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the question may relate to something (such, | curring around us, and which we ourselves, for example, as at what time the patient did we have no doubt, are constantly contributa particular act) of which all present were ing to, of the influence of contact, or musignorant, and in solving which they could cular action aiding memory and concentrarender no mental assistance. The only ting attention during the waking state by solution, then, is that the tactual impression the pressure of the finger or hand against rouses the patient a little and brings him some part of the body, generally the forenearer the waking condition, or that it me- head or chin, sitting in a particular posture, chanically arrests or concentrates the atten- laying hold of a button, twisting a thread, tion in one direction. There is assuredly twirling a pen, and so forth, all of which nothing singular in this tactual prompting are familiar, every-day illustrations of the of a sluggard or jaded imagination. There kind of influence which may be brought to are examples without end perpetually oc- bear upon patients in the soundest state. And thus we establish the important practical fact, that any idea excited in the mind may be fixed and almost indefinitely or instantaneously recalled by establishing contact with any part of the body.

was nearing the port to which he was bound. A single gun was fired from the battery, and before the sound had died away he was awake. The shot, however, had suggested a battle-scene to his mind, and in the short period (not more than a few seconds) between the report and his awak- We have spoken of "double consciousening, he had dreamed through a most elaborate ness." By this term the neurhypnotists naval engagement, in which several ships had been dismantled, taken, or sunk, and he awoke mean it to be understood that a patient may amidst the shouts of the victors,-probably the be taught any thing during the nervous voices of the people on deck above him, which sleep if impressed upon the mind at the prostruck upon his ear just as he was emerging from per stage, and that he will be able to repeat the last stage of waking. This, however, by the his task with verbal accuracy whenever he way. We will concede thus much to Mr. Colquhoun, that there is an analogy between dreams be thrown into that state again, but shall and clairvoyance, when in either case, or in both have no consciousness or knowledge whatcases, the mind reverts to some thought or to ever of the act performed when in the ordisome act upon which it has previously dwelt, or nary waking condition. This interesting where the mind is affected by something which and important fact is proved by many cases has acted externally on the physical organization; but in neither case is it possible for the mind to mentioned by Mr. Braid, almost every atbe exact as to time, place, association, and cir- tempt to produce the phenomenon having cumstance, touching matters which have not pre-proved successful. One or two instances viously occurred, or which one had no reason to may be mentioned by way of illustration. expect would occur. Another observation or "A letter was written in the operating room two, which though, perhaps, not quite strictly applicable to the subject of the note, we will add and read to a patient of the name of Jones here. In the waking condition the attention is two or three times whilst he was in the diffused or dissipated by impressions on the vari-sleeping condition; by this time he was ous senses, the recollection of past impressions enabled to repeat it verbatim without and ideas created by the activity of the imagination, or drawn in by the perceptive powers; in prompting of any kind; the letter was then fact, we stand, as it were, in a circle of ever-vary- deposited in a drawer before he was roused. ing external agencies. In nervous sleep concep- The following day whilst asleep he was tion is hard at work; there seems to be an intense asked to repeat the letter which was read concentration of the attention to the subject with which the mind is engaged, whether it happen to to him the day previous, which he did with be of a mental or physical nature, and hence the verbal accuracy. When roused he was vigor and perfection of the function or manifesta- totally unconscious of having repeated any tion. The state of the circulation and condition thing. Two weeks afterwards he was put of the blood also play an important part in the induction of a higher state of excitability of the whole nervous system. The mesmerizers tell us with an air of triumph that Baron Cuvier has successfully tried the magnetic operation upon young children and upon brute animals, where the will and imagination of the subjects could effect nothing. Our answer to this is, that monotony and the fixing of the attention will effect every thing where the reason does not interfere. You may solve the difficulty by merely stepping into your poultry-yard. It is well known that, if you cause a fowl to look at a chalk line, he will soon become entranced. Whence the mag

netism here?

to sleep again and requested to write a copy of the letter, and he did write it correctly with the exception only of two unimportant words. Another patient, an Oxford student, in the presence of his brother, repeated accurately, whilst in the sleeping condition, a verse of the New Testament in English, French, German, Italian, Latin, and Greek, besides a few lines from a poem; and when roused he had no recollection of any thing beyond a confused idea of having repeated some poetry, but upon being put

