ght, kite." Amusing to a
casual observer but hopeless from an artists point of view.

Latterly some Indian conjurors have attempted to give in India
performances on European lines. They have purchased the necessary
paraphernalia from London and have as much idea of using it to its
best advantage as a crocodile has of arranging the flowers on a dinner
table. Our Indian Jadoo-wallah usually gets himself into a very tight
fitting third or fourth hand evening dress on these occasions, to
show, I presume, how European he is. The audience is more concerned
with the possibility of its bursting and their having to leave the
theatre for decency's sake than they are of the feats he is attempting
to imitate.

His patter is excruciating and, to hide his want of skill in
sleight-of-hand, he moves his hands and arms in grotesque curves, with
his body so bent that it is almost impossible to see what he is trying
to do. I have never yet seen any Indian give an English performance
that would be tolerated on the sands at Slushton-on-Sea the seat of my
ancestral home. While writing the above I have in mind one of these
Indians, an impossible person, who, as Court performer to several of
the Ruling Indian Princes, makes the astonishing total of Rs. 1200 or
L80 a month.

The only native conjurors that I have seen who are consistently good
at sleight-of-hand, (and they are Arabs or Egyptians) are the invaders
of the ships at Port Said, and their one and only good point,
magically, is their manipulation of those unfortunate chickens. Their
"Gillie, gillie, Mrs. Langtry" is more up-to-date and an improvement
upon the "Beggie, beggie, aow" of India.

It has always been a marvel to me how the Indian conjuror has gained
his spurious reputation. I can only ascribe the fact to the idea that
the audience start with the impression, sub-conscious though it may
be--of Mahatmaism, Jadoo, or any other synonym by which Oriental Magic
is designated. This allows them to watch with amazement tricks that
are so simple that no English conjuror would dare to show them to his
youngest child.

Without partiality I can safely assert that of the three types under
discussion, the European, the Chinaman, and the Indian, the average
European conjuror is the most skilled particularly at sleight-of-hand.
He certainly excels in card manipulation which is seldom touched by
the Oriental magician. In illusions he is beyond comparison, as many
of our readers may certi