the town, and he consented. There he found many paralysed persons. He
began with a poor man whose left arm was quite useless and stiff. After
he had asked him if he had perfect faith, and had received a
satisfactory answer, the Prince prayed with folded hands and closed
eyes. Then he raised the kneeling patient; and said, 'Move your arm.'
Weeping and trembling in all his limbs the man did as he was bid; but as
he said that he obeyed with difficulty, the Prince prayed again, and
said, 'Now move your arm again.' This time the man easily moved his arm
forwards, backwards, and raised it. The cure was complete. Equally
successful was he with the next two cases. One was a tailor's wife,
named Lanzamer. 'What do you want?' asked the Prince, who was bathed in
perspiration. Answer: 'I have had a paralytic stroke, and have lost the
use of one side of my body, so that I cannot walk unsupported.' 'Kneel
down!' But this could only be effected with difficulty, and it was
rather a tumbling down of an inert body, painful to behold. I never saw
a face more full of expression of faith in the strongly marked features.
The Prince, deeply moved, prayed with great fervour, and then said,
'Stand up!' The good woman, much agitated, was unable to do so, in spite
of all her efforts, without the assistance of her boy, who was by her,
crying, and then her lame leg seemed to crack. When she had reached her
feet, he said, 'Now walk the length of the room without pain.' She tried
to do so, but succeeded with difficulty, yet with only a little
suffering. Again he prayed, and the healing was complete; she walked
lightly and painlessly up and down, and finally out of the room; and the
boy, crying more than before, but now with joy, exclaimed, 'O my God!
mother can walk, mother can walk!' Whilst this was going on, an old
woman, called Siebert, wife of a bookbinder, who had been brought in a
sedan-chair, was admitted to the room. She suffered from paralysis and
incessant headaches that left her neither night nor day. The first
attempt made to heal her failed. The second only brought on the paroxysm
of headache worse than ever, so that the poor creature could hardly keep
her feet or open her eyes. The Prince began to doubt her faith, but when
she assured him of it, he prayed again with redoubled earnestness. And,
all at once, she was cured. This woman left the room, conducted by her
daughter, and all present were filled with astonishment." This account
was written on June 26. On June 28 Herr Scharold wrote a further account
of other cures he had witnessed; but those already given are
sufficient. That this witness was convinced and sincere appears from his
description, but how far valuable his evidence is we are not so well
assured.
A curious little pamphlet was published the same year at Darmstadt,
entitled, "Das Mährchen vom Wunder," that professed to be the result of
the observations of a medical man who attended one or two of these
_séances_. Unfortunately the pamphlet is anonymous, and this deprives it
of most of its authority. Another writer who attacked the genuineness of
the miracles was Dr. Paulus, in his "Quintessenz aus den
Wundercurversuchen durch Michel und Hohenlohe," Leipzig, 1822; but this
author also wrote anonymously, and did not profess to have seen any of
the cures. On the other hand, Scharold and a Dr. Onymus, and two or
three priests published their testimonies as witnesses to their
genuineness, and gave the names and particulars of those cured.
Those who assailed the Prince and his cures dipped their pens in gall.
It is only just to add that they cast on his character none of the
reflections for honesty which Dr. Wolff flung on him.
The author of the Darmstadt pamphlet, mentioned above, says that when he
was present the Prince was attended by two sergeants of police, as the
crowd thronging on him was so great that he needed protection from its
pressure. He speaks sneeringly of him as spending his time in eating,
smoking, and miracle-working, when not sleeping, and says he was plump
and good-looking, "A girl of eighteen, who was paralysed in her limbs,
was brought from a carriage to the feet of the prophet. After he had
asked her if she believed, and he had prayed for about twelve seconds,
he exclaimed in a threatening rather than gentle voice, 'You are
healed!' But I observed that he had to thunder this thrice into the ear
of the frightened girl, before she made an effort to move, which was
painful and distressing; and, groaning and supported by others, she made
her way to the rear. 'You will be better shortly--only believe!' he
cried to her. I, who was looking on, observed her conveyed away as much
a cripple as she came.
"The next case was a peasant of fifty-eight, a cripple on crutches.
