now know it.

First water was tried, then mercury, and finally tinfoil. Muschenbroek’s

experiments took place in 1746; in the next year Watson began to come to

the front. He first fired gunpowder by electricity, then he mixed

camphor with gunpowder and discharged muskets by electricity. Then

hydrogen and spirits of wine were fired by the spark by means of a drop

of water or a lump of ice.

Watson it was who put the inside and outside tinfoil coatings on the

jar. Bevis suggested the outside; Smeaton, of Eddystone Lighthouse fame,

suggested the inside. Watson’s experiments before the Royal Society

attracted much attention to the science, though he had in some things

been anticipated by the French, who had sent a discharge through 12,000

feet, and on one occasion had used the great basin of the Tuileries,

giving an acre of water as part of the circuit.

Nollet sent a discharge from a jar through a regiment of 1500 men

holding each other’s hands, and they were all shocked in the arms and

shoulders. But perhaps the best known experiment is that of Franklin

with his kite.

Two strips of cedar, fixed crosswise, with a large silk handkerchief

tied at the corners, and a sharp-pointed wire projecting a foot above

the upright, was all that Benjamin Franklin’s famous kite consisted of.

It had an ordinary paper tail, a bellyband, and a long fine string, with

a short piece of silk ribbon tied at the end. Just where the ribbon was

knotted to the string he hung a key.

It was in June, 1752, when he let his kite up in the thunderstorm. He

and his son, after some little difficulty, got it out to the full length

of the string, and then stood up inside a doorway to keep the ribbon

dry. A thundercloud passed over, and nothing seemed to happen. The

experiment promised to be a failure. Gradually, however, the loose

filaments of twine began to stand out at right angles, and were found to

be attracted by the fingers; then a knuckle held to the key extracted a

spark from it, and as the string got thoroughly wet in the pouring rain

the electricity became abundant. With it the experimenters charged the

Leyden jar, whose discharges afterwards proved the identity of the

electricity of the thundercloud with the electricity of the machine.

Another famous experiment is that known as Lichtenberg’s figures. It is

generally performed as follows. Hold the jar, charged positively, in the

hand, and with the knob draw on a glass plate, cake of resin, or sheet

of vulcanite, a series of patterns. Then put the jar on an insulator,

and, lifting it by the knob, trace another series of patterns with the

outer coating, so as to cross and intertwine with those made by the

knob. Having designed the patterns, make a mixture of red lead and

flowers of sulphur and dust it on to the slab. A curious thing will

happen. The red and yellow will sort themselves out. The sulphur will

stick to the positive lines, the lead to the negative ones, and the

pattern will be given in two well-marked colours. The sulphur will be in

tufts, the lead in spots. In mixing the powder the sulphur became

negatively electrified, the red lead positively so, and hence the

disposition of the materials.

The terms negative and positive were first used by Symmer as

alternatives for resinous and vitreous. Symmer was the man who

discovered the electricity in his stockings and charged the jar by their

aid. His experiments were the same in principle as those of Cigna with

his silk ribbons, but were much more astonishing.

When Symmer pulled off his stockings he noticed that they often gave a

crackling sound, and when he undressed in the dark he saw sparks issuing

from them. When he wore silk stockings for show and worsted beneath them

for warmth the effects were more powerful. When one stocking was drawn

out of the other they appeared inflated, and attracted and repelled each

other like electrified bodies!

He experimented with a pair of white silk stockings and a pair of black

silk stockings. When he wore both white or both black on the same leg,

nothing happened; but when he wore a white and black on the leg, and

pulled them off after ten minutes or so, they remained inflated, and

showed the shape of his leg! Brought within eighteen inches of each

other, they rushed together; then they were separated, and again became

inflated, and again rushed together.

Experimenting with the two pairs held against each other, he found that

they sorted themselves out, rushing each to each, until they gradually

wasted away, and from legs substantial enough for the foundation of a

family ghost story--a ghostly legacy--dwindled down into mere flabby

pieces of silk. The electricity he obtained from these classical

stockings was considerable. He charged a Leyden jar from the four of

them, and secured enough electricity to shock himself up to his elbows,

and to light a teaspoonful of spirits of wine!

One caution before we conclude. In every experiment, whether it be

merely in shocking, in rendering luminous half-a-dozen eggs placed end

to end by sending the shock through them, in perforating a card by

passing a spark through it as it rests on the foil, in splitting wood by

driving the wires in until their points are close to each other, in

breaking a glass by passing a spark from knob to knob in water, however

simple it may be, remember always to discharge by touching the outside

first. Otherwise you may receive an unpleasant surprise, and, like

Cuneus, come to grief with your Leyden jar.

CHAPTER LIII.--THE ELECTRICAL MACHINE, AND HOW TO MAKE IT.

In our chapter on the Leyden Jar we assumed that those of our readers

who were likely to experiment in frictional electricity would be in

possession of an electrical machine to start with. Many, however, may be

desirous of building an electrical machine of their own. As this can be

easily done, and as the cost of the materials is comparatively slight,

we purpose giving a few practical hints on the subject which may be of

use to those wishing to build and those anxious to repair if they only

knew how.

