Aiming to graze the top of the ball minimizes this risk but does not eliminate it.
A miss too high does not matter, but a miss too low means death to the assistant.
Managers of theatres are now very chary, since this accident, of employing “Artistes” who do real shooting. It is too dangerous and the police will not allow it. All sorts of ways to minimize risk are employed. When objects are held to be shot at, steel thimbles over forefinger and thumb are concealed under a glove.
A steel skullcap fitting down to the eyebrows with a rod some four inches long projecting from the top is employed to hold the ball, the steel skullcap concealed under a wig with low fringe of hair to cover the forehead. This is worn by a woman assistant, her high piled up head serving to hide the rod.
There are several other reasons for employing a woman assistant instead of a man.
It looks so much more effective to shoot things off a woman’s head or fingers; and she can wear long gloves in evening dress without exciting suspicion that she has steel gauntlets concealed under them.
When well arranged, the ball, two inches in diameter, and the aim taken to graze the top of the ball, a miss must be fully eight inches too low to do any damage to the assistant when she wears a steel skullcap down to her eyebrows under her wig of piled up hair.
Some do not even risk that, but, by an arrangement of a steel plate connected with a lever below it, and the whole hidden behind the “back cloth,” the shot is fired at the plate a foot higher than the assistant’s head; this plate forces the bottom of the lever, armed with a spike, forward. The spike breaks the ball and immediately returns out of sight through the “back cloth.”
Some natural object is painted on the scene over this hidden target for the shooter to aim at.
I give below a few exhibition shoots, ranging from real shooting, through “assisted” shooting down to “trick” shooting, and simple conjuring tricks.