"About eighteen months ago I was conversing with my friend B., who is an enthusiastic believer in mesmerism, and has repute as an amateur practitioner. My contention was that his favorite science (?) had contributed absolutely nothing to the world's good to cause its recognition by either scientists or philosophers. 'Can you give me,' said I, 'one instance in which you have conferred an actual benefit by the practice of your favorite art?' He related several, from which I selected the following:--'There lives by my parsonage,' said my friend B., 'a man who for many years, had been a confirmed drunkard. Repeatedly were his wife and children forced to flee from him, for when in his drunken frenzies, he attempted to murder them. Again and again have I striven to induce him to flee from his horrible vice, but my efforts were always futile. One day he called to see me when he was suffering acutely from the effects of drink. I resolved to place him under mesmeric influence. This I did, and while subject to me made him promise not to touch strong drink again, and if he attempted to break his pledge, might the drink taste to him filthy as putrid soapsuds. I then restored him to his normal state, and he left me. He kept his unconsciously given promise. In the course of a couple of years this man raised himself from a condition of poverty to the comfortable position of a thriving market gardener. 'Not a fortnight since,' resumed my friend, 'my neighbor's wife laughingly said to me, 'There is no fear of my husband ever drinking again, sir. You know he has to be in the market very early in the morning with his vegetables. Yesterday morning, while he was drinking a cup of coffee at the hotel an old mate said to him, 'Why don't you drink some spirits; are you afraid?' To show his mate that he was not afraid, he ordered a glass of brandy, but no sooner did he put it in his mouth than he spat it out again, saying the 'filthy stuff tasted like rotten soapsuds.' My friend B. said, that, till he told me, to no one had he mentioned the fact, and that what he did to his poor neighbor he did in order to see if it were possible to use mesmerism as a remedial agent in cases of drunkenness." The power of control over the impressible condition (which is so easily developed into hypnotism) has been recently illustrated in France, and reports of the phenomena published in the _London News_, concerning which Mr. Charles Dawbarn has published the following in the _Banner of Light_: