THE INDIAN BOX-AND-BASKET TRICK.
The Indian box-and-basket trick was for a long time a mystery even
among magicians, and now it puzzles astute people to understand how
the young man or young woman who has been tied in a sack and placed
under lock and key in a wicker basket on top of a box not only locked
and sealed but tied in all directions with stout rope, can get out of
the sack and basket and into the box within very few minutes. In 1873
Barnum paid £1,000 to a London trickster for the so-called mystery.
This extraordinary feat which puzzled the knowing ones for so long
a time was explained to me once by a magician, and will be found so
simple as to astonish those who read the explanation.
[Illustration: _Fig. 1._]
[Illustration: _Fig. 2._]
[Illustration: _Fig. 3._]
The magician begins by announcing the trick; he then brings on the
stage a large wooden box-like trunk (Fig. 1) with hinges and hasps
on it. A committee is generally called from the audience to examine
the box to see that there is no deception in its apparent stoutness.
They look it over and over and discover nothing. They then lock the
box, retain the keys, and stop up the key-holes with sealing-wax.
The committee also, amid the shouts of the audience to "tie it up
tight," wind rope around the box in all directions, making innumerable
knots and using every effort to secure the box firmly. Then on top of
the box is placed a board about as wide as the lid of the box, and
on the opposite ends of which are heavy plate staples. (Fig. 2.) The
magician's assistant now steps to the foot-lights and is introduced
to the crowd he, or she, is to astonish. A sack is brought forward,
the assistant lightly mounts to the board on top of the box, gets
into the sack, within which there is generally a stool, so that the
person inside may sit down. The magician begins to tie up the sack; he
gathers the top of it in his hands, and in the meantime the assistant
thrusts through the opening a portion of another sack, and with his
hands over his head holds in place the gathered end of the sack in
which he is concealed while the magician ties a rope around the false
end. The basket is a high, conical-shaped wicker affair, with a heavy
ring around its mouth and two large staples at opposite sides. (Fig.
3.) When the basket is placed over the assistant, the staples in its
ring fit exactly over those on the board above the box; padlocks are
passed through the staples and locked, the committee hold the key, and
sealing-wax is again applied to the keyhole. The trick is now ready,
the magician draws a screen across to hide the box and basket from the
audience, and usually within two minutes the signal is given that the
feat has been accomplished. Sometimes this signal is a pistol shot; at
other times a whistle. The screen is thrown aside, the seals on the
locks are unbroken; everything is in exactly the position in which the
committee left it, the ropes remain securely tied, seem undisturbed,
and on opening the box, which is still stout and innocent-looking as
ever, the assistant tumbles out and the trick comes to an end amid the
wild plaudits of the audience and an occasional uncomplimentary hoot at
the committeemen.
[Illustration: _Fig. 4._]
How is it done? The simple-looking contrivance that forms the
foundation of the mystery is nothing more or less than a trick-box.
Along the edges of the front, back and ends are fastened stout battens,
as can be seen in the cut. These battens are screwed to the boards
which form the upper part of the box. The lower boards at front and
back and both ends are simply sliding panels. The parts of these panels
which come directly behind the battens are filled with iron plates
pierced with holes of the shape to be seen in Fig. 4. The screws on the
lower parts of the batten are dummies--that is, they go only partly
through the battens, and do not reach the panels. On the inner sides
of the battens are iron plates, each carrying a stud, so that when the
parts of the panel plates marked _A_ come directly opposite the studs
of the battens, the panel, if pressed or pushed, will fall inside the
box; but if the studs be pressed through _A_, and the panels shoved
along so that the shanks of the studs slide through the slatted parts,
_B_, the panels will be locked securely. The unsuspicious air-holes you
see in the panels are there for a purpose; the performer uses them to
give him a purchase, so that either with his fingers or by means of a
small iron rod he may slide the panels backward or forward.
