The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-06-09
MOUSE ROUTS HORSE.
The Hypnotic Trance Test Proved
Dismal Failure.
New orleans Times-Democrat.)

(New Orleans Times-DemOcrat)
zone of the queerest experiences of
my whole career, and I've had lots of
EN-" said well known theatrical ad-
vance agent Who was in town a few
days ago, happened in the fall of 1896,
when 1 was acting as business man
ager, press boomer, ticket taker and
liar-in-ordinary for a hypnOtist who
was making tour of the small towns
| in southern Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.
| The professor was a pretty smooth old
fakiT, but his show was lacking in nov
city, and we were trying desperately to
| think up some sensational feature when
we encountered a chap named O'Brien,
who was professional horse for mes
merists. A horse is stage slang for a
ready-made subject, who submits to all
sorts of tests, and this fellow suggest
/ ed that we stir 10 a little excitement
| by burying him alive. OF course the
dodge is old now but it was fresh then,
| and we started at once TO put il into
execution. We were at busting town
on the Ohio river at the time, and we
announced that on such day Professor
- would throw a man into a trance,
nail him I'D in a coffin and bury him
eight feet deep, where he would remain
for forty-eight hours. The disinter-
ment and opening of the casket at the
opera house were events on which we
| depended to draw a huge crowd. The
whole affair was dubbed the great East
Indian hypnotic trance test, and
O'Brien figured as a wealthy traveller
who had consented TO submit TO the or
deal purely in the interest of science
of course, there were any number Of
details that had to be arranged con-
tinued the agent, but the burial fin
ally came off according to programme.
Long practice at what is called the
sleep test made it comparatively easy
for OBrien to lie quiet for a couple Of
days, and danger from suffocation was
| avoided by three-inch wooden tube,
which connected the coffin with the
outer air. The experiment created i'm
mense excitement in the vicinity, and
We easily persuaded a dozen VIGOROUSLY
hungry citizens to act as a committee
to watch the grave by shifts, and see
that no food or stimulants were passed
down the tube, and, needless to say, the
whole town came out to keep them
company. Folks talked in awed wills
pers of the unconscious man lying down
there in the cold, dark ground; a num-
Der of prominent physicians certified to
the .genuineness of the trance. Every
thing was pointing to a tremendous
success, when, just at dusk on the first
day frightful mishap occurred A
small field mouse darted suddenly out
/ of the grass, made two or three beWil-
dered dashes, and fell headlong into
the wooden air tube, At the next in
! slant the most awful, blood-freeZing,
inhuman howl ever heard by mortal
ears issued out of the bowels of the
earth Even to me. who knew O'Brien
was wide awake and in no peril what
ever the yell was deeply horrifying,
while the effect upon others may pos
sibly be imagined, but never adequately
! described. Women tainted and men be-
came hysterical, and all the while those
hideous shrieks kept pouring swiftly
out of the tube. Well. to make long
story short, shovel brigade was or
ganized, and in less than ten minutes
/ O'Brien was reached and hauled out
He was then in a state of limp col
lapse, but he had strength enough to
denOunce the test as fake, and de-
clared that we had inveigled him into
I 1t by taking advantage OF his poverty
When he got that far along the pro
fessor and I quietly slipped away and
iefs town unostentatiOusly on a freight
The crowd was certainly in lynching
temper. What happened to O'Brien
was merely a breakdown of nerve. He
was wrought up to a high pitch. any
how, and the mouse landing suddenly
! on his neck drove him insane with
panic for the time being. That episode
resulted in the passage of ordinances
prohibiting the burial test in scores of
| northern Cities