Excerpt from The Open Court, Vol. 17: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Science of Religion, the Religion of Science, and the Extension of the Religious Parliament Idea; October, 1903 Finetti's explanation of the shirt trick was contained in a work published in the year 1784, entitled Amusements in physics, and various entertaining experiments, invented and executed at Paris and the various courts of Europe by the Chevalier M. Jean Joseph Finetti Willedale de Merci, Professor of Physics, etc. As an ex pose of conjuring feats in general this book was an imposition on the public. It was intended to mislead the reader. In spite of the high sounding title of the work it contained nothing, outside of the solution of the stolen shirt mystery. There was no explanation of any trick upon which Finetti set value, but merely experiments already published in preceeding books on the juggler's art, and which belonged to a long past time, consisting mostly of chemical experiments, and childis'h diversions. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.