Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

Having thus passed one rabbit into the other, the next step is to get it out again. To do this the performer calls for some bran, and his assistant immediately brings forward, and places on a table or chair, a huge glass goblet, twelve inches or thereabouts in height, filled to the brim with that commodity. The performer takes the borrowed hat, and (after showing that it is empty) places it mouth upwards upon another table, so as to be at some considerable distance from the goblet of bran. He then places a brass cover over the glass, first, however, taking up and scattering a handful of the bran to prove its genuineness. Taking the surviving rabbit, and holding it by the ears above the covered goblet, he orders the one swallowed to pass from it into the glass, at the same time stroking it down with the disengaged hand, as though to facilitate the process. He remarks, “You must excuse the comparative slowness of the operation, ladies and gentlemen, but the fact is, the second rabbit passes downwards in an impalpable powder, and, if I were not to take sufficient time, we might find that a leg or an ear had been omitted in the process, and the restored rabbit would be a cripple for life. I think we are pretty safe by this time, however. Thank you, Bunny; I need not trouble you any more.” So saying, he releases the visible rabbit, and on taking off the cover the bran is found to have disappeared, and the missing rabbit to have taken its place in the goblet; while on turning over the borrowed hat the vanished bran pours from it.