Though, in deference to public sentiment, the travelling 'professors' style themselves hypnotists, it is easy to see that they do so somewhat under protest, and that they much prefer the old name of 'mesmerism,' or, better still, 'animal magnetism."

Their method is the same all the world over. A certain number of previously-hypnotized subjects are scattered among the audience, and when the lecturer asks for persons to experiment on, these make a rush for the platform, and form a nucleus on which to work. Probably a few bona-fide strangers will lend themselves for experiment, and one way and another the platform will be well filled with candidates. The lecturer gives to each person a bright disc, which he is to look at steadily. In a few minutes he goes round, closes the eyes, and tells the subject that he is unable to open them. If he opens them, he is sent back to his seat among the audience; if not, he is reserved for further use, and is given a seat on the platform. A favourite plan with the experimenter is now to open the subject's mouth to its widest extent, turn him round so as to face the audience, and tell him he is unable to shut it. A friend of mine, a doctor in good practice, was so treated in a foreign watering-place, and his feelings when he was thus made a laughing-stock of a large assemblage of people were not enviable.

After these experiments in inhibiting voluntary motor action, the lecturer will go on to produce hallucinations of the senses, and will amuse his audience by showing what antics a human being can be made to perform when he has been deprived of the use of the higher brain functions. He can be made to think himself a general at the head of his army in battle, a school-boy being flogged, or an animal at the Zoological Gardens. Whatever he is told to believe is at once acted upon, and as the lecturer's object is to cause amusement, he finds it advantageous to make the actions outrageous, and to alternate the imaginary changes of condition as rapidly as possible. It is no wonder, therefore, that the unfortunate subjects complain the next day of malaise and mental confusion, and it is fortunate if no graver results follow.

The performance of such a person has about as much relation to psycho-therapeutics as the antics of a merry-andrew at a fair have to the practice of a Court physician. That such things should have been tolerated will probably be a subject of astonishment to our descendants.

A friend of mine a few years ago paid heavily for taking one of these men at his own valuation. He was much struck by the phenomena shown at a public performance, and had a conversation with the ' professor' afterwards, which further impressed him. The next day at his club, some of his friends said the whole thing was a fraud, and laughed at Mr. X------for believing the performance genuine. My friend waxed warm in argument, and offered to back his opinion by betting £100 that the 'professor ' would hypnotize two persons out of any ten selected by the unbelievers.

The bet was taken up by two members of the club, and Mr. X------stood to win or lose £200.

A supper was arranged, to which the 'professor' was invited, and ten young men selected from a South London football team were brought in after supper as subjects. Not one of them proved hypnotizable, and my friend lost his money.

The conditions were very unfair, as the young men had been told to resist: and to attempt to hypnotize a number of unwilling strangers after supper among a crowd of sceptical lookers-on was a task which no wise man would undertake. My experience would lead me to reckon that, under suitable conditions, eight out of the ten would have been more or less influenced; and probably two or three, after a trial or two, would have proved somnambulic.