bag suspended mouth downwards from a
string round the magician's waist so that it lies between his legs.
This bag contained the three snakes and the small crocodile. The
mouth of the bag was threaded with a string, and naturally remained
closed until the string was pulled right away when the weight of the
wriggling contents caused the mouth to open and the reptiles to fall
upon the ground beneath. The crouching position of the magician
enabled him to get his legs spanning the ground immediately beneath
the orderly's hands, and the earth falling in a dust prevented the
possibility of our seeing the snakes during the brief interval of
their falling from under the dhotie to the ground. Needless to say
that the cobras had had their fangs extracted, that the third snake
was harmless, and that the baby crocodile was too small to inflict any
damage, though all four participants could hiss like a young steam
engine.

It was, as I say, the best trick I have ever seen in India, and from a
magician's artistic point of view, the beauty of it lies in the fact
that the bag is concealed through the modesty of the performer, and
that in consequence the trick is not likely to be found out except by
reasoning and the careful watching of all his movements.

CHAPTER XI

GENERALITIES, AND OTHER MYTHS.

This little book is written on Indian Conjuring, and with the
exception of a dissertation upon the great Indian Rope Imagination, we
have confined ourselves to tricks that we ourselves have seen, and
which are common to the Indian conjuror. It would however, be
incomplete without touching on one or two other broadcast myths that
are frequently talked about.

Messrs. Maskelyn & Devant used to show a very clever illusion called
the New Page, in which a page boy was tied up in an upright position
in a cabinet just large enough to contain him. The showman then took a
doll--a small model of the page boy--and illustrated that whatever
happened to the doll would happen to the boy in the box. As a
convincing example he turned the doll upside down. Miraculous to
relate, when the cabinet was opened the page boy was found to be
upside down with the original knots and seals intact! This experiment
according to the excellent patter of the showman, was based upon the
prevalent idea that in India certain magicians make a small effigy of
a person on whom some dire calamity is intended, and that whatever is
done to this doll, happens to the un