MESMERIC HUMBUG.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1943, 17 May 1880, Page 3

MESMERIC HUMBUG.

A trial took place at Vienna the other day the result of which will not bo received with much favor by those who put their trust in “ mediums.” A spiritualist professor, named Hanson, who has acquired considerable notoriety at Vienna and Pesth during the last few months, recently requested any one of the spectators to come on to the platform, and undertook to mesmerise him against his will. The challenge was accepted by a young man named Fischer, and the professor, despite his artistic passes, failed to produce any effect upon him. Fischer began to banter the professor, and told him that ho was only a “vile imposter,” for the use of which expression he was summoned before tie district magistrate and fined a hundred florins. The professor, however, did not look upon this as a sufficient reparation for his injured honor, and commenced a fresh suit in order to prove that he was really capable of doing what ho professed to do. He called as a witness a young man who had always appeared an excellent medium upon the platform, and who at the bidding of tho professor was in the habit of falling into a trance and of holding communication with spirits from the other world; but when he came to be crossexamined by the counsel for the defence he confessed that he had only been shamming temporary death, and to tho great amusement of the Court proceeded to demonstrate how the trick was done. The consequence was that Professor Hansen lost his suit, and he muse now regret that he was not content to accept ' the hundred florins first awarded him.