[Illustration:  A THEATRICAL STEAMBOAT.]

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SCIENCE IN THE THEATER.

In the pretty little hall of the Boulevard des Italiens, at Paris, a striking exhibition of simulated hypnotism is given every evening.

This entertainment, which has met with much success, was devised by Mr. Melies, director of the establishment, which was founded many years ago by the celebrated prestidigitator whose popular name (Robert Houdin) it still bears.  This performance carries instruction with it, for it shows how easily the most surprising phenomena of the pathologic state can be imitated.  To this effect, several exhibitions are given every evening.

Mr. Harmington, a convinced disciple of Mesmer, asks for a subject, and finds one in the hall.  A young artist named Marius presents himself.  Mr. Harmington makes him perform all sorts of extravagant acts, accompanied with a continuous round of pantomimes that are rendered the more striking by the supposed state of somnipathy of the subject.  At the moment at which Marius is finishing his most extraordinary exercises, a policeman suddenly breaks in upon the stage in order to execute the recent orders relative to hypnotism.  But he himself is subjugated by Mr. Harmington and thrown down by the vibrations of which the encephalus of this terrible magnetizer is the center.  When the curtain falls, the representative of authority is struggling against the catalepsy that is overcoming him.

All the phenomena of induced sleep are successively simulated with much naturalness by Mr. Jules David, who plays the part of Marius in this pleasing little performance.

At a certain moment, after skillfully simulated passes made by the magnetizer, Mr. David suddenly becomes as rigid as a stick of wood, and falls in pivoting on his heels (Fig. 1).  Did not Mr. Harmington run to his assistance, he would inevitably crack his skull upon the floor, but the magnetizer stands just behind him in order to receive him in his arms.  Then he lifts him, and places him upon two chairs just as he would do with a simple board.  He places the head of the subject upon the seat of one of the chairs and the heels upon that of the other.  Mr. David then remains in a state of perfect immobility.  Not a muscle is seen to relax, and not a motion betrays the persistence of life in him.  The simulation is perfect.

[Illustration:  FIG. 1.—­CATALEPTIC RIGIDITY.]

In order to complete the astonishment of the spectators, Mr. Harmington seats himself triumphantly upon the abdomen of the subject and slowly raises his feet and holds them suspended in the air to show that it is the subject only that supports him, without the need of any other point of support than the two chairs (Fig. 2).

[Illustration:  FIG. 2.—­EXPERIMENT ON THE SAME SUBJECT.]

Usually, there are plenty of persons ingenuous enough to think that Mr. David is actually in a cataleptic sleep, one of the characters of which is cadaveric rigidity.