Before we deal with the cylindrical machine we must, however, devote a

few words to the electrophorus by which the jar can be charged if

desired. An electrophorus is easily made. Choose the lid of a tin

canister about eight inches in diameter and half an inch deep for your

‘form,’ or have a lid specially made by a tinsmith with its sharp edge

turned over a wire ring, so that it may keep its shape and not be so

likely to cut your fingers. Let the tinsmith also make you a thin flat

disc of zinc or brass, smooth and rounded at the edges, and measuring

about six inches and a half across. To this disc solder three loops of

brass wire, and to the loops tie three silk strings of equal length, by

which you can lift the disc. The silk should be quite pure, and if you

like something else you can use a handle made of sealing-wax and stick

it on to the centre. The silk strings, however, are the simplest,

strongest, and most easily replaced.

Turn the ‘form’ bottom upwards, and run round it a strip of thick white

paper, so as to project about an inch above the bottom. This will be the

mould into which the mixture is to be poured, for the lid is always to

be used bottom upwards. In the old days the mixture was poured into the

tin mould and left there, but it was found that the cake would crack

very easily under such circumstances, whereas when it is left to itself

it lasts for months with ordinary care. Make your mould, then, with the

lid for its bottom and the paper for its rim, and proceed to melt your

mixture. This should consist of yellow beeswax and Venice turpentine in

equal quantities by weight. Use an earthenware pot, and gradually warm

up the mass, stirring it with a piece of wood so as to ensure its

melting equally. When it is melted, you have to add to it five times its

weight of shellac--that is to say, if you used two ounces each of

beeswax and turpentine, you will have to use twenty ounces of shellac.

The shellac is to be added to the melting mixture a handful at a time,

and all lumps must be dissolved before any more of the flakes are added.

Do not let the liquid get too hot, or it will become like india-rubber

and spoil. When all the shellac has been got in, take off the

earthenware pot, give the mass a stir, and carefully pour it out into

your paper-edged mould, until the liquid is half an inch deep. When the

cake is cold, wet and tear off the paper, and then lift it off the tin.

If you drop the cake it will almost certainly break, but if you keep it

free from hard knocks it will last a long time. Do not have the cake too

thick.

To use this electrophorus, turn your lid upside down, as you did during

the casting, and place the cake on the top, turning it also bottom

upwards, so that the smooth surface which came nearest the tin when it

set is now the upper one. Let the whole apparatus be warm and dry.

Strike or rub the surface rapidly with a piece of warm flannel or

fur--fur is the best; and while you are beating the cake, keep your

fingers on it to prevent it slipping off its stand. When you think the

cake is sufficiently excited, which it will be in a minute or so, lay

the cover in the centre, holding it by the silk strings or handle. Touch

the cover with your finger, and then lift it from the cake, and you will

get a powerful spark, and each time you touch the cover, before you

lift, the result will be the same. In dry weather the cake will remain

electrical for weeks, but it is better to recharge it each time it is

used. Do not let your clothes get too near the electrophorus during your

experiment, and keep all pointed things as far away from it as possible.

An eight-inch electrophorus ought to give an inch spark if properly made

and charged. To charge the Leyden jar, all you have to do is to hold the

knob near the cover and take from fifty to a hundred sparks. You should

have the electrophorus raised so as not to have to lift the cover too

high each time, and you should hold the jar by its bottom, thus giving

the necessary connection with the earth.

[Illustration: Fig. 1.]

The cylinder machine (Fig. 1) is a much more complicated affair. It

consists of a stand A; a cushion, of which the upright is shown at B,

and from which the silk flap is shown at the top; a cylinder, shown at D

with its caps E E, and its handle at F; and a prime conductor G,

insulated on a glass rod H. It is best to buy the cylinder. Glass

confectionery jars, Winchester quarts, ordinary bottles, and even

commoner vessels have been used, but the results have rarely repaid the

extra trouble necessitated by the want of a cylinder with proper ends.

Such a cylinder about six inches long will cost under two shillings,

and one of a fair size, say ten inches long, can be obtained for five

shillings from any chemical appliance seller, such as Griffin, of Long

Acre, or Townson and Mercer, of Bishopsgate Street Within. Should a

makeshift be adopted, the first step is to cement a disc of baked wood

on to each end of the bottle so as to afford the needful fixing. The

cement for the purpose should be made by melting rosin in an earthen

pot, adding a little beeswax and raw linseed oil to toughen it. For half

a gallipot full of rosin use a piece of wax about as big as a walnut,

and a teaspoonful of oil. When the rosin is thoroughly melted, stir in

some plaster-of-paris; and the more plaster you can manage to make it

take up the harder will be your cement. The mixture must, however, be

perfect. While it is liquid shake in some red lead to give it a good

colour. The cement will have to be melted each time it is used, and the

articles it is required to join should be warmed before it is applied,

so that the change of temperature may be gradual.

The first thing to do is to provide our cylinder with an axis. The

simplest way to mount it is to run a hard wood stick right through the

centre, the stick being only just large enough to pass, but the most

workmanlike way is to fit it with two hard wood ends. Unless, however,

this be done with great accuracy, the cylinder will not be properly

centred, and the result will be a failure. For beginners, therefore, it

may be advisable to retain the central spindle. Before inserting it

thoroughly clean the cylinder inside and out.

[Illustration: Fig. 2.]

[Illustration: Fig. 3.]

The spindle should project a few inches at each end; and to hide the

glass collars and give a strong grip, a pair of ends (see Fig. 2) should

be cut or turned which can be slipped down the stick. These can be

fastened to the glass with cement, and further kept in place by a fine

screw or French nail driven through to the centre so as to just avoid

the glass. In the case of the spindle not being driven through, the ends

are made longer, and on them the cylinder works. We have here (Fig. 3)

the cylinder A duly fitted with the central spindle B, with the collar C

shown by itself and in position, and the handle D slipped on to the

squared end of the spindle. This handle should be made to fit firmly,

and it is best to cut the square hole in it first and then to cut the

spindle end to suit it. Like the rest of the machine it should be of

hard wood, and should have all its corners and edges sand-papered off.

