pages: unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf, 240
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unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf | 240 | SECOND SIGHT cards for this trick, also outlining the manner of giving the medium the cue for certain phrases. For instance, while explaining to the audience that he will not speak at all, in the very sentences addressed to the spectators he informs the medium which cards have been selected. Pinetti's code must have been clever, as Decremps was unable to explain the entire second-sight act. He has omitted the principal part of the mystification, that is, naming the articles held up for the performer to see. That the card trick was only one test of his second-sight performance, and that Pinetti's medium did not retire after naming the cards, are facts shown by the following clipping from one of his announcements: "Signora Pinetti will have the special honor and satis- faction of exhibiting various experiments of new discovery, no less curious than seemingly incredible, particularly that of her being seated in one of the front boxes with an handkerchief over her eyes, and guess at everything imagined and proposed to her by any person in the company." Third on the list of second-sight performers, according to the data in my collection, was Louis Gordon M'Kean, who created a sensation at the Egyptian Hall Bazaar, Piccadilly, London, in 1831, or fifteen years before Robert- Houdin, according to his claims, "discovered" second sight. Young M'Kean was featured as possessing dou- ble, not second, sight, and one of his bills is reproduced on page 212. Another programme in my collection, dated the Théâtre Scarboro, Friday evening, August 4th, 1837, announces "For a limited engagement of three nights the Three [ 213 ] 1 |