When Detective Wooldridge and his detail broke down the doors of the
hall and made their entrance into the place it was pitch dark, and
they had to strike matches before they could separate the combatants.
After a semblance of order had been restored in the place the
premises were searched, and a most astounding outfit of disguises
discovered. Before this development the spectators, who had been held
in the place, were very angry with the officers, saying that they had
been attending the seances for the last two years; that they knew
Jennie Nichols as a medium had shown them the spirits of their dead.
When the officers produced Sarah Nichols, to whom Detective Barry had
held when he seized the "spook," they discovered that she had been
wearing a pair of sandal slippers with felt five inches thick for
soles; a pair of men's black trousers and the white shroud and painted
picture face of a young girl.
Attached to a pole in front of her was a paper head, around which was
a white shroud four feet in length. Those in attendance believed this
image to be the spirit of a believer's dead relative. The "medium" had
"spook" images of men, women and children, and could produce them as
circumstances demanded. The light was turned up, and the contemptible
imposition on credulity was exposed to twenty-six dupes, who had
been paying $1 apiece for the privilege of attending meetings of the
"spook" grafters for years. It was the greatest exposé of "spooks"
that has been made in many years. A wagon load of masks, wigs, false
whiskers, tin horns, gowns with safety pins in them, skulls and
skeletons with cross-bones to match, were seized.