[Illustration: Fig. 4.]

[Illustration: Fig. 5.]

We must next make the stand for the cylinder to work on. Get a piece of

board an inch or more thick, lay the cylinder on it, and mark where the

two ends come at G G (Fig. 4). The cylinder is to revolve on the

spindle, and the ends are to prevent its shifting from side to side, so

that your marks will be at the junction. Now get out two uprights from

the same thickness of board, and let them be twice the height of your

cylinder’s diameter; let one have a hole large enough for the spindle to

work in, and let the other have a slit from which the spindle can be

kept from rising by a pin run through, as shown in Fig. 5. When your

uprights are ready, cut the tongues at the end, and then cut the holes

in the board for them to stand in. These holes will be to the outside of

the lines given by the cylinder, and should be on one side of a line

drawn through the centre parallel to the sides of the board. Fit in your

uprights and try if the cylinder works freely in them. If all is true

and level, take them out and glue them home.

[Illustration: Fig. 6.]

[Illustration: Fig. 7.]

The next thing to make is the cushion, for which you require a block of

wood, like E E (Fig. 6), an inch and a half wide, half an inch thick,

and not quite as long as the cylinder. Cut a notch in the centre for the

upright to be fixed in, and then procure a piece of coloured thin

leather, or wash-leather, an inch longer than the wood, and wide enough

to go barely round it. Glue it on to the top and bottom of the wood so

that it is quite loose in front, and also glue up one end. When the glue

is thoroughly dry, stuff the cushion with horsehair or tow, making it as

uniform as possible. Glue up the open end. To the under edge of the

cushion glue the silk flap, which should pass up in front of the rubber

and over the top of the cylinder (see Fig. 7). It may be of oiled silk

throughout, or it may be made as follows. Glue a piece of leather the

same as that used for the cushion along the under edge of the wood.

Should you have used a coloured leather for the cushion, you will have

to glue it coloured side down, so that the softer surface may come next

the glass. This piece of leather should be the length of the cushion and

just wide enough to reach to the top. Along its upper edge you have next

to glue a piece of black sarcenet, and the leather and the sarcenet

should together be as long as the flap would have been had you made it

entirely of silk.

[Illustration: Fig. 8.]

[Illustration: Fig. 9.]

The cushion being thus completed, you have next to fix it to an upright,

and this upright should be just high enough to admit of the cushion

pressing along the centre of the cylinder. To increase the power of the

machine you can, if you like, glue a strip of tinfoil along the bottom

of the rubber, connecting it by a small chain to a hook at its back,

from which hook a chain hung on to the nearest gaspipe affords the best

connection with the earth. The upright (Fig. 8) is affixed to a foot in

which a slide has been cut as shown at K in Fig. 9, where N is the

position of the screw and L is the hole for the upright, so that it can

be slipped backwards and forwards until the right pressure against the

cylinder is obtained. A brass thumb-screw will keep it in position, as

shown in our first illustration.

For the prime conductor use a wooden rolling-pin covered with tinfoil.

If you have to prepare a piece of wood specially it is best to have it

about two inches and a half in diameter, and instead of making it round

to make it with an egg-shaped or pear-shaped section. This is, however,

unusual at present, and a round stick is much easier to get. Its ends

should be well rounded off. Tinfoil is cheap enough,--it costs about

twopence-halfpenny a sheet, so that there is no need to be sparing of

it; it should be carefully pasted on to the wood with ordinary paste,

and have its edges notched so as to avoid wrinkles and folds. When it is

dry, it should be burnished with a knife-handle to make it as smooth as

possible. When it is finished off draw a line along it--in the case of a

pear-shaped conductor let the line be along its thinnest edge--and at a

quarter of an inch apart drive in stout pins, which should be filed off

so that their points may be quite sharp and project about half an inch.

The length of the row of pins should be rather less than that of the

cushion; they should not run the whole length of the conductor, but stop

about a couple of inches from the end. The conductor should be the same

length as the cylinder, but it should be so fixed as to bring the row of

pins immediately opposite the flap. It thus stands a little to the right

of the centre, away from the handle end. At the longest end a thick wire

is fixed, to which a brass ball is attached.

To support the conductor you require a glass rod, obtainable at the same

time as the cylinder, and costing a shilling a pound. It should be half

an inch in diameter and sufficiently long to fix well into the board and

conductor, and bring the points level with the centre of the cylinder.

To get it to remain fast you will have to roughen its ends on a

grindstone and fasten them into holes with cement. It should be so fixed

as to bring the points of the conductor about half an inch from the

cylinder. Now cut the silk so that its edge is just above the row of

pins; and then give all the edges and corners a final sand-papering, and

set about getting the machine to work.

The first thing you have to do is to smear the cushion with amalgam

costing sixpence an ounce, an ounce lasting for many weeks. It usually

consists of five parts of zinc mixed with three parts of tin, and

gradually mixed with nine parts of mercury, but an amalgam can be easily

made by melting in a tobacco-pipe a piece of zinc about as large as a

pea, and adding to it an ounce of mercury, stirring the mixture

thoroughly and pouring it on the hearth to cool. If you have a silk flap

over the cushion, smear the amalgam on to the cushion as evenly as you

can manage; if you have a leather flap with silk top, spread the amalgam

along the leather in a strip of about half an inch in width, which you

have previously slightly greased with a tallow candle. To apply the

amalgam you will have to unscrew the cushion from the stand.

