A programme used by “The Celebrated Mr. Marriot, Professor of Recreative Philosophy,” in 1831, contains word for word the announcement of the trick used on Testot’s bill, which goes to show that a popular test was to have articles passed from the Adelphia Theatre to the gun which was being watched by a sentinel.
February 22d, 1833, found a Mr. Jefferini at the Royal Clarence Theatre, Liverpool Street, King’s Cross, Liverpool. He agreed to make “an article fly at the rate of five hundred miles an hour, from King’s Cross to the Centre of Greece.”
The original Buck featured on his programme a similar trick which he called “The Loaf Trick.” On a bill dated October 26th, 1840, it is announced as follows: “Watch in a loaf. The magician will command any gentleman’s watch to disappear. It will be found in a loaf at any baker’s shop in Town.” The senior Ingleby changed the trick somewhat, sending out to any market for a shoulder of mutton, which, on being cut, would yield up a card previously drawn by some spectator. He thus describes his trick in his book “Whole Art of Legerdemain,” published in London in 1815:
“Trick Four.
“To cut out of a Shoulder of Mutton a Card which one of the Company had previously drawn out of the Pack.