SHARE LIST.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 4, 26 January 1910, Page 7

SHARE LIST.

31 (oapsiy Iff i

All colonials repudiate with scorn and derision any suggestion to give them preference.—Jfr. Will f 'rooks. We find that every year there are a number of pupil teachers who are admitted to the Training College, where they are trained for a couple of years, at the end of which time they are presumed to be efficient teachers. In many instances, when the two years’ of training have elapsed these young teachers are found to be averse to taking country positions. They therefore ask to be excused from country service, saying, in some cases. that they want to go on with their studies and take a University degree. The Board has, therefore, resolved that it cannot be made a convenience for the obtaining of a University degree.— Jfr. J. Parr, Chairman of the Auckland Board of Education. The Opposition leaders have been saying “Let us treat with our colonies." My reply to that is "Why with the colonies alone?" A tradesman does not put a notice outside his shop. “I trade only with relations." If the colonies want assistance we are bound to help them, and they are bound to help us to the last drop of their blood, but business is business— Jfr. Lloyd Georye (Chancellor of the Exchequer).

(All Rights Reserved.) The Experiences of a Wizard. (By CARL HERTZ.) I became a conjurer chiefly because I was attracted by the art of deception from my earliest years. My pa rents bad different views, and wished me to devote myself to business, with which intent they secured me a position in a store in San Francisco when I was about fifteen years of age. I devoted my time, however, in the store to playing weird tricks with umbrella®. hats, and various other goods that I had to show the customers, the cleverness of whieh did not at all appeal to my employers. At last the dimax came one day when a lady came to try on a bonnet. She liked it well enough, but when she removed it from her head and found that it contained two kittens she gave vent to a scream and left the establishment —and so did I an hour later. I have been practising the art of deception ever since, professionally. MY FIRST APPEARANCE. I made my first appearance in London some years later with a trick that obtained immense popularity. I allude to the ‘canary trick,” in which my assistant holds a cage containing a live canary. I throw a cloth over the cage for an instant, and when I remove it the bird has disappeared. Sosnetimes I make the cage vanish also. I performed this trick at Mr. Allred de Rothschild’s house when the King, then Prince of Wales, was present; there were also a number of weH-known people among the audience. I remember one gentleman who held the cage on that occasion asked me afterwards if it really was a trick. “I don't mind a trick,” he said, “but this looks like magic, and I don't like that." I assured him, however, that it •was a pure and simple piece of deception. and that it had taken me close on five years to learn how to do it. VICTIMISING THE CLOTH.” In private life I have performed some of my tricks under rather amusing circnxmstanoes. I remember at one time I was staying at a hotel in Manchester when a clergyman was also a visitor. Ona morning, in the smoking-room, the reverend gentleman was present, and was declaiming against the evils of gambling. “Well,” I remarked, “I daresay ail you say is true enough, but may I ask why you carry two packs of cards in your pockets?” He at once declared that- he never did such a thing, and that I was talking nonsense, but- I insisted that he had two packs of cards in his pockets, and asked him to take them out. I shall never forget the look of astonishment in the poor clergyman's face when he put his hand into his tadcoat pocket and produced two packs of cards, and the shout of laughter that greeted their production. When it subsided I confessed that I had played a little trick on the clergyman, whieh accounted for the presence of the cards, but I am afraid there were some present who were inclined to think that the reverend gentleman was not all he pretended to be. A BOGUS PRIEST Talking of clergymen reminds me of a bogus one whom I met once, and whom, by the aid of a card trick, I was able to expose as a cheat and a swindler. This happened after I had finished a long tour in the East, and was returning from China to pay a visit to my native town of >San Francisco. On the steamer was a gentleman arrayed in the garments of a Roman Catholic priest, but somehow he did not seern to me to be quite the genuine article. He was asked one night to take a band in a game of poker, and after declaring that he rarely played cards, and that he understood nothing about them, consented to join the game. He held extraordinarily good cards throughout the evening, and won a good deal of money. The same thing happened the next night, and by then I had quite made up my mind that he was cheating, and determined to give him a lesson that he would remember. . AND HIS EXPOSURE. I confided a little plan I had made up to some of the passengers, among whom I remember was Lord Ranfurly, and with their connivance I carried it out most successfully. I took a hand that night, and dealt the priest the four kings, to another player I dealt four queens, and to myself I dealt four aces. Then the fun began. Tbe “priest" was.