When you have replaced the cushion and are ready to start, put the

machine down to the fire to warm. Do not put it too near, or it may

crack. The machine must be free from dust, so clean it well with a silk

handkerchief; and it must be dry, more especially the cylinder where it

is not covered with the flap and the glass support of the prime

conductor. Unless these are free from damp the machine will not work. Do

not turn the handle of the machine until you are assured that the

cylinder is dry; by doing so you give the rubber the benefit of the

whole circumference of moisture, and it may take you some time to get

rid of the wet. If you ever have a plate machine, remember this most

particularly, for your brushes will be made quite useless for a time by

such thoughtlessness. And one other word of caution with regard to plate

machines, and that is, never place them sideways to the fire, always dry

them end on. The thicker the glass the easier it splits with

inequalities of temperature.

All being dry and warm, clamp the machine to a table and turn the

handle. If you have carefully followed these instructions, your knuckle

will receive a spark as soon as you apply it to the ball of the prime

conductor; and the handle of the machine will turn more stiffly as you

progress. If your cylinder becomes too greasy, wipe it clean and apply a

little more amalgam. If it does not work quite right at first, see that

some pointed thing on the table is not drawing the electricity away;

even a hair will affect the working, so keep a good look-out for

fragments of cotton and fluff. When you get the sparks bring your jar

into play, charging by simply holding it out with its knob touching, or

close to the knob of the prime conductor.

The essentials of the cylinder machine are that it should be made of

hard dry wood and of glass without an excess of alkali, that its

workmanship should be firm and true, that it should have no unnecessary

points and edges, and that it should be only used when free from damp.

Those who are interested in the subject, and wish to see what a

well-made machine is like, should visit the Science Collection at the

South Kensington Museum. There is there, among other noticeable things,

a plate machine seven feet in diameter. The exhibition is one of the

best in London, and it is most easily got at from the Queen’s Gate side,

the entrance being the door nearest the private houses on the way up to

the gardens from the railway station. It is open free on the usual South

Kensington days--Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday.

CHAPTER LIV.--A STORM IN A TEACUP.

Electrical machines are not always as persistently popular as they might

be, owing to their possessors being at a loss for novel experiments. The

apparatus is put through its facings like soldiers at drill, the bells

are rung, the little men are danced up and down between the plates, the

lady’s hair is stiffened like quills upon the maligned porcupine, the

sparks are extracted on the glass stool, a few shocks are given, and the

round ends in a certain weariness, to be repeated at ever-lengthening

intervals. The apparatus is always the same, the experiments are the

same, and to a good many boys the constant repetition becomes

monotonous. Some, of course, take sufficient interest in the matter to

master the theory of the experiments and gain a living pleasure in what

they do; the majority, less sturdily endowed, require to be led more

gently on and have their paths made smoother. All, however, are

invariably interested in using their hands as well as their heads, and

for their benefit we offer the following hints, and relate how we last

raised our storm in a teacup.

We took two pieces of glass tube and laid them side by side on a cup.

The tubes had been bought for threepence from the druggist’s across the

street, and had been used as peashooters, for which they are most

excellently adapted. They are true, smooth, and to the ordinary tin

peashooter very much what the modern rifle is to the old brown Bess.

They carry a pea--but it suddenly occurs to us that we ought not to have

said anything about such objectionable practices, which of course took

place a good many years ago, as witness the ‘had been used’ with which

the digression was introduced.

[Illustration]

The pieces of glass tubing were then thoroughly dried and laid on the

cup side by side. Over each of them a piece of tinfoil was pinched to

represent the storm-clouds, and in one of the corners of each cloud, in

order to make things easy for the electricity, we squeezed in a brass

ball. To each cloud we attached a piece of silk twist out of the

workbox, and then, by means of some copper wire--brass chain would have

done just as well--we connected one cloud with the inside and one with

the outside of a laden Leyden jar, or jar charged from the machine,

whichever word-combination may appear preferable. We then proceeded to

pull the silken strings, the tinfoil clouds slipped along their glassy

ways, approached each other slowly, and then--a flash of lightning

passed from each to each, and the thunder rolled in the form of the tiny

snap which sounded as the discharge took place.

The theory of the thunderstorm suddenly awoke new interest in us, and

having succeeded so well in the air, we resolved to advance further and

do some damage. We took away one of the tubes, and resting the other on

two cups--one at each end--placed a model house between for us to

strike. The house was very loosely put together, the walls being only

leant up against each other, and so arranged as to fall at the slightest

jerk. In the chimney we placed a brass ball for the electricity to

gather on instead of streaming off into the air, as it does on an

ordinary lightning-conductor, and then, having joined up to the jar, we

brought the cloud over and got our flash as we had hoped.

Then we soared to higher flights and put a pinch of gunpowder in the way

of the flash, in the hope that we should have a little blow up, but,

alas! the flash went through so quickly that the powder was scattered.

Then we remembered the wet string with which our lecturer used to

operate, and placing that in the path of the current, we slowed the

rate, kept the flash in the powder long enough to ignite it, and blew

down the walls of our house in grand style.