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to sleep again he repeated every thing as the original operator, the consequence bebefore. Now this is not only an interesting ing that patients are sometimes so firmly but a valuable phenomenon, since it is a locked in magnetic sleep that they cannot provision under Providence against the be released for hours; or, as experience villany which might be perpetrated by caus- would prove, even for days! It is true that ing persons to sign deeds, &c., during this similar cases have occurred when patients peculiar sleep, in the hope that in the wak- have not been cross magnetized," and ing condition they would be ignorant of consequently it is not impossible that these the circumstances under which the signa- long-enduring trances are not the effect of ture was procured; simply by being hypno-" cross magnetism" at all; but it is certized they would at once be able to expose tain that the mesmerists have occasionally the fraud which had been practised upon very great difficulty in releasing their pathem." This phenomenon, too, be it re-tients, which, as far as we can learn, has marked, is precisely in accordance with never yet occurred to the hypnotists. what has been recorded of natural somnambulists.

But let the gentle reader steel his nerves and prepare for a startler! What would With respect to the comparative quick- be his emotions if we were gravely to asness with which effects are produced by sure him that the mesmerists claim a powthe mesmeric and hypnotic methods, we er over their patients equivalent (within rather think that the verdict must be in fa- worldly limits) to that which his Satanic vor of the latter. We have more frequent- majesty is said to have gained over Goethe's ly seen M. Lafontaine fail than succeed hero? And yet it is even so! The meswith new subjects, whereas at Mr. Braid's merists allege that, having operated upon a conversazione in London, at which many patient (the number of times is not speciprofessional men were present, in March fied!) they thereby acquire henceforward 1842, we saw him hypnotize a deaf and a perpetual power over him—that from that dumb man aged thirty-two, an adult who time forth for evermore he is subject to be had entered the room only a few minutes governed by the mesmerizer's will instead of before the operator proposed to try him, his own; in a word, that, by submitting to and who could consequently know nothing be mesmerized, he voluntarily surrenders of the proceedings; and, as the last experi- his liberty, and becomes the slave of his mesment of the evening, eighteen sat down at merizer for life! Now only follow out once, most of them entire strangers to the this extravagant conceit to its effects. If operator, and sixteen of them were speed- the mesmerizer be a burglar or highwayily in the hypnotic condition, Mr. Mayo man, or a murderer (and why shouldn't himself testing the reality of the phenome- he?), the patient becomes any of the three, non. Besides this greater expedition and or all three, as the case may happen, by certainty in producing the desired effect, sympathy, for what is to prevent his beneurhypnotism has this additional advan- coming particeps criminis? what is to pretage over mesmerism-an advantage, we vent his aiding and abetting? and at the take it, which will scarcely fail to recom- close of the drama what is to prevent his mend itself to the public-and, be it re-sharing the same cart at Tyburn? Beyond marked, we take the mesmerists upon their own showing they allege that any disease with which the operator may be afflicted is liable to be transferred to their patients, and therefore hold out a general caution to the former not to operate unless they be in the enjoyment of health and strength. It is not for us to determine what grounds there may be for this injunction; we are bound, we suppose, in common courtesy, to take it upon trust. But for hypnotism, we may say, that no such risk attends it; at any rate, its professors don't hint any thing of this kind. Then the mesmerized patients are liable to the perils and distresses of what is called "cross magnetism," which is being magnetized by other persons than

this we will not attempt to follow him, even in imagination, for the contemplation becomes too hot even for the heated conception of the mesmerist! As for the hypnotists, we are not aware that they yet claim any such curious attributes; at any rate, Mr. Braid does not hint any thing of the kind. Now, if we are not much mistaken, these outrageous extravagancies will eventually ruin mesmerism and blot it out of the list of accepted sciences. None will regret this more than ourselves, for we see in the science much that is valuable, much that may be turned to profitable account as a new and independent therapeutic remedy; indeed much has already been accomplished in this respect, and incalculably more will

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be accomplished if its professors do not crush the rising agency under a weight of folly and extravagance, alike a mockery of the understanding and a violence to the feelings of humanity.

