CHINESE SHADOWS.
WHILE upon the subject of optical wonders, we should hardly be forgiven
if we did not give a description of the amusement known as Chinese
shadows, or Fantocini. In the winter time it is difficult to pass
through any of the large thoroughfares of London after nightfall,
without seeing a crowd admiring the popular fantocini farces of the
“Broken Bridge,” or “Billy Button;” and although these dramatic
exhibitions are not always free from vulgarity, they are received with
vociferous applause by at least the younger portion of the audience.
The apparatus for the exhibition of the fantocini is generally very
simple. The screen on which they are shown is generally made of calico
rendered semi-transparent with copal varnish, and the figures are cut
out of cardboard. Frames containing landscapes and scenes of different
kinds are also provided, which are cut out in the same material. The
_dramatis personæ_ are generally made with moveable limbs, which they
throw about in the most unanatomical manner, and the showman is often
endowed with ventriloquial talents of no mean order. This amusement is
to be found in all parts of the world, from the Strand and Tottenham
Court Road London, to the streets of Algiers and Java. A graphic writer
in the _Magasin Pittoresque_ gives a pleasant description of the
fantocini, as exhibited at the Arabs’ theatre in the Mohammedan quarter
of the city of Algiers. It was on the occasion of the feast of the
Bairam, which immediately follows the termination of the Ramadan, or
Mohammedan Lent. The theatre, which was the only one frequented by the
Arab population, consisted simply of a long vaulted hall, without seats,
boxes, or galleries; but the audience, who had already been there some
time, did not seem to regard the omission as of any consequence, but had
seated themselves on the ground with great coolness, chatting in
whispers, and waiting patiently until the director should consider the
place full enough to begin the performance. Half an hour elapsed, and
the spectators still chatted on quite unconcernedly; an hour, and yet
there was no hissing or stamping of feet from the grave and patient
spectators. At last they reached the maximum, and a boy came forward and
blew out the few lamps with which the theatre was lighted, leaving them
to smoulder away with a perfume that was certainly not Oriental in its
character. First came the legend of the Seven Sleepers; then
Scheherazade relating her bewitching stories to the Sultan. These were
followed by Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, a story that is as popular
in Algiers as it is in London or Paris; the whole culminating in a kind
of burlesque, in which a great deal of gross fun was mixed up with a
number of rebellious allusions. The devil, for instance, who is of
course one of the members of the troupe, is portrayed as a French
soldier, bearing a cross on his breast like an ancient Crusader. After
him came Carhageuse, who is the buffoon of the Eastern stage, and who
makes violent but unsuccessful love to a charming young Jewess. There
was a poor barber who was raised to the dignity of grand vizier, his
successor’s head being cut off by the yataghan of the Oriental Jack
Ketch, to the great delight of the people. Then a wretched Jew receives
the bastinado, amidst vociferous applause, which increases still higher
when the ears of an unhappy Giaour are cut off and thrown to the dogs.
Throughout the piece, it is of course the Mussulman who always triumphs,
like the French guards at the _Cirque Impériale_, or the British
grenadiers at old Astley’s. The performance concluded with a grand naval
battle between the Moorish and Spanish fleets. The drum as usual served
for cannon, there was a great deal of smoke and confusion, and the
Christian fleet gradually sank under the continuous fire of the
Mussulmans amidst the plaudits and bravos of the crowd.
[Illustration:
FIG. 64.—Effect of cut paper-work.
]
In Java, the subjects of the fantocini are generally taken from the
native mythology. The screen on which the shadows are exhibited is ten
or twelve feet long, and five feet high, and the figures are cut of
thick leather, their limbs being moved by thin pieces of nearly
transparent horn.
In fig. 64 we see another kind of Chinese shadows, in which the lights
of the figure are cut out. These pictures are perfectly unrecognisable
as being even the basest imitation of any known form; but when their
shadows are thrown on the wall, the cut-out portions show us lights,
whilst those that have been left form the shadows. On the Boulevard des
Capucines, at Paris, there used to be a man who managed to pick up a
good living by selling these candle shadows. Of course he used to carry
on his trade of an evening, and with a strong lamp he would throw the
shadows of his figures on the white walls of the houses, or the blind of
a shop window, or even on the pavement. With a little care and ingenuity
a number of these amusing cards may be easily designed. In showing them,
care must be taken to choose the best distances between the light and
the paper, and between this latter and the wall. If the card be placed
too close to the wall, the resulting shadows will be too dark, and the
outlines too sharp; if, on the contrary, the light is placed too far
off, the outlines become confused, and the proper effect is lost.
Shadows have been applied before now to the propagation of seditious
ideas. “In 1817,” says an esteemed French author, “one winter’s night we
were all sitting round the table listening to my father, who was reading
aloud an interesting book of the period, when a friend of our family,
who had been formerly an officer of the Empire, entered the room. He was
a serious, upright, soldierly man, and wore his coat buttoned up to his
chin. He had hardly replied to our salutations, when he drew a chair to
the table, and made a sign with his hands and eyes that plainly
indicated silence and discretion. There was something in the expression
of his countenance that seemed to show that he had something mysterious
in store for us, and we fully expected to hear some extraordinary news,
or to see him bring out a Bonapartist pamphlet of more than usual
importance. Our surprise was consequently great when we saw him slowly
unscrew the top of his cane, which was turned out of boxwood, and
presented nothing very remarkable either in form or material. He,
however, took up a copybook which was lying on the table, placed it at a
certain distance from the lamp, and then laid upon it the little piece
of turned boxwood. At first we noticed nothing at all extraordinary, and
he smiled at our want of intelligence, until at last my youngest brother
cried out suddenly, ‘Look! there’s the head of Napoleon!’ and truly
enough, we found, on looking more attentively at the shadows of the
turned knob of the cane, that their profile was that of the great exile,
most correctly and clearly portrayed. The old captain’s face lighted up
at the sight, and the tears came into his eyes. ‘We shall see him
again,’ he murmured in a low voice, and he hummed the burden of a
Bonapartist song then in vogue. During the rest of the evening he was
very lively, and proved to us most conclusively, that before six months
the _Grande Armée_ would be revenged for their defeat at Waterloo. Some
weeks after, there was hardly a soldier in the town that did not possess
a stick or a tobacco-pipe stopper, turned in this fashion, but one day a
panic seized everybody, and the canes and pipe stoppers were all burnt.”
[Illustration:
Seal. Cane.
FIG. 65.—Seditious Toys.
]
Fig. 65 represents historic heads cut in this way. During the
Shakespeare Tercentenary excitement, a London turner made quite a little
fortune by making heads of the great poet on the same principle.
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