84 



POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 



[June, 1888. 



just enough to keep soul and body together. Liv- 

 ing in the Latin Quarter for years, he has acquired 

 a taste for the Vie de Boheme, which is such an at- 

 traction for the students of all nations. Although 

 a man of fine intellectual capacity, he is somewhat 

 paresseux, and is never likely to acquire more than 

 a bare living. He forms the acquaintance of a 

 young ouvriere, with whom he becomes deeply en- 

 amoured; his love for the young girl, strange to 

 say, when we consider the impure atmosphere in 

 which he lives, is perfectly pure, and his intentions 

 honest. But howmairy her in his poverty? Hav- 

 ing decided to break with her, he informs her of 

 the fact; when, to his surprise, she falls into a 

 cataleptic state, which, from his hospital experience, 

 he recognizes as the hypnotic condition. At differ- 

 ent times he experimented on the young girl, and 

 found that she responded I'eadily to magnetic sug- 

 gestion (/a suggestion magnelique), which she re- 

 tained until the next day, following out in all its 

 most minute details the order he had given her; 

 remaining in that peculiar semi-conscious state 

 until what she mast do (ce qu'ilfallaitfaire, as she 

 afterwards expressed it) was accomplished. Jean 

 Mornas artfully avails himself of this knowledge 

 to serve a selfish purpose. 



An old paralytic for whom he was performing 

 some clerical work lived at Versailles in a retired 

 street with his servants. One day after his work 

 the old man asked Jean Mornas to take from his 

 bookcase an atlas. This atlas was filled with 

 bank-notes; from these he paid Jean Mornas his 

 month's salary. The sight of so much money ex- 

 cited the cupidity of Jean Mornas. .\fter leaving 

 his patron, all his thoughts were upon the old 

 man's money, and how he might obtain a portion of 

 this, to him, great wealth, and with which he could 

 be able to many his fiancee, and be raised from 

 poverty to affluence. He decides to employ the 

 young girl as the safer plan, she being more likely 

 to escape detection than himself. 



He accordingly hypnotized her, giving very mi- 

 nute directions to go to Versailles on a certain 

 train, to such a number on a certain street, with a 

 note from him for the master of the house, the 

 old paralytic; to give the latter the note, and, 

 whilst he was reading it, to open the bookcase at a 

 certain place, take from it an atlas, and abstract as 

 many bank-notes as possible, which she was to put 

 in a portfolio; the latter having been placed in her 

 hand, then to leave the house without attracting 

 the attention of the servants, who were at some 

 distance from the room, aud could only be made to 

 hear by means of a speaking-tube placed near the 

 invalid, which tube she was to take the precaution 

 to place out of reach on entering the room. She 

 was to carry the portfolio to her lover's residence. 

 Hue Racine. Every detail of the suggestion was 

 carried out; but as she was taking the bank-notes 

 from the atlas, the invalid, by a strong effort, got 

 out of his bed, and seized the girl. To extricate 

 herself, she pushed him away; he fell heavily to 

 the floor, and, as the sequel proved, the fall killed 

 him. By means of an envelope which she dropped 

 at the depot at Versailles on her return, her ad- 

 dress was discovered. The next day she was ar- 

 rested, and when questioned at the Prefecture of 

 Police, she admitted having taken the money, which 

 she said ^as a restitution, her lover having thus 

 explained to her the theft. The physician of the 

 Prefecture and her old family doctor went with her 

 to the scene of the crime, in the same room, and 

 when hypnotized, and questioned whether any one 

 had told her to do what she did, she at first refTised 

 to answer, then said there was some one. A man, 

 or a woman ? A man. His name ? No answer. 

 Finally, after a number of experiments, she gave the 

 name of Jean Mornas, the real culprit. The latter 



during the trial had left Paris ; and when the order 

 for his arrest arrived, he was already beyond the 

 clutches of the law, having shot himself a few 

 hours before. 



This book at first reading seems as improbable 

 as some of Jules Vernes' tales, or that wonder- 

 ful creation of the elder Dumas, Count of Monte 

 Crista. And yet, in view of recent investiga- 

 tions, this stoiy could be true. Drs. Alfred Bitiet 

 and Charles Fere, in their work on Animal Magnet- 

 ism, having examined the subject experimentally, 

 are justified in speaking authoritatively. They say, 

 "It is possible to suggest to a subject in a state 

 of somnambulism fixed ideas, irresistible impulses, 

 which he will obey, on awaking, with mathematical 

 precision. The subject may be induced to write 

 down promises, recognitions of debt, admissions 

 and confessions, by which he may be grievously 

 wronged. These facts show that the hypnotic 

 subject may become the instrument of a terri- 

 ble crime ; the more terrible since, immediately 

 after the act is accomplished, all may be forgot- 

 ten, — the crime, the impulse, and its instigator. 

 Some of the more dangerons characteristics of 

 these suggested acts should be noted. These im- 

 pulses may give rise to crimes or offences of which 

 the nature is infinitely varied, but which retain 

 the almost constant character of a conscious, irre- 

 sistible impulse; that is, although the subject is 

 quite himself, and conscious of his identity, he can- 

 not resist the force which impels him to perform 

 an act which he would under other circumstances 

 condemn. The danger of these criminal sugges- 

 tions is increased by the fact that at the will of the 

 experimenter the act may be accomplished several 

 hours, and even several days, after the date of the 

 suggestion. Loss of memory is one chief charac- 

 teristic of the facts of suggestion. This amnesia 

 is a phenomenon of the waking state, which disap- 

 pears when the subject is hypnotized anew. The 

 recollection of all which occurred during hypnosis 

 is then revived, and the subject is able to indi- 

 cate, often with remarkable precision, the author 

 of the suggestion, the place, day, and hour when 

 it was made to him. 



