What has sawing a lady in half to do with global warming?

At this time of year, exactly 70 years ago, I was taken to my first exhibition of professional conjuring. The magus called himself Dante — he was Danish-American and his real name was Harry Jansen. He had an amazing moustache and beard, wore dazzling evening dress and a red satin-lined cloak, and performed his tricks at lightning speed: his slogan was ‘15 sur- prises in 15 seconds’. However, the performance I would like to have seen most was staged by Charles Dickens on Boxing Day 1843 at a children’s party given by the actor Macready. Dickens had bought at Hamley’s a proper ‘apparatus’ which had belonged to the conjuror Doëbler. Being the man he was he had learned his business thoroughly. Jane Welsh Carlyle, who was present, wrote to her niece Jeannie:

Dickens also changed the pocket-handkerchiefs of the ladies present into bags of sweets, and produced a live guinea-pig from a box of bran.