Miss Annie May Abbott, the Georgia girl, whose feats of strength created a sensation in this country a few years ago, and gave her name of "The Electric Magnet," is now in China, after having made a tour of Japan. In the latter country the strongest of the wrestlers were unable to lift her from the floor, or even push her over, while with the tips of her fingers she neutralized their most vigorous efforts to raise other objects, which, under ordinary circumstances, would have been the merest trifle. When she placed her hand upon the arm of the champion wrestler he was unable to lift an ordinary cane from the table. The Japanese scientists, however, repudiated the electrical theory which Miss Abbott's manager usually suggests to the newspapers, and attributed her remarkable feats to hypnotic powers, claiming that it was the force of her will instead of the strength of her muscles that interfered with the action of those who were engaged in the experiments.
    In China she is creating an even greater sensation, and the native scholars accuse her of receiving aid from superhuman agencies. Such a feeling has been excited among the literati that it is feared it may have an unfortunate effect in stimulating anti-foreign and anti-missionary prejudices. Chou Han, an educated Chinaman, writes to a Shanghai paper, asking:
    Do not such exhibitions as viewed by Chinese fully corroborate what the natives have alleged against missionaries possessing uncanny powers, and therefore confirm them in the belief of the ability of foreign men and women to stupefy children and bring them under their influence for good or evil? The Chinese will certainly conclude that if foreigners practice this mystic power to make money, they will do so for the far higher object of gaining converts and saving souls. Natives who have witnessed Miss Abbott's powers will never be persuaded to believe that among missionaries there are not both men and women who possess the same power of rendering others subject to their will.