Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 November 1887 — TRICKS ON THE STAGE [ARTICLE]

TRICKS ON THE STAGE

A Thrilling Idle and Death Struggle. Some time ago there was on exhibition, in New Yort, what was called the “wonderful electrical man!” ——rrThat “wonder” now says that be was always secretly connected with a battery so arranged as to debut discovery! Many “freakes of nature” are only freaks of clever deceptive skill. Bishop, the mind reader, so-called, was shown to bemnly a shrewd student of human nature, whose reading thought was not phenomenal. Even so intelligent a man as Robert Dale Owen was lor many years fully persuaded that certain alleged spiritual manifestations were genuine, but, in the Katie King case, he eventually found that he bad been remorselessly deceived. When to natural credulity is added a somewhat easily-fired imagination, spectres become facts, and clever tricks realities.

“That man,” remarked a prominent physician the other day to our reporter,, “thinks he is siek. He is a ‘hypo.’ He comes here regularly three times a week for treatment. There is absolutely nothing the the matter with him, but of course every time he comes I fix him up something.” “And he pays for it?” “Yes, $3 00 a visit. But what I give him has no remedial power whatever. I have to cater to his imaginary ills. He is one of my best friends, and I dare not disappoint nis fears.” . An even more striking case of professional delusion is related by W. H. Winton, business manager of the Kingston (N. Y.) Freeman: “In 1883, Mr. R. R., of New York, (a relative oi a late vice president of the United States) was seriously ill of a very fatal disorder. The physicians attended him, but, until the last oue was tried, he constantly grew worse. This doctor gave him some medicine in a two-ounce bottle. Improving, he got another Bottle, paying $2 for each- He was getting relief afterjiaving used several of these mysterious smali hottles. One dav he laid one on his desk in his New York office. In the same office a friend was using a remedy put up in a large bottle. By pure accident it was found out that these two bottles contained exactly the same medicine, the two ounce vial costing the doctor’s patient $2, while his friend paid but $1.25 for a bottle holding over sixteen ounces of Warner’s safe cure. The doctor’s services were stopped at once, the man continued treating himself with what his doctor had secretly prescribed—Warner’s safe cure, which finally restored him to health from an attack of what his doctors called bright’s disease.” If the leading physicians in the land, hrough fear of the code, will secretly prescribe Warner’s Base cure in all cases of kidney, liver and general disorder, do they not thereby confess their own inability to cure it, and, by the strongest sort of endorsement, commend that preparation to the public? We hear it warmly spoken of in every direction, and we have no doubt whatever that it is, all things considered, the very best article of the kind ever known.