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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Humbugs of the World, by P. T. Barnum
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Humbugs of the World
+       An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries,
+       Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages
+
+Author: P. T. Barnum
+
+Release Date: September 18, 2008 [EBook #26640]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HUMBUGS OF THE WORLD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Julia Miller and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A list of corrections
+is found at the end of the text. Inconsistencies in spelling and
+hyphenation have been maintained. A list of inconsistently spelled
+and hyphenated words is found at the end of the text. Oe ligatures
+have been expanded.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                THE
+
+                       HUMBUGS OF THE WORLD.
+
+          AN ACCOUNT OF HUMBUGS, DELUSIONS, IMPOSITIONS,
+                 QUACKERIES, DECEITS AND DECEIVERS
+                     GENERALLY, IN ALL AGES.
+
+                                BY
+
+                           P. T. BARNUM.
+
+
+  "Omne ignotum pro mirifico."--"Wonderful, because mysterious."
+
+
+                             NEW YORK:
+               _CARLETON. PUBLISHER. 413 BROADWAY._
+                               1866.
+
+
+
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by
+
+G. W. CARLETON,
+
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of
+New York.
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHER'S NOTE.
+
+
+One of Mr. Barnum's secrets of success is his unique methods of
+advertising, and we can readily understand how he can bear to be
+denounced as a "Humbug," because this popular designation though
+undeserved in the popular acceptation of it, "brought grist to his
+mill." He has constantly kept himself before the public--nay, we may say
+that he has _been_ kept before the public constantly, by the stereotyped
+word in question; and what right, or what desire, could he have to
+discard or complain of an epithet which was one of the prospering
+elements of his business as "a showman?" In a narrow sense of the word
+he is a "Humbug:" in the larger acceptation he is _not_.
+
+He has in several chapters of this book elaborated the distinction, and
+we will only say in this place, what, indeed, no one who knows him will
+doubt, that, aside from his qualities as a caterer to popular
+entertainment, he is one of the most remarkable men of the age. As a
+business man, of far-reaching vision and singular executive force, he
+has for years been the life of Bridgeport, near which city he has long
+resided, and last winter he achieved high rank in the Legislature of
+Connecticut, as both an effective speaker and a patriot, having "no axe
+to grind," and seeking only the public welfare. We, indeed, agree with
+the editor of _The New York Independent_, who, in an article drawn out
+by the burning of the American Museum, says: "Mr. Barnum's rare talent
+as a speaker has always been exercised in behalf of good morals, and for
+patriotic objects. No man has done better service in the temperance
+cause by public lectures during the past ten years, both in America and
+Great Britain, and during the war he was most efficient in stimulating
+the spirit which resulted in the preservation of the Union, and the
+destruction of Slavery."
+
+We cannot forbear quoting two or three additional paragraphs from that
+article, especially as they are so strongly expressive of the merits of
+the case:
+
+"Mr. Barnum's whole career has been a very transparent one. He has never
+befooled the public to its injury, and, though his name has come to be
+looked upon as a synonym for humbuggery, there never was a public man
+who was less of one.
+
+"The hearty good wishes of many good men, and the sympathies of the
+community in which he has lived, go with him, and the public he has so
+long amused, but never abused, will be ready to sustain him whenever he
+makes another appeal to them. Mr. Barnum is a very good sort of
+representative Yankee. When crowds of English traders and manufacturers
+in Liverpool, Manchester, and London, flocked to hear his lectures on
+the art of making money, they expected to hear from him some very smart
+recipes for knavery; but they were as much astonished as they were
+edified to learn that the only secret he had to tell them was to be
+honest, and not to expect something for nothing."
+
+We could fill many pages with quotations of corresponding tenor from the
+leading and most influential men and journals in the land, but we will
+close this publisher's note with the following from the _N. Y. Sun_.
+
+"One of the happiest impromptu oratorical efforts that we have heard for
+some time was that made by Barnum at the benefit performance given for
+his employés on Friday afternoon. If a stranger wanted to satisfy
+himself how the great showman had managed so to monopolize the ear and
+eye of the public during his long career he could not have had a better
+opportunity of doing so than by listening to this address. Every word,
+though delivered with apparent carelessness, struck a key-note in the
+hearts of his listeners. Simple, forcible, and touching, it showed how
+thoroughly this extraordinary man comprehends the character of his
+countrymen, and how easily he can play upon their feelings.
+
+"Those who look upon Barnum as a mere charlatan, have really no
+knowledge of him. It would be easy to demonstrate that the qualities
+that have placed him in his present position of notoriety and affluence
+would, in another pursuit, have raised him to far greater eminence. In
+his breadth of views, his profound knowledge of mankind, his courage
+under reverses, his indomitable perseverance, his ready eloquence, and
+his admirable business tact, we recognise the elements that are
+conducive to success in most other pursuits. More than almost any other
+living man, Barnum may be said to be a representative type of the
+American mind."
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+In the "Autobiography of P. T. Barnum," published in 1855, I partly
+promised to write a book which should expose some of the chief humbugs
+of the world. The invitation of my friends Messrs. Cauldwell and Whitney
+of the "Weekly Mercury" caused me to furnish for that paper a series of
+articles in which I very naturally took up the subject in question. This
+book is a revision and re-arrangement of a portion of those articles. If
+I should find that I have met a popular demand, I shall in due time put
+forth a second volume. There is not the least danger of a dearth of
+materials.
+
+I once travelled through the Southern States in company with a magician.
+The first day in each town, he astonished his auditors with his
+deceptions. He then announced that on the following day he would show
+how each trick was performed, and how every man might thus become his
+own magician. That _exposé_ spoiled the legerdemain market on that
+particular route, for several years. So, if we could have a full
+exposure of "the tricks of trade" of all sorts, of humbugs and deceivers
+of past times, religious, political, financial, scientific, quackish and
+so forth, we might perhaps look for a somewhat wiser generation to
+follow us. I shall be well satisfied if I can do something towards so
+good a purpose.
+
+  P. T. BARNUM.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  I. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.
+
+  CHAPTER I.--GENERAL VIEW OF THE SUBJECT.--HUMBUG UNIVERSAL.--IN
+  RELIGION.--IN POLITICS.--IN BUSINESS.--IN SCIENCE.--IN
+  MEDICINE.--HOW IT IS TO CEASE.--THE GREATEST HUMBUG OF ALL.        11
+
+  CHAPTER II.--DEFINITION OF THE WORD HUMBUG.--WARREN OF LONDON.--GENIN
+  THE HATTER.--GOSLING'S BLACKING.                                   18
+
+  CHAPTER III.--MONSIEUR MANGIN, THE FRENCH HUMBUG.                  29
+
+  CHAPTER IV.--OLD GRIZZLY ADAMS.                                    37
+
+  CHAPTER V.--THE GOLDEN PIGEONS.--GRIZZLY ADAMS.--GERMAN
+  CHEMIST.--HAPPY FAMILY.--FRENCH NATURALIST.                        46
+
+  CHAPTER VI.--THE WHALE, THE ANGEL FISH, AND THE GOLDEN PIGEON.     53
+
+  CHAPTER VII.--PEASE'S HOARHOUND CANDY.--THE DORR REBELLION.--THE
+  PHILADELPHIA ALDERMAN.                                             57
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.--BRANDRETH'S PILLS.--MAGNIFICENT ADVERTISING.--POWER
+  OF IMAGINATION.                                                    65
+
+
+  II. THE SPIRITUALISTS.
+
+  CHAPTER IX.--THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS, THEIR RISE AND PROGRESS.--
+  SPIRITUAL ROPE-TYING.--MUSIC PLAYING.--CABINET SECRETS.--"THEY
+  CHOOSE DARKNESS RATHER THAN LIGHT," ETC.--THE SPIRITUAL HAND.--HOW
+  THE THING IS DONE.--DR. W. F. VAN VLECK.                           73
+
+  CHAPTER X.--THE SPIRIT-RAPPING AND MEDIUM HUMBUGS.--THEIR
+  ORIGIN.--HOW THE THING IS DONE.--$500 REWARD.                      82
+
+  CHAPTER XI.--THE "BALLOT TEST."--THE OLD GENTLEMAN AND HIS
+  "DISEASED" RELATIVES.--A "HUNGRY SPIRIT."--"PALMING" A
+  BALLOT.--REVELATIONS ON STRIPS OF PAPER.                           88
+
+  CHAPTER XII.--SPIRITUAL "LETTERS ON THE ARM."--HOW TO MAKE THEM
+  YOURSELF.--THE TAMBOURINE AND RING FEATS.--DEXTER'S DANCING
+  HATS.--PHOSPHORESCENT OIL.--SOME SPIRITUAL SLANG.                  96
+
+  CHAPTER XIII.--DEMONSTRATIONS BY "SAMPSON" UNDER A TABLE.--A
+  MEDIUM WHO IS HAPPY WITH HER FEET.--EXPOSÉ OF ANOTHER OPERATOR IN
+  DARK CIRCLES.                                                     102
+
+  CHAPTER 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 BROTHER WHO WAS YET ALIVE.--HOW IT WAS DONE.             109
+
+  CHAPTER XV.--BANNER OF LIGHT.--MESSAGES FROM THE DEAD.--SPIRITUAL
+  CIVILITIES.--SPIRIT "HOLLERING."--HANS VON VLEET, THE FEMALE
+  DUTCHMAN.--MRS. CONANT'S "CIRCLES."--PAINE'S TABLE-TIPPING HUMBUG
+  EXPOSED.                                                          119
+
+  CHAPTER XVI.--SPIRITUALIST HUMBUGS WAKING UP.--FOSTER HEARD
+  FROM.--S. B. BRITTAIN HEARD FROM.--THE BOSTON ARTISTS AND THEIR
+  SPIRITUAL PORTRAITS.--THE WASHINGTON MEDIUM AND HIS SPIRITUAL
+  HANDS.--THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS AND THE SEA-CAPTAIN'S
+  WHEAT-FLOUR.--THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS ROUGHLY SHOWN UP BY JOHN
+  BULL.--HOW A SHINGLE "STUMPED" THE SPIRITS.                       130
+
+  CHAPTER XVII.--THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS SHOWN UP ONCE MORE.--THE
+  SPIRITUALIST BOGUS BABY.--A LADY BRINGS FORTH A MOTIVE
+  FORCE.--"GUM" ARABIC.--SPIRITUALIST HEBREW.--THE ALLEN BOY.--DR.
+  RANDALL.--PORTLAND EVENING COURIER.--THE FOOLS NOT ALL DEAD YET.  145
+
+
+  III. TRADE AND BUSINESS IMPOSITIONS.
+
+  CHAPTER XVIII.--ADULTERATIONS OF FOOD.--ADULTERATIONS OF LIQUOR.--THE
+  COLONEL'S WHISKEY.--THE HUMBUGOMETER.                             152
+
+  CHAPTER XIX.--ADULTERATIONS IN DRINKS.--RIDING HOME ON YOUR
+  WINE-BARREL.--LIST OF THINGS TO MAKE RUM.--THINGS TO COLOR IT
+  WITH.--CANAL-BOAT HASH.--ENGLISH ADULTERATION LAW.--EFFECT OF DRUGS
+  USED.--HOW TO USE THEM.--BUYING LIQUORS UNDER THE CUSTOM-HOUSE
+  LOCK.--HOMOEOPATHIC DOSE.                                         160
+
+  CHAPTER XX.--THE PETER FUNKS AND THEIR FUNCTIONS.--THE RURAL DIVINE
+  AND THE WATCH.--RISE AND PROGRESS OF MOCK AUCTIONS.--THEIR DECLINE
+  AND FALL.                                                         167
+
+  CHAPTER XXI.--LOTTERY SHARKS.--BOULT AND HIS BROTHERS.--KENNETH,
+  KIMBALL & COMPANY.--A MORE CENTRAL LOCATION WANTED FOR
+  BUSINESS.--TWO SEVENTEENTHLIES.--STRANGE COINCIDENCE.             175
+
+  CHAPTER XXII.--ANOTHER LOTTERY HUMBUG.--TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY
+  RECIPES.--VILE BOOKS.--"ADVANTAGE-CARDS."--A PACKAGE FOR YOU;
+  PLEASE SEND THE MONEY.--PEDDLING IN WESTERN NEW YORK.             182
+
+  CHAPTER XXIII.--A CALIFORNIA COAL MINE.--A HARTFORD COAL
+  MINE.--MYSTERIOUS SUBTERRANEAN CANAL ON THE ISTHMUS.              189
+
+
+  IV. MONEY MANIAS.
+
+  CHAPTER XXIV.--THE PETROLEUM HUMBUG.--THE NEW YORK AND RANGOON
+  PETROLEUM COMPANY.                                                195
+
+  CHAPTER XXV.--THE TULIPOMANIA.                                    204
+
+  CHAPTER XXVI.--JOHN BULL'S GREAT MONEY HUMBUG.--THE SOUTH SEA
+  BUBBLE IN 1720.                                                   213
+
+  CHAPTER XXVII.--BUSINESS HUMBUGS.--JOHN LAW.--THE MISSISSIPPI
+  SCHEME.--JOHNNY CRAPAUD AS GREEDY AS JOHNNY BULL.                 221
+
+
+  V. MEDICINE AND QUACKS.
