Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

We have been more prolix than we could have desired in the description of this trick, but minute details are the very soul of conjuring. The experience of Horace, “Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio,” applies with peculiar force to the magic art; and if we occasionally irritate the reader of quick apprehension by too great minuteness, he must remember that we have, as far as we can, to anticipate every possible question, and that a single point left unexplained may render useless an otherwise careful description. THE JUMPING CARDS.--TWO OR THREE CARDS HAVING BEEN DRAWN, RETURNED, AND SHUFFLED TO MAKE THEM JUMP OUT OF THE PACK.--This trick is somewhat similar in working to that of the rising cards as performed in the hand, which we have just described. The course of the two tricks is precisely the same up to the point when, the two or three cards having been drawn and returned, you have got them all to the top of the pack. Here, however, the resemblance ceases. In the present case you drop the whole pack into an open-mouthed box, made for that purpose, and announce that, although the chosen cards have been replaced in different parts of the pack, and the whole have since been thoroughly shuffled, you have only to blow upon them in order to separate them visibly from the rest of the pack. You blow upon the box accordingly, when the chosen cards instantly fly out of the pack, rising to a height of three or four feet, and fall on the table.