Of this goodly company, however, Rovere and Phillippe deserve more than
passing notice, as both were the contemporaries of Robert-Houdin, and
Rovere was his personal friend. Both also appear in Robert-Houdin's
"Memoirs."
The trick appears first, not as a confectioner's shop with small figures
at work, but as a fruitery, then again as a Dutch Coffee-House and a
Russian Inn, from which ten sorts of liquor are served. Finally, in
1823, it is featured under the name that later made it famous, the
Confectioner's Shop.
Haddock, the Englishman who had the writing and drawing figure in his
possession for some time, featured the fruitery on his programmes dated
1796. One of his advertisements from the London _Telegraph_ is
reproduced on page 106, in connection with the history of the writing
and drawing figure, but for convenience I am quoting here Haddock's own
description of the fruitery trick, which was even more complicated than
the famous Pastry Cook of the Palais Royal:
[Illustration: A Bologna poster of 1820 which features an automatic
distiller who draws eight different liquors from one cask. From the
Harry Houdini Collection.]
"A model of the neat rural mansion, and contains the following figures:
First, the porter, which stands at the gate, and on being addressed,
rings the bell, when the door opens, the fruiteress comes out, and any
lady or gentleman may call for whatever fruit they please, and the
figure will return and bring the kind required, which may be repeated
and the fruit varied as often as the company orders: it will likewise
receive flowers, or any small article, carry them in, and produce them
again as called for. As the fruits are brought out, they will be given
in charge of a watch-dog, which sits in front of the house, and on any
person taking or touching them will begin to bark, and continue to do
so until they are returned. The next figure belonging to this piece is
the little chimney-sweeper, which will be seen coming from behind the
house, will enter the door, appear at the top of the chimney, and give
the usual cry of 'Sweep' several times, descend the chimney, and come
out with his bag full of soot."
In 1820, Haddock's programme, including the fruitery, appears with only
a few minor changes as the répertoire of Bologna, a very clever conjurer
who afterward became the assistant of Anderson, the Wizard of the North,
and who made most of the latter's apparatus. On the Bologna programme,
for a performance to be given at the Great Assembly Room, Three Tuns
Tavern, the shop trick is described thus: "A curious Mechanical
Fruiterer and Confectioner's Shop, kept by Kitty Comfit, who will
produce at Command such Variety of Fruit and Sweetmeats as may be asked
for."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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