Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

Before proceeding to the practice of the magic art, it will be well to give a short description of two or three appliances, which are of such constant use that they may be said to form the primary stock-in-trade of every conjuror. These are--a short wand, a specially adapted table, and certain secret pockets in the magician’s dress. There are numerous other appliances of very general use, which will be explained in due course, but those we have named are so indispensable that we could hardly complete the description of half-a-dozen tricks of any pretension without a reference to one or other of them. First in order comes