+
+  CHAPTER XXVIII.--DOCTORS AND IMAGINATION.--FIRING A JOKE OUT OF A
+  CANNON.--THE PARIS EYE WATER.--MAJENDIE ON MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE.--OLD
+  SANDS OF LIFE.                                                    232
+
+  CHAPTER XXIX.--THE CONSUMPTIVE REMEDY.--E. ANDREWS, M. D.--BORN
+  WITHOUT BIRTHRIGHTS.--HASHEESH CANDY.--ROBACK THE GREAT.--A CONJUROR
+  OPPOSED TO LYING.                                                 237
+
+  CHAPTER XXX.--MONSIGNORE CRISTOFORO RISCHIO; OR IL CRESO, THE
+  NOSTRUM-VENDER OF FLORENCE.--A MODEL FOR OUR QUACK DOCTORS.       242
+
+
+  VI. HOAXES.
+
+  CHAPTER XXXI.--THE TWENTY-SEVENTH STREET GHOST.--SPIRITS ON THE
+  RAMPAGE.                                                          251
+
+  CHAPTER XXXII.--THE MOON HOAX.                                    259
+
+  CHAPTER XXXIII.--THE MISCEGENATION HOAX.--A GREAT LITERARY
+  SELL.--POLITICAL HUMBUGGING.--TRICKS OF THE WIRE-PULLERS.--MACHINERY
+  EMPLOYED TO RENDER THE PAMPHLET NOTORIOUS.--WHO WERE SOLD AND HOW
+  IT WAS DONE.                                                      273
+
+
+  VII. GHOSTS AND WITCHCRAFTS.
+
+  CHAPTER XXXIV.--HAUNTED HOUSES.--A NIGHT SPENT ALONE WITH A
+  GHOST.--KIRBY THE ACTOR.--COLT'S PISTOLS VERSUS HOBGOBLINS.--THE
+  MYSTERY EXPLAINED.                                                284
+
+  CHAPTER XXXV.--HAUNTED HOUSES.--GHOSTS.--GHOULS.--PHANTOMS.--
+  VAMPIRES.--CONJURORS.--DIVINING--GOBLINS.--FORTUNE-TELLING.--
+  MAGIC.--WITCHES.--SORCERY.--OBI.--DREAMS.--SIGNS.--SPIRITUAL
+  MEDIUMS.--FALSE PROPHETS.--DEMONOLOGY.--DEVILTRY GENERALLY.       293
+
+  CHAPTER XXXVI.--MAGICAL HUMBUGS.--VIRGIL.--A PICKLED SORCERER.--
+  CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, HIS STUDENTS AND HIS BLACK DOG.--DOCTOR
+  FAUSTUS.--HUMBUGGING HORSE-JOCKEYS.--ZIITO AND HIS LARGE
+  SWALLOW.--DEVIL TAKE THE HINDERMOST.                              300
+
+  CHAPTER XXXVII.--WITCHCRAFT.--NEW YORK WITCHES.--THE WITCH
+  MANIA.--HOW FAST THEY BURNED THEM.--THE MODE OF TRIAL.--WITCHES
+  TO-DAY IN EUROPE.                                                 308
+
+  CHAPTER XXXVIII.--CHARMS AND INCANTATIONS.--HOW CATO CURED
+  SPRAINS.--THE SECRET NAME OF GOD.--SECRET NAMES OF CITIES.--ABRACADABRA
+  CURES FOR CRAMP.--MR. WRIGHT'S SIGIL.--WHISKERIFUSTICUS.--WITCHES'
+  HORSES.--THEIR CURSES.--HOW TO RAISE THE DEVIL.                   314
+
+
+  VIII. ADVENTURERS.
+
+  CHAPTER XXXIX.--THE PRINCESS CARIBOO.                             323
+
+  CHAPTER XL.--COUNT CAGLIOSTRO, ALIAS JOSEPH BALSAMO, KNOWN ALSO
+  AS "CURSED JOE."                                                  330
+
+  CHAPTER XLI.--THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.                               338
+
+  CHAPTER XLII.--THE COUNT DE ST. GERMAIN, SAGE, PROPHET, AND
+  MAGICIAN.                                                         354
+
+  CHAPTER XLIII.--RIZA BEY, THE PERSIAN ENVOY TO LOUIS XIV.         361
+
+
+  IX. RELIGIOUS HUMBUGS.
+
+  CHAPTER XLIV.--DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND.--MATTHIAS THE IMPOSTOR.--NEW
+  YORK FOLLIES THIRTY YEARS AGO.                                    370
+
+  CHAPTER XLV.--A RELIGIOUS HUMBUG ON JOHN BULL.--JOANNA
+  SOUTHCOTT.--THE SECOND SHILOH.                                    380
+
+  CHAPTER XLVI.--THE FIRST HUMBUG IN THE WORLD.--ADVANTAGES OF
+  STUDYING THE IMPOSITIONS OF FORMER AGES.--HEATHEN HUMBUGS.--THE
+  ANCIENT MYSTERIES.--THE CABIRI.--ELEUSIS.--ISIS.                  386
+
+  CHAPTER XLVII.--HEATHEN HUMBUGS NO. 2.--HEATHEN STATED
+  SERVICES.--ORACLES.--SIBYLS.--AUGURIES.                           392
+
+  CHAPTER XLVIII.--MODERN HEATHEN HUMBUGS.                          401
+
+  CHAPTER XLIX.--ORDEALS.                                           408
+
+  CHAPTER L.--APOLLONIUS OF TYANA.                                  415
+
+
+
+
+HUMBUGS OF THE WORLD.
+
+
+
+
+I. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+GENERAL VIEW OF THE SUBJECT.--HUMBUG UNIVERSAL.--IN RELIGION.--IN
+POLITICS.--IN BUSINESS.--IN SCIENCE.--IN MEDICINE.--HOW IS IT TO
+CEASE.--THE GREATEST HUMBUG OF ALL.
+
+
+A little reflection will show that humbug is an astonishingly
+wide-spread phenomenon--in fact almost universal. And this is true,
+although we exclude crimes and arrant swindles from the definition of
+it, according to the somewhat careful explanation which is given in the
+beginning of the chapter succeeding this one.
+
+I apprehend that there is no sort of object which men seek to attain,
+whether secular, moral or religious, in which humbug is not very often
+an instrumentality. Religion is and has ever been a chief chapter of
+human life. False religions are the only ones known to two thirds of the
+human race, even now, after nineteen centuries of Christianity; and
+false religions are perhaps the most monstrous, complicated and
+thorough-going specimens of humbug that can be found. And even within
+the pale of Christianity, how unbroken has been the succession of
+impostors, hypocrites and pretenders, male and female, of every
+possible variety of age, sex, doctrine and discipline!
+
+Politics and government are certainly among the most important of
+practical human interests. Now it was a diplomatist--that is, a
+practical manager of one kind of government matters--who invented that
+wonderful phrase--a whole world full of humbug in half-a-dozen
+words--that "Language was given to us to conceal our thoughts." It was
+another diplomatist, who said "An ambassador is a gentleman sent to
+_lie_ abroad for the good of his country." But need I explain to my own
+beloved countrymen that there is humbug in politics? Does anybody go
+into a political campaign without it? are no exaggerations of _our_
+candidate's merits to be allowed? no depreciations of the _other_
+candidate? Shall we no longer prove that the success of the party
+opposed to us will overwhelm the land in ruin? Let me see. Leaving out
+the two elections of General Washington, eighteen times that very fact
+has been proved by the party that was beaten, and immediately we have
+_not_ been ruined, notwithstanding that the dreadful fatal fellows on
+the other side got their hands on the offices and their fingers into the
+treasury.
+
+Business is the ordinary means of living for nearly all of us. And in
+what business is there not humbug? "There's cheating in all trades but
+ours," is the prompt reply from the boot-maker with his brown paper
+soles, the grocer with his floury sugar and chicoried coffee, the
+butcher with his mysterious sausages and queer veal, the dry goods man
+with his "damaged goods wet at the great fire" and his "selling at a
+ruinous loss," the stock-broker with his brazen assurance that your
+company is bankrupt and your stock not worth a cent (if he wants to buy
+it,) the horse jockey with his black arts and spavined brutes, the
+milkman with his tin aquaria, the land agent with his nice new maps and
+beautiful descriptions of distant scenery, the newspaper man with his
+"immense circulation," the publisher with his "Great American Novel,"
+the city auctioneer with his "Pictures by the Old Masters"--all and
+every one protest each his own innocence, and warn you against the
+deceits of the rest. My inexperienced friend, take it for granted that
+they all tell the truth--about each other! and then transact your
+business to the best of your ability on your own judgment. Never fear
+but that you will get experience enough, and that you will pay well for
+it too; and towards the time when you shall no longer need earthly
+goods, you will begin to know how to buy.
+
+Literature is one of the most interesting and significant expressions of
+humanity. Yet books are thickly peppered with humbug. "Travellers'
+stories" have been the scoff of ages, from the "True Story" of witty old
+Lucian the Syrian down to the gorillarities--if I may coin a word--of
+the Frenchman Du Chaillu. Ireland's counterfeited Shakspeare plays,
+Chatterton's forged manuscripts, George Psalmanazar's forged Formosan
+language, Jo Smith's Mormon Bible, (it should be noted that this and the
+Koran sounded two strings of humbug together--the literary and the
+religious,) the more recent counterfeits of the notorious Greek
+Simonides--such literary humbugs as these are equal in presumption and
+in ingenuity too, to any of a merely business kind, though usually
+destitute of that sort of impiety which makes the great religious
+humbugs horrible as well as impudent.
+
+Science is another important field of human effort. Science is the
+pursuit of pure truth, and the systematizing of it. In such an
+employment as that, one might reasonably hope to find all things done in
+honesty and sincerity. Not at all, my ardent and inquiring friends,
+there is a scientific humbug just as large as any other. We have all
+heard of the Moon Hoax. Do none of you remember the Hydrarchos
+Sillimannii, that awful Alabama snake? It was only a little while ago
+that a grave account appeared in a newspaper of a whole new business of
+compressing ice. Perpetual motion has been the dream of scientific
+visionaries, and a pretended but cheating realization of it has been
+exhibited by scamp after scamp. I understand that one is at this moment
+being invented over in Jersey City. I have purchased more than one
+"perpetual motion" myself. Many persons will remember Mr. Paine--"The
+Great Shot-at" as he was called, from his story that people were
+constantly trying to kill him--and his water-gas. There have been other
+water gases too, which were each going to show us how to set the North
+River on fire, but something or other has always broken down just at the
+wrong moment. Nobody seems to reflect, when these water gases come up,
+that if water could really be made to burn, the right conditions would
+surely have happened at some one of the thousands of city fires, and
+that the very stuff with which our stout firemen were extinguishing the
+flames, would have itself caught and exterminated the whole brave wet
+crowd!
+
+Medicine is the means by which we poor feeble creatures try to keep from
+dying or aching. In a world so full of pain it would seem as if people
+could not be so foolish, or practitioners so knavish, as to sport with
+men's and women's and children's lives by their professional humbugs.
+Yet there are many grave M. D.'s who, if there is nobody to hear, and if
+they speak their minds, will tell you plainly that the whole practice of
+medicine is in one sense a humbug. One of its features is certainly a
+humbug, though so innocent and even useful that it seems difficult to
+think of any objection to it. This is the practice of giving a
+_placebo_; that is, a bread pill or a dose of colored water, to keep the
+patient's mind easy while imagination helps nature to perfect a cure. As
+for the quacks, patent medicines and universal remedies, I need only
+mention their names. Prince Hohenlohe, Valentine Greatrakes, John St.
+John Long, Doctor Graham and his wonderful bed, Mesmer and his tub,
+Perkins' metallic tractors--these are half a dozen. Modern history knows
+of hundreds of such.
+
+It would almost seem as if human delusions became more unreasoning and
+abject in proportion as their subject is of greater importance. A
+machine, a story, an animal skeleton, are not so very important. But the
+humbugs which have prevailed about that wondrous machine, the human
+body, its ailments and its cures, about the unspeakable mystery of human
+life, and still more about the far greater and more awful mysteries of
+the life beyond the grave, and the endless happiness and misery believed
+to exist there, the humbugs about these have been infinitely more
+absurd, more shocking, more unreasonable, more inhuman, more
+destructive.
+
+I can only allude to whole sciences (falsely so called) which are
+unmingled humbugs from beginning to end. Such was Alchemy, such was
+Magic, such was and still is Astrology, and above all, Fortune-telling.
