20
THE CHINA MAIL SPECIAL CHRISTMAS SUPPLEMENT, DECEMBER 19, 1940.
Children Believe In Secrets Of My Magic
If we want to know why chil- dren believe in magic we must take a really close, look at fairy- land. Fairyland is a place where the unexpected always happens.
Fairies
The heroes and heroines there are powerless, caught in the ginger
They bread house of a hypocritical old never grown-up people. are young, helpless, and credul- witch, who pretended to be kind. ous, the victims of misfortune, as A fairy will appear from nowhere. our own small sons and daughters You turn to where her voice was, often imagine themselves to be. She has disappeared as suddenly
can and strangely as she came. By the aid of magic, they
do.
much like
no
the day of magic done? Only he was a mystic. a few generations ago people thoughout the world, superst tious and easily gulled, were prac. tically all believers in the power of magle Magic was in its hey day then, the modern
observer would say. Never again will it reach such popularity. People no longer believe in magic, and no longer can they be mystified; they are incredulous and sceptical.
But seeing is believing-or is. triumph completely over the If you come to think of it, the
If you wonder what this forces working against them, as work may look very
it? the children would surely like to fairyland to a small child, A baby means, if you doubt that you can a few weeks old is a completely see a thing actually happen and He has few yet believe it to be absolutely im- Sleeping Beauty is doomed from helpless creature.
them satisfied possible that it should happen, let her cradle through the mere ca- needs, but wants
sense me show you a little of my magic. price of a wicked fairy. Lazy immediately. He has
As a matter of fact, the magic Jack is more kindly treated by of time or place, no knowledge of fate. The pretty beans, which how things come to him, why they of the Middle Ages was far from nor how to get being the greatest magic the world he so foolishly accepts in ex- are withheld,
The efforts change for the cow, as any child them. When he wishes for food, has ever seen.
seem like a early magicians, men who achiev- night, turn out to be magic ones. its bringer must
cd reputations and who
passed Thus he is saved from his mother's beneficent fairy. anger and led through all sorts of Fairy tales and legends were down into history as noted figures, adventures to ultimate triumph. an attempt to explain, when the were as nothing compared with
In fairyland there
was younger, all that the the magic that is within your pow- are giants world
er to witness to-day. ard ogres who growl terrifying people could not understand
Magic is a science. It progres- attacking of nature threals. Sometimes the ogre has the forces a good wife, who hides you and them in their helplessness and of ses like everything else. gives you food, but only because capricious and cruel circumstances, magician of medieval times were she has not guessed that you want over which they had no control. to sit at one of my performances would probably be so impress- to destroy him, for she, too, is in Even to-day, to express wonder he
ed that he would either commit his power, and on his side when we sometimes says, "It's like ma-
us suicide or bury his head in the gic." it comes to a light.
Even to-day, some of You omit a small kindness, and would be glad of a magic wish to sand and allow the whole of his erstwhile followers to spend the our heart's desire, or the fairies withhold their favour. give us They are always watching, listen- fairy godmother to help us out of rest of their lives kicking him for being such a fool to imagine that ing and knowing. You may
be an intolerable situation,
of
E
Etiquette
A Book of Formulao Captain Courageous
Encyclopaedia Sexualis
working at odd jobs to earn Д The trouble with these old-time living. In this way, I progressed magicians was that they linked up until I got a job in a YM.C.A, in-
alchemy and stitution. their magic with
́I had seen several magicians at necromancy.
I do not
profess to practice work on the stage, and, like all anything supernatural. I realise small boys, I was impressed by their skill. I have a mechanical perfectly well that modern magic
I still cannot rest, consists chiefly of ingenious tricks mind, and and clever manipulation. I practice
til I find out "how to works." magic for amusement, for
As far as I could, I found out amusement of huge audiences, and
seen how these magicians I had it I succeed in almost making
Then I performed their tricks. began to evolve small tricks of my own and try them on the oth- er fellows in the YM.C.A. Pretty
By Max Mallini
the
them believe that the impossible is accomplished, this is merely due to my mastery of the art of
illusion.
when I see anything unusual, un-
gether and was giving perform- on 1 had my own act put to- ances at church concerts and such
like.
