In submitting the following collection of conjuring tricks to my brother magicians and the public generally, I entertain the earnest hope that they will derive as much pleasure from the study and practice of the same as I have myself. It is always a great delight for me either to witness or to practise a trick, and it is a grand mental as well as manual exercise. I contend that, if practised only as a hobby, conjuring is a wholesome and a moral one; and if studied diligently with a determination to succeed, it cannot fail to sharpen the wits of the person practising it.

In compiling this work it has been my aim to describe such tricks as, so far as I have been able to learn, have not hitherto been published, thus providing for my confreres and the public alike an interesting volume of present-day magic, and I trust that it may be the means of enabling the reader to astonish and amuse his friends, and the public, with the fascinating art of Legerdemain.