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Physical Amusements and Diverting Experiments / Composed and Performed in Different Capitals of Europe, and in London cover

Physical Amusements and Diverting Experiments / Composed and Performed in Different Capitals of Europe, and in London

Chapter 20: EXAMPLE.
By Giuseppe Pinetti
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About This Book

A collection of practical, theatrical experiments and demonstrations designed to amuse and astonish audiences, presenting clear, step-by-step instructions for optical illusions, chemical colour changes, simple mechanical contrivances, engraved relief work, and staged effects involving small animals and household materials. Each chapter explains the method of execution and the observable result, often noting how presentation and concealment enhance surprise. The work aims to enable performers and curious amateurs to reproduce entertaining physical phenomena with modest apparatus, while distinguishing easily executed tricks from those that require greater dexterity, mechanism, or preparation.

CHAP. XIII.

How to guess a Card that has been thought of by any body, by writing before hand on a Paper or Card a Number, which will certainly be that of the Card that has been thought of.

All the preparation of this trick consists in a mathematical combination; here follows the method of operating in order to succeed.

Take a pack of piquet cards, present them to one of the company, desiring him to shuffle them well, and to get them shuffled by whoever he pleases: then make several persons cut them. After which you will propose to one of the company to take the pack, and think of a card, and remember it, as likewise of the number of its order in the pack, by counting one, two, three, four, &c. till he comes inclusively to the card thought of by him. Then offer to go in another room while he is doing what you required, or to be blind-folded, assuring the company that you will declare before-hand, if required, the number of the order in which the card is that has been thought of.

EXAMPLE.

In the supposition that the person who thinks of the card will stop at number 13, and that thirteenth card is the queen of hearts.

Supposing again that the number you have marked or designed before-hand is number 24; you will return in the room in case you had left it; or desire the handkerchief, to be taken off, if you have been blind-folded; and, without asking any question of the person who has thought of the card, ask only for the pack, and apply it to your nose as if to smell it; then passing it behind your back, or under the table, you must take, beginning from the bottom of the pack, twenty-three cards, that is to say, one less than the number you had designed before hand; then place those twenty-three cards on the top of the remainder; you must take particular care not to put one more or less, for that would prevent your success. This being done, you are to return the pack to the person who has thought of the card, recommending him to reckon the cards from the top of the pack, beginning by the number of the card he thought of. His card being the thirteenth, he will be obliged to count fourteen, and you are to flop him when he comes to twenty three, telling him that the number you have designed is twenty-four, and that consequently the twenty-fourth card which he is going to take up will be the queen of hearts, and it will be exactly the case.