Dr. Lynn solemnly announced that he was going to “cut somebody into pieces.” At this, a somber-looking young man appeared onstage, carrying a large scimitar in his right hand and a black cloth over his left arm. He could have easily been mistaken for an executioner.
Dr. Lynn kept up a steady stream of patter, maintaining that he was working “strictly in the interests of science to expand our knowledge and to show that a man might be decapitated and then be as good as new, once his head is restored.”
He turned and gestured to an assistant near the rear of the stage.
“Here is a young man who came with me from England. He isn’t of much use, so I might as well cut him up.”
An upright board with two thick cords hanging from hooks was set up at the back of the stage. A screen was pulled in front of the board and Dr. Lynn invited two volunteers to go behind the screen and watch him tie up his assistant. They did and then the screen was pulled aside and the audience saw the assistant facing them, standing with his back to the board, the two cords tied around his body. The two volunteers, at Lynn’s urging, confirmed to the audience that they saw the man being tied up. And to suggest that this was no illusion, the trussed-up assistant stroked his mustache, moved his foot, and briefly spoke to the audience.
Then Dr. Lynn went into action. “What will you have?” he asked one young volunteer. “A wing, eh?” He poised his scimitar over the hapless assistant’s left arm, and, as the ladies in the audience covered their eyes with their handkerchiefs, he lopped the whole arm off and carried it over to the seated young volunteer and placed it on his lap.
“And you?” He turned to the other volunteer. “What will you have? A leg, eh?” And he severed his assistant’s left leg, again bloodlessly, and handed it to that volunteer.
“Now I’ll cut off his head,” he screamed and, throwing the black cloth over the victim’s head, he slashed at the neck with his scimitar, and bundled it up into his black cloth. Now he advanced on the footlights.
“What lady desires the head?” he said mournfully.
There were no takers. He waited a second and then shrugged.
“Well then, I’ll throw it away,” he said and opened the cloth. It was empty. Back at the board, the headless torso, with his one good arm, pointed toward the doctor and then toward the vacant spot where his head had once resided.
Dr. Lynn moved back in front of the half-man. “He wants his head,” the doctor said calmly and threw the black cloth over the torso. When he pulled it away, his assistant’s head had been restored, and the man rubbed at his eyes as if he had been asleep.
Lynn tossed the arm and the leg into the enclosure and pulled the curtain back over it. “There, put yourself together.”
He had just gotten the words out of his mouth when the man stepped out from behind the screen, wholly restored. And then the theater’s curtain dropped.
Ehrich sat there, too numb to talk. Rabbi Weiss smiled at him.
“Did you enjoy that?” the rabbi wondered.
The two of them got up and started walking out of the theater. Ehrich had read about magic and even fantasized about what a real wizard could do, but this was different. This was real.
“I really thought that the man’s arm, leg, and head were being cut off,” he told his father, and he kept walking in silence, visions of magic dancing through his head.
It wasn’t out of character for Rabbi Weiss to take his son to see a magician perform. He would often regale young Ehrich with stories of another great conjurer, whose elegant demeanor and brilliant showmanship had propelled him to such wealth and fame that his portrait still hangs on the wall of a national museum in Austria. The rabbi described his wondrous magic, but he also was able to relate to his son intimate details of the magician’s life off the stage. And why not? His first marriage had made him the great Compars Herrmann’s first cousin. Compars was the most famous magician of his time. He had performed at the White House, and presented his illusions before the royalty of almost every country in Europe. The idea of becoming a professional magician had not crystallized in young Ehrich’s mind, although he did begin to perform simple magic on amateur nights at the old Litt Museum on Grand Avenue in Milwaukee. Developing his magical skills had to take a back-seat to helping his family through very difficult times. Rabbi Weiss could never get a full-time position with a congregation in Milwaukee, and his private “Hebrew school,” which operated out of his home and probably consisted of tutoring a few youngsters, was a dismal failure. Cecilia was forced to repeatedly apply to the Hebrew Relief Society for such bare necessities as coal and cash for provisions.
