Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1901 — Easily Done. [ARTICLE]

Easily Done.

To be a successful mind reader, one must have a good memory, and by Its aid some apparently wonderful things are done. One of the puzzling tricks performed by public “clairvoyants” Is a very simple deception. The performer, standing on the stage, asks several persons in the audience to write each a sentence on a slip of paper and seal it in an envelope. Of course the stationery is furnished and afferward collected. One of the audience is a confederate, and writes a sentence agreed upon beforehand. When the assistant goes through the house gathering up the envelopes, the confederate's contribution is taken up with the others, and all together are taken to the . tage. The performre picks out any envelope, and, after feeling it, with much ceremony pronounces the sentence agreed upon, and the confederate in the audience acknowledges that he wrote it. To confirm this, the performer tears the envelope he has taken up, and repeats the sentence as though he found it on the inclosed paper, which is in reality another man's sentence’, which he reads, and then picking up another envelope and fumbling it over, he calls out the sentence he has just read. The one who wrote it says It is right, the performer tears open the envelope, reads what is in it, and proceeds in that way through the lot.