+
+But there is a more thorough humbug than any of these enterprises or
+systems. The greatest humbug of all is the man who believes--or pretends
+to believe--that everything and everybody are humbugs. We sometimes meet
+a person who professes that there is no virtue; that every man has his
+price, and every woman hers; that any statement from anybody is just as
+likely to be false as true, and that the only way to decide which, is to
+consider whether truth or a lie was likely to have paid best in that
+particular case. Religion he thinks one of the smartest business dodges
+extant, a firstrate investment, and by all odds the most respectable
+disguise that a lying or swindling business man can wear. Honor he
+thinks is a sham. Honesty he considers a plausible word to flourish in
+the eyes of the greener portion of our race, as you would hold out a
+cabbage leaf to coax a donkey. What people want, he thinks, or says he
+thinks, is something good to eat, something good to drink, fine clothes,
+luxury, laziness, wealth. If you can imagine a hog's mind in a man's
+body--sensual, greedy, selfish, cruel, cunning, sly, coarse, yet
+stupid, short-sighted, unreasoning, unable to comprehend anything except
+what concerns the flesh, you have your man. He thinks himself
+philosophic and practical, a man of the world; he thinks to show
+knowledge and wisdom, penetration, deep acquaintance with men and
+things. Poor fellow! he has exposed his own nakedness. Instead of
+showing that others are rotten inside, he has proved that he is. He
+claims that it is not safe to believe others--it is perfectly safe to
+disbelieve him. He claims that every man will get the better of you if
+possible--let him alone! Selfishness, he says, is the universal
+rule--leave nothing to depend on his generosity or honor; trust him just
+as far as you can sling an elephant by the tail. A bad world, he sneers,
+full of deceit and nastiness--it is his own foul breath that he smells;
+only a thoroughly corrupt heart could suggest such vile thoughts. He
+sees only what suits him, as a turkey-buzzard spies only carrion, though
+amid the loveliest landscape. I pronounce him who thus virtually
+slanders his father and dishonors his mother and defiles the sanctities
+of home and the glory of patriotism and the merchant's honor and the
+martyr's grave and the saint's crown--who does not even know that every
+sham shows that there is a reality, and that hypocrisy is the homage
+that vice pays to virtue--I pronounce him--no, I do not pronounce him a
+humbug, the word does not apply to him. He is a fool.
+
+Looked at on one side, the history of humbug is truly humiliating to
+intellectual pride, yet the long silly story is less absurd during the
+later ages of history, and grows less and less so in proportion to the
+spread of real Christianity. This religion promotes good sense, actual
+knowledge, contentment with what we cannot help, and the exclusive use
+of intelligent means for increasing human happiness and decreasing human
+sorrow. And whenever the time shall come when men are kind and just and
+honest; when they only want what is fair and right, judge only on real
+and true evidence, and take nothing for granted, then there will be no
+place left for any humbugs, either harmless or hurtful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+DEFINITION OF THE WORD HUMBUG.--WARREN OF LONDON.--GENIN, THE
+HATTER.--GOSLING'S BLACKING.
+
+
+Upon a careful consideration of my undertaking to give an account of the
+"Humbugs of the World," I find myself somewhat puzzled in regard to the
+true definition of that word. To be sure, Webster says that humbug, as a
+noun, is an "imposition under fair pretences;" and as a verb, it is "to
+deceive; to impose on." With all due deference to Doctor Webster, I
+submit that, according to present usage, this is not the only, nor even
+the generally accepted definition of that term.
+
+We will suppose, for instance, that a man with "fair pretences" applies
+to a wholesale merchant for credit on a large bill of goods. His "fair
+pretences" comprehend an assertion that he is a moral and religious
+man, a member of the church, a man of wealth, etc., etc. It turns out
+that he is not worth a dollar, but is a base, lying wretch, an impostor
+and a cheat. He is arrested and imprisoned "for obtaining property under
+false pretences" or, as Webster says, "fair pretences." He is punished
+for his villainy. The public do not call him a "humbug;" they very
+properly term him a swindler.
+
+A man, bearing the appearance of a gentleman in dress and manners,
+purchases property from you, and with "fair pretences" obtains your
+confidence. You find, when he has left, that he paid you with
+counterfeit bank-notes, or a forged draft. This man is justly called a
+"forger," or "counterfeiter;" and if arrested, he is punished as such;
+but nobody thinks of calling him a "humbug."
+
+A respectable-looking man sits by your side in an omnibus or rail-car.
+He converses fluently, and is evidently a man of intelligence and
+reading. He attracts your attention by his "fair pretences." Arriving at
+your journey's end, you miss your watch and your pocket-book. Your
+fellow passenger proves to be the thief. Everybody calls him a
+"pickpocket," and not withstanding his "fair pretences," not a person in
+the community calls him a "humbug."
+
+Two actors appear as stars at two rival theatres. They are equally
+talented, equally pleasing. One advertises himself simply as a
+tragedian, under his proper name--the other boasts that he is a prince,
+and wears decorations presented by all the potentates of the world,
+including the "King of the Cannibal Islands." He is correctly set down
+as a "humbug," while this term is never applied to the other actor. But
+if the man who boasts of having received a foreign title is a miserable
+actor, and he gets up gift-enterprises and bogus entertainments, or
+pretends to devote the proceeds of his tragic efforts to some charitable
+object, without, in fact, doing so--he is then a humbug in Dr. Webster's
+sense of that word, for he is an "impostor under fair pretences."
+
+Two physicians reside in one of our fashionable avenues. They were both
+educated in the best medical colleges; each has passed an examination,
+received his diploma, and been dubbed an M. D. They are equally skilled
+in the healing art. One rides quietly about the city in his gig or
+brougham, visiting his patients without noise or clamor--the other
+sallies out in his coach and four, preceded by a band of music, and his
+carriage and horses are covered with handbills and placards, announcing
+his "wonderful cures." This man is properly called a quack and a humbug.
+Why? Not because he cheats or imposes upon the public, for he does not,
+but because, as generally understood, "humbug" consists in putting on
+glittering appearances--outside show--novel expedients, by which to
+suddenly arrest public attention, and attract the public eye and ear.
+
+Clergymen, lawyers, or physicians, who should resort to such methods of
+attracting the public, would not, for obvious reasons, be apt to
+succeed. Bankers, insurance-agents, and others, who aspire to become
+the custodians of the money of their fellow-men, would require a
+different species of advertising from this; but there are various trades
+and occupations which need only notoriety to insure success, always
+provided that when customers are once attracted, they never fail to get
+their money's worth. An honest man who thus arrests public attention
+will be called a "humbug," but he is not a swindler or an impostor. If,
+however, after attracting crowds of customers by his unique displays, a
+man foolishly fails to give them a full equivalent for their money, they
+never patronize him a second time, but they very properly denounce him
+as a swindler, a cheat, an impostor; they do not, however, call him a
+"humbug." He fails, not because he advertises his wares in an _outre_
+manner, but because, after attracting crowds of patrons, he stupidly and
+wickedly cheats them.
+
+When the great blacking-maker of London dispatched his agent to Egypt to
+write on the pyramids of Ghiza, in huge letters, "Buy Warren's Blacking,
+30 Strand, London," he was not "cheating" travelers upon the Nile. His
+blacking was really a superior article, and well worth the price charged
+for it, but he was "humbugging" the public by this queer way of
+arresting attention. It turned out just as he anticipated, that English
+travelers in that part of Egypt were indignant at this desecration, and
+they wrote back to the London Times (every Englishman writes or
+threatens to "write to the Times," if anything goes wrong,) denouncing
+the "Goth" who had thus disfigured these ancient pyramids by writing on
+them in monstrous letters: "Buy Warren's Blacking, 30 Strand, London."
+The Times published these letters, and backed them up by several of
+those awful, grand and dictatorial editorials peculiar to the great
+"Thunderer," in which the blacking-maker, "Warren, 30 Strand," was
+stigmatized as a man who had no respect for the ancient patriarchs, and
+it was hinted that he would probably not hesitate to sell his blacking
+on the sarcophagus of Pharaoh, "or any other"--mummy, if he could only
+make money by it. In fact, to cap the climax, Warren was denounced as a
+"humbug." These indignant articles were copied into all the Provincial
+journals, and very soon, in this manner, the columns of every newspaper
+in Great Britain were teeming with this advice: "Try Warren's Blacking,
+30 Strand, London." The curiosity of the public was thus aroused, and
+they did "try" it, and finding it a superior article, they continued to
+purchase it and recommend it to their friends, and Warren made a fortune
+by it. He always attributed his success to his having "humbugged" the
+public by this unique method of advertising his blacking in Egypt! But
+Warren did not cheat his customers, nor practice "an imposition under
+fair pretences." He was a humbug, but he was an honest upright man, and
+no one called him an impostor or a cheat.
+
+When the tickets for Jenny Lind's first concert in America were sold at
+auction, several business-men, aspiring to notoriety, "bid high" for the
+first ticket. It was finally knocked down to "Genin, the hatter," for
+$225. The journals in Portland (Maine) and Houston (Texas,) and all
+other journals throughout the United States, between these two cities,
+which were connected with the telegraph, announced the fact in their
+columns the next morning. Probably two millions of readers read the
+announcement, and asked, "Who is Genin, the hatter?" Genin became famous
+in a day. Every man involuntarily examined his hat, to see if it was
+made by Genin; and an Iowa editor declared that one of his neighbors
+discovered the name of Genin in his old hat and immediately announced
+the fact to his neighbors in front of the Post Office. It was suggested
+that the old hat should be sold at auction. It was done then and there,
+and the Genin hat sold for fourteen dollars! Gentlemen from city and
+country rushed to Genin's store to buy their hats, many of them willing
+to pay even an extra dollar, if necessary, provided they could get a
+glimpse of Genin himself. This singular freak put thousands of dollars
+into the pocket of "Genin, the hatter," and yet I never heard it charged
+that he made poor hats, or that he would be guilty of an "imposition
+under fair pretences." On the contrary, he is a gentleman of probity,
+and of the first respectability.
+
+When the laying of the Atlantic Telegraph was nearly completed, I was in
+Liverpool. I offered the company one thousand pounds sterling ($5,000)
+for the privilege of sending the first twenty words over the cable to my
+Museum in New York--not that there was any intrinsic merit in the words,
+but that I fancied there was more than $5,000 worth of notoriety in the
+operation. But Queen Victoria and "Old Buck" were ahead of me. Their
+messages had the preference, and I was compelled to "take a back seat."
+
+By thus illustrating what I believe the public will concede to be the
+sense in which the word "humbug" is generally used and understood at the
+present time, in this country as well as in England, I do not propose
+that my letters on this subject shall be narrowed down to that
+definition of the word. On the contrary, I expect to treat of various
+fallacies, delusions, and deceptions in ancient and modern times, which,
+according to Webster's definition, may be called "humbugs," inasmuch as
+they were "impositions under fair pretences."
+
+In writing of modern humbugs, however, I shall sometimes have occasion
+to give the names of honest and respectable parties now living, and I
+felt it but just that the public should fully comprehend my doctrine,
+that a man may, by common usage, be termed a "humbug," without by any
+means impeaching his integrity.
+
+Speaking of "blacking-makers," reminds me that one of the first
+sensationists in advertising whom I remember to have seen, was Mr.
+Leonard Gosling, known as "Monsieur Gosling, the great French
+blacking-maker." He appeared in New York in 1830. He flashed like a
+meteor across the horizon; and before he had been in the city three
+months, nearly everybody had heard of "Gosling's Blacking." I well
+remember his magnificent "four in hand." A splendid team of blood bays,
+with long black tails, was managed with such dexterity by Gosling
+himself, who was a great "whip," that they almost seemed to fly. The
+carriage was emblazoned with the words "Gosling's Blacking," in large
+gold letters, and the whole turnout was so elaborately ornamented and
+bedizened that everybody stopped and gazed with wondering admiration. A
+bugle-player or a band of music always accompanied the great Gosling,
+and, of course, helped to attract the public attention to his
+establishment. At the turning of every street-corner your eyes rested
+upon "Gosling's Blacking." From every show-window gilded placards
+discoursed eloquently of the merits of "Gosling's Blacking." The
+newspapers teemed with poems written in its praise, and showers of
+pictorial handbills, illustrated almanacs, and tinseled souvenirs, all
+lauding the virtues of "Gosling's Blacking," smothered you at every
+point.
+
+The celebrated originator of delineations, "Jim Crow Rice," made his
+first appearance at Hamblin's Bowery Theatre at about this time. The
+crowds which thronged there were so great that hundreds from the
+audience were frequently admitted upon the stage. In one of his scenes,
+Rice introduced a negro boot-blacking establishment. Gosling was too
+"wide awake" to let such an opportunity pass unimproved, and Rice was
+paid for singing an original black Gosling ditty, while a score of
+placards bearing the inscription, "Use Gosling's Blacking," were
+suspended at different points in this negro boot polishing hall.
+Everybody tried "Gosling's Blacking;" and as it was a really good
+article, his sales in city and country soon became immense; Gosling made
+a fortune in seven years, and retired but, as with thousands before him,
+it was "easy come easy go." He engaged in a lead-mining speculation, and
+it was generally understood that his fortune was, in a great measure,
+lost as rapidly as it was made.