contracted that she could not extend them, and it was with great pain, as well as with difficulty, that she moved about her apartment. Her hands and veins were also much affected, so that she was very helpless. Her pain was not only severe, but unremitting either by day or night. With regard to neurhypnotism, though After being hypnotized the first time, during it does not stretch so far into the marvel- which I endeavored to regulate the irregular lous as mesmerism, nor produce any of the condition of the muscles, she was enabled to higher manifestations of coma, it produces straighten her legs and toes, and move her wrist and fingers, could walk with great freesufficient for all safe and useful purposes. dom, and expressed herself almost entirely free It is an efficient curative agency in a cer- from pain either of legs or arms before I left tain class of diseases, and it is a perfectly the house. After five operations, as is well harmless one if properly conducted, but it known to many, she was so well as to be able should be only resorted to as a remedy un- either to walk or run across her room, and It even to step on a chair with either foot first, der the direction of a professional man. is too powerful an agency to be trifled with without assistance. I operated on her thirteen times altogether, and she has remained free by ignorant people for mere idle curiosity, from rheumatism up to this date, 18th Decemsince it can be made to excite or depress ber, 1843.” the force and frequency of the circulation, This must suffice. We have now worked or the state of sensation; or excite or depress the function of any organ of sense to our way to the end of our subject, at any an extent and with a celerity almost incred-rate, to the limits to which we deem it exible. There have been a sufficient number pedient to carry it for the present. Mr. Colof interesting cases lately recorded in the quhoun, if we may judge from the tenor of Medical Times and the Zoist, besides other his book, is much more of an enthusiast than periodicals, to convince any unprejudiced Mr. Braid, who handles his subject with the mind of the importance of both the delicacy and caution that would probably mesmeric and the hypnotic methods of characterize him with a scalpel in his hand. cure-cases where every resource of the They are both extremely interesting books, healing art had been tried in vain by emi- and will well repay perusal; especially that nent medical men, and yet where the im- of Mr Colquhoun, who lets loose a flood provement under these new methods, and of learning and research, interspersed with anecdote such as we do not very often enespecially under neurhypnotism, was marked as to leave no doubt that the opera- counter. If we mistake not, he is a kind of tion and cure stood in the relation of cause hero amongst mesmerists, having been one and effect. In proof of what we have ad- of the earliest revivers of it in this country, vanced we might quote a numerous list of and we must do him the justice to say that cases successfully treated by Dr. Elliotson from the first he has fought his way through in the mesmeric method. We do not hap- the besetting prejudice and hostility (perpen, however, to have the periodical in haps not always disinterested) of the age which they appeared at hand. Mr. Braid's with a spirit and determination worthy of his book literally abounds in interesting cases race.

SO

of a most varied character, but we prefer selecting one of a more recent date which we find reported in the Medical Times of the 13th of January:

"On the 28th of March, 1843, I was requested by a philanthropic gentleman to extend my charitable sympathy to a poor woman of the name of Barber, and by the power of hypnotism to relieve her of a severe rheumetic affection from which she had been suffering for several months. She was forty-four years of age, and a most pitiable object, suffering severely from pulmonary affection as well as rheumatism. With the latter she became afflicted about the beginning of winter; about the end of December 1842 had been entirely confined to bed for five weeks, after which she was able to get up, but the flexors of the legs and toes were so

KING CHARLES'S BIBLE.-At Broomfield, near Chelmsford, is a Bible which belonged to King Charles the First, the date A.D. 1529, Norton and Bill, printers. It is a folio, bound in purple velvet; the arms of England richly embroidered on both covers; and on a fly leaf is written, "This Bible was King Charles the First's, afterwards it was my grandfather's, Patrick Youngs, Esq., who was library-keeper to his Majesty, now given to the church at Broomfield by me, Sarah Atwood, August 4th, 1723." The Bible is perfect, but there is no signature to sheet I, the pages run from 84 to 87, there being no 85 and 86. I do not find the book mentioned in Morant's History of Essex or any modern publication, and I think it is a relic little known.-Athenæum.

EXHIBITION OF THE ENGLISH IN CHINA. permitted to retain their swords, and their sail

From the Charivari.

MR. FRISBY, our friend and correspondent, late Anglo-Chinese pundit of Canton, has favored us with a most particular and lucid account of an exhibition now opened at Pekin; a show which has attracted all the mandarins and gentry, their wives and families, of the "flowery kingdom." Little think the sagacious English public who visit Mr. Dunn's Exhibition, Hyde Park Corner, to marvel at the pigtails and little feet of the Chinese, that a Dunn from Pekin-Li Li by name-has sojourned many years in England, for the express purpose of showing to his countrymen the faces and fashions of the barbarian English. But so it is. At this moment there is in Flying Dragon Street, Pekin, an exhibition, open called "The Barbarian English in China." There we all are, from high to low; numbered in cases as at Hyde Park Corner, and a catalogue of our good and bad qualities illuminates

the darkened mind of the curious.

