For our Boys & Girls

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 472, 17 May 1890, Page 6

For our Boys & Girls

Sleight-of-hand Tricks.

EDITED BY MRS FRANCES HODGSON BDRNETT. [COPYRIGHT.] [All Rights Reserved.]

By Professor Hermann, the Conjurer. It would be a comparatively easy task for a professional conjurer like myself to write a bulky volume concerning the tricks which may be performed with the simple agency of a pack of playing cards and more or less practice, but I doubt whether it would be altogether profitable to my readers, and I am sure it would not be so to myself. The facb is that the knowledge of half a dozen of the fundamental sleights renders each performer his own trick inventor, and so the record roll of tricks may be prolonged indefinitely. In my former article I described as clearly and distinctly as I could the manner of making the pass or sautant la coupe, in one of the many methods in use, and I must content myself with a mere allusion to the other important sleights, save that I can spaje a few words of description to the chief of them, and will try therefore to explain the simplest method to Her la carte, or change one card for another in full view of the spectators. It needs no explanation on my part to show of how much importance this sleight is to the conjurer, for the occasions are innumerable on which it may be made or is bound to form an integral pare of a trick ; for the bewildering effect can easily be imagined of the performer exhibiting a card to the view of the audience, and immediately afterwards showing it to have been completely changed. The most usual mode of performing this pass is, perhaps, as follows :—The pack is held in the left hand, face downwards, the card which is to be changed being held lightly between the first and second fingers of the right hand in a horizontal position, and also face downwards. The card with which it is to change place lies on the top of the pack and is pushed slightly to the right so as to project a little more than half an inch beyond its fellows. The hands are then brought together for the fraction of an instant during which the second, third, and fourth fingers of the left hand which are under the pack, receive the card from the right hand and the first finger of the left hand draws it; into its place at the bottom of the pack,while as the right recedes from the left the projecting top card is quickly seized between the thumb and first finger of the receding hand. Any rapid gesture will serve to mark this movement,and either or both hands may be employed to make it at discretion. Deftly performed, the keenest eye will utterly fail to discover the trick. There are other ways of changing a card, and one of them, in fact, forms a pretty and effective little trick in itself, while the modus operands is absolutely different from the preceding. Request one of your spectators to choose a card and return it to the pack. Mark the place in which he inserts it by slipping your little finger immediately over it, make the pass, and bring it to the top of the pack. Then palm it, and hand the remaining cards back to be shuffled freely among the spectators. When it is handed back to you to choose a card haphazard hold it up to the spectators, and ask whether that was the card chosen. . You will, of course, be promptly contradicted, whereupon, apparently non-plussed, you keep up a strain of excuse and- expostulation for a few moments, meanwhile taking the guilty card into your right hand and covering it with the palmed card, so that the two appear as one at a casual glance. Placing the two cards in the palm of the left hand, the back of which is turned towards the audience, you remark that you have merely to touch the errant card and it w'ill assume its proper complexion. As you say this you rapidly draw off the top card, leaving the other palmed in the left hand, which drops carelessly to the side. The audience, who never dream that you have had more than one card in your hand, have their attention fixed on the card orignally palmed, which is now displayed to them in your right hand, and, of course, proved to be the card originally chosen. It is an easy matter to end the trick by asking the spectators what card they thought it was you first exhibited, and when they have answered to slip your left hand into the breast pocket of one of them, producing therefrom the card they