+
+Here let me digress, in order to observe that one of the most difficult
+things in life is for men to bear discreetly sudden prosperity. Unless
+considerable time and labor are devoted to earning money, it is not
+appreciated by its possessor; and, having no practical knowledge of the
+value of money, he generally gets rid of it with the same ease that
+marked its accumulation. Mr. Astor gave the experience of thousands when
+he said that he found more difficulty in earning and saving his first
+thousand dollars than in accumulating all the subsequent millions which
+finally made up his fortune. The very economy, perseverance, and
+discipline which he was obliged to practice, as he gained his money
+dollar by dollar, gave him a just appreciation of its value, and thus
+led him into those habits of industry, prudence, temperance, and
+untiring diligence so conducive and necessary to his future success.
+
+Mr. Gosling, however, was not a man to be put down by a single financial
+reverse. He opened a store in Canajoharie, N. Y., which was burned, and
+on which there was no insurance. He came again to New York in 1839, and
+established a restaurant, where, by devoting the services of himself and
+several members of his family assiduously to the business, he soon
+reveled in his former prosperity, and snapped his fingers in glee at
+what unreflecting persons term "the freaks of Dame Fortune." He is still
+living in New York, hale and hearty at the age of seventy. Although
+called a "French" blacking-maker, Mr. Gosling is in reality a Dutchman,
+having been born in the city of Amsterdam, Holland. He is the father of
+twenty-four children, twelve of whom are still living, to cheer him in
+his declining years, and to repay him in grateful attentions for the
+valuable lessons of prudence, integrity, and industry through the
+adoption of which they are honored as respectable and worthy members of
+society.
+
+I cannot however permit this chapter to close without recording a
+protest in principle against that method of advertising of which
+Warren's on the Pyramid is an instance. Not that it is a crime or even
+an immorality in the usual sense of the words; but it is a violent
+offence against good taste, and a selfish and inexcusable destruction of
+other people's enjoyments. No man ought to advertise in the midst of
+landscapes or scenery, in such a way as to destroy or injure their
+beauty by introducing totally incongruous and relatively vulgar
+associations. Too many transactions of the sort have been perpetrated in
+our own country. The principle on which the thing is done is, to seek
+out the most attractive spot possible--the wildest, the most lovely, and
+there, in the most staring and brazen manner to paint up advertisements
+of quack medicines, rum, or as the case may be, in letters of monstrous
+size, in the most obtrusive colors, in such a prominent place, and in
+such a lasting way as to destroy the beauty of the scene both thoroughly
+and permanently.
+
+Any man with a beautiful wife or daughter would probably feel
+disagreeably, if he should find branded indelibly across her smooth
+white forehead, or on her snowy shoulder in blue and red letters such a
+phrase as this: "Try the Jigamaree Bitters!" Very much like this is the
+sort of advertising I am speaking of. It is not likely that I shall be
+charged with squeamishness on this question. I can readily enough see
+the selfishness and vulgarity of this particular sort of advertising,
+however.
+
+It is outrageously selfish to destroy the pleasure of thousands, for the
+sake of a chance of additional gain. And it is an atrocious piece of
+vulgarity to flaunt the names of quack nostrums, and of the coarse
+stimulants of sots, among the beautiful scenes of nature. The pleasure
+of such places depends upon their freedom from the associations of every
+day concerns and troubles and weaknesses. A lovely nook of forest
+scenery, or a grand rock, like a beautiful woman, depends for much of
+its attractiveness upon the attendant sense of freedom from whatever is
+low; upon a sense of purity and of romance. And it is about as nauseous
+to find "Bitters" or "Worm Syrup" daubed upon the landscape, as it would
+be upon the lady's brow.
+
+Since writing this I observe that two legislatures--those of New
+Hampshire and New York--have passed laws to prevent this dirty
+misdemeanor. It is greatly to their credit, and it is in good season.
+For it is matter of wonder that some more colossal vulgarian has not
+stuck up a sign a mile long on the Palisades. But it is matter of
+thankfulness too. At the White Mountains, many grand and beautiful views
+have been spoiled by these nostrum and bedbug souled fellows.
+
+It is worth noticing that the chief haunts of the city of New York, the
+Central Park, has thus far remained unviolated by the dirty hands of
+these vulgar advertisers. Without knowing anything about it, I have no
+doubt whatever that the commissioners have been approached often by
+parties desiring the privilege of advertising within its limits. Among
+the advertising fraternity it would be thought a gigantic opportunity to
+be able to flaunt the name of some bug-poison, fly-killer,
+bowel-rectifier, or disguised rum, along the walls of the Reservoir;
+upon the delicate stone-work of the Terrace, or the graceful lines of
+the Bow Bridge; to nail up a tin sign on every other tree, to stick one
+up right in front of every seat; to keep a gang of young wretches
+thrusting pamphlet or handbill into every person's palm that enters the
+gate, to paint a vulgar sign across every gray rock; to cut quack words
+in ditch-work in the smooth green turf of the mall or ball-ground. I
+have no doubt that it is the peremptory decision and clear good taste of
+the Commissioners alone, which have kept this last retreat of nature
+within our crowded city from being long ago plastered and daubed with
+placards, handbills, sign-boards and paint, from side to side and from
+end to end, over turf, tree, rock, wall, bridge, archway, building and
+all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+MONSIEUR MANGIN, THE FRENCH HUMBUG.
+
+
+One of the most original, unique, and successful humbugs of the present
+day was the late Monsieur Mangin, the blacklead pencil maker of Paris.
+Few persons who have visited the French capital within the last ten or
+twelve years can have failed to have seen him, and once seen he was not
+to be forgotten. While passing through the public streets, there was
+nothing in his personal appearance to distinguish him from any ordinary
+gentlemen. He drove a pair of bay horses, attached to an open carriage
+with two seats, the back one always occupied by his valet. Sometimes he
+would take up his stand in the Champs Elysées; at other times, near the
+column in the Place Vendôme; but usually he was seen in the afternoon in
+the Place de la Bastille, or the Place de la Madeleine. On Sundays, his
+favorite locality was the Place de la Bourse. Mangin was a well-formed,
+stately-looking individual, with a most self-satisfied countenance,
+which seemed to say: "I am master here; and all that my auditors have to
+do is, to listen and obey." Arriving at his destined stopping-place, his
+carriage halted. His servant handed him a case from which he took
+several large portraits of himself, which he hung prominently upon the
+sides of his carriage, and also placed in front of him a vase filled
+with medals bearing his likeness on one side and a description of his
+pencils on the other. He then leisurely commenced a change of costume.
+His round hat was displaced by a magnificent burnished helmet, mounted
+with rich plumes of various brilliant colors. His overcoat was laid
+aside, and he donned in its stead a costly velvet tunic with gold
+fringes. He then drew a pair of polished steel gauntlets upon his hands,
+covered his breast with a brilliant cuirass, and placed a richly-mounted
+sword at his side. His servant watched him closely, and upon receiving a
+sign from his master, he too put on his official costume, which
+consisted of a velvet robe and a helmet. The servant then struck up a
+tune on the richly-toned organ which always formed a part of Mangin's
+outfit. The grotesque appearance of these individuals, and the music,
+soon drew together an admiring crowd.
+
+Then the great charlatan stood upon his feet. His manner was calm,
+dignified, imposing, indeed almost solemn, for his face was as serious
+as that of the chief mourner at a funeral. His sharp, intelligent eye
+scrutinized the throng which was pressing around his carriage, until it
+rested apparently upon some particular individual, when he gave a start;
+then, with a dark, angry expression, as if the sight was repulsive, he
+abruptly dropped the visor of his helmet and thus covered his face from
+the gaze of the anxious crowd. This bit of coquetry produced the desired
+effect in whetting the appetite of the multitude, who were impatiently
+waiting to hear him speak. When he had carried this kind of by-play as
+far as he thought the audience would bear it, he raised his hand, and
+his servant understanding the sign, stopped the organ. Mangin then rang
+a small bell, stepped forward to the front of the carriage, gave a
+slight cough indicative of a preparation to speak, opened his mouth, but
+instantly giving a more fearful start and assuming a more sudden frown
+than before, he took his seat as if quite overcome by some unpleasant
+object which his eyes had rested upon. Thus far he had not spoken a
+word. At last the prelude ended, and the comedy commenced. Stepping
+forward again to the front of his carriage where all the gaping crowd
+could catch every word, he exclaimed:
+
+"Gentlemen, you look astonished! You seem to wonder and ask yourselves
+who is this modern Quixote. What mean this costume of by-gone
+centuries--this golden chariot--these richly caparisoned steeds? What is
+the name and purpose of this curious knight-errant? Gentlemen, I will
+condescend to answer your queries. I am Monsieur Mangin, the great
+charlatan of France! Yes, gentlemen, I am a charlatan--a mountebank; it
+is my profession, not from choice, but from necessity. You, gentlemen,
+created that necessity! You would not patronize true, unpretending,
+honest merit, but you are attracted by my glittering casque, my sweeping
+crest, my waving plumes. You are captivated by din and glitter, and
+therein lies my strength. Years ago, I hired a modest shop in the Rue
+Rivoli, but I could not sell pencils enough to pay my rent, whereas, by
+assuming this disguise--it is nothing else--I have succeeded in
+attracting general attention, and in selling literally millions of my
+pencils; and I assure you there is at this moment scarcely an artist in
+France or in Great Britain who don't know that I manufacture by far the
+best blacklead pencils ever seen."
+
+And this assertion was indeed true. His pencils were everywhere
+acknowledged to be superior to any other.
+
+While he was thus addressing his audience, he would take a blank card,
+and with one of his pencils would pretend to be drawing the portrait of
+some man standing near him; then showing his picture to the crowd, it
+proved to be the head of a donkey, which, of course, produced roars of
+laughter.
+
+"There, do you see what wonderful pencils these are? Did you ever behold
+a more striking likeness?"
+
+A hearty laugh would be sure to follow, and then he would exclaim: "Now
+who will have the first pencil--only five sous." One would buy, and then
+another; a third and a fourth would follow; and with the delivery of
+each pencil he would rattle off a string of witticisms which kept his
+patrons in capital good-humor; and frequently he would sell from two
+hundred to five hundred pencils in immediate succession. Then he would
+drop down in his carriage for a few minutes and wipe the perspiration
+from his face, while his servant played another overture on the organ.
+This gave his purchasers a chance to withdraw, and afforded a good
+opportunity for a fresh audience to congregate. Then would follow a
+repetition of his previous sales, and in this way he would continue for
+hours. To those disposed to have a _souvenir_ of the great humbug he
+would sell six pencils, a medal and a photograph of himself for a franc
+(twenty cents.) After taking a rest he would commence a new speech.
+
+"When I was modestly dressed, like any of my hearers, I was half
+starved. Punch and his bells would attract crowds, but my good pencils
+attracted nobody. I imitated Punch and his bells, and now I have two
+hundred depots in Paris. I dine at the best cafés, drink the best wine,
+live on the best of everything, while my defamers get poor and lank, as
+they deserve to be. Who are my defamers? Envious swindlers! Men who try
+to ape me, but are too stupid and too dishonest to succeed. They
+endeavor to attract notice as mountebanks, and then foist upon the
+public worthless trash, and hope thus to succeed. Ah! defamers of mine,
+you are fools as well as knaves. Fools, to think that any man can
+succeed by systematically and persistently cheating the public. Knaves,
+for desiring the public's money without giving them an equivalent. I am
+an honest man. I have no bad habits; and I now declare, if any trader,
+inventor, manufacturer, or philanthropist will show me better pencils
+than mine, I will give him 1,000f.--no, not to him, for I abhor
+betting--but to the poor of the Thirty-first Arrondissement, where I
+live."
+
+Mangin's harangues were always accompanied by a peculiar play of feature
+and of voice, and with unique and original gestures, which seemed to
+excite and captivate his audience.
+
+About seven years ago, I met him in one of the principal restaurants in
+the Palais Royale. A mutual friend introduced me.
+
+"Ah!" said he, "Monsieur Barnum, I am delighted to see you. I have read
+your book with infinite satisfaction. It has been published here in
+numerous editions. I see you have the right idea of things. Your motto
+is a good one--'we study to please.' I have much wanted to visit
+America; but I cannot speak English, so I must remain in my dear belle
+France."
+
+I remarked that I had often seen him in public, and bought his pencils.
+
+"Aha! you never saw better pencils. You know I could never maintain my
+reputation if I sold poor pencils. But _sacre bleu_, my miserable
+would-be imitators do not know our grand secret. First, attract the
+public by din and tinsel, by brilliant sky-rockets and Bengola lights,
+then give them as much as possible for their money."
+
+"You are very happy," I replied, "in your manner of attracting the
+public. Your costume is elegant, your chariot is superb, and your valet
+and music are sure to draw."
+
+"Thank you for your compliment, Mr. B., but I have not forgotten your
+Buffalo-hunt, your Mermaid, nor your Woolly Horse. They were a good
+offset to my rich helmet and sword, my burnished gauntlets and gaudy
+cuirass. Both are intended as advertisements of something genuine, and
+both answer the purpose."
+
+After comparing notes in this way for an hour, we parted, and his last
+words were:
+
+"Mr. B., I have got a grand humbug in my head, which I shall put in
+practice within a year, and it shall double the sale of my pencils.
