Autograph Letter Signed ("Beckie"), Addressed To Her 14 Year-Old Brother, Richard Morse, Andover, Mass, Detailing The Act Of Signor Blitz Morse, Rebecca Social Thought,Sports & Games

4 pp, with a stampless envelope annotated "Pd 3 cts" in upper corner. 8vo. ABOUT SIGNOR BLITZ. Letter from the young grand-daughter of geographer Jedidiah Morse and niece of telegraph inventor Samuel F.B.Morse to her teenaged brother, describing the act of British born Antonio "Signor" Blitz (1810-1877), perhaps the best known magician in the US before the Civil War. ".Miss Apthorp told us that she was going to take us to see Signor Blitz, a juggler and ventriloquist.First he brought out a little wooden doll, and a cloak on him, and made him disappear and then made him come back again. He put an ivory ball in his mouth and pretended to swallow it; then he pulled from his mouth, first a long piece of red ribbon; then yellow, blue, green, and white. He brought out his canary birds, and two or three ring doves; he made one of the canaries draw a little waggon, and two of them swung in a seat while two others swung above them, one pretended to sleep with little torches all around it, and the funniest of all was, one who came out all dressed in a cloak and hat, just like a little soldier on a wooden horse, and another fired off a little cannon; the wooden horse fell, and the Colonel pretended to be dead. Signor Blitz showed a wooden man whom he called Bobby and pretended he spoke; of course, Signor Blitz spoke for him." Blitz arrived in America in 1834 and quickly rose to popularity; at the height of his fame there were some dozen other magicians operating under his name. He wrote the autobiography Fifty Years in the Magic Circle (1871). 4 pp, with a stampless envelope annotated "Pd 3 cts" in upper corner. 8vo