Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

THE REVERSIBLE CANISTER.--This is another piece of apparatus more particularly designed for changing a handkerchief, though equally available for many other exchanges. In appearance it is an ordinary cylindrical canister, closed with a cap, and similar in shape to those in which tea is kept, but of smaller size, being only five to six inches in height. In reality, however, that which appears to be the body of the canister is a mere tube, within which slides up and down an inner canister, which is made double-headed, i.e., like two shallow canisters placed bottom to bottom. (See Fig. 108.) The pattern of the outer tube is alike at top and bottom, so that whether the combined canister is as shown in the figure, with compartment a uppermost, or turned upside down, with compartment b pushed into view, the appearance to the eye of the spectator is the same. The canister is prepared by placing beforehand in one or other of the compartments, say b, a piece of cambric, as much like a lady’s handkerchief as possible. Compartment a is then pushed upwards, as shown in the figure. Borrowing a handkerchief, the performer requests the owner to place it for safe keeping in the canister, which he brings forward for that purpose. As he turns to replace it on the table, he takes advantage of the moment during which his back is towards the spectators to push down a (thus pushing out b at the opposite end of the tube), and at the same time to turn over the canister, which, when placed on the table, will still look as shown in the figure, but will have, in reality, b uppermost. Presently taking out the prepared cambric, which the spectators take to be the handkerchief, he burns or otherwise disposes of it, to be subsequently reproduced by the simple process of again reversing the canister.