WATER CHANGED INTO WINE AND WINE INTO WATER.
An assistant then brings in upon a tray two claret glasses and two perfectly transparent decanters, one of which contains red wine and the other water. The prestidigitateur asks his guest to select one of the two decanters and leave the other for himself. No hesitation is possible. The guest hastens to seize the wine and each immediately fills his glass. How astonishing! Upon its contact with the glass the wine changes into water and the water becomes wine. Judge of the hilarity of the spectators and the amazement of the victim! The pretended wine was nothing but the following composition: one gram potassium permanganate and two grams sulphuric acid dissolved in one quart of water. This liquid is instantaneously decolorized on entering the glass, at the bottom of which has been placed a few drops of water saturated with sodium hyposulphite. As for the water in the second decanter, that had had considerable alcohol added to it, and at the bottom of the glass that was to receive it had been placed a small pinch of aniline red, which, as well known, possesses strong tinctorial properties. The glasses must be carried away immediately, since in a few moments the wine changed into water loses its limpidity and assumes a milky appearance. The mixtures are, of course, poisonous.
THE ANIMATED MOUSE.
Street venders are often seen selling, at night, a little mouse which they place upon the back of their hand, and which keeps running as if, having been tamed, it wished to take refuge upon them. In order to prevent it from attaining its object, they interpose the other hand, and then the first one, which is now free, and so on. The mouse keeps on running until the vender has found a purchaser for it at the moderate price of two cents, including the instructions for manipulating it, for, as may have been divined, it is not a question here of a live mouse, but of a toy. This little toy is based upon two effects—first, an effect of optics; and second, the effect due to an invisible thread.
THE ANIMATED MOUSE.
The mouse, which is flat beneath, is provided near the head with a small hook, and the operator has fixed to a buttonhole a thread ten inches in length, terminating in a loop. He fixes this loop in the hook above mentioned, and, tautening the thread, places the mouse upon the back of his left hand (near the little finger, for example).