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HOUDINI IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

1910–1924 | 1925–1926 | 1927–1930 | 1931–1943 | MORE RECENT

THE NEW YORK TIMES June 29, 1930 Page V, 18; Column –

KNIGHTS OF MAGIC WHO BEGUILE US

They Are Always Busy Creating New Effects to Hold Their Patrons

By EDITH TWEDDELL

MAGIC has gone modern. More than that, it has taken the bull by the horns and invaded Wall Street, Park Avenue and Westchester, holding in its thrall a curiously respectable throng of wizards. The shop of the up-to-date professional magician, lying in the heart of the city, is haunted every late afternoon by homeward-bound amateurs. The wizard has become a darling of society; doors of the Four Hundred fly open at his touch; he moves with Governors and railroad magnates and when he walks down Broadway or Fifth Avenue he must bow very often.

One has only to observe the ranks of its modern exponents to be impressed with the almost overwhelming aristocracy of magic. Ministers of the gospel vie with Wall Street brokers, bankers, lawyers, doctors, professors, scientists and socially registered dilettantes in manipulating quarters and producing aces from each others’ starched cuffs. And there are suburban cellars fitted out for magicians’ studios, where men of all ages and interests nightly murder sleep in the creation of new “effects.”

One does not call them “tricks,” for a “trick” connotes the cheap magic of the street faker whose whole stock in trade is literally a box full of tricks with no general knowledge to back it. And a good magician is versatile and likely to be well acquainted with the principles of chemistry, general mechanics, physics and electromagnetism, painting and light effects, something of carpentry and blacksmithing, psychology (mob and single), and showmanship in general. Somewhat lower in the scale rank the manipulator whose forte is his dexterity and the conjurer whose effects, while they may be well executed, are less versatile.

Twenty-eight years ago last May thirteen magicians joined hands and swore brotherhood in Martinka’s little magic shop down on Sixth Avenue. This was the founding of the Society of American Magicians. It flourished for a while in the little theatre Martinka had built in the middle of the block, accessible only through his shop, but later moved its headquarters to the McAlpin Hotel. Since then it has grown to some 1,700 members (of whom approximately 40 per cent are professionals) throughout the United States, and includes several noted foreigners. It has an official organ, published monthly. Furthermore the New York Public Library has a fine collection of books available only for magicians.

The parent assembly (New York branch) of the S.A.M. held its final dinner of the year on June 6. One expert magician made a bird and its cage vanish before the eyes of the diners. Another walked away from his own shadow. The society has a very strict code of ethics and does not permit exposure of such magical secrets to the public.

Yet some classes of people see through magical methods more quickly than others. Lawyers, used to rapid analysis of facts presented to them, are the hardest class of adults to deceive. Professors and scholars are the easiest, being accustomed to concentrate on the line held out to them, trained not to wander over adjacent possibilities. The most difficult audience is the alert child of 13 or thereabout who, being far more concerned with the magician’s manual activity than with his patter, is disconcertingly direct in his observations.

A general classification of magicians divides them into professionals who work on the stage, those who appear at clubs and at dinner parties, and amateurs. The best-known American professional travels with eight freight cars of paraphernalia, including a small menagerie, featuring a “vanishing horse.” He has a famous “floating lady,” who lies apparently unsupported in space. He shuts a woman in a box just large enough to hold her with her head and feet projecting, and then with a saw apparently cuts box, lady and all through the middle. Attendants move the halves of the box apart, push them together again, and when it is opened the lady arises brightly and walks off the stage—all in one piece.

Magic has been in the spotlight more than ever during the past season. The able performances of one musical comedy wizard did much to popularize magic on Broadway. He and others entertained many of society’s smart dinner parties of the past season. One magician from Europe had an “inexhaustible kettle,” from which one may receive any drink, and another showed a “color-changing neck-tie.”

Modern magic dawned with Robert Houdin, who was the first performer to wear regular evening dress instead of the privileged flowing robes of the profession. Having proved his ability in the court of Napoleon III, he was sent by the French Government to “hoist with their own petard” the trickster priests who were causing trouble among the natives of Algeria. Houdin quite outmagiced them, and French control was re-established.

The Frenchman was a mechanical genius. In his old age he retired to a country house—a magician’s paradise enlivened with automatic doors, suddenly appearing automata, and self-acting revolvers for burglar protection.


The late Harry Houdini, “the handcuff king,” was probably the most sensational of American performers. He hung manacled, fettered and strait-jacketed by his feet from the sixteenth floor of a building in Pittsburgh, and had nearly the whole city there to greet him when he came down in the elevator ten minutes later. Once he was manacled to the mouth of a gun in Chatham, England, obliged to free himself before the fifteen-minute fuse burned to the powder and scattered him over the public square. Whereupon a gorgeously garbed chief of police gave him solemn warning that in the event of failure Houdini would be severely called to account.

There is a persistent legend that Eastern magic surpasses all the wonders of the Occident; every one has heard vaguely of “the rope trick.” The story usually runs that an East Indian fakir threw a rope into the air where it stood erect, swaying gently on its tail, until the miraculous Oriental had shinnied up the hemp and vanished through a hole into the air.

An American magician went to India many years ago and vainly spent thousands of dollars to find some one who could perform it for him.

True, a group of people were found who claimed to have seen the trick performed. But some one asked a small child with the party if he had seen anything wonderful.

“No,” said the youngster promptly. “The funny man stood on the ground and talked a lot, and everybody looked up and there was nothing there!”

One New York magician frequently receives hurry calls for charity patronesses. When he rushes out to a waiting limousine he is often unaware whether he is to aid in a celebration at a home for sailors or to distract the sufferings of a dying child.

A man prominent on Broadway once asked him if he could do anything to help his stammering son. The boy was induced to take up magic and rapidly developed a self-confidence which ultimately overcame his defect. The art has been found applicable to the difficult field of competitive salesmanship. One company recently paid for a course of lessons in magic, and found the magician-salesman’s returns well worth the investment.

This article is reproduced here only for educational purposes. Please do not copy the text or accompanying images for commercial use.


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Web site copyright 2004 Tom Interval, Magician and Houdini Enthusiast
Articles from The New York Times copyright 1910–2004 The New York Times Company