: William E. Chenery
: Home Entertaining Amusements for Every One
: anboco
: 9783736415898
: 1
: CHF 0.80
:
: Abenteuer, Spielgeschichten, Unterhaltung
: English
: 168
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
This collection of games, tricks, and pastimes is the result of many years' effort to find the most clever and practical diversions and entertainments suitable for the home. Each trick has been tested by the editor, and each sport introduced has received most careful consideration in regard to ease of production, as well as the enjoyment to be gained from it. As no refined person of any age can find amusement in coarseness, great care has been exercised in presenting only such diversions as are to be welcomed in a refined home circle. The necessity for elaborate apparatus has also been avoided, so that with dullness, difficulty, expense, and ill-taste eliminated, it is felt that this collection will supply a lack which has always existed, as the many who have sought in vain for a bright, safe, and up-to-date book of really feasible entertainments will appreciate. While this book contains much that is original, especially in descriptive matter and ways of presentation, it has of course been necessary to draw freely from the accumulated mass of tricks and 'sells' that have in some form or other come down from unknown times, and are recognized as being the common property of any who take pains to learn them. As a matter of courtesy, due acknowledgement is hereby made to all who have preceded me in this line of work. A word of general advice to the amateur entertainer may be in order. Never tell the company what you are about to do, unless the very nature of a trick demands that its outcome be stated in advance. In this case, do it as guardedly as possible. If you state that you are to perform a certain trick, you thereby greatly increase the chance of detection, as the spectators will know what to look for, and in that way will more readily arrive at the true method of bringing about the results. Do not allow yourself to be persuaded into performing a trick twice in an evening. With the element of surprise gone, the best performance loses much of its effect.

What To Do and How To Do It


The Magnetic Ring.Take a gold ring,—the more massive the better. Attach the ring to a silk thread about twelve inches long; fasten the other end of the thread around the nail-joint of your right forefinger, and let the ring hang about half an inch above the surface of the table, on which you rest your elbow to steady your hand. Hold your finger horizontally, with the thumb thrown back as far as possible from the rest of the hand.

If there be nothing on the table, the ring will soon become stationary. Then place some silver (say three half-dollars) immediately below it, when the ring will begin to oscillate backwards and forwards, to you and from you. Now bring your thumb in contact with your forefinger (or else suspend the ring from your thumb), and the oscillations will become transverse to their former swing. Or this may be effected by making a lady take hold of your disengaged hand. When the transverse motion is fairly established, let a gentleman take hold of the lady’s disengaged hand, and the ring will change back to its former course. These effects are produced by the aid of animal magnetic currents given forth by the hands of the experimenters.

To Tell the Hour of the Day or Night by a Suspended Quarter.Sling a quarter or a dime at the end of a piece of thread by means of a loop; then, resting your elbow upon a table, hold the other end of the thread between your forefinger and thumb, and thus suspend the coin in an empty goblet. Observe, your hand must be perfectly steady; and if you find it difficult to keep it in an immovable posture, it is usel