If anybody desires to be ghastly in his trickery, he may cut a man's head off and put it in a platter a yard from his body. This is done by causing a board, a cloth, and a platter to be purposely made with holes in each to fit a boy's neck. The board must be made of two planks, the longer and broader the better; there must be left within half a yard of the end of each plank half a hole, that both the planks being put together, there may remain two holes like those in a pair of stocks. There must be made, likewise, a hole in the cloth; a platter having a hole of the same size in the middle, and having a piece taken out at one side the size of the neck, so that he may place his head above; must be set directly over it; then the boy sitting or kneeling under the board must let the head only remain upon the board in the frame. To make the sight more dreadful, put a little brimstone into a chafing-dish of coals, and set it before the head of the boy, who must gasp two or three times that the smoke may enter his nostrils and mouth, and the head presently will appear stark dead, and if a little blood be sprinkled on his face, the sight will appear more dreadful. This is commonly practised with boys instructed for that purpose. At the other end of the table, where the other hole is made, another boy of the same size as the first boy must be placed, his body on the table and his head through the hole in the table, at the opposite end to where the head is which is exhibited.
CHAPTER XXXI.
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.
Fig. 1.
Fig. 2.
