THE UNFATHOMABLE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1211, 17 May 1895, Page 17

THE UNFATHOMABLE.

PROFESSOR LEONARD. By Our Special Reporter. The Professor, who arrived here on Monday evening, is said to bo a dealer in the unfathomable. When he arrived he. was brought to our office, and a specimen of his dealing was given. It certainly was unfathomable. One thing was not unfathomable. The Professor wanted a good advertisement. No sooner thought than said. The Professor was quite equal to the occassion. “Yes, sir,” he replied, in his powerful American drawl, “I do, that’s a fact, and I reckon that I can furnish you with a good yarn, which will be very widely read.” '•> , We at once agreed to call it “ square,” and thereupon we made an appointment for the following day at two in the afternoon. Before leaving the Professor handed me some pieces of paper which he had taken from my office table —the usual “.copy ” paper of commerce “ as she is practised” in newspaper offices —and cut lpto strip*)! t was to write anything | like on the slips,’ bring them to the ipt'eyview, and §hpql<l"see. A'cepr fUbgly I waited upon the Professor nest day at the appointed hour with the writings duly executed and ready for action. I had read the Professor’s advertisement, and felt thereby not less prepared for a plunge into the unfathomable. When we met in the Professor’s room, I produced a load of copy paper, placed it on the table, and intimated that we might begin business at once. The Professor assented, and we entered into conversation. While this preliminary lasted I too}i sfcpck of the Professor—evidently a man who hact not got on to the seamy ‘oflne. ' from it. Seining tall qn h?§ t.ahlp t'd phht§ on his feet he was brilliant with prosperity, A face and head of the German, type, abundant brown curly hair, a massive jaw, a light moustache, a figure of medium height and stoutish build, clad in a well-cut tweed suit of sober pattern—such was the Professor as he expounded his views and practices. Not a commanding personality, but a man ready at all points, keen, vigorous and original. Not the kind of pian to set you off on a dream about

wizards and magicians, or to impress you with the wonders of occult science. Just a pleasant, rather rollicking citizen of the world, in well cut tweed and fine linen, by no means gorgeous as to jewellery, out for a holiday, determined to enjoy himself, and ready to express his Sentiments in honest American—the language which Professor Lowell declared in a mighty essay to be the original English from which that part of the Anglo-Saxon race which remained at home has degenerated horribly. What do you understand by clairvoyance ? The Professor understood what was rather a large order, which required a good deal of the vigorous original English of the American Professor’s sort to disentangle.

Is it thought reading? Well, it was and it was not. If it was only thought reading, then “ what is not in your mind I can’t read,” explained the Professor. The upshot of much explanation was that thought reading is only a branch of the science or art of clairvoyancy. “ When you ask me what your object is, I can tell you, and I can also frequently tell you what the result of striving after that object will be.”

Do you deal in spiritualistic force ? The Professor could not say he did ; and he could not say he did not. Table turning, spirit rapping, and all such manifestations he cared nothing about. He seemed, in fact, to hold them in contempt. “ Everything that requires to be done ill the dark, lights turned down, and mysteries, I look upon as humbug, If a thing is good it ought to bear the light, Let it see the light, Those are my sentiments,” I said “ Hear, hear,” and said something about Odic force and telepathy, mention,, ing the name of the great and good man Stead. Did the Professor share the enthusiastic views the great and good man entertains about the approaching marvels of telepathy ? Did he yearn with scientific throbs for the coming of the “ spooks ” ? The Professor had “ nary a yearn.” Odic force he did not profess to know anything about. Telepathy, eo far as reading thoughts, lie had some considerable belief in; the future of that science, however, did not seem to interest him. And as for the “ spooks ” so beloved of the great and good man Stead, he did not take much account of them. His own powers —remarkable he said they were —might be spiritualistic for all he knew, or they might not. Frankly, he did not know; and, to tell th© truth, he did not seem to care. He has certain powers, and about their origiu he knows as much as he does about the man in the moon. Quite unprejudiced he is as to the spiritualistic agency. “As to telepathy, I have,” he says, breaking off in the abrupt American manner, “ a curious personal experience to narrate to you. I very seldom write to my family. We are, when altogether at home, a most united affectionate family. But we seldom write when lam away. But I kupw exactly how they are getting on.” Could he read the thoq« of tfie passers-, by on the streets ? "Well; he could if he set his mind to it; but it was very hard work. In a general way, he could stand at a street corner, and form an idea as to what was passing in the minds of the people going along. In a Court of Justice ?