Without his crutches he was doubled up, and could only shuffle with his
feet on the ground. After the Prince had asked the usual questions and
had prayed, he ordered the kneeling man to stand up, his crutches having
been removed. As he was unable to do so, the miracle-worker seemed
irritated, and repeated his order in an angry tone. One of the policemen
at the side threw in 'Up! in the name of the Trinity,' and pulled him to
his feet. The man seemed bewildered. He stood, indeed, but doubled as
before, and the sweat streamed from his face, and he was not a ha'porth
better than previously; but as he had come with crutches, and now stood
without them, there arose a shout of 'A miracle!' and all pressed round
to congratulate the poor wretch. His son helped him away. 'Have faith
and courage!' cried to him the Prince; and the policeman added, 'Only
believe, and rub in a little spirits of camphor!' Many pressed alms into
the man's hand, and he smiled; this was regarded as a token of his
perfect cure. I saw, however, that his knees were as stiff as before,
and that the rogue cast longing eyes at his crutches, which had been
taken away, but which he insisted on having back. No one thought of
asking how it fared with the poor wretch later, and, as a fact, he died
shortly after.
"The next to come up was a deaf girl of eighteen. The wonder-worker was
bathed in perspiration, and evidently exhausted with his continuous
prayer night and day. After a few questions as to the duration of her
infirmity, the Prince prayed, then signed a cross over the girl, and,
stepping back from her, asked her questions, at each in succession
somewhat lowering his tone; but she only heard those spoken as loudly as
before the experiment was made, and she remained for the most part
staring stupidly at the wonder-worker. To cut the matter short, he
declared her healed. I took the mother aside soon after, and inquired
what was the result. She assured me that the girl heard no better than
before.
"In her place came a stone-deaf man of twenty-five. The result was very
similar; but as the Prince, when bidding him depart healed, made a sign
of withdrawal with his hand, the man rose and departed, and this was
taken as evidence that he had heard the command addressed to him."
The author gives other cases that he witnessed, not one of which was
other than a failure, though they were all declared to be cures.
On June 29 the Prince practised his miracle-working at the palace, in
the presence of the Crown Prince and of Prince Esterhazy, the Austrian
ambassador who was on his way to London to attend the coronation of
George IV. in July. The attempts were probably as great failures as
those described in the Darmstadt pamphlet. The Prince was somewhat
discouraged at the invitation of the physicians attached to the Julius
Hospital; he had visited that institution the day before, and had
experimented on twenty cases, and was unsuccessful in every one. Full
particulars of these were published in the "Bamberger Briefe," Nos.
28-33. We will give only a very few:--
"1. Barbara Uhlen, of Oberschleichach, aged 39, suffering from dropsy.
The Prince said to her, 'Do you sincerely believe that you can be helped
and are helped?' The sick woman replied, 'Yes. I had resolved to leave
the hospital, where no good has been done to me, and to seek health from
God and the Prince.' He raised his eyes to heaven and prayed; then
assured the patient of her cure. Her case became worse rapidly, instead
of better.
"7. Margaretta Löhlein, of Randersacher, aged 56. Suffering from dropsy
owing to disorganisation of the liver. Another failure. Shortly after
the Prince left, she had to be operated on to save her from suffocation.
"10. Susanna Söllnerin, servant maid of Aub, aged 22, had already been
thirteen weeks in hospital, suffering from roaring noises in the head
and deafness. The Prince, observing the fervour of her faith, cried out,
'You shall see now how speedily she will be cured!' Prayers, blessing,
as before, and--as before, no results.
"11. George Forchheimer, butcher, suffering from rheumatism. One foot
is immovable, and he can only walk with the assistance of a stick.
During the prayer of the Prince the patient wept and sobbed, and was
profoundly agitated. The Prince ordered him to stand up and go without
his stick. His efforts to obey were unavailing; he fell several times on
the ground, though the Prince repeated over him his prayers."
These are sufficient as instances; not a single case in the hospital was
more successfully treated by him.
On July 5 Prince Hohenlohe went to Bamberg, where he was eagerly awaited
by many sick and credulous persons. The Burgomaster Hornthal, however,
interfered, and forbade the attempt at performing miracles till the
authorities at Baireuth had been instructed of his arrival, and till a
commission had been appointed of men of judgment, and physicians to take
note of the previous condition of every patient who was submitted to
him, and of the subsequent condition. Thus hampered the Prince could do
nothing; he failed as signally as in the Julius Hospital at Würzburg,
and the only cases of cures claimed to have been wrought were among a
mixed crowd in the street to whom he gave a blessing from the balcony of
his lodging.
