Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 April 1910 — How a Conjurer Learns His Trade. [ARTICLE]

How a Conjurer Learns His Trade.

Where does the conjurer learn his work, and who invents his tricks for him? The first question is easy; the second difficult. The conjurer learns from books and from papers produced specially for conjurers. There are three conjurers’ papers published in America and three in England, and it is generally understood that English conjurers are always hungry for the American papers and the American conjurers for the English. As to the books on conjuring, they are produced by the score, but the majority of them are never heard of by anyone but conjurers. But the conjurer who always performs old tricks, just as they are described in books, will never acquire a very great reputation from his rivals.. is generally conceded, however, that there are certain tricks — some card tricks and a few others—which will never become old-fashion-ed; but with some of these exceptions the Christmas conjurer’s program must be new each year, and, if possible, his own. A conjurer who sits down to think out a new trick has several courses open to him. He can take an old trick, and improve it in such a way that it is, comparatively a new trick; or he may try and invent a trick to be performed with articles that have never been used in a trick before; or he may employ articles that are tha stock-in-trade of evry conjurer and use them in a different way. It is often more difficult to improve an old trick thpn to think of a new one. The finest tricks of all are those in which new objects are used, and in which the secrets are new also. The number of such tricks is comparatively small, and in most cases the inventor receives' no thanks and no recompense for his trouble. He satisfies his conjurer s conscience when he produces new tricks, but he knows that conjurers cannot deceive qonjurers, and that in all probability his ideas will be copied. M’any of the oldest tricks are still very popular. The oldest book on conjuring in existence, published in 1584, contains descriptions of some of the tricks performed this season; but, naturally, the methods of modern conjurers are far more ingenious than those of their ancestors.