In regard to working on a subject of this kind before an audience, I wish to call your attention to a few valuable facts: Take a method that will induce sleep. Do not try to place your subject in somnambulism. They are not up there for show. They have come because they have hope, one of the grandest of human attributes. They have placed confidence in you, as an operator. They have watched your every act with feverish interest and they believe that you can cure them. Be courteous to them. Be grave and sober; impress your audience with the fact that there is nothing funny in this. Let them know that you are going to try to relieve some poor suffering human being of pain and discomfort. They will appreciate it and you will be doing something for the advancement of psychological studies.

Slowly, easily, carefully, I give this old gentleman the suggestions of sleep. My mind is absorbed in the task. I bend every effort to accomplish what the old gentleman desires. I forget the "laws of suggestion" and am the possessor of power for the time being. Ask any hypnotist who has had a career and he will tell you that, back in the days when he didn't understand a thing he did, back when he believed that he possessed a power, his work was always better, his successes were twice as numerous. And this may give the one who claims all for suggestion a few things to think about. He will be wafted back to the days of Mesmer and to days in which he believed the same theory. Who knows but that the mental influence is really the most powerful; that the spoken language loses some of its force ? Ask the philosopher who has delved in occult mysteries and made them his lifework. Don't ask the one who has recently finished a few "courses," for his wisdom is that of the idiot. "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!"

As I work, the perspiration trickles down my cheeks, but I see the old gray head nod and nod and finally drop to one side, while his breathing is deep and his lethargy pronounced.

I give him one or two simple little tests, such as telling him that, as he goes to sleep, his head will want to fall the other way. Then his head moves a little and is brought to the other side. I am on the road to success, and my suggestions are so intent that I have forgotten the audience, I have forgotten Belleville, I have forgotten all but this old man. And when I tell him that he will awake refreshed, that his rheumatism will be a thing of the past and that he can walk, I believe it with all my heart. That is the spirit of success. Be a good hypnotist or don't be one at all. Be an entertainer or a healer just as the case may be. Always enter upon your task whole-hearted and you will win.

As I step back and the old gentleman gradually awakens, there is not a sound in the hall. Every one has been rapt in attention just as I have been, and why not? Why should th,ey not catch the atmosphere of this intense concentration and feel what I feel ?

The old gentleman looks about him and arises. He smiles and walks down from the stage, leaving his crutch. Cheer after cheer echoes and reechoes through the hall. A cure has been effected.

When the excitement has subsided, I go on with my fever experiment. Taking one of the boys, I place him in a deep sleep and have the doctors take his temperature. This gives me an opportunity to rest, for I have become somewhat fatigued with my work on the patient.

CATALEPSY.

The physicians find the temperature normal. Standing before the boy I now give him the suggestions of a fever: "Your temperature is rising very fast, you are getting heated all over, you arc burning up with a fever!" And I keep this up with force, for it is necessary to make the suggestions powerful. I spend about three minutes on this and then have them take the temperature again. keeping up the suggestions all the time the test is being carried on. At the close of the experiment the temperature is found to be a degree-and-one-half above normal!

This interests the physicians and also proves instructive to the audience.

I have about twenty minutes left in which to give the remainder of my acts. Of course, the last one will be the stone-breaking act, but before then I will have to give a few good lively acts so that the last one will not grate too severely on the nerves of the timid spectators.

I call two of the boys forward and place them in chairs in the center of the stage. Looking at them, I operate as follows:

"Now, boys, when I pass my hands before your face one of you, this one over here, will be a barber and the other one will be the victim. The victim is in the shop to get a shave. Of course the razor will be dull and it will pull a great deal, but you have to stand it as it is the best shave that you can get. When I pass my hand before your face all this will transpire.

I step up to them and make a swinging pass before their faces and they are the characters so recently suggested. But it is necessary to make the act just as funny as possible, so I go to the wings and get a pail and a brush, such as are used for whitewashing purposes. These "properties*' are all looked after by the boys when we get into a town. I will explain that later on - after the performance is at a close.

For a razor I have a long, thin piece of board, nearly four feet in length. Handing these implements to the "barber" I await his action. For an apron he takes a large sheet of newspaper, which has also been given him, and pushing the victim down on the chair and placing his heels on the other one, he proceeds to tuck the apron in his neck. When that part is finished, he commences to lather his victim, making great sweeps as though painting a house. This takes about a minute to get the patron ready and then comes the scraping process. The board is smooth; if it were not I cannot say just what would be the fate of the man in the chair. This pleases the audience immensely, for they like to see things all out of proportion!