AN "INDESCRIBABLE PHENOMENON."
When the bulk of the London Press elects to gush over anything or
anybody, there are at all events, primâ facie grounds for believing that
there is something to justify such a consensus. When, moreover, the
object of such gush is a young lady claiming to be a spirit-medium, the
unanimity is so unusual as certainly to make the matter worth the most
careful inquiry, for hitherto the London Press has either denounced
spiritualism altogether, or gushed singly over individual mediums,
presumably according to the several proclivities of the correspondents.
Of Miss Annie Eva Fay, however--is not the very name fairy-like and
fascinating?--I read in one usually sober-minded journal that "there is
something not of this earth about the young lady's powers." Another
averred that she was "a spirit medium of remarkable and extraordinary
power." Others, more cautious, described the "mystery" as "bewildering,"
the "entertainment" as "extraordinary and incomprehensible," while yet
another seemed to me to afford an index to the cause of this gush by
saying that "Miss Fay is a pretty young lady of about twenty, with a
delicate spirituelle face, and a profusion of light hair, frizzled on
the forehead."
I made a point of attending Miss Annie Eva Fay's opening performance at
the Hanover Square Rooms, and found all true enough as to the pretty
face and the frizzled hair. Of the "indescribable" nature of the
"phenomenon" (for by that title is Miss Fay announced, à la Vincent
Crummles) there may be two opinions, according as we regard the young
lady as a kind of Delphic Priestess and Cumæan Sibyl rolled into one, or
simply a clever conjuror--conjuress, if there be such a word.
Let me, then, with that delightful inconsistency so often brought to
bear on the so-called or self-styled "supernatural," first describe the
"indescribable," and then, in the language of the unspiritual Dr. Lynn,
tell how it is all done; for, of course, I found it all out, like a
great many others of the enlightened and select audience which gathered
at Miss Annie Eva Fay's first drawing-room reception in the Queen's
Concert Rooms.
Arriving at the door half an hour too early, as I had misread the time
of commencement, I found at the portal Mr. Burns, of the Progressive
Library, and a gentleman with a diamond brooch in his shirt-front, whom
I guessed at once, from that adornment, to be the proprietor of the
indescribable phenomenon, and I was, in fact, immediately introduced to
him as Colonel Fay.
Passing in due course within the cavernous room which might have suited
well a Cumæan Sibyl on a small scale, I found the platform occupied by a
tiny cabinet, unlike that of the Davenports in that it was open in
front, with a green curtain, which I could see was destined to be let
down during the performance of the phenomenal manifestations. There was
a camp-stool inside the cabinet; a number of cane-bottomed chairs on the
platform, and also the various properties of a spirit séance, familiar
to me from long experience, guitar, fiddle, handbells, tambourine, &c.
One adjunct alone was new; and that was a green stable bucket, destined,
I could not doubt, to figure in what my Rimmel-scented programme
promised as the climax of Part I.--the "Great Pail Sensation." Presently
Colonel Fay, in a brief speech, nasal but fluent, introduced the
subject, and asked two gentlemen to act as a Committee of Inspection.
Two stepped forward immediately--indeed too immediately, as the result
proved; one a "citizen of this city," as Colonel Fay had requested; but
the other a Hindoo young gentleman, who, I believe, lost the confidence
of the audience at once from his foreign face and Oriental garb.
However, they were first to the front, and so were elected, and
proceeded at once to "examine" the cabinet in that obviously helpless
and imperfect way common to novices who work with the gaze of an
audience upon them. Then, from a side door, stage left, enter the
Indescribable Phenomenon. A pretty young lady, yes, and with light
frizzled hair to any extent. There was perhaps "a spirit look within her
eyes;" but then I have often found this to be the case with young ladies
of twenty. Her dress of light silk was beyond reproach. I had seen
Florence Cook and Miss Showers lately; and,--well, I thought those two,
with the assistance of Miss Annie Eva Fay, would have made a very pretty
model for a statuette of the Three Graces.
Miss Fay, after being described by the Colonel vaguely enough as "of the
United States," was bound on both wrists with strips of calico; the
knots were sewn by the European gentleman--as distinguished from the
Asiatic youth. He was not quite au fait at the needle, but got through
it in time. Miss Fay was then placed on the camp-stool, her wrists
fastened behind her, and her neck also secured to a ring screwed into
the back of the cabinet. A rope was tied round her ankles, and passed
right to the front of the stage, where the Hindoo youth was located and
bidden hold it taut, which he did conscientiously, his attitude being
what Colman describes "like some fat gentleman who bobbed for eels."
First of all, another strip of calico was placed loosely round Miss
Fay's neck; the curtain descended. Hey, presto! it was up again, sooner
than it takes to write, and this strip was knotted doubly and trebly
round her neck. A tambourine hoop was put in her lap, and this, in like
manner, was found encircling her neck, as far as the effervescent hair
would allow it.
The audience at this point grew a little fidgety; and though they did
not say anything against the Oriental young gentleman, the 'cute
American colonel understood it, adding two others from the audience to
the committee on the stage, and leaving the young gentleman to "bob"
down below as if to keep him out of mischief.
The other "manifestations" were really only different in detail from the
first. The guitar was placed on the lap, the curtain fell and it played;
so did the fiddle--out of tune, as usual--and also a little glass
harmonicon with actually a soupçon of melody. A mouth-organ
tootle-tooed, and what Colonel Fay described as a "shingle nail" was
driven with a hammer into a piece of wood. A third of a tumbler of water
laid on the lap of the Indescribable Phenomenon was drunk, and the great
Pail Sensation consisted in the bucket being put on her lap and then
discovered slung by the handle around her neck. The last "manifestation"
is the one to which I would draw attention; for it was by this I
discovered how it was all done. A knife was put on Miss Fay's lap; the
curtain lowered, the knife pitched on to the platform, and behold the
Indescribable Phenomenon stepped from the cabinet with the ligature that
had bound her wrists and neck severed.
