pages: unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf, 77
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unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf | 77 | THE UNMASKING OF ROBERT-HOUDIN "He was a member and at one time president of the Smeatonian Society, the precursor of the Institution of Civil Engineers. In 1702 he devised a self-acting pneu- matic brake for preventing accidents to the men employed in working wheel-crancs. In The Gentlemen's Magazine for June, 1765, page 296, it is recorded that Messrs. Pinchbeck and Norton had made a complicated astro- it the Conk and Half Moan Tavern in Temple- Bar, r HE famons Mr. FAWKS performi moft furpriting Trick by Desterity of Hand, with Regi, curions India Birds, Mice and Money, Which Curionits no Perfon In the dom cari presend to thom To- gether with the Activity of Body perform'd by his Polture Maller, bring 9 Boy about Ten Years of Age, who Far - ceeds all that ever in Eumpe. Who Transforms his Body into fuch a various Shapes, 21 Curpaties human Faith to believe our Geting. Likewite the Rezilan Searamouch Dance, with two four Note, Legs, We have and the bur had Printe. the Body, Honour and prefent Majchy Headi, one to the Admiration of all to perterm before bis ling George, att the Quality of the whote Kirg- dom. with great Applaufe. Beginning evary Evening precifely it N.B. Any Gentiemen or Ladies may have 2 private Performance any Tirm of the Day, giving an Mour's Notick. An early Fawkes advertisement, clipped from a London paper of 1795. From the Harry Houdini Collection. noinical clock for the Queen's house, some of the cal- culations of the wheel having been made by James Fer- guson, the astronomer. There is no proof that Pinchbeck and Norton were ever in partnership, and there are now two clocks answering to the description at Buckingham Palace, one by Pinchbeck, with four dials and of a very complicated construction, and another by Norton. "Pinchbeck took out three patents: the first (No: 892), granted 1768, was for an improved candlestick with a [60] |