The Phrenologist's Uncomfortable Night
A visiting lecturer claiming to predict marital compatibility via head exams meets a skeptical local crowd in Ritzville.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Last Friday evening, after his lecture, Professor Knox called upon two couples of young people to be examined to see if they were 'adapted' for marriage. He determined neither couple was compatible. He then called for two married couples, W. G. Morley and Mrs. Prouty, and Clark Long and Mrs. Kaufman. The first were said to be 'perfectly adapted.' When asked if they had questions, the audience remained silent until Morley, with a wink at the crowd, asked the professor, 'Don't you think this lady is a little old for me?' For the next ten seconds, the professor struggled for a response while the audience erupted.
“Professor, don't you think this lady a little old for me?”
This story highlights the late 19th-century popularity of phrenology—the pseudoscientific practice of reading skull shapes—and the inevitable pushback from cynical frontier audiences who recognized a charlatan when they saw one.
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