+Don't ask me what it is, but within one year you shall see it for
+yourself, and you shall acknowledge Monsieur Mangin knows something of
+human nature. My idea is magnifique, but it is one grand secret."
+
+I confess my curiosity was somewhat excited, and I hoped that Monsieur
+Mangin would "add another wrinkle to my horns." But, poor fellow! within
+four months after I bade him adieu, the Paris newspapers announced his
+sudden death. They added that he had left two hundred thousand francs,
+which he had given in his will to charitable objects. The announcement
+was copied into nearly all the papers on the Continent and in Great
+Britain, for almost everybody had seen or heard of the eccentric pencil
+maker.
+
+His death caused many an honest sigh, and his absence seemed to cast a
+gloom over several of his favorite halting-places. The Parisians really
+loved him, and were proud of his genius.
+
+"Well," people in Paris would remark, "Mangin was a clever fellow. He
+was shrewd, and possessed a thorough knowledge of the world. He was a
+gentleman and a man of intelligence, extremely agreeable and witty. His
+habits were good; he was charitable. He never cheated anybody. He always
+sold a good article, and no person who purchased from him had cause to
+complain."
+
+I confess I felt somewhat chagrined that the Monsieur had thus suddenly
+taken "French leave" without imparting to me the "grand secret" by which
+he was to double the sales of his pencils. But I had not long to mourn
+on that account; for after Monsieur Mangin had been for six months--as
+they say of John Brown--"mouldering in his grave" judge of the
+astonishment and delight of all Paris at his reappearance in his native
+city in precisely the same costume and carriage as formerly, and
+heralded by the same servant and organ that had always attended him. It
+now turned out that Monsieur Mangin had lived in the most rigid
+seclusion for half a year, and that the extensively-circulated
+announcements of his sudden death had been made by himself, merely as
+an "advertising dodge" to bring him still more into notice, and give the
+public something to talk about. I met Mangin in Paris soon after this
+event.
+
+"Aha, Monsieur Barnum!" he exclaimed, "did I not tell you I had a new
+humbug that would double the sales of my pencils? I assure you my sales
+are more than quadrupled, and it is sometimes impossible to have them
+manufactured fast enough to supply the demand. You Yankees are very
+clever, but by gar, none of you have discovered you should live all the
+better if you would die for six months. It took Mangin to teach you
+that."
+
+The patronizing air with which he made this speech, slapping me at the
+same time familiarly upon the back, showed him in his true character of
+egotist. Although good-natured and social to a degree, he was really one
+of the most self-conceited men I ever met.
+
+Monsieur Mangin died the present year, and it is said that his heirs
+received more than half a million of francs as the fruit of his
+eccentric labors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+OLD GRIZZLY ADAMS.[37-*]
+
+
+James C. Adams, or "Grizzly Adams," as he was generally termed, from the
+fact of his having captured so many grizzly bears, and encountered such
+fearful perils by his unexampled daring, was an extraordinary character.
+For many years a hunter and trapper in the Rocky and Sierra Nevada
+Mountains, he acquired a recklessness which, added to his natural
+invincible courage, rendered him truly one of the most striking men of
+the age. He was emphatically what the English call a man of "pluck." In
+1860, he arrived in New York with his famous collection of California
+animals, captured by himself, consisting of twenty or thirty immense
+grizzly bears, at the head of which stood "Old Sampson"--now in the
+American Museum--wolves, half a dozen other species of bear, California
+lions, tigers, buffalo, elk, etc., and Old Neptune, the great sea-lion,
+from the Pacific.
+
+Old Adams had trained all these monsters so that with him they were as
+docile as kittens, while many of the most ferocious among them would
+attack a stranger without hesitation, if he came within their grasp. In
+fact, the training of these animals was no fool's play, as Old Adams
+learned to his cost; for the terrific blows which he received from time
+to time, while teaching them "docility," finally cost him his life.
+
+When Adams and his other wild beasts (for he was nearly as wild as any
+of them) arrived in New York, he called immediately at the Museum. He
+was dressed in his hunter's suit of buckskin, trimmed with the skins and
+bordered with the hanging tails of small Rocky Mountain animals; his cap
+consisting of the skin of a wolf's head and shoulders, from which
+depended several tails as natural as life, and under which appeared his
+stiff bushy gray hair and his long white grizzly beard. In fact, Old
+Adams was quite as much of a show as his bears. They had come around
+Cape Horn on the clipper-ship Golden Fleece, and a sea-voyage of three
+and a half months had probably not added much to the beauty or neat
+appearance of the old bear-hunter.
+
+During our conversation, Grizzly Adams took off his cap, and showed me
+the top of his head. His skull was literally broken in. It had on
+various occasions been struck by the fearful paws of his grizzly
+students; and the last blow, from the bear called "General Fremont," had
+laid open his brain, so that its workings were plainly visible. I
+remarked that I thought that was a dangerous wound, and might possibly
+prove fatal.
+
+"Yes," replied Adams, "that will fix me out. It had nearly healed; but
+old Fremont opened it for me, for the third or fourth time, before I
+left California, and he did his business so thoroughly, I'm a used-up
+man. However, I reckon I may live six months or a year yet."
+
+This was spoken as coolly as if he had been talking about the life of a
+dog.
+
+The immediate object of "Old Adams" in calling upon me was this. I had
+purchased one-half interest in his California menagerie from a man who
+had come by way of the Isthmus from California, and who claimed to own
+an equal interest with Adams in the show. Adams declared that the man
+had only advanced him some money, and did not possess the right to sell
+half of the concern. However, the man held a bill of sale for one-half
+of the "California Menagerie," and Old Adams finally consented to
+accept me as an equal partner in the speculation, saying that he guessed
+I could do the managing part, and he would show up the animals. I
+obtained a canvas tent, and erecting it on the present site of Wallack's
+Theatre, Adams there opened his novel California Menagerie. On the
+morning of opening, a band of music preceded a procession of
+animal-cages, down Broadway and up the Bowery; Old Adams dressed in his
+hunting costume, heading the line, with a platform-wagon on which were
+placed three immense grizzly bears, two of which he held by chains,
+while he was mounted on the back of the largest grizzly, which stood in
+the centre, and was not secured in any manner whatever. This was the
+bear known as "General Fremont;" and so docile had he become that Adams
+said he had used him as a packbear to carry his cooking and hunting
+apparatus through the mountains for six months, and had ridden him
+hundreds of miles. But apparently docile as were many of these animals,
+there was not one among them that would not occasionally give even Adams
+a sly blow or a sly bite when a good chance offered; hence Old Adams was
+but a wreck of his former self, and expressed pretty nearly the truth
+when he said:
+
+"Mr. Barnum, I am not the man I was five years ago. Then I felt able to
+stand the hug of any grizzly living, and was always glad to encounter,
+single-handed, any sort of an animal that dared present himself. But I
+have been beaten to a jelly, torn almost limb from limb, and nearly
+chawed up and spit out by these treacherous grizzly bears. However, I am
+good for a few months yet, and by that time I hope we shall gain enough
+to make my old woman comfortable, for I have been absent from her some
+years."
+
+His wife came from Massachusetts to New York, and nursed him. Dr. Johns
+dressed his wounds every day, and not only told Adams he could never
+recover, but assured his friends that probably a very few weeks would
+lay him in his grave.
+
+But Adams was as firm as adamant and as resolute as a lion. Among the
+thousands who saw him dressed in his grotesque hunter's suit, and
+witnessed the apparent vigor with which he "performed" the savage
+monsters, beating and whipping them into apparently the most perfect
+docility, probably not one suspected that this rough, fierce-looking,
+powerful demi-savage, as he appeared to be, was suffering intense pain
+from his broken skull and fevered system, and that nothing kept him from
+stretching himself on his deathbed but that most indomitable and
+extraordinary will of his.
+
+After the exhibition had been open six weeks, the Doctor insisted that
+Adams should sell out his share in the animals and settle up all his
+worldly affairs; for he assured him that he was growing weaker every
+day, and his earthly existence must soon terminate.
+
+"I shall live a good deal longer than you doctors think for," replied
+Adams, doggedly; and then, seeming after all to realize the truth of the
+Doctor's assertion, he turned to me and said: "Well, Mr. B., you must
+buy me out." He named his price for his half of the "show," and I
+accepted his offer. We had arranged to exhibit the bears in Connecticut
+and Massachusetts during the summer, in connection with a circus, and
+Adams insisted that I should hire him to travel for the summer, and
+exhibit the bears in their curious performances. He offered to go for
+$60 per week and traveling expenses of himself and wife.
+
+I replied that I would gladly engage him as long as he could stand it,
+but I advised him to give up business and go to his home in
+Massachusetts; "for," I remarked, "you are growing weaker every day, and
+at best cannot stand it more than a fortnight."
+
+"What will you give me extra if I will travel and exhibit the bears
+every day for ten weeks?" asked old Adams, eagerly.
+
+"Five hundred dollars," I replied, with a laugh.
+
+"Done!" exclaimed Adams. "I will do it; so draw up an agreement to that
+effect at once. But mind you, draw it payable to my wife, for I may be
+too weak to attend to business after the ten weeks are up, and if I
+perform my part of the contract, I want her to get the $500 without any
+trouble."
+
+I drew up a contract to pay him $60 per week for his services, and if he
+continued to exhibit the bears for ten consecutive weeks I was then to
+hand him, or his wife $500 extra.
+
+"You have lost your $500!" exclaimed Adams on taking the contract; "for
+I am bound to live and earn it."
+
+"I hope you may, with all my heart, and a hundred years more if you
+desire it," I replied.
+
+"Call me a fool if I don't earn the $500!" exclaimed Adams, with a
+triumphant laugh.
+
+The "show" started off in a few days, and at the end of a fortnight I
+met it at Hartford, Connecticut.
+
+"Well," says I, "Adams, you seem to stand it pretty well. I hope you and
+your wife are comfortable?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, with a laugh; "and you may as well try to be
+comfortable too, for your $500 is a goner."
+
+"All right," I replied; "I hope you will grow better every day."
+
+But I saw by his pale face, and other indications, that he was rapidly
+failing.
+
+In three weeks more, I met him again at New Bedford, Mass. It seemed to
+me, then, that he could not live a week, for his eyes were glassy and
+his hands trembled, but his pluck was great as ever.
+
+"This hot weather is pretty bad for me," he said, "but my ten weeks are
+half expired, and I am good for your $500, and, probably, a month or two
+longer."
+
+This was said with as much bravado as if he was offering to bet upon a
+horse-race. I offered to pay him half of the $500 if he would give up
+and go home; but he peremptorily declined making any compromise
+whatever.
+
+I met him the ninth week in Boston. He had failed considerably since I
+last saw him, but he still continued to exhibit the bears and chuckled
+over his almost certain triumph. I laughed in return, and sincerely
+congratulated him on his nerve and probable success. I remained with him
+until the tenth week was finished, and handed him his $500. He took it
+with a leer of satisfaction, and remarked, that he was sorry I was a
+teetotaller, for he would like to stand treat!
+
+Just before the menagerie left New York, I had paid $150 for a new
+hunting-suit, made of beaver-skins similar to the one which Adams had
+worn. This I intended for Herr Driesbach, the animal-tamer, who was
+engaged by me to take the place of Adams whenever he should be compelled
+to give up.
+
+Adams, on starting from New York, asked me to loan this new dress to him
+to perform in once in a while in a fair day when we had a large
+audience, for his own costume was considerably soiled. I did so, and now
+when I handed him his $500 he remarked:
+
+"Mr. B., I suppose you are going to give me this new hunting-dress."
+
+"Oh no," I replied. "I got that for your successor, who will exhibit the
+bears to-morrow; besides, you have no possible use for it."
+
+"Now, don't be mean, but _lend_ me the dress, if you won't _give_ it to
+me, for I want to wear it home to my native village."
+
+I could not refuse the poor old man anything, and I therefore replied:
+
+"Well, Adams, I will lend you the dress; but you will send it back to
+me."
+
+"Yes, when I have done with it," he replied, with an evident chuckle of
+triumph.
+
+I thought to myself, he will soon be done with it, and replied:
+
+"That's all right."
+
+A new idea evidently seized him, for, with a brightening look of
+satisfaction, he said:
+
+"Now, Barnum, you have made a good thing out of the California
+menagerie, and so have I; but you will make a heap more. So, if you
+won't give me this new hunter's dress, just draw a little writing, and
+sign it, saying that I may wear it until I have done with it."
+
+Of course, I knew that in a few days at longest he would be "done" with
+this world altogether, and, to gratify him, I cheerfully drew and signed
+the paper.
+
+"Come, old Yankee, I've got you this time--see if I hain't!" exclaimed
+Adams, with a broad grin, as he took the paper.
+
+I smiled, and said:
+
+"All right, my dear fellow; the longer you live, the better I shall like
+it."
+
+We parted, and he went to Neponset, a small town near Boston, where his
+wife and daughter lived. He took at once to his bed, and never rose from
+it again. The excitement had passed away, and his vital energies could
+accomplish no more.
