Maybe you can explain this one. I give up.
Though only slightly less mind-boggling than last week?s column about the 1906 Leader story predicting a certain President Roosevelt would one day preside over a ?great world war,? the following incident is at the very least confounding, if not downright unbelievable:
As reported by this newspaper on Aug. 16, 1911, a vaudevillian named Jack Wheeler, a cast member with the traveling variety show ?The Chowder Club,? issued what at first seemed a preposterous challenge: the proprietor of Staunton?s Art Theater would enlist four prominent local men to hide an article of their own choosing in a downtown business. Neither the article nor its location would be disclosed to Wheeler. Not only would the professed psychic then find the item ? he would find it blindfolded.
Confident of exposing the man for the charlatan he was, the chosen four ? J.S. Sensabaugh, H.R. Roller, C.K. Robinson and William Smales ? selected the object, a gold watch, and locked it in a post office box. To further confound Wheeler, they hid the key to the box under a ledge at Pfifferling?s barber shop at 9 South New Street.
At the signal, Wheeler climbed blindfolded into a carriage ? the committee of four seated smugly behind him ? and drove it straight over to Pfifferling?s.
Still blindfolded, he walked into the shop, found the key, climbed back into the carriage, and headed directly to the post office on Frederick Street. Finding his way inside, Wheeler located the correct post office box, unlocked it, and to the absolute befuddlement of all, produced the gold watch.
How did he do it? He would have needed more than just a hole in his blindfold. One or more of the four men, each selected for his trustworthiness, would have had to spill the beans. And why would any of them have put their reputations on the line to help a second-rate vaudevillian?
According to the Daily Leader, Wheeler?s feat was completely on the level. ?Considering this is a bonafide piece of mind reading,? the paper reported, ?we must hand it to Mr. Wheeler [for his] clever piece of mind reading or second sight performance.?
http://www.newsleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... 1/61021001
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