The Miracle Mongers [53]
also called herself The Georgia Magnet. She took the act to England and her opening performance at the Alhambra is recorded as one of the three big sensations of the London vaudeville stage of those days. The second sensation was credited to the Bullet-Proof Man. This chap wore a jacket that rifle bullets, fired point- blank, failed to penetrate. The composition of this jacket was a secret, but after the owner's death the garment was ripped open and found to contain-ground glass! The third sensation I must, with all due modesty, (business of bowing) claim for myself.
The Magnet failed to attract after about forty-eight hours, for a keen-witted reporter discovered her methods and promptly published them. The bullet detainer also lasted only a short time only. When my opening added a third sensational surprise, one of the London dailies asked, ``Is this going to be another Georgia Magnet fiasco?''
That they were gunning for me is proved by the fact that the same newspaper investigator who exposed the Magnet, came upon the stage of the Alhambra at my press performance--the same stage where the unhappy Dixie lode-stone had collapsed--and though he brought along an antique slave iron, which he seemed to think would put an end to my public career on the spot, I managed to escape in less than three minutes. When I passed back his irons, he grinned at me and said, ``I don't know how you did it, but you did!'' and he shook me cordially by the hand.
Some twenty-six years ago I was on the bill with Mattie Lee Price, who, though less well known, was in many ways superior to either Miss Hurst or Miss Abbott. For a time she was a sensation of the highest order, for which thanks were largely due to the management of her husband, a wonderful lecturer and a thorough showman. I think his name was White. He ``sold'' the act as no other man has sold an act before or since.
We worked together at Kohl and Middleton's, Chicago, and the following week at Burton's Museum, Milwaukee; but when we made the next jump I found that White was not along. They had had a family squabble, the other apex of the triangle being a circus grafter who ``shibbolethed'' at some of the ``brace games,'' which at that time had police protection, so far as that could be given. He had interfered between the couple, and was, I am sorry to say, quite successful as an interferer; but he was a diabolical failure when he attempted to duplicate White's work as lecturer, and the act, after playing a date or two, sank out of sight and I have heard nothing more of her professionally. Lately I have learned that she died in London in 1900 and is buried in Clements Cemetery, Fulham.
This was one of the most positive demonstrations I have ever seen of the fact that showmanship is the largest factor in putting an act over. Miss Price was a marvelous performer, but without her husband-lecturer she was no longer a drawing card, and dropped to the level of an ordinary entertainer even lower, for her act was no longer even entertaining.
In Chapter Eleven we read Dr. Desaguliers' analysis of the mechanics of what may be called strongmanship. Similar investigations have attended the appearance of more recent performers.
For instance, reviewing one of Lulu Hurst's performances, the New York Times, of July 13th, 1884, said:
The ``Phenomenon of the Nineteenth Century,'' which may be seen nightly at Wallack's, is not so much the famous Georgia girl, with her mysterious muscle, as is the audience which gathers to wonder at her performance. It is a phenomenon of stupidity, and it only goes to show how willingly people will be fooled, and with what cheerful asininity they will help on their deceivers.
Then follows a description of her performance, which was far from successful, thanks to the efforts of one of the committee, a man described as ``Mr. Thomas Johnson, a powerfully- built engraver connected with the Century magazine.'' Mr. Johnson had evidently caught her secret, and he got the better of her in all the tests in which he was allowed to
The Magnet failed to attract after about forty-eight hours, for a keen-witted reporter discovered her methods and promptly published them. The bullet detainer also lasted only a short time only. When my opening added a third sensational surprise, one of the London dailies asked, ``Is this going to be another Georgia Magnet fiasco?''
That they were gunning for me is proved by the fact that the same newspaper investigator who exposed the Magnet, came upon the stage of the Alhambra at my press performance--the same stage where the unhappy Dixie lode-stone had collapsed--and though he brought along an antique slave iron, which he seemed to think would put an end to my public career on the spot, I managed to escape in less than three minutes. When I passed back his irons, he grinned at me and said, ``I don't know how you did it, but you did!'' and he shook me cordially by the hand.
Some twenty-six years ago I was on the bill with Mattie Lee Price, who, though less well known, was in many ways superior to either Miss Hurst or Miss Abbott. For a time she was a sensation of the highest order, for which thanks were largely due to the management of her husband, a wonderful lecturer and a thorough showman. I think his name was White. He ``sold'' the act as no other man has sold an act before or since.
We worked together at Kohl and Middleton's, Chicago, and the following week at Burton's Museum, Milwaukee; but when we made the next jump I found that White was not along. They had had a family squabble, the other apex of the triangle being a circus grafter who ``shibbolethed'' at some of the ``brace games,'' which at that time had police protection, so far as that could be given. He had interfered between the couple, and was, I am sorry to say, quite successful as an interferer; but he was a diabolical failure when he attempted to duplicate White's work as lecturer, and the act, after playing a date or two, sank out of sight and I have heard nothing more of her professionally. Lately I have learned that she died in London in 1900 and is buried in Clements Cemetery, Fulham.
This was one of the most positive demonstrations I have ever seen of the fact that showmanship is the largest factor in putting an act over. Miss Price was a marvelous performer, but without her husband-lecturer she was no longer a drawing card, and dropped to the level of an ordinary entertainer even lower, for her act was no longer even entertaining.
In Chapter Eleven we read Dr. Desaguliers' analysis of the mechanics of what may be called strongmanship. Similar investigations have attended the appearance of more recent performers.
For instance, reviewing one of Lulu Hurst's performances, the New York Times, of July 13th, 1884, said:
The ``Phenomenon of the Nineteenth Century,'' which may be seen nightly at Wallack's, is not so much the famous Georgia girl, with her mysterious muscle, as is the audience which gathers to wonder at her performance. It is a phenomenon of stupidity, and it only goes to show how willingly people will be fooled, and with what cheerful asininity they will help on their deceivers.
Then follows a description of her performance, which was far from successful, thanks to the efforts of one of the committee, a man described as ``Mr. Thomas Johnson, a powerfully- built engraver connected with the Century magazine.'' Mr. Johnson had evidently caught her secret, and he got the better of her in all the tests in which he was allowed to