e the visit now paid him, and then he
would relate all the particulars which he had himself heard through the
partition, to the amazement of the stranger, who was ignorant of this
means of communication.

At other times, if a person who wished to consult him came to the house
when the conjuror was in the kitchen, he would disappear as before,
stating that he was going to consult his books, and then his faithful
helper would proceed to extort the necessary information from the
visitor. On this, he would re-appear and exhibit his wonderful knowledge
to the amazed dupe.

On one occasion, though, a knowing one came to the conjuror with his arm
in a sling, and forthwith the wise man disappeared, leaving the maid to
conduct the necessary preliminary examination, and her visitor minutely
described how the accident had occurred, and how he had broken his arm in
two places, etc.

All this the conjuror heard, and he came into the room and rehearsed all
that he had heard; but the biter was bitten, for the stranger, taking his
broken arm out of the sling, in no very polite language accused the
conjuror of being an impostor, and pointed out the way in which the
collusion had been carried out between him and his maid.

This was an exposure the conjuror had not foreseen!

_The Conjuror's Dress_.

Conjurors, when engaged in their uncanny work, usually wore a grotesque
dress and stood within a circle of protection. I find so graphic a
description of a doctor who dealt in divination in Mr. Hancock's "History
of Llanrhaiadr-yn-Mochnant" that I will transcribe it:--"He" (the raiser
of the devils) "was much resorted to by the friends of parties mentally
deranged, many of whom he cured. Whenever he assumed to practise the
'black art,' he put on a most grotesque dress, a cap of sheepskin with a
high crown, bearing a plume of pigeons' feathers, and a coat of unusual
pattern, with broad hems, and covered with talismanic characters. In his
hand he had a whip, the thong of which was made of the skin of an eel,
and the handle of bone. With this he drew a circle around him, outside
of which, at a proper distance, he kept those persons who came to him,
whilst he went through his mystic sentences and
performances."--_Montgomeryshire Collections_, vol. vi, pp. 329-30.

CHARMS.

The cure of diseases by charms is generally supposed to be a kind of
superstition antagonistic to common sense, and yet there are undoubted
cases o