pages: unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf, 136
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unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf | 136 | THE PASTRY COOK OF THE PALAIS ROYAL begin to bark, and continue to do so until they are re- turned. The next figure belonging to this piece is the little chimney-sweeper, which will be seen coming from behind the house, will enter the door, appear at the top of the chimney, and give the usual cry of "Sweep' several times, descend the chimney, and come out with his bag full of soot." In 1820, Haddock's programme, including the fruitery, appears with only a few minor changes as the répertoire of Bologna, a very clever conjurer who afterward became the assistant of Anderson, the Wizard of the North, and who made most of the latter's apparatus. On the Bologna programme, for a performance to be given at the Great Assembly Room, Three Tuns Tavern, the shop trick is described thus: "A curious Mechanical Fruiterer and Confectioner's Shop, kept by Kitty Comfit, who will produce at Command such Variety of Fruit and Sweet- meats as may be asked for." The marvellous little shop does not appear again on programmes of magic until 1815, when Garnerin features it as "The Dutch Coffee-House." On the programme used by Garnerin in that year for a benefit which he gave for the General Hospital at Birmingham, England, it is feat- ured as No. IO: "A Dutch Coffee-House, a very surprising mechanical piece, in which there is the figure of a Girl, six inches high, which presents, at the Command of the Spectators, ten different sorts of Liquors." This programme is of such historical value that I repro- duce it in full. It will show that this particular mechanical trick is by no means the most important feature of Gar- nerin's répertoire. In fact his fame is based on his [ 119] |