+
+The fifth day after arriving home, the physician told him he could not
+live until the next morning. He received the announcement in perfect
+calmness, and with the most apparent indifference; then, turning to his
+wife, with a smile, he requested her to have him buried in the new
+hunting suit.
+
+"For," said he, "Barnum agreed to let me have it until I have done with
+it, and I was determined to fix his flint this time. He shall never see
+that dress again."
+
+His wife assured him that his request should be complied with. He then
+sent for the clergyman, and they spent several hours in communing
+together.
+
+Adams told the clergyman he had told some pretty big stories about his
+bears, but he had always endeavored to do the straight thing between man
+and man. "I have attended preaching every day, Sundays and all," said
+he, "for the last six years. Sometimes an old grizzly gave me the
+sermon, sometimes it was a panther; often it was the thunder and
+lightning, the tempest, or the hurricane on the peaks of the Sierra
+Nevada, or in the gorges of the Rocky Mountains; but whatever preached
+to me, it always taught me the majesty of the Creator, and revealed to
+me the undying and unchanging love of our kind Father in heaven.
+Although I am a pretty rough customer," continued the dying man, "I
+fancy my heart is in about the right place, and look with confidence to
+the blessed Saviour for that rest which I so much need, and which I have
+never enjoyed upon earth." He then desired the clergyman to pray with
+him, after which he grasped him by the hand, thanked him for his
+kindness, and bade him farewell.
+
+In another hour his spirit had taken its flight; and it was said by
+those present that his face lighted up into a smile as the last breath
+escaped him, and that smile he carried into his grave. Almost his last
+words were: "Won't Barnum open his eyes when he finds I have humbugged
+him by being buried in his new hunting-dress?" That dress was indeed the
+shroud in which he was entombed.
+
+And that was the last on earth of "Old Grizzly Adams."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[37-*] Although the subject of the following sketch can hardly be
+classed under the head of "Humbugs," he was an original genius, and a
+knowledge of some of his prominent traits seems appropriate in
+connection with one or two other passages of this book.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE GOLDEN PIGEONS.--GRIZZLY ADAMS.--GERMAN CHEMIST.--HAPPY
+FAMILY.--FRENCH NATURALIST.
+
+
+"Old Grizzly Adams" was quite candid when, in his last hours, he
+confessed to the clergyman that he had "told some pretty large stories
+about his bears." In fact, these "large stories" were Adam's "besetting
+sin." To hear him talk, one would suppose that he had seen and handled
+everything ever read or heard of. In fact, according to his story,
+California contained specimens of all things, animate and inanimate, to
+be found in any part of the globe. He talked glibly about California
+lions, California tigers, California leopards, California hyenas,
+California camels, and California hippopotami. He furthermore declared
+he had, on one occasion, seen a California elephant, "at a great
+distance," but it was "very shy," and he would not permit himself to
+doubt that California giraffes existed somewhere in the neighborhood of
+the "tall trees."
+
+I was anxious to get a chance of exposing to Adams his weak point, and
+of showing him the absurdity of telling such ridiculous stories. A fit
+occasion soon presented itself. One day, while engaged in my office at
+the Museum, a man with marked Teutonic features and accent approached
+the door and asked if I would like to buy a pair of living golden
+pigeons.
+
+"Yes," I replied, "I would like a _flock_ of 'golden pigeons,' if I
+could buy them for their weight in _silver_; for there are no '_golden_'
+pigeons in existence, unless they are made from the pure metal."
+
+"You shall see some golden pigeons alive," he replied, at the same time
+entering my office and closing the door after him. He then removed the
+lid from a small basket which he carried in his hand, and sure enough
+there were snugly ensconced a pair of beautiful living ruff-necked
+pigeons, as yellow as saffron and as bright as a double eagle fresh from
+the mint.
+
+I confess I was somewhat staggered at this sight, and quickly asked the
+man where those birds came from.
+
+A dull, lazy smile crawled over the sober face of my German visitor, as
+he replied in a slow, guttural tone of voice:
+
+"What you think yourself?"
+
+Catching his meaning, I quickly answered:
+
+"I think it is a humbug?"
+
+"Of course, I know you will say so; because you 'forstha' such things
+better as any man living, so I shall not try to humbug you. I have color
+them myself."
+
+On further inquiry, I learned that this German was a chemist, and that
+he possessed the art of coloring birds any hue desired, and yet retain a
+natural gloss on the feathers, which gave every shade the appearance of
+reality.
+
+"I can paint a green pigeon or a blue pigeon, a gray pigeon or a black
+pigeon, a brown pigeon or a pigeon half blue and half green," said the
+German; "and if you prefer it, I can paint them pink or purple, or give
+you a little of each color, and make you a rainbow pigeon."
+
+The "rainbow pigeon" did not strike me as particularly desirable; but,
+thinking here was a good chance to catch "Grizzly Adams," I bought the
+pair of golden pigeons for ten dollars, and sent them up to the "Happy
+Family," marked "Golden Pigeons from California." Mr. Taylor the great
+pacificator, who has charge of the Happy Family, soon came down in a
+state of perspiration.
+
+"Really, Mr. Barnum," said he, "I could not think of putting those
+elegant golden pigeons into the Happy Family--they are too valuable a
+bird--they might get injured--they are by far the most beautiful pigeons
+I ever saw; and as they are so rare, I would not jeopardize their lives
+for anything."
+
+"Well," I replied, "you may put them in a separate cage, properly
+labeled."
+
+Monsieur Guillaudeu, the naturalist and taxidermist of the Museum, has
+been attached to that establishment since the year it was founded, 1810.
+He is a Frenchman, and has read everything upon Natural History that was
+ever published in his own or in the English language. He is now
+seventy-five years old, but is lively as a cricket, and takes as much
+interest in Natural History as he ever did. When he saw the "golden
+pigeons from California," he was considerably astonished! He examined
+them with great delight for half an hour, expatiating upon their
+beautiful color, and the near resemblance which every feature bore to
+the American ruff-neck pigeon. He soon came to my office and said:
+
+"Mr. B., these golden pigeons are superb, but they cannot be from
+California. Audubon mentions no such bird in his work upon American
+Ornithology."
+
+I told him he had better take Audubon home with him that night, and
+perhaps by studying him attentively he would see occasion to change his
+mind.
+
+The next day, the old naturalist called at my office and remarked:
+
+"Mr. B., those pigeons are a more rare bird than you imagine. They are
+not mentioned by Linnæus, Cuvier, Goldsmith, or any other writer on
+Natural History, so far as I have been able to discover. I expect they
+must have come from some unexplored portion of Australia."
+
+"Never mind," I replied, "we may get more light on the subject, perhaps,
+before long. We will continue to label them 'California Pigeons' until
+we can fix their nativity elsewhere."
+
+The next, morning, "Old Grizzly Adams," whose exhibition of bears was
+then open in Fourteenth street, happened to be passing through the
+Museum, when his eyes fell on the "Golden California Pigeons." He looked
+a moment and doubtless admired. He soon after came to my office.
+
+"Mr. B," said he, "you must let me have those California pigeons."
+
+"I can't spare them," I replied.
+
+"But you _must_ spare them. All the birds and animals from California
+ought to be together. You own half of my California menagerie, and you
+must lend me those pigeons."
+
+"Mr. Adams, they are too rare and valuable a bird to be hawked about in
+that manner; besides, I expect they will attract considerable attention
+here."
+
+"Oh, don't be a fool," replied Adams. "Rare bird, indeed! Why, they are
+just as common in California as any other pigeon! I could have brought a
+hundred of them from San Francisco, if I had thought of it."
+
+"But why did you not think of it?" I asked, with a suppressed smile.
+
+"Because they are _so common_ there," said Adams. "I did not think they
+would be any curiosity here. I have eaten them in pigeon-pies hundreds
+of times, and shot them by the thousand!"
+
+I was ready to burst with laughter to see how readily Adams swallowed
+the bait, but maintaining the most rigid gravity, I replied:
+
+"Oh well, Mr. Adams, if they are really so common in California, you had
+probably better take them, and you may write over and have half a dozen
+pairs sent to me for the Museum."
+
+"All right," said Adams; "I will send over to a friend in San Francisco,
+and you shall have them here in a couple of months."
+
+I told Adams that, for certain reasons, I would prefer to change the
+label so as to have it read: "Golden Pigeons from Australia."
+
+"Well, call them what you like," replied Adams; "I suppose they are
+probably about as plenty in Australia as they are in California."
+
+I fancied I could discover a sly smile lurking in the eye of the old
+bear-hunter as he made this reply.
+
+The pigeons were labeled as I suggested, and this is how it happened
+that the Bridgeport non-believing lady, mentioned in the next chapter,
+was so much attracted as to solicit some of their eggs in order to
+perpetuate the species in old Connecticut.
+
+Six or eight weeks after this incident, I was in the California
+Menagerie, and noticed that the "Golden Pigeons" had assumed a
+frightfully mottled appearance. Their feathers had grown out, and they
+were half white. Adams had been so busy with his bears that he had not
+noticed the change. I called him up to the pigeon cage, and remarked:
+
+"Mr. Adams, I fear you will lose your Golden Pigeons; they must be very
+sick; I observe they are turning quite pale!"
+
+Adams looked at them a moment with astonishment; then turning to me, and
+seeing that I could not suppress a smile, he indignantly exclaimed:
+
+"Blast the Golden Pigeons! You had better take them back to the Museum.
+You can't humbug me with your painted pigeons!"
+
+This was too much, and "I laughed till I cried" to witness the mixed
+look of astonishment and vexation which marked the "grizzly" features of
+old Adams.
+
+"These Golden Pigeons," I remarked, "are very common in California, I
+think I heard you say? When do you expect my half-dozen pairs will
+arrive?"
+
+"You go to thunder, you old humbug!" replied Adams, as he marched off
+indignantly, and soon disappeared behind the cages of his grizzly
+bears.
+
+From that time, Adams seemed to be more careful about telling his large
+stories. Perhaps he was not cured altogether of his habit, but he took
+particular pains when making marvelous statements to have them of such a
+nature that they could not be disproved so easily as was that regarding
+the "Golden California Pigeons."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE WHALE, THE ANGEL FISH, AND THE GOLDEN PIGEON.
+
+
+If the fact could be definitely determined, I think it would be
+discovered that in this "wide awake" country there are more persons
+humbugged by believing too little than too much. Many persons have such
+a horror of being taken in, or such an elevated opinion of their own
+acuteness, that they believe everything to be a sham, and in this way
+are continually humbugging themselves.
+
+Several years since, I purchased a living white whale, captured near
+Labrador, and succeeded in placing it, "in good condition," in a large
+tank, fifty feet long, and supplied with salt water, in the basement of
+the American Museum. I was obliged to light the basement with gas, and
+that frightened the sea-monster to such an extent that he kept at the
+bottom of the tank, except when he was compelled to stick his nose above
+the surface in order to breathe or "blow," and then down he would go
+again as quick as possible. Visitors would sometimes stand for half an
+hour, watching in vain to get a look at the whale; for, although he
+could remain under water only about two minutes at a time, he would
+happen to appear in some unlooked for quarter of the huge tank, and
+before they could all get a chance to see him, he would be out of sight
+again. Some impatient and incredulous persons after waiting ten minutes,
+which seemed to them an hour, would sometimes exclaim:
+
+"Oh, humbug! I don't believe there is a whale here at all!"
+
+This incredulity often put me out of patience, and I would say:
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, there is a living whale in the tank. He is
+frightened by the gaslight and by visitors; but he is obliged to come to
+the surface every two minutes, and if you will watch sharply, you will
+see him. I am sorry we can't make him dance a hornpipe and do all sorts
+of wonderful things at the word of command; but if you will exercise
+your patience a few minutes longer, I assure you the whale will be seen
+at considerably less trouble than it would be to go to Labrador
+expressly for that purpose."
+
+This would usually put my patrons in good humor; but I was myself often
+vexed at the persistent stubbornness of the whale in not calmly floating
+on the surface for the gratification of my visitors.
+
+One day, a sharp Yankee lady and her daughter, from Connecticut, called
+at the Museum. I knew them well; and in answer to their inquiry for the
+locality of the whale, I directed them to the basement. Half an hour
+afterward, they called at my office, and the acute mother, in a
+half-confidential, serio-comic whisper, said:
+
+"Mr. B., it's astonishing to what a number of purposes the ingenuity of
+us Yankees has applied india-rubber."
+
+I asked her meaning, and was soon informed that she was perfectly
+convinced that it was an india-rubber whale, worked by steam and
+machinery, by means of which he was made to rise to the surface at short
+intervals, and puff with the regularity of a pair of bellows. From her
+earnest, confident manner, I saw it would be useless to attempt to
+disabuse her mind on the subject. I therefore very candidly acknowledged
+that she was quite too sharp for me, and I must plead guilty to the
+imposition; but I begged her not to expose me, for I assured her that
+she was the only person who had discovered the trick.
+
+It was worth more than a dollar to see with what a smile of satisfaction
+she received the assurance that nobody else was as shrewd as herself;
+and the patronizing manner in which she bade me be perfectly tranquil,
+for the secret should be considered by her as "strictly confidential,"
+was decidedly rich. She evidently received double her money's worth in
+the happy reflection that she could not be humbugged, and that I was
+terribly humiliated in being detected through her marvelous powers of
+discrimination! I occasionally meet the good lady, and always try to
+look a little sheepish, but she invariably assures me that she has never
+divulged my secret and never will!