Finding that Bamberg was uncongenial, he accepted a call to the Baths of
Brückenau, and thence news reached the incredulous of Bamberg and
Würzburg that extraordinary cures had been wrought at the prayers of the
Prince. As, however, we have no details respecting these, we may pass
them over.
Hohenlohe, who had no notion of hiding his light under a bushel, drew
up a detailed account of over a hundred cures which he claimed to have
worked, had them attested by witnesses, and sent this precious document
to the Pope, who, with good sense, took no notice of it; at least no
public notice, though it is probable that he administered a sharp
private reprimand, for Hohenlohe collapsed very speedily.
From Brückenau the Prince went to Vienna, but was not favourably
received there, so he departed to Hungary, where his mother's relations
lived. Though he was applied to by sick people who had heard of his
fame, he did not make any more direct attempts to heal them. He,
however, gave them cards on which a day and hour were fixed, and a
prayer written, and exhorted them to pray for recovery earnestly on the
day and at the hour indicated, and promised to pray for them at the same
time. But this was also discontinued, having proved inefficacious, and
Hohenlohe relapsed into a quiet unostentatious life. He was appointed,
through family interest, Canon of Grosswardein, and in 1829 advanced to
be Provost of the Cathedral. His powers as a preacher long survived his
powers of working miracles. He spent his time in good works, and in
writing little manuals of devotion. In 1844 he was consecrated titular
Bishop of Sardica _in partibus_, that is, without a See. He died at
Vöslau, near Vienna, in 1849. That Hohenlohe was a conscious hypocrite
we are far from supposing. He was clearly a man of small mental powers,
very conceited, and wanting in judgment. We must not place too much
reliance on the scandalous gossip of Dr. Wolff. Probably Hohenlohe's
vanity received a severe check in 1821, when both the Roman See and the
world united to discredit his miracles; and he had sufficient good sense
to accept the verdict.
FOOTNOTE:
[16] Johann M. Sailer was a famous ex-Jesuit preacher, at this time
Professor at the University of Landshut, afterwards Bishop of Ratisbon.
He died, 1832.
The Snail-Telegraph.
The writer well remembers, as a child, the sense of awe not unmixed with
fear, with which he observed the mysterious movements of the telegraph
erected on church towers in France along all the main roads.
Many a beautiful tower was spoiled by these abominable erections. There
were huge arms like those of a windmill, painted black, and jointed, so
as to describe a great number of cabalistic signs in the air. Indeed,
the movements were like the writhings of some monstrous spider.
Glanvil who wrote in the middle of the 17th century says, "To those that
come after us, it may be as ordinary to buy a pair of wings to fly into
the remotest regions, as now a pair of boots to ride a journey. _And to
confer, at the distance of the Indies, by sympathetic conveyances_, may
be as usual to future times as to us is literary correspondence." He
further remarks, "Antiquity would not have believed the almost
incredible force of our cannons, and would as coldly have entertained
the wonders of the telescope. In these we all condemn antique
incredulity. And it is likely posterity will have as much cause to pity
ours. But those who are acquainted with the diligent and ingenious
endeavours of true philosophers will despair of nothing."
In 1633 the Marquis of Worcester suggested a scheme of telegraphing by
means of signs. Another, but similar scheme, was mooted in 1660 by the
Frenchman Amonton. In 1763 Mr. Edgeworth erected for his private use a
telegraph between London and Newmarket. But it was in 1789 that the
Optical Telegraph came into practical use in France--Claude Chappe was
the inventor. When he was a boy, he contrived a means of communication
by signals with his brothers at a distance of two or three miles. He
laid down the first line between Lille and Paris at a cost of about two
thousand pounds, and the first message sent along it was the
announcement of the capture of Lille by Condé. This led to the
construction of many similar lines communicating with each other by
means of stations. Some idea of the celerity with which messages were
sent may be gained from the fact that it took only two minutes to
reproduce in Paris a sign given in Lille at a distance of 140 miles. On
this line there were 22 stations. The objections to this system lay in
its being useless at night and in rainy weather. The French system of
telegraph consisted of one main beam--the regulator, at the end of which
were two shorter wings, so that it formed a letter Z. The regulator and
its flags could be turned about in various ways, making in all 196
signs. Sometimes the regulator stood horizontally, sometimes
perpendicularly.
