Spinning and Balancing Tricks.
The spinning handkerchief is a great favorite with jugglers. A handkerchief is borrowed, thrown in the air and caught on the end of a whirling stick held by the juggler, when the handkerchief spreads out to its full size and commences to spin around rapidly. The secret is that in the end of the stick a needle is inserted about one-quarter of an inch, leaving the sharp end out. When the handkerchief is caught on the end of the whirling stick the needle point passes through it, thus preventing its falling off the stick, which is rapidly whirled around, and the handkerchief will spread out and spin about on the end of the stick.
Fig. 46.—The Spinning Handkerchief.
Jugglers are very partial to tricks performed with eggs, and spinning an egg on its smaller end is a trick they are almost sure to perform. It is impossible to spin a raw egg; so our juggler uses a hard-boiled one, and spins it on its small end in a shallow japanned tray. If the tray is kept gently moving in a small circle in the opposite direction to that in which the egg is spinning, the latter will continue to spin as long as desired. (Fig. 47.)
Fig. 47.—Spinning an Egg.
The egg spinning trick is usually followed by a balancing trick in which a playing card is balanced upon a small wand, and an egg is then balanced on a corner of the card. This trick usually calls forth a great pretension of skill on the part of the performer, when, in reality, no skill whatever is required.
Fig. 48.—Balancing Card and Egg on Wand.
The wand is of ebony, or some dark wood, and about three inches from one end is a small hole. The egg is made of wood, painted white, and with a small hole in one end. The card is composed of two cards glued together, with a fine steel wire between them, running diagonally from corner to corner of the card, with the ends of the wire projecting about a quarter of an inch. The prepared egg is on a plate with several ordinary eggs, and the card is placed on a pack of common cards. The wand is held in one hand, the card taken in the other and apparently balanced on one corner on the wand; but in reality the wire point is placed in the hole in the wand. Now the assistant passes the prepared egg to the juggler, who carefully balances it upon the corner of the card; that is, slips the hole in the end of the egg over the wire point projecting from the card.
A fitting finale to such a juggling act is that in which a potato is placed on the hand of the assistant and cut in two with a sharp sword, without leaving any mark upon the skin. As a general thing, a second potato is then cut upon the throat of the assistant. This apparently marvelous mastery of the sword always brings forth great applause.
Fig. 49.—Cutting a Potato on the Hand.
Among the several medium-sized sound potatoes on a tray are placed two potatoes prepared as follows: Insert a needle crosswise of the potato near the bottom. After showing the sword to be really sharp, by cutting paper and slicing one or two of the potatoes, the performer picks up one of the prepared potatoes and places it on the assistant’s hand; but apparently it does not lie to suit him, so he slices off one side of it, using care to cut away the side just under the needle and as close to it as possible, then places the potato once again on the assistant’s hand. After making a few flourishes with the sword, he cuts through the potato, dividing it in half. (Fig. 49.)
In striking the potato with the sword he makes sure that the sword will come exactly crosswise on the needle; consequently, when the sword reaches the needle it can go no farther, and the brittle nature of the potato will cause it to fall apart, the very thin portion below the needle offering no resistance to the separation. The second potato is then cut in the same manner on the assistant’s neck. There are many other false juggling tricks, but the above will suffice to show that “there are tricks in all trades but yours.”