Then we worked up to our crowning success in the experiment line. We had

a small model of a ship, and we resolved to strike it by lightning. We

hung our cloud over a basin. Into the basin we put our ship, having

first connected the foremast with our jar, and placed the least pinch

of powder in a hole, where it entered the deck. The jar was charged, the

cloud hung in the sky, the ship came ‘sailing, sailing o’er the sea;’ it

neared the storm; it passed into it; it came within striking distance;

there was a flash, a crack, and ‘the saucy frigate floated on the bosom

of the waves’--in the wash-hand basin--‘a helpless wreck.’

‘What was the use of all that?’ Well, the use was that we clearly

understood what before we had half doubted because we had only taken it

for granted. We left off talking about the ‘electric fluid’ and

‘thunderbolts;’ we no longer looked upon electricity as something liquid

which dropped out of a cloud with a bang; we ceased to imagine that

lightning-conductors should be _insulated_, ‘to lead the fluid.’ And we

saw that the ‘stroke’ went up from the earth as well as down from the

sky; that the flash took place at the meeting, and was simply due to the

necessary transference in attaining equilibrium.

A good deal of the success of the experiment was due to the size of the

jar, the quantity of electricity it accumulated being proportionate to

the extent of the coated surface; while the intensity depended on the

thickness of the glass. Ours was a fair-sized jar, but its strength was

nothing like that of Cuthbertson’s famous battery, which he built for

the Tylerian Society at Haarlem, which consisted of a hundred jars each

of five and a half square feet, so that the total amount of coated

surface was five hundred and fifty square feet, sufficient to magnetise

large steel bars, rend four-inch blocks of boxwood in pieces, melt into

red-hot globules iron wires twenty-five feet long, and dissipate

eight-inch tin wires in a cloud of smoke. Of course with an ordinary

battery we could have done as well, but even with frictional electricity

distance is of little importance. Did not Bishop Watson, of Llandaff,

send a discharge from a Leyden jar through 2,800 feet of wire and the

same distance of earth? Did he not, at Shooter’s Hill, send a discharge

through 10,600 feet of wire supported on insulators of baked wood? Did

not Franklin, in 1748, send a Leyden jar discharge across the

Schuylkill? and did not De Luc discharge a jar across the whole width of

the Lake of Geneva? We may not be Watsons, Franklins, or De Lucs, and

have their wealth of apparatus and dexterity of manipulation, but the

poorest and clumsiest lad amongst us is quite capable of arranging the

necessary device for securing ‘a storm in a teacup.’

[Illustration]

[Illustration: SOME VERY ELEMENTARY GEOMETRY!

1. The extremities of a line are points.

2. A super fishes (superficies)--an acute angle.

3. A Polly gone (polygon).

4. A problem proposes something to be done, such as the construction of

a figure.

5. A postulate is a problem so simple that it is unnecessary to point

out the method of performing it.

6. An axiom is a theorem the truth of which is so apparent as to be

instantly admitted.]

SECTION X.

CONJURERS AND CONJURING--VENTRILOQUISM AND SPIRITUALISM, ETC.

[Illustration: FUN IN OLDEN TIMES.

[_Drawn by Gordon Browne._]

CHAPTER LV.--MYSTERY AND MUMMERY; OR, HOUDIN AND THE ARABS.

BY JOHN NEVIL MASKELYNE, OF THE EGYPTIAN HALL.

The famous French conjurer, Robert Houdin, was engaged by the French

Government in 1856 to proceed to Algiers, and there demonstrate to the

natives that the Marabouts, whom the ignorant Arabs believed to possess

supernatural powers, were only very clumsy tricksters. Never had

conjurer a higher mission than this--to erase a debasing superstition

from the minds of these children of the desert!

At the Algiers theatre were assembled all the leading chiefs and a large

audience of minor natives. Houdin, skilled in all the sleight-of-hand,

the scientific knowledge, and the _finesse_ of the French school of

magicians, was equal to any emergency. He was as cool and collected as

on his own stage at Paris, and addressed his strange audience in a few

well-chosen words, which were translated to the Arabs by interpreters

provided by the French Government of the town.

In this little speech he told the natives that his art was simply the

outcome of science and dexterity: that if his feats excelled those of

the Marabouts, his audience could judge for themselves whether they had

not been the victims of imposture for many years at the hands of very

clumsy jugglers indeed; and that in the end he hoped to leave those poor

wizards without a leg to stand on--professionally of course!

The conjurer commenced his performance with a few ordinary

sleight-of-hand tricks sufficiently puzzling to create great wonder in

the native mind, and then proceeded to bolder and more ambitious

efforts. Carrying a small box down to the ‘practicable’ or ‘rake,’

running from the stage to the pit, he declared that though a little

child might lift it, he could defy the strongest man in that assembly to

do so if he willed otherwise. This being interpreted, an Arab of middle

height, but well built and muscular, ventured to the test.

‘Are you very strong?’ asked Houdin.

‘Oh, yes,’ replied the son of the desert, carelessly, not heeding the

Frankish magician’s assertion that he could deprive him of his strength.

Houdin allowed the man to pick up the box easily, as if it were a toy,

and return it to the ‘rake,’ smiling to think that _he_ could be made as

a little child. But Houdin now made some mystic passes over the box, and

requested the dusky Hercules to raise it once more. He tried; but tug

and strain as he would, the box was immoveable. He stopped at length,

panting, and was on the point of leaving his task, when pride overcame a

desire to escape from this enchantment, and he made one final effort,

cheered by his compatriots in front. All in vain: and just as he was on

the point of giving in once more, he sank, with a terrible yell, upon

his knees.

