Entertainment or amusement in Chelsea was very poor, as there was no room or place for the purpose. The only one I can recollect was when a professor of mesmerism and clairvoyance came down and took the skittle ground at the back of the “George and Dragon.” He was a thin, shabby old man, dressed in black with very dirty linen. With him were his wife, and two girls—his daughters, he informed us—one about twelve and the other about fourteen, with ringlets, shabbily dressed and closely covered up in old cloaks. They did all the advertising and canvassing themselves, by taking round the bills and trying to sell tickets at sixpence each. The sides of the skittle ground were decorated by the hanging of table covers, curtains, pieces of carpet, sheets, or anything else that would cover over the walls. The platform at the end was composed of the taproom tables with some boards across, an old square piano belonging to the house stood on the floor; the lighting was effected by double tin sconces hung on the wall with two tallow dips in each. The seating accommodation for the ticket holders consisted of chairs; those who paid threepence at the doors had forms or planks to sit on with a gangway down the middle. The performance commenced about seven by one of the young ladies playing the piano, and the other a triangle, the old lady being engaged in taking the money at the entrance. The professor mounted the platform and addressed his audience, commenting upon the wonderful and mysterious scene he was about to enact. He commenced with the usual conjuring tricks of borrowing a hat and making a pudding in it and bringing a live pigeon and a large cabbage out of it, and then returning the hat undamaged to its owner, which to us children was a great wonder. Then came the card tricks, and the ventriloquial dialogue with the puppets, with a handkerchief over each hand to form the figures, and then the grand event of the evening. The table was removed from the platform and replaced by two chairs, and the two girls, dressed in white frocks and yellow sashes, came on. After addressing the audience, he proceeded to throw the elder one into a trance, which he appeared to succeed in doing, for she stood perfectly upright and still. He then placed the two chairs a certain distance apart, back to back, and taking the girl up in his arms, laid her on her back with her head resting on the back of one chair and her feet on the other, and she remained so for some minutes. Next he lifted up the other girl and placed her standing with one foot on her sister’s chest, and the other at her knees, and she remained so for some minutes, when she was taken down and placed with her back to the company for the usual thought-reading performance. At the end, as an extra, a pale, sickly youth was introduced, and sang “Wapping Old Stairs,” and “Sally in our Alley,” the young lady playing the accompaniment, much to the satisfaction of the company. At the