Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

To Guess, by the aid of a Passage of Poetry or Prose, such one of Sixteen Cards as, in your Absence, has been Touched or Selected by the Company 56

To Divide the Pack into several Packets on the Table, allowing the Company to stop you at any Moment, and to cause the Top Card of the Heap last made to Change into the Chosen C...

To Arrange a Row of Dominoes face downwards on the Table, and on returning to the Room to turn up a Domino whose points shall indicate how many have been moved in your absence 265

Pass VI. To place three Balls one after the other upon the top of one of the Cups, and to make them fall through the Cup on to the Table 284

To Fire Borrowed Rings from a Pistol, and make them Pass into a Goblet filled with Bran and covered with a Handkerchief, the Bran disappearing, and being found elsewhere 384

Considering the great antiquity and the unfading popularity of the magic art, it seems at first sight a matter of wonder that its literature should be so extremely scanty. In En...

Among the various branches of the conjuror’s art, none will better repay the labour of the student, whether artist or amateur, than the magic of cards. It has the especial advan...

There is a large class of tricks which may be described as consisting of two elements--the discovery of a chosen card by the performer, and the revelation of his knowledge in a...

We have already explained the nature and use of the “forcing” pack of cards. It may be well, before we go further, to give a short account of one or two other species of prepare...

We propose to describe in this chapter such card tricks as require the aid of some mechanical appliance or apparatus, but are still appropriate for a drawing-room performance. T...

Before attempting tricks with coin, it will be necessary for the student to practise certain sleights and passes which more especially belong to this particular branch of the ma...

There is an immense variety of tricks with coin--some with apparatus, some without; some demanding a thorough mastery of sleight-of-hand; some so simple as to be within the comp...

THE “HEADS AND TAILS” TRICK.--This is a pretty little trick, of an unpretending nature, but of very good effect, especially if introduced in a casual and apparently _extempore_...

TO INDICATE ON THE DIAL OF A WATCH THE HOUR SECRETLY THOUGHT OF BY ANY OF THE COMPANY.--The performer, taking a watch in the one hand, and a pencil in the other, proposes to giv...

THE FLYING RING.--The majority of ring tricks depend upon the substitution at some period of the trick of a dummy ring for a borrowed one, which must be so nearly alike as not t...

We have already discussed a good many tricks in which handkerchiefs are employed in one way or another. The present chapter will be devoted to those feats in which the handkerch...

TO ARRANGE A ROW OF DOMINOES FACE DOWNWARDS ON THE TABLE, AND ON RETURNING TO THE ROOM TO TURN UP A DOMINO WHOSE POINTS SHALL INDICATE HOW MANY HAVE BEEN MOVED IN YOUR ABSENCE.-...

The subject of the present chapter may be said to be the groundwork of all legerdemain, being, we believe, the very earliest form in which sleight-of-hand was exhibited. At the...

Before proceeding to the description of the tricks which form the subject of this Chapter, it may be well to mention one or two principles of sleight-of-hand, not yet noticed, w...

The present Chapter will be devoted to those tricks in which a hat plays a special or prominent part. Borrowed hats have been used in the course of many of the tricks already de...

Under this head we propose to describe such tricks as do not come within either of the preceding categories. We shall make no attempt at classifying them, save that we shall, as...

The present Chapter will be devoted to such tricks as by reason of the cumbrousness or costliness of the apparatus required for them, are, as a rule, exhibited only upon the pub...

It now only remains to give the neophyte a few parting hints of general application. In getting up any trick, even the simplest, the first task of the student should be to caref...

The wonder excited by the marvellous automatons of Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke has caused many inquiries into the art of mechanical conjuring. Although the productions of those...

Kempelen’s Speaking Machine has been thus described. It was of simple structure, and consisted only of five parts--viz., the reed, representing the human glottis; an air-chest,...

Contemporary with Houdin were Theodin, Robin, Professor Anderson, and a whole host of minor stars, at whom I shall just take a passing glance, and then I will enter at once into...

We now come to our own time, and to a description of the various automatic exhibitions of the present day. The most notable and successful, because the most original, exhibitors...

In perusing these articles the reader must have observed, ere this, that a great deal of the success of mechanical, and, in fact, all kinds of conjuring, consists as much in the...

It is surprising with what avidity our forefathers, when they perceived some effect arising from an unknown cause, flew to the aid of _diablerie_ and the supernatural for an elu...

The belief in the materialization of spirits, and the visits of spiritual inhabitants of another world to the scene of their mortal sojourn for the sole object of giving specime...

The art of magic, as it is now understood, is no longer a secret and mystic profession; it is a written art, and may be easily acquired by the clever mechanician, or any person...