Lab
Library
Journal
Shop
Sign in
to keep
1
750
Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring
·
Professor Hoffmann
20
CHAPTER
VIII.
PARLOR
MAGIC.
Parlor
Magic
558
A
Surprise
559
Indian
Sand
Trick
559
The
“Q”
Trick
560
The
Bleeding
Thumb
560
The
Marked
Florin
in
Oranges
560
The
Chinese
Pictures
561
Bautier’s
Great
Ink-and-Water
Trick
562
Carrying
Fire
in
the
Hands
563
MODERN
MAGIC.
CHAPTER
I.
INTRODUCTION.
Considering
the
great
antiquity
and
the
unfading
popularity
of
the
magic
art,
it
seems
at
first
sight
a
matter
of
wonder
that
its
literature
should
be
so
extremely
scanty.
In
England,
in
particular,
is
this
the
case.
Until
within
the
last
few
years
it
would
have
been
difficult
to
name
a
single
book
worth
reading
upon
this
subject,
the
whole
literature
of
the
art
consisting
of
single
chapters
in
books
written
for
the
amusement
of
youth
(which
were
chiefly
remarkable
for
the
unanimity
with
which
each
copied,
without
acknowledgment,
from
its
predecessors),
and
handbooks
sold
at
the
entertainments
of
various
public
performers,
who
took
care
not
to
reveal
therein
any
trick
which
they
deemed
worthy
of
performance
by
themselves.
Upon
a
little
consideration,
however,
the
scarcity
of
treatises
on
“White
Magic”
is
easily
accounted
for.
The
more
important
secrets
of
the
art
have
been
known
but
to
few,
and
those
few
have
jealously
guarded
them,
knowing
that
the
more
closely
they
concealed
the
clue
to
their
mysteries,
the
more
would
those
mysteries
be
valued.
Indeed,
the
more
noted
conjurors
of
fifty
years
ago
strove
to
keep
the
secret
of
their
best
tricks
not
only
from
the
outside
world,
but
from
their
confrères.
At
the
present
day
the
secrets
of
the
art
are
not
so
well
kept;
and
there
is
hardly
a
trick
performed
upon
the
stage
which
the
amateur
may
not,
at
a
sufficient
expenditure
of
shillings
or
guineas,
procure
at
the
conjuring
depôts.
There
being,
therefore,
no
longer
the
same
strict
secresy,
the
literature
of
magic
has
improved
a
little,
though
it
still
leaves
much
to
be
desired.
The
general
ambition
of
compilers
seems
to
be
to
produce
books
containing
nominally
some
fabulous
number
of
tricks.
In
order
to
do
this,
they
occupy
two-thirds
of
their
space
with
chemical
and
arithmetical
recreations,
and,
as
a
necessary
result,
the
portion
devoted
to
conjuring
tricks,
properly
so
called,
is
treated
so
briefly
and
scantily
as
to
be
practically
useless.
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