Yes; in a Court of Justice he could form clear ideas as to the guilt or innocence of the accused persons. Take him to a prison he would form a very fair idea of tfie pyfi soners and their cases, guiff or. innocence, and all the ©ircrupsfaficec of tfceir cases, A$ tft lppating lpst articles, tracing crimes fo their source and other matters of that kind, they were a speciality of his. Derby winners, I opined, were to him merely entries on an open page, broadly written. “ No, sir. That is the curious limitation of my powers. You only have to make a wager to close me up right away. Everything on which a wager has been made is far outside of, my reach. I simply can’t make anything of it.” " Cards ?” The same rule apnlied. All games of cards involving stakes were sealed books to the Professor’s art. No reading of anybody’s hands is possible to the Professor when there is money on the cards. He cannot explain this. It is a fact to, which he has to submit, Yery extraordinary he says it is, but nevertheless true. This is most extraordinary, and not altogether to the discredit of the “ spooks ” it strikes me, if there be <f spooks ” in the matter. But the Professor has no opinion whatever on the subject of “ spooks.” He simply knows that he can do certain things. By what agency they are done he has never discovered.

“A sense?” Yes. Some people imagine that this is a sixth s'epqp. ‘ What'clop's the professor think? "frpfpsspr is inclined to the belief that it may he a sixth sense. It is certainly wonderful enough to bo a sixth sense, So wonderful that if a seventh sense were to be discovered we should be able to wake the dead. And that, he adds after a moment's reflection, seems to preclude the possibility of stumbling upon a seventh sense. Waking the dead is too, much for the Professor. He “ pa?aqs'”> as. that point.

Having exhausod the foundation of- thq art, we proceed to the art itseli-j and a? V© go through it,, w<& have bright ’ stories, of great feats, tho' question qf the success we p rin J lip hetoro this point;. Is success invariably pertain ?N o; it is not. There are failures. A. thing done for one man sometimes cannot be done for another. Indeed, when a man comes full of the story of what has happened to another, who has been told this, that or the other, and puts his question, he is sometimes sent away disappointed. It is not a thing to be explained. Failure comes sometimes in spite of the most favourable combination of circumstances. “ The percentage of my failures,” said the Professor, “ is about 8 per cent.” Ho alluded to the fact that the claim to.

power such as ha has is bfteri. apt to be yiewed with suspicion. I thought that Was so; “It is a matter of evidence,” lie went On to say. “ All I ask is a fair trial, I can’t expect people to accept me on my statements. I offer them a fair trial, and ask to be judged on the evidence. Evidence is the foundation of civil society.” That gave the opportunity for my test. I said so, and produced the envelope in which I had the papers we had agreed upon the night before. The Professor’s eyes sparkled. “I am at your service,” he said. " r

“ Open the envelope.” I did so. “ Take out a paper.” It was taken out. “ Give it to me.” So it was done. The paper, folded as directed, was at once taken by the Professor, who touched his forehead with it, and handed it back to me. “ Put it in your vest pocket.” It was put into that receptacle. The same thing was done with each of the other three papers. “ Now place your hand on this blotting pad.” I complied, and the Professor traced the outline of the fingers, thumb and wrist with a pencil. We were seated at the same side of the table, the Professor’s secretary being at the other side, writing business letters, and getting up every now and then to attend to callers. The Professor, sitting sideways to the table, put his left foot on his right knee, and resting the pod on his left knee proceeded to write. He wrote on the fingers of the hand he had drawn, and on the palm, many things which looked to me, a-'V I watched the process, like gibberi' Letters without words was the char' ac q of the writing, with a word here anP there. During the operation the Professor became excited, « You won’t hurry me,” b; e said ; « o-ive me time.” & I was in no hurry; he nodded politely, and became absorbed. His eyes rolled, his lips worked, his chin puckered, his forehead became corrugated, his eyebrows were contorted, and his face coloured up warm. He would break off at intervals, cracking bis fingers impatiently, his eyes would seem to ho searching for something, he tapped the side of the pad with his pencil. It seeded very hard work this clairvoyancy. It lasted some ten minutes, during which I patched him closely. When the sweat of intellect reached its climax he asked me to write down some figures. The figures came from him, one by one, each with a great effort. He seemed to see them in various places; the ceiling, the floor, the. table, the Avails. They appeared to require very hard look-' ing, and when they came away it was with a violent effort. In this manner Ave got a lift© of nine figures down.

A paqse, <• Yery. strange ” said the Professor in a state of exhaustion. “I see the saeond line backwards.” He did not seem very sure. He balanced a little, and then he plunged. “ Take them down backwards ; from the left of the line.” got a second line of nine figures dowru Other lines of nine came flowing-. “ How many have I got, sir,” “ You have five, fines,” “ Five, Hum ! Ha 1 Ho I” and various hW.ttovings, “• There are more lines. How many ? Ha l Ho! Hum, yum yum.” And so it went until I had taken down seven fines of nine figures; sixty-three figures in all; the Processor jotting down figures on his pad, figure for figure with mine. ’ > Then calmness returned. The Professorial intellect ceased to sweat, the brows, chin, features and colour became once more quiet, the fingers ceased from clacking, the pencil was at rest; the manner was again still. “ Now, sir, the first paper you will chfaw from your vest pocket will be a paper in-, scribed with those figures.” The ifrofessor pointed to the figures I had written at his dictation. “Bo kind enough to draw the paper.” I took out a paper from my vest pocket aforesaid, and held it up. The Professor took it from me, and returned it at once, and I opened it. It was a paper of 63 figures, arranged in seven lines of nine figures. The figures he had dictated wer© 63 also, and in seven lines of nine figures* All the figures in both papers corresponded exactly, figure for figure except two. In the fifth line the two last figures were 5 and 4, as and in the original paper wore. $ and 2, dThe, next paper yon will draAv- from your, pocket is the one on. Avhich you have written your mother’s maiden name in a disguised hand/*

