Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1880 — A Wonderful Feat of Memory. [ARTICLE]

A Wonderful Feat of Memory.

The history of the celebrated conjurer, Robert Houdin, furnishes a remarkable example of the power of memory acquired by practice. He and his brother, while yet boys, invented a game which they played in this wise: they would pass a shop window dnd glance into it as they passed, without stopping, and then at the next comer compare notes and see which could remember the greatest number of things in the window, including their relative positions. Having tested the accuracy of their observations, they would go and repeat the experiment elsewhere. By this means they acquired incredible powers of observation and memory, so that after running by a shop window once, and glancing As they passed, they would enumerate every article in it. "When Robert became a professional conjuror, this habit enabled him to achieve feats apparently miraculous. It is told of him that, visiting a friend’s house where he had never been before, he caught a glimpse of the book-case as he passed the half-open library-door. In the course of the evening, when some of the company expressed their anxiety to witness some specimens of his power, he said to his host: “Well, sir, I shall tell you, without

stirring from this place, what books you have in your library.” " “Come, come,” said be, incredulously, “that is too good.” “We shall see,” replied Houdin. “Let some of the company go into the library and look, and I shall call out the names from this room.” They did so, and Houdin began: “Top shelf, left hand, two volumes in red morocco; ‘Gibbon’s Decline and Fall;’ next to these four volumes of half calf; ‘Boswell’s Johnson;’ ‘Rasselas,’ in cloth; ‘Hume’s History of England,’ in calf, two volumes, but the second one wanting,” and so on, shelf after shelf, to the unspeakable Avonder of the whole company. More than once a gentleman stole into the draAving-room, certain he would catch Houdin reading a catalogue ; but there sat the conjuror, Avitli his hands in his pockets, looking into the fire.