THERE is little evidence of any remote history of conjuring in America before the incursion of European conjurers. This is not to say that magic was unknown. The destruction of manuscripts and records by religious fanatics may account for this lack of evidence. Indeed, as Central America, Mexico, and Peru were centres of as high a civilization as that of China, no doubt the peoples of these ancient nations were acquainted with that magic, white or black, which we now call conjuring. This deduction is supported by the records made by the Spanish fathers who went as missionaries to the newly discovered countries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Medicine-men of the Red Indian tribes were supposed to be able to make themselves invisible. The Eskimo and red men in the North, and the Indian tribes further south, had been in the habit of using small tricks of conjuring in the course of their weird ceremonies. They swallowed or breathed fire, thrust swords and arrows down their throats, and apparently swallowed small articles and retrieved them from various parts of their persons. Some were ventriloquists, and some were expert in producing manifestations while apparently secured with ropes or thongs, which last accomplishments may have given the Davenport brothers their idea for their cabinet rope tricks.

As far back as 1723 they invited persons to shoot at them with marked bullets, really using balls made of earth and rubbed over with lead, which were broken in the barrel of the gun by the use of a ramrod.

On the whole, it may be said that the history of conjuring in America did not commence until 1822, when a magician named Wilson performed in Philadelphia. In 1840 Monsieur and Madame Robert from London and the European capitals gave entertainments in and around Cincinnati. Then there was Wyman, W. H. Young, Joseph Pentland, Henry Horley, Jonathan Harrington; also the Italians, Signor Antonio and Signor Vivalla, who appeared in the Eastern States.

John Wyman purchased his apparatus from Anderson, and became somewhat prominent with such effects as "The Aerial Suspension", "The Gun Trick", "The Magic Cauldron", and "The Sphinx". He also did "The Egg Bag", ventriloquism, and an exhibition of marionettes. He retired after conjuring for some forty years, and died in New jersey in 1881.

But the above were not very prominent conjurers, and until about 1875 conjuring in the States was mainly in the hands of European visitors, such as Blitz, Anderson, Alexandra, Heller, and Hermann.

Canaries, the Greek conjurer, was probably an American. He was only a moderate performer. The first really prominent American-born conjurer was Harry Kellar. Kellar was born at Erie, Pennsylvania, on July 11th, 1849. He was engaged by Harris Hughes, the Fakir of Ava, to assist with his show, and it was he who taught him the business. He remained with the Fakir for three or four years, and in 1868 joined the Davenport brothers and Fay, with whom he travelled until 1873. By this time he had learned all there was to know of the rope-tying and cabinet business. He toured South America, and in 1875 visited England to purchase conjuring apparatus, and at the end of that year became associated with two jugglers who were disguised as Chinese, under the names of Ling Look, a sword-swallower and fire-eater, and Yamadiva, a contortionist and escape performer. With these he made up a troupe, which he entitled "The Royal Illusionists". Later on, being joined by David Hayman, who performed as Kunard, Kellar took a tour through the Southern States, Australia, Java, China, India, and South Africa. Ling Look and Yamadiva died at Hong Kong in 1877. Hayman, left in Australia, died about 1900.

Kellar travelled alone until 1878, when he again came to London and acquired an imitation of "Psycho". He opened again at Havana, and subsequently performed in other cities in the States, with but small success. in 1879 he was again in England. He now added to his collection of automata "Echo", a cornet player; "Phono", another mechanical musician; and "Clio", the drawing figure. These were somewhat palpable imitations of similar automata of Maskelyne's, namely "Fanfare", the euphonium player, "Labial", and the artist "Zoe". In 1880 he was joined by Haidée Heller and Warren Wright, showing Robert Heller's system of second sight. He had the honour of appearing before Queen Victoria during this tour. But on the whole he had scant success in England, and was soon on his travels again, Egypt, South Africa, India, Australia, China, japan, and Java being visited.

In March 1884 he again visited England and acquired some more apparatus and appeared in New York after an absence of about six years. For some twenty years his chief rival was Alexander Hermann, but after the latter's death in 1896 Kellar reigned supreme as the most prominent conjurer in America. Year by year Kellar presented in America the novelties of Bautier de Kolta, Maskelyne and myself, Morritt, and other European performers. Like Hermann, he improved on some of the effects he utilized. He was a good showman, and had a gift of artistic presentation, but his claims to have invented most of the things he exhibited were unfounded.

America is the birthplace of specialists. There are the Kings of Cards, Kings of Coins, and so on, the chief among them being Howard Thurston and Nelson Downs. Howard Thurston was born in Columbia, Ohio, in 1869. He became a conjurer at an early age. He saw the great possibilities of the then new sleight, back-palming, and built up an act consisting entirely of card tricks. This sleight appears to have originated in America, and can be used for all sorts of small objects. Nelson Downs, for instance, made great play with the same sleight in his act, which consisted mostly of coin tricks.

