The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-09-01
THE CASE OF MOLLIE FANCHER
A Psychological Marvel.

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 June g. 1865. beautiful sirl Is year.
 old was passing up Fulton Street
 Brooklyn. in d car. Near hei des.
 tination she signaIed the conductor tt
 stop the car. He did so. The young
 lady stepped to the street. the con.
 ductor rang the bell, the ear whirled
 ef,. BE. the girl had on one of the
 hoopskfrts 20 generally worn by wo-
 men in those da.c. It caught upon
 the car step. the lady was dragged
 almost a block, adding one more to the
 tragic list of accidents caused Dy
 feminine long clothes. : The girl, Mollie Faricher twas awlui-
 ly hurt, her spine being permanently
 injured. Violent spasms began Fep.
 [. 1866, alternating with frances and
 cataIeptic attacks, which at length
 made her case the puzzle of medical
 science.
 It IS now tife thirty-s:x year that
 Miss Fanchcr hes lain in the same
 room, upon the same side of the same
 bed and upon the same side of her body
 The present generation was not born
 when she lay down upon that couch of
 suffering. Pain Is in her head or
 heart or sope part of that tortured body always except during the strange trance state which with her takes the place of sleep. We are all spirits prison in bodies. but Mollie Fancher is half released, so that her chains gall and tug mercilessly at her conscious ness in this life.
 The worst trouble seems to lie at the base of the brain. There Is spot at the back of her head which If 1t be LA xxytIl mi Ira her unconscious. un the years she has lain tpon he. bed her father, brother and sister and the beloved aunt to whose care her dying mother left her in child hood have all passed away one by one, yet for some strange reason she. the tortured one, who has prayed and longed to go all these years, remains. The terrible spans from which she has suffered have drawn her lower limbs backward and twisted them in what her physician has called 8 three twist"
 And yet in the appearance of the in- valid there is no sign of suffering. She looks like beautiful spirit imprisoned here to. show mortals that there really are beautiful spirits. No one would guess her to be more than 26 years old, though she is 53. Her skin Is like an fair and rosy. and light blonde hair curls softly about her face. Her hands and arms are of perfect beauty, At for sculptor's model.
 Miss Tancher affords to the psychol- ogist 6 case unparalleled on the earth today. The one most like her was the seeress of Provost. who was chained in the body in much the same way and who said to he. physician: T am as one detained at the moment of dissolu- tion between life and death. I seem out of myself to hover above my body and think of 1t as something apart from myself"
 Mollis Fancher. prisoned upon her bed, yet travels. She never sleeps as we understand the term, but passes Then she seems to fly over the earth at will. to follow her friends to their homes in various places and watch their movements as if they were present with her. Time and again her report of what they were doing when she has thus visited them has been exactly verified. She seems to herself to glide or float upon the air from place to place, noting objects and persons. It Is easiest for her to follow the movements of those she loves best. Persons, and they are not a few, who have in sleep experienced the sensa- tion of flying hither and thither to dif- ferent localities will understand The impression of floating through the air Is even more vivid than the ordinary one has of walking. And yet. while Mollie Fancher is conscious of moving through the air in visiting different spots. her poor body lies upon It's bed. seeing, knowing nothing, her face deathlike.
 Which Is Mollie Fancher-that which Is conscious of travelling through space or that which lies in her home, abso- lutely knowing nothing?
 The strangest episode of this strange life came in the nine years beginning the latter part of May, 1866. At tha. time Miss Fancher went into a trance from which she walked normally Then followed another. Tn frances al- ternating with terrible spasms she lived nine years. The convulsions were So terrible that sometimes for hours her body would be doubled around like a hoop After the muscular rigidity passed she would seem to be taken possession of by some other entity. Five different beings seemed to mani fest through her. During all these nine years her right arm remaine'' drawn up behind her head. Her leff arm she could move, but her handf were tight clinched axcept the thumb and foreflnger of each. After a time she became wholly blind So far as eye sight was concerned, and her physi- clans proved 1t, yet with hands at the back of her head. with the two uncon- tracted thumbs and fingers she dh exquisite embroidery and .peedlework. made wax flowers and wrote in the nine years $500 letters in a beautiful hand. Her eyes remained tight shut and could only be opened by force. She told those around her that she saw