+
+On another occasion, a lady equally shrewd, who lives neighbor to me in
+Connecticut, after regarding for a few minutes the "Golden Angel Fish"
+swimming in one of the Aquaria, abruptly addressed me with:
+
+"You can't humbug me, Mr. Barnum; that fish is painted!"
+
+"Nonsense!" said I, with a laugh; "the thing is impossible!"
+
+"I don't care, I know it is painted; it is as plain as can be."
+
+"But, my dear Mrs. H., paint would not adhere to a fish while in the
+water; and if it would, it would kill him. Besides," I added, with an
+extra serious air, "we never allow humbugging here!"
+
+"Oh, here is just the place to look for such things," she replied with a
+smile; "and I must say I more than half believe that Angel Fish is
+painted."
+
+She was finally nearly convinced of her error, and left. In the
+afternoon of the same day, I met her in Old Adams' California Menagerie.
+She knew that I was part-proprietor of that establishment, and seeing me
+in conversation with "Grizzly Adams," she came up to me in some haste,
+and with her eyes glistening with excitement, she said:
+
+"O, Mr. B., I never saw anything so beautiful as those elegant 'Golden
+Pigeons' from Australia. I want you to secure some of their eggs for me,
+and let my pigeons hatch them at home. I should prize them beyond all
+measure."
+
+"Oh, you don't want 'Golden Australian Pigeons,'" I replied; "they are
+painted."
+
+"No, they are not painted," said she, with a laugh, "but I half think
+the Angel Fish is."
+
+I could not control myself at the curious coincidence, and I roared with
+laughter while I replied:
+
+"Now, Mrs. H., I never let a good joke be spoiled, even if it serves to
+expose my own secrets. I assure you, upon honor, that the Golden
+Australian Pigeons, as they are labeled, are really painted; and that in
+their natural state they are nothing more nor less than the common
+ruff-necked white American pigeons!"
+
+And it was a fact. How they happened to be exhibited under that
+auriferous disguise was owing to an amusing circumstance, explained in
+another chapter.
+
+Suffice it at present to say, that Mrs. H. to this day "blushes to her
+eyebrows" whenever an allusion is made to "Angel Fish" or "Golden
+Pigeons."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+PEASE'S HOARHOUND CANDY.--THE DORR REBELLION.--THE PHILADELPHIA
+ALDERMEN.
+
+
+In the year 1842, a new style of advertising appeared in the newspapers
+and in handbills which arrested public attention at once on account of
+its novelty. The thing advertised was an article called "Pease's
+Hoarhound Candy;" a very good specific for coughs and colds. It was put
+up in twenty-five cent packages, and was eventually sold wholesale and
+retail in enormous quantities. Mr. Pease's system of advertising was
+one which, I believe, originated with him in this country, although
+many have practiced it since, but of course, with less success--for
+imitations seldom succeed. Mr. Pease's plan was to seize upon the most
+prominent topic of interest and general conversation, and discourse
+eloquently upon that topic in fifty to a hundred lines of a
+newspaper-column, then glide off gradually into a panegyric of "Pease's
+Hoarhound Candy." The consequence was, every reader was misled by the
+caption and commencement of his article, and thousands of persons had
+"Pease's Hoarhound Candy" in their mouths long before they had seen it!
+In fact, it was next to impossible to take up a newspaper and attempt to
+read the legitimate news of the day without stumbling upon a package of
+"Pease's Hoarhound Candy." The reader would often feel vexed to find
+that, after reading a quarter of a column of interesting news upon the
+subject uppermost in his mind, he was trapped into the perusal of one of
+Pease's hoarhound candy advertisements. Although inclined sometimes to
+throw down the newspaper in disgust, he would generally laugh at the
+talent displayed by Mr. Pease in thus captivating and capturing the
+reader. The result of all this would generally be, a trial of the candy
+on the first premonitory symptoms of a cough or influenza. The degree to
+which this system of advertising has since been carried has rendered it
+a bore and a nuisance. The usual result of almost any great and original
+achievement is, the production of a shoal of brainless imitators, who
+are "neither useful nor ornamental."
+
+In the same year that Pease's hoarhound candy appeared upon the
+commercial and newspaper horizon, the "Governor Dorr Rebellion" occurred
+in Rhode Island. As many will remember, this rebellion caused a great
+excitement throughout the country. Citizens of Rhode Island took up arms
+against each other, and it was feared by some that a bloody civil war
+would ensue.
+
+At about this time a municipal election was to come off in the city of
+Philadelphia. The two political parties were pretty equally divided
+there, and there were some special causes why this was regarded as an
+unusually important election. Its near approach caused more excitement
+in the "Quaker City" than had been witnessed there since the preceding
+Presidential election. The party-leaders began to lay their plans early,
+and the wire-pullers on both sides were unusually busy in their
+vocation. At the head of the rabble upon which one of the parties
+depended for many votes, was a drunken and profane fellow, whom we will
+call Tom Simmons. Tom was great at electioneering and stump-spouting in
+bar-rooms and rum-caucuses, and his party always looked to him, at each
+election, to stir up the subterraneans "with a long pole"--and a
+whiskey-jug at the end of it.
+
+The exciting election which was now to come off for Mayor and Aldermen
+of the good city of Brotherly Love soon brought several of the "ring" to
+Tom.
+
+"Now, Tom," said the head wire-puller, "this is going to be a close
+election, and we want you to spare neither talent nor liquor in arousing
+up and bringing to the polls every voter within your influence."
+
+"Well, Squire," replied Tom carelessly, "I've concluded I won't bother
+myself with this 'lection--it don't pay!"
+
+"Don't pay!" exclaimed the frightened politician. "Why, Tom, are you not
+a true friend to your party? Haven't you always been on hand at the
+primary meetings, knocked down interlopers, and squelched every man who
+talked about conscience, or who refused to support regular nominations,
+and vote the entire clean ticket straight through? And as for 'pay,'
+haven't you always been supplied with money enough to treat all doubtful
+voters, and in fact to float them up to the polls in an ocean of
+whiskey? I confess Tom, I am almost petrified with astonishment at
+witnessing your present indifference to the alarming crisis in which our
+country and our party are involved, and which nothing on earth can
+avert, except our success at the coming election."
+
+"Oh, tell that to the marines," said Tom. "We never yet had an election
+that there wasn't a 'crisis,' and yet, whichever party gained, we
+somehow managed to live through it, crisis or no crisis. In fact, my
+curiosity has got a little excited, and I would like to see this
+'crisis' that is such a bugaboo at every election; so trot out your
+crisis--let us see how it looks. Besides, talking of pay, I acknowledge
+the whiskey, and that is all. While I and my companions lifted you and
+your companions into fat offices that enabled you to roll in your
+carriages, and live on the fat of the land, we got nothing--or, at
+least, next to nothing--all we got was--well--we got drunk! Now, Squire,
+I will go for the other party this 'lection if you don't give me an
+office."
+
+"Give you an office!" exclaimed the "Squire," raising his hands and
+rolling his eyes in utter amazement; "why, Tom, what office do you
+want?"
+
+"I want to be Alderman!" replied Tom, "and I can control votes enough to
+turn the 'lection either way; and if our party don't gratefully remember
+my past services and give me my reward, t'other party will be glad to
+run me on their ticket, and over I go."
+
+The gentleman of the "ring" saw by Tom's firmness and clenched teeth
+that he was immovable; that his principles, like those of too many
+others, consisted of "loaves and fishes;" they therefore consented to
+put Tom's name on the municipal ticket; and the worst part of the story
+is, he was elected.
+
+In a very short time, Tom was duly installed into the Aldermanic chair,
+and, opening his office on a prominent corner, he was soon doing a
+thriving business. He was generally occupied throughout the day in
+sitting as a judge in cases of book debt and promissory notes which were
+brought before him, for various small sums ranging from two to five,
+six, eight, and ten dollars. He would frequently dispose of thirty or
+forty of these cases in a day, and as imprisonment for debt was
+permitted at that time, the poor defendants would "shin" around and make
+any sacrifice almost, rather than go to jail. The enormous "costs" went
+into the capacious pocket of the Alderman; and this dignitary, as a
+natural sequence, "waxed fat" and saucy, exemplifying the truth of the
+adage "Put a beggar on horseback," etc.
+
+As the Alderman grew rich, he became overbearing, headstrong, and
+dictatorial. He began to fancy that he monopolized the concentrated
+wisdom of his party, and that his word should be law. Not a party-caucus
+or a political meeting could be held without witnessing the vulgar and
+profane harangues of the self-conceited Alderman, Tom Simmons. As he was
+one of the "ring," his fingers were in all the "pickings and stealings;"
+he kept his family-coach, and in his general swagger exhibited all the
+peculiarities of "high life below stairs."
+
+But after Tom had disgraced his office for two years, a State election
+took place and the other party were successful. Among the first laws
+which they passed after the convening of the Legislature, was one
+declaring that from that date imprisonment for debt should not be
+permitted in the State of Pennsylvania for any sum less than ten
+dollars.
+
+This enactment, of course, knocked away the chief prop which sustained
+the Alderman, and when the news of its passage reached Philadelphia, Tom
+was the most indignant man that had been seen there for some years.
+
+Standing in front of his office the next morning, surrounded by several
+of his political chums, Tom exclaimed:
+
+"Do you see what them infernal tories have done down there at
+Harrisburg? They have been and passed an outrageous, oppressive,
+barbarous, and unconstitutional law! A pretty idea, indeed, if a man
+can't put a debtor in jail for a less sum than ten dollars! How am I
+going to support my family, I should like to know, if this law is
+allowed to stand? I tell you, gentlemen, this law is unconstitutional,
+and you will see blood running in our streets, if them tory scoundrels
+try to carry it out!"
+
+His friends laughed, for they saw that Tom was reasoning from his pocket
+instead of his head; and, as he almost foamed at the mouth in his
+impotent wrath they could not suppress a smile.
+
+"Oh, you may laugh, gentlemen--you may laugh; but you will see it. Our
+party will never disgrace itself a permitting the tories to rob them of
+their rights by passing unconstitutional laws; and I say, the sooner we
+come to blood, the better!"
+
+At this moment, a gentleman stepped up, and addressing the Alderman,
+said:
+
+"Alderman, I want to bring a case of book debt before you this morning."
+
+"How much is your claim?" asked Tom.
+
+"Four dollars," replied the rumseller--for such he proved to be--and his
+debt was for drinks chalked up against one of his "customers."
+
+"You can't have your four dollars, Sir," replied the excited Alderman.
+"You are robbed of your four dollars, Sir. Them legislative tories at
+Harrisburg, Sir, have cheated you out of your four dollars, Sir. I
+undertake to say, Sir, that fifty thousand honest men in Philadelphia
+have been robbed of their four dollars by these bloody tories and their
+cursed unconstitutional law! Ah, gentlemen, you will see blood running
+in our streets before you are a month older. (A laugh.) Oh, you may
+laugh; but you will see it--see if you don't!"
+
+A newsboy was just passing by.
+
+"Here, boy, give me the Morning Ledger," said the Alderman, at the same
+time taking the paper and handing the boy a penny. "Let us see what them
+blasted cowboys are doing down at Harrisburg now. Ah!--what is this?"
+(Reading:) "'Blood, blood, blood!' Aha! laugh, will you, gentlemen? Here
+it is." Reads:
+
+     "'Blood, blood, blood! The Dorrites have got possession of
+     Providence. The military are called out. Father is arrayed against
+     father, and son against son. Blood is already running in our
+     streets.'
+
+"Now laugh, will you, gentlemen? Blood is running in the streets of
+Providence; blood will be running in the streets of Philadelphia before
+you are a fortnight older! The tories of Providence and the tories of
+Harrisburg must answer for this blood, for they and their
+unconstitutional proceedings are the cause of its flowing! Let us see
+the rest of this tragic scene." Reads:
+
+     "'Is there any remedy for this dreadful state of things?'"
+
+ALDERMAN.--"Of course not, except to hang every rascal of them for
+trampling on our g-l-orious Constitution." Reads:
+
+     "'Is there any remedy for this dreadful state of things? Yes, there
+     is.'"
+
+ALDERMAN.--"Oh, there is, is there? What is it? Let me see." Reads:
+
+     "'Buy two packages of Pease's hoarhound candy.'"
+
+"Blast the infernal Ledger!" exclaimed the now doubly incensed and
+indignant Alderman, throwing the paper upon the pavement with the most
+ineffable disgust, amid the shouts and hurrahs of a score of men who by
+this time had gathered around the excited Alderman Tom Simmons.
+
+As I before remarked, the "candy" was a very good article for the
+purposes for which it was made; and as Pease was an indefatigable man,
+as well as a good advertiser, he soon acquired a fortune. Mr. Pease,
+Junior, is now living in affluence in Brooklyn, and is bringing up a
+"happy family" to enjoy the fruits of his industry, probity, good
+habits, and genius.
