Surprising Strength. Just lightly put the tips of your fingers together. If you invite any one to separate them by taking your wrists and trying to draw them apart in a direct line with each other, they will be surprised to find that no amount of strength will avail them at all, as the thing is really almost impossible.
Place your clenched fists one upon the other, and ask some one to separate them by pushing them aside. They will be quite unable to do so, although you are exerting your strength but little against them.
Let them, however, approach you with the forefingers only, and give a sharp rap at your knuckles in opposite directions. You will find in this case that you are quite powerless against this, and cannot keep your fists together at all.
Card-passing Contest. Divide the players equally and seat them in two rows facing each other. The leader of each row is provided with a pack of playing cards. At a given signal, each leader passes one card to the next person, who in his turn gives it to the next person, and so on down the line until the last one drops it on the floor beside him.
The side that gets the last card on the floor first wins the game. The cards may be passed to the right on each side, moving in opposite directions.
A Cobweb Tangle. Have as many balls of twine as there are players. Starting at a given point, fasten each end securely. Starting from this point, wind the twine in every conceivable place, wherever you care to have the players go; under tables, around chairs, door-knobs, upstairs, and anywhere that can be made difficult without doing any injury to the surroundings. When the winding is completed, fasten the string to a small round stick about three or four inches long. All this should be done before the guests arrive, as it takes some time to do it. When ready for the game, have the guests draw the sticks and then proceed to wind the twine until they arrive at the end. The one arriving there first wins a prize.
A Novel Masquerade. Each gentleman receives a printed card asking him to call at the house of a lady who is to be his partner for the evening. The ladies change places with one another, so that when the gentlemen call for them, they will not be in their home but in the home of one of the other ladies. As the ladies are masked and do not have to talk, the gentlemen never find out their mistake until all are unmasked.
Hit the Bag. A bag about the size of a person’s head, or larger if desired, made of tissue paper, or other very thin paper, containing candy, is suspended from the ceiling by a string so that it will be about six feet from the floor. A person is blindfolded and a cane, or a stick about the length of a cane, is placed in the person’s two hands, allowing the farther end to touch the bag. The performer is then requested to take three steps backward and then turn around three times, alone. When this is done, he is requested to take three steps forward, strike three times and break the bag. The cane can have only a perpendicular motion. Each one tries the same, until the bag is broken, when all present scramble to see who will gather the most candy.
A Pretended Illusion. Place three coins on a table, coins 1 and 2 being only a short distance from each other, while the coins 2 and 3 are more than double the distance apart. Now point out to a spectator that a curious optical illusion can be observed by placing one eye on the level of the table edge and looking along the line of the coins. The spectator having done so, ask him which two coins he considers are the farthest away from each other and to point them out. He will probably point out coins two and three. You immediately point to the coins 1 and 3, and say you consider these coins are the farthest away from each other.