Other sleights which are useful even to the amateur performer consist of the various methods of making the ‘ false shuffle ’ or apparently shuffling the cards while keeping them in their regular order ; to ‘ slip ’ a card or bring the top card without the knowledge of the spectators to the centre of the pack; to ‘ glisser la carte ’ or draw back a card, and by this means instead of drawing out the bottom card of the pack as is apparently the case, to produce that immediately above it. And so one might go on almost ad infinitum. Enough, however, has probably been said to keep my youthful readers amused for several weeks to come, should they care to pursue what seems to be to many a fascinating pastime. I should not, however, leave the subject of card tricks without mentioning the manner of performing a sleight which is popularly supposed to be employed much more frequently than is really the case by the professional conjurer. I refer to the ‘forcing,’as it is termed, of a card. By this is meant the forcing a person to draw any particular card you may desire, though he is apparently free to choose any other in the pack. In its essentials this consists simply in the adroitness with which the deBired card is brought forward, all the cards being spread out fanwise and made to touch the person’e fingers just as he reaches them forward to pick out a card. Itl requires consummate address and deftness, and is really never entirely safe, for one of those uncomfortably omniscient persons who are a conjurer’s bane is tolerably certain to choose any other rather than the one so temptingly and persistently offered. Thua the practice of forcing has fallen into utter disfavour with nearly all professional conjurers, who take other means to accomplish the desired end. I have indicated a few of the principles of performing sleight-of-hand tricks with coins and cards, two articles which are to be found in nearly every household, and I do not, think I shall be doing amiss in indicating what a careful confederate may be made of an ordinary silk pocket handkerchief. Most handkerchief tricks, by the

way, and there is a long list of them in every professional’s repertoire, need the assistance of more or less elaborate apparatus, but I think I can pick out one and not the least effective which may be performed on any occasion in any parlour, and which is startling from its very simplicity and impudence as it were. The performer borrows one or either half a dozen pocket handkerchiefs, preferably of silk material. Should he have limited his requisition to one he twists it' loosely into rope form and grasping it in the middle requests one of the audience to tie the ends into a knot. Not satisfied with this,he takes the ends himself and pulls the knot tighter, exerting all hi 3 force upon it. A second knot is tied by a second spectator, and so on till the ends are too short to tie at all. The knots are then covered with the loose part of the handkerchief, and one of the spectators requested to hold it tightly :the performer breathes on it and when it is shaken out the knots have disappeared. If a number of handkerchiefs have been borrowed they are tied end to end by the various spectators, the knots separately tightened by the performer, and when shaken out, after being rolled into a ball, the handkerchiefs are all separate. The method of performing this trick, which if artistically executed i 3 really quite startling, is simplicity itself. The secret lies in apparently innocent tightening of the knots by the performer. Instead of doing so in reality he merely pulls one end of the handkerchief, grasping it above and below the knot. This it will ibe found converts the seeming knot into a imere twist of one end of the handkerchief around the other and after each successive knot the same end of the handkerchief is pulled taut. When the supposed knots are covered with the loose middle portion of the handkerchief the performer holds the same end between the first finger and the thumb of the right hand and draws this end out of the succession of slip knots which are all the knots are really reduced to. : And now I have about reached the end of the space that has so kindly been accorded to me, and I can make no better use of the remainder of it than in giving a few general hints to the would-be amateur conjurer. In the first his motto must be above all things practice and perseverance. There are, of course, born conjurers, as there are born musicians and born painters, but any youth of intelligence who is accustomed to use his fingers cleverly, and has a touch of even histrionic ability, may become a respectable performer if he devotes a portion of his daily leisure to practising th 9 various sleights. I have been conjuring myself for a good many years, but hardly a day passes without my indulging in more or less practice. This is a general rule. Some more particular hints may be given, as for instance never to perform a trick twice in succession, never announce beforehand what you are going to do, never be dismayed at an unexpected failure, but keep your presence of mind and all your mother wit to get you out of your difficulty ; cultivate the faculty of talking continuously. Never mind if it be nonsense ; anything is better than silence, for even rank silliness will serve to divert the attention of your audience from your hands to your face, and that is where you want their eyes to be. Finally, never tax your temper, however great the provocation ; if need be join in the laugh against yourself, or at all events do not show that anything is capable of causing you annoyance; and this last I think is a precept which you may carry into other functions of your life besides that of amateur conjuring-