HASELMAYER, THE CONJUROR.

Evening Star, Issue 2868, 29 April 1872, Page 2

HASELMAYER, THE CONJUROR.

The Masonic Hall on Saturday evening furnished a useful example of the advantages of advertising by ordinary and extraordinary means the merits of any new entertainment. Professor Haselmayer was brought under almost everyone’s notice long before his arrival here; and*as a natural result there was a general anxiety to witness his opening performance. A good crowd assembled outside the hall some time before the doors were opened ; and fully a quarter of an hour before the performance began, admission had to be refused. We are assured that those turned away would have constituted a respectable audience on any ordinary occasion.

Professor Haselmayer, unlike most performers in'?the same line as himself, j'uses very little apparatus in carrying out his tricks. His stage is a perfect model of simplicity ; all he uses are three tables, stripped of all finery ; and two of them appear to be more for ornamentation than anything else. Being a foreigner, he is of necessity compelled at the outset to ask the indulgence of his audience, on account of his imperfect English ; which, in many cases, is a serious drawback. One misses the elegant conversation of Heller ; but Haselmayer is capable of saying in his own way some very witty things. His performances ou Saturday might, though clever and well received, are but a small modicum of what we have seen him do. Yet such as they were, they arc equal to those of any conjuror who has yet appeared in Dunedin ; while his tricks are in many" cases decidedly superior. There were the tricks with cards; those clever manipulations by which waves and an imitation of a suspension bridge were given ; and the throwing of a number of cards tied in a handkerchief into a glass frame. Not less successful were the abstraction of coins from a glass held by one of the audience, and the placing of them into another held by himself; and the rapid and wonderful growth of flowers in sand. Cleverly done as all these things were, they were succeeded by others. more astonishing. The mice and canaries are alone worth seeing. Their performances are evidence of careful and painstaking tuition. They leave and enter their cages on being so directed ; climb poles, swing one another with the utmost enjoyment of the sport; while a female mouse is drawn in a carriage for an airing by one of her offspring. But the most surprising and wonderful trick of all is the drum trek, which is performed on an ordi-nai-y-sized kettle-drum. Placing it on a stand in the midst of the audience, and taking his position ou the platform, the Professor makes the drum answer him whatever questions he puts to it—a single beat signifying the affirmative, and silence expressing a negative reply. He takes the dice amongst the audience, gets this and that one to throw, the drum beating the number thrown by each individual. II e then reverses the trick, the drum foretelling the number that will he thrown, and in every instance successfully. Then two of the audience in different parts of the house are invited to write down five figures on separate sheets of paper, which are retained by them without interference by the Professor. The drum is asked to indicate the figures that have been written down, and

does as directed with never-failing accuracy, besides telling the figures that will form the total and giving them in regular order. In addition to all this, the Professor is a musician of considerable ability. He plays the piano and an instrument of his invention, called the stylocarf. On Saturday evening he only played the last mentioned instrument, which greatly resembles the reck harmonicon, but is capable of producing better music. It is made of wood and leather ; and with a hammer in each hand he strikes the bars, favoring his audience with a pleasant mazurka, which being encored, was succeeded by a medley of popular airs. Wo regretted to see that the Professor felt called upon to speak in such pointed terms of the interruption caused by the noisiness of a portion of the audience ; and trust the necessity for doing so will nob occur again. The same programme will be repeated to-night.