Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1910 — TOO MITCH FOR MAGICIAN. [ARTICLE]

TOO MITCH FOR MAGICIAN.

The test of one who claims supernatural powers is to make him perform his tricks under every-day conditions or with apparatus not his own. In such a trial at least one magician failed. He was touring the globe, and appearing before rulers of many Strange lands in all sorts of outlandish places. On one occasion, says a writer in the Philadelphia Record, his manager had arranged an exhibition for him before the ruler of a province In the Fiji Islands. In the crowd that saw the exhibition were many of the black and yellow slaves of the chieftain. All the spectators were amazed at the many strange manifestations of the black art that the magician performed, but no trick appealed so strongly to the assembled retinue and to the chieftain as that in which a white duck was made to appear with a black head and a black duck, after a moment's manipulation, with the head of the white duck. The trick had to be repeated, and then the chieftain engaged in a long whispered conversation with the interpreter. “What is desired?” queried the obliging trickplayer. The interpreter coughed apologetically, and then responded: “Respected sir, our honored sire wishes you to take two of his black slaves and put a yellow head on a black man and the black head on the body of a yellow servitor. Our honored Bire thinks it would be very funny.” “Tell his royal highness,” the conjuror replied, “that I might give a yellow man a black eye, but I would not like to attempt to make his entire head black.” - ... ——