pages: latestmagicbeing00hoff.pdf, 213
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latestmagicbeing00hoff.pdf | 213 | CONCERNING PATTER 197 but with only a cloudy recollection as to what they were. In devising, as is sometimes desirable, new patter for an old trick, an endeavour should be made to look at the effect from an entirely fresh point of view, so as to make the trick practically a new one. A remarkable instance of such a transformation is furnished by an incident in the life of Robert- Houdin. At one period of his career he was entrusted by the French Government with a very important mission. He was sent to Algeria, spe- cially charged to "astonish the natives," and by his greater wonders to destroy their belief in the pretended miracles of the Aissoua. Among other surprises, he decided to make use of his "Light and Heavy Chest," a chest which, as the reader is doubtless aware, became at command, by means of an electro-magnet in the pedestal on which it rested, so "heavy" that the strongest man could not lift it from its base. This trick, pro- duced at a time when the phenomena of electricity were but little understood, has produced an immense sensation at his Paris performances. But the Master instinctively felt that the trick in that shape would produce little or no effect on the more primitive mind of the Arab. He would sim- ply have taken for granted some mechanical means of holding down the chest, beyond his own com- prehension, no doubt, but by no means to be regarded as miraculous. Robert-Houdin decided |