The reason of this was that the conjurer had given a signal, and the

poor man had received the shock of an electrical current, transmitted

to the handles of the box. By similar means had the box been held to the

stage when the conjurer willed it, for a bar of soft iron underneath the

‘rake’ was converted into a magnet by passing an electrical current in

coils round it. When the current was suspended by Houdin’s assistant

behind the scenes, the bar was demagnetised, and the box could be lifted

up. Of course this was a mystery to the natives, and as the beaten Arab

retired, murmurs of ‘Shaitan’ and ‘Djenoum’ running round the startled

audience told that, notwithstanding the assurances of the interpreters,

the natives gave Houdin credit for having dealings with one who shall

here be nameless.

The skilful professor had been informed that the most startling of the

supposed miracles of the Marabouts was their standing in front of a

loaded gun, which, though pointed at them and the trigger pulled,

producing sparks in plenty from the flint, would yet not go off. The

cabalistic jargon of the Marabout was supposed to place his sacred

person in safety; and this was one of the tricks the French Government

was anxious to prove an imposture.

Houdin, though the guns would not go off, soon exploded the marvel. He

saw at once that the mystery was of the simplest, the Marabout merely

stopping up the vent of the firearm with grease while handing it to the

experimentalist. Accordingly this was the next feat Houdin called the

attention of his audience to, declaring himself invulnerable (by

trickery alone), and defying even the ‘crack shot’ of the district to

hit him.

An Arab, delighted to have a human target, bounded upon the stage with

the words, ‘I will kill you!’ This was a Marabout jealous of a sorcerer

greater than himself. Houdin gave him a cavalry pistol to examine. The

man blew down the barrel and into the nipple, and then loaded it with

powder and ball. To add to his other precautions, he had previously

_marked_ the bullet.

The French _prestidigitateur_ placed an apple upon the point of a knife,

and holding it up, said, ‘Aim straight at my heart!’ Though the Arab

firmly believed the weapon to be really deadly, he took careful aim and

fired point blank at Houdin. There was a pause. The conjurer fell not,

but calmly advanced to the man, and presented him with the apple, in the

heart of which the marked bullet was found, instead of in Houdin’s.

You see, the Frenchman had dexterously changed the marked bullet for a

similar one in appearance, but composed of an amalgam of tinfoil and

quicksilver, which is about the same weight as lead, and disperses on

the firing. Into a hole previously made in the apple, on the side kept

from the view of the audience, Houdin dropped the marked ball before

placing the fruit upon his knife, and had closed the aperture with a

round piece of apple afterwards, just as a cheesemonger makes his

Stilton whole again after you have tasted from his scoop. When the apple

was cut open, and the bullet fell out, attention was at once directed to

the marks upon it, and, of course, so drawn from any scrutiny of the

_débris_ of the ball that had been fired from the pistol.

Houdin’s powers were put to another test subsequently to his public

performance. A deputation of the _élite_ of Algiers and its

neighbourhood waited upon him, headed by Bash-aga Bou-Allem, the African

Rothschild, to still further test the gun-trick. Houdin was prepared.

From beneath his snowy-white _burnous_ an aged Arab produced two

richly-chased pistols. These the Frankish conjurer loaded, previously

handing round the bullets for inspection. Then he passed one pistol to

the chief, who, at six paces, fired, and the ball was apparently caught

between Houdin’s teeth. Dropping this from his mouth to prove its

solidity, Houdin now took up the other pistol and fired at the stone

wall of the apartment, when--great wonder to the chiefs, and dismay to

the impostors--the bullet apparently drew blood from the stone. One of

the defeated Marabouts actually put his finger on the blood and tasted

it; then he collapsed.

This trick was ‘worked up’ very cleverly by Houdin. He ‘palmed’ both the

real bullets, substituting one made of wax (hollow) and lampblack for

the pistol he gave to the Arab, and crushing it as he rammed the charge

home, so that it would not injure him at such short distance. The pistol

he used himself had a hollow leaden ball dropped into it, and the cavity

in the bullet was filled in with blood, so that when the lead was

crushed against the wall the interior contents were splashed upon it.

Houdin was the finest political agent the French Government ever sent

out, and the most civilising withal; for the clumsy tricks of the

Marabouts, which he exposed, had very little effect upon any but the

very lowest class afterwards.

Gun and pistol tricks are so much a part of the conjurer’s art that it

may be well to describe some others, to show the ingenuity of these

whilom ‘diverting vagabonds’--the wizards--who are now frequently to be

found in very good company indeed.

One of the old gun-tricks was somewhat like Houdin’s device for

nonplussing the Arab impostors. In this a fowling-piece was used, and

loaded by any one in the company, the professor of mystery only taking

the liberty of placing the ball--previously examined to prove its

genuineness--into the barrel himself. Of course that real ball never

went out of the magician’s possession, but a duplicate composed of

blacklead was substituted for it, which could be readily reduced to

powder by a vigorous ramming home of the charge, and so rendered

harmless.

But modern magic goes far beyond so simple a trick, and has elaborated

this kind of business until some apparently marvellous results are

achieved.

To explain these it will be necessary, in the first place, to notice the

peculiar construction of the wizard’s firearm. This consists of two

parts, the outer of which is a conical tin funnel like the mouth of a

trumpet, and tapering down to a tube, which fits the barrel of an

ordinary pistol. This tube runs inside the cone, and affords a free

passage for the loading and discharge of the pistol, and between the

tube and the outer case any object supposed to be fired therefrom

reposes in perfect security. Sometimes the performer borrows two or

three watches and places them in a drawer, while he sends his assistant

for a plate. To this the watches are transferred, and as the youth

advances to the conjurer’s table, he purposely slips and falls, when the

plate is smashed, and the watches roll all over the stage. The wizard

makes much ado in rebuking this clumsiness, and picks up the fragments

of delf and the watches, all of which he finds more or less injured.

