The Indian box-and-basket trick was for a long time a mystery even among magicians, and now it puzzles astute people to understand how the young man or young woman who has been tied in a sack and placed under lock and key in a wicker basket on top of a box not only locked and sealed but tied in all directions with stout rope, can get out of the sack and basket and into the box within very few minutes. In 1873 Barnum paid £1,000 to a London trickster for the so-called mystery. This extraordinary feat which puzzled the knowing ones for so long a time was explained to me once by a magician, and will be found so simple as to astonish those who read the explanation. [Illustration: _Fig. 1._] [Illustration: _Fig. 2._] [Illustration: _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,