In 1900 Thurston performed in London, and on his return to the United States he amplified his act with big illusions. In 1906 he made a prolonged tour in India and the Far East, and on going back to the States joined forces with Kellar, who made him a partner. When the latter retired in 1908, Thurston took his place and became, as he is now, the leading conjurer in the States.

Nate Leipzig is one of the cleverest sleight-of-hand performers living. He was born in Stockholm, and went to the States very early in life. He began conjuring about 1903, and quickly became famous. One of his first performances in England in 1905 was given at St. George's Hall at the Magic Circle Grand Séance, and he gained high praise from his fellow-conjurers.

One of the most successful performers that the States has sent us was Carl Hertz, who started conjuring in the mining districts of California. He was born in San Francisco in 1859, of Russian parents. For forty years he practised in England and on the Continent. He was the first in England to present Bautier de Kolta's vanishing lady, "The Flying Birdcage", and the production of flowers from a paper bag. No sooner had Bautier produced them in Paris than the copyists were at work annexing them and selling them to other conjurers.

Hertz had the novel experience of presenting a trick in a room of the House of Commons to a committee who were enquiring into the alleged cruelties of training performing animals.

Another very successful conjurer who came from the States was the famous Chung Ling Soo, who brought to this country a Chinese act on the lines of that done by the real Chinese conjurer Ching Ling Foo. Robinson, incidentally, was the real name of Chung Ling Soo.

He was born of Scotch parents in America on April 2nd, 1861. He started life as a metal worker, and when he took up conjuring he became chief assistant to Alexandra Hermann. On one occasion he made up and performed as Hermann when the latter was unable to appear. He had a genius for making-up, and he so acted his own part of a Chinaman that I am sure he began to think he really was one. Certainly his audiences thought so. He did the old gun trick under the title of "The Living Target". This proved as fatal to him as it has done to several others. He was accidentally shot through a defect in the gun at the Wood Green Empire, London, March 23rd, 1918, and died the next day.

The Great Lafayette, born Sigmund Neuberger, in Munich, in 1872, was also an American importation. He made a great success by his fantastic show. "A great show" was the only description for it; it could hardly be called a magical show. He also had a sad end. He was trapped in a fire which occurred at the Empire Theatre, Edinburgh, on May 8th, 1911. Lafayette had escaped, but gallantly went back to rescue an animal.

Horace Goldin was the fastest magician ever seen, and boasted doing 45 tricks in 17 minutes, enough, in my opinion, to give an audience chronic indigestion for magic. He became known as a conjurer in America in 1895. He visited the Palace Theatre, London, in July 1901, and has since been to all parts of the world.

Arnold de Biere and Leon are other conjurers of the same style from over the water.

Karl Germain, another visitor from the States, appeared at St. George's Hall with great success in 1907. He retired, however, from the art of conjuring, and has taken up the practice of the law in his native Cleveland.

Who has not heard of Harry Houdini, the Handcuff King and escape artist--probably one of the greatest showmen who ever lived in the world of conjurers? His name became a household word in most countries before he died at Detroit in 1926 at the age of 52. He used to go to police stations and prisons and escape from any cell or bond they could devise. One of his most sensational feats was to escape from a strait-jacket while suspended from a crane at the top of a high building.

Frank van Hoven was an amusing importation from America. He called himself "The Mad Conjurer", and everything he attempted went wrong. This was done purposely, of course, and his mistakes caused roars of laughter. It is said that he got the idea from his first performance, which was so bad that it made good.

Morris F. Raymond, Alfred Benzon, Lawrence Crane, and Claud Golden, were the other good performers who came from America.

Among other conjurers who stayed in America and performed there for many years were Harry and Mildred Rouclere, Elma P. Ransom, Roltare (who chiefly made sideshow illusions), Frank du Crot-Sargent ("the Merry Wizard"), W. J. Hilliar (who was born in London), the "Great Alexandra", Hal Merton, and Frederick Eugene Powell. Powell was the best known of these, and the first to catch goldfish in the air with a rod and line, an illusion said to have been invented by Mingus, one of the old-time conjurers. It was first performed by Powell in New York in October 1890, and brought over to England by Chung Ling Soo.

A mysterious French magician of this time was L'Homme Masqué, or Le Marquis d'O. His real name was De Gago, and he always wore a black mask at his performances. He made a feature of the distribution of small gifts--cigars, bouquets and sweets. He aroused curiosity wherever he appeared by reason of the mask which he constantly wore.

