CHAPTER XXXI

BOXES TO ALTER ONE GRAINE INTO ANOTHER, OR TO CONSUME THE GRAINE OR CORNE TO NOTHING.

    There are many types of trick boxes with false bottoms, whereby many feats may be accomplished. One has identical covers that go over the top and bottom. The bottom is slightly recessed, just enough to contain a single layer of pepper or corn glued to it. Put a cover over the bottom and turn the box rightside up.

    In performance, fill the box with some noticeably different type of grain, then cover the box and put it under a hat or candlestick. In putting it under, or taking it out, turn the box over and uncover the glued end, revealing the grain has changed from one type to another. Another presentation is to show the glued end first, then thrust the glued end into a bagful of a similar grain, and finally show the empty box.

HOW TO CONVEIE (WITH WORDS OR CHARMS) THE CORNE CONTEINED IN ONE BOX INTO AN OTHER.

    There is another box, shaped like a bell, which should be filled with as much corn or spice as the previously described box can hold. Take a piece of leather as broad as a large coin and jam it up the bell, holding the corn in place. It helps if the edge of the leather is wet. Show the false bottom of the other box as if it were full of corn, then cover and place it on the table, turning it upside down as you do so the emptyside is now facing up. Place the bell on the table very sharply, which will dislodge the piece of leather and release the grain in the bell, dropping over the leather piece. You must make sure that when the corn comes out it covers & hides the leather. When the bell is lifted from the table the grain is revealed, and when the first box is uncovered the grain has vanished. Eventually you must get rid of the corn by sweeping it from one hand into the other, or into your lap or hat.

    Another of many effects possible is to place a toad in the first box beforehand, and have it appear to have been transformed from corn, which many will suppose to be the juggler's familiar, by which his feats and miracles are accomplished. But in fact, there is more cleverness in using these boxes to transfer corn from one to the other, than there is in claiming to be able to tranfer one man's corn into another man's field, which the law of the twelve tables does so forcibly condemn, for the one is an actual trick, while the other is an outright lie.

OF AN OTHER BOXE TO CONVERT WHEAT INTO FLOWER WITH WORDS, &C.

    Another box of this type is constructed with a false bottom in the middle, and used in a similar manner. One other, like a large cup or bowl, in which is shown a great variety of stuff, as well as liquors and spices, works through an inner chamber which is used to hold the load. But this would take too long to describe.

OF DIVERSE PETIE JUGGLING KNACKS.

    There are many other feats to confuse the simple, such as causing an oat to stir by spitting on it, but appearing to have caused it to happen through having spoken magic words. You can produce meal, pepper, ginger, or any other dry powder from your mouth after eating bread, etc.; which is done by retaining any of those things in a little paper or bladder which is snuck into your mouth, and grinding the bladder with your teeth.

    Item: A piece of wood in which are drilled three holes. On one side a peg sticks out of the second hole, on the other side it sticks out of the third hole. The sleight consists in turning the piece of wood. These are such easy sleights that even a bungler can do them, and appear to have great skill.

CHAPTER XXXII

TO BURNE A THRED, AND TO MAKE IT WHOLE AGAINE WITH THE ASHES THEREOF.

    It is not a bad trick to burn a thread to ashes, and then restore it, the method for which is this: Take two threads, or two small laces, each of them one foot long, and roll one of them into a ball about the size of a pea, then conceal it between your left forefinger and thumb. Hold the other piece of thread outstretched between your hands with your thumbs and forefawgers, other fingers spread daintily. Have someone cut the thread in the middle. When it is cut bring your two thumbs together and transfer the end from your right hand to your left, then pick up the two hanging ends with your right hand. Have them cut and repeat the above moves until all the pieces are very short.

    Roll the cut pieces into a ball, keeping this ball separate from the other one concealed in the left hand. Put the ball of cut threads onto the point of a knife and burn them in a candle until they are burnt to ashes. Remove the knife from the flame and with your left forefinger and thumb pretend to take some of the ashes from the knife, keeping the concealed ball between the same fingers. With the two thumbs and forefingers together carefully rub the ashes to and fro, eventually drawing out the thread full length and showing it to be restored.

    This is a powerful effect if handled well, and if you have the skill to move the ball of thread from place to place between your other fingers, as can easily be done, it will be even more remarkable.

