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.
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.
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:—