Germany has not given us many good conjurers. Auzinger, who first utilized the magical effects known as "black art", never visited this country.

We had Jacoby here in 1885 doing rope-tying and two hours of ordinary entertainment of no very striking characteristics. The best-known men in Germany seemed to be F. W. Conradi of Berlin, and Carl Willman of Hamburg. They are both dealers as well as performers.

The Svengalis were a German couple who did a thought-reading act. In England and America M. B. Korarah was also well known as a second-sight performer.

Austrian conjurers were represented by Chevalier Ernst Thorn, a brilliant performer, born in 1856. He travelled for forty years with his "Hour in Dreamland".

Rolands was another Austrian conjurer; he had nothing original to show, for his performance was based upon those of Lafayette and Goldin.

Italy has hardly kept pace with other countries in the art of conjuring. The best performers sent here were Capretta and Chefalo, who present a smart entertainment assisted by a troupe of midgets.

Denmark has sent us Clement de Lion, who is recognized as a leading manipulator of billiard balls.

Servais Le Roy came from Belgium in 1880, and has proved to be one of the best conjurers of modern times. He has also done some excellent illusions, usually presenting a combination known as "Le Roy, Talma, and Bosco". Talma is his wife, who does a separate act with coins, while Bosco, a clown, does a lot of comic business.

Ever since I can remember, we in Europe have heard wonderful tales of Oriental magic, and to many the constant repetition of these often fantastic tales has given them a resemblance of authenticity.

The very first record of this magic comes from Marco Polo, who travelled in Kashmir and Thibet and China between 1270 and 1290. The following was dictated by him on his return to Venice:

These people are necromancers, and by their infernal art perform the most extraordinary and delusive enchantments that were ever seen or heard of. They cause tempests to arise accompanied with flashes of lightning and thunderbolts, and produce many other marvellous effects.

Of the Socotraus he tells us they could change the direction of the wind, cause the sea to become calm, raise tempests, and occasion shipwrecks. Of the magic of Kashmir, which he says had been derived from India, all he records is: "The wizards could obscure the light of day."

He tells a similar story of a Chinese magician, to whom he also ascribes the power of preventing rain.

These sort of marvels have long been the "stock-in-trade" of wizards and witches all the world over, probably the result of weather forecasts and some knowledge of astrology. Tales of similar marvels are very common. David Wunderer, who travelled in Northern Europe in 1590, said he encountered some Lapps who were much given to sorcery and would sell a piece of knotted rope to a sailor wishing for a favourable wind: untying one knot brought a breeze; undoing two knots or three knots made the wind stronger; but to loose the fourth knot would raise a tempest and bring destruction to ship and crew.

Three hundred years before, similar powers were credited to the wise woman of the Isle of Man by Ranulph Higden, a monk of Chester. In his account of that island he says:

Wommen there sellith schip men winde, as it were i-closed under thre knottes of threde, so that the more winde he wol have he will unknotte the mo knottes.

Marco Polo describes in the following words the marvels he saw at the Court of the Khan of Tartary:

When the Grand Khan sits at meals in his hall of state, the table, which is placed in the centre, is elevated to the height of about eight cubits, and at a distance from it stands a large buffet where all the drinking-vessels are arranged. Now, by means of their supernatural art, they [i.e. the Bacsi or enchanters], cause the flagons of wine, milk or any other beverage to fill the cups spontaneously without being touched by the attendants, the cups to move through the air until they reach the hand of the Grand Khan. As he empties them, they return to the place from whence they came.

Marco Polo admits this marvel can be done by the sages of our own country who understand necromancy.

We are indebted to the Arab Sheikh, Abdullah Mahmed, known as Ibi Batuta ("the Traveller") for the first account of Indian and Chinese marvels. The following description was written in an Arabic manuscript completed in 1355. Early in the nineteenth century it was translated and printed--it is the very earliest account we possess of the "levitation" and "rope tricks".

The following he witnessed at the palace of the Emperor at Delhi:

The Emperor, pointing to me, said. "This is a stranger, show him what he has never yet seen." One of them assumed the form of a cube and arose from the earth, and in this cubic shape he occupied a place in the air over our beads. I was so much astonished and terrified at this that I fainted and fell to the earth. The Emperor then ordered me some medicine which he had with him, and, upon taking this, I recovered and sat up. This cubic figure still remained in the air, just as it had been. His companion then took a sandal belonging to one of those who had come out with him, and struck it upon the ground as if he had been angry. The sandal then ascended until it became opposite in situation with the cube. He then struck it upon the neck and the cube descended to the earth and at last rested on the place which it had left. The Emperor then told me that the man who took the form of a cube was a disciple to the owner of the sandal. "And," continued he, "had I not entertained fears for the safety of thy intellect, I should have ordered them to have shown thee greater things than these." With this, however, I took a palpitation of the heart, and the Emperor ordered me medicine, which relieved me.

