SUPPLEMENT III
AN ABSTRACT FROM THE RECORDS OF THE SEPTEMBER-COMMISSION[AQ]
The important meetings occurred on the 11th and 12th of September and both of them extended over four hours. The greatest difficulty was occasioned by the condition laid down by Mr. von Osten: that we were to work without him from the very beginning. In a certain sense this condition had been met once before when Mr. Schillings appeared upon the scene, a man whose fairness ought to be doubted by none. He came utterly skeptical, and yet in the course of a week he learned to handle the horse and received responses regularly. However, since the public had begun to doubt Mr. Schillings also, another person had to attempt the rôle of questioner. Count zu Castell tried to do this and practised for some days before the meetings, but his success—although of no small moment—was not great enough to be convincing.
In apprising Mr. von Osten of this fact we caused a veritable catastrophe. He declared in a most decisive manner that he would have to insist upon the condition he had imposed, since the public demanded it, and he could never assist in any tests, until he had been cleared of the suspicion of having descended to the use of tricks. If it should take weeks to accustom the horse to a new questioner, there would be no alternative but to wait that length of time.
A happy circumstance helped us out of our difficulty. We had chanced in our discussion to mention the experience of Dr. Miessner, a member of the commission, who on the day before had gone to witness an exhibition of the mare "Clever Rosa", and who believed that he had succeeded in discovering the tricks involved. There was a sudden change in Mr. von Osten's attitude. He expressed his willingness to undergo the most stringent examination and agreed to anything in the way of conditions of control, challenging even the proven ability of Dr. Miessner. "I have neither whip nor rod, as had the man in the exhibition, and agree to any precautionary measures you may care to take."
After he had gone, the commission decided to ask him to have the horse perform one of the more common, simple, feats. They were going to watch him very closely. Different members were assigned the task of attending to different parts of his body (head, eyes, right hand, left hand, etc.) while Mr. Busch, since he was the most proficient in the detection of tricks, was to regard the total behavior of the man.
The exhibitions included the indication of the day of the week by means of taps, the day just past, the day ahead, its date, arithmetical problems, and the counting of rings strung upon a rod. Messrs. Grabow and Hahn interpolated a few tests themselves, in which they did the questioning. All tests were successful.