•f course, absolutely sure that he bei-1 the strongest hand, for the cbancea of four aces being out against bin. were very small. To cut a long story short be raised the betting to £4OO. and then put down his four kings, uttering a cry of triumph as he saw the four queens. When, however, I pu- down my four aces he nearly collapsed. He paid tbe money, which was handed to tbe captain of the ship, who subsequently returned u M the reverend gentleman, telling him how it had been won from him. and warning him not to try on any of his tricks again at the card table. The “priest" did not make his appearance any more in the card room, and 1 trust the lesson be received was not without some good effect. EXPOSING A FEMALE IMPOSTOR. The most curious place, by the way, in which I ever gave a performance was in a witness-box. This was in New York, when a lady named Debau was being prosecuted for having obtained large sums of money by trickery from a man named Marsh. It is contrary to etiquette for one conjurer to expose another. but in this particular instance I had no hesitation in doing so, for. in the first place. Miss Debau claimed to be a spiritualist and not a conjurer, and, in the next, she had been guilty of defrauding her victim, in the most heartless manner, of nearly all his money. My evidence consisted in showing that what Miss Debau claimed to have done by spiritualism was, in point of fact, done by trickery. She was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. Before she was convicted she wrote me a letter vowing to devote the rest of her life to revenging herself on me in the most terrible manner, but I have, happily, never heard of her since. It has, by the way, often amused me when performing at private houses to observe how many people there are who think that- by standing close to a yonjurer they will be able to see how he does his tricks. Of course, it is impossible if a conjurer knows his business properly for a person to discover how a trick is done, no matter how close lie may stand to the conjurer. I did a number of card tricks for a gentleman once who stood a foot or two from me the whole time. Afterwards. when I showed him how some of these were done, he was amazed. "One would certainly never guess the way they are done by watching you." he said. “Well," I replied, “if yon could do that the trick wouldn't be worth doing." TRICK THIEVES. What the average person does not understand is that the conjurer's art is to deceive. If you can see how a trick is done by watching a conjurer he must either do it very badly, or it must be a very poor triek. Of course, a professional conjurer can often see how a trick is done by watching the performance closely, and, nowadays, it is extremely hard to guard against one's trieks being stolen. Numbers of trieks that have taken me years to learn have been copied by others, and then they are, of course, no use to me any longer. However. I have a fair number in my repertoire which have defied all the efforts of the trick thieves so far. and I am continually working out new ones to replace those that will probably sooner or later be discovered by tl>e people who nave not tl>e abilly to devise any original trieks for themselves. Stealing tricks. I may remark, is a regular business. I know of one man who makes, or was making some years ago. a thousand a year by stealing trieks and selling tnem to third-rate conjurers. For some tricks he would get as much as £2O, which, probably, cost the inventor three or four hundred pounds to learn.

< a. d. £ £ ». <L banks3*8 31 9 0 0 8N 0 15 National 6 2 0 ♦0 0 0 80 Australasia 115 0« MOO 50 I nx>ii of Australia 67 • 0 20 O O 20 New South Wales 50 0 0 INSURANCE— 2 0 0 8 New Zealand. Limited 3 16 6 0 10 0 UnW National 1 8 0 • 10 a 4| South British 2 16 0 .a 0 9i Standard .. 13 0 FINANCIAL— 010 0 N.Z Loan A Mercantile 0 2 9 10 0 Nil N.Z. and River Blate .. 1 15 0 COALtit 2/5 Hikarangi 1 1 6 0 10 0 Nil Northern Coal Co.. Ltd. 0 12 0 10 0 1 aupiri Mines . 0 19 0 3 10 0 H West port 6 5 0 GASJOO Nil Auckland (10/- paid) .. 16 0 Auckland > 15 5 0 too Christchurch 10 5 0 10 0 Nil Feilding 1 1 6 10 0 Gisborne .. 2 11 0 10 0 Nil Hamilton 2 10 0 11 * 0 Nil Napier 24 0 a 5 • 0 s .. 12 7 6 2 0 0 9 0 0 too New Plymouth 8 4 • 118 » 12 Thames 1 13 6 10 0 • Nil eilinjfton ( 18 5 0 S 5 0 44 1 14 5 0 410 0 r Palmerston North 8 50 SHIPPING— 10 0 Nil Union Steamship 1 14 0 SOO Nil Nott Zealand ShioDine* 7 2 6 014 4 Nil Northern S.3. P.C. 0 12 6 0 7 0 7/6 Con 0 6 0 10 0 Nil Lev on port Ferry 1 13 0 WOOLLEN— 5 • 0 Nil Kaiapoi 5 0 « 310 0 U Mosgiei 2 18 0 TIMBER113 0 Nil K.T. Co. Paid 1 13 6 01* 0 4! Con 0 14 6 10 0 en Po. .. 12 6 • 10 9 27Mountain Rima Co.. . 12 0 10 0 Nil Parker-Lamb l 5 6 MBIT 7 10 0 21 Canterbury 10 18 0 10 0 • Nil Christchurch 2 12 6 6 • 0 Nil Wellington Meat Ex. f 6 00 * 0 0 1 ** • 1 4 15 0 2 12 4 2f 2 17 0 10 0 Nil Gear .. 2 14 0 4 0 0 Nil 10 7 6 MISCELLANEOUS10 0 Nil Auckld. Elec. T. Pref. 12 6 10 0 Nil Ord. 1 1 0 2 0 0 Nil New Zealand Drug 2 7 6 10 0 Nil Sharia nd <ic C©„ Ord. 1 1 6 10 0 Nil Pre 1 2 9 0 18 0 6/Union Oil .. 1 0 fl 10 0 Nil N.Z. Paper Mills 1 1 9 10 0 Nil N.Z. Po: tlaud Ceman t 1 18 0 0 0 Nil Wilson’s .. „ Ord 2 3 6 • 9 Nil Pre 2 3 6 » • 0 Nil Donaghy Rope 1 2 0 Wgtou. Opera H. Ltd 7 17 • MINIHG. 10 0 Ixd Waihi 9 18 0 10 9 Ltd Waihi Grand Junction 1 12 0 • 18 0 Ltd Talisman Con 2 5 0 10 0 Ltd Blackwater Mines 1 7 0 10 0 Ltd Consolidated Gold fields 0 19 6 10 8 Ltd Progress Mines 0 13 6 10* N.Z. Crown Mines 0 5 3