The Humbugs of the World by P. T. Barnum (best contemporary novels .TXT) 📕

one place where a table intervenes. Those sitting next to this table place a hand upon it, the other hand of each of these parties being joined with the circle. The medium takes a position close by the table, and during the manifestations is supposed to momentarily touch with her two hands the hands of those parties sitting next to the table. Of course, she could accomplish little or nothing if she allowed her hands to be constantly held by investigators; so she hit upon the plan mentioned above, to make the people present believe that the musical instruments are not sounded by her. These instruments are within her reach; and instead of touching the hands of those next the table with both her hands, as supposed, she touches, alternately, their hands with but one of hers, the other she expertly uses in sounding the instruments.

Several years ago, at one of the circles of this medium, in St. John’s, Mich., a light was suddenly introduced, and she was seen in the act of doing what she had asserted to be done by the “spirits.” She has also been exposed as an impostor in other places.

As I have said before, the mediums always insist on having such “conditions” as will best enable them to deceive the senses and mislead the judgment.

If there were a few more “detectives” like Doctor Von Vleck, the whole mediumistic fraternity would soon “come to grief.”

XIV

Spiritual photographing⁠—​Colorado Jewett and the spirit-photographs of General Jackson, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Stephen A. Douglas, Napoleon Bonaparte, etc⁠—​A lady of distinction seeks and finds a spiritual photograph of her deceased infant, and her dead braother who was yet alive⁠—​How it was done.

In answer to numerous inquiries and several threats of prosecution for libel in consequence of what I have written in regard to impostors who (for money) perform tricks of legerdemain and attribute them to the spirits of deceased persons, I have only to say, I have no malice or antipathies to gratify in these expositions. In undertaking to show up the “Ancient and Modern Humbugs of the World,” I am determined so far as in me lies, to publish nothing but the truth. This I shall do, “with good motives and for justifiable ends,” and I shall do it fearlessly and conscientiously. No threats will intimidate, no fawnings will flatter me from publishing everything that is true which I think will contribute to the information or to the amusement of my readers.

Some correspondents ask me if I believe that all pretensions to intercourse with departed spirits are impositions. I reply, that if people declare that they privately communicate with or are influenced to write or speak by invisible spirits, I cannot prove that they are deceived or are attempting to deceive me⁠—although I believe that one or the other of these propositions is true. But when they pretend to give me communications from departed spirits, to tie or untie ropes⁠—to read sealed letters, or to answer test-questions through spiritual agencies, I pronounce all such pretensions ridiculous impositions, and I stand ready at any time to prove them so, or to forfeit five hundred dollars, whenever these pretended mediums will succeed in producing their “wonderful manifestations” in a room of my selecting, and with apparatus of my providing; they not being permitted to handle the sealed letters or folded ballots which they are to answer, nor to make conditions in regard to the manner of rope tying, etc. If they can answer my test-questions relevantly and truly, without touching the envelopes in which they are sealed⁠—or even when given to them by my word of mouth, I will hand over the $500. If they can cause invisible agencies to perform in open daylight many of the things which they pretend to accomplish by spirits in the dark, I will promptly pay $500 for the sight. In the meantime, I think I can reasonably account for and explain all pretended spiritual gymnastic performances⁠—throwings of hairbrushes⁠—dancing pianos⁠—spirit-rapping⁠—table-tipping⁠—playing of musical instruments, and flying through the air (in the dark,) and a thousand other “wonderful manifestations” which, like most of the performances of modern “magicians,” are “passing strange” until explained, and then they are as flat as dishwater. Dr. Von Vleck publicly produces all of these pretended “manifestations” in open daylight, without claiming spiritual aid.

Among the number of humbugs that owe their existence to various combinations of circumstances and the extreme gullibility of the human race, the following was related to me by a gentleman whose position and character warrant me in announcing that it may be implicitly relied upon as correct in every particular.

Some time before the Presidential election, a photographer residing in one of our cities (an ingenious man and a scientific chemist,) was engaged in making experiments with his camera, hoping to discover some new combination whereby to increase the facility of “picturing the human form divine,” etc. One morning, his apparatus being in excellent order, he determined to photograph himself. No sooner thought of, than he set about making his arrangements. All being ready, he placed himself in a position, remained a second or two, and then instantly closing his camera, surveyed the result of his operation. On bringing the picture out upon the plate, he was surprised to find a shadowy representation of a human being, so remarkably ghostlike and supernatural, that he became amused at the discovery he had made. The operation was repeated, until he could produce similar pictures by a suitable arrangement of his lenses and reflectors known to no other than himself. About this time he became acquainted with one of the most famous spiritualist-writers, and in conversation with him, showed him confidentially one of those photographs, with also the shadow of another person, with the remark, mysteriously whispered:

“I assure you, Sir, upon my word as a gentleman, and by all my hopes of a hereafter, that this picture was produced upon the plate as you see it, at a time when I