Compars Herrmann.Conjuring Arts Research Center
Ehrich was always ready to help the family. His industriousness and maturity beyond his years were evidence of the strong work ethic that his parents had instilled in him. Years later, he would write to his friend Jim Bard and proudly recall a school song that had become a credo to him:
Keep working, tis wiser then waiting aside,
Or crying, or wailing and awaiting the tide.
In Lifes earnest battle those only prevail
Who daily march onward, andNEVER SAY FAIL
In December of 1885, the family suffered a horrific blow when Herman, Mayer Samuel’s son from his first marriage, died in New York from tuberculosis at the age of twenty-two. Herman’s death sent the rabbi into a tailspin. He became bedridden, sick with grief, but he was profoundly impressed when his eleven-year-old son Ehrich offered up his life savings of $10 to pay for his half brother’s funeral.
The rabbi remained disconsolate for months. Ehrich was about to turn twelve and he felt that there were no opportunities for him in Milwaukee. He wanted to strike out in the world to seek his fortune, and then, of course, share it with his family. On the boy’s birthday, his father called him to his bedside.
“My boy, I am poor in this world’s goods, but rich in the wonderful woman God gave as my wife and your mother—rich also in the children we have brought into the world and raised to sturdy manhood,” he said gently. He took a well-worn book of the Torah from his bed stand and handed it to Ehrich.
“Promise me, my boy, that after I am gone your dear Mother will never want for anything. Promise that you will make her declining days as carefree and comfortable as I have tried to make them.”
Ehrich bowed his head and placed his hand on the holy book.
“I promise. With all my heart and soul,” he said.
And with that promise on his twelfth birthday, a year before his Bar Mitzvah, Ehrich became a man.
He was gone before dawn, making sure not to wake anyone in the house. He had a small bag packed with the essential accoutrements of a twelve-year-old boy—some books, his lockpick, a deck of playing cards. He also carried his shoeshine kit to finance his trip into the wider world. Ehrich had heard the U.S. Cavalry was on their way westward, and it was a perfect opportunity for him to strike out from home and follow reallive soldiers, shining their black leather boots for spare change.
When the cavalry got to Delavan, Wisconsin, they encamped at the town armory. Curious to see “army life” firsthand, a young local boy named Al Flitcroft tiptoed up the steps of the armory building but was shocked when he got to the top of the stairs and found a bushy-haired, disheveled ragamuffin fast asleep on a pile of old burlap bags. Soon, the young hobo was awake and regaling Al with his tales of travel. When he mentioned that he was starving, Al suggested that they go back to his South Sixth Street house, where his mom could feed them.
Houdini poses with the Flitcrofts, a Delavan, Wisconsin, couple who took him in when he ran away from home at age twelve.Library of Congress
The visitor introduced himself as “Harry White” (an indication that at least one Weiss knew how to assimilate in this country). Hannah Flitcroft, who had two sons of her own, was captivated by this charming, curly-headed little urchin, and she immediately began a makeover. He was fed, bathed, and his filthy, ragged trousers were washed and pa
tched. The guest was shrewd enough to claim that the warm, soft bed that Mrs. Flitcroft tucked him into was the first one he could ever remember occupying.
The cavalry left town but at Mrs. Flitcroft’s insistence, Harry (which was a logical variant of his nickname “Ehrie”) stayed with the family and looked for work. Pickings were slim for a twelve-year-old then, so she suggested he try nearby Beloit. She packed a bag full of sandwiches and slipped him some money, and Harry hopped a freight train for the bigger city. After a few days of fruitless searching, and without funds, he walked the twenty-five miles back to Delavan. When Mrs. Flitcroft asked him if he had received a letter of encouragement that she had mailed to him care of General Delivery in Beloit, Harry left the next day, again on foot, and walked to Beloit and back, just to retrieve the first letter that anyone had ever sent him.
