Magic lantern slide: Two boys and a cracker

A magic lantern slipping slide showing two boys and a cracker, made by an unknown artist in 1870. The slide shows two boys, each holding the end of a huge cracker. The second part of this slide shows the cracker exploding leaving one boy on his back and the other nowhere to be seen.

A slipping (or slipper) slide is designed to give movement to a still drawing to reveal something which was previously hidden. There are two main types of slipping slide, single and double. With the single slide, the action is produced by sliding one glass in front of another. - two glasses are mounted in a wooden frame, one of which is fixed and the other moves across it. The movable glass is called the slipping glass and can be moved usually into two final positions to mask off then reveal part of the image.