“GIVE US OUR MONEY.”

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4921, 4 January 1926, Page 3

“GIVE US OUR MONEY.”

SCENE IN IRISH THEATRE A JUGGLER’S ILL-LUCK People at Waterford, Ireland, want their money’s worth. When a London magician announced at a local theatre that he would saw a woman in half, the audience waited to be shown. A long, trunk-like box was produced. A girl assistant of the magician climbed into it. The usual committee of local residents field up to the stage to supervise the proceedings. As a sign of good faith the magician offered to let committee men tie cords around the girl’s ankles, wrists and neck, and pass the cords through 1 oles in the box, and hold the cords to, convince themselves that the girl stayed there during the trick.

One committee man insisted on tying a slipknot around the girl’s neck. The magician protested in vain. Fearing that he might strangle the girl, he proceeded nervously with the trick—so nervously that he let the two sawed ends of the box come apart and show the girl curled up in one end. “Give us our money back; she was not sawed in half at all,” shouted an angry member of the audience. The girl trailing the rope burst into tears, and ran off the stage. The magician, an old juggler, remained catching missiles and insults deftly until the curtain could be rung down.