Wood County Reporter

DONATO'S WILL POWER.

What the Professor Accomplishes in the
Line of Hypnotism,

A comely young woman, attired in
a soft clinging robe of white, stood on
the stage in Chickering hall last night,
says the N. Y. Times, and under the
spell of one man's will became a rigid
statue. She was picked up like an in-
animate thing and laid as a bridge
over the space between two chairs
three and one-half feet apart. Her
head rested on one chair and her feet
barely touched the other. Then Prof.
Donato, who had hypnotized her, sat
upon her body, swinging his heels two
or three inches from the floor. The
professor weighs about 200 pounds, but
the girl's body remained as stiff and
unyielding as a plank. Half a moment
afterward the hypnotic influence was
removed and the girl's limp form sank
between the two chairs like the closing
of a jackknife.

This was but one of numerous ex-
traordinary instances of his power as a
hypnotist or fascinator given by Prof.
Donato last evening. He compelled
a dozen or more obedient subjects to
assume attitudes painfully unnatural
and awkward. In her unconscious
eagerness to reach a rose a young girl
was induced to bend over backward
until her head as well as her feet
touched the stage.

Mme. Donato assisted her husband
effectively in the most interesting ex-
periments of the evening. She was
placed in the hypnotic state, and dif-
ferent persons in the audience were in-
vited to express to her husband
whispered wishes that she might do
certain things. The lady was not sup-
posed to hear or know anything about
these wishes except as they were con-
veyed to her mind by the will power of
her husband. She was, in fact, fast
asleep. A gentleman concealed his
seat check in the lining of his hat and
requested that the hypnotized lady find
it. She found it without a word being
said to her. A lady whispered that
she would like to have Mme. Donato
take the flowers from her dress and
affix them to her own person. That
was done. A young man asked the
professor to induce the madame to find
his pocket-knife open the smallest
blade, show it to his (the young man's)
wife, close the blade, and hand it to a
little boy sitting a few seats away.
All of this was done, and the hypno-
tized lady closed her performance by
going upon the stage, finding her way
to the piano, and striking a certain key
that had been picked out by one of the
audience.