[Original in Popular Science JVew)«.] 

 TRANSATLANTIC GLANCES. 

 Coleridge, after remarking that the Rhine 

 washes the dirty city of Cologne, asks, — 



" Wliat power divine 

 Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine? " 



But the washing of the Thames, defiled by the 

 sewp.ge of more than four millions of people, is a 

 tougher problem. London people have not yet 

 solved it economically, to say the least. They will 

 make some progress, however, in that direction, if 

 Sir Henry Roscoe, who has just been appointed 

 consulting chemist to the Metropolitan Board of 

 Works, accomplishes what he counts upon doing 

 It is reported that his advice last year saved the 

 city fifty thousand pounds, or a quarter of a million 

 of dollars; and he expects to do a good deal better 

 with increased control. He is to have a salary of 

 fifteen hundred pounds, and a prominent feature 

 in his methods is "to encourage the growth of liv- 

 ing organisms in destroying the sewage." 



Apropos of the Thames, at the recent boat-race 

 between Oxford and Cambridge a certain patent- 

 pill manufacturer advertised a view of the race 

 "free of charge," the ticket of admission to the 

 steamer being the possession of a box of his pills. 

 The idea, however, seems to have originated in a 

 Yankee "dodge " of the kind, or at least one con- 

 nected with a Yankee invention ; for at last year's 

 race any person wearing a Waterbury watch could 

 obtain free passage on certain steamers. We shall 



expect to see "free excursions" advertised for 

 men who buy their summer suits at So-and-So's 

 ready-made clothing-shop, or women wearing Ma- 

 dame What's-her-Name's patent corsets. There's 

 " millions " in the possibilities of this new depart- 

 ure in advertising! 



A suicidal mania has lately existed in Edinburgh, 

 and a " crank " there is collecting statistics on the 

 subject. He addresses sundry questions to the 

 official registrars, among which are: "In what 

 position had the person been sleeping for a week 

 previous? Was his bed's head to the north, or 

 east, or west, or south, or between the two? " He 

 says that he shall be surprised to find that any one 

 of the self-murderers "lay with his head due 

 north." People tempted to make away with them- 

 selves will do well to adjust the position of their 

 bedsteads accordingly; or their friends, if suicidal 

 proclivities are apparent, should have an eye to 

 this magneto-physiological means of prevention. 



At a meeting of the Committee of Public Hy- 

 giene ill Paris not long ago, the question was raised, 

 " whether it would not be advisable to allow two 

 sorts of pepper to be sold, — one pure, and the 

 other not." The committee, after some discus- 

 sion, decided against such permission, as "the 

 toleration would be construed into a recognition of 

 fraud." In the case of pepper, this sophistication 

 is already too common. The principle of winking 

 at adulteration, if duly .set forth on labels, etc., is 

 one, however, which has been recognized in certain 

 cases, though it is of doubtful expediency. 



Tracheotomy has beeu performed on a horse be- 

 longing to the Midland Railway Company in Eng- 

 land. An abscess had formed in his throat; and 

 one of the veterinary surgeons of the company per- 

 formed the operation successfully, a silver tube 

 being duly inserted, as in the case of the human 

 creature. Horse and Emperor equally profit by the 

 progress of surgical science. 



Oil of peppermint is the latest " sure cure " for 

 consumption, according to an English physician. 

 Ten drops of the oil are put on cotton-wool in an 

 inhaler, the charge being renewed every three 

 hours, and the treatment continued for six weeks. 

 It appears to work well in all cases, and to effect 

 a cure in the earlier stages of the disease. The 

 remedy is worth testing on this side of the ocean. 

 _^ R. 



SCIENTIFIC BREVITIES. 



Electrical Watches. — A company has been 

 formed in Berlin to manufacture electrical watches. 

 Two small cells and a small electric motor take the 

 place of the ordinary movement. 



A Supposed Meteorite found at Aix-la-Cha- 

 pelle in 1762 has lately been examined by Professor 

 Arzruni, and pronounced slag from some primitive 

 furnace. The immense mass weighs four tons, and 

 the date of its origin cannot be guessed. 



The Mean Height of the land above sea-level, 

 according to Mr, John Murray, is 2,250 feet, and 

 the mean depth of the ocean is 12,480 feet. Only 

 2 per cent of the sea is included inside a depth of 

 500 fathoms, while 75 per cent lies between 500 

 and 3,000 fathoms. If the land should be filled 

 into the hollows, the sea would roll over the 

 earth's crust to a uniform depth of two miles. 



The Spectru.'m of Water. — At a recent meet- 

 ing of the Royal Society a paper on the spectrum 

 of the oxy-hydiogen flame was presented by Pro- 

 fessors G, D, Liveingand J, Dewar, They find that 

 the spectrum of water extends, with diminishing 

 intensity, into the visible region, and also far into 

 the ultra-violet. They have photographed these 

 parts, using a single calcite prism and long expos- 

 ure, and give a map and a list of wavelengths of 

 upwards of 780 lines. 



