TRICKS AND TEASERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 78, 2 April 1927, Page 3

TRICKS AND TEASERS.

TO SPIN A SHILLING ON THE POINT OP A NEEDLE. You need not be a Cinqucvalli in ored to accomplish this trick—a glance at the diagram, a little care, and you should do it quite easily. Fix one end of the needle firmly into the cork in the

bottle's mouth. Cut a slit in one end of the second cork, into this slit wedge the- shilling. Now, midway down this cork and at right angles 'to the shilling affix two forks, balance the shilling on the needles point, gently twist—and there you art , . BOTTLE AND STRAW. Hand a friend an ordinary medicine bottle and an ordinary straw* Challenge him to lift the bottle by the straw without first tilting the bottle. When he has called the feat impossible, bend

tlje straw and slip it into the bottle. Tt will fix in the "shoulder" of the bottle, enabling you easily to bring off the trick. SQUARING THE CIRCLES. It is not bad fun on a wet afternoon to ask some irritable person to construct a perfect square with four pennies.. He

will probably make What he calls a "square" with them by placing them flat on the table with their edges touching, when yon at once point out that this is not a true square. Having made the irritable person very peevish, explain to him how. the square is made with the lines above the date on each penny, an shown in the illustration. You may conclude, if you wish to be funny, by offering to let him rat tho "dates" on the pennies. He will probably leave instantly. ATTRACTION AND REPULSION. Get a basin of water and arrange a number of matches on the surface in the form of a star. AVhen the matches are all together in 'the centre of the basin, take a piece of soap and touch tho water as in figure A. when the matches will make for tho side of the basin, frightened, to all appearances, by the soap. Lay aside the soap and just

touch tlie water with a bit of sugar, and the matches will immediately return to tho centre. The reason for this is, of course, that the soap dissolves and leaves a thin film on the water, which, growing bigger, pushes the matches away. The sugar sucks up the water, and consequently draws the matches towards itself. A GOOD TRICK. For the first of these an empty bottle, a penny, and a table nrc necessary. The penny on the tabic, and the bottle inverted on the penny, as shown -in the sketch. Then defy anyone present to get the penny from under the bottle

without touching cither penny or bottle. To accomplish this seeming miracle, continue to strike the table gently with the fist, when the bottle will wriggle awkwartlly from the penny, amid loud applause. THE ACROBATIC CARD. A bright and merry pastime is to bend a visiting- card over at each end to the extent of about a sixteenth of

an inch, and then placing it on a smoothly-polished table, request a friend to blow at the card so that it turns upside down. The friend will probably get quite red in the face and then not succeed. In any case, it is as well to arrange that the table is between you and him (or her). If the performer blows so that his breath strikes the table about six inches from the card, the resultant blast rebounds from the table and rises up under the card so as to upset it. The arrows in the illustration explain how this oeeura.