Harry would never forget the kindness that “old” Mrs. Flitcroft (to the young boy, the forty-five-year-old mother was ancient) had tendered to him. When he settled in New York about a year later and held down a paying job, he sent her a blouse that had a dollar bill tucked into each of its four pockets, with another single pinned to the front. He’d often send her beautiful presents from around the world and when, years later, he had returned from Europe and received word from Al that his mother was gravely ill, Harry and his wife rushed to Delavan to see Mrs. Flitcroft, who died shortly after his visit. Harry’s love for his own mother spurred him to embrace motherhood in all its varieties.
While Harry set out to seek his fortune, Rabbi Weiss left his family behind and traveled east, looking for work. His dutiful heir apparent joined him there sometime in 1887. Ehrich and his father shared a room in Mrs. Leffler’s boardinghouse at 244 East Seventy-ninth Street in Manhattan. The rabbi’s meager income from tutoring Hebrew students was far from sufficient to bring his family to New York so Ehrich was compelled to get a job as a messenger boy. Apparently Harry believed that his oath to provide for his family wouldn’t have to wait until Mayer Samuel’s demise. By 1888 they had saved enough to rent their own second-floor cold-water flat in a tenement building at 227 East Seventy-fifth Street and reunite the family. Ehrich met them at Grand Central Station and escorted them to their new home.
Even though both Mayer Samuel and Cecilia were more comfortable in a large city, life was anything but easy. The first winter was a harsh one. They not only ran out of coal but the landlord was threatening eviction also, if the rent wasn’t paid in a few days. Rabbi Weiss was distraught but helpless, pacing up and down the room, reduced to murmuring, “The Lord will provide. The Lord will provide.” Not content to rely on divine intervention, Harry, realizing that the Christmas season had already put people in the holiday spirit, went to his messenger job the next day with a neatly printed sign pinned on his hat:
Christmas is coming,
Turkeys are fat,
Please drop a quarter
In the messenger boy’s hat.
All day long, passersby read the message and laughed and deposited their silver into his hat. Before he got home, he hid the coins up his sleeves, behind his ears, in his shirt collar, everywhere he could find. When he walked in the door, he marched up to his mother.
“Shake me, I’m magic,” he said.
She was dubious, but she complied, and the coins cascaded down from all parts of his body. The more she shook, the more money showered down, and the better her spirits. When the coins were all counted, there was almost enough to pay the rent.
Harry Weiss, prior to becoming Houdini, was a track star and amateur boxer in New York.Library of Congress
Harry showed the same ingenuity when he temporarily found himself unemployed. Applying for a job at Richter’s necktie company on Broadway, he saw a long line of hopefuls behind a sign that read: “Assistant Necktie Cutter Wanted.” With brash confidence, he walked up and removed the sign.
“Thank you for coming, but I regret to inform you that this position has been filled,” he said in his most officious manner.
After the applicants dispersed, Harry entered the building, sign in hand, and was immediately hired.
In New York, Harry expanded his athletic interests. Besides gymnastics, he began to box, and by the time he was seventeen, he was tough enough to compete for the 115-pound boxing championship of the Amateur Athletic Union, oftentimes a segue to a professional boxing career. Illness intervened and knocked him out of the finals, but he had already defeated the boy who would go on to win the medal. He also took up long-distance running, and when he was eighteen, he set a record for the run around Central Park. Around the same time, he defeated Sidney Thomas, an English champion, in a twenty-mile race. Thomas would later set world records for ten-, fifteen-, and twenty-mile races.
By 1890, thanks to the income from Harry and his brothers, the family was able to move to a larger apartment at 305 East Sixty-ninth Street. Harry continued to maintain an interest in magic in New York, but its practice, beyond card or coin magic, was severely limited by his lack of funds. He learned some coin effects from his brother Theo, who in turn had learned them from his boss, a photographer. In the spring of 1889, Jacob Hyman, a coworker at Richter’s, discovered their shared enthusiasm for magic, and they began to practice together. Harry’s technical knowledge was growing; his friends would be irritated at him when they would attend a magic performance and at the end of every effect, Harry would blurt out, “I know how he does that.” They challenged him to go onstage and do them himself and he did, performing card and coin effects at neighborhood venues like Schillerbund Hall and for the Literary Society of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association, where he billed himself as either “Ehrich Weiss” or “Eric the Great.”
