Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

On the first two occasions of showing where the handkerchief is placed, the performer really does exhibit the genuine article; but at the third pretended feint, though he really does tuck it under his waistband, he pulls out again, not the same handkerchief, but a substitute, placed there beforehand. The action is so natural, and so much in harmony with his previous acts, that not one in a hundred will suspect that he has thereby really changed the handkerchief. The mode of exchange last described, ingenious as it is, has one serious drawback--viz., that it gives the audience a clue which it is better that they should not have, and suggests suspicions and conjectures which, but for such a clue, they would never have thought of. To an acute mind, even such a slight hint as this will suggest enough to destroy half the effect of any subsequent trick in which a similar process of disappearance or exchange is employed, and even in the case of less intelligent spectators it will tend to diminish the prestige of the performer, by showing by what shallow artifices an illusion may be produced. There are two or three pieces of apparatus for effecting the exchange of a handkerchief by mechanical means. A very good one is that known as “The Washerwoman’s Bottle,” in conjunction with which we will take the opportunity of describing the very effective trick known as THE LOCKED AND CORDED BOX.--The “Washerwoman’s Bottle” is a simple and inexpensive piece of apparatus, of frequent use in handkerchief tricks. In appearance it is an ordinary black bottle, save that it has a rather shorter neck and wider mouth than the generality of such vessels. In reality it is made of tin, japanned black, and is divided by a vertical partition, commencing just below the mouth, into two compartments. One of these has a bottom, but the other has none, forming, in fact, a mere passage through the bottle. In the bottomed compartment is placed beforehand a piece of cambric, or dummy handkerchief, also about a glassful of port wine, or some other liquor of similar colour.