pages: unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf, 331
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unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf | 331 | THE UNMASKING OF ROBERT-HOUDIN entire financial holdings through his passion for balloon experiments, as is set forth in chapter II. of this book. Then, to show his own inconsistency, after picturing Pinetti in his "Memoirs" as a charlatan, a conjurer of vul- gar, uncouth pretensions rather than as a good showman of real ability, Robert-Houdin is forced to admit on page 25 of "Secrets of Magic" that later conjurers employed Pinetti programmes as a foundation upon which their performances were built! Even here, however, Robert- Houdin fails to acknowledge an iota of the heavy debt which he personally owed the despised Chevalier Pinetti. Robert-Houdin devotes the greater part of chapter X., American edition of his autobiography, to belittling Bos- co, a conjurer whose popularity all over Europe was long- lived. First, he pictures Bosco as a most cruel creature who literally tortured to death the birds used in his perform- ances. Here, as in his attack on Pinetti, Robert-Houdin throws the responsibility for criticism on the shoulders of another. His old friend Antonio accompanies him to watch Bosco's performance, and it is Antonio throughout the narrative who inveighs against Bosco's cruelty and Antonio who insists upon leaving before the performance closes, because the cruelty of the conjurer nauseates him. At that time no society for the protection of animals existed, and, even if it had, I doubt whether Bosco's performance would have come under the ban. Certain magicians of to-day employ many of Bosco's tricks in which birds and even small animals are used, but the conjuring is so deftly done that the public of 1907, like that of 1838, thinks it is all sleight-of-hand work and that the birds are neither hurt nor killed. Even in Bosco's [302] |