Los Angeles herald., 1909-10-24

the boy clad in the same bright hued turban, leaps
lightly from the wicker prison, smiling and happy and
showing not the slightest trace of having been run
through by the keen blade Of the far which had been
lunged through the basket.
81 shall now" continues Mr.. Darlington, 'explain
this apparent marvel. The instant that the boy Is
with the blanket he proceeds to divest him
self of his jacket and turban, which he deposits in
the bottom OF the basket He now gradually sinks
into the basket until he is completely inside of it, and
the lid is with the top of the basket The lower
portion of the basket is much larger than the top por
ton The boy manages to curl his body around the
basket eel wise, occupying the entire outer rim of
basket and leaving the part of the basket directly
under the opening, the centre, empty
Safe Sword Play
"When the jugger runs his sword through the bas
ke he takes special pains to send it through the unoc
cupied space. The concealed boy wggles from place
to place. and the juggler is thus enabled to run his
sword through every portion of the basket IN turn and
to give the appearance OF its compete emptiness. II
will be seen that the 1uggler can place his hand
inside the basket and remove the discarded jacket
and turban at any time. He can also take off the lid
and stamp and sit in the basket since the space he
occupies is that left unoccupied by the boy in the
basket. So long the blanket Is over the opening
in the basket the boy can never be seem"
All the rest is simple enough. The weird passes
in the air the motion of catching is to distract the at
tention of the spectators while the boy is dressing
Sometimes the boy is found sitting in tree after the
narrowing performance of piercing the basket This
state of affairs is usually due to there being two boys
nearly alike that the of striking article of
apparel will at least give that Illusion.
One stays in the tree, and the one in the basket
makes good his escape under the of blanket and
with the aid of confederate when the attention of the
beholders is distracted. Often when only boy is
employed he is enabled to escape from the basket
some pretext other, and he can then appear in
neighboring tree.
Mystifcation always waits on the dry sand trick
of the Hindus. The operator is to place hand
full of dry sand in the bottom of a pail of water
then after dipping in his hand he brings the sand to
the surface and Immediately blows it about showing
It to be perfectly dry The sand is specially treated
for this performance. Clean sharp sand is first thor
oup wa q
in it, 1t is then placed in frying pan with lard and
heated until all the grease is burned out of it. This
leaves perfectly smooth, even sand which resists
the action of the water.
Diving Tricks.
Diving tricks of various kinds are employed by the
fakirs The commOnest one is performed with the
use of small toy duck which floats upon the surface
of bowl Of wafer and recedes whenever spectator
approaches it. The operator has made minute hole
in the bottom of the bowl through which he has
drawn hair. The upper end OF the halr is attached
fo the duck by means of a small bit of The
fact that there is leak in the bowl is concealed by
the juggler spilling little water as though accl
He controls the movement of the duck by manipu-
onp tbe hair or thread which is attached to his
leo The test is usually performed on dark ground
Another diving trick is performed by means of small
rabbit in pail of water which is hurled out by means
of spring bent double The spring is held in place by
piece of sugar and is released when the sugar has
melted.
Western mind consists of placing stone under small
basket The basket is removed and instead of stone
is scorpion or snake The basket is again taken up
and a flock of small birds IS revealed.
The substitution Of the snake for the stone is merely
ordinary sIeight of hand-something the order of
tbe nea under the walnut she'll The birds in
Hack cloth bag which introduced into the basket
when the attention was fixed upon the snake. The
bag is then opened and the birds released.
OF snake charming Mr., Darlington says that it APP
nears to be genuine The often repeated voluntary
interment of the Hindu necromaneers he finds to be
in most cases fraudulent for the called had
a means of communication with hollow tree which
would serve means of escape or for purposes of
ventilation. The end of the coins are so prepared
that they may removed by the fakir thus enabling
him to get much needed repose against the day of
his disnterment.
The rope trick, which is supposed to consist Of
sending small boy to climb robe suspended in air to
some invisible support Mr. Darlington does not credit
at all and explains 1t probably due to hypnotism
This trick is said to have been photographed only the
plate showed nothing. He concludes that there are
in spite of the many tricks which employed, some
real wonder workers among the Hindus and many
who possess mediumistic power.