+
+The "humbug" in this transaction, of course consisted solely in the
+manner of advertising. There was no humbug or deception about the
+article manufactured.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+BRANDRETH'S PILLS.--MAGNIFICENT ADVERTISING.--POWER OF IMAGINATION.
+
+
+In the year 1834, Dr. Benjamin Brandreth commenced advertising in the
+city of New York, "Brandreth's Pills specially recommended to purify the
+blood." His office consisted of a room about ten feet square, located in
+what was then known as the Sun building, an edifice ten by forty feet,
+situated at the corner of Spruce and Nassau streets, where the Tribune
+is now published. His "factory" was at his residence in Hudson street.
+He put up a large gilt sign over the Sun office, five or six feet wide
+by the length of the building, which attracted much attention, as at
+that time it was probably the largest sign in New York. Dr. Brandreth
+had great faith in his pills, and I believe not without reason; for
+multitudes of persons soon became convinced of the truth of his
+assertions, that "all diseases arise from impurity or imperfect
+circulation of the blood, and by purgation with Brandreth's Pills all
+disease may be cured."
+
+But great and reasonable as might have been the faith of Dr. Brandreth
+in the efficacy of his pills, his faith in the potency of advertising
+them was equally strong. Hence he commenced advertising largely in the
+Sun newspaper--paying at least $5,000 to that paper alone, for his
+first year's advertisements. That may not seem a large sum in these
+days, when parties have been known to pay more than five thousand
+dollar for a single day's advertising in the leading journals; but, at
+the time Brandreth started, his was considered the most liberal
+newspaper-advertising of the day.
+
+Advertising is to a genuine article what manure is to land,--it largely
+increases the product. Thousands of persons may be reading your
+advertisement while you are eating, or sleeping, or attending to your
+business; hence public attention is attracted, new customers come to
+you, and, if you render them a satisfactory equivalent for their money,
+they continue to patronize you and recommend you to their friends.
+
+At the commencement of his career, Dr. Brandreth was indebted to Mr.
+Moses Y. Beach, proprietor of the New York Sun, for encouragement and
+means of advertising. But this very advertising soon caused his receipts
+to be enormous. Although the pills were but twenty-five cents per box,
+they were soon sold to such a great extent, that tons of huge cases
+filled with the "purely vegetable pill" were sent from the new and
+extensive manufactory every week. As his business increased, so in the
+same ratio did he extend his advertising. The doctor engaged at one time
+a literary gentleman to attend, under the supervision of himself, solely
+to the advertising department. Column upon column of advertisements
+appeared in the newspapers, in the shape of learned and scientific
+pathological dissertations, the very reading of which would tempt a poor
+mortal to rush for a box of Brandreth's Pills; so evident was it
+(according to the advertisement) that nobody ever had or ever would have
+"pure blood," until from one to a dozen boxes of the pills had been
+taken as "purifiers." The ingenuity displayed in concocting these
+advertisements was superb, and was probably hardly equaled by that
+required to concoct the pills.
+
+No pain, ache, twinge, or other sensation, good, bad, or indifferent,
+ever experienced by a member of the human family, but was a most
+irrefragable evidence of the impurity of the blood; and it would have
+been blasphemy to have denied the "self-evident" theory, that "all
+diseases arise from impurity or imperfect circulation of the blood, and
+that by purgation with Brandreth's Pills all disease may be cured."
+
+The doctor claims that his grandfather first manufactured the pills in
+1751. I suppose this may be true; at all events, no _living_ man will be
+apt to testify to the contrary. Here is an extract from one of Dr.
+Brandreth's early advertisements, which will give an idea of his style:
+
+     "'What has been longest known has been most considered, and what
+     has been most considered is best understood.
+
+     "'The life of the flesh is in the blood.'--Lev. xxii, 2.
+
+     "Bleeding reduces the vital powers; Brandreth's Pills increase
+     them. So in sickness never be bled, especially in Dizziness and
+     Apoplexy, but always use Brandreth's Pills.
+
+     "The laws of life are written upon the face of Nature. The Tempest,
+     Whirlwind, and Thunder-storm bring health from the Solitudes of
+     God. The Tides are the daily agitators and purifiers of the Mighty
+     World of Waters.
+
+     "What these Providential means are as purifiers of the Atmosphere
+     or Air, Brandreth's Pills are to man."
+
+This splendid system of advertising, and the almost reckless outlay
+which was required to keep it up, challenged the admiration of the
+business community. In the course of a few years, his office was
+enlarged; and still being too small, he took the store 241 Broadway, and
+also opened a branch at 187 Hudson street. The doctor continued to let
+his advertising keep pace with his patronage; and he was finally, in the
+year 1836, compelled to remove his manufactory to Sing Sing, where such
+perfectly incredible quantities of Brandreth's Pills have been
+manufactured and sold that it would hardly be safe to give the
+statistics. Suffice it to say, that the only "humbug" which I suspect in
+connection with the pills was, the very harmless and unobjectionable yet
+novel method of advertising them; and as the doctor amassed a great
+fortune by their manufacture, this very fact is _prima facie_ evidence
+that the pill was a valuable purgative.
+
+A funny incident occurred to me in connection with this great pill. In
+the year 1836, while I was travelling through the States of Alabama,
+Mississippi, and Louisiana, I became convinced by reading Doctor
+Brandreth's advertisements that I needed his pills. Indeed, I there read
+the proof that every symptom that I experienced, either in imagination
+or in reality, rendered their extensive consumption absolutely necessary
+to preserve my life. I purchased a box of Brandreth's Pills in Columbus,
+Miss. The effect was miraculous! Of course, it was just what the
+advertisement told me it would be. In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, I purchased
+half a dozen boxes. They were all used up before my perambulating show
+reached Vicksburg, Miss., and I was a confirmed disciple of the blood
+theory. There I laid in a dozen boxes. In Natchez, I made a similar
+purchase. In New Orleans, where I remained several months, I was a
+profitable customer, and had become thoroughly convinced that the only
+real "greenhorns" in the world were those who preferred meat or bread to
+Brandreth's Pills. I took them morning, noon, and night. In fact, the
+advertisements announced that one could not take too many; for if one
+box was sufficient to purify the blood, eleven extra boxes would have no
+injurious effect.
+
+I arrived in New York in June 1838, and by that time I had become such a
+firm believer in the efficacy of Brandreth's Pills, that I hardly
+stopped long enough to speak with my family, before I hastened to the
+"principal office" of Doctor Brandreth to congratulate him on being the
+greatest public benefactor of the age.
+
+I found the doctor "at home," and introduced myself without ceremony. I
+told him my experiences. He was delighted. I next heartily indorsed
+every word stated in his advertisements. He was not surprised, for he
+knew the effects of his pills were such as I described. Still he was
+elated in having another witness whose extensive experiments with his
+pills were so eminently satisfactory. The doctor and myself were both
+happy--he in being able to do so much good to mankind; I in being the
+recipient of such untold benefits through his valuable discovery.
+
+At last, the doctor chanced to say that he wondered how I happened to
+get his pills in Natchez, "for," said he, "I have no agent there as
+yet."
+
+"Oh!" I replied, "I always bought my pills at the drug stores."
+
+"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the doctor, "then they are were all
+counterfeits! vile impositions! poisonous compounds! I never sell a pill
+to a druggist--I never permit an apothecary to handle one of my pills.
+But they counterfeit them by the bushel; the unprincipled, heartless,
+murderous impostors!"
+
+I need not say I was surprised. Was it possible, then, that my
+imagination had done all this business, and that I had been cured by
+poisons which I supposed were Brandreth's Pill? I confess I laughed
+heartily; and told the doctor that, after all, it seemed the
+counterfeits were as good as the real pills, provided the patient had
+sufficient faith.
+
+The doctor was puzzled as well as vexed, but an idea struck him that
+soon enabled him to recover his usual equanimity.
+
+"I'll tell you what it is," said he, "those Southern druggists have
+undoubtedly obtained the pills from me under false pretences. They have
+pretended to be planters, and have purchased pills from me in large
+quantities for use on the plantations, and then they have retailed the
+pills from their drug-shops."
+
+I laughed at this shrewd suggestion, and remarked: "This may be so, but
+I guess my imagination did the business!"
+
+The doctor was uneasy, but he asked me as a favor to bring him one of
+the empty pill boxes which I had brought from the South. The next day, I
+complied with his request, and I will do the doctor justice to say that,
+on comparison, it proved as he had suspected; the pills were genuine,
+and although he had advertised that no druggist should sell them, they
+were so popular that druggists found it necessary to get them "by hook
+or by crook;" and the consequence was, I had the pleasure of a glorious
+laugh, and Doctor Brandreth experienced "a great scare."
+
+The doctor "made his pile" long ago, although he still devotes his
+personal attention to the "entirely vegetable and innocent pills, whose
+life-giving power no pen can describe."
+
+In 1849, the doctor was elected President of the Village of Sing Sing,
+N. Y. (where he still resides,) and was re-elected to the same office
+for seven consecutive years. In the same year, he was elected to the New
+York State Senate, and in 1859 was again elected.
+
+Dr. Brandreth is a liberal man and a pleasant, entertaining, and
+edifying companion. He deserves all the success he has ever received.
+"Long may he wave!"
+
+
+
+
+II. THE SPIRITUALISTS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS, THEIR RISE AND PROGRESS.--SPIRITUAL
+ROPE-TYING.--MUSIC PLAYING.--CABINET SECRETS.--"THEY CHOOSE DARKNESS
+RATHER THAN LIGHT," ETC.--THE SPIRITUAL HAND.--HOW THE THING IS
+DONE.--DR. W. F. VAN VLECK.
+
+
+The Davenport Brothers are natives of Buffalo, N. Y., and in that city
+commenced their career as "mediums" about twelve years ago. They were
+then mere lads. For some time, their operations were confined to their
+own place, where, having obtained considerable notoriety through the
+press, they were visited by people from all parts of the country. But,
+in 1855, they were induced by John F. Coles, a very worthy spiritualist
+of New York City, to visit that metropolis, and there exhibit their
+powers. Under the management of Mr. Coles, they held "circles" afternoon
+and evening, for several days, in a small hall at 195 Bowery. The
+audience were seated next the walls, the principal space being required
+for the use of "the spirits." The "manifestations" mostly consisted in
+the thrumming and seemingly rapid movement about the hall of several
+stringed instruments, the room having been made entirely dark, while the
+boys were supposed or asserted to be quietly seated at the table in the
+centre. Two guitars, with sometimes a banjo, were the instruments used,
+and the noise made by "the spirits" was about equal to the united
+honking of a large flock of wild geese. The manifestations were stunning
+as well as astonishing; for not only was the sense of hearing smitten by
+the dreadful sounds, but, sometimes, a member of the circle would get a
+"striking demonstration" over his head!
+
+At the request of the "controlling spirit," made through a horn, the
+hall was lighted at intervals during the entertainment, at which times
+the mediums could be seen seated at the table, looking very innocent and
+demure, as if they had never once thought of deceiving anybody. On one
+of these occasions, however, a policeman suddenly lighted the hall by
+means of a dark lantern, without having been specially called upon to do
+so; and the boys were clearly seen with instruments in their hands. They
+dropped them as soon as they could, and resumed their seats at the
+table. Satisfied that the thing was a humbug, the audience left in
+disgust; and the policeman was about to march the boys to the
+station-house on the charge of swindling, when he was prevailed upon to
+remain and farther test the matter. Left alone with them, and the three
+seated together at the table on which the instruments had been placed,
+he laid, at their request, a hand on each medium's head; they then
+clasped both his arms with their hands. While they remained thus
+situated (as he supposed,) the room being dark, one of the instruments,
+with an infernal twanging of its strings, rose from the table and hit
+the policeman several times on the head; then a strange voice through
+the trumpet advised him not to interfere with the work of the spirits by
+persecuting the mediums! Considerably astonished, if not positively
+scared, he took his hat and left, fully persuaded that there was
+"something in it!"
+
+The boys produced the manifestations by grasping the neck of the
+instrument, swinging it around, and thrusting it into different parts of
+the open space of the room, at the same time vibrating the strings with
+the fore-finger. The faster the finger passed over the strings, the more
+rapidly the instrument seemed to move. Two hands could thus use as many
+instruments.
+
+When sitting with a person at the table, as they did with the policeman,
+one hand could be taken off the investigator's arm without his knowing
+it, by gently increasing, at the same time, the pressure of the other
+hand. It was an easy matter then to raise and thrum the instrument or
+talk through the horn.
+
+About a dozen gentlemen--several of whom were members of the press--had
+a private séance with the boys one afternoon, on which occasion "the
+spirits" ventured upon an extra "manifestation." All took seats at one
+side of a long, high table--the position of the mediums being midway of
+the row. This time, a little, dim, ghostly gaslight was allowed in the
+room. What seemed to be a hand soon appeared, partly above the edge of
+the vacant side of the table, and opposite the "mediums." One excited
+spiritualist present said he could see the finger-nails.
+
+John F. Coles--who had for several days, suspected the innocence of the
+boys--