Second Sight

” The trick is performed as follows,” says Judge James Bartlett in the Popular Science News: “Each person in the andience is presented with a slip of paper, upon which to write anything he or she may choose.

The paper written upon is immediately secreted by the writer, as much care as possible being taken that no one else sees what is written upon it.

The performer, who has been absent from the room while this is being done, is bronght in and led, as if in a state of trance, to a chair within full view of every one present. A light piece of drapery is thrown over him so that he is completely covered by it, and yet it is thin enough to be translucent, and it can be seen he has not gone down through the floor or ascended up through the ceiling.

The audience is told the drapery prevents the sphere or influence or spell that surrounds him from being dissipated.

He now begins and repeats, word for word, the sentences written upon any or all the slips of paper.

Nothing can be more astonishing; the paper has not left the possession of the writers; it is equally certain that it is impossible that another person could have seen what was thereon written, and yet the trick is as simple as it is surprising, and that is certainly saying a great deal.