THE INVISIBLE GIRL. 227 



pensed with, and a simple wooden head utters its sounds 

 through a speaking-trumpet. At the court of Charles II. 

 this deception was exhibited with great effect by one 

 Thomas Irson, an Englishman, and when the astonishment 

 had become very general, a popish priest was discovered 

 by one of the pages in an adjoining apartment. The 

 questions had been proposed to the wooden figure by 

 whispering into its ear, and this learned personage had 

 answered them all with great ability, by speaking through 

 a pipe in the same language in which the questions 

 were proposed. Professor Beckmann informs us that 

 children and women were generally concealed either in 

 the juggler's box, or in the adjacent apartment, and that 

 the juggler gave them every assistance by means of signs 

 previously agreed upon. When one of these exhibitions 

 was shown at Gottingen, the Professor was allowed, on 

 the promise of secrecy, to witness the process of deception. 

 He saw the assistant in another room, standing before the 

 pipe with a card in his hand, upon which the signs agreed 

 upon had been marked, and he had been introduced so 

 privately into the house that even the landlady was 

 ignorant of his being there. 



An exhibition of the very same kind has been brought 

 forward in our own day, under the name of the Invisible 

 Girl; and as the mechanism employed was extremely 

 ingenious, and is well fitted to convey an idea of this 

 class of deceptions, we shall give a detailed description 

 of it. 



The machinery, as contructed by M. Charles, is shown 

 in Fig. 37 in perspective, and a plan of it in Fig. 38. 

 The four upright posts A, A, A, A, are united at top 

 by a cross rail B, B, and by two similar rails at bottom. 

 Four bent wires a, a, a, a, proceeded from the top of these 

 posts, and terminated at c. A hollow copper ball M, 

 about a foot in diameter, was suspended from these 



