These approaches were doubtless most dangerous on railway journeys; hypnotism acts better in a small room than in a large one, and therefore a person in a railway carriage is more affected. Here discomfort and oppression helps hypnotism, but the hypnotist if in the train is in a favourable position, as the distance is preserved very closely and need not be very great.
Carriages are of the same size, and this is doubtless a help to the operator. The frequency of phenomena being observed on the night of arrival has been noticed. Miss N., who drove over, was not affected. The average recurrence of phenomena to each person was every fourth night; other people besides those previously mentioned as suffering on first nights, were on the second visit Miss Langton and Miss Duff. The latter was only very restless. This resembles the experimental result obtained by Mr. Rose; he attempted to impress two ladies in the same house: the elder saw his apparition, the younger was only restless.[26]
[Footnote 26: "Podmore," p. 252.]
It may be noted that in intercourse with other people, some effort is commonly made to secure their attention; this no doubt is connected with the greater facility for causing one's own apparition to be presented.
Thus to resume the question of place of hypnotism, on the second sojourn four people suffered in the night of first arrival. Was the gang larger, or were the assailants operators who had been afraid of the cold before?
Possibly Miss Langton had been followed to St. Andrews, where she had spent Easter, and had a vision of the phantom nun. In other cases where the absence had been longer only two people were attacked.
Several other persons felt a restlessness like Miss Duff's—woke without any cause, &c.—Mrs. M., Mr. T., Mr. L.F., and others. If any doubt be felt about the appearances and noises being from hypnotism, the experimental cases should remove it, the resemblance of the feelings of the "garrison" to those hypnotized should be dwelt on, the times of recurrence, and finally later mentioned the peculiarity of the apparition's nature—corresponding to those produced by hypnotism. The argument that Féré and Binet are fond of, that hypnotism much resembles what can be seen every day, is no doubt true.
Mrs. Anna Kingsford appears to have been often hypnotised by some unknown rascal, but her gentle admirable character seems to have suffered but little, though her life was possibly shortened.
But when Professor Maitland talks of building walls round her, he emphasises the advantage that society gives against witchcraft. Of four people whose lives have been destroyed or grievously injured by hypnotism, whose circumstances are known to the writer, three were childless married men (two were unhappily married), and the fourth case was a bachelor's, a poor young man's.
It may be noted that in the North of Europe, at least half a small class of men were attacked, and the others were more or less connected with these. The most were diplomatists and consuls.