Which was perhaps just as well!

In 1700 Francis Valentin, a Dutch traveller, gives an account of a similar levitation, or rather this was most likely the actual occurrence that Batuta saw. The account runs as follows:

A man will go and sit on three sticks put together so as to form a tripod; after which, first one stick, then a second, and then a third, shall be removed from under him, and the man shall not fall but shall still remain sitting in the air. Yet I have spoken with two friends who had seen this at one and the same time, and one of them, I may add, mistrusting his own eyes, had taken the trouble to feel about with a long stick if there was anything on which the body rested, and yet, as the gentleman told me, he could neither feel nor see any such thing. Still, I could only say that I could not believe it, as a thing manifestly contrary to reason.

It will be noted this is not described first-hand, and was evidently a garbled account.

In the Saturday Magazine of 1832 there is the following circumstantial account of a performance given at Tanjore by a Brahmin named Sheshab:

The performer had with him a stool eighteen inches high, a hollow bamboo two feet long and two and a half inches in diameter, a roll of antelope skin two feet long and four inches in circumference. He and his apparatus were covered by a large shawl. Five minutes passed, during which the performer was busily occupied, judging from the agitation of the covering. He then ordered the shawl to be removed, and when this was done he was seen to be sitting cross-legged in the air, his right arm leaning on the roll of skin, which was connected with the bamboo, which in turn rested over the inlaid brass stars with which the stool was ornamented.

The narrator says that Sheshab remained half an hour in this position, and that he saw him do the trick on four occasions. He shrewdly guessed that iron rods passed through the bamboo and cylinder and connected with others under the performer's clothing.

From another account we learn that when the performer wished to come down he was again covered while he disconnected the apparatus.

According to Houdini's account, Alexandra Heimburgher, a German conjurer, was the first to produce this levitation or suspension in Europe, and in support of this he published a bill dated 1850, which hardly bears out the German's claim, since Robert Houdin was performing the trick in Paris in 1847. I have also previously described the trick as performed by Sylvester. This was the same practically as presented by Houdin, Anderson, Hermann, and Jacobs. Robert Houdin, though, undoubtedly gave the trick the artistic setting, adapting it from the Indian version. Sylvester's so-called improvement was doubtful.

Another improvement was used by Dr. Lynn, which he called a "double suspension", i.e. suspending two persons at once. This again was doubtful.

When John Nevil Maskelyne took it up the improvement was marked. The levitated persons rose slowly in the air without any support whatever. Furthermore, a solid steel hoop was passed over the subject from head to foot.

There have been many descriptions of the mythical "rope trick' The first is by the same Batuta, and runs as follows:

I was entertained by the Emir in his own house in a most splendid manner. At the banquet were present the Khan's jugglers, the chief of whom was ordered to show some of his wonders. He then took a wooden sphere, in which there were holes and in these long straps, and threw it up into the air till it went out of sight, as I myself witnessed, while the strap remained in his hand. He then commanded one of his disciples to take hold of and ascend by this strap, which he did, until he also went out of sight. His master then called him three times, and no answer came. He then took a knife in his hand, apparently in anger, laid hold of the strap and also went quite out of sight. He then threw the hand of the boy upon the ground, then his foot, then his other hand, then his other foot, then his body, then his head. He then came down panting for breath, and his clothes were stained with blood. The juggler then took the limbs of the boy and applied them one to another. He then stamped upon them, and it stood up complete and erect. I was astonished, and seized, in consequence, by a palpitation of the heart, but they gave me some drink and I recovered. The judge of the Mohammedans, sitting by my side, swore there was neither ascent nor descent, nor cutting away of limbs, but the whole was mere juggling.

Batuta was evidently a palpitating and thirsty soul, and hardly a reliable witness.

In a manuscript purported to be written by the Emperor Jahangier, who ruled at Delhi from 1605 to 1627, there is another description of the trick as he was supposed to have seen it:

They produced a chain fifty cubits in length and in my presence threw one end of it towards the sky, where it remained as if fastened to something in the air. A dog was then brought forward and, being placed at the lower end of the chain, immediately ran up and, reaching the other end, disappeared in the air. In the same manner a hog, a panther, a lion, and a tiger were successfully sent up the chain, and all disappeared at the other end. At last they took down the chain and put it into a bag, no one ever discerning in what way the animals were made to vanish into the air in the mysterious manner described.

After reading this description one can but envy this Emperor's powers of imagination.