The Death-Blow to Spiritualism Part 7

The excitement had reached a great height, and a pamphlet was already in the press detailing the whole of the wonderful performances at Hydesville, when Leah first heard of them. She hastened thither at once. Some idea of the profit which could be derived from awakened public interest in the matter, seems to have come to her very promptly. She found that the family had moved from the "haunted" house to that of her brother, David. She investigated the source of the "raps." Mrs. Kane says that one of the first things which she did upon her arrival at the house, was to take both her and Katie apart and to cause them to undress and to show her the manner of producing the mysterious noises. Never for a moment was the cold and calculating brain of the eldest sister a dupe to the cunning pranks of the little children. So interested was she in the matter, that she insisted upon taking back with her to Rochester, at the end of a fortnight, her daughter Lizzie, and Katie, her sister--Maggie not being inclined to go with her. And, in the interval, she practised "rapping"

herself, with her toes, after the manner ill.u.s.trated by the girls. She found great difficulty in producing the same effect, however, as the joints of her feet were no longer as pliable as in childhood. The effort required was also much greater, and never during her whole lifetime did she succeed in attaining to much proficiency in this method of deception.

The p.r.o.nounced movement, necessary in her case to cause even a faint sound to be heard, was easy to detect.

"Often," says Mrs. Kane, "when we were giving seances together, I have been ashamed and mortified by the awkward manner in which she would do it.

People would observe the effort she made to produce even moderate 'rappings,' and then they would look at me in suspicion and surprise. It required every bit of my skill and my best tact to prevent them from going away convinced of the imposture."

On the way to Rochester by ca.n.a.l, the "rappings," according to Mrs.

Underhill, pursued her. The "Spirits became quite bold and rapped loudly"

at the dinner-table in the cabin; "and occasionally" she adds, "_one end of the table would jump up and nearly spill the water out of our gla.s.ses; but there was so much noise on the boat (going through the locks, etc.) that only we, who recognized the sounds, knew of them_."

It would be easy, indeed--on this very thin reservation, to the effect that "only we, who recognized the sounds, knew of them"--to denounce the whole of this statement as the grossest falsehood. I have, however, the personal a.s.surance of Mrs. Catharine Fox Jencken that the "rappings" were really heard, but that they were done by her with her feet. On the other hand, she declares that the joggling or lifting of the table never took place; nor did she ever hear of it till Mrs. Underhill's book was published. It may be observed here that the latter carefully refrains from informing us whether the pa.s.sengers also failed to observe the singular disturbance of the cabin table, at which they were dining.

At Rochester, Mrs. Fish seems to have devoted herself to developing and elaborating the falsehood of Spiritualism. Singularly enough, to this matron, who had never before evinced the least possession of so-called "mediumistic" qualities, all sorts of grotesque and terrorizing wonders now arrived. This is a fair specimen of her narrative, relating to the period in question:

"In the evening, my friend, Jane Little, and two or three other friends, called in to spend an hour or two with us. We sang and I played on the piano; but even then, while the lamp was burning brightly(!), I felt the deep throbbing of the dull accompaniment of the invisibles, keeping time to the music as I played; but I did not wish to have my visitors know it, and the spirits seemed kind enough not to make themselves heard (!) that others would observe what was so apparent to me."

The book to which I am obliged to refer so constantly, and which is a good example of the bulk of spiritualistic literature, is full of pa.s.sages ten times as absurd as this one, and having just as strongly the stamp of the crudest and most clumsy invention. For the most part, the only appropriate treatment for such absurdities is contemptuous silence. Occasionally, however, I shall find it necessary, for the sake of completeness in this exposition, to meet them with positive refutation, which in reality they do not deserve.

Having thus got one of the clever and lively little girls under her own control, Leah soon induced her mother to come to Rochester with the other.

Nothing could show more clearly that she had already formed the resolve to reap a harvest of gain and renown from this auspicious beginning, than her decisive course, instantly upon realizing the public wonder and curiosity which the "rappings" had excited.

It was absolutely necessary to delude some people who were near, and who should have been dear to her, as well as the careless and easily gullible public. The good and simple-hearted old mother would never have been a partner in conscious deception. The matter-of-fact, unspeculative father, must be brought to a point where he would at least not deny the claims of the so-called "mediums," his daughters. The honest and outspoken Lizzie must be awed into discretion by the prospect of great prosperity, which was opened before them, and the lesson that if she spoke too freely they would surely be deprived of it. Some stalwart and docile sympathizers must be enlisted outside of her own people who could be depended upon to stand by them as against too strenuous inquiry, or hot-tempered public a.s.sault.