Lord Murray introduced one of a different construction in England in
1795 consisting of two rows of three octangular flags revolving on their
axis. This gave 64 different signs, but was defective in the same point
as that of Chappe. Poor Chappe was so troubled in mind because his claim
to be the inventor of his telegraph was disputed, that he drowned
himself in a well, 1805.
Besides the fact that the optical telegraph was paralysed by darkness
and storm, it was very difficult to manage in mountainous and
well-wooded country, and required there a great number of stations.
After that Sömmering had discovered at Munich in 1808 the means of
signalling through the galvanic current obtained by decomposition of
water, and Schilling at Canstadt and Ampère in Paris (1820) had made
further advances in the science of electrology, and Oersted had
established the deflexion of the magnetic needle, it was felt that the
day of the cumbrous and disfiguring optical telegraph was over. A new
power had been discovered, though the extent and the applicability of
this power were not known. Gauss and Weber in 1833 made the first
attempt to set up an electric telegraph; in 1837 Wheatstone and Morse
utilised the needle and made the telegraph print its messages. In 1833
the telegraph of Gauss and Weber supplanted the optical contrivance on
the line between Trèves and Berlin. The first line in America was laid
from Washington to Baltimore in 1844. The first attempt at submarine
telegraphy was made at Portsmouth in 1846, and in 1850 a cable was laid
between England and France.
It was precisely in this year when men's minds were excited over the
wonderful powers of the galvanic current, and a wide prospect was opened
of its future advantage to men, when, indeed, the general public
understood very little about the principle and were in a condition of
mind to accept almost any scientific marvel, that there appeared in
Paris an adventurer, who undertook to open communications between all
parts of the world without the expense and difficulty of laying cables
of communication. The line laid across the channel in 1850 was not very
successful; it broke several times, and had to be taken up again, and
relaid in 1851. If it did not answer in conveying messages across so
narrow a strip of water, was it likely to be utilized for Transatlantic
telegraphy? The _Presse_, a respectable Paris paper, conducted by a
journalist of note, M. de Girardin, answered emphatically, No. The means
of communication was not to be sought in a chain. The gutta percha
casing would decompose under the sea, and when the brine touched the
wires, the cable would be useless. The Chappe telegraph was superseded
by the electric telegraph which answered well on dry land, but fatal
objections stood in the way of its answering for communication between
places divided by belts of sea or oceans. Moreover, it was an intricate
system. Now the tendency of science in modern times was towards
simplification; and it was always found that the key to unlock
difficulties which had puzzled the inventors of the past, lay at their
hands. The electric telegraph was certainly more elaborate, complicated
and expensive than the optical telegraph. Was it such a decided advance
on it? Yes--in one way. It could be worked at all hours of night and
day. But had the last word in telegraphy been spoken, when it was
invented? Most assuredly not.
Along with electricity and terrestrial magnetism, another power,
vaguely perceived, the full utility of which was also unknown, had been
recognised--animal magnetism. Why should not this force be used as a
means for the conveyance of messages?
M. Jules Allix after a long preamble in _La Presse_, in an article
signed by himself, announced that a French inventor, M. Jacques
Toussaint Benoît (de l'Hérault), and a fellow worker of Gallic origin,
living in America, M. Biat-Chrétien, had hit on "a new system of
universal intercommunication of thought, which operates
instantaneously."
After a long introduction in true French rhodomontade, tracing the
progress of humanity from the publication of the Gospel to the 19th
century, M. Allix continued, "The discovery of MM. Benoît and Biat
depends on galvanism, terrestrial and animal magnetism, also on natural
sympathy, that is to say, the base of communication is a sort of special
sympathetic fluid which is composed of the union or blending of the
galvanic, magnetic and sympathetic currents, by a process to be
described shortly. And as the various fluids vary according to the
organic or inorganic bodies whence they are derived, it is necessary
further to state that the forces or fluids here married are: (_a_) The
terrestrial-galvanic current, (_b_) the animal-sympathetic current, in
this case derived from _snails_, (_c_) the adamic or human current, or
animal-magnetic current in man. Consequently, to describe concisely the
basis of the new system of intercommunication, we shall have to call the
force, '_The galvano-terrestrial-magnetic-animal and adamic force!_'"
Is not this something like a piece of Jules Verne's delicious scientific
_hocus-pocus_? Will the reader believe that it was written in good
faith? It was, there can be no question, written in perfect good faith.
