Magnetic girl

The inability of one man to hold the chair down against her efforts having been fully demonstrated, two more men were invited to assist him. While the first retained his seat the other two took up positions on either side of the chair, each with one foot upon the round and the other on the floor, and each with one hand on the arm of the chair while the other was placed upon the chair's back. When all were thoroughly braced for the fray, the young lady placed her hands again in position and essayed to repeat the performance that had just preceded.

Surely, thought I, she was attempting an Herculean task--she must fail. I watched her muscles intently. they were distended, it is true, but what could the ten or a dozen inches of muscle of her legs avail against the five or six hundred pounds of muscular manhood opposed to it. But the discomfiture of the three men was no less complete, or apparently less easily accomplished than that of the one individual who had first opposed his weight against her strength.

In this first test, the men who took part were all strangers to me, and there was naturally a lurking suspicion in my mind that they might all, or some of them, be confederates of the young woman, but this was entirely dispelled when these men, having left the stage and the invitation having been extended for some muscular man to come up, an acquaintance of mine stepped forward. This gentleman was a fine specimen of physical manhood, standing something over six feet in his stockings, broad shouldered and a trained athlete. He mounted the platform and was given a stout stick, about three feet long, which he was told to grasp, in the middle, in his two hands, extended horizontally, the stick also being held horizontally. He was also told to hold it as rigidly as possible.

The young girl then, standing facing him, placed one open hand on either end of the stick so that the ends came in the middle of her palms. The man was to hold the stick still if he could; the girl was to move it and him too if her powers were equal to it. the contest surely seemed an unequal one. She began by giving a slight gyratory motion to the stick, which was easily accomplished and accounted for by the leverage she had. This continued for a moment or two when, quick as a flash, the stick was given such a powerful jerk as to almost throw the big man off his feet. This was followed by another and another, first throwing him one way and then another, until he appeared a perfect baby in the hands of this little girl. In fact, it was only due to a timely cessation of her efforts and a quick recovery on his part that he was saved from being bodily thrown from the platform.

The house was in an uproar, for the man was well known to many of the audience. He, panting and red in the face from his exertion and confusion, descended from the stage to where I stood. In reply to my inquiry as to how it all happened, he said, "I don't know. I was powerless in her hands. She possesses a power which it is absolutely useless to oppose. I am satisfied she could do anything with me that she chose, but I cannot explain it."