Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

THE DEMON HANDKERCHIEF (Le Mouchoir du Diable).--This is a recent improvement on the above, and possesses a much wider range of utility, inasmuch as it really does cause the disappearance of any article placed under it, and is available to vanish not only coin, but a card, an egg, a watch, or any other article of moderate size. It consists of two handkerchiefs, of the same pattern, stitched together all round the edges, and with a slit of about four inches in length cut in the middle of one of them. The whole space between the two handkerchiefs thus forms a kind of pocket, of which the slit above mentioned is the only opening. In shaking or otherwise manipulating the handkerchief, the performer takes care always to keep the side with the slit away from the spectators, to whom the handkerchief appears to be merely the ordinary article of everyday use. When he desires by its means to cause the disappearance of anything, he carelessly throws the handkerchief over the article, at the same time secretly passing the latter through the slit in the under side, and hands it thus covered to some one to hold. Then, taking the handkerchief by one corner, he requests him to let go, when the object is retained in the space between the two handkerchiefs, appearing to have vanished into empty air. This, like the plug-box, is an appliance which no conjuror should be without. It may be purchased ready-made at any of the depôts for magical apparatus, or may be of home-manufacture, which in this case (contrary to the general rule) is not unlikely to produce the better article.