LONDON AND LEICESTER 233 



should probably succeed. He also showed us how to distin- 

 guish between the genuine mesmeric trance and any attempt 

 to imitate it. 



In consequence of this statement, one or two of the elder 

 boys tried to mesmerise some of the younger ones, and in a 

 short time succeeded; and they asked me to see their experi- 

 ments. I found that they could produce the trance state, 

 which had all the appearance of being genuine, and also a 

 cataleptic rigidity of the limbs by passes and by suggestion, 

 both in the trance and afterwards in the normal waking state. 

 This led me to try myself in the privacy of my own room, 

 and I succeeded after one or two attempts in mesmerising 

 three boys from twelve to sixteen years of age, while on others 

 within the same ages I could produce no effect, or an exceed- 

 ingly slight one. During the trance they seemed in a state 

 of semi-torpor, with apparently no volition. They would 

 remain perfectly quiescent so long as I did not notice them, 

 but would at once answer any questions or do anything I 

 told them. On the two boys with whom I continued to ex- 

 periment for some time, I could produce catalepsy of any 

 limb or the whole body, and in this state they could do things 

 which they could not, and certainly would not have done in 

 their normal state. For example, on the rigid outstretched 

 arm I would hang an ordinary chair at the wrist, and the 

 boy would hold it there for several minutes, while I sat down 

 and wrote a short letter for instance, without any complaint, 

 or making any remark when I took it off. I never left it 

 more than five minutes because I was afraid that some injury 

 might be caused by it. I soon found that this rigidity could 

 be produced in those who had been mesmerised by sugges- 

 tion only, and in this way often fixed them in any position, 

 notwithstanding their efforts to change it. One experiment 

 was to place a shilling on the table in front of a boy, and then 

 say to him, " Now, you can't touch that shilling." He would 

 at once move his hand towards it, but when halfway it would 

 seem to stick fast, and all his efforts could not bring it nearer, 

 though he was promised the shilling if he could take it. 



Every phenomenon of suggestion I had seen at the lecture, 



