The Hilliard Rising Cards
By William J. Hilliar

This in my original method for causing selected cards to rise from the deck in the left hand to the right hand hold above it. I can stand in a drawing room with spectators all around me and move my position as often as desired.

The motive power is the piece of apparatus illustrated. It is a metal tube about eighteen inches long. By pulling the thread through the minute hole at the top, the weight rises naturally, but will fall again when the thread is loosened.

The weight should be about four times the weight of a playing card. The thread should be of the finest silk and should protrude from the apparatus about two feet when the weight rests at the bottom.

The apparatus must be pinned under your shirt, the hole on a level with your center shirt button hole, through which the thread is passed. To the end of the thread is attached a small pellet of wax, which in stuck on a vest button until ready for use.

Three cards are selected, returned and brought to the top of your pack. The waxed end of the thread is secretly attached to the back card. The right hand now passes all around the pack and, catching the thread between the first and second fingers, raises upwards.

The performer asks the name of the first card, and, upon being told, releases his left thumb pressure from the back card, which ascends immediately to the right hand. The fall of the weight in the tube causes this to happen.

The card is then placed on the front of the pack. In so doing, the waxed thread is secretly removed and attached to the back card. The experiment is repeated with the two other selected cards.

By reading the foregoing carefully my readers will appreciate the superiority of this method. as the cards rise without the slightest movement of the performer and the thread is absolutely invisible even at close quarters.