The Optical Magic Lantern Journal (July 1895)

112 in Walworth—which was one of the quickest, if not the quickest contest known—there was no time to prepare anything bearing strictly upon the questions now immediately before the Houses of Parliament, but the contest had scarcely begun when the inhabitants of that salubrious (?) locality were being regaled nightly with a peripatetic lantern show. During the day one of those cumbersome pantechnicon vans—so much dreaded by the ordinary householder who has to shift his belongings—drawn by two horses, wended its way slowly through the streets, covered with banners and bills, doingduty as a perambulating hoarding. At night it was taken to various dark corners (and there are many in Walworth), the doors at the back having been removed, and a small sheet stretched across the end, and various slides relating more or less to the past political events were shown through the screen, the operator and lantern being inside. Seeing the wave of heat we had at the time, and that thereis not the slightest attempt at ventilation in these huge boxes, the operator must have had a rather warm time of it. The warmth of the Irish gentleman outside who addressed the meeting sometimes raised the temperature of the audiences, and made things warm generally, but the operator was safe enough inside (I was almost about to say inside his safe) from any onslaught which might be made by the opposite party. When they wished to “move on” the gas was turned off, and he was told to ‘‘ hold on tight inside,” and the lecture hall was moved to some other and perhaps cooler spot. But the pictures being only about five feet six inches square, and part of this even hidden by the speaker on the tailboard—whose address by the way did not always coincide with the picture upon the screen—and as the whole thing was very low down, when it was surrounded by the youths of Walworth it was impossible for anything like a large number of people to see anything but the tops of the slides—church steeples, trees, etc.—so that from a lanternist’s point of view the exhibition could not be voted a success. But soon another Richmond was in the field. The other side quickly requisitioned a lanternist to go ‘one better” than that ‘“ lumbering galanty show affair.” This he did by fixing a screen on the ordinary elevator on the side of an ordinary light four-wheeled van by means of struts from the other side; this gave the van itself for the platform. The bottom of the sheet (which was a ten feet one) being sufliciently The Optical Magic Lantern Journal and Photographic Enlarger. high to almost clear the head of the speaker. The lantern and operator were in another light van, the lantern being fixed to project the picture from the back: The exhibition was very quickly started by turning the van with the sheet across the road and slowly drawing the lantern van away from it until the picture filled the sheet. The lecturer, a well-known and active clergyman in the district, had his own slides, many of them taken by himself, and consequently they were fully described ; and as everyone could see the pictures, and as the meetings were fully announced, audiences of some hundreds of people were the result. A kicking horse on one evening rather discomposed the operator, and the show could not be proceeded with until the horse was removed ; this was a little more fun forthe assembled crowd. As a lantern show the latter was certainly the best, but whether either had any influence on the election, or effected in any way the result, is a very doubtful question. A third show was given by an evening paper on the night of the polling from the roof of one of the shops in the Walworth-road, near the Vestry Hall. The immense crowd were entertained by portraits, etc., until. the result was shown by a slide with the names of the candidates being prepared previously and the numbers inserted at the last moment. Seeing that the candidate who gave the best lantern show came off second best, one is inclined to think that the use of the lantern did not influence the voters to any extent. Be that as it may, rumour says that a general election is not far off, and although, as Lord. Dundreary used to say, ‘‘ Politics isa thing which no fellah can understand,” and although the ways of the voter may be mysterious, when it does come, there will be a good time for political lanternists of both sides, and the poor professional lanternist who is neither or either for the time being. ‘0: The Lantern Stroboscope. By Imex. Tur human eye has been considered by one of our greatest philosophers to be an imperfect organ of vision, but whether that be so or not it is certain that it has its limit in the observation of things in motion. There are a large number of phenomena that occur to us which is due to what is called persistence of vision. A simple