He commenced his professional career at Geneva, Italy, in 1867, and shortly after became associated with his cousin, Julias Vidos de Kolta, who for fifteen years thereafter acted as his business manager. De Kolta was his mother’s maiden name, adopted by her ancestors from one of the Hungarian provinces. Buatier de Kolta, as the magician was now known, traveled through Italy, where he presented a two hours’ entertainment, consisting of original sleights with a multiplicity of small properties. In 1875 he opened in London, where a great furore was made with his flying cage, which he had introduced in Italy some two years earlier. Though de Kolta was not given to {291} mishaps, on the first presentation of his trick he threw the cage out into the audience, an accident which has been repeated by other performers. [Illustration: BUATIER DE KOLTA’S FLYING CAGE.] He married Miss Alice Allen, in London, December 8, 1887. She afterwards traveled with him as his assistant, and acted as his business manager. In the year 1891, he made his first appearance in the United States by playing a four months’ engagement at the Eden Musée, New York City. On that occasion he introduced the large vanishing cage, which he intended as a satire on the flying cage because of the repeated supposition that a bird was killed at each performance of that trick, but he never liked the large cage and soon abandoned it. In 1903 he returned to this country, and opened at the Eden Musée, on September 15, where he played many months. Among other new tricks he {292} exhibited an improvement on the “rising cards,” consisting in the continuous and successive rising of every card in a pack from out a glass tumbler; and a little sketch entitled “_la danse des millions_,” in which the money-catching idea was elaborated. This number, delivered in Alexandrine verses with all the charm of a classic, was intended as a hit at the extravagance of the Panama Canal Company under the régime of De Lesseps and his associates. On that occasion he introduced an absolutely new illusion, the effect of which was as follows: The curtain rose showing a platform in the center of the stage. It was about four feet square and eighteen inches high, with four legs. The conjurer appeared carrying a satchel in one hand. He informed the audience that he kept his wife in the receptacle. It was a convenient way of transporting her about with him. Opening the satchel, he took therefrom a die about six inches square, remarking that his consort was concealed within it. This he placed on the platform. After arranging two open fans on the back of the platform he touched a spring, whereupon the die opened to about two and a half feet square. Presto!—he lifted up the die and his wife appeared on the platform, sitting cross-legged like a Turkish lady on a divan. The secret of this surprising illusion died with Buatier de Kolta. His wife refused to reveal it after his death.