The San Francisco call., 1909-12-05

eNben the iuggler runs his sword through the bas-
ket he takes special pains to send 1t through the
unoccupied space The concealed boy wiggles from
place to place. and the jugger is thus enabled TO run
his sword through portion of the basket In turn
and to give the appearance of its complete emptiness
1t will be that the juggler place his hand
inside the basket and remove the discarded jacket
and stamp and sit in the basket since the space he
occupies is that left unoccuped by the boy In the
in the basket the boy never be seem
All the rest is simple enough. The weird passes
in the air. the motion of catching to distract the
attention of the spectators while the boy is dressing
Sometimes the boy is found sitting in tree after the
narrowing performance of piercing the basket. This
state of affairs is usually there being boys
nearly alike that the of striking article of
apparel will at least give that illusion
One stays in the tree. and the one in the basket
makes good his escape under the cover of blanket
and with the aid OF confederate when tbe attention
of the behoders is distracted Often when only one
boy is employed he is enabled to from the bas
ket some pretext other, and he can then appear
in a neighbOring tree.
Mystifcation always waits on the dry sand trick
the Hindus The operator to place handful
of dry sand in the bottom of pail of water then,
after dipping in his hand he brings the sand to the
surface and Immediately blows it about showing it to
perfectly dry The sand is specially treated for
this performance. Clean, sharp sand is first thor
oughly washed so that not vestige of clay remains
in it, 1t is then placed in frying pan with lard and
heated until all the grease is burned out of it, This
leaves perfectly smooth even sand which ressts the
action of the water.
DIVING TRICKS
fakirs. The commonest is performed with the
of a small toy duck which floats upon the surface
of a bowl of water and recedeS whenever spectator
approaches it, The operator has made minute hole
in the bottom of the bowl. through which he has
hair. The upper end of the hair is attached
to the duck by of small bit Of wax The
fact that there leak in the bowl is concealed by
the juggler spilling little water though aeci-
dentally from the bowl
He controls the movement of the duck by manipu-
ating the hair dark thread which is attached to his
leg. The test is usually performed dark ground
Another diving trick is performed by of small
rabbit in pail of water, which is hurled out by
of spring bent double The spring is held in place
by piece of sugar and is released when the sugar
has melted.
trick that has from time to time astOnished the
western mind consists of placing stone under
small basket The basket is removed and instead OF
stone is scorpion or snake The basket IS again
taken up and flock of small birds is revealed
The substitution of the snake for the stone is
merely ordinary sleight of hand-sOmething the
of the pea under the walnut she'll The birds
in black cloth bag, which introduced into the
basket when the attention fixed upon the snake
The bag is then opened and the birds released.
Of snake charming Mr.. Darlington says that it
appears to be genuine The often repeated voluntary
interment of the Hindu necrOmancerS he finds to be
in fraudulent for the called grave had
a of communication with hollow tree, which
would means of escape or for purposes or
ventilation. The ends of the collins prepared
they may be removed by the fakir thus enabling
hiSn to get much needed repose against the day OF
his, disinterment.
The rope trick which is supposed to consist Of
sending small boy to climb a rope suspended in air
to some invisible support, Mr. Darlington does not
credit at all and explains it probably due to hypnO
tism This trick is said to have been photographed,
only the plate showed nothing. He concluded that
there are in spite of the many tricks which
poyed, some real wonder workers among the Hindus,
and MANY who possess mediumiStic power.