The Adhesive Stick.
This feat has astonished crowds of spectators. It was one of the favorites of a late popular professor, and is now first promulgated. Before you perform it in public, you must practice it, until you are quite perfect, in private, for it would be a pity to spoil its effect by making a blunder in it. Begin by stating very seriously, what is a well-known fact, that if a bucket full of water be hurled round his head by a man, who is sufficiently strong, none of the water will fall out. If this be at all discredited, be prepared not only to support your assertion, but to carry the point still further by placing a tumbler full of any liquid in the inside of a broad hoop, which you hold in your hand by a small piece of string fixed to it, and twirling it round at your side. If you do this with velocity, although the tumbler, in the circles made by the hoop, is frequently quite bottom upward, it will neither fall from the hoop, nor will any of the water be spilt. To do this, however, requires even more practice than the trick which it prefaces; as, although there is no difficulty in it while the hoop is in rapid motion, yet there is some danger until you are rendered expert by practice, of the tumbler’s falling, when you begin to put the hoop in motion, and when you wish to stop it. If, therefore, you are not perfectly capable of doing it, state the fact only, which some or other of your auditors will most probably support, as it is pretty generally known. You now go on to say, that the air, under the water in the glass, when it is topsy-turvey, keeps it in; and that upon the same principle, if you can turn your hand, upon which you place a piece of thin wood (about one inch broad, and six inches long), sufficiently quick, although the back be uppermost, the air will actually keep the wood up against the palm of your hand, without any support. This they will be readily inclined to believe. They will, however, doubt your being possessed of sufficient manual dexterity to perform it quick enough.
We must now tell you how it is to be done:—Lay the piece of wood across the palm of your left hand, which keep wide open, with the thumb and all the fingers far apart, lest you be suspected of supporting the wood with them. Next, take your left wrist in your right hand, and grasp it tightly, for the purpose, as you state, of giving the hand more steadiness. Now, suddenly turn the back of your left hand uppermost, and, as your wrist moves in your right hand, stretch out the forefinger of your right hand, and as soon as the wood comes undermost, support it with such forefinger. You may now shake the hand, and, after a moment or two, suffer the wood to drop. It is two to one but the spectators will admit it to be produced by the action of the air, as you had previously stated, and try to do it themselves; but, of course, they must, unless you have performed the feat so awkwardly as to be discovered, fail in its performance. If you have no objection to reveal the secret, you can do it again, and, while they are gravely philosophizing upon it, suddenly lift up your hand and expose the trick. This will, doubtless, create much amusement. Observe that in doing this feat, you must keep your fingers so low, that no one can see the palm of your left hand; and move your finger so carefully, that its action may not be detected; and if it be not, you may rest satisfied that its absence from round the wrist of the left hand will not be discovered, some of the fingers being naturally supposed to be under the coat; so that, if the spectators only see two or even one, they will imagine the others are beneath the cuff. There is one other observation necessary before we conclude; it is this, when you have turned your hand over, do not keep the stick too long upheld, lest the spectators should take hold of your hands, and discover the trick; before their astonishment has ceased, adroitly remove your forefinger, and suffer the stick to fall to the ground.