The wonders of optics/Chinese shadows
CHINESE SHADOWS.
While upon the subject of optical wonders, we
should hardly be forgiven if we did not give a description
of the amusement known as Chinese shadows, or
Fantocini. In the winter time it is difficult to pass
through any of the large thoroughfares of London after
nightfall, without seeing a crowd admiring the popular
fantocini farces of the "Broken Bridge," or "Billy
Button;" and although these dramatic exhibitions are
not always free from vulgarity, they are received with
vociferous applause by at least the younger portion of
the audience.
The apparatus for the exhibition of the fantocini is generally very simple. The screen on which they are shown is generally made of calico rendered semi-transparent with copal varnish, and the figures are cut out of cardboard. Frames containing landscapes and scenes of different kinds are also provided, which are cut out in the same material. The dramatis personæ are generally made with moveable limbs, which they throw about in the most unanatomical manner, and the showman is often endowed with ventriloquial talents of no mean order. This amusement is to be found in all parts of the world, from the Strand and Tottenham Court Road London, to the streets of Algiers and Java. A graphic writer in the Magasin Pittoresque gives a pleasant de-scription of the fantocini, as exhibited at the Arabs' theatre in the Mohammedan quarter of the city of Algiers. It was on the occasion of the feast of the Bairam, which immediately follows the termination of the Ramadan, or Mohammedan Lent. The theatre, which was the only one frequented by the Arab population, consisted simply of a long vaulted hall, without seats, boxes, or galleries; but the audience, who had already been there some time, did not seem to regard the omission as of any consequence, but had seated themselves on the ground with great coolness, chatting in whispers, and waiting patiently until the director should consider the place full enough to begin the performance. Half an hour elapsed, and the spectators still chatted on quite unconcernedly; an hour, and yet there was no hissing or stamping of feet from the grave and patient spectators. At last they reached the maximum, and a boy came forward and blew out the few lamps with which the theatre was lighted, leaving them to smoulder away with a perfume that was certainly not Oriental in its character. First came the legend of the Seven Sleepers; then Scheherazade relating her bewitching stories to the Sultan. These were followed by Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, a story that is as popular in Algiers as it is in London or Paris; the whole culminating in a kind of burlesque, in which a great deal of gross fun was mixed up with a number of rebellious allusions. The devil, for instance, who is of course one of the members of the troupe, is portrayed as a French soldier, bearing a cross on his breast like an ancient Crusader. After him came Carhageuse, who is the buffoon of the Eastern stage, and who makes violent but unsuccessful love to a charming young Jewess. There was a poor barber who was raised to the dignity of grand vizier, his successor's head being cut off by the yataghan of the Oriental Jack Ketch, to the great de--
Fig. 64.—Effect of cut paper-work.
light of the people. Then a wretched Jew receives the bastinado, amidst vociferous applause, which increases still higher when the ears of an unhappy Giaour are cut off and thrown to the dogs. Throughout the piece, it is of course the Mussulman who always triumphs, like the French guards at the Cirque Impériale, or the British grenadiers at old Astley's. The performance concluded with a grand naval battle between the Moorish and Spanish fleets. The drum as usual served for cannon, there was a great deal of smoke and confusion, and the Christian fleet gradually sank under the continuous fire of the Mussulmans amidst the plaudits and bravos of the crowd.
In Java, the subjects of the fantocini are generally taken from the native mythology. The screen on which the shadows are exhibited is ten or twelve feet long, and five feet high, and the figures are cut of thick leather, their limbs being moved by thin pieces of nearly transparent horn.
In fig. 64 we see another kind of Chinese shadows, in which the lights of the figure are cut out. These pictures are perfectly unrecognisable as being even the basest imitation of any known form; but when their shadows are thrown on the wall, the cut-out portions show us lights, whilst those that have been left form the shadows. On the Boulevard des Capucines, at Paris, there used to be a man who managed to pick up a good living by selling these candle shadows. Of course he used to carry on his trade of an evening, and with a strong lamp he would throw the shadows of his figures on the white walls of the houses, or the blind of a shop window, or even on the pavement. With a little care and ingenuity a number of these amusing cards may be easily designed. In showing them, care must be taken to choose the best distances between the light and the paper, and between this latter and the wall. If the card be placed too close to the wall, the resulting shadows will be too dark, and the outlines too sharp; if, on the contrary, the light is placed too far off, the outlines become confused, and the proper effect is lost.
Shadows have been applied before now to the propagation of seditious ideas. "In 1817," says an esteemed French author, "one winter's night we were all sitting round the table listening to my father, who was reading aloud an interesting book of the period, when a friend of our family, who had been formerly an officer of the Empire, entered the room. He was a serious, upright, soldierly man, and wore his coat buttoned up to his chin. He had hardly replied to our salutations, when he drew a chair to the table, and made a sign with his hands and eyes that plainly indicated silence and discretion. There was something in the expression of his countenance that seemed to show that he had something mysterious in store for us, and we fully expected to hear some extraordinary news, or to see him bring out a Bonapartist pamphlet of more than usual importance. Our surprise was consequently great when we saw him slowly unscrew the top of his cane, which was turned out of boxwood, and presented nothing very remarkable either in form or material. He, however, took up a copybook which was lying on the table, placed it at a certain distance from the lamp, and then laid upon it the little piece of turned boxwood. At first we noticed nothing at all extraordinary, and he smiled at our want of intelligence, until at last my youngest brother cried out suddenly, 'Look! there's the head of Napoleon!' and truly enough, we found, on looking more attentively at the shadows of the turned knob of the cane, that their profile was that of the great exile, most correctly and clearly portrayed. The old captain's face lighted up at the sight, and the tears came into his eyes. 'We shall see him again,' he murmured in a low voice, and he hummed the burden of a Bonapartist song then in vogue. During the rest of the evening he was very
Fig. 65.—Seditous Toys.
lively, and proved to us most conclusively, that before six months the Grande Armée would be revenged for their defeat at Waterloo. Some weeks after, there was hardly a soldier in the town that did not possess a stick or a tobacco-pipe stopper, turned in this fashion, but one day a panic seized everybody, and the canes and pipe stoppers were all burnt."
Fig. 65 represents historic heads cut in this way. During the Shakespeare Tercentenary excitement, a London turner made quite a little fortune by making heads of the great poet on the same principle.