ors allowed to return to their barbarian wives
and litlte ones,-when your slave remembers
all this, his heart is turned to honey by the con-
templation of your natural sweetness, whilst,
in admiration thereof, his soul drops upon its
knees, and, prostrate, worships.

that in some leisure hour you may-with a
And when your slave further remembers,
benevolence that is as broad as the earth, and
as high as heaven,-vouchsafe to reign over
and to comfort the aforesaid barbarians, your
slave tremblingly takes hope that the sam-
ples of the people he has gathered together,
with the subjoined faithful account of their
manners and their doings, may find favor in
the sight of Him, who when he sneezes,
eclipses the moon.
arouses earthquakes; and when he winks,

CASE I.-An English Peer. He wears a garter about his leg; an honorable mark of petticoat government bestowed by the barbarian queen. The garter is sometimes given for various reasons, and sometimes for none Our dear friend the aforesaid pundit has the "flowery kingdom," and endows with wisat all. It answers to the peacock's feather in translated this catalogue for Punch; and has, dom and benevolence the fortunate possessor. moreover, regardless of expense on our part, The peer is represented at a most interesting caused drawings to be made of our country-moment. He has won half a million of money men as they are presented by Li Li to the upon a horse, the British nobility being much dwellers of the Celestial Kingdom. The addicted to what is called the turf, which in prominent parts of this catalogue we lay be- England often exhibits a singular greenness. fore the reader; they will be found to beauti- The nobleman, however, displays a confidence fully harmonize with the skill which has dis- always characteristic of the highly born. By played us in cases; wherein, sooth to say, we winning so much money, he has broken the do appear with a certain Chinese air, which laws of the country, by which more than his proves the national prejudices of the artist. winnings may be taken from him; but it will Whether he has improved our looks or other- be seen that he has pens, ink and paper before wise for the Chinese public, we leave to the him, and is at the moment he is taken, making opinion of the judicious and reflecting beholder. a new law for himself, by which he may, withOur simple duty is now to lay before the read-out any penalty whatever, protect his cash. It er the Chinese catalogue, translated and en- is the privilege of the nobility to have their riched with notes, by our indefatigable and laws, like their coats, made expressly to their profound correspondent. The exhibition is dedicated to the "Son of Heaven," very vulgarly known as the Emperor. The dedication, however, we omit; as it tells us no more than that Li Li is, in his own opinion, a reptile, a dog, a wretch, a nincompoop, a jackass, when addressing the said "Son of Heaven;" that his "bowels turn to water" with dread, and his pigtail grows erect with amazement. It will be conceded that, allowing a little for oriental painting, the dedication in no way differs from many other such commodities of home manufacture. Leaving the preface, we begin

with the

INTRODUCTION.

When your slave remembers that through the creamy compassion of the Son of Heaven, the Father of the Universe, and the Dragon of the World, the barbarian English were not, in the late war, seized, destroyed, and sawn asunder; that their devil-ships were spared, their guns respected, their soldiers mercifully

own measure.

He was

CASE II.-Shakspeare. This is the national pet, which the barbarians would, in their dreadful ignorance, compare to Confutzee. It is melancholy to perceive the devotion paid by all ranks of people to this man. originally a carcass butcher, and was obliged to Ay from his native town because he used to slip out at nights, kill his neighbors' deer, and then sell the venison to the poor for mutton. (All this I have gathered from the last two or three authentic lives lately written.) He went to London, and made a wretched livelihood by selling beans and wisps of hay to the horses of the gentlemen who came to the play-houses. Thinking that he could not sink any lower, he took to writing plays, out of which it is awful to relate-he made a fortune. (It is, however, but justice to the barbarians to state that they give no such wanton encouragement to playwriters at present.) Shakspeare, or Shackspeer, cr Shikspur-for there have been mortal battles waged, and much blood shed, about the proper spelling of his name is now the idol of

love the name of a lord, and so the booksellers pay handsomely for a title wherewith to gull the poor barbarians. The novel of a literary lord is generally made after the following fashion: he obtains the works of half-a-dozen of the lower and laboring classes, and, like a Hottentot, dresses himself in their entrails. He has been known to rob a Lion, gut a Tylney Hall, and knock down an old unoffending Antiquary, and only that he might enrich a miserable Tuft-Hunter. He is here depicted with a portrait of the original scissors with which he stops books upon the highway, and makes them deliver.

