WANTED A CONJURER.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume V, Issue 256, 24 April 1865, Page 3

WANTED A CONJURER.

(From the Cross.)

It is recorded in connection with French supremacy in Algeria that there rose up a number of self-constituted fanatical high priests, who were well versed in mesmerism and electro-biology, and by the performance of what were supposed to be miracles, made a large number of converts. They preached a crusade against the French, and great annoyance was experienced by the French Government in consequence of the lc?s peaceable conduct of their subjects, and accordingly they dispatched a gentleman to Algeria—a professed manipulator of those sciences by which such influence was gained over the Arabs —with instructions to confute the fanatical priests by showing to their deluded adherents that they were impostors, and professed to do by supernatural agency wag produced by natural causes. This J’entlemnn was Monsieur Houdin, nho was a araous conjuror, and he immediately started off and commenced operations. The result was that the Arabs lost faith in their high priests, for they saw that the whole of their proceedings were tricks to delude them. Very great danger to the French Government in Algeria was thus averted, for it was one of the objects of the fanatics to expel the French. This is very nearly a parallel case to that of Pat Marirism in Now Zealand- As in Algeria, mesmesism is one of its agents. It

has also its high priest* professing to perform miracles, and one of the main objects of the fanatics is to expel Europeans from the Island. We all know bow much discomfited the Pai Marirea were when the Rev Samuel Williams challenged them to draw the Lady Bird on shore, for they made a precipitate retreat amidst the jeers of those who wore solicited to become converts, Butf this discomfiture was only partial. The Pai Marires would soon give a satisfactory reason why they did not accept Mr Williams’s challenge, and it is not improbable—for in fanaticism there are no bounds to credulity—tho more preposterous tho reason given tho more firmly it be received. Now.it strikes us that we want a Monsieur Houdin hero—some one to go amongst the natives, and show them tho impositions that have been practised upon them. Such a man as Captain Wilson, a medical mesmerist now practising in Canterbury, might do a world of good, particularly if ho were armed with a galvanic apparatus or electrical machine, and a few other helps, to enable him to “ astonish the natives.” It is really worth discussing whether £SOO a year, paid to some gentleman, would not do a vast deal of good, and be more likely to draw the natives from their fanatical leanings than pretending to shoot them when we don’t shoot them. Their reason would be appealed to ; the so-ca'led miracles of their high priests might be shown to be simple tricks, or as in the case of mesmerism, an art which some persons arc susceptible of, and others not. Wo do not suppose tho Government would go very readily into this anti-Pai Marire scheme, but this there is surely more reason in it than in the flour and sugar policy—for one appeals to the intellect, while the other appeals only to tho stomach, and the latter would, of course, be far less permanent. Who knows what a Professor Anderson or Jacobs might not do? Thev would be stamped at once as veritable Pai Marires; their wonderful performances would be the passport of their safety ; and when it became known that they achieved these wonders by a little dexterity and mechanical aids, Pai Marirism would probably become synonymous with that of a gross imposition.