CONJURERS AND THEIR TRICKS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 210, 9 October 1909, Page 4

CONJURERS AND THEIR TRICKS.

Tile average conjurer usually receives credit for being far more clever than bo I really is. The popular idea concerning ! him is that he spends his mornings and • afternoons in inventing new tricks nnd j his evenings in performing them before ! a mystery-loving public, whereas his re'-il i method of obtaining new tricks is rea'.ly j far less laborious. In most cases the . conjurer proceeds in the following way. ' lie starts off, of course, with a great taste for conjuring, and, in order to acquire his knowledge of the art, reads all the books on the subject that he can borrow or buy. llanv of these bonks are never seen by the general public at all; they are either extremely rare or their prices are prohibitive. "The Magic Circle," a society of conjurers, has a library containing about two hundred volumes on conjuring, and these contain the secrets of nearly all the tricks tluu have ever been performed. In, addition, three magazines devoted entirely to the interests of conjurers are published in j London, and these frequently contain the secrets ot new tricks. It will bo | seen, therefore, that the man who j wishes to take up conjuring apparently has an easy task before 'aim. * I The real difficulty arises when the con-' i'trrr tries to put his knowledge into [iractiec. He then discovers that some of the old tricks have been performed so frequently that thev 110 longer mystify an audience, anil that other tricks which seem perfect "011 paper" are not fuito practical on a stage, and still less so in a drawing-room. Then the con- j jurer sits down to think of "something new." There is a constant demand' among conjurers for "something new." In time the conjurer produces a trick wliieh he fondly imagines is his own invention, but in all probability it is made up of the piepes of two or three old tricks. It is almost impossible to get Iricks that are quite new, and the most that the average conjurer can 'nope for is to get hold of a new- method of doing or presenting an old trick. The public seldom recognise an old trick when they see it in a new form. Many years ago a famous performer did v well-known trick with a wedding-ring. Subsequently another performer did a similar trick with a shilling. To the ;eneral public they would appear to be fistinctly different tricks, because the irticles used in them were not the same, IVIIERU XliW TRICKS COME FROM. At the present time the love of conjuring is so widespread that the .conjurer who lias any regard for his reputation dare not perform a trick taken straight out of a book. He knows that in all probability there arc at least lialf-,i-do/.en amateurs in his audience, and that they would regard his performance in the light of a valuable lesson in the tricks wlio-e secrets they know. ,'L'here are, of course, brilliant exceptions to this rule. One of the leading American conjurers made his reputation with a little trick which is centuries old. It I c:m be purchased for a few pence at anv conjuring shop. Last year the Indian conjurers at the White C'ity performed it with such effect that nearly a thousand copies of the trick were sold at. one shop alone in London, and one mav safely sav that not two per cent, of thi people who bought it were, capable uf doing it properly, although il is comparatively simple. The main idea of the trick is that an egg, when placed in a small bag. mysteriously disappears. The history of this trick furnishes one~mo:c proof of the old saving among conjurer*,that " it is not what you do but the way you do it" that matters. Some performers get new tricks by the simple method of having small 1 pocket tricks made in a large size fori stage use, and a very'few of the leading conjurers proceed in a much more liiys" tcrious way. They are known to a few inventors and makers of (ricks—men who never advertise and who are ciuflc unknown, even to the well-posted amateur conjurer. The inventors spend their lives ill thinking out new effects and making experiments; they know that a leading performer will 'always pay a( good price for a real I v new trick on' the understanding that it is not to be sold to anyone else Toi. a certain period of time. 1 Unfortunately for thps.i inventors and the performers, tlu'ro is .110 copyright in > a trick, and, as there ate very few tricks that are not "seen through" by oilier conjurers, it follows (hat an inventor ' often lias (he mortilication of seeing bis ' best new trick copied bv a. man who has ; not paid one penny fo r (he idea. The inventor of conjuring trieks , usually consults the performer'~who em- - ploys him before completing' anv trie 1 :. 1 for thcrc'is another old and w'rv true saying among conjurers, that it' takes F two men to invent a new trick.—Home 1 paper,