The Oswald Williams Pillars Trick

Oswald Williams had a routine based on showing tricks from his ‘Box o’ Tricks’. Each trick would have looked familiar to school children, but the method used by Williams was quite different, so catching out the knowing ones. This is one of the tricks which Davenports put on the market. The magician holds two pillars together, and shows that a cord runs freely from pillar to pillar through holes drilled in the end of the pillars. Taking a knife the magician puts the blade between the pillars and cuts through the cord. The pillars are separated at the ends to prove to the audience that the cord is well and truely cut. However, on putting the two ends together again, the magician restores the cord and pulls it backwards and forwards to prove it. The audience think they have seen this trick before and realise that the cord runs down the length of one pillar and up the length of the other. In other words, it had never been cut. This is where the magician surprises them by moving the two pillars completely apart, showing quite clearly that the cord does indeed run between the ends of the pillars where it had been magically cut.