Immediately upon Margaret's arrival at the house in Rochester, in which Mrs. Fish lived, and which adjoined a graveyard, the "manifestations"

redoubled. They were produced by the combined efforts of Leah, Margaret and Katie. Mrs. Underhill narrates that one night, about this time, a "spirit" walked about in their room, as if in his bare feet, when they were all supposed to be in bed. She continues: "He answered my question by stamping on the floor. I was amused--although afraid. He seemed so willing to do my bidding that I could not resist the temptation of speaking to him as he marched around my bed. I said, 'Flat Foot, can you dance the Highland fling?' This seemed to delight him. I sang the music for him, and he danced most admirably. This shocked mother and she said: 'O, Leah, how can you encourage that fiend by singing for him to dance?' I soon found that they took advantage of my familiarity, and gathered in strong force around us. And here language utterly fails to describe the incidents that occurred. Loud whispering, giggling, scuffling, groaning, death-struggles, murder scenes of the most fearful character--I forbear to describe them.

Mother became so alarmed that she called to Calvin to come up stairs. He came--angry at the spirits--and declared that 'he would conquer or die in the attempt.' This seemed to amuse them. They went to his bed, raised it up and let it down, and shook it violently. He was still determined not to yield to them.

"Before Calvin came up stairs, and during a short lull in their performances, we quickly removed our beds to the floor, hoping thereby to prevent them from raising us up and letting us down with such violence.

Calvin said as he came up, that we were foolish to make our beds on the floor, as it pleased the spirits to see how completely they had conquered us. So he laid down on his bed, and quietly awaited developments. Mother said, 'Calvin, I wish your bed was on the floor, too. We have not been disturbed since we left the bedstead.' Calvin remarked, 'They are up to some deviltry now. I hear them.' He no sooner uttered these words, than a shower of slippers came flying at him as he lay in his bed. He bore this without a murmur. The next instant he was struck violently with his cane.

He seized it and struck back, right and left, with all his strength, without hitting anything; but received a palpable _bang_ in return for every thrust he made. He sprang to his feet and fought with all his might.

Everything thrown at him he pitched back to them, until a bra.s.s candlestick was thrown at him, cutting his lip. This quite enraged him. He p.r.o.nounced a solemn malediction and throwing himself on the bed, he vowed he would have nothing more to do with 'fiendish spirits.'

"He was not long permitted to remain in quiet there. They commenced at his bedstead and deliberately razed it to the floor, leaving the headboard in one place, the footboard in another, the two sides at angles, and the bedclothes scattered about the room. He was left lying on his mattress, and for a moment there was silence; after which some slight movements were heard in the 'green room.' I had stowed a large number of b.a.l.l.s of carpet rags in an old chest standing on the floor, with two trunks and several other articles on the top of it. It seemed but the work of a moment for them to get at the carpet b.a.l.l.s, which came flying at us in every direction, hitting us in the same place every time. They took us for their target, and threw with the skill of an archer. Darkness made no difference with them, and if either of us attempted to remonstrate against such violence, they would instantly give _the remonstrant_ the benefit of a ball."

Mrs. Kane remembers with tolerable distinctness the antics that distinguished this sojourn of her mother, herself and her sisters in the Rochester house. She and Katie did indulge in wild larks in the sleeping rooms of the family at all hours of the night. The "whispering" and "giggling," the "scuffling" and "groaning," and the tragic mimicry were natural to childish daredevils like themselves, and one can well understand how, with the attendant "rappings," the showers of slippers hurled from the "green room," the shaking of Calvin's bed and the "banging" of him on the head, these things may have made the desired impression upon both him and the mother. Mrs. Kane says that this is the true and only explanation of it all, and that in comparatively recent years, at seances in Adelphi Hall, New York, she has done the most audacious things, similar in character to these, under cover of semi-darkness, and has not been detected, simply because nearly all of those who were present were believers and were not too curious.

There is another "evidence" given by Ann Leah which is too pitiably ridiculous to be considered, except as a subject of laughter.

"Often at meal-time," she says, "the table would be gradually agitated, and Calvin in particular, [alas, poor Calvin!] would be more disturbed than the rest of us. Once he arose from his chair and reached across the table for a heavy pitcher of water, when _the chair was instantly removed and he sat down on the floor, spilling the water all over himself_!"

Mrs. Kane's sole comment upon this is: "Of course, we slily did it, as we did many other hoydenish tricks.

"We also used to twitch mother's cap off and gently jerk the comb out of her hair, just to tease her. Leah says that these things were done by the spirits! How silly to address such a puerile pretense to any one gifted with common sense!"

