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vol. title: Miscellaneous Scraps from January 1st 1878 vol. period: 1875-1878 pages in vol.: 153 |
A Free Fight at a Seance
Dr. Henry C. Gordon, bogus materializer, was grabbed, last night, while playing spirit. Medium Gordon, next to the Blisses, is the smartest, most successful, and most audacious of all spiritual humbugs. His wife is a fugitive from justice, with three bills of indictment hanging over her in the Quarter Sessions. Gordon formerly lived in Chicago, but his wife, to rid herself of him, had him placed in the Cook county Asylum for the Insane, and then ran away with another man. At one time she resided with the mother of Josephine Mansfield, Col. Fisk's well-known companion. She is a relative of Royal Sammis, charged with being the principal actor in the terrible Kelsey outrage on Long Island. When Gordon formerly resided in New York he played medium, but was caught one fine night and partially exposed, the grabbing being somewhat premature. In Philadelphia he took board in a large Spiritualist house at 1,017 Fairmount avenue, and there he gathered around him a select circle.
Recently a young lady residing in the lower portion of the city attended one of Iris seances and saw a form which was represented, and which she believed to be, the spirit of her dead mother. The young lady fainted. Since then she has been almost crazed. Her friends determined, if possible, to cure her. First, they gave Gordon a test. On Monday night of last week a form appeared at the aperture in the cabinet with a long, black beard and black hair. Ponco, an Indian chief, who controls the medium, and who announces the spirits, but who himself is never visible, called out: "Brightly! Brightly!" "If that is Brackley—John Brackley—perhaps I might recognize him," said one of the young lady's friends. The form disappeared. After the seance the young man informed Gordon of the circumstance—the medium, of course, was in a trance and knew nothing of what transpired at the seance—and informed him that his friend Brackley died in Pittsburgh three years ago. "Come again," said the Doctor, "and perhaps he may talk to you."
No such person as Brackley, by the way, ever existed.
On Thursday last, when the next seance was held, sure enough John Brackley appeared. "Great Heavens!" said the wicked young man, "what a remarkable resemblance! That is, in- deed, Jack Brackley."
"Brackley! Brackley!" called out Ponco. "Me brought him that time."
John Brackley's capture was then determined upon, and, that the young lady might be saved from ending her days in a madhouse, she was invited to attend the seance last night.
Dr. Gordon's room is the second story front, in the Fairmount avenue dwelling. It is arranged with knicknacks and ribbons, just as a woman would beautify her apartment. On the walls hang oil paintings, executed by the Doctor—who swears that he cannot paint at all—while he was in a trance and controlled by spirits. The pictures are a criminal libel on the artists in the spirit world. The Doctor himself has long, tawny hair, a longer and a tawnier moustache, and he swings himself and bends his head from side to side like a damsel in her teens. His chief assistant is young Mr. Suidam, with black hair and black moustache, but with the same feminine airs. The price of admission to Gordon's seances had heretofore been twenty-five cents; but finding the room crowded, last night with thirty-two persons, he at once raised the rate to fifty cents.
A committee of three, consisting of Mr. Lippincott, a Market street auctioneer, and his two sons, was appointed by Gordon to examine himself and the cabinet. The cabinet consisted of a curtain stretched across a corner of the room, and behind this was another curtain, merely thrown across a wire. The committee examined the cabinet and found nothing. Gordon then stepped behind the foremost curtain, and after he had hidden a few articles behind the rear curtain he invited the committee to inspect him. They stripped him of nearly every article of clothing and found nothing. Then all the lights in the room were extinguished except one Argand burner, which had its lever cut out, so that the light could not be raised above a feeble glimmer. Suidam was placed on one side of the cabinet and a tall, long-whiskered man, named Stetson, who was appointed manager of the seance, sat at the other end.
A hymn was started, and faces appeared at the aperture. Dr. De Young of Fifth street, near Race, recognized Jane Gallagher, who had been killed by a fall. Mr. Lippincott thought he recognized the face of a middle-aged lady, who could not talk. Mr. Lippincott's eldest son walked to the aperture when the name "Henry" was called. When he returned to his seat he said: "That was the spirit of my brother-in-law. He attempted to recover a valuable knife that had fallen into the water. He was mistaken in the depth and was drowned. I know it was he, because he held the knife in his hand. It is indeed a remarkable circumstance."
The only figure that walked from the cabinet was Helen. Mr. Stetson said she would not come out unless all joined hands. Her head appeared black, there was a white handkerchief around her neck, and her gown was black. Dr. Gordon had evidently taken the rear curtain from off its wire and girdled it around his waist. Helen shook hands with Suidam and the youngest Lippincott. Helen dematerialized, sinking into the floor, and a chorus of wonderful! remarkable! went up.
At last there appeared at the aperture the black haired and black bearded individual who represented John Brackley, the friend of the young lady's friend. Some Spiritualists persisted in recognizing him as John Shedwick, formerly an engineer on a New Jersey railroad. The spirit, however, persisted in being John Brackley, and so John Walsh, a South street plumber, who had crept into the confidence of the medium, was called up to have a talk with John. Mr. Walsh walked to the aperture and then stooped a little to peer in. The curtain was between him and John Brackley. A number of gentlemen of substantial form who were sprinkled through the audience looked solemn and serious.
