Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

TO THROW A CARD.--This sleight also belongs rather to the ornamental than to the practical part of conjuring, but it is by no means to be despised. It is a decided addition to a card trick for the performer to be able to say, “You observe, ladies and gentlemen, that the cards I use are all of a perfectly ordinary character,” and by way of offering them for examination, to send half-a-dozen in succession flying into the remotest corners of the hall or theatre. The card should be held lightly between the first and second fingers, in the position shown in Fig. 27. The hand should be curved inward toward the wrist, and then straightened with a sudden jerk, the arm being at the same time shot sharply forward. The effect of this movement is that the card, as it leaves the hand, revolves in the plane of its surface in the direction indicated by the dotted line, and during the rest of its course maintains such revolution. This spinning motion gives the flight of the card a strength and directness which it would seem impossible to impart to so small and light an object. A skilled performer will propel cards in this way to a distance of sixty or eighty feet, each card travelling with the precision, and well-nigh the speed, of an arrow shot from a bow. The movement, though perfectly simple in theory, is by no means easy to acquire in practice. Indeed, we know no sleight which, as a rule, gives more trouble at the outset; but, after a certain amount of labour with little or no result, the student suddenly acquires the desired knack, and thenceforward finds no difficulty in the matter.