Christmas Tricks FOR THE -PARTY-

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20995, 23 December 1939, Page 19 (Supplement)

Christmas Tricks FOR THE -PARTY-

To satisfy them take a crumpled handkerchief from a side table, show it is empty, produce from it an egg and drop the egg in a hat. Show the handkerchief as empty, produce another egg, drop it in the hat and keep on as long as you wish, and at the end show the hat empty.

The secret of this is that you have prepared an egg by blowing out the contents, and fastening the shell to a piece of cotton, of such a length that when sewn to the hem of the handkerchief, the egg hangs down behind the cloth when it is held up by two corners, and the audience thinks it empty. It is a simple matter to appear to take the egg from the handkerchief and to drop it in the hat, the picking up of the handkerchief naturally pulls the egg out of the hat each time. Practice should make the amateur perfect with this little illusion. After this the amateur may pretend to be tired of tricks and should take up a pack of cards and say “let us have a hand at cards, here’s the eight of clubs for you, the king of diamonds for you, the three of hearts for you, the ten of spades for you,” and so on right through the pack, the amazed audience marvelling that, without looking at the pack, the performer can name every card. The pack is, however, pre-arranged in this order—eight, king, three, ten, two, seven, nine, five, queen, four, ace, six, jack—an apparently haphazard order but memorised by the sentence : “Eight kings threatened to save nine fair ladies for one six knave.” The suits are arranged in alphabetical order, thus the eight of clubs is followed by the king of diamonds, and the three of hearts and the ten of spades, then by the two of clubs, the seven of diamonds, the nine of hearts and the five of spades and so on. If the cards should be cut, a glance at the bottom card will indicate the top card, for instance if the bottom card should be the ace of spades, the top card must be the six of clubs, and from there the performer goes on reading jack of diamonds, eight of hearts, king of spades and so on. Having convinced the audience that you have such a command of cards, knowing them from the backs, suggest that many hours of study have given you a similar power over liquids. Take up a jug, preferably of glass, so that the audience can see it is real water, and offer to make it change colour at will. You pour some into a tumbler and it remains water, to the glee of the audience, whereupon you explain that you wanted it blue, but in-

During the past few years a revival in public interest in stage magicians, has created a boom among makers of conjuring apparatus, and anyone can visit a dealer and purchase enough apparatus to give a good performance—with practice. The amateur entertainer at Christmas desirous of amusing and mystifying friends can do so without any apparatus at all and without any knowledge of palming, passing or any form of legerdemain. The best type of home entertainment is that performed with common objects, coins, cards, rings and handkerchiefs, and the best method of giving a conjuring show is not to announce what on© is going to do, but turn the conversation round gradually towards tricks and illusions. Then quite casually take a match box, show that it is empty and then shut it. On opening it, a coin is found inside, and the interest of the onlookers is aroused. The secret of this trick is that the apparently empty box did contain a coin, held between the two parts of the matchbox, and the action of shutting the box allowed the coin to drop into the box. By doing this, without announcing what the onlookers are to expect, the trick is highly effective. Having done this, tell the audience that you can tell whether a spun coin falls heads or tails even though you are blindfolded. The audience doubts this, so on being blindfolded you take the same coin, spin it, and when it stops announce what it is. The secret is, that previously, you cut a small notch in the edge of the penny on the tail side. When the spun penny is coming to rest the notched side downwards it ceases spinning rather abruptly, but if the un-notched side,, that is heads is uppermost, it spins with the steady diminishing whirr. The simpler the trick the more it puzzles audiences. Ask someone to drop into a hat a number of coins, not letting you know how many, and then drop into the hat a number of coins from your own pocket, and state that if the number first dropped in were odd, you have made the contents up to an even number, and if the number were even you have magically tm.de it odd. All you do is to drop in an odd number of coins, and thus the original odd or even number always becomes reversed. By this time your audience will be demanding more tricks, and will not listen to any expostulations that you are no magician.

stead you feel blue at your failure. You pour some into another tumbler, the water goes blue, and you confess that you ara blushing at the impertinence, and pouring some into another tumbler it becomes red, imitating your blushes. “This" you explain, “is too much. This water must think I'm a milk sop,” and you pour soma of it into a fourth tumbler, whereupon it becomes milk. This trick depends upon the use of chemicals and care should be taken that no one drinks any liquid and that the utensils are well cleaned afterwards. The jug of water was actually a solution of twenty grains of ferrocyanide of potassium, the first tumbler used was clean, the second had been rinsed out with a solution of perchloride of iron, the third with a solution of sulphate of copper, and the fourth with a solution of sulphate of zinc, a few drops being left in the bottom of each tumbler.

The final trick of this amateur entertainment is one used with great success by a conjuror on the music halls.

Take up some large article In the room, say a book or an ornament, or even a small chair, and tell your audience in an impressive speech that you are about to perform an almost incredible feat, one which they will remember for years to come, and which can only be performed by those possessing the secrets of the ancient wizards. Hold the chair or other article above your head, ask everyone to stare at it intently, and then ask for silence for a few seconds, at the end of which someone must shout loudly “ Go ! ” Immediately someone shouts “Go," you bow, murmur " Good-night,” and go, carrying the object with you. This outline of a performance is but k bare skeleton, and the amateur entertainer can extend it by study and practice. Two great secrets of successful conjuring are never to perform the same trick again to the same people in the same manner, and never tell your audience what you are going to do. Generally speaking, all great stage illusions involving disappearances of people are so worked that the disappearances have occurred before the audiences think the moment has arrived, and the same principle governs parlour tricks in the home. In card tricks where you undertake to find a chosen card, you do not tell the audience the moment you know what the chosen card is, but you mystify them by play and patter before you reveal the card itself.