For Our Boys Girls

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 442, 1 February 1890, Page 3

For Our Boys Girls

EDITED BY MRS FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT-

[COPYRIGHT.] [All Rights Reserved.]

Hindoo Magic Explained.

PROF. KELLAR ILLUSTRATES SOME FAMOUS TRICKS FOR THE YOUTHS’ DEPARTMENT. Every Boy His Own Conjurer. Some Advice to Ambitious Young Jugglers—The Magic Duck Trick—The Wonderful Coloured Sugar Deception Dry Sand Taken from Water How a Cobbler Helped Make a Pineapplk Crow Two Simple but Puzzling Tricks for the Parlour.

I have soent fifteen years of my life in India and the far East, giving performances in conjuring tricks and studying the wonderful tricks of the Hindoo juggler*. Wi'h very few exceptions I have always been able to discover the secret of such tricks as I have seer, but several of them were perf rmed so dexterously that even with all my knowledge of the art and my ob*ervation I have been as completely baffled as the veriest novice among the spectators. Some of these tricks seem much more wonderful than they really are after they are explained, and I have endeavoured in this article to make a few of them so plain that by the aid of my sketches my young readers can easily perform them themselves. Iwo -Id advise my little friends, however, not to attempt the smoke tri ks—that is, nob until they are far more expert in the magician's art than most young persons ever become. In *IB7B I was stopping in the city of Allahabad, near the centre of India on the Indian Peninsular Railway, giving performances in the Railway Theatre. Every day a party of native jugglers were in the habit of visiting our hotel and exhibiting their stall on the plaza in front of the building. One day I was particularly attracted by an old Hindoo, his son and daughter, who squatted down on the ground and waited for the crowd of sightseers to gather around. They d d not have long to wait. W hen enough spectators had come to make the performance profitable, the old fellow drew from the bag that all Indian jugglers use to convey their ‘properties’ in, a small earthenware jar filled with muddy water. He first sprinkled a few drops of water on the ground and then placed the jar upon three small stones, which he also took from the bag.

He then produced a small china duck and gave it to me for inspection. I found nothing noticeable about it. He asked me to pub it in the water, I did so, and it immediately sank to the bottom. He next drew from the bag a small tom ton:, a little musical instrument that emits a drumming sound when the handle is turned, and began waving it around the jar. Instantly the duck rose to the surface. He told me to touch it. I tried to do so, when the bird again disappeared, to reappear again and again at the juggler’s will. I mu*t confess that I was mystified. There was apparently no cause for the strange actions of the little bird. It was only after the third or fourth visit of the conjurer that I discovered the secret of the brick.

It was a particularly bright, sunny day, and I had chosen a place among the specta tors slightly nearer than the others were allowed, i was behind the sc-nes, as it were. While attentively watching the trick I noticed in the sunshine the sparkle of a long hair that extended from the tom tom to the bottom of the jar. The moment I saw this I divined the juggler’s secret, and I afterwards proved that my theory was correct. The jar already contained a china duck precisely similar to the one I had examined, save that it was buoyant. Attached to the breast of this duck was the hair. This hair came through a liny hole in the bottom of the jar. The water was sprinkled on the ground to conceal any leakage. When the jar was placed upon the ground the hair was fastened so that the duck could not rise to the surface.

As the juggler picked up his tom-tom it was an easy matter for him to fasten the end of the hair to it by means of a bit of wax. After this was arranged you can see how easily he was able to make this counterfeit duck boh up and down at the word of command. My sketch, which I made at the time, will give a very clear idea of how the trick was done.

This same party of conjurers had no sooner finished with the duck trick than they puzzled me with another clever illusion. The young woman produced a plate on which there were six little heaps of sugar, each having a different colour. She took a spoon, and, dipping up the sugar, swallowed it, and showed her mouth auite empty. Then she asked me-what kind of sugar I w.anted. I said red, whereupon she blew into my hand a little pile of red sugar, perfectly dry, and similar in quantity to the red sugar I had seen her swallow. It was some time before I discovered how the trick was done. One day I hit uuon it through bor carelessness. I noticed that with the sugar she blew in f o my hand a small bit of thin paste, such as druggists use for capsules in which they put noxious drugs. This set me to thinking, and I was not long •in verifying my suspicions. She actually did swallow the sugar, but she kept concealed within her cheeks six capsules filled with vari-coloured sugar. These she arranged in her mouth in regular order, and when I called for blue or white or black or red sugar she knew precisely where to find it, and with her tongue she brought it to her teeth, broke the end of it and blew out the contents.

