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house, let us go and see it: no; there are | ing with her when the fatal moment (un

two large houses-one white, the other red.' Upon this Mr. Williamson proposed that she should go into one of the two houses and look about; she quickly recognized my servant, went mentally into my room, and described a particular or two which were by no means likely to be guessed by her. When Mr. Williamson subsequently came to visit me at Weilbach, he was forcibly struck with the appearance of the two houses, which tallied with the account given beforehand by the mental traveller. I have not the smallest doubt she mentally realized my new abode. Then how did she do all this? I cannot help inclining to the belief, that in the ordinary perception of a place or person, the mind acts exoneurally, [beyond the body;] that in visiting new places the mind establishes a direct relation with the scenes or persons. Then, in the simplest case of mental visiting, where the scene to be visited is familiar to the interrogator, I presume that the clairvoyante's mind, being in communion with his, realizes scenes which his has previously exoneurally realized. Arriving thus at the scene itself, the clairvoyante observes for herself, and sees what may be new in it and unknown to her fellow-traveller and in the same way may pursue (as in the mental visit made to myself at Weilbach) suggested features of the locality, and be thus helped to beat about in space for new objects, and at length to recognize among them, and mentally identify persons with whom she has already arrived at a mental mesmeric relation."

Still more astonishing is the faculty of prevision manifested in the higher degrees of mesmeric trance. Cases of this kind are referrible to three different heads:-1. The case of Cazot, (mentioned by Dr. Foissac,) who had predicted, as usual, when his next epileptic fit would occur, but ere the time came round, was thrown from his horse, and killed, proves that the clairvoyant can foresee what his living economy will be, other things continuing the same. 2. Dr. Teste gives the case of a lady, his patient, who, when entranced, foretold the day and hour when an accident, the nature of which she could not foresee, was to befall her, and from it a long series of illness was to take its rise. Dr. Teste and the lady's husband were stay

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known to her) approached. Then she rose, and making an excuse, left the room, followed by her husband; when, on opening a door, a great gray rat rushed out, and she sank down in a fit of terror, and the predicted illness ensued. In this case the prevision plainly extended to an extraneous and accidental circumstance, which no calculation or intuition of her natural bodily changes could have led her to. 3. But there are instances which reach yet further. Dr. Foissac mentions the case of a Mademoiselle Cœline, who, when entranced, predicted that she would be poisoned on a certain evening, at a given hour. What would be the vehicle of the poison she could not foresee, either at the time when she first uttered the prediction, or on an occasion or two afterwards, when, being again entranced, she recurred to the subject. However, shortly before the day she was to be poisoned, being questioned in trance as to the possibility of averting her fate, she said, "Throw me into the sleep a little before the time I have named, and then ask me whether I can discern where the danger lies." This was done, and Mademoiselle Coline at once said that the poison was in a glass at her bedside: they had substituted for quinine an excessive dose of morphine.

"Thus," says Dr. Mayo, "there is a true series of consequences to be deduced from whatever partial premises the clairvoyante may happen to be acquainted with. When she has more data, she makes a wider calculation, again certain so far as it goes; but other premises influencing the ultimate result may still have escaped her. So the utmost reach of genuine trance-prevision is but the announcement of a probability which unforeseen events may counteract."

Such, in brief, are the mesmeric faculties, and the modes in which they manifest themselves. Wonderful they certainly are; but, unlike the more recondite facts of science, which yet readily obtain credence—unlike the velocity of light or the vibrations of the air-the verification of animal magnetism is within the power of all. It is the apparent impossibility of the thing that hinders belief in it: people think it so opposed to the whole course of nature, that they will not waste time in examining the matter. Let us see if we cannot remove this impression

-if we cannot find in nature herself some- | my attention from a sight which appalls me. thing analogous to the mesmeric powers. I see my inside, and the strange forms of We trust in a few sentences to do this, and more than this-to show that nature often develops in the human being powers not only analogous, but identical, and even exceeding in some respects any yet observed in the mesmeric stages. The annals of natural trance, of somnambulism, and catalepsy, furnish proofs redundant. Our only difficulty | Petetin. "Yes, there it is: it beats at twice is what to select.