[Illustration: _Fig. 5._]
There is another piece of trickery in the construction of the board
that rests on the box and upon which the basket is placed. The plate
staples are "crooked;" that is, the staples are not of a piece with the
plates, but are separate; they are made with a shoulder, and on each of
the ends which fit tightly into holes through the plates, there is an
oval-shaped hole, as shown in Fig. 5. Inside the board are two double
bolts which pass through these holes and keep the staples in place. The
person under the basket passes a thin steel blade between the boards
and slides back the bolts at one end. He then lifts the basket, and
with it the staple. Once outside the basket he replaces it against
the staple in the plate, pushes it down, its rounded ends acting like
wedges to pushing the bolts back, which come together again through the
oval holes of the staple, locking it firmly to the board again. All
that remains to be done, then, is to slide the panel of the box, push
it in, creep through the closely woven ropes and inside the box, put
the panel back in its place and the trick is at an end.
Occasionally a performer does not find it as easy to do this trick
as it reads here. He may sometimes get stuck in the basket, or may
find it impossible to get into the box. The sack is no trouble to him
at all, for he is never really tied in the sack,--all he has to do
is to crawl out of it. Carabgraba, I think it was, while exhibiting
the Indian box-trick in Chicago at the Adelphi Theatre, in 1874,
met with an accident that set the house in an uproar, and came near
precipitating a panic. His assistant, who had succeeded in getting out
of the basket, snapped in two a small iron rod he used for sliding the
panel, and despite a long and desperate effort could not succeed in
opening the box. All he could do was to come from behind the screen,
walk to the foot-lights and beg to be excused. An expert rope-tier had
secured the box, as one of the committee called upon to do so, and the
audience crediting the expert with the failure of the trick, cried
fraud, and grew greatly excited. They would listen to no explanation
until Leonard Grover, then manager of the Adelphi, came forward and
promised that the trick would be performed later in the evening, and
that, in the meantime, the box should remain in full sight of the
audience, both of which promises were faithfully kept.
As it always takes some time to do this trick, the magician has some
kind of a "ghost story" fixed up to entertain his audience. An old
ex-conjurer, writing in _Scribner's Monthly_ on the subject, gave the
following talk, with which he usually diverted his patrons while his
assistant was getting into the box:--
"And _apropos_ of spiritualism," I would say, "I will, with your
permission, relate the adventure of a servant girl at a spiritual
seance. Miss Honora Murphy, a young female engaged in the honorable
and praiseworthy occupation of general housework merely to dispel
_ennui_, not hearing in some time from the 'b'y at home' to whom she
was engaged to be 'marrid,' was advised by the 'gerrl next doore' to
consult the spirits. Miss Murphy objected at first on the ground that
she had taken her 'Father Matchew seventeen year afore in her parish
church at home an' niver drunk sperrits,' but finally concluded to
follow the advice. The result I shall give you as detailed by her to
her friend:"--
"How kem I by the black eye? Well, dear, I'll tell yer. Afther what yer
wur tellin' me, I niver closed me eyes. The nixt marnin' I ast Maggie
Harnahan, the up-stairs gerrl, where was herself. 'In her boodoore,'
sez Maggie, an' up I goes to her.
"'What's wantin', 'Nora?' sez she.
"'I've jist heerd as how me cousin's very sick,' sez I, 'an' I'm that
frettin', I mus' go an' see her.'
"Fitter fur yer ter go ter yer wurruk,' sez she, lookin' mighty crass,
an' she the lazy hulks as niver does a turn from mornin' till night.
"'Well, dear, I niver takes sass from anny av 'em, so I ups an' tould
her, 'Sorra taste av wurk I'll do the day, an' av yer don't like it,
yer can fin' some wan else,' an' I flounced mesel' out av the boodoore.'
"Well, I wint to me room ter dress mesel,' an' whin I got on me
sale-shkin sack, I thought av me poor ould mother--may the hivins be
her bed!--could only see me, how kilt she'd be intoirely. Whin I was
dressed I wint down-stairs, an' out the front doore, an' I tell yer _I
slammed it well after me_.
"Well, me dear, whin I got ter the majum's, a big chap wid long hair
and a baird like a billy-goat kem inter the room. Sez he:--
"'Do yer want to see the majum?'
"'I do,' sez I.
"'Two dollars,' sez he.
"'For what?' says I.
"'For the sayants,' sez he.
"'Faix, it's no aunts I want to see,' sez I, 'but Luke Corrigan's own
self.' Well, me dear, wid that he gev a laugh ye'd think'd riz the roof.
"'Is he yer husban'?' sez he.
