Magnetic Girl

While the manager was dilating to the audience upon the remarkable powers of the girl, I had an opportunity of telling my companions that I knew all the girl's tricks but one, and I promised them that if they would follow my directions implicitly, in case they were called upon to assist in the tricks that I knew, it would be impossible for her to perform them. They did follow my directions for a while and the girl utterly failed for the time, but she and her manager protested so loudly that they would not do as directed that they were finally constrained to obey, and the séance then proceeded successfully. The last trick performed was the one that I had gone especially to see, and I was called upon to assist in it. A stick, about four feet long, and as thick as a broom-stick, was produced, and I and another gentleman were requested to hold it in a vertical position before us while grasping it firmly in both hands.

The girl, standing in front of us and facing us, placed the palm of her open hand against the lower portion of the stick, resting it on the side nearest to us and furthest from herself. After rubbing her hand up and down for a few moments, in order "to make better electrical contact" as we were informed, and after enjoining us to hold the stick perfectly vertically, we were told to press down upon it as hard as we could. This we did until the veins seemed to stand out on our foreheads; but, exert ourselves as hard as we could, we, two strong men, were unable to press down hard enough to make the stick slip past the open palm of her hand. Had the girl grasped the stick with her two hands, I am sure she could not have withstood my downward pressure alone. I would have borne her, stick and all, to the floor. But there she stood, with but one open hand bearing against the side of the stick, and both of us could not, by our united efforts, force the stick past that wonderful hand. Surely, there seemed something uncanny about this. But it is very simply explained, as will be seen further on.