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vol. title: vol. period: 1881 pages in vol.: 439 |
< Desecration of a Tomb (continued from page 11-298) >
sary through the family mausoleum at Haigh Wigan having been filled. The late earl’s body was the first to be placed in the vault, which is constructed to contain twenty-five coffins, access being obtained by means of a stair descending from the level of the ground outside the mortuary chapel. The discovery of the outrage was made on Thursday by a labourer on toe estate when going to his work in the early morning, who seeing that one of the slabs had been disturbed, immediately gave information to the chief servants at Dunecht House. Nothing could be done until authority had been obtained from the factor or the Earl of Crawford himself, but the latter was travelling in the South. Mr. Teats, of Osquharney, the Earl’s commissioner, was communicated with, as well as the county police. Mr. Yeats, accompanied by Inspector Cron, at once proceeded to Dunecht, and made an inspection.
The footprints of at least three persons have been traced upon the soft earth near the mouth of the crypt, and one of these is that of a large sole, heavily hobnailed. A most singular train of untoward circumstances attended the removal of the remains of the late earl from Florence to Dunecht The body was placed within three coffins, the inner one being of soft Italian wood, the middle of lead, and the outer of oak. In her solicitude for the safe conveyance of the remains of her husband, the dowager-countess gave instructions that a casket of walnut should be made, within which the three coffins were deposited. The top of this casket was a cross carved in high relief. The conveyance of the remains across the Alps was a work of very great difficulty, but under the care of the confidential servant of the deceased they reached France in safety. A small steamer was chartered to convey the body to London, and she encountered such a violent gale in crossing the Channel that the coffin had to be lashed to the deck. The removal to Aberdeen was safely effected, but here another difficulty presented itself. No hoarse large enough to receive the outer coffin could be procured, and it had to be removed. On the day that the body was removed from Aberdeen to Dunecht, one of the most violent snowstorms over experienced in Scotland broke out, and to such a depth did the flakes accumulate that on the return journey the hearse was snowed up by the wayside, and remained for several days embedded before it could be removed to Aberdeen. The men who accompanied it suffered great hardships before they could find their way back to the city.
An Extraordinary Medium
Mr. E. K. Hosford, of Edinburgh, Indiana, writes to the Religio-Philosophical Journal:—
My object in writing this is to call the attention of your numerous readers to a comparatively little known, but very remarkable medium, C. E. Winans, of this place, who has just entered into an alliance with Dr. Alexis J. Fishback, well and favourably known as one of our best lecturers. They have just started on a lecturing tour through Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas. Any communications to them directed to this office, will be promptly forwarded.
The history of C. E. Winans’ development is peculiar and not devoid of interest. In the winter of 1871 and 1872, A. W. Dowins, (a Presbyterian), Luther Paine and Wm. Marsh, (Universalists), and myself, then a red-hot shouting Methodist, formed a private circle, with sittings twice a week, for the purpose of investigating through our own medial powers (of which we are not entirely deficient), the truth or falsity of the spiritual phenoniena. The result of that investigation, and how it knocked our orthodoxy “higher than a kite,” was years ago laid before your readers. In the spring of 1873, our attention was called, as by accident, to the physical phenomena surrounding the family of Mrs. Rachael Winans, more especially of the younger son, then aged twenty-one or two. This was the C. E. Winans of our narrative. He was then a member of the M. E. Church. By hard and earnest pleading, I induced him—or rather seduced him, to enter our circle; but in less than ten days, we all wished we hadn’t. I for one would have given hundreds—yes, thousands of dollars, to have had him off our hands. He was “an elephant!” Not that he was not a medium. The trouble was that he was too much of one; he was more than we bargained for. Upon entering our circle he was almost instantly entranced, and for two years, I don’t think he was in his normal condition one-fourth of his time. It left him helpless as a babe upon our hands and we had him and his mother to support. I had the hardest of it, as there was an influence about me that suited his development. He froze to me and I could by no means shake him off. Much of this time he lay in a dead or rigid trance. In dark circles, while we all had hold of him, the invisible powers would take him away from us and entirely out of the circle room when all ingress and egress was securely locked and <... continues on page 11-300 >
Editor's notes
- ↑ An Extraordinary Medium by Hosford, E.K., London Spiritualist, No. 485, December 9, 1881, pp. 281-82
Sources
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London Spiritualist, No. 485, December 9, 1881, pp. 281-82