 |
vol. title: vol. period: 1879-1880 pages in vol.: 577 |
< The Present Outlook (continued from page 10-446) >
receiving strangers at seances and printing advertisements which almost invited prosecutions from the ignorant. No Vigilance Committee existed to give them a word of advice and warning.
When mediums are attacked we have nobody to inquire into the cases for the movement, and to say whether they ought to be defended at all, considering the injury done to Spiritualism by acts of carelessness, or to say what steps should be taken, or what money it is fair and reasonable for the movement to expend thereupon. In all past cases probably some defence would have been recommended, on the ground that it is too hard that persons who may have displayed lack of intelligence should be prosecuted as impostors.
But in the future some printed general advice might be handed to any new professional medium, informing him that if he brings down a public scandal upon himself and the movement by foolish actions, he will be entitled to no defence from Spiritualists.
Then when conjurors are showing tricks and calling them spiritual manifestations, or lecturers are attacking Spiritualism, men sent by our imaginary Committee should be present, freely distributing leaflets giving accurate information.
When a daily paper prints an untruth about Spiritualism, and will not contradict it when furnished with documentary evidence that it is false, the Committee should inform the journal that 100,000 leaflets are that day being distributed by one thousand Spiritualists in London, containing the vital points of the evidence demonstrating that it had circulated news knowing it to be false. This plan would not cost much, and dishonourable journals would soon get sick of being advertised in that way. They would not care for pamphleteering.
In fact, when any disturbing event takes place, Spiritualists will remark, as a matter of course—“When our Committee meets this week, it is sure to take the necessary action.”
To work with efficiency the Committee should be small, numbering not more than five or six, of whom two should be lawyers. Every man on it should have a name carrying weight in the movement, for a solitary second-rate man can spoil the working of any Committee.
Much that has been herein suggested would cost nothing, but in police court cases it might be necessary now and then to make a small special subscription. The movement is in a very defenceless state for want of an organised Committee of some five or six firstrate men to give a little efficient attention weekly to its public work.
Mr.Wallace's Defence of Mr. Fletcher
Sir,—The 4th paragraph of Mr. Wallace’s letter in your paper this week begins by very properly insisting that “this is a question of the necessary meaning of certain words and expressions”; the letter closes by contending that the singular number may import the plural. Those who have perused “Lex’s” letter in the same paper will readily understand that this last contention is almost as necessary to Mr. Wallace’s own justification as it is to Fletcher’s.
To clear the ground, let me say at once that I do not address myself to anyone who professes to think it possible that the words “an American,” and “the American medium,” in their context, were intended to be understood of American mediums in general, or of more than one in particular. If anyone tells me that he can and does think that possible, I am silent; all discussion, so far, is at an end between us.
With almost equal reason I might decline argument on the suggestion that the words “an American had rendered Spiritualism detestable and contemptible in this country” might refer to the proceedings of an American in America, and that is the cause of Mr. Fletcher coming over from America to England. For this is the crowning absurdity (where all is absurd) alike in the Holmes theory and in the Fay theory. But that I may not seem to shirk any interpretation, however unnatural, which may be to some minds conceivable, I will briefly indicate the fatal objections, apart from this circumstance, to each of these hypotheses. As to “the Holmeses,” they are two and not one, so I might dismiss them. But in addition to that, the American exposure (there never was an English exposure of them which got known to the general public) was at the end of the year 1874. The unfortunate connection of Mr. Dale Owen with that event caused it to be extensively reported and commented upon in this country at the time, no doubt to the prejudice of Spiritualism. Like all events of partial interest which do not happen under our very noses, the matter ceased to be written about after a week or two, and outside Spiritualism only the active enemies of Spiritualism kept it in recollection to be referred to now and then as other occasions for attacking us arose. In 1877 it had passed into the bygone history of American disasters to the movement as completely as the case of Lyon v. Home, and the alleged exposure of the Davenport brothers in England. And this was the event, happening in America more than two years previously, which is supposed to have made Fletcher “at once resolve” to come over to England in 1877. So much for the Holmeses.
Now for Eva Fay. In her case also, the words cannot refer to any scandal arising in England, and known to the public before Fletcher’s arrival here. She was here in 1875, and in 1876 she was “exposed” in America by Mr. Bishop. Mr. Wallace shall speak for himself. “Her exposure in America extended over a large part of 1876, and this exposure was made widely known by the American Graphic and other newspapers, and through them to the English public.” I am in the recollection of readers who have watched the course of the movement as closely as I have myself, when I say that to speak of Spiritualism <... continues on page 10-448 >
Editor's notes
- ↑ Mr.Wallace's Defence of Mr. Fletcher by Massey, C.C., London Spiritualist, The, No. 425, October 15, 1880, pp. 187-89
Sources
-
London Spiritualist, No. 425, October 15, 1880, pp. 187-89