'The Magic Circle—the coulurers' club, and very difficult it is to become 2 member, tremendously high must his qualifications be—is offering 600 guineas for anyone who can perform the Rope 'Trick. Your readers, of course, are familiar' with 8 rope which somehow sticks in the air, a boy climbs up it, and disap-peai The belief in this miracle is as old as the 14th century, when an Arab Sheikh, calling himself "Ibn Batutah" (The Traveller) left an account Ht. Other versions are that the con-Jurer climbs the rope after the boy and cuts him up somewhere, _invisibly, the dismembered pieces' falling. before the spectators.
'Yet, like the ease of those famous Russian troops pouring through Eng. land in the autumn of 1914, who were seen by everyone's cousin or unt oF neighbours, but never by the witness himself, it seems impossible Yo find anyone' who can_ personally swear to having seen the Rope Trick, still less anyone who can perform it.
Letters were read at the Magic Circle meeting from Lord Halifax, Lord Meston, Sir Michael O'Dwyer and others, testifying that they had done their' utmost while in India to see the Rope Trick performed but without success.
One theory is that the conjurer hypnotizes all his spectators simul taneously! But this is really tribute to him powers that no other magician ever claimed In ary case, where is the spectator who formed one of a group so. hypnotizad? The (act that the "Times India" has added an offer of—the! equivalent of £759 for performance]
the trick suggests that experiencer People in India are equally.sceptical as to its performance.
passing, T have seep it asserted that the supposedly supernormal ma~ ale of the East is really very second rate stuff, and that the Indian conjurers are incapable of a tithe the tricks performed by the Magic Circle's members.
Against this, Mme David Neale, in her books on'her life in Tibet, has recorded supernormal abilities pos~ sessed by the adepts of Tibet, the result of long self discipline, which fare unknown in the West to-day. Some of them she claims to _have fered herself—such as how to jer the body impervious to the severest cold, even in the snowy heights of central Asia Tower of London Teas 'The old riddle, "where did, King Charles' executioner dine? He took chop at the King's Head" is somehow recalled by the news that the Tower of London is to be equipped with a new public tea room and restaurant, in which 150 people will be able to dine simultaneously. There already a wooden refreshment room, and it is felt that the demand justifies something much better and more elaborate. Care is to be taken to keep the style of the restaurant in harmony with the old ulldings of the Tower, perhaps. too, with skulls 10°hold the electric Tights and each guest shackled securely to the table {ill the bill is paid.
In some ways it would be pleasant to dine on a summer evening at the Tower. The surroundings are wonder fully peaceful and the outlook on the Thames nowhere more romantic.
"But the atmosphere of the Tower fs rather too grim for merrymaking. 'One cannot escape the suggestions of the Traitors' Gate, the _recollection of the numbers who went to] their death on Tower Hill—one lady refused to lay her head on the block, and ran round the hill with the executioner hacking at her till she fell—and under the floor of the chapel lo! ight oF ten royalties and nobilities, all, I believe, headless. There is per~ haps nothing so impressive in all London as the Tower, but it is not!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.