One day the secretary of the I started doing magic tricks with Y.M.C.A. saw me doing by stuff. 1 than "Kid," he said, “You're good. of no other purpose in view
my own amusement. Life was will put you on our next big per- hard for me in my youthful days. formance.”
America when
Sure enough I was "on" and did I was taken to I was but a child. My days at half an hour's show. It so hap-. school were punctuated by a con- pened that one of the big thea- stant fight against persecution by trical agents was in the audience my comrades who seemed to re- and the next day I got a a letter gard the fact that I was Swedish inviting me to go round and see as sufficient excuse for making me him. At this time, by working the butt of all their practical day and night, I was making about 15 dollars a week. He offered jokes.
I soon learned that the most me a three-years' contract as the magical way of making life worth Boy Magician to tour America at living in this respect was to punch a salary beginning at 75 dollars hard and often. At the age of 12 I left school to make my way in the world selling newspapers and
If 2
weekly.
For a while 1 held out, chiefly there because everybody told me was no money in magic; that this flare of mine was only a passing fancy, and that it would lead me nowhere.
I promised myself I would re- tire when I was 32, but Fate and the War stepped in, with the re- sult that my business was closed down and I found myself start- ing all over again.
By Emily Post
Staff Kipling
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The Complete Book of Games..
Goddard
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Mawson
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Twentieth Century Book
of
Henley's
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American
Norman's Forster
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To cut a long story short, by the time I was 16 I had toured the whole of America and had tho opened my own factory for manufacture of scores of tricks of sold all descriptions which were to would-be magicians through- out the world.
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Formulas Processes
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Century Readings for A Course
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The Woman Who Lived In
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Choice Readings
The Flowering of New England New England Indian Summer.
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Chad Hanna
Recipes of All Nations The Family
Gibbon's Stamp Catalogue 1941 Scott's Stamp Catalogue 1941
Red Star Over China
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A Roving Commission
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Japan's Feet of Clay
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Outline of History
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Art of Living
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Shape of Things To Come
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Married Adventure
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All this and Heaven Too
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11
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The Mortal Storm
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What's Funny and Why
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it
"
MODERN READER'S SERVICE
33, Queen's Road, C., 1st Floor, Next To the Queen's Theatre
0.70
0.70 2.00
1.60
At one time I was obliged to That live for one week on 2s. made me
Immediately think. I
This formed a one-week plan. provided for me eating only one bowl of soup, and a roll every day at six o'clock. I got along fine. From this I evolved the two years plan, and although money was be ginning to come in again I kept it up.
Since then, although I live in good hotels and food is plenti- ful, I manage nicely on one meal- a day.
Broadway
I developed a sense of humour at that time and went up and down
meeting my friends of more luxurious days stories, and exchanging funny
and to-day that bad period seems to me to have been one of the
that outstanding experiences
I would not have missed for any- thing. I could have grieved and worried and pestered everyone
with my trouble, but I figured that would not solve my problem: As it was, there was not a soul who knew of my circumstances until long after I was back Easy-street again.
on
To return to magic; of course wear a curious ring. All magi cians have something like that, but I can't say it responds to the usual magic formulae, and you can say "Abracadabra" or "Sim Sala Bim" until you are blue in the face, and nothing much will happen if you rub it. But it certainly is a curious ring all the same. It is a gold respresentation. of a human skeleton encircling. my finger and the eyes are two small diamonds quite a grotes- que affair. It was presented to me by a Russian magician in a cafe in Moscow one day after I. had finished a show.
די
I was attracted by the ring which he wore. I had never seen, one like it before, so he let me try it on, and when he found that it fitted me he said: "You keep it. I was going to give it to you
when I anyway**
protested against taking such a quaint and valuable token "because I want something from you.”
"Name it," I said.
"Your levitation illusion," the Vanishing Woman," he said.
Well, he studled me for a feus days, and eventually I gladdened his heart by giving him the trick. People who think magicians don't give their tricks away are I think it helps, things wrong. along considerably if you tell them something about your busin ess. It puts you on'à' more humw an basis with them straighi But, just the same most like to be mystified, and that there are many, not to be told every
is about an illusom