Then he found the book that changed his life and the entire art of magic, Memoirs of Robert-Houdin, Ambassador, Author and Conjurer, Written by Himself.
He bought the book and that evening, after dinner, sat by his bed and read the life story of the man who had elevated magic to an art form.
Harry read on late into the night, identifying with this picaresque chronicle of a life in magic. Much like Harry would, Robert-Houdin became obsessed with reading about magic, and constantly worked on coin and card manipulations, even during his meals when he’d practice with one hand while eating soup with the other. Then after jumping off a train, delirious from a bout of food poisoning, Robert-Houdin was rescued by an old conjurer named Torrini, who initiated him into the magical arts. Harry soaked in Robert-Houdin’s account of his wonderful exhibitions called the “Soirées Fantastiques” held at his own theater in Paris in 1845. Wine bottles poured any drink the audience would desire and in inexhaustible amounts. Orange trees grew and blossomed before the audience’s eyes. A small, mechanical automaton of a baker would dart inside his store to fetch actual pastries. Robert-Houdin’s son would be blindfolded yet still be able to identify objects in the possession of audience members, then, thanks to his father’s discovery of a new property of ether, a quantity of the anesthetic would be inhaled by him until he was rendered so light-headed that he could actually be suspended horizontally in midair supported by only a cane.
Then there were the accounts of the royal entertainments. Harry was particularly taken with a demonstration before King Louis Philippe and his family at his palace at St. Cloud. Robert-Houdin began by borrowing several handkerchiefs from his audience. He bundled them into a small packet and placed them on the table in front of him. He then asked the royal assemblage to write on a slip of paper a destination where they would desire these handkerchiefs to be magically transported. The king would pick three of these slips at random and then choose the final destination for the bundle. He selected the three. The first locale was under one of the candelabras on the mantelpiece, which he rejected because it was too obvious a hiding place. The second was the dome of the Invalides, which was also rejected because it was much too far away for the entire group to go. The last slip suggested that the handkerchiefs be transported into the planter of the last orange tree on the righ
t of the road leading to the chateau.
The king picked that last option and immediately dispatched guards to secure the spot. But it was too late. Robert-Houdin took the parcel containing the handkerchiefs and placed it under a bell of opaque glass. Then, waving his wand, he implored that the parcel should go directly where the king desired. He then raised the glass bell and the package was gone, replaced by a white turtledove. Louis Philippe then ordered one of his servants to open that last planter and bring back whatever might be there. The man returned shortly with a small rusted iron coffer. The king then mockingly inquired whether the handkerchiefs were in the box. Robert-Houdin replied that not only were they in the box but also had been there for sixty years.
When asked for proof of that wild assertion, Louis-Phillipe was told to open the box using the key, which was on a string affixed to the neck of the turtledove. When the box was opened, the first thing the monarch saw was a yellowed parchment. He read it aloud:
This day, the 6th of June, 1786, this iron box, containing six handkerchiefs, was placed among the roots of an orange tree by me, Balsamo, Count of Cagliostro, to serve in performing an act of magic, which will be executed on the same day sixty years hence before Louis Philippe of Orleans and his family.
Of course, when he opened the parcel within, it contained the handkerchiefs.
Cecilia woke up the next morning to a startling sight. Harry was sitting in the same position as the previous night, with his clothes still on, lost in the pages of that book he had brought home. “My interest in conjuring and magic and my enthusiasm for Robert-Houdin came into existence simultaneously. From the moment that I began to study the art, he became my guide and hero,” he wrote later. “I accepted his writings as my text-book and my gospel…. To my unsophisticated mind, his ‘Memoirs’ gave to the profession a dignity worth attaining at the cost of earnest, life-long effort.”
The Secret Life of Houdini Page 3