Take the following :-M. Petetin attended a young married lady in a sort of fit. She lay seemingly unconscious, and her arms, when raised, remained in the air. Being put to bed, she commenced singing; but pinching her skin, and shouting in her ear, all failed to arouse her attention. Then it happened that the doctor's foot slipped while arranging her; and as he recovered himself, half leaning over her, he said, "How provoking we can't make her leave off singing!" "Ah, doctor!" she cried, "don't be angry: I won't sing any more;" and she stopped. But shortly she began again and in vain did the doctor implore her, by the loudest entreaties addressed to the ear, to keep her promise, and desist. At last it occurred to him to place himself in the same position as when she heard him before; and raising the bedclothes, he bent his head towards her stomach, and said in a loud voice, Do you, then, mean to sing for ever?" Oh, what pain you have given me!" she exclaimed: I implore you speak lower;" at the same time she passed her hand over the pit of her stomach. “In what way, then, do you | hear?" asked Dr. Petetin. Like any one else," was the answer. "But I am speaking to your stomach !" "Is it possible?" she said. He then tried again whether she could hear with her ears, speaking even through a tube, to aggravate the sound: she heard nothing. On his asking her, at the pit of her stomach, if she had not heard him "No," said she; "I am indeed unfortunate." Here is transposed sensation.

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A few days after the scene just described, the lady had another attack of catalepsy, during which she still heard with her stomach, and also saw with it, even through an intervening opaque body. Meanwhile her countenance expressed astonishment, and Dr. Petetin inquired the cause. "I am singing, doctor," she answered, "to divert

the organs, surrounded with a network of light. My countenance must express what I feel-astonishment and fear. A physician who should have my complaint for a quarter of an hour would think himself fortunate, as nature would reveal all her secrets to him." "Do you see your heart?" asked Dr.

-the two sides in agreement; when the upper part contracts, the lower part swells, and immediately afterwards contracts; the blood rushes out all luminous, and issues by two great vessels which are but a little apart."

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But to proceed. One morning (still farther on in her case) the fit came on, according to custom, at eight o'clock. Petetin arrived later than usual. He announced himself by speaking to the fingers of the patient, (by which also he was now heard.) "You are a very lazy person this morning, doctor," said she. "It is true, madam; but if you knew the reason, you would not reproach me." "Ah!" said she; "I perceive: you have had a headache for the last four hours: it will not leave you till six in the evening. You are right to take nothing: no human means can prevent it running its course." Can you tell me on which side is the pain?" said Petetin. "On the right side: it occupies the temple, the eye, the teeth: I warn you that it will invade the left eye, and that you will suffer considerably between three and four o'clock: at six you will be free from pain." The prediction came out literally true. "If you wish me to believe you, you must tell me what I hold in my hand.” “I see through your hand an antique medal." Dr. Petetin inquired at what hour her own fit would terminate. "At eleven." "And the evening accession, when will it come on?" "At seven o'clock." "In that case it will be later than usual." "Yes: the periods of its recurrence are going to change to so and so." During this conversation the patient's countenance expressed annoyance. She then said to M. Petetin-" My uncle has just entered; he is conversing with my husband behind the screen; his visit will fatigue me; beg him to go away." The uncle, on leaving, took with him, by mistake, her husband's cloak, which she perceived, and sent her sister-in-law to reclaim

it. Here, indubitably, is clairvoyance and and well blinded besides, holding the knuckprevision. les of one hand before her as a seeing lantern."

Experiments were subsequently tried by M. Petetin upon eight different patients, all of whom exhibited the same phenomenon of the transference of the faculties to the pit of the stomach, (epigastrium,) and to the extremities of the fingers and toes; with the addition of a prodigious development of the intellectual powers, and a presentiment or foresight of their future diseased symptoms. The following experiments show that taste, as well as sight and hearing, is sometimes transferred to the epigastrium. M. Petetin secretly placed pieces of cake, biscuit, tarts, &c., upon the stomach of one of these patients, which was immediately followed by the taste of the particular article in the mouth. When the substance was enveloped in silk stuff, no sensation was felt by the patient; but the taste was immediately perceived on removing the covering. An egg was covered over with varnish, and the patient felt no taste until the varnish was removed. M. Petetin, we may remark, was by no means an advocate of the Mesmerian system; of which, indeed, at the time he published his reports on these cases, he does not appear to have had the slightest experimental knowledge.

The late Mr. Bulteel witnessed the following phenomena in the case of a female in natural trance-After a remark made to put her off her guard, a line of a folded note was pressed against the back of her neck: she read it. She used also to tell that persons, whom she knew, were coming to the house, while they were yet at some distance; and when persons were in the room with her playing chess, behind her, if they made intentionally false moves, she would ask them what they could possibly do that for.

