THE LITTLE WIZARD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 November 1940, Page 3

THE LITTLE WIZARD

CONJURER AND ACTOR. Everyone knows that Sir Walter Scott was long called the Wizard of the North. Eut who was the Little Wizard? He was John Henry Anderson, a conjuror and actor, one of the queerest men of his day. He styled himself Professor Anderson, and he was not above earning a cheap reputation by posing as a much cleverer man than he really was.

A century ago people flocked’to see him perform conjuring tricks, especially one in which he apparently caught a bullet fired from a musket discharged by a member of the audience. There was a great deal of excitement over this trick, for no one could tell how it was done, and everyone got a thrill when they saw John Henry Anderson standing calmly on the stage while somebody in the audience aimed at him. He" would dodge aside, fling up his right hand, and catch the bullet in mid flight. Clever?

In 1856 he brought his season to a close by a much advertised bal masque. It was a poor affair, as indecent as anything London had ever seen, and between four and live in the morning of March 5. 1856. not only John Henry Anderson, but all his stars and his audience were dead drunk. John Anderson, however, was sober enough to murmur a command to the tipsy orchestra, and they, stirring a little, began playing the National Anthem with measured beat and slow. It was the signal to depart, but it is doubtful if anyone would have moved for some’hours had not the roof burst into flame. Patrons and the players had barely time to escape before the whole place was burning furiously, and half an hour after the National Anthem had been played Covent Garden Theatre was a complete wreck.