THE MERCENARY CAMPAIGN.
The public campaign of Spiritualism was now begun.
A sufficient hubbub had been made over it to induce attention from all
sorts and conditions of people.
The mother and her daughters went again to Rochester, and there placed
themselves in the hands of the first of many "committees of friends" who
were used as tools or confederates, according to their character, to
"humbug" the public more completely. The character and functions of these
committees may be judged from the following, which is found in Leah's
book: "The names of this committee were Isaac Post, R. D. Jones, Edward
Jones, John Kedzie and Andrew Clackner. _They were faithful friends, who
never permitted any one to visit us unattended by themselves or some
reliable person._"
The so-called spirits soon urged in laborious communications that it was
needful to make their demonstrations more public, and that an
"investigation" of the "rappings," ought therefore to be made by some
well-known men. The "spirits" were even so kind as to spell out by means
of the tentative alphabet, the names of those whom they wished to have
appointed to perform this part. The desire for advertisement, indeed, was
not likely to cause the rejection of the name of any available person,
whose prominence would increase the public interest in the movement. We
are not astonished, then, to find that Frederick Douglass was one of those
present at this earliest farce of investigation. It was the forerunner of
many others which were like unto it, and gradually, in their stations in
various cities, the "Fox Sisters" drew to their seances nearly all of the
conspicuous persons of the time, who regarded the effects exhibited to
them in as many different lights as their minds and characters were
different.
Naturally enough, after this compliance with their desires, the "spirits"
directed that a public exhibition should be given. The largest hall in
Rochester was hired for the purpose.
And here the infamy of bringing forward two little girls to do the work of
base and vulgar charlatanism, appears in all its revolting character. The
eldest of the children was then but nine years old. Had she been dressed
in accordance with her tender age, it would have taken only very slight
observation to detect the secret of the "rappings." Those persons now
living, who were present at this and at other public exhibitions of
Spiritualism at that time, will easily remember that Margaret and
Catherine Fox appeared on a platform in long gowns, as if they had been
full-grown women. The dresses were expressly prepared by order of Mrs. Ann
Leah Fox Fish, the evil genius of these unfortunate victims. Without
these robes nothing whatever could have been done in the way of "spirit
rappings," under the matter-of-fact scrutiny of the public.
To carry out the delusion to the utmost, every detail touching these
earliest exhibitions was directed through "spirit rappings," even to the
insertion of grandiloquent notices in the newspapers.
In all of the "investigations" of the "rappings," at this or at any other
time, the attentive student will find somewhere a loop-hole of escape from
observation, an unguarded avenue of detection. In some of the principal
seances, described at great length by Leah, the conditions favorable to
fraud and illusion were so very obvious that they ought to have excited
derision in the veriest child.
The following passage in the report of a so-called investigation, is
pointed to by professional spiritualists as one of the best "evidences" of
the genuineness of Spiritualism:
"One of the committee placed one of his hands on the feet of the ladies
and the other on the floor, and though the feet were not moved, there was
a distinct jar of the floor."
Here, then, there were three operators and one investigator. The latter
puts his hand on the feet of the ladies. How many feet, pray you? There
were six feet on the platform, as we know, all of which had been carefully
educated in the production of "raps." Could one man's hand cover them all?
And if it could not, does not this pretended "evidence" fall at once to
the ground?
All of the recitals made by spiritualistic writers concerning the doings
of the "Fox Sisters," contain this element of vagueness, the lack of
precision and completeness, which to persons unaccustomed to analysis may
possibly appear plausible enough, but to the experienced inquirer is
merely a more certain proof of weakness and prevarication.
Volumes might be written to meet the statements advanced in every case,
and to show how clumsily misleading they are. It is not worth while at
this late day, and in that direction, to do more than I have already
accomplished in this chapter.
Indeed, the actual demonstration of the fact that the far-famed "rappings"
are produced in the manner described at the beginning of this work, should
be quite sufficient to all logical minds, to condemn every claim that the
professional mediums have advanced as being the agents of any supernatural
manifestations.
The good old Latin maxim never applied with greater force than it does
here: _Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus_.
The operations of the eldest sister all tended to the one end: fame and
money. In Rochester, fees for the first time were accepted by "mediums,"
and shortly afterward a tariff of prices for admission to the seances and
the "private circles" was adopted and made public. No jugglers ever drove
a more prosperous business than did the "Fox family" for a number of
years, when once fairly launched upon that sea of popular wonder, which
somebody has said is supplied by the inherent fondness of mankind for
being humbugged.
Mrs. Fish had actually the project of founding a new religion, and she
tried hard to convince her younger sisters and her own child that there
were really such things as spiritual communications, notwithstanding that
all of those that were produced in their seances they knew to be perfectly
false. She asserted that even before Maggie and Katie were born she had
received messages warning her that they were destined to do great things.
"In all of our seances, while we were under her charge," says Mrs. Kane,
"we knew just when to rap 'yes' and when to rap 'no' by signals that she
gave us, and which were unknown to any one but ourselves. Of course, we
were too young, then, to have been successful very long in deluding
people, had it not been for an arrangement such as this.
"Her own daughter, Lizzie, had no manner of patience with her transparent
pretence.
"'Ma,' she would exclaim, when Leah attempted to impress her with a belief
in some of the frauds which she perpetrated, 'how can you ever pretend
that that is done by the spirits? I am ashamed to know even that you do
such things--it's dreadfully wicked.'"
Some day it will be known that one other person beside Lizzie, who
afterwards occupied a filial relation to this woman, detested even more
strongly the atmosphere of hypocrisy and deceit with which the latter
surrounded herself, and hated, too, the rankling obligation under which an
unkind fate had placed her.
It is not so wonderful that men of learning and originality were drawn to
the mysterious seances of the Fox girls, when it is considered that they
became a sort of fashionable "fad," as the receptions of Mesmer did in the
last century in Paris. There were great opportunities there for studying
human nature, and the period was one of a notable awakening of scientific
and transcendental speculation. Such men as Greeley, Bancroft, Fenimore
Cooper, Bryant, N. P. Willis, Dr. Francis, John Bigelow, Ripley, Dr.
Griswold, Dr. Eliphalet Nott, Theodore Parker, William M. Thackeray, James
Freeman Clarke, Thomas M. Foote and Bayard Taylor, and women of the
intellectual strength of Alice Cary and Harriet Beecher Stowe became
deeply interested. But nearly all of these lost their interest in
Spiritualism in time, for they became morally, if not positively
convinced, that the effects produced were the mere result of fraud.
There was another attraction, however, in those early days. The younger
"mediums" were both very pretty and very young. Sympathy and
commiseration, as much as aught else, often drew visitors to them, and
caused such visitors to continue their friends. Thus, we find that Horace
Greeley and Dr. Elisha Kent Kane became important factors in the lives of
both of these interesting creatures, the former educating Katie, and the
latter striving to form Maggie's mind and to reform her character with
the express object of making her his wife.
Mrs. Kane, in commenting upon the life which she led at that time, says:
"When I look back, I can only say in defense of my depraved calling, that
I took not the slightest pleasure in it. The novelty and the excitement
that had half intoxicated me as a child were fast being dissipated. The
true conception of this infamous thing soon dawned upon me. The awakening
was full of anguish--the anguish of hope, as well as the anguish of grief.
I then first knew Dr. Kane, and with that acquaintance entered the new
light into my life."