Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1899-12-03
INVESTIGATING AN OLD TRICK.

Feur Mon. Each UsinE One Finger. Lift :
Heavy Plate.
"A few of us have lately been exper-
imenting with the old trick of lifting
people on ones finger tips" said a
young man who lives at fashionable
boarding house on St. Charles street,
according to the New Orleans Times
Democrat. Our purpose was to OBJ
tain some accurate intelligent data on
a very mysterious phenomenon, and we
kept careful record of everything we
did. Some Of the results were very sur
prising. We began by lifting living
person. One Of our party lay down at
full length on an extension table and
two of us stood at each side, opposite
his shoulders and knees. At given
signal all five took ten deep breaths in
unison, then each of the four at the
sides placed one finger of the right
hand under the PROSTATE mans body
and lifted, meanwhile holding our
breath. In the majority Of trials, say
three out of five, he came up without
perceptible effort, and several times he
was lifted as high as we could stretch
our arms. There is absolutely no sense
of weight and the thing is SO absurdly
easy that each man at the table is
bound to feel vaguely suspicious that he
has been tricked and that the others
really do the lifting. felt so myself
until common sense convinced me that
DIT was utterly impossible. The highest
! of our subjects weighed 149 pounds and
no four people on earth could ordinarily
lift a man of that size on their finger
| tips without visible strain. We tried a
great many variations, but the plan l
have described was the only one that
| proved generally successful. The es-
sential point seemed to be to secure
certain rhythm in breathing, and when
even we hit the lift was made with I'M
failing certainty; but if any one of us
broke step, so to speak, the experiment
! failed. We were all deeply in earnest,
so we had no trouble on account of
giggling or Mysteries. | was lifted re-
peatedly myself, and the feeling is in
describable. Floating in water is as
near as l can come to it.
after great many experiments
with living people," continued the
speaker, 1--WE tried inanimate objects.
I'VE took square iron plate weighing
! 1874 pounds, formerly used in hearth,
and placed it on stool. Four of us
stood at the corners and went through
I the same routine that | have already
notwithstanding in unison and
then suddenly lifting. To our great
surprise this experiment proved fully
as successful as the other and in 40
record trials the plate went up 26 times.
Such a test, by the way, is danger
Gus, because if there is the slightest
catching of the breath while the heavy
object lifted is in the air it instantly
comes crashing DOWN with it's full
weight. Several Of us narrowly es-
capped being hurt by the iron slab and
that suggested another and very in
teresting device.
1--WE took a large spring steelyard,
graduated up to 200 pounds, and made
it self-registering by attaching bit
of pencil to the pointer and putting
slip of paper over the scale. Then we
hooked it into a ring in the floor and
fastened the other end to the underside
of short piece of plank. The plank
was supported across couple of chairs
and we tried lifting it exactly as we did
the iron slab. That put a tension on
the steelyard, and the effect was ex
actly as if we were lifting something
that grew heavier and heavier the high
er it went Our breathing had no eff
feet whatever on the spring, but the APP
paratus, while crude was valuable in
showing our normal lifting power. We
found we were unable to get above -
pounds without clearly perceptible eff
fort, and to register 20 pounds re-
fquired pronounced exertion Of course,
we could push the board up on our
four finger tips until the pointer stood
at 100, but that was gynnastic feat
that strained every muscle. We found
that the raising of the 184 pound slab
I required infinitely less apparent force
than the registering of 10 or u pounds
on the steelyard. That disposes of the
theory that the weight was so divided
we didn't feel it
Now, how is one to account for all
this? To me it is unaccountaIble. 1t
looks like a clear inversion of the law
| of gravitation. and the experiments are
so simple that any five people who are
| serious and sensible can perform them
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