“Modern researches in Spiritualism have led to one practical result—the
discovery of a ghost. Not of an ordinary old-fashioned ghost, appearing
in the midnight hour to people with a weak digestion, haunting
graveyards and old country mansions, and inspiring romance-writers
into the mischief of three-volume novels; but of a well-behaved,
steady, regular, and respectable ghost, going through a prescribed
round of duties, punctual to the minute—a Patent Ghost, in fact. This
admirable ghost is the offspring of two fathers, of a learned member of
the Society of Civil Engineers, Henry Dircks, Esq., and of Professor
Pepper, of the Polytechnic. To Mr. Dircks belongs the honour of having
invented him, or, as the disciples of Hegel would express it, evolved
him from out of the depths of his own consciousness; and Professor
Pepper has the merit of having improved him considerably, fitting him
for the intercourse of mundane society, and even educating him for the
stage. After having bowed to the public at the Polytechnic Institution,
he some weeks ago made his _début_ upon the boards of the Britannia
Theatre, in a new and highly original drama, entitled, ‘The Widow
and Orphans,—Faith, Hope, and Charity,’ in which piece he continues
to present himself nightly to crowded audiences with the greatest
imaginable success.
“Possibly, all Britons do not know where the Britannia Theatre is
situated, and it may not be necessary, therefore, to state that it
has its place in the metropolitan suburb of Hoxton, inhabited chiefly
by toy-makers and doll-dressers, and marked under the letter =N= by
the Postmaster-General. Sceptics may smile at the idea of a Patent
Ghost making his first appearance in a neighbourhood so little
fashionable, and so far removed from the residence of Master Home,
commander-in-chief of spirits and mediums, and solicitor-general of
demons, ghosts, and shadows of the universe. It is no mere accident;
for it appears that there are good spiritual reasons why the ghost
should have come out at Hoxton and nowhere else. Here, in this
toy-making quarter, there lived, about a hundred years ago, a worthy
citizen and officer of the Lord Mayor, Mr. Francis Bancroft, who was
haunted all his life long with the one great idea that his body was
predestined to arise visibly from the dead, and to wander over British
earth in the shape of a tangible ghost. So deeply impressed was he
with this belief that, while walking in the flesh, his chief object
was to take measures towards insuring his safe and speedy resurrection.
With considerable faith in the celebrated maxim of Luther’s active
Roman antagonist, indulgence-selling Monk Tetzel:
‘_Sobald das Geld im Kasten klingt
Die Seel’ aus dem Fegfeuer springt_’
(As soon as the money rattles in the boxes,
The soul jumps out of purgatory.)
citizen Bancroft took great care, during his mortal career, to
accumulate a respectable amount of cash with the object of forming
a bribe for the guardians of his body. Accordingly, in his will he
left the sum of twenty-eight thousand pounds for the establishment of
schools and almshouses, with this proviso, that his body should be
‘preserved within a shew glass’ in the church.”
During the time I was in Paris, and arranging the ghost for exhibition
at the Théâtre du Châtelet under Mons. Hostein, I was surprised to
find that the conjuror, Mons. Robin, was showing the ghost at his
séances. My lawyers interviewed him, and discovered that, some years
before, a little toy had been brought out and patented in France by
which a miniature ghost could be shown. It consisted of a box with a
small sheet of glass, placed at an angle of forty-five degrees, and it
reflected a concealed table, with plastic figures, the spectre of which
appeared behind the glass, and which young people who possessed the toy
invited their companions to take out of the box, when it melted away,
as it were, in their hands and disappeared.
In France at that time all improvements on a patent fell to the
original patentee, and under that law I lost the patent in France;
but Mons. Hostein honourably paid me a large sum of money for the use
of my improved ghost at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris. Query.—Had
Mr. Dircks’ patent agent, in his searches after patents, ever come
across the toy invented in Paris? Because it is substantially the ghost
apparatus and produced that illusion; and thus it shows how correct are
the words of Solomon, who has told us “There is nothing new under the
sun.”
If the reader will consult a book written by me, entitled “Cyclopædic
Science Simplified,” formerly published by Messrs. Frederick Warne and
Co., but now bought and published by Messrs. Lippincott, the great
American publishers of Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.A., he will find a very
near approach to the ghost apparatus copied from Robinson’s “Recreative
Memories” published in 1831. The same author describes how the famous
magician (so-called) Nostrodamus deceived even the astute and wily
Marie de’ Medicis by a vision which appeared in a looking-glass.
