Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1900-06-21
SCIENCE. NOT BENEFITED.
a Hypnotic Test That Was Brought
TO Naught bysa SMALL Field %ss
Mouse.


to Nnught bysa SMALL Field as.
Mouse. 81
"One of the queerest experiences Of
my whole career, and I've had lots Of
'em," said well-known theatrical adj
vance agent who was in town a few
days ago, relates the New Orleans
Times Democrats, happened in the
fall of 1896, when / was acting as
business manager, press boomer,
ticket taker and liar-in.ordinary for
q hypnotist who was making tour
of the small towns in southern Illi-
nois, Indiana and Ohio.
''The professor was pretty smooth
old falkir, but his show was lacking
in novelty, and we were trying des-
perately to think up some sensations
al feature when we encountered a
chap named O'Brien, who was pro-
fessional horse for mesmerists. A
horse is stage slang for a ready-made
subject. who submits to all sorts of
tests, and this fellow suggested that
we stir up 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
it into execution. We were at a
bustling town on the Ohio river at
the time, and we announced that on
such and such a day Prof. would
throw a man into a trance, nail him
up in a coffin and bury him eight
feet deep, where he would remain for
49 houcs. The disinterment and open
ing 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 In
dian hypnotic trance test and O'Brien
figured as wealthy traveller who had
consented to submit to the ordeal
purely in the interest of SCIENCE
"OE course, there were any number.
of details that had to be arranged"
continued the agent, 'but the burial
finally came off according to pro
gramme. Long practice at what is
called the sleep test made it com
paratively easy for O'Brien to lie
quiet for a couple of days and danger
from suffocation was avoided by
three-inch wooden tube, which con-
nected the coffin with the outer air.
The affair created immense excite
meut in the vicinity, and we easily
per suaded aTdozen notoriously hungry
citizens to act as committee to
watch the grave by shifts. and see
that no food or stimulants were passed
down the tube, and, needless to say.
thu: whole town came-out to keep them
company. Folks talked in awed whis-
pers of the unconscious man lying
down there in the cold, dark ground;
a number of prominent physicians
certified to the genuineness of the
trance. Everything was pointing to
4 tremendous success, when just at
dusk the first day frightful mishap
occurred.
"a small field mouse darted sud
denly out of the grass, made two or
three bewildering dashes. and fell
headlong into the wooden air tube.
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 whatever, the yell
was deeply horrifying, while the eff.
feet upon others may possibly be.
imagined, but never adequately de-.
scribed. Women tainted and men be-
came hysterical, and all the while
those hideous shrieks kept pouring
swiftly out of the tube. RI
"Well, to make long story short,
shovel brigade was organized, and
in less than ten minutes O'Brien was
reached and hauled out. He was then.
in a state of limp collapse, but he had
strength enough to denounce the test.
as fake and declared that we had.
inveigled him into it by taking advan-
tage of his poverty. When he got.
that far along the professor and I.
quietly slipped away and left town
unostentatiously on a freight. The
crowd was certainly in lynching tenn
per. 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 cpl.
sode resulted in the passage Of or
dinances prohibiting the burial test
in scores of northern cities''
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