PERPLEXING PUZZLES AND SIMPLE TRICKS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 16 December 1936, Page 10

PERPLEXING PUZZLES AND SIMPLE TRICKS

There will not be a dull moment at any Christmas gathering at which you are present if you are skilful at performing simple tricks, or if you can give your friends some absorbing puzzles to solve.

A FIGURE FREAK Ask anyone to write down unseen any number containing several figures, say seven or eight, and to add them up lengthwise; then subtract thensum from the original number; from the difference to strike out one figure; then to tell you the figures remaining. "You can then tell them the figures struck out. For instance, suppose he writes down 2375C48, totalling 40. This 40 he subtracts from the original number, leaving 2,875,008. He then crosses out, say, the seven, and tells you that the remaining figures are 285,608. You can at once nominate seven as the figure omitted. You simply add up eventually the final figures as he calls them out, and deduct their total from the next; higher multiple of nine, which will give you the figure struck out. Thus the sum of 285,008 is 29, which deducted from the next higher multiple of nine ti.e., 36) gives you seven—the number struck out. HALVING THE APPLE

Can you halve an apple without cutting the skin? It sounds impossible, yet it can be done. For this trick you need a long needle threaded with strong thread. Push the needle into the apple sideways at the eye, the opposite end to the stalk. Leaving a long end of thread, bring the point of the needle out through the skin about half an inch away. Put the needle in again at the place where you drew it out, and push the point out again half an inch away. Keep on doing this until you have run the thread all round the apple under the skin, bringing the needle out at last beside the long thread left hanging at the apple’s “eye.” Then by pulling the two threads you can cut the apple in .two inside its skin.

A CHARADE NOT A CATECHISM / My first a friend, companion, guide, Is loving, staunch, and cheery; My second has a cleansing side, My third denotes a theory. My whole, good luck! is held by few To bore and make us weary. Solution of not a Catechism Charade: Dogmatism. PULLING A PIECE OF STRING THROUGH A HANDKERCHIEF Ask someone to tie your wrists fairly loosely with a handkerchief. Get someone to place a piece of string around the handkerchief, holding the ends. Now get someone else to cover your wrists with a cloth so that your friends will riot see how you do the trick. When the man holding the cord pulls at your request he will find that the cord appears to pass right through the handkerchief. The explanation is that with your thumb or one of the fingers of your right hand you are able to get a hold of the stririg' where it passes behind the handkerchief and force it over the back of your right hand. Ask your friend to pull on the string, which then gives way, actually passing between the back of your hand and the handkerchief. It is necessary, in order to get sufficient slackness to enable you to obtain a grip of the string, to walk towards your friend while he is holding the two ends and before he begins to pull. Be careful that the knot on the handkerchief does not prevent the string from giving way. If the string is temporarily obstructed by the knot, just push it clear with your hands.