The Portland daily press., 1874-10-29
The Mind-Reader.

A Mr.. Brown of Iowa has convinced the
acute and erudite Yale professors who have
Notwithstanding him, that he has the power
ofdetecting the thoughts ofany one whom he
may encounter: He went through a rigid
examination by committee of Yale pro-
fessors before New Haven audience with
success which quite startled the witnesses
and convinced the committee that there was
no imposture in the matter. If he be not
humbug, psychology is about to- quit its
aerial sphere as speculative science and
come down to the earth as one Of the most
practical arts. If Browns art be commune
cable and susceptible of improvement so as
to get rid of the troublesome conditions now
necessary for its exercise seers shall soon be
as plenty as lawyers. And they shall no lon-
ger be awe-inspiring old gentlemen with
white boards and sepulchral voice, living in
caves as of old, but dapper little gentlemen
who will not disdain to live in fashionable
streets, pat glossy little tin signs on the cor
ners of their houses and ply their art for
lucre.
But they will be lonesome folk. IT they
want neighbors or friends they will take
good care not to advertise their trade. They
might as we'll advertise the cholera or small
pox. If Brown is the boy that the Yale
pundits think he is, the saints are the only
associates for him. Thieves, cheating poll
tcians, hypocrites and liars would sooner
meet the arch fiend than the clairvoyant
Brown. They would sooner have robbers
81, fba,, hfs ind
burglar, smashing through the defenses of
the brain and reveling in its arcana. Nor
need this ravisher of the souls dearest treas
ures work in the dark, skulking about to es
cape detection and punishment. He may
openly flch from its nook among
the convolutions of Vanderbt's brain Sc
cret worth say 100000, and the roaring old
king of stock,jobbery is wholly without rem
edy He may advertise his plumber in the
morning papers, and the only harm he shall
get from the disclosure will be the fear of
mankind. Casually looking over the cineri-
tious matter under the skull of John Norris
sey, just over the left ear, he may catch sight
of nascent purpose to punch some promi-
nent head among his associates, and get
his own punched in the region of the per-
ceptive qualities for disclosing the secret.
There is absolutely no limit to the fields OF
enterprise opened to the penetrating skill of
Mr.. Brown and his pupils. A rich old father
suspects that the coachman means to elope
with his daughter and implorcs this Column
bus of the mind to be so kind as to take
peep iuto the posterior regions of the varlet's
brain, where Cupid sits enthroned, and see
what passes there. A candidate for the legis-
lature is ncommitted-wholly SO = but
Browns aid being invoked, he finds the
nerve centers all aglow with concealed pur-
pose TO vote for Hamlin or Drummond or
Perham or Washburn. A minister who
breaches solely for his salary, and whose soul
is corrupt, will soon be forced to send in his
resignation. And Brown can tell whether
there is any heresy hiding in the cerebrum Of
an orthodox pastor-whether he is secretly
inclined unto Swing or is convinced by Tyn-
dali and the scientists. In short, he may be-
come the great disturber of the universe and
nobody can threaten him with an action at
law or restrain him by an injunction. But
the Brown family ought, in order to get the
most good possible out of them, to he saved
up for newspaper reporters as religiously as
the Levites were for the ministry. A repor-
. ter who can tell the news Of to-day and to-
morrow as well as yesterday will supply
great popular want. All these theories of
the possible practical uses of psychology rest
upon the genuineness of Brown, which is guar
anteed by party of scholastics who may be
little too credulous.