Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

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.