Moreover, Sir Walter Scott, in his beautiful poem, “The Lay of the Last
Minstrel,” has introduced the use of mirrors for producing ghostly
appearances, in the vision seen by the ill-fated Earl of Surrey, in
the mirror huge and high of Cornelius; the vision being “That fair and
lovely form, the Lady Geraldine” (verses 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, canto vi.).
Before travelling about so much I had a trunk full of letters referring
to the ghost illusion, many treating it as a supernatural phenomenon,
and not an effect from natural causes.
In about four months my secretary wrote at least 1,000 letters in
answer to those addressed to me.
I was offered house property in exchange for the right to exhibit the
ghost and a full description of the apparatus on attendance at the
Polytechnic to see how things were manipulated.
I publish one of the most amusing letters, which has no address or
proper signature, but only the initials “R. C.”:—
“Whereas the directors and managers of the Polytechnic
Institution believe and maintain the phenomenon called
‘spirit-rapping’ to be produced by trickery, jugglery, or some
natural agency, and to be an imposture, I, the undersigned,
on the contrary maintain that there is some non-human agent
which moves the tables, chairs, etc., and carries on an intelligent
conversation with spectators by knocking, or tilting, or
other signs. I am ready to wager from £5 to £50 with
any one who chooses to accept my challenge that the phenomenon
shall take place, and that no one present shall be
able to detect any sort of trickery or jugglery in the matter.
It is to be clearly understood that mere opinions that the
thing is done by natural agency are to go for nothing. The
natural agency _must be proved_. On the other hand I defy
any one to produce the same phenomenon by natural
agency _without my being able to detect that agency_. In
making this proposal I wish it to be distinctly understood
that I do not place any trust or confidence in the so-called
‘spirits,’ as I maintain, in opposition to the whole body of
so-called ‘spiritualists,’ that the intelligent agent which
moves the tables, chairs, etc., and converses and answers
questions by knocking, is nothing more or less than _the evil
spirit_ which dwells in humanity, and is found in every
human being. This proposition can be clearly demonstrated.
As to the so-called ‘spirits’ being the ‘souls of the
dead,’ the idea is absurd, and this absurdity also can be
made abundantly manifest. This spiritualism is doing an
immensity of mischief, and ought to be exposed, but it will
never be exposed if people shut their eyes _to the fact_.
It will not be the less a fact, and will not the less impose on
all who witness it, because there are men and women who
_predetermine_ in their own minds that it cannot be true,
and refuse to be convinced _by either their senses or their
understandings_. In all ages there have been deaf adders whom
no music could charm, and there are in these days also many
‘who having eyes will not see, and who having ears will not
hear.’ _On what grounds_ does any one assume as a certainty
that such a thing is impossible?
“RICHARD CRUIN.”
“If any one is so unwise as to be willing to pay £100 in the event of
the phenomenon taking place in his presence, and of his being unable to
detect any imposture, I undertake that the ‘medium’ shall exhibit _in
any private room, in any home, and with any furniture_ (provided it be
not too heavy), and that the said medium shall submit _to be searched
both before and after the exhibition_.
“Nothing is easier than to lift a table by means of a concealed
apparatus. The knocking also may be produced by means of muscular
motion or otherwise. But can any one lift a table _without any
apparatus_, simply by placing the hand on it; or can any one contrive
an apparatus so cunning that no one present, having full liberty to
examine everything, shall be able to detect it?
“By collusion or otherwise questions also might be answered, but I
maintain that the agent in spiritualism can tell all the most secret
and hidden things of one’s life, and even one’s secret thoughts,
and also that it understands and can converse _in any language_. I
have verified this _by repeated experience_. But it will not always
speak when it is wanted to speak, and the ‘medium’ has no power over
it to make it answer questions. But the fact that it often tells
lies and often refuses to tell anything, does not make void the fact
that it does also at times answer _every question which one can ask
it_. It is by this sort of capricious behaviour that it succeeds in
completely deluding some to trust in it, and others to disbelieve
in it altogether. But let a man confine himself at first to the
physical phenomenon and try if he can make a table to rise up into
the air completely off the ground, simply by placing his hand on it,
and _without any apparatus whatever_. If he cannot do this, and if
no human being can do it, let it be acknowledged that there is some
non-human agent. A little experience will very soon convince any one
that it is an intelligent, and a wonderfully intelligent, agent, and
then it will remain to be considered whether this intelligent agent is
good or evil—_I say it is evil_.