A case treated by Dr. Despine at Aix-lesBains. This was an epileptic patient, who had all sorts of fits and day-somnambulism, during which she was not incapacitated for waiting at table, though her eyes were shut. She likewise saw alternately with her fingers, the palm of her hand, and her elbow, and would write with precision with her right hand, superintending the process with her left elbow. "These details," adds Dr. Mayo, "are peculiarly gratifying to myself; for in the little I have seen, I yet have seen a patient walk about with her eyes shut,

Of another patient Dr. Prost remarks:“Her intellectual faculties acquired a great activity, and the richness of her fancy made itself remarked in the picturesque images which she threw into her descriptions." As she was telling her friends of an approaching attack of catalepsy, suddenly she exclaimed-“ I no longer see or hear things in the same manner; every thing is transparent around me, and my observation extends to incalculable distances." She designated without an error, the people who were on the public promenade, whether near the house, or still a quarter of an hour's walk distant. She read the thoughts of every one who came near her; she marked those who were false and vicious, (a faculty which is often remarkably exhibited by dying persons;) and repelled the approach of stupid people, who bored her with their questions, and aggravated her malady. (Persons much questioned when in trance, either natural or mesmeric, generally complain of severe headache when awakening out of it.)

We commend these cases of natural trance to general attention. They are selected and abridged from the works of Mayo and Colquhoun-the latter of which gentlemen was the first to draw the public attention of this country to the claims of animal magnetism, in his erudite work, "Isis Revelata." These cases, we think, sufficiently prove that there is nothing supernatural or impossible in the pretensions of animal magnetism; on the contrary, that the mesmeric state is nothing else than natural trance artificially produced. A comparison of the cases quoted will in fact show, that in "self-intuition" the natural trance equals the mesmeric, while in "transposed sensation" it surpasses it. In "prevision" they are nearly on a par: especially if we add in favor of the former (as we now do) the well-authenticated prediction of the sudden death of the late king of Wirtemberg, four years before it happened, by one somnambulist, and six months previous to it by another; the latter naming the very day (28th October, 1816) on which he was struck by the fatal apoplexy. Lest our evidence in favor of natural “clairvoyance and mental travelling" should be thought inferior to that of the mesmeric

trance, we shall close our case with one more instance, which we hope will be found decisive. The strange communion of the spirits at such a distance, and previously unacquainted, cannot fail to arrest the reader's notice.

that, at the very moment, she saw his son at the hospital with his chin wrapt in white linen, and that, in the state in which she then was, it was quite impossible she could be deceived. Soon afterwards there came a note from Count Th; which, after some expressions of politeness and condolence, announced that a second list of the wounded had arrived, containing the name of his son, who had been struck by a musket-ball on the chin, and was under medical treatment in the hospital, &c.

These facts are related in the third volume of the "Bibliothèque du Magnetisme Animal," and "the veracity of the persons upon whose authority it is given," says Mr. Colquhoun, "lies under no suspicion."

Mademoiselle W a natural clairvoyante, whose case is minutely detailed by Dr. Klein, her physician, being on a visit at the house of M. St., was asked by that gentleman to turn her clairvoyant powers towards his son, then serving with the French army in Russia. From that moment Mademoiselle W- directed her thoughts towards the young officer, and in all her paroxysms, although she had never seen him, she described him exactly as if she had him before her eyes. She frequently asked his sister if she did not see him in a corner of the room; and one day, upon receiving a negative answer, she said, "Well then, ask him any questions you please, and I shall return his answers." The sister then asked all sorts of questions relative to family OR, matters, which were quite unknown to the somnambulist, who answered them all in a manner so precise and accurate, that the interrogator afterwards declared that she felt herself seized with a cold perspiration, and was several times on the point of fainting with fright, during what she called the Dialogue of the Spirits. On another occasion the somnambulist declared to the father that she saw his son at the hospital, with a piece of white linen wrapt round his chin-that he was wounded in the face-that he was unable to eat, but that he was in no danger. Some days later she said that he was now able to eat, and that he was much better. Some weeks afterwards a courier arrived from the army. M. St. immediately went to Count Th- to inquire what news he had received; and the latter set his mind completely 'at rest, by informing him that his son's name was not in the list of the wounded. Transported with joy, he returned home, and said to Mademoiselle W—, who was at that time in her somnambulic sleep, that for once she had not divined correctly, and that, fortunately for his son and himself, she had been completely deceived. At these words the young lady felt much offended; and in an angry and energetic tone assured him that she was quite certain of the truth of her statement

From "The Literary Gazette."

A TRIP TO MEXICO; RECOLLECTIONS OF A TEN-MONTHS' RAMBLE IN 1849-50. BY A BARRISTER.

THIS is a pleasant readable book, telling in unaffected style how a gentleman went to Mexico, what he saw there, and how he came back. There is nothing new in it, nor is it enlivened by adventure: the traveller met with no hair-breadth escapes, and seems to have made himself tolerably comfortable throughout his journey; antiquities, history, and natural history are alike neglected-the more's the pity-yet the narrative will be read with interest, and may wile away not unprofitably an idle hour or two. We are told in it how ordinary people like ourselves move about and spend their time in Mexico; and every body likes to know the ways of his neighbor, even though on the other side of the Atlantic.

