Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1900 — A STORY OF INDIAN MAGIC. [ARTICLE]

A STORY OF INDIAN MAGIC.

JUUkbte Account of a Trick That BaflUs Explanation. The following story of Indian magic is told ms by the person to whom it was told by the late Lord Lytton. 1 give it in- my own words, for the excellent though humiliating reason that I have mislaid the MS. When in India Lord Lytton often sought out conjurers, but never saw any but the usual feats, such as the mango-tree trick and the basket trick. The method in each case is known, or, at all events, plausible explanations have been given by Mr. Maskelyne and other experts. On one occasion Lord Lytton liked something in the looks of the conjurer who was performing in an open space before his house; After the ordinary exhibition his lordship asked the magician if he could not do something more out of the common way. The man said he would try, and asked for a ring, which Lord Lytton gave him. He then requested an officer to take in either hand a handful of seeds; one sort was sesame; the name of the other 6ort my informant does not know. Holding these seeds, and having the ring between his finger and thumb, the officer was to go to a well in the corner of the compound. He was to dispose of the seeds in a certain way—l think on the low wall round the well, into the depths of which he was to throw the ring. All this was done, and then the mage asked Lord Lytton where he would like the ring to reappear? He answered, “in his dispatch-box,” of which the key was attached to his watch-chain, or, at all events, he had it with him on the spot. The dis-patch-box was brought out; Lord Lytton opened it, and there was the ring.

This trick would be easy if the British officer was a confederate of j the juggler’s, and if he possessed a du-1 plicate key to the dispatch-box. In that dase he would not throw the ring into the well, but would take it into the house, open the box, and insert the ring. But this explanation involves enormous improbabilities, while it is unlikely, again, that the conjurer hadmanaged to insert a duplicate ring j into the dispatch-box before hand. Lord Lytton then asked the juggler if he could repeat the trick. He answered in the affirmative, and a lady lent another ring. Another officer took it, with the seeds, as before, and dropped the ring into the well. The countenance of the juggler altered in the pause which followed. Something, he said, had gone wrong; and he seemed agitated. Turning to the second officer, he asked: “Did you arrange the seeds as I bade you?” » “No,” said the officer, “I thought that was all nonsense, and I threw them away.” The juggler seemed horrified. “Do you think I do this by myself?” he said; and, packing up his apparatus, he briskly departed. The well was carefully dragged, and at last the lady’s ring brought to the surface. That ring, at least, had certainly been in the water. But had the first ring been as faithfully consigned to the deeps? Experts will be of various opinions as to that; yet the hypothesis of confederacy and of a duplicate key to the dispatch-box i 3 difficult. Of course, no report of a juggling trick can be trustworthy.— Longman’s Magazine.