There was one other trick these jugglers performed that I was unable to see through without explanation. I therefore gave the conjurer a rupee and he disclosed his secret. It is a very pretty trick, and I am sure any boy can easily and cheaply duplicate it. This is the illusion : The young man placed before me an ordinary basin of clean water. He then took a pint measure of dry sand from a box and threw it in the water. Then he plunged his band into the fluid and drew out a handful of perfectly dry sand which he poured into the palm of my hand for inspection. It was as dry as though it had just come out of an oven. This is the secret of the trick : The young

man had first prepared the sand by bathing it in boiling paraffine. This coated each grain with a thin coating of wax that was absolutely invisible to the eye and nob noticeable to the touch. Of course the moment this waxed sand came from the water it was dry, as the water could be squeezed out of it as it is wrung from a sponge.

The trick that I am about to describe to you is one that comes under the head I warned you about in my introduction. I first saw it in Bombay in the spring of 1879, and it was performed by the most skilful conjurer I ever saw in all India. Even after I had learned the secret of the illusion I could not help admiring its ingenuity and the dexterity with which it was performed. The juggler and his two comrades cho*e a spot before the Prince of Wales’ statue on the plaza. He first laid his bag down on the hard ground and then drew from it a large bandanna handkerchief. Digging a small hole in the ground with his finger, he buried a pineapple seed, and over this ho placed his handkerchief. He carefully smoothed out the lawn of the handkerchief, rubbing swiftly from left to right. After this manoeuvre was ended he made several passes with his arms over the handkerchief, while his comrades beat industriously upon their drums and blew upon their pipes. Suddenly, to my surprise, I saw the handkerchief begin to slowly rise in the centre and gentlv sway from side to side as though a plant were really sprouting from the seed to life underneath the cloth. When the handkerchief had risen like a tent to a height of about twelve inches, the conjurer stopped his incantations and cautiously lifted up the left-hand corner of the cover and peered beneath it. Then plunging both hands underneath to the accompaniment of loud and Discordant music lie threw aside the handkerchief and displayed a full-grown pine-apple plant. I had this trick repeated on the plaza and in my room at the hotel half a dozen times before I found out the secret, and when I had made the discovery I was almost as greatly mystified as before. On one of the trials I noticed that the juggler in smoofchingthri cloth, moved his hand very clo*e to the mouth of the bag,- and I thought 1 detected something go unde- the handkerchief that looked like the tail of a snake. I was right in ray suspicion. This is the way he did the trick, as he afterwards admitted to me. In smoothing the cloth he reached into the bag and whisked under cover a hooded cobra snake. The moment the reptile was laid down it began to coil itself. That made the handkerchief rise. When it had reached its full height, its angry hi«sing meanwhile being drowned by the music of the assistant jugglers, the performer looked under the handkerchief, taking care to draw the corner close to the mouth of the bag. Then he adroitly whisked a hoffow pineapple from the bag under the cloth. It was then the work of a minute only to force the snake into the apple, close the aperture and the trick was done. Here are two very neat and very simple little tri 'ks I saw in Allahabad the same year which have frequently been performed in England and America, but I do not believe they have ever been explained before. They are so easily done when once or.e knows how that any boy with a knock at mechanical work can duplicate them, and when they are skilfully done they are wonderfully puzzling. The first is the ‘ f hree-ball trick ’ The performer takes a bow with two strings on it about two inches apart. Between these strings he puts three balls, and then, whirl ing the bow around his head, one of the balls slowly rises to the top, followed by the others. After a while, by diminishing the speed of the revolutions, the performance causes one of the balls to drop to the bottom of the bow ; one remains in the centre and the other stays at the top. Ot course any boy will understand that the first movement of the balls to the top of the bow is caused by centrifugal force. But why should one ball drop to the bottom and the other remain in the centre ? I will tell you. The balls are of different weight. The lightest of course goes to the top, the next lightest stops in the middle and the heaviest drops to the bottom. The illustration will show you how the performer stands and will also aid you in constructing a bow. The other trick is called the ‘ rolling egg and sword trick.’ I will use in my illustration and explanation a cane made of soft wood instead of a sword. The effect is almost as bewildering and the apparatus is made more easily. The performer apparently makes an egg rffll end over end up and down the edge of a cane. In reality he drives two needles info the side of the cane at each end of it. From these he strings two threads, making an invisible trough for the egg to roll in similar precisely to the two strings on the bow. in the previous trick. Of course when this has been done the egg, with little pnctice, will roll either way, up or down, as the performer raises or lowers the point of the cane. When a sword i 9 use! the four needles are neatly soldered to the blade. In conclusion let me advise my little friends who may desire to try this trick to carefully blow their eggs before they use them, or if they cannot do that, to boil the egg hard, so that when they fall, as fall they must, they will do no damage to the floor. H. Kellar.