The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-01-31
L "psYCHosCopE"
programme possession Daggt

are ready to believe that most anything
can be done with the aid of machinery
held up their hands and exclaimed. "Who
would have thought such a thing pos
sible?" They thought mechanism would
stop at recording the minds impressions
ard the new continuance is something of a
poser to most of them.
Apropos of this marvel it is recalled
that Rollin M. Daggett, ex-Minister to the
Hawaiian Islands, and Joseph T. Goodman,
the gentleman who has solved the Aztec
calendar and who has recently returned
from an archaeological investigation at
kenslngton museum, England, wrote q
play in Virginia City nearly twenty-five
years ago called the Psychoscope. 1t con-
tanned character, Percy Gresham ian in
ventor) played by the lamented John Nc
Cullough, who had succeeded in inventing
just such continuance as has been
brought out by the Washington man, and
which he uses in the play to fix crime
upon the right person, who is permitted to
go at large while Percy Gresham is serving
life sentence for the crime of the other
man.
Mr.. Daggett, in a conversation yester-
day, outlined the plot of the 'Psycho-
scope" and said:
Thomas Edison was in Virginia at the
time the play was put OH in Piper's Opera
house, Thursday evening, August Is, 1871,
and said to me: Mr.. Daggett, you have
merely anticipated what is bound to occur
in electrical mechanism and that machine
you have created for your play will be in
vented before you are dead l thought
nothing more of the matter until / was
confronted by the newspaper announce
ments OF the Washington invention.
''As the play went, one Amos Royalton,
stock and mining broker, has a daughter
named Lucy, who is in love with Percy
han inv inf r1la hyy
John Mccullough. who is without suffi-
cient funds to pursue his experiments in
electricity. Lucy secures the loan of $1,000
for him from her father, and the day Amos
Royalton pays the money TO Gresham he
goes back to his office to get paper he had
left there. Upon entering his rooms he is
attracted by a dim light and upon further
investigation finds one Robert Fairbanks,
his confidential clerk, in the act of robbing
the safe. Fairbanks. who sees no way of
escape, takes an iron bar with which he
had previously effected an entrance in the
rear of the Office, and brains his employer.
"He strikes him twice, and has the bar
raised to deliver the third when knock
on the front door causes Inn to hesitate.
almost Immediately Gresham enters
and Fairbanks disappears through the
| back door. Gresham finds Royalton dy-
/ ing, and yells murder, which results in
/ bringing in the police, and the officers sr-
rest him as the guilty one, when, in re-
| atty, he has returned to the money broker
to restore him the sum of 500, which Mr..
Royalton had overpaid the inventor when
he loaned him the $1,000 earlier in the day.
| OF course the other $1,000 is found on the
| person Of Gresham and is considered evil
dence that he stole it from Royalton. The
result is that he goes to Sing Sing for life.
| Lucy believes him innocent, and there is
woman who is sort of go-between for
them TO carry messages, and she keeps
/ him posted on what is going on on the out
| side. Finally, Lucy, woman like, engages
| herself to Robert Fairbanks. knowing
nothing of the fact that he is the murderer
| of her father. Gresham hears of it and
sets to work to break out.
"When he was put in prison he was
allowed to go on with his electrical ex-
| periments, and his tools were permitted
in his cell. He was regarded as slightly
| off, anyhow, because of the fact of his
| being wrapped up in his experiments, and
was regarded as harmless. All the time
! he was in confinement he was working on
his psychoscope, and had about completed
| it when one night he heard a scratching
near the base of his cell. He heard it for
several nights, and finally, while looking
| for the exact spot, a brick was removed,
and then another, until a space large
/, enough to admit a man was made, and
! then from the adjoining cell convict
crawled and grabbed Gresham by the
| throat, warning him not to make an out
cry or he would strangle him.
| THE convict turned out to be q man
! who was trying to escape, and feared that
! Gresham would give him away. The two
men then formed a plot to get out, and
| Gresham told his companion that he in
| tended to remove the last barrier to liberty
| by burning down the iron. bars with cleo
| tricity, which he does before Jimmy, the
safe-cracker, who is dumfounded by the
operations of Gresham, and REGARDS him
as the devil. At any rate. they get out.
| and, to cut long story short, Gresham
dence of Lucy Royalton, where party is
| in progress and tableaus are being held
"He manages to get in the house to ex-
hibit his wonderful invention, and with
the assistance of Jimmy and a little fat
terry bestowed in the right place, succeeds