Modern magic : A practical treatise on the art of conjuring. . shall remain down while the hand isshifted from handle h to handle g. If it were not made to worksomewhat stiffly, the moment the handle h was released the pistonwould instantly fly up again with the object upon it, thus neutralizingwhat had been already done. The cylinder c, which is to produce thesubstitute object, is not brought under b until the hand of the per-former is already on the handle belonging to it, and can thereby checkits upward ascent as may be necessary. It is obvious that the changing trap will be equally availab
Modern magic : A practical treatise on the art of conjuring. . shall remain down while the hand isshifted from handle h to handle g. If it were not made to worksomewhat stiffly, the moment the handle h was released the pistonwould instantly fly up again with the object upon it, thus neutralizingwhat had been already done. The cylinder c, which is to produce thesubstitute object, is not brought under b until the hand of the per-former is already on the handle belonging to it, and can thereby checkits upward ascent as may be necessary. It is obvious that the changing trap will be equally available toproduce an object under an empty cover. The object to be producedwill be placed in c as above, the piston in d going down empty, andthat in c rising with the object upon it. The above are the traps in most frequent use, but there areothers designed for special purposes. Thus there is a trap for causingthe disappearance of six or eight half-crowns (as, for instance, in thewell-known trick of the crystal cash-box/ which will be described 446 MODERN MAGIC,. Fig. 275. in the course of the present chapter). Of course the coins could bemade to disappear through an ordinary trap, but they would cause a sug-gestive chink in their fall. The trap to which we are now referring(see Figs. 275 and 276) is designed to prevent this tell-tale sound, andto cause the half-crowns to disappear in perfect silence. The open-ing in the surface plate is an inch and three-quarters in diameter, and is closed by a circular pistonof brass or zinc, a, working upand down in a small brasscylinder b, and so arrangedas to drop by its own weightto the bottom of the cylin-der, save when kept up by alittle lever catch at the sideof the cylinder. A short pind attached to this catch pro-jects upwards through a slot in the surface plate, and stands up veryslightly above the cloth of the table. The disc a being raised levelwith the surface plate, and secured by means of the catch, six or eighthalf-crowns or flori
Size: 2121px × 1178px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookpublisherlondon, bookyear188
