Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

The reader who has duly followed our descriptions of the appliances employed in the magic art will have little difficulty in solving the riddle of this trick. The performer first comes forward with an egg palmed in one hand, and with a small rabbit in an inner breast-pocket on each side of his coat (see page 9). The first step is the pretended finding of something (it is not stated what) in the hat. The owner is requested to take it out, and while all eyes are naturally turned to see what the article may prove to be, the performer, without apparent intention, presses the mouth of the hat with both hands to his breast, and tilts one of the rabbits into it. This is next produced, and in placing it on the ground at his feet, the performer brings the second rabbit in the same manner into the hat. When he undertakes to pass the one rabbit into the other, he places both upon the table which contains the rabbit-trap, and, standing sideways to the audience, pushes the hindmost, under cover of the other, through the trap. This particular rabbit is not again produced, the rabbit in the “bran glass,” which has already been explained (see page 383), being another as much like it as possible. It only remains to explain how the bran comes into the borrowed hat. This is effected by having a black alpaca bag filled with bran in one of the profondes or under the waistcoat of the performer. This bag is introduced into the hat after the manner of the goblets (see page 308), and the bran having been allowed to run out, the bag is rolled up in the palm, and so removed, the bran remaining, to be produced in due course.