Fig. 301.
The only point that remains to be explained is the difficulty which will probably already have suggested itself to the reader, viz., “How does the performer manage to show the basket empty at the close of the trick?” Simply by having the basket made on the principle of the “inexhaustible box,” described at page [391]. The performer takes care to tilt the basket over to the front before he raises the lid. This leaves the lady lying on the true bottom of the basket (see [Fig. 302]), while a moveable flap, fixed at right angles to the bottom, and lying in its normal position flat against the front of the basket, for the time being represents the bottom to the eyes of the audience. While the basket is thus shown apparently empty, the lady who first appeared in the trick comes forward, and is immediately recognized by the audience; and as they are fully persuaded that she was the person placed in the basket, the inference that she has escaped from it by some quasi-supernatural means seems inevitable.
The above is the form in which the trick was first introduced to the London public, but another modus operandi has since been adopted by some performers. The low table or bench on which the basket is placed is in this case constructed on the principle of the Sphinx-table, with looking-glass between the legs, and with a large trap in the top. The basket used is not made like the inexhaustible box, but the bottom is moveable, and hinged against the front, so as to lift up flat against it when required. One lady only is employed. When she is about to step into the basket, the bottom is pushed up from below, and she thus steps through the basket and the table, and thence passes, through a trap-door, beneath the stage. The basket is then closed, and the bottom allowed to fall back into its place. As the basket is left in this case empty, the performer may thrust into it in any direction at pleasure, the screams being uttered by the lady from her safe quarters below. At the proper moment the performer lifts the basket bodily off the table, and shows it really empty, while the lady, as in the former case, reappears in some other quarter.
Electrical Tricks.—Some of the most mysterious of the stage tricks are performed by means of electricity, or, to speak more correctly, of electro-magnetism. In describing these, which are nearly all attributable to the inventive genius of Robert-Houdin, it may be desirable, in the first place, to explain in a few words what electro-magnetism is, and how it operates. Every school-boy is acquainted with the ordinary steel horseshoe magnet, and knows that if the accompanying small iron bar, or “keeper,” is placed within a short distance from its ends or “poles,” it will be sharply attracted to them. In the case of the ordinary magnet this attractive force is permanent, but in that of the electro-magnet it may be produced or destroyed at pleasure. The electro-magnet consists of a short piece of soft iron, (either straight, or bent into a horseshoe form), with copper wire (covered with silk or cotton) wound round and round it nearly to the ends. If a current of electricity from a galvanic battery is made to pass through this wire, the iron core becomes powerfully magnetic, the attractive force, however, ceasing as soon as the current is interrupted.
Fig. 302.
Fig. 303.
Almost any kind of battery may be used to produce the necessary current, but for magical purposes one of the most convenient is the Bichromate Bottle Battery, depicted in [Fig. 302]. This consists of a plate of zinc and a plate of carbon (or sometimes two plates of carbon) immersed in an exciting fluid, consisting of two ounces and a half of bichromate of potash dissolved in a pint of water, with the addition of one-third of an ounce of sulphuric acid. The bottle is only filled to the top of the spherical portion, and the zinc is so arranged that it can be drawn up into the neck, and so out of the solution, when it is desired to suspend the action of the battery. The wires for conducting the current should be of copper covered with silk or cotton, and one of them must be connected with the zinc plate, and the other with the carbon plate of the battery, which has “binding screws” affixed for this purpose. For the purpose of instantly completing or disconnecting the electric circuit, the wires are affixed to the opposite sides of what is called a connecting stud (see [Fig. 303]), being a circular disc of wood or porcelain, with a moveable stud or button in the centre. On pressing this stud with the finger, the ends of the two wires are brought in contact, and the circuit is completed; but as soon as the pressure is removed, the stud rises by the action of a spring, and the circuit is again broken.