Chapter IV: Part 4

_To appear to cut your Arm off, without Hurt or Danger._

You must provide yourself with two knives, a true one and a false one, and let them be so like each other, that no person can tell one from the other. When you go to show this feat to the company, put the true knife into your pocket; then take out the false one, and clap it on your wrist undiscovered. If, with a sponge, you make the knife bloody, it will seem so much the more strange. This is the form of the knife:--

_Tricks with a Cat._

Fix a little bell to the end of a cat’s tail, and let her go; she, feeling the tightness of the string, and hearing the bell jingle, will run up and down as if she were mad, flying against the doors and windows; then, if she can, she will get into some hole to hide herself; but, when she wags her tail ever so little, out she comes, and will be as mad as before, and will never rest till it be off. Walnut shells, fastened with a little warm wax or pitch to the cat’s feet, will make sport all over the house; and at night, on the stairs, will make the superstitious think that it is a ghost going up and down.

_To make a Calf’s Head bellow, when served up to Table._

This is effected by the following simple stratagem:--Take a frog that is alive, and put it at the further end of the calf’s head, under the tongue, which you must let fall all over it, taking care not to put the frog there till the calf’s head is going to be served up. The heat of the tongue will make the frog croak; which sound, coming from the hollow part of the head, will be like the bellowing of a calf, as if it were alive.

_To make a Ball rise above the Water._

Place on the spout of the fountain an inverted cone of wire net-work; throw into it a light hollow copper ball, two inches and a half in diameter, which let fall to the narrow part of the cone to reach the spout: it will rise, and remain suspended in the air till brought down by the wind, and repeatedly re-ascend.

_Mode of sealing Letters, whereby an impression cannot be taken._

Take a piece of any aromatic resin, or of amber, and set fire to it on an earthen plate. It will emit a smoke of an agreeable smell: hold your watch-seal over the fumigation; it will become black: then melt some sealing-wax, in the usual way, spread it on paper, and apply to it the seal, prepared as above; and, when you take it off, the engraving will be seen very plainly.

In order to prevent the impression from being taken, flatten the sealing-wax with the blade of a knife: this is easily done, by means of making a thick iron plate red hot, and bringing it close to the impression without touching it; the wax then gets soft, but, before it melts, you must flatten it with a knife, or any other cold instrument. Although thus flattened, the exact impression will remain conspicuous.

_The Enchanted Egg._

Have ready a penny-worth of quicksilver in a quill, sealed at both ends with good hard wax; then cause an egg to be boiled, and take off a small bit of the shell of the narrow end, and thrust in your quill of quicksilver, and lay the egg on the ground; you will have sport enough; for it will keep tumbling about as long as there is any heat in it.

_To cut a Man’s Head off, and to put it into a Platter, a Yard from the Body._

This is a noble trick, if it be performed by a skilful hand. To show it to advantage, you must cause a board, a cloth, and a platter to be purposely made, and in each of them to be made holes, for a man’s neck.

The board must be made of two planks, the longer and broader the better; there must be left, within half a yard of the end of each plank, half a hole, so as, both the planks being thrust together, there may remain two holes, like to the holes in a pair of stocks. There must be made likewise a hole in the cloth; a platter, also, must be set directly over or upon one of them, having a hole in the middle thereof, of the like size, and also a piece cut off the same as big as the neck, through which the head may be conveyed into the middle of the platter; and then, sitting or kneeling under the board, let the head only remain upon the board, in the frame. Then, to make the sight more dreadful, put a saucer, containing saffron, common salt, and spirits of wine, burning, before the head of the boy, who must gasp two or three times. The head will presently appear quite dead, if the boy set his countenance accordingly; and, if a little blood be sprinkled on his face, the sight will be the stranger and more horrible still.

This is practised with a boy instructed for the purpose, who, being familiar with the company, may be known as well by his face as by his apparel. At the other end of the table, where the like hole is made, another boy, of the same size, must be placed, having on his usual apparel; he must lean or lie upon the board, and put his head underneath it, through the said hole; so that the body shall seem to lie on one end of the board, and his head shall lie in a platter on the other end. There are other rules to be observed; as, to put about his neck a little dough, kneaded with bullock’s blood, which, being cold, will look like dead flesh, and, being pricked with a sharp quill, filled with blood, will seem to bleed.--You must be particular to have the table-cloth so long and so wide as that it may almost reach the ground. Also, let this be your last trick, taking care not to suffer the company to stay too long in the place after it is performed.

_To cause Beer to be wrung out of the Handle of a Knife._

To do this, you must have a small piece of sponge, with liquor put in it privately; then, unseen, place this beyond your right ear; but let not the sponge be too big, or too full of liquor, lest you be discovered. Now, taking a knife, stick it, with the handle upwards, in a table or stool (but observe to place your company before you); then bid them look, saying, “_There you see is nothing of wet, either on this handle or the table_;” so stretch your empty hand towards your ear, darting the point, saying, “_Now, somebody cross my arm_,” and, speaking some powerful words, as “_Jubio bisco_,” then you have a fair opportunity to take the sponge into your hand from behind your ear; stretching forth your hand, squeeze it gently, and afterwards a little harder, which will make it run the faster, to the amazement of the company, at the same time saying, “_Thus could I do till I had drowned you all._” Then sprinkle a little in their faces, which will cause them to shut their eyes, whilst you convey away the sponge.

_To cut a Glass by Heat._

You must have a piece of well-dried match-cord. Having lighted it by the candle, take a beer-glass, and hold the match to the edge of the glass; now have your finger ready wetted, and, when the glass is very hot, clap your finger to the hot place, and it will suddenly crack about a quarter of an inch downward; then keep the coal of the match at the like distance from the end of the crack; and, as it follows, so move your hand, and cut it screw-fashion, otherwise it will not hold together till you have it through to the bottom. When you have done it, and it is cold, take it by the foot, and turn it downwards: it will stretch so that you may put your finger between each cutting; then, when you turn it up again, you may drink a glass of beer from it, and not spill a drop.

THE END.

PRINTED BY G. H. DAVIDSON,
IRELAND YARD, DOCTORS’ COMMONS.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.

The original mid-paragraph positions of Illustrations have been retained in this eBook, as they often are crucial to understanding the explanations.

The original Table of Contents used “ib.” for page numbers that were the same as the preceding number, but this eBook uses the actual numbers.

Page 42: “then put the” was printed as “then pu- the”. It has been changed to “put” to be consistent with “put out the sixpence” at the end of the same paragraph. Both probably should be “pull”.

Page 61: “grove” was printed that way.

Page 68: Transcriber added “turn” to “turn the perfect colour of sack wine”.

Page 70: “mattrass” was printed that way.

Page 75: “griping” was printed that way.

The bottom of the image of a bottle on page 76 was cut-off in the original book.