The Hypnotist’s Parlor Performance
A demonstration of 'mesmerism' at the Hotel Yakima turns local men into sleeping performers.
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.
On Friday night of last week a large number of young men gathered in the parlors of the Hotel Yakima to witness Mr. Ross, of the firm of Fechter & Ross, make a test of hypnotism. His first efforts proved unsuccessful, but finally he found two subjects in Elgin Baxter and Bud Taggert, who answered to all of his commands, going off to sleep, snoring, and doing everything they were told. Those who were present say it was a wonderful exhibition, and shows the power of hypnotism as an agent in the way of making men do things they would not were they not brought under its sway.
“Those who were present say it was a wonderful exhibition, and shows the power of hypnotism as an agent in the way of making men do things they would not were they not brought under its sway.”
Stage hypnotism was a staple of late 19th-century entertainment, feeding into the era's fascination with pseudoscience and the hidden powers of the mind. While the parlor has been modernized or replaced, the desire for spectacle in Yakima's downtown social hubs remains a constant in local nightlife history.
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