Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

THE MAGIC COFFERS.--These are round tin boxes, japanned to taste, and made generally about five inches in depth by three in diameter, though they are sometimes larger. (See Fig. 163.) The only speciality about them is a moveable portion a, which may either be removed with the lid or left upon the box, according as the lid is lifted with or without lateral pressure. This moveable portion is bottomed with a grating of parallel wires, an eighth of an inch apart. The coffers are generally worked in pairs, the effect produced by them being the apparent transmission of the contents of the one to the other, and vice versâ. They may be worked with various articles. For our present purpose we will suppose that the performer desires to change white haricot beans to coffee-berries, both of which suit the apparatus very well. He beforehand fills the one coffer with beans, and the moveable compartment belonging to it with coffee-berries, doing exactly the reverse as to the second coffer. The coffers are now brought forward, and the performer, removing the lids (with the moveable compartments), allows the spectators to satisfy themselves that each coffer is full to the bottom, and that the contents are nothing more or less than what they appear to be. This being established, he returns to his table, and again puts the lids on the coffers, taking care that that which contains the beans shall be placed on the coffer containing the coffee-berries, and vice versâ.