The character of _La Presse_, of the journalist, M. Jules Allix, would
not allow of a hoax wilfully perpetrated on the public. We are quoting
from the number for October 27th, 1850, of the paper.
"According to the experiments made by MM. Benoît and Biat, it seems that
snails which have once been put in contact, are always in sympathetic
communication. When separated, there disengages itself from them a
species of fluid of which the earth is the conductor, which develops and
unrolls, so to speak, like the almost invisible thread of the spider, or
that of the silk worm, which can be uncoiled and prolonged almost
indefinitely in space without its breaking, but with this vital
difference that the thread of the escargotic fluid is invisible as
completely and the pulsation along it is as rapid as the electric fluid.
"But, it may be objected with some plausibility, granted the existence
in the snails of this sympathetic fluid, will it radiate from them in
all directions, after the analogy of electric, galvanic and magnetic
fluids, unless there be some conductor established between them? At
first sight, this objection has some weight, but for all that it is more
specious than serious." The solution of this difficulty is exquisitely
absurd. We must summarise.
At first the discoverers of the galvanic current thought it necessary to
establish a return wire, to complete the circle, till it was found to be
sufficient to carry the two ends of the wire in communication with the
earth, when the earth itself completed the circle. There is no visible
line between the ends underground, yet the current completes the circle
through it. Moreover, it is impossible to think of two points without
establishing, in idea, a line between them, indeed, according to
Euclid's definition, a straight line is that which lies evenly between
its extreme points, and a line is length without breadth or substance.
So, if we conceive of two snails, we establish a line between them, an
unsubstantial line, still a line along which the sympathetic current can
travel. "Now MM. Benoît and Biat, by means of balloons in the
atmosphere," had established beyond doubt that a visible tangible line
of communication was only necessary when raised above the earth.
"Consequently, there remains nothing more to be considered than the
means, the apparatus, whereby the transmission of thought is effected.
"This apparatus consists of a square box, in which is a Voltaic pile, of
which the metallic plates, instead of being superposed, as in the pile
of Volta, are disposed in order, attached in holes formed in a wheel or
circular disc, that revolves about a steel axis. To these metallic
plates used by Volta, MM. Benoît and Biat have substituted others in the
shape of cups or circular basins, composed of zinc lined with cloth
steeped in a solution of sulphate of copper maintained in place by a
blade of copper riveted to the cup. At the bottom of each of these
bowls, is fixed, by aid of a composition that shall be given presently,
a living snail, whose sympathetic influence may unite and be woven with
the galvanic current, when the wheel of the pile is set in motion and
with it the snails that are adhering to it.
"Each galvanic basin rests on a delicate spring, so that it may respond
to every escargotic commotion. Now; it is obvious that such an apparatus
requires a corresponding apparatus, disposed as has been described, and
containing in it snails in sympathy with those in the other apparatus,
so that the escargotic vibration may pass from one precise point in one
of the piles to a precise point in the other and complementary pile.
When these dispositions have been grasped the rest follows as a matter
of course. MM. Benoît and Biat have fixed letters to the wheels,
corresponding the one with the other, and at each sympathetic touch on
one, the other is touched; consequently it is easy by this means,
naturally and instantaneously, to communicate ideas at vast distances,
by the indication of the letters touched by the snails. The apparatus
described is in shape like a mariner's compass, and to distinguish it
from that, it is termed the _pasilalinic--sympathetic compass_, as
descriptive at once of its effects and the means of operation."
But, who were these inventors, Benoît and Biat-Chrétien? We will begin
with the latter. As Pontoppidon in his History of Norway heads a
chapter, "Of Snakes," and says, "Of these there are none," so we may say
of M. Biat-Chrétien; there was no such man; at least he never rose to
the surface and was seen. Apparently his existence was as much a
hallucination or creation of the fancy of M. Benoît, as was Mrs. Harris
a creature of the imagination of Mrs. Betsy Gamp. Certainly no
Biat-Chrétien was known in America as a discoverer.