the nation. The house he was born in has been | police than the fact that a literary lord is seldom bought by the government, and is surrounded taken up for robbery. The specimen here by a silver rail. Whenever his plays are play-given is from the life. The fact is, the English ed, the queen invariably goes in state to the theatre, and makes it pain of death to any of the nobility to stop away. All his relations are dead, or it is to be feared-such is the de. votion of the court to Shakspeare-that they would be turned into lords, and have fortunes settled upon them, like retired ministers and chancellors. A man named Char Les Knite, for only publishing his works, received from the queen her portrait set in precious diamonds and was made Baron of Stratford-on-Avon. In a word, from the queen to the peasant, all the people worship Shakspeare. The first thing seen on approaching Dover is a statue of the poet, forty feet high, perched upon the Cliff. It is lamentable to record these things; but to fully show the moral darkness of the barbarians, it is necessary,

CASE VI.-A Member of the House of Commons. This is a beautiful specimen of a member of Parliament for a place called Lin Con. He calls himself a true son of Bull, and CASE II.-An Actor. In England, play- when his voice is heard, there is no doubting actors are very different to the players of the the relationship. He is at home, surrounded "flowery country." They all of them keep by pictures of the painted Britons, and is their carriages. When they do not, they, like drawing out a bill by which Englishmen may Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst, job a Brougham. be carried back to their pictorial condition. A An actor sometimes spends twelve thousand a cup of tea is beside him, which he drinks cold; year; or if he does n't exactly spend it, he his wholesome aversion to steam not permit takes credit for the same. Actresses, too, like ting a kettle to boil under his roof. Members watches, to act well, must act upon diamonds: of Parliament-especially the members for Lin these are sometimes borrowed at the rate of a Con-are always chosen for the clearness of hundred and fifty pounds per annum. The their heads. If a rushlight, held close to one present specimen of the actor is also a sample side of the skull, will, in a dark room, enable of the first fashions. He is allowed great priv. the electors to read the written professions of ileges beyond those of any vulgar tradesman. the candidate, held close to the other side, he When he can't pay his debts he is allowed to is immediately elected. In the present specimake a joke, which is taken by the judge men, there was nothing to intercept the rays of (commissioner he is called) as a very hand-light which shone through the head like the some dividend to be shared among the credit-flame of a taper through a water-bottle. ors. Three jokes and a fair intention at a CASE VII-Literary Gentleman in Summer fourth are generally received from the actor as Costume. The literary men receive the highsatisfaction in full to any amount of thousands. est honors. From their body are chosen amCASE IV-A Sempstress. The women who bassadors to foreign states, plenipotentiaries live by needle and thread amount to many extraordinary, governors of islands, and other thousands; and are easily known by the fresh-officers of great authority. All the barbarians, ness of their complexions and the cheerfulness from high to low, pay them the greatest homof their manners. Indeed, nothing shows the age. The queen herself is so fond of the litehumanity of the barbarians in a more favorable rary character, that she never sits down to light than the great attention which is paid by dinner unless surrounded by at least a dozen the rich and high to the comforts of their milli of poets, novelists, dramatists, and others. In ners, dress-makers, and sempstresses. Wo- the palace they receive almost royal considermen of noblest title constantly refuse an invi-ation. Nobody can calculate the sum of tation to parties rather than press too hardly money every year expended by the queen upon the time of those who have to make their in presents of jewels, books, &c., to the dresses. Indeed, there is what is called a authors of England. And it is the same with visiting committee of ladies, who take upon the painters and sculptors. It need scarcely themselves the duty of calling, not only on the be added that all these people are immensely employers of the needle-women to inquire into rich. the comforts of the workers, but of visiting the humble homes of the women themselves, to see that they want nothing that may administer to their health and reasonable recreation. Hence there is a saying in England, that "the life of a sempstress is as the life of a bee; she does nothing but sing and make honey."

CASE VIII-A Law Lord. This nobleman was a chancellor, which means an officer who sells the chances of E Qui Ty, an article of excessive luxury, very rarely to be indulged in by the lower classes. Indeed E Qui Ty may be likened to our delicious swallows' nests;*

* Li Li here alludes to the nests of the hirundo

CASE V.-The Literary Lord. Perhaps, nothing shows a greater laxity of the English esculenta, which nests are made into delicious soup

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