HOW TO MYSTIFY YOUR FRIENDS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 67, 21 March 1898, Page 3

HOW TO MYSTIFY YOUR FRIENDS.

TRICKS FOR AMATEUR JUGGLERS

TO TRY.

The spinning handkerchief is a great favourite- with jugglers. A handkerchief is borrowed, thrown in the air, and caug-ht on the end of a whirling stick held by the juggler, when the handkerchief spreads out to its full size and commences to rapidly spin around. The secret, says W. B. Caulk in the current number of the 'Scientific American,' is that in the end of the stick a needle is inserted about one-quarter of an inch, leaving the sharp end out. When the handkerchief is caught on the end of the whirling stick the needle point passes through it, thus preventing it falling off the stick, which is rapidly whirled around, and the handkerchief will spread out and spin about on the end of the stick.

Jug-g-lers are very partial to tricks performed with eg-g-s, and spinning- an egg on its smaller end is a trick they are almost sure to perform. It is impossible to spin a raw egg, so our juggler uses a hard-boiled one, and spins it on its small end in a shallow japanned tray. If the tray, is kept gently movingl in a small circle in the opposite drection to that in which the egg is spinning the latter will continue to spin as long as desired.

The egg-spinning' trick is usually followed by a balancing trick, in which a playing card is balanced upon a small wand, and an egg is then balanced upon a corner of the card. This

trick usually calls forth a great pretension of skill on the part of the performer, when in reality no skill whatever is required.

The wand is of ebony or some dark wood, and about three inches from one end is a small hole. The egg is made of wood, painted white, and with a small hole in one end. The card is composed of two cards glued together, with a fine steel wire between them, running- diag-onally from corner to corner of the card, with the ends of the wire projecting about a quarter of an inch. The prepared egg is on a plate with several ordinary eggs, and the card is placed on a pack of common cards. The wand is held in one hand, the card taken in the other, and apparently balanced on one corner on the wand, but in reality the wire point is placed in the hole in the wand. Now the assistant passes the prepared egg to the juggler, who carefully balances it upon the corner of the card —that is, slips the hole in the end of the egg over the wire point projecting from the card.