SCIENTIFIC JUGGLERY.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2903, 5 June 1878, Page 4

SCIENTIFIC JUGGLERY.

(PHOM THE .SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN.)

We have often thought that if professional conjurers would substitute for such timo honored tricks as" making omelettes in hats, and. causing cards to appear and disappear," 'some of the wonder-working performances of the electric current, they would succeed much better in mystifying, amusing, anb* perhaps instructing their audiences.

Mr Heller, a clover magician now,performing in this city, has a neat way of bringing the electric current to his aid irhere it would hardly be expected. For example, after borrowing a few watches he places them on a plate which he suspends by a bit of string to a little bar between two cords from the ceiling. Suddenly a flash come 3 from the bar, the string is burned, and the plate and watches fall with a crash. The broken plate and ruined watches are restored by shooting them out of a gun, against a framed black square, also suspended by cords from the ceiling, and here again the electric current actuates mechanism which causes the lightning-like disappearance of an interposing screen. The current again works the hammer of a glass bell apparently suspended by a mere thread, but which accurately couuts the number of spots on chosen cards. In electro-music Mr Heller is an adept. He has a dozen or more drums which he heaps up on a kind of barrow in the middle of his stage. Then seating himself at his piano, at some distance away, he plays a lively air, to which the mysterious drums afc first beat time, and then playadeafening accompaniment. Of course, concealed hammers operated by electro - magnets ore at the bottom of the puzzle. The Heller orchestrion is a much more elaborate contrivance. It is a good-sized parlour organ, provided with a supplemental keyboard, and surmounted with a bewildering mass of brass tubes and apparatus. An air played by the performer is suddenly accompanied by a chime of large bells at the further end of the hall, then by small bells near by, then another organ near the ceiling issues notes like a flute, a chorus of sleigh bells in still another part of the hall joins in ; the music imitates a storm, and a huge iron plate in another quarter rattles itself, while from a box near the' ceiling issues the sound of falling rain. Finally, two sharp explosions from minature guns near the roof are heard, the lights are turned down, and on the organ appear revolving Geisslcr tubes,.flashing out green and blue light in the weirdest manner, as the curtain shuts the magician and his instrument from: view.

He also shows a number of other ingenious illusions, some of which depend upon remarkable automata and many upon electrical action. Upon a simple trapeze suspended from a bar over his stage, he seats a doll dressed as a gymnast. The trapeze is set oscillating, and thereupon for some ten minutes tbe doll goes through a series of performances, ■flic very variety of which baffles all theories as to how the figure, is worked. The hands alone touch the trapeze bar, and the mechanism in the body, is necessarily governed through the ropes and cross piece ; but it is 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 jpeacoijk^scMch^crie.Sj.jnoves 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 antics, and ends by smoking a pipe, puffing forth tbe smoke in the most natural manner.