Now, all through this portion of the entertainment the audience,
instead of sitting quiet, amused themselves with proposing idiotic
tests, or suggesting audibly how it was all done. One man behind me
pertinaciously clung to the theory of a concealed boy, and trotted him
to the front after every phase of the exhibition. He must have been
infinitesimally small; but that did not matter. It was "that boy again"
after every trick. One manifestation consisted in putting a piece of
paper and pair of scissors on Miss Fay's lap, and having several "tender
little infants" cut out, as the Colonel phrased it.
Hereupon sprang up a 'cute individual in the room, and produced a sheet
of paper he had marked. Would Miss Fay cut out a tender little infant
from that? Miss Fay consented, and of course did it, the 'cute
individual retiring into private life for the rest of the evening.
Another wanted Miss Fay's mouth to be bound with a handkerchief, and
there was no objection raised, until the common-sense and humanity of
the audience protested against such a needless cruelty on a broiling
night and in that Cumæan cave. An excited gentleman in front of me, too,
whose mission I fancy was simply to protest against the spiritual
character of the phenomena (which was never asserted) would interrupt us
all from time to time by declaring his intense satisfaction with it all.
It was a splendid trick. We tried to convince him that his individual
satisfaction was irrelevant to us, but it was, as Wordsworth says,
"Throwing words away." It was a beautiful trick; and he was satisfied,
quite satisfied.
The Dark Séance, which formed the second part of the performance, was a
dreadful mistake. It was not only unsatisfactory in result, but--and no
doubt this was the reason--it was so mismanaged as to threaten more than
once to eventuate in a riot. Twelve or fourteen persons were to form a
committee representing the audience, and to sit in a circle, with the
Indescribable Phenomenon in their centre, while we remained below in
Egyptian darkness and received their report. Of course we all felt that
we--if not on the committee--might just as well be sitting at home or in
the next parish as in the cave of Cumæ. The method of electing the
committee was briefly stated by Colonel Fay to be "first come first
served," and the consequence was a rush of some fifty excited people on
to the platform, with earnest requests on the part of the proprietary to
be "still." There was no more stillness for the rest of the evening. The
fifty were pruned down to about fifteen of the most pertinacious, who
would not move at any price; in fact, the others only descended on being
promised that the dark sitting should be divided into two, and another
committee appointed. The Indescribable Phenomenon took her seat on the
camp-stool in the centre, where she was to remain clapping her hands, to
show she was not producing the manifestations. The gas was put out and
darkness prevailed--darkness, but not silence. The disappointed and
rejected committee men--and women--first began to grumble in the freedom
which the darkness secured. The committee was a packed one. They were
Spiritualists. This was vigorously denied by somebody, who said he saw a
Press man in the circle, and therefore (such was his logic) he could not
be a Spiritualist. All this time the Indescribable Phenomenon was
clapping her hands, and now some of the more restless of the audience
clapped theirs in concert. The guitar and fiddle began to thump and
twang, and the bells to ring, and then again the more refractory
lunatics amongst us began to beat accompaniment on our hats. The whole
affair was worthy of Bedlam or Hanwell, or, let us add, an Indescribable
Phenomenon.
The committee was changed with another rush, and those who were finally
exiled from the hope of sitting took it out in the subsequent darkness
by advising us to "beware of our pockets." When Colonel Fay asked for
quietude he was rudely requested "not to talk through his nose." It was
not to be wondered at that the séance was very brief, and the meeting
adjourned.
Now to describe the indescribable. If it be a spiritual manifestation,
of course there is an end of the matter; but if a mere conjuring trick,
I would call attention to the following facts. The fastening of Miss
Fay's neck to the back of the cabinet at first is utterly gratuitous. It
offers no additional difficulty to any manifestations, and appears only
intended to prevent the scrutineers seeing behind her. A very simple
exercise of sleight of hand would enable the gallant Colonel to cut the
one ligature that binds the two wrists, when, for instance, he goes into
the cabinet with scissors to trim off the ends of the piece of calico in
the opening trick. The hands being once free all else is easy. The hands
are _never once seen_ during the performance. The committee can feel
them, and feel the knots at the wrists; but they cannot discover whether
the ligature connecting the wrists is entire.
The last trick, be it recollected, consists in the ligature being cut
and Miss Fay's coming free to the front. If my theory is incorrect--and
no doubt it _is_ ruinously wrong--will she consent to _omit the last
trick_ and come to the front with wrists bound as she entered the
cabinet? Of course, if I had suggested it, she would have done it as
easily as she cut out the tender infants for the 'cute gentleman behind
me; so, to adopt the language of Miss Fay's fellow-citizen, I "bit in my
breath and swallered it down." I adopted the course Mr. Maskelyne told
me he did with the Davenports, sat with my eyes open and my mouth shut.
It is marvellous to see how excited we phlegmatic islanders grow when
either spirits are brought to the front, or we think we have found out a
conjuring trick. I am not going to follow the example of my gushing
brethren, but I can safely say that if anybody has an afternoon or
evening to spare, he may do worse than go to the Crystal Palace or the
Hanover Square Rooms, to see a very pretty and indescribable phenomenon,
and to return as I did, a wiser, though perhaps a sadder man, in the
proud consciousness of having "found out how it is all done."