As a companion picture to what has gone before, let the reader also engrave this "miraculous" scene upon the retina of his imagination:

"We had stored our winter provisions in the cellar. Among them were several barrels of apples, potatoes, turnips, etc. From this cellar came the apples, potatoes and turnips flying across our room, hitting all in precisely the same place every time. It will now be remembered that these articles were in the cellar under the ground floor, and had to come from the rear of the cellar, through the door, into the kitchen, up the stairs, into the pantry on the second floor, through the pantry into the dining room, up the second flight of stairs, into the large room in which we slept, hitting us as we lay in our beds near the front window. * * *

"A cabinet shop was the next thing represented by the spirits. They seemed to be possessed of all kinds of tools to work with. After sawing off boards they would let them fall heavily on the floor, jarring everything around them. Then, after planing, jointing, driving nails, and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g down the lid of a coffin, they would shove the hollow sounding article about the room. (This we understood at a later day.) Often to our utter amazement, pickets from the discarded lots in the cemetery came flying through the room over our heads, on our beds, like debris in a tornado.

They came from the extreme west side of the burying-ground, through _that_ lot, and the distance of about two hundred feet through _our_ lot; an entire distance of about four hundred feet. That they came by no visible means, we knew; as no human power could have thrown them through the air into our chamber window, hitting us in our beds, in the same place every time."

In July, 1848, Leah, her sisters and mother, revisited the Hydesville house, which was then unoccupied. David, the brother, had fallen by this time into the plans of Leah, whether a dupe or an accomplice, Margaret, even at this day, is unable to say. To him was due the very first suggestion that the so-called spirits might communicate with the living by means of the alphabet. And since then, this has been the chief stay of spiritualism, literally the A B C of all its so-called science. It is a singular commentary upon the consistency of the "spirits," or the good faith of those who professed to interpret their messages, that the code of communication at first employed in their circles was entirely different in the meaning of the simple signals used from the one which finally was adopted. Would the "spirits," think you, who are divorced from the trammels of this world, have been guilty of this simple error and have been obliged to correct it afterward, had they not been impostors?

The object of Mrs. Fish in going back to Hydesville is quite apparent.

There was yet an unworked mine of wonder and superst.i.tion, out of which the dust of dross might be thrown into the eyes of the credulous, as the pure gold of revelation.

In the first place, it was necessary to get from the so-called invisible intelligence an injunction to seek for proofs of the foul murder which it had been said had been committed in the house where the "rappings" were originally heard.

Mind you, months had then elapsed since the digging had been first done in the cellar and the Ganargua creek near by, and David S., who was now wholly in sympathy with Leah in her view of the future importance of the new superst.i.tion, had lived in the neighborhood ever since, while n.o.body had remained in the "haunted" house to be cognizant of what might have taken place there in the mean time.

By the new code system of obtaining answers to queries, a mandate to dig up the cellar and to search for something or other there was obtained, and obeyed, the work lasting two or three days. It is stated by Leah that some fragments of an earthen bowl, a few bones, some teeth and some bunches of hair were found. She says that doctors p.r.o.nounced the bones to be human.

Of course, the names of these doctors are nowhere to be found in her volume, nor does any one, unwarped by prejudice, really believe more than a very small part of this story.

That there was digging is certain.

That there had been plenty of time to hide anything that David Fox had desired to hide in the cellar, is certain.

Yet Mrs. Kane remembered absolutely nothing about anything having been found in the cellar that bore the slightest semblance to any portion of the human frame. If any bones (perchance, like those found in the creek, the skeleton of a horse) were uncovered, she denies positively that any doctor ever gave the opinion that they were the remains of a man.

She p.r.o.nounces equally false, the statement of Leah that about the time the digging was abandoned, on account of the angry interference of a mob, the spades of the diggers struck upon a hollow-sounding, wooden substance, which might or might not have been a box of ill-gotten plunder, or the rough sepulchre of the slain pedler.

The indignation of the neighbors of the Foxes in Arcadia was not so much due to the fact that the latter persisted in pretending to communicate with ghosts and uncanny elfs, as it was to the totally unwarranted suspicion which had been cast through the early "rappings" upon a man named Bell, who had formerly lived in the house, which it was now pretended was haunted. This, as well as other evidence of the public feeling at that time, was cleverly employed for her own benefit by Leah, who easily foresaw how anything that might bear the semblance of religious persecution would promote her cause, false though it was, by bringing to it both greater notoriety and widespread sympathy.

There is no doubt, too, that if there had not been a very strong vein of superst.i.tion in the Fox family, the first "rappings" would never have produced the deep impression that they did on the mother and her son David. Many strange stories, which had been handed down from a grandfather or a great-grandfather, a great uncle or a great aunt, were told at the fireside with such embellishment as will inevitably come from recital and repet.i.tion to a wonder-delighting audience. There were traditions of prophecies fulfilled and of dumb cattle behaving queerly, all of which Mrs. Underhill has very carefully set down and magnified in her own peculiar manner to her own unholy purpose.

CHAPTER IX.

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 advertis.e.m.e.nt, 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 Dougla.s.s 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.