The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-05-14
THE MAG1cIAN's PHILOSOPHY.
Traits Of Humanity That Help Him to
 Perform His Tricks.

Traits Of Humanity That Help Him to
 Perform His Tricks.
 "If you ask a woman to choose one of the four card suits, the selection will be, nine times out of ten, hearts. Ask a woman to name one of the thir- teen cards in that heart suit, and you will find the queen picked as often.
 With men it is different. They seem to have no unconscious prefer ence; but if there is any attroction of one suit over another, the leaning is in favor of spades. As for the particular card, men evince no general bias, al- though my experience has taught me to expect a low card"
 The speaker was veteran card ma gician who has had years of experi- ence; but if there is an attraction of peculiarities of human nature which bear upon his profession.
 Suggestion is the keynote to success in card tricks, and indeed in all illu- sions that depend for finish upon quickness of touch and hand" he went on. 'The man who can best persuade his audience that they see something which they do not see, is the successful magician. ,- .i.-.e.
 'I toss an orange into the air to make it disappear. cry one and my arm flies up. The audience sees the or ange still in my hand .Two,' and as my hand goes up the orange is palmed. Three and the hand is turned around to the audience empty, but every one who watched the trick would have sworn that he saw the orange disap- pear upon the count of three
 T place three cards side by side on a table and ask some one to choose a card. By an almost unbroken success sion of experiences, I am practically positive that he will select the middle card. He does it.
 'I deal out three rows of three cards each and again ask him to choose one am positive he will name the middle row.
 T have made that same experiment with all sorts of things and have nev- CT known 1t to fail. Once I had dis cussion with a friend, who was inclined to pooh-pooh what he termed my su- perstition in regard to the matter. I let the argument drop for several days, and then one afternoon dropped into a cigar store with him and purchased three cigars.
 q casually spread them out on the counter for him to take his choice, and when called attention to the fact that he had picked up the middle one of the l three he was much chagrined. "Take the case of asking a person to choose a number. Scores of times have asked people to name 8 number between one and ten, and with almost no variation they have decided on sev- en. When it has not been seven it has been five.
 Why? I do not know. There is something mysterious about the num- Der seven. The ancients recognized it, and the longer I live the more con- vinced am that seven has some occult connection with humanity. I have heard the suggestion made that people persist in choosing it because it is easy to say, requiring little effort of oongue and lips to enunciate. There may be something in that"
 The magician said that when it came to explaining why women should show such a preference for hearts and the queen of that suit, he said he had nev- CT formed an opinion.
 ,"It is one of those mysterious psycho- logical riddles which we meet every day of our lives," he said. There are a dozen reasons that might spring to the mind, but who can tell which is right or even probable? Sometimes I have thought that the ancient conpec- tion between that suit and the thoughts of love and gallantry may have had something to do with it. but I am rather inclined to put that down to mere fancy.
 'To the uninitiated magic and card