Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

CHAPTER XV. HAT TRICKS. The present Chapter will be devoted to those tricks in which a hat plays a special or prominent part. Borrowed hats have been used in the course of many of the tricks already described, but the part played by the hat has been of an incidental and subordinate character. In the tricks next following the hat is the principal article employed. The majority of hat tricks are different modifications of the same broad idea, viz., the production from a borrowed and apparently empty hat of various articles, in size and number much exceeding what any hat could in the natural way contain. One of the best is that of THE CANNON-BALLS IN THE HAT.--The earliest and simplest form of this trick is limited to the production of a solid wooden globe, blacked to resemble a cannon-ball. The introduction of the ball into the hat is effected as follows:--The ball, which has a hole of about two inches in depth by one in diameter bored in it towards its centre, is placed on the servante of the performer’s table in such manner that the hole above-mentioned shall slant upwards and outwards, at an angle of about 45°. To keep the ball steady, and to prevent its rolling off, some performers have a slight circular hollow scooped in the surface of the servante itself. A more convenient plan, however, is to use an india-rubber ring (such as is given to infants teething). This may be placed on any part of the servante, and makes a capital rest or bed for the ball. A bit of half-inch rope, with the ends joined so as to form a ring, will answer the same purpose.