PROFESSOR ANDERSON'S MAGIO PORTFOLIO.
 One of the late Wizard of the North's most surprising tricks was the
production of many things of considerable dimensions from a large
portfolio or scrap-book. As we have made clear, in previous volumes,
the construction of
bird-cages, hats, cups, and other things which fold up and fit into one
another, it is sufficient to say that such apparatuses played their
part in this
deception. But, though a human being can be made to take up a far
smaller space—as the Maskelyne and Cooke sealed chest
sufficiently shows—than is generally imagined, the audience was
always startled into applause when the professor produced from the book
one or two of his children. This trick has been much improved since Mr.
Anderson practised it, and we give the latest emendation.
Explanation.—You must have your magic table with a
large trap, in working order. The book, which is a large one, with
wooden covers and pasteboard leaves, is so placed that its centre lies
just over the centre of the trap. The upper cover is solid, but the
lower and all the leaves are cut out circularly in the middle, so that
a child can pass through. A sheet of white india-rubber covers the
opening, with a slit down the middle, A to B.
Note.—Professor Anderson's book was merely a portfolio
and but half opened, so that the top stood at right angles to the table
on which it was placed, and acted as a screen. Thus, he could draw out
of the interior, and through the trap in the table, whatever he
pleased. It is true, after placing the child within, he shifted the
portfolio to a second table, without a cover, under which one could see
uninterruptedly, but as the child was already in it, he had no
difficulty in taking it out; the modification here given is far more
deceptive.
To continue, the leaves of the book are painted with various
pictures, butterflies, gnomes, birds, and so on. Whatever the picture,
the living object which it represents is lifted up from the leaf as
each page is turned. To crown all, upon the likeness of a miniature
Mephisto presenting itself, a little devil leaps up from the animated
page. As we know, he simply came up the trap, clean through the book,
and thus appeared, though the leaves show no dissolution of continuity.
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