A trick that is most frequently described is that known as the Basket trick, which is in my opinion the chef d'oeuvre of the Indian Jadoo-wallah. It is a wonderful bluff usually wonderfully shewn.
A perfectly good basket is placed on the ground. It is shewn to be quite empty and devoid of any trap, false bottoms or other mechanism. After a well conducted altercation with his assistant, a small boy, the performer tells him to get into the basket. The boy attempts to do so, but finds that it is too small to contain more than his feet and legs doubled up. The Jadoo-wallah presses forward the little boy's head and this leaves only his shoulders and back visible. A large cloth of thick texture is then thrown over the little boy who is half in and half out of the basket, and the lid is balanced on top of all. A little more altercation ensues when the Maestro takes a big stick and aims a mighty blow at the basket. As the blow falls the lid sinks down on to the top of the basket, and a terrible silence is the result.
The Jadoo-wallah realises that he has killed his assistant, and, if a good showman, bewails his lot suitably. He then decides to get rid of the body and, in some cases, to restore it to life again. In order to show that a tune on the "bean" has the required effect of making the body disappear, he lifts the lid of the basket and first with one foot and then the other steps on to the cloth covering the basket and presses it down to the bottom. There is nothing in the basket!
To further prove the emptiness of the basket he replaces the lid, through the middle of which there is a hole, and through this hole thrusts down in all directions a sword. Occasionally he thrusts it through the sides. There is nothing in the basket. The body has disappeared.
This ends the trick, though on occasions the performer orders the lad to re-appear from the end of the garden, or elsewhere.
The collection is made, the basket is hitched up on the shoulder pole and with his bag of tricks the Jadoo-wallah moves on to the next bungalow. How can it be done?
First let us note carefully the shape of the basket. It is oblong, about two feet high with a bulge in all its sides, so that the bottom of the basket is larger than the top.
When the boy gets into the basket he places both feet into it and sits down, filling the basket thus:—
