For these reasons I shall not stay to describe the more elaborate of these tricks, as, however interesting they may be to the scientific, they would not, in a youthful amateur’s hands, be sure to produce the amusement which it is my primary object to supply.
The simpler experiments of magnetism and chemistry may well be regarded as recreations of science, interesting curiosities, suitable enough to be exhibited by a professor of chemistry for amusement and instruction; but even these can hardly be considered as belonging to “conjuring proper.” Young people do not care, at festive parties, to watch red liquids turning into green, blue, and yellow; or the mixture of different chemical ingredients producing strange conversions into varied substances; nor will experiments that are interesting as chemical curiosities produce the same excitement and pleasing surprise that the wonders of sleight-of-hand do. In a word, such experiments in a private circle of young friends fail to constitute the most amusing kind of parlor magic, while upon a public stage they are too minute for any large audience to trace and comprehend.
Lest, however, my young readers should think that I have any desire to shut them out from any field of reasonable pleasure, I will now carefully select one or two examples of tricks connected with the sciences of magnetism and chemistry, and which may, even in the hands of amateurs, produce a safe and pleasing exhibition.
In the following trick they will find an amusing instance of the combination of science with rational recreation.
TRICK 16.—The watch obedient to the word of command.
The magnet is a well-known agent in producing several toys for the entertainment of the young, and though its attraction is wonderful, there is no danger likely to arise from employing it, in the same way as might arise from unskilful dabbling with electricity, galvanism, or chemical powers, and a strange and singular effect may be produced by placing a magnet of some little strength near a watch.
Supposing the young conjuror to have provided himself with a powerful but not very large magnet, let him conceal it in the palm, or under a thin glove in his left hand, or near the edge of the cuff of his sleeve. Let him then borrow a lady’s watch, (without chain,) and the thinner the watch-case is, and if it has a glass, the better. Let him then call forward a youth, and placing the watch in his own right hand, and near to the ear of the other, ask him if he hears it going: he will answer “Yes.”
Let him next bid the watch to stop; and on taking it in his left hand, where the magnet is concealed, it will stop, if held steadily; and on inquiring of his young friend whether he can hear it, he will reply “No.”
Observe: you must keep systematically to using your right hand when you wish to make the watch go on, and to your left when you wish it to stop. Appealing to others among the company, the performer may then tell the watch to go on, and holding it in his right hand, and giving it a slight shake, apply it to one of their ears; it will be heard “tic, tic;” then holding it in his left hand and telling it to stop, they will also find that it does stop. You can pretend to doubt whether they are all deaf of one ear, but lastly may declare that this is caused by the obedient disposition of the watch, which so orderly obeys your command. Remind your audience that savages upon first seeing a watch believe it to be a living animal with power to think and act of itself. “At any rate,” you may conclude, “the present watch seems to hear, to understand, and to obey my orders.”
It will be an amusing addition to the above trick to say that you will now order the watch to fly away and conceal itself.