The Electric Girl*

Long a featured attraction at carnival sideshows and freak museums, the act of the “Electric Girl” has awed generations of baffled spectators. Electra, as she was often called, appeared to be an ordinary young lady, but according to the lecturer who introduced her, she was capable of withstanding hugs electrical shocks that would mean death to any other mortal.

Even the dread electric chair had no terrors for Electra, who calmly sat in such a contrivance while the wires were connected and the switch pulled. The lecturer then told the audience that thousands of volts were passing through the girl's body; and to prove it, he had Electra raise her arm, while he placed a long blue tube against her wrist. Instantly, the tube lighted, while the audience gasped.

As a further test, the operator would dip a piece of cotton into a bottle of gasoline, and extend it on the end of a wire. As it touched the girl's hand, the cotton burst into flame. Members of the audience were allowed to touch the girl's fingers. They immediately received a sharp shock, and sparks leaped from the girl's hand. Other dramatic and convincing tests were used to prove that Electra possessed some uncanny power.

Actually, the act depended on a special transformer in the platform beneath the electric chair. This was used to produce a “high frequency” current that was high in voltage, but low in amperage and therefore lacked destructive power. By pressing her arm against an arm plate in the chair, the girl received the full current, but scarcely felt it. The bulb which lighted on contact with the girl's wrist was a mercury arc, designed for a high frequency current; an ordinary incandescent bulb would not have lighted. Anyone could play the part of Electra and survive the ordeal unharmed.

One self-styled “electrical wizard” of the early 1900's put on an elaborate stage show of this type, once offering to sit in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison when the full current was thrown on. Luckily for him, his challenge was ignored.

(Editor's note: That self-styled electrical wizard of the early 1900's could be none other than Bodie!)

* SECRETS OF MAGIC, ANCIENT & MODERN BY WALTER GIBSON, GROSSET & DUNLAP, NY 1967