Never mind; he will soon find a way out of _that_ difficulty, he says,

so he proceeds to load the pistol and ram all the _débris_ of the (not

silver) plate and the timekeepers into it, keeping them firm in their

places with a wad of paper. Now the (supposed) clumsy assistant places a

picture frame on the stage, at which the magician takes aim and fires,

and at the same instant the plate and watches are seen in the frame

(which up to this time apparently rejoiced in a plain black backboard

only), all perfect save the plate. This appears with a piece out of it,

and the conjurer seems chagrined that he has made a mistake, especially

before his unskilful assistant. Looking about the stage he finds the

missing piece, and is again equal to the occasion. Standing some

distance from the frame, he appears to throw the piece he has found at

the ‘willow pattern’ whose other component parts have been so

unaccountably welded together. Lo! as the fragment seems to leave his

opened palm the plate, whole as when it left the potter’s hands, is

ready to be examined by the audience: and the watches, ticking as lively

as ever, are restored to the pockets of their respective owners quite

unscathed, notwithstanding the fearful trials they seemed to have passed

through.

The explanation of this is simplicity itself. When the watches have been

collected by the professor they are placed in what appears to be an

ordinary drawer, but which is in reality a tricky arrangement that can

be made to appear full or empty at pleasure. The conjurer has, of

course, shown an empty drawer, but this has a false bottom wherein lie

several ‘dummy’ watches, and it is these that are transferred to the

plate and afterwards rammed into the pistol. The real watches are

carried off the stage by the skilfully-clumsy assistant and attached to

the frame (in a manner yet to be described), together with a duplicate

of the broken plate before it is introduced to the view of the audience.

This picture-frame is a marvel of deception. Notwithstanding that it

appears as if it possessed a plain black backboard only, it is in

reality a shallow box, with a spring blind in front of it. Behind this

screen the articles are suspended, on a background also black. When the

professor fires, the assistant (out of sight) pulls a cord releasing a

spring, and the curtain flies up with such rapidity as to be

imperceptible from the point of view of the audience. The ‘click’ of the

curtain is unheard in the noise made by the pistol, and the effect is as

if the watches and plate had been fired from it.

But we have yet to explain how the broken plate is made whole. Our

readers will have guessed, probably, that it never was broken at all,

and such is the fact. A piece of black cloth lies over one edge of the

plate, which makes it appear as if it is broken, and as the magician

seems to throw (though he really retains) a piece of the plate actually

smashed, the assistant again pulls a string smartly, which is attached

to the bit of black cloth, and the plate instantly appears in a perfect

state of preservation. That is more than can be said for the contents of

all picture-frames after they have been ‘restored.’ Of course these

tricks cannot be performed when an audience is very close to the wizard.

‘’Tis distance lends enchantment’ to many things in the conjurer’s art,

as in others outside.

Sometimes this trick is ‘worked’ in other ways; say, after a borrowed

watch has (apparently) been pounded to bits in a mortar, it is fired

from a pistol at a magic target. In this there is no roller-blind

illusion, but the ‘bull’s-eye,’ provided with a little hook (hook and

eye should go together), revolves perpendicularly on its own axis. The

back of the bull’s-eye is precisely similar to the front, but on the

hook there the real watch is secretly hung. When the pistol is fired,

the pulling of a string releases a spring, and the centre of the target

flies round. The mortar employed has a movable bottom, so that the

performer can extract the real watch at pleasure. The _débris_ which the

conjurer pounds away at, and afterwards loads his trick pistol with, is

obtained from the hollow pestle, the performer unscrewing the end of it

against the bottom of the mortar as he appears to grind away at the

borrowed watch.

[Illustration: Bo!]

[Illustration: Ho!]

CHAPTER LVI.--VENTRILOQUISM, AND HOW TO ACQUIRE THE ART.

BY WILLIAM CROMPTON.

The etymology of the word Ventriloquism gives an incorrect idea of the

art, as it is based upon the old notion that the ventriloquial voice

really proceeded from the stomach. As a matter of fact, the sources of

all such sounds are in the throat or mouth.

By the aid of the laryngoscope, a scientific instrument mirroring the

action and vibrating changes of the vocal organ, it has been shown that

tone and voice come when the cords in the larynx are excited by the

breath; but a muffled vibration in the cavity of the mouth, which is

caused by the action of the tongue and lips, produces _whispering_, in

which the words appear as from a distance, and, thus robbed of their

distinct vocal sounds, can be produced with little or no movement of the

muscles of the face.

But the ventriloquist knows full well that the judgment must be led

astray quite as much as the ear; therefore, in disguising the true

direction of his voice--or those assumed voices which he has added to

his own--he requires _finesse_ of a high order, which, while he shall be

apparently unconscious of doing so, must lead his audience to certain

conclusions respecting the situation of the sounds. In this he is

greatly assisted by Nature, which lays the foundation of the art in the

fact of the uncertainty of their _direction_ as well as _distance_.

It was formerly common on the Continent for performers on the stage to

go through the dumb show of singing while persons off the stage supplied

the voices. The same uncertainty as to the direction of sound is

manifested at a marionette show, where the actors--wooden dolls--‘strut

and fret their hour upon the stage,’ their actions leading the

spectators to ally the speeches with them, and to look upon the manikins

almost as veritable human beings. The illusion, if properly carried out,

is very perfect.

One of the most favourite modes of ventriloquists now and for a long

time past has been to have two or more wooden figures with jaws moved by

strings acted upon by the hands of the performer, or by pedals. The

artist then holds converse between these, and so takes attention from

his own movements. Another capital device is the ‘Talking Hand,’ which

it may be here well to describe. Having first provided yourself with a

mitten purposely made, with a hole in the centre, and a frill round it,

thus:--

[Illustration]

and painted the side of your hand to represent Biddy the apple-woman’s

face, so:

[Illustration]

you are ready to make a nice little speech, and introduce ‘Biddy’ to

your expectant audience in the back parlour.

Indian ink will give her eyes as black as Susan’s, and a little red

paint, judiciously applied to the top of the thumb and that part of the

hand immediately above it, will materially assist the illusion by giving

her a mouth.

[Illustration]

The annexed is a picture of Biddy with her new cap on. Her nose must be

indicated by black lines, and a slight redness at the uptilted end may

not be considered out of character. The chin, you observe, is painted on

the thumb.

Now stitch a skirt to the lower part of the mitten, and throw a shawl

round her head, and you have the old apple-woman to the life.

You must arrange a little dialogue between Biddy and yourself, keeping

the imaginations of the spectators in full play, so as to draw attention

from your lips and muscles, which you must nevertheless keep in as much

rest as possible. Let Biddy’s sentences be short and emphatic, and in a

tone as unlike your natural voice as you can assume. As Biddy speaks you

must move your thumb up and down, which motion can be so made as to give

the idea of the lips moving.

How the _imagination_ can be led astray even without motions at all may

be instanced in the case of the imitations of Saville Carey, who often

blew through a narrow chink in the corner of a coffee-room with an

east-wind like whistle, whereupon the company began to shiver with cold,

and some one was sure to rise and examine the windows to see if they

were air-tight!

Starting, then, with these peculiarities of Nature on his side (that the

direction and distance of sound are difficult to fix, and that the

imagination is easily played upon), the ventriloquist, by tricks of

manner, with subtle movements and actions, governs the imagination of

his audience, and directs their attention to some given spot from which

he desires they should think the voice proceeds, while simultaneously

imitating it as closely as possible.

The ventriloquial power any one with a fair range of voice and patient

practice may acquire. The rarer gift is that of mimicry, by which the

illusions of change of tone, pitch, etc., are so greatly assisted.

Unless endowed with this in some degree one would find the pursuit of

the art a vain and profitless task, but a little will sometimes go a

long way, and a careful noting of the modes of some good professors of

ventriloquism will give many useful hints to the neophyte, after he has

got ‘by heart’ all that has been written upon the subject.

He will notice that the jaws need never be moved, and that though the

lips must be in action at times, the effect is neutralised by

dexterously turning the side face to the spectators on those occasions.

This standing in profile has another advantage also, as the lips can be

drawn down on the hidden side, and a considerable alteration in the tone

can thus be produced where required.

The vowel sounds, in various tones, may be obtained without movement by

nearly closing the mouth, and resting the upper teeth on the inner part

of the upper lips. Consonants are much more difficult, and are seldom or

never used while facing the audience. When there is no excuse for

turning the face sideways the expedient is adopted of dropping the

consonants, which would make such a sentence as, ‘Mind what you are

doing, you bad boy!’ sound like ‘Ind ‘ot you’re doing, you ‘ad whoy!’

The greater the compass of voice, of course the greater will be the

pitch, while practice will produce elasticity in the organs. One word of

advice is necessary as to practice--that is, you should _never strain

the voice_. Let the power be developed naturally, or you will inevitably

defeat your own object and lead to hoarseness, if no worse.

Study before a mirror. Any illusions you can there produce will be

greater in effect when distance lends enchantment to the view, for the

ventriloquist’s art cannot be practised with full effect in a very

limited area.

An accurate ear will soon enable its possessor to imitate sounds, such

as the barking of dogs, sawing wood, etc., but his difficulties will

commence when he comes to attempt complete and rapid changes of voice,

locality, and distance. From youth to age, from the infant in its

nurse’s arms to the ‘lean and slippered pantaloon,’ the transition must

be like a flash of lightning in rapidity. Dialects should also be

acquired, and varieties of age and sex carefully studied.

It is after the human voice has been imitated without any apparent

motion of the lips, and conversations with imaginary individuals have

been carefully studied, that the higher power of the ventriloquist comes

into play, and the performer has to lead the imagination of his audience

from the real to the supposed source of the sounds. This is what, in

acoustic illusions, is as necessary as glib speech (‘patter’) to the

conjurer, who, by thus calling attention from his hands, is enabled to

perform many tricks successfully which he might otherwise fail in. We

have said that our judgments are very fallible in the matter of sound,

and the performer’s efforts towards indicating their supposed direction

is, to a great extent, the measure of his capacity as a ventriloquist.

CHAPTER LVII.--SECOND SIGHT.

Second sight, as it is called, is of a very puzzling character indeed.

To such an extent is this the case that some clever people have been led

to believe that a special gift--some abnormal power--must be brought

into play to bring about its apparently marvellous results. The writer

hopes, before the boys who read this have got to the end, that they may

have a much clearer idea of the ingenious and, if rightly applied,

innocent trickery than such persons seem to possess.