Suddenly Mr. Walsh sprang forward and grasped in his arms John Brackley, curtain and all. That little room became a little pandemonium. The substantial looking gentlemen each jumped to their feet, and each collared a pugilistically disposed Spiritualist. A young man in the rear struck a match and lighted a plumber's lamp, with which Mr. Walsh had provided him, and with this he lighted every burner in the room. The women mounted the chairs and screamed. The young lady who had seen the bogus spirit of her mother laughed until she cried. John Brackley, still behind the curtain, kicked and struggled in a most brutal manner, but never a word said he. A big Spiritualist—the capturing party was not large enough to hold more than a portion of the audience in check—ran to John's rescue, and struck Mr. Walsh in the eye. Mr. Walsh lost his grip, but, as the spirit slipped through his arms, he quickly put his hand through the aperture and lifted John Brackley's scalp—a little skull cap of black silk. The spirit did not dematerialize, but ran to the other end of the curtain, and here it came in view as Dr. Henry C. Gordon, the medium, and here it was seen to stuff a black beard beneath its vest. Meanwhile, in front of the cabinet a free fight was progressing between the Spiritualists and the exposers. Daniel Snyder, a burly photographer, being attacked by Manager Stetson, picked the latter up and threw him headforemost against the wall. Mr. Jonathan Roberts of Burlington, N. J., caught Mr. Snyder by the arm, and was himself grasped by the throat and thrown into a corner. Gordon having escaped from Walsh, ran quickly from the cabinet into the middle of the room, where he was caught by a young man, who threw him on his knees. Manager Stetson—this was immediately before he was thrown against the wall—pounced upon the young man. Gordon was again up, and running quickly through the fighting audience, reached the door of an adjoining apartment. Here he was again laid hold of by another young gentleman, who threw him over a small stove. Suidam struck the gentleman in the eye, and Gordon, who had fallen upon his back, turned the stove over upon his assailant, and, quickly rising, escaped from the room and down stairs. After a vain attempt to recover their admission fees, the exposers left the house in triumphal procession, with John Brackley's silk black wig in their possession.
The Egg Dance
One of the things that the Prince of Wales will see during his stay in Calcutta, is the egg dance. It ought to amuse him, for the like conjuring trick has never before been seen by him, clever as are the experts he has patronized. The egg dance is thus performed: The dancer, dressed in a corsage and very short skirt, carries a willow wheel of moderate diameter, fastened horizontally upon the top of her head. Around this wheel threads are fastened, equally distant from each other, and at the end of each of these threads, is a slip noose, which is kept open by a glass bead. Thus equipped, the young girl comes towards the spectators with a basket full of eggs, which she passes round for inspection, to prove that they are real, and not imitations. The music strikes up a jerky, monotonous strain, and the dancer begins to whirl around with great rapidity. Then, seizing an egg, she puts it in one of the slip nooses, and, with a quick motion, throws it from her in such a way as to draw the knot tight. The swift turning of the dancer, produces a centrifugal force which stretches the thread out straight like a ray shooting from the circumference of the circle. One after another the eggs are thrown out in these slip nooses, until they make a horizontal aureole or halo about the dancer's head. Then the dance became still more rapid, so rapid, in fact, that it is difficult to distinguish the features of the girl; the moment is critical; the least false step, the least irregularity in time, and the eggs dash against each other. But how can the dance be stopped? There is but one way—that is, to remove the eggs in the way in which they have been put in place. The operation is by far the more delicate of the two. It is necessary that the dancer, by a single motion, exact and unerring, should take hold of the egg and remove it from the noose. A single false motion of the hand, the least interference with one of the threads, and the general arrangement is suddenly broken, and the performance disastrously ended. At last, all the eggs are successfully removed; the dancer suddenly stops, and without seeming in the least dizzled by this dance of twenty-five to thirty minutes, she advances to the spectators with a firm step, and presents them the eggs, which are immediately broken in a flat dish to prove that there is no trick about the performance.
Necromancy
In the "History of the Intellectual Development of Europe," by J. W. Draper of New York, occurs this passage on Alexandrian Necromancy: "Thus Plotinus wrote a book on the association of demons with men, and his disciple Porphyry proved practically the possibility of such an alliance; for, repairing to the temple of Isis, along with Plotinus and a certain Egyptian priest, the latter, to prove his supernatural powers, offered to raise up the spirit of Plotinus himself in a visible form. A magical circle was drawn on the ground, surrounded with the customary astrological signs, the invocation commenced, the spirit appeared, and Plotinus stood face to face with his own soul. In this successful experiment it is needless to inquire how far the necromancer depended upon optical contrivances, and how far upon an alarmed imagination. Perhaps there was somewhat of both, but if thus the spirit of a living man could be called up, how much more likely the souls of the dead."
<Untitled> (Fatality in connection with fire)
Fatality in connection with fire seems to follow Kate Claxton wherever she goes. She played in Worcester Thursday night, and the next day one of the local papers gave her the following editorial notice: The "Two Orphans," with Kate Claxton as Louise, drew a large audience at the theatre last evening, but the presentation of the piece was less satisfactory than when it was first given here. The company is a fair one, with Miss Claxton as the main attraction, but the piece is one which requires a company of more than average ability for its satisfactory presentation. Thomas Birmingham, night watchman, was burned to death in the building. The shops were insured for $100,000." The last three lines were diverted from their proper place at the end of another item by a mistake which is likely to happen in any printing office, and of course have nothing to do with the fair Kate. Notwithstanding, the fact of its being there is a curious coincidence.
Editor's notes