Carl Hertz the Conjurer.

Northland Age, 11 October 1904, Page 3

Carl Hertz the Conjurer.

The man who is doing such wonderful things at the Hippodrome’ cultivates no air—l was going to say airs—of the'profesßional magician. lie affects no mystery of manner in private life, and is just what you would not expect a great illusionist to be—a high-spirited man of the City commercial type, handsome, merry, and wholly free from conceit. Commerce, ate a matter of fact, was what he was trained for, but his success as an amateur conjurer at charity bazaars led to his being persuaded to take up an occasional sport as a regular business, and he soon became known to the public as one of the most skilful illusionists of Variety land. If he had followed the life for which his parents intended him, the City office he served would have had in him a pretty ’cute, and industrious worker. Continual labour to him is continual joy and sustenance, and there is little doubt that his energetic temperament would have brought him to the front of whatever vocation he might have chosen to settle down to. When he is not working at the theatre, he is busy at home either with the mental or the practical machinery of some new trick or other. Nearly every new thing he uses upon the stage is of his own design or manufacture, and ho wouldn’t dream of taking a holiday, however brief, without taking also a rough plan of the visible apparatus of a contemplated,fresh illusion to ponder over and develop. Carl Hertz tells a most refreshing story of his experience with a party of cardsharpers on one of his many trips across the Atlantic. One evening, in the smok-ing-room of the steamer, he noticed that a young Englishman of the gilded type was losing hundreds of pounds at poker with a gang of unmistakable swindlers. By the time the play was over the youth had lost something beyond a thousand pounds, and Carl Hertz, suspecting “ foul play,” and feeling sorry for the victim, tvlio had arranged to. join their game on the following night, determined to warn him, and to arrange a method of revenge. It was planned that when play was “beginning to get interesting” on the next night, the youth should feign indisposition, and ask Mr. Hertz to take his hand. The night came; the party began their little game—that is, the swindlers began their “ little game.” Events shaped as they had been prepared, and Carl Hertz “ took a hand.” The conjurer played “ straight ” enough for a few hands, just to encourage the men, who thought a new pigeon had flown into their trap! but soon Hertz noticed them making signs to one another, , so when it came round to his turn tp deal he “ did things ” tlo the pack, with the Consequence that th e first man got four Jacks, the next fc)ur Queens, the thjrd four Kings, and \the fourth

(himself) four ac<s £ Quickly the sv : “ a ” lerS began nusmL money and all the jewehCry they had about them littered up the table before them. The critical moment arrived. The man with the Jacks greedily and gleefully exposed his cards; the Queen hand came next, and was in turn laughed at by the proprietor of the four Kings, who began to scoop in the cash, rings, pins, and watches. Saying that he, too, was fortunate in his hand, Carl Hertz stopped the croupier-like action of the four-Kmg man, and presented his four aces tor inspection. In a flash the gamblers knew they had been tricked, and one man felt in his hip pocket for his revolver. But before he could draw it he was seized, and then the famous illusionist denounced the three players as a set of thieves. They were put in irons, charged at New York, and received two years’ imprisonment. The young Englishman got all his money back, and the surplus was given to the sailors’ charities.—“ M.A.P.”