This waiting I may explain I had agreed to do at the Professor’s suggestion Monday night. He then undwooh not only to read the name correctly, without seeing it, but to the disguised handwriting. Before tabq out th© paper, observe this pac\._ It iq turned, face downward. I written on it the name and in the disguised, hand. See here.” Hq turnool the pad over, and I read the nfrsab. take out the paper. I took a paper out of my pocket, handed it to the Professor, received it back at once, opened it, and the name and writing were identical with the Professor’s copy. We compared the two. In the original there were eight breaks in the writing* seven in the Christian name and one ia the surname. Each break was faithfully reproduced in the Professor’s copy, and the style of all the letters was, remarkably like the style of the letters in the original. “ That’s good,” said the Professor complacently. “Now the next paper you will take out of your pocket contains a question—about W. Ward ; it wants to know if he has taken, a package from London yet. Kindly produce the paper.”

i took a paper out of my pocket, handed it to the Professor, got it back within the space of half a second, as in all the precedingcases, opened it, and read my question, “ Has Mr Ward taken his passage out from London ?”

What I have to say about it is that the Mr looked remarkably like a W, and the word passage being smudged might easily have been taken for package. The intelligent compositors of the Times office, who are familiar with my handwriting, would, if the Professor were to ask them, cordially agree with him that these mistakes are only natural. lam bound to say, on looking at the paper, that the Professor is no 4 to be blamed for the mistake.

I pressed for’ an answer to the questaoaa. The Professor smiled, and said, “Weil, ’q think, if he hasn’t taken his passage ' ao. must be very near it. He’s there, ©;r tb ereabouts, anyway.” He wore a sort, of opposition smile as the subject flickered out of sight.

“ The last paper, Professor,” I said, “Oh ! give me time to get an. * novation, and we postponed the sub' p „v L a little. ject 101 a

When the Professor was * , spired he informed me tha* +he su biect of the fourth paper was » J sub 3 ect . ot certain committee’s i- £ ue fS° n aboat a know how many par- “ Jem want to -p ? . 16 paper, handed it to the t it back inside of a few s f , r -d to hand as it were, as in the J tb6^ opened it. The Professor j .ectly stated the question. But he eciir e( j to g- ve th e answer “Jt is not a bl? siness matter, or a social matter, or a xamily matter ; its outside the category I gave you.” I demurred. It was a business matter with me ; as I was one of the committee which had reported. “ No, sir. Not a business matter in the sense I intended to convey.” J was informed that if I had asked the purport of the report or its probable result, I might have found the Professor able to exercise his power. But the number of pages—No. “ I might do it, by putting my mind to it. But it would take me from seven to twenty-one days to solve the mystery.” Life being too short for such extended tests, we agreed to differ. By way of making amends the Professor offered another test. “ See that paper—a blank sheet. See that pin. Blindfold me —stick the pin through the paper anywhere you like, • and lay it alongside. I undertake to stick the pin into the same place.” He produced a black silk handkerchief suitably folded, and a pair of kid gloves We placed the gloves doubled, one ovf , r each eye, and we bandaged them up w? th the handkerchief, which I tied tight at the back of the Professor’s head. As he , standing with his back to the pa'p erf 1 pricked the pin into the paper, ar iC J laid it alongside.

“ Give me your hand,” he said, as he turned about. He felt about foi • the pin and found it; he held it aloft, a?.id hovered over the paper, touching my ha ,nd with his other hand. Suddenly h© swooped down with the pin, and struck it ir.to the right place. s

“That’s immense,” he said, -when he saw the results. It certainly W3,s remarkable. That concluded the ■'jests. Was I satisfied ? Of course ± was satisfied that the Professor had, so far as I could see after closely watching him, very fairly done* a ii he had undertaken to do, with a reservation about the fourth question, as to which the Professor was perfectly Entitled to his opinion as expressed to me. And there I leave the matter in the hands of the public, with the remark, that I have described everything exactly as it came under my observation.. I have dipped into the unfathomable.. I have not fathomed, but I hope I have made the process interesting, and don© justice to some very remarkable feats. I may add that the Professor states that hois on his way to visit the Psychical Beseareh Society of London, in order to, submit himself to any test that body may please to > subject him to. He ha© every confidence i that he will be ablo give them a good ' deal to think about,.