THE TRIUMPH OF A TRAVELLING MESMERIST IN A DIFFICULTY.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XII, Issue 836, 3 July 1855, Page 3

THE TRIUMPH OF A TRAVELLING MESMERIST IN A DIFFICULTY.

The author of Sam Slick observes, in the course of a work he has just published, that the trials to which travelling mesmerists are put to in America, are, at times, humiliating and painful enough, albeit they afford infinite spprt to the unbelievers. One poor fellow, on arriving at a tavern in Detroit to lecture, was surrounded by several citizens, who told him that there was a rheumatic patient up stairs, who must be cured or he himself would be escorted out of town, astride of a rail, with the ac-ompanying cci •monies, ' We had. better give the ret.t of the story as it was related by the disciple of Mesmer himself. " ' Upstairs I went with 'em, mad as thunde-, I tell you : first at being thought a humbug, and next, that my share of the American Eagle should be compelled into a measure, by thunder. I'd a gin them a fight, if it hadn't ben for the science , which would a sufferod anyhow, so I jest said to myself, let 'em bring on their rheumatic. I felt as I'd a mesmerised a horse ; and I determined whatever the case might be, I'd make it squeal, by thunder. " 'Here he is," they said, and in we all bundled into a room, gathered round a bed, which shut in among 'em and the cursed big onenlightened heathen that did the talking, drawing out an almighty bowie knife at the same time, * That's your man,' said he. Well, there Ily a miserable looking critter, with his eyes shot and his mouth o.jen and his jaws got wider and wider and wider as he saw the crowd and the bowie knife, I tell you, • That's the irlea,' said the Big Ingin. " ' Rise up in that bed,' said I, and I tell yon now 1 must a looked at him dreadful, for up he jumped on end, as if he just got a streak of galvanic. " ' Get out on this floor,' said I with a wuss look, and I wi^h I may be shot if out he didn't come, lookin' wild. I tell ye. " ' Now, cut dirt, drot you," screamed I, and, Jehu Gineral Jackson, if he did not make-» straight trail tor the door, may I never make another pass. .A^r him I went, and after mp they cum, and perhaps there wasn't orfullest stamp d d >wn three pair of stairs that ever occurred in Michigan. Down cut' old rheumatiz through the bar-io »m, out 1 cut after him. over went the stove in the rush after both of us. I chased him round two squares— in the snow at that— then headed him off, and chased him back to the hotel agin, where he landed in a fine sweat, begged for his life, and said he'd give up the propertr. Well, I wish I may be shot if he wasn't a feller that they were oflerin' a reward for in Buffalo ; I made him dress himself, cured of his rheumatiz, ran it right out of him ; delivered him up, pocketed the reward, and established the science, by thunder.' "