"'It's mighty 'quisitive ye are,' sez I, 'but he's not me husban', av
yer want ter know, but I want ter larn av it's alive or dead he is,
which the Lord forbid!'
"'Yer jist in the nick er time,' sez he.
"'Faix, Ould Nick's here all the time, I'm thinkin', from what I hear,'
sez I.
"Well, ter make a long story short, I ped me two dollars, an' wint into
another room, an' if ye'd guess from now till Aisther, ye'd never think
what the majum was. As I'm standin' here, 'twas _nothin' but a woman_!
I was that bet, I was a'most spacheless.
"'Be sated, madam,' sez she, p'ntin' to a chair, an' I seed at wanst
that she was a very shuperior sort o' person. 'Be sated,' sez she. 'Yer
mus' jine the circle.'
"'Faix, I'll ate a thriangle, av yer wish,' sez I.
"'Yer mus' be very quite,' sez she. An' so I sot down along a lot av
other folks at a table.
"'First, I'll sing a him,' sez the majum, 'an' thin do all yees jine in
the chorus.'
"'Yer mus' axcuse me, ma'am,' sez I. 'I niver could sing, but rather
than spile the divarshun o' the company, av any wan'll whistle, I'll
dance as purty a jig as ye'll see from here to Bal'nasloe, though it's
mesel' as sez it.'
"Two young whipper-snappers begin ter laugh, but the luk I gev' em soon
shut 'em up.
"Jist then, the big chap as had me two dollars kem into the room an'
turned down the lights; in a minit majum, shtickin' her face close to
me own, whispers:
"'The sperrits is about--I kin feel 'em!'
"'Thrue for you, ma'am,' sez I, 'fur I kin smell 'em!'
"'Hush, the in_flu_ence is an me,' sez the majum. 'I kin see the lion
an' the lamb lying down together.'
"'Begorra! It's like a wild beastess show,' sez I.
"'Will yer be quite?' sez an ould chap nex' ter me. 'I hev a question
to ax.'
"'Ax yer question,' say I, 'an' I'll ax mine. I ped me two dollars, an'
I'll not be put down.'
"'Plaze be quite,' sez the majum, 'or the sperrits 'll lave.'
"Jist then kem a rap on the table.
"'Is that the sperrit of Luke Corrigan?' sez the majum.
"'It is not,' sez I, 'for he could bate any boy in Kilballyowen, an' if
his fist hit that table 'twould knock it to smithereens.'
"'Whist?' sez the majum; 'it's John's Bunions.'
"'Ax him 'bout his progress,' sez a woman wid a face like a bowl of
stirabout.
"'Ah, bathershin!' sez I. 'Let John's bunions alone and bring Luke
Corrigan to the fore.'
"'Hish!' whispers the majum; 'I feel a sperrit nare me.'
"'Feel av it has a wart on its nose,' sez I, 'for be that token ye'll
know it's Luke.'
"'The moment is suspicious,' says the majum.
"'I hope yer don't want to asperge me character,' sez I.
"'Whist!' sez she; 'the sperrits is droopin.'
"'It's droppin' yer mane,' sez I, pickin' up a small bottle she let
fall from her pocket.
"'Put that woman out,' sez an ould chap.
"'Who do ye call a woman?' sez I. 'Lay a finger on me, an' I'll scratch
a map of the County Clare on yer ugly phiz.'
"'Put her out!' 'Put her out!' sez two or three others, an' they med a
lep for me. But, holy rocket! I was up in a minute.
"'Bring an yer fightin' sperrits,' I cried, 'from Julus Sazar to Tim
Maconle, an' I'll bate 'em all fur the glory av ould Ireland!'
"The big chap as had me money kem behin' me, an' put his elbow in me
eye; but me jewel, I tassed him over as if he bin a feather, an' the
money rowled out his pocket. Wid a cry av 'Faugh-a-ballah!' I grabbed
six dollars, runned out av the doore, an' I'll never put fut in the
house ag'in. An' that's how I kem be the eye."
A story like this gives the magician's assistant plenty of time to work
the trick. Sometimes a magician whose confidence in his assistant is
not strong, or whose paraphernalia is limited, will have only the box,
and will satisfy himself with merely "tying" his assistant in a sack
on top of the box. This way the trick is surer and a great deal easier
than when the basket is used.