"RAINBOW" EXHIBITION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3175, 28 April 1909, Page 5

"RAINBOW" EXHIBITION.

Concerning the "Sphinx" illusion, which will be introduced by Professor Karl at the "Rainbow" Exhibition ftigthe Drill Hall to-night and tomorrow night, the London "Times" of October 19th says:—"Most interesting is the problem proposed by Colonel Stodare, when he presents to his patrons a novel illusion called the 'Sphinx.' Placing upon an uncovered table a chest similar in size to the cases commonly, occupied by stuffed dogs or foxes, he removes the side facing the spectators, and reveals a head attired after the fashion of an Egyptian Sphinx. To avoid the suspicion of ventriloquism, he retires to a distance from the figure supposed to be too great for the practise of that art. Thus stationed, he calls upon the Sphinx to open its eyes, which it does —to smile, which it also does, though the habitual expression of its countenance is most melancholy, and to make a speech, which it also does, this being the miraculous part of the exhibition. Not only with perspicuity, but with something like eloquence, does it utter some twenty lines of verse, and while its countenance is animated and expressive, the mevement of the lips, in which there is nothing mechanical, exactly corresponds to the sound articulated. This is certainly one of the most extraordinary illusions ever presented to the public. That the speech is spoken by a human voice there is no doubt; but how is a head to be contrived which, being detached from anything like a body, confined in a c<*se, which it completely fills, and placed on a bare-legged table, will accompany a speech that apparently proceeds from the lips, with a strictly appropriate movement of the mouth, and a play of the countenance that is the reverse to mechanical? Eels, as we know, can wriggle about after they have been chopped in pieces; but a head that, like that of the Physician Douban, in the Arabian tales, pursues its eloquence after it has been severed from its body, scarcely comes within the reach of possibilites; unlesF, indeed, the old-fashioned assertion that 'King Charles talked half-an-hour after his head was cut off is to be received, not as am illustration of defective punctuation, but as a positive historical statement."