Talma closed a week of performances at the Manchester Tivoli Theater with her new act, The Legend of the Silk Worm. The wife and performing partner of Servais LeRoy, Mercedes Talma had already distinguished herself as the Queen of Coins with a sleight-of-hand act. In the new act, she recited a fairy-tale legend and then visualized it with a number of clever silk tricks, producing silks at her fingertips and changing their colors. At the finish, she constructed a sort of tissue paper tambourine, using two nesting metal rings, and suspended it from two cords. Puncturing the paper, she withdrew dozens of flags, pigeons, ducks, chickens, and finally a large Union Jack flag on a flagstaff.
