The Magician's Own Book, or, the Whole Art of Conjuring / Being a complete hand-book of parlor magic, and containing over one thousand optical, chemical, mechanical, magnetical, and magical experiments, amusing transmutations, astonishing sleights and subtleties, celebrated card deceptions, ingenious tricks with numbers, curious and entertaining puzzles, together with all the most noted tricks of modern performers.

by George Arnold; Frank Cahill

These feats are the result of considerable ingenuity. It is probable that the devices employed would not readily occur to spectators in general, while they would utterly escape those whose object is merely amusement, and who, if they thought at all, would be likely to describe the result as supernatural. We proceed, then, to the unraveling of the mystery. Let it be observed, in reference to the first experiment, that a number of handkerchiefs are collected in the early part of the evening for various illusions, and that many of them appear for a time on the performer's table. Provided with a collection of these articles, from the handsome silk handkerchief to one trimmed with lace, used by a fashionable lady, he could easily substitute his own of the same kind for those of his auditory, as the curtain falls, according to the arrangements of the evening, between the collection of the handkerchiefs and the subsequent processes. His own handkerchiefs, therefore, are washed and placed in the vase already described; and the so-called change into flowers is nothing more than the retention of the handkerchiefs in the lower part of the apparatus, which the figure illustrates, while the upper part holds the flowers till they are scattered among the spectators. Meanwhile, all that is required is done to their handkerchiefs. It is not absolutely necessary that they should be washed; for folding, pressing, and a little eau-de-Cologne, would complete the preparation; but granting that they are washed, there is still no difficulty, though this mystifies the spectators, who have the idea that drying is a long affair; for it may be effected in a minute or two by a machine that is readily obtained. The box brought out has them deposited in it, but as it is double, one interior is first shown, which, of course, contains nothing, for the inner drawer holding the handkerchiefs remains in the case; but when a few sounds are uttered, and the professor touches a secret spring behind, which disengages the inner box, he draws it out with the outer one, and presents the handkerchiefs to the audience. In the diagram A, the box is shown as empty. At B, we have a representation of the box containing the handkerchiefs. It is only necessary to add that the box is very nicely made; the part within the other drawn out to the end, defies detection. See Trick No. 65.

The preparation of coffee, milk, and sugar, may be easily explained; for if the vessels containing respectively the unground coffee, the rape-seed, and the horse-beans, always placed under a cover, be put on a part of the table having a circular trap-door—and for this there is full provision in the cover of the table extending to the floor—a confederate may readily substitute one for the other.

57. THE MAGIC FUNNEL.

This favorite and simple trick is carried out by the assistance of a double funnel, that is to say, one funnel soldered into the other so as to leave a space between them for water, and communicating with the hollow of the funnel by a hole in the tube. Our drawing will assist the explanation.

S S, space for water between the funnels, which is filled by stopping end of tube T with the finger: the water flows in and out at K.

N, a pin-hole at the top, which is covered with the finger. When the funnel is prepared for use, every time the finger is withdrawn water flows out from tube T.