The "Barrister" takes to ship at Southampton, in a West India mail-packet, and crosses the Atlantic with scarcely an alarm or even a discomfort, saving an occasional ill-cooked dinner. He lands at Vera Cruz; meets with kindness and hospitality everywhere; looks about him for three weeks in the famous city of Mexico; visits mines and factories and fairs; spends six months happily among friends in the little town of Tepic; amuses himself by shooting wild ducks and wondering at armadilloes and iguanas; sails in an American steamer, among a crowd of

Yankee Generals and Colonels, in red worsted shirts, and trowsers tucked inside their boots, to Panama; crosses the Isthmus and finds his way back in the same snug but slow West Indian packet in which he start

ed.

In Mexico he passed through the country where pulque is made, tipple for which a taste must be acquired, though the Mexicans might retort the same remark were brown stout submitted to their judgment. We know some foreigners in Britain, however, who, were their expulsion proposed, might petition the House of Commons on account of their love of Barclay's Entire, after the example set by the old Spaniards in Mexico :"We passed through the centre of a district in which the Maguey, or large American Aloe, is extensively cultivated for the manufacture of Pulque. Pulque is the common drink of all Mexicans, and answers to our beer, though more intoxicating. All who once get accustomed to the smell and taste, like it much, and it is even said to become necessary to people, after they have used it for many years. When the Republic was first established, many old Spaniards threatened with expulsion, petitioned the National Assembly to allow them to remain in Mexico, the groundwork of the petition being that they had been so long accustomed to drink Pulque, (not procurable in Spain,) that their lives would be endangered if they left it off. The manner of making this drink is as follows: When the aloe is just on the point of throwing up its huge stem from its coronet of leaves, deep amidst which its broad basis had been for some time forming, the farmer or gardener scoops out the whole pith, leaving the outer rind, and thus making, inside the circle of leaves, a bowl like cavity, about two feet deep and eighteen inches wide, according to the size of the plant. This cavity is soon filled with the sap which should have gone to nourish the stalk, and as it flows, is removed several times daily for some months, or as long as the tap yields. A portion of this juice (called honey-water, aguamiel) is set apart to ferment and act as a sort of leaven or yeast for the rest. This is called Madre-Pulque, the Mother of Pulque, and when completely prepared, (which it is in about a fortnight,) a small portion of it is added to the skins or tubs containing the fresh aguamiel, and sets it fermenting in a day or so. A large plant is said to yield from ten to fifteen pints daily, and this for months. Others vary the process by putting a small quantity of mescal into the cavity in the plant to mix with the sap as it flows in; and this seems to answer very well. This process of milking the Aloe is, as might be ex

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pected, a fatal one to the plant, but before it dies it always throws out shoots which keep up the stock. The fermentation is usually conducted in skins, and as soon as this is over the Pulque is fit for drinking. To strangers both the taste and smell are horrible, something of the style of rotten eggs; but one soon gets accustomed to the flavor, The fresh sap, or aguamiel, is often drunk unprepared, but it is too humble a tipple to be generally patronized.

"These aloes are often of immense size. The common leaves are eight or ten feet in length, more than a foot in width, and thick in proportion. The stem often shoots up to twenty or thirty feet or more, and is as thick as a man's body."

What would our dandy coachmen and footmen of London say to the aspect of their representatives in "the drive" of Mexico?—

"The chief delights and amusements of the Mexicans of the upper class are the theatre and the Paseo or carriage promenade. The latter is thronged every day, between five and six, with carriages and riders; the carriages, many of them, very good, and well-appointed, but drawn mostly by mules, and, except on Sundays and feast-days, rendered ridiculous by the blackguard aspect of the servants. I have actually seen a handladies, with a dirty rascal behind wearing a some carriage, containing elegantly-dressed jacket, and with trowsers embellished by a vast aperture in the most conspicuous part of them. On the days I have mentioned, however, all the servants come out in livery; but from not knowing how to put it on or keep it clean, their appearance is not greatly improved. The Paseo might, with a little care, be made a pleasant place enough; but odoriferous refuse heaps; and the drive itto reach it, one has to pass some horridlyself is either drowned in mud or ankle-deep in dust. The watering part is done by convicts, whom I have seen chained together by the half-dozen, sluicing the road with water from buckets, as if it were the deck of a ship."

Should any of our readers feel inclined to pursue the route of our traveller, the following account of the inns he encountered may be serviceable, and induce preparation beforehand :

"In travelling, as I was now doing, it is necessary to carry every thing with you that you may be likely to want. I did not know this when I left Guadalaxara, and fancied that by bringing my bed I had done all that was necessary. I found out, however, that knives, forks, washhand-basins, &c., were luxuries unknown on the road, and I was at first put to some straits for want of such ar

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