pages: unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf, 336
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unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf | 336 | NARROWNESS OF ROBERT-HOUDIN'S "MEMOIRS" graveyard devoted to the poor and unclaimed dead. To prevent this, I purchased the lot and tombstone, and presented the same to the Society of American Magicians, of which organization, at the present writing, I am a member. A man of noble birth and brilliant attainments was the original Bosco, and his name became a by-word all over the Continent as the synonym, not of cruelty, but of clever deception, yet never has posterity put the name of a great performer to such ignoble uses. For who has not heard the cry of the modern Bosco, "Eat-'em-alive"? To-day I can close my eyes and summon two visions. First I see myself standing bareheaded before a neglected grave in the quiet cemetery on Friedrichstrasse, Dresden, the sunlight pouring down upon the tombstone which bears not only the cup-and-balls and wand, insignia of Bosco's most famous trick, but this inscription: "Ici repose le célèbre Bartolomeo Bosco.-Né a Turin le II Janvier, 1793; décédé à Dresden le 2 Mars, 1863." The history of this clever conjurer, with all its lights and shadows, sweeps before me like a mental panorama. The second vision carries me into the country, to the fairs of England and the side-shows of America: "Bosco! Bosco! Eat-'em-alive Bosco. You can't af- ford to miss this marvel. Bosco! Bosco!" Follow me into the enclosure and gaze down into a den. There lies a half-naked human being. His hair is long and matted, a loin cloth does wretched duty as clothing. Torn sandals are on his feet. The eulogistic lecturer dilates upon the powers of this twentieth-century Bosco, but you do not listen. Your fascinated gaze is fixed on various hideous, wriggling, writhing forms on [307] |