Chapter I: Preface: To Second Edition

It is always a matter for self-congratulation on the part of an author to be called upon to furnish a Preface to a second or subsequent edition of some "bantling of his brain." In the present instance the task is more satisfactory than usual, the author not coming before the reader empty-handed. Since the publication of the first edition, conjurors have not been idle, and numerous new methods for producing magical surprises have been invented. Such of these as are suitable or worthy--for, in their haste to be novel, many have failed to be satisfactory--the author has incorporated; and, by a thorough revision of the work, he has placed before the aspiring conjuror, written up to date, all that it is possible for him to know in the region of SLEIGHT OF HAND.

E. S.

LONDON,

_April_, 1885.

SLEIGHT OF HAND