SCIENTIFIC JUGGLERY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 132, 4 June 1878, Page 4

SCIENTIFIC JUGGLERY.

[Scientific American,]

We have often thought that if professional conjurors would substitute for auch time-honored tricks as making omelettes in hate, and cnusing cards to appear Rnd disappear, some of the wonder-woiking performances "of the electric current, they would succeed much better in mystifying, amusing, and perhaps instructing their audiences.

Mr Heller, a clover magician, now performiog in this city, has a neat way of bringing the electric current to his. aid where it would hardly be expected. For example, after borrowing a few watches be places theta on a plate which he suspends by a bit of string to n little bar between two cords from the ceiling. ~ Suddenly a fiish cornea from the bar, the string is burned, and the plate and watches fall with a crash, the broken piute and ruined watches are restored by shooting them out of a gun agaicst a framed black square, also suspended by a cord from the ceiling, Bnd here again the olectric current actuates mechanism, which causes the lightning-like disappearance of tin interposing screen. The current again works the hammer of a glass baH ßapparently suspended by a mere thread, but which accurately counts the number of spots on chosen cards. In electro-music Mr Heller is an adept. He baa. a dozen or more drums which he heaps up on a kind o£ barrow in the middle of the stage. Then seating himself at his piano at come distance away, he plays a lively air, to which the mjeteriouß drums at first beat time, and then play a deafening accompaniment. Of course, concealed hammers, operated by electro magqets are at the bottom of the puzzle. The Heller Orchestrion ia a, much more elaborate contrivance. ..It is, & good-sized pariororgan provided* with a' supplemental key-board, and surrounded with a bewildering mass of brass tubes and apparatus. An; air played by a performer. ;is sutideniy accompanied by a chime of large ; bells at.the further end of. the ball, then by small bells near-by,' tnen" t another, organ near the ceiling issues notes jike.u flute a chorus of slei"h bells -in still anot.uer part of the hajl joips in ; tho music imitates a storm, and a huge iron>late iv another quarter rattles itself, while from a box near the ceiling issues the souuj of falling rain. Finally two sharp explosions from miniature guns near the roof are heard, the lights are turned dowc/and on the organ . appear revolving Geissler tables, flashing out green and blue lights in the wildest manner, as the curtain shuts the magician and bis instrument from view.

He also shows a number of other ingenious illusions, some of which depend upon remarkable automata and maoy upon electric action. Upon a simple trapeze suspended from over his -stage, be seats a doll dressed as a gymaßt. The trapeze is stt oscillating, and thereupon for some ten minutes the doll goes through a series of performances, the variety of which baffles all .theories us to how the figure is worked. The hands alone touch the trapeze bar, a'bd the mechanism in the body ie necessarily governed through the ropVes arid., 'cross piece ; but it not so easy to explain how, in concluding, the figure lets go with its hands, throws a somersault, and catches on; its toes, continuing the swinging in that position. Another automaton is a peacock, which cries, moves its head, eats, and spreads its tail at the order of the conjuror. Still another is a; doll, which emerges from a box,' seats itself on the edge, goes through many laughable antic?, and ends by 'smoking a pipe, puffibg. ( fo|th the smoke in the most natural manner.