MASKELYNE AND DEVANT'S MYSTERIES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9424, 21 April 1909, Page 5

MASKELYNE AND DEVANT'S MYSTERIES.

For many'years no name has been so well known throughout the civilised world in connection with mysteries and stage illusions as that; cf John Neville Maskelyne. From the norable day when he was « young man he exploded the craze for spiritualism in England, by showing how t!ie importer's effects were produced, lie has been constantly before (he public, and tli3 entertainment given by Ins firm, Maskelyna and Uouke, has been a feature of London life for forty years. Tha records of the Egyptian and the St. George’s Halls, show an attendancaof eleven million people and forty thousand performances, a record to be accounted for by the fact that.such; aconstant tide of Visitors, flows.through London, and partly by the extraordinary inventions of tha master magician, who last year produced and fought a lawsuit concerning a new illusion. Maskelyne*a lawsuits have become famous, and have helped to make him one of tho best known of Englishmen. That which obtained widest publicity was concerned with the box'triek, and was brought before the House of Lords. This identical box will be shown here in the magical sketch, “Will, the Witch, and the Watchman.’’ Mr Henry Heyward, aa entrepreneur who first visited Australia in co-management of West's Pictures, conceived the idea of bringing Maskelyne and Cooke Jnpon aaantipodeau tour. The serious magnitude of the venture will be understood when it is realised that 2$ persons travelled from London with the company, and that they bring with them some of the most precious and guarded inventions of the firm. The tour opened in Sydney, and there experienced the most successful season of the kind the Colony has known. In the course of a long commendatory notice the Sydney Herald remarked that “the manner in which the andience at the Palace Theatre are mystified {by the' illusions is truly'amazing; when the people are not robbing their eyes or pinching themselves to make sura they are awake, they are mesfi of their time in a state of uncontrollable laughter at tb'e keen witicisma of Mr Barclay Gammon, or full of wonderment concerning the doiega of of Gintari.”