By THOMAS FROST.
The dense ignorance which prevailed during the seventeenth century
on the subject of conjuring, as the word is now understood, would be
scarcely credible at the present day, if instances did not even now
occur at intervals to show that there are still minds which the light
of knowledge has not yet penetrated. Books did not reach the masses in
those days, and hence the beginning of the eighteenth century found
people as ready to drown a wizard as their ancestors had been.
A book which was published in 1716, by Richard Neve, whose name is the
first which we meet with in the conjuring annals of the eighteenth
century, bears traces of the lingering fear of diabolical agency
which still infected the minds of the people. Having stated, in his
preface, that his book contained directions for performing thirty-three
legerdemain tricks, besides many arithmetical puzzles and many jests,
Neve says: “I dare not say that I have here set down all that are or
may be performed by legerdemain, but thou hast here the most material
of them; and if thou rightly understandest these, there is not a trick
that any juggler in the world can show thee, but thou shalt be able to
conceive after what manner it is done, if he do it by sleight of hand,
and not by unlawful and detestable means, as too many do at this day.”
The following are a few of the tricks which puzzled the people of
those days: The tricks of the fakirs, or religious mendicants of India
were remarkable. One of these fellows boasted that he would appear at
Amadabant a town about two hundred miles from Surat, within fifteen
days after being buried, ten feet deep, at the latter place. The
Governor of Surat resolved to test the fellow’s powers, and had a grave
dug, in which the fakir placed himself, stipulating that a layer of
reeds should be interposed between his body and the superincumbent
earth, with a space of two feet between his body and the reeds. This
was done, and the grave was then filled up, and a guard was placed at
the spot to prevent trickery.
A large tree stood ten or twelve yards from the grave, and beneath its
shade several fakirs were grouped around a large earthern jar, which
was filled with water. The officer of the guard, suspecting that some
trick was to be played, ordered the jar to be moved, and, this being
done by the soldiers, after some opposition on the part of the fellows
assembled round it, a shaft was discovered, with a subterranean gallery
from its bottom to within two feet of the grave. The impostor was
thereupon made to ascend, and a riot ensued, in which he and several
other persons were slain.
This trick has been repeated several times in India, under different
circumstances, one of the most remarkable instances being that related
by an engineer officer named Boileau, who was employed about forty
years ago in the trigonometrical survey of that country. I shall relate
this story in the officer’s own words, premising that he did not
witness either the interment or the exhumation of the performer, but
was told that they took place in the presence of Esur Lal, one of the
ministers of the Muharwul of Jaisulmer.
“The man is said, by long practice, to have acquired the art of
holding his breath by shutting the mouth, and stopping the interior
opening of the nostrils with his tongue; he also abstains from solid
food for some days previous to his interment, so that he may not be
inconvenienced by the contents of his stomach, while put up in his
narrow grave; and, moreover, he is sewn up in a bag of cloth, and the
cell is lined with masonry, and floored with cloth, that the white ants
and other insects may not easily be able to molest him. The place in
which he was buried at Jaisulmer is a small building about twelve feet
by eight, built of stone; and in the floor was a hole, about three
feet long, two and a half feet wide, and the same depth, or perhaps a
yard deep, in which he was placed in a sitting posture, sewed up in
his shroud, with his feet turned inward toward the stomach, and his
hands also pointed inward toward the chest. Two heavy slabs of stone,
five or six feet long, several inches thick, and broad enough to cover
the mouth of the grave, so that he could not escape, were then placed
over him, and I believe a little earth was plastered over the whole,
so as to make the surface of the grave smooth and compact. The door of
the house was also built up, and people placed outside, that no tricks
might be played, nor deception practised.
“At the expiration of a full month, the walling of the door was broken,
and the buried man dug out of the grave; Trevelyan’s moonshee only
running there in time to see the ripping open of the bag in which the
man had been inclosed. He was taken out in a perfectly senseless state,
his eyes closed, his hands cramped and powerless, his stomach shrunk
very much, and his teeth jammed so fast together that they were forced
to open his mouth with an iron instrument to pour a little water down
his throat. He gradually recovered his senses and the use of his limbs;
and when we went to see him he was sitting up, supported by two men,
and conversed with us in a low, gentle tone of voice, saying that ‘we
might bury him again for a twelvemonth, if we pleased.’”
A conjuror was exhibiting a mimic swan, which floated on real water,
and followed his motions, when the bird suddenly became stationary. He
approached it more closely, but the swan did not move.
“There is a person in the company,” said he, “who understands the
principle upon which this trick is performed, and who is counteracting
me. I appeal to the company whether this is fair, and I beg the
gentleman will desist.”
The trick was performed by magnetism, and the counteracting agency was
a magnet in the pocket of Sir Francis Blake Delaval.
In 1785 the celebrated automatic chess player was first exhibited in
London, having previously been shown in various cities of Germany and
France. It had been invented about fifteen years before by a Hungarian
noble, the Baron von Kempelen, who had until then, however, declined to
permit its exhibition in public. Having witnessed some experiments in
magnetism by a Frenchman, performed before the Court of Maria Theresa,
Kempelen had observed to the empress that he thought himself able to
construct a piece of mechanism the operations of which would be far
more surprising than the experiments they had witnessed. The curiosity
of the empress was excited, and she exacted a promise from Kempelen to
make the attempt. The result was the automatic chess-player.
The figure was of the size of life, dressed as a Turk, and seated
behind a square piece of cabinet work. It was fixed upon castors, so as
to run over the floor, and satisfy beholders that there was no access
to it from below. On the top, in the center, was a fixed chess-board,
toward which the eyes of the figure were directed. Its right hand and
arm were extended toward the board, and its left, somewhat raised, held
a pipe.
The spectators, having examined the figure, the exhibitor wound up
the machinery, placed the cushion under the arm of the figure, and
challenged any gentleman present to play.
The Turk always chose the white men, and made the first move. The
fingers opened as the hand was extended toward the board, and the piece
was deftly picked up, and removed to the proper square. If a false move
was made by its opponent, it tapped on the table impatiently, replaced
the piece, and claimed the move for itself. If a human player hesitated
long over a move, the Turk tapped sharply on the table.
The mind fails to comprehend any mechanism capable of performing with
such accuracy movements which require knowledge and reflection. Beckman
says indeed that a boy was concealed in the figure, and prompted by the
best chess-player whose services the proprietor could obtain.