“Sphinx Legacy” 編纂記 第22回
加藤英夫
出典：”Sphinx”,1914年12月号 執筆者： A.M. Wilson
Magic is an art, a science that requires brains, skill, gentlemnaness and talent of a high order. Brick walls, Torture cells, Straight jackets, Handcuffs, etc., demand nothing but physical strength and endurance, nerve, gall, bluster, fakes and faked apparatus, etc., ad libitum, heralded by circus band advertising.
In my opinion magic is brought into disrepute by all such. Their place is the side show and dime museums. If you have the nerve to try, you can, by spending $35 to $100 learn to do an act fully as good as any so-called “king” now before the public.
この文章はHoudiniのマジックに対する皮肉に聞こえます。一世を風靡しているHoudiniに対して批判的なことを書くというのは、いったいWilsonとHoudiniの関係はいかがなものなのでしょうか。たとえここに書かれていることが真実であったとしても、いくらなんでも失礼です。Wilsonが多くの著名マジシャンといさかいを起こしたと言われることの、これは一例なのかもしれません。
“Sphinx”の存在を崇めながら進めている仕事ですから、Wilsonのこのような文章は取り上げたくはありませんが、事実は事実として記録しなければなりません。
A.M. WilsonとHoudiniの確執に関して、”Harry Ransom center”のサイトに、つぎの記述がありました。
Dr. A. M. Wilson, The Sphinx, and The Conjurers’ Monthly Magazine. Dr. A. M. Wilson was an old-time magician who performed under his stage name “Aristos.” Before that, he was an assistant and pupil to magician Robert Heller. He retired from performing and became a minister, a doctor, and a pharmacist, but remained associated with magic; primarily as the editor of magic journal The Sphinx (the October 1904 issue was his first as editor).
Wilson, like Houdini, was outspoken and like Houdini, was known to enter into conflicts with magicians. Houdini’s own dispute with Dr. Wilson seemed to begin early in his career when he took offense that the Sphinx never published his likeness on the cover, nor printed any articles about his act. This was one reason Houdini launched the Conjurers’ Monthly Magazine in September 1906. Prone to grandiose statements, Houdini boasted that after only two months, the circulation of his magazine had surpassed that of all other magic magazines combined. Very quickly a war of words took place on the pages of each magazine and escalated into a feud that lasted until September 1915, when Houdini and Wilson made amends and ended their dispute.
”Harry Ransom center”のサイトには、上記の記述以外に、Houdiniの活動年表など、Houdiniに関する貴重な情報が満載されています。つぎのアドレスでアクセスできます。
https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadid=01275
出典：”Sphinx”,1915年9月号 執筆者： A.M. Wilson
“Sphinx”,1914年12月号で、Wilsonがあるマジシャンに対する皮肉を書いていましたが、私が感じた通り、それはHoudiniに対するものでした。そしてその皮肉を書いた背後に、何らかの確執があったことも判明しました。その確執がどのようなものかWilson自身は明らかにしていませんが、いずれにしても二人の間の問題が和解したという記事です。
For several years there has been an acrimonious disagreement between Harry Houdini and myself, arising through a misundestanding on my part and fomented by meddlesome and talebearing supposed to be friends of each. While in New York City last June I met Mr. Houdini in Martinka’s and we had an exciting and decidedly unpleasant wordy battle which resulted in worse feeling than ever.
Mr. Houdini played Kansas City—at the Ohpheum—week of September 5, and through the intervention of Dr. T. S. Blakesley I met Houdini in the doctor’s office and there threshed out our differences to the satisfaction of both. We found that each had been misrepresented to the other and that supposed to be friends in whom we had placed confidence had betrayed that confidence, in other cases had deliberately lied. I apologized to Houdini, he made amends to most satisfactorily, and now we are friends as we should have been years ago- I want to say in justification to Mr. Houdini, that l was the aggressor in the matter and he was on the defensive but, as I had a magazine and he had no way of coming back at me, the advantage was on my side.
I am writing this apology to Houdini and to my readers of my own volition and because of things I have learned that satisfy me, that, while I was right in some trivial matters I was wrong in more. Mr. Houdini entertained me at dinner with Mrs. Houdini and our personal troubles are at an end.
この記事を読むと、二人の間の問題がどのようなことであるか知りたい気持ちになります。”Sphinx”,1914年9月号に、’Walking Through a Brick Wall’の広告が掲載され、10月号でWilsonがそれを購入することを奨めていて、12月号では前述のようにWilsonがHoudiniに対する皮肉を書いています。ですから、10月号と12月号の間に、Houdiniがそのことに対して抗議したのかもしれません。
Wilsonが” l was the aggressor in the matter”と書いているのは、もしかしたら、Houdiniに対する皮肉を書いたことなのでしょうか。いずれにしても、これ以上そのような推測を書くことはやめておきましょう。推測は歴史に間違いを発生させる原因になりますから。
（つづく）