TO CUT A LACE ASUNDER IN THE MIDDEST, AND TO MAKE IT WHOLE AGAINE.

    By constructing a gimmick similar to this you may seem to cut any lace that hangs around one's neck, or any needlepoint lace, or girdle, or garter, and by conjuring make it whole again. Have a piece, similar to the one you are going to cut, one and one half inches long, and keep it doubled over and concealed in your left hand between several of your fingers and close to their tips. With the left hand grasp the lace you intend to cut, still hanging about one's neck, by the middle, and in drawing the loop through your left hand into position for cutting substitute the concealed piece of lace for the actual middle. Keep the genuine middle concealed in your left hand between your forefinger and thumb. Have a spectator cut the lace, actually cutting the short piece instead, and then with magic words and rubbing show the lace to be restored. This, if well handled, will seem miraculous.

HOW TO PULL LACES INNUMERABLE OUT OF YOUR MOUTH, OF WHAT COLOUR OR LENGTH YOU LIST, AND NEVER ANIE THING SEENE TO BE THEREIN.

    As for pulling lace coils out of your mouth, it is a stale jest, used by jugglers to get money from maidens when selling lace by the yard, putting into their mouth one coil as fast as they pull out another, and tying a knot at the end of each yard. The knot is left against the teeth, the lace cut, and then they continue pulling out lace on request until there is as much lace as a hat can hold. The juggler can produce any color called for drawn by equal yards from out of his mouth, while somehow managing to carry on his pitch as though there were nothing at all in his mouth.

CHAPTER XXXIII:

HOW TO MAKE A BOOKE, WHEREIN YOU SHALL SHEW EVERIE LEAFE THEREIN TO BE WHITE, BLACKE, BLEW, RED. YELLOW, GREENE, &C.

    There are a thousand tricks which I am loathe to spend time describing, some of which are common, and some rare, and yet all of them nothing more than deceit or confederacy which only appear to be a kind of witchcraft. I will end therefore with one devise which is not common, but was used by Clarvis, and though I never had the opportunity to see him perform, still I think I am right in crediting him with that invention. He had a book, or so they say, in which he would make the spectators think of each page as blank, and then show the pages all to be clean white paper. He would then show the pages to be painted with birds, then with beasts, then with serpents, then with angels, etc.

    The book is made seven inches long and five inches wide, or by those proportions, with 98 pages, which would be 49 individual leaves containing one page on each side. Cut six notches on each of the leaves 1/8" deep and 1" from each other. On the first leaf cut off every notch except the last one on top, creating a one inch tab at the top of the page.

    On the second leaf cut off all but the second notch from the top, leaving a one inch tab one inch down from the top of the page. On the third leaf cut off all but the third tab, and so on till you finish the seventh leaf with a tab at the very bottom. On the eighth leaf begin again as you did with the first leaf.

    When you have finished placing the tabs on each page of the book repeating the order over and over you will have a book comprised of seven sets of seven leaves, each leaf seven leaves apart, that can automatically be made to open to any set of seven.

    The first seven pages should remain blank, as should the first set of seven leaves (pp.14, 15, 28, 29, 42, 43, 56, 57, 70, 71, 84, 85, 98). The remaining pages should be painted with each set of like-notched pages given the same color or kind of picture.

    This way you can put your thumb on the top notch and casually leaf through the book showing all the pages blank. Place your thumb on the next notch down and when you casually leaf through the book all but the first one or two pages will appear to suddenly have the same color or type of picture, and so on.

    But, because this may be hard to picture from the description, you can buy for a small price such a book at the shop of W. Brome in Powle's churchyard, where such books may be gotten, for your further instruction.

    There are many feats which beautify this art exceedingly, however even of these some are done by practice, and some by confederacy.

    There are also many mathematical tricks, for them read "Gemma Phrysius", and "Record", etc., which when added into a magicians act do credit to his art.

    There are also, besides those I have set down under the title "Hartumim", a variety of strange experiments reported by Plinie, Albert, Joh. Bap. Port. Neap. and Thomas Lupton, some of which are true, and some false. These tricks being known to Jannes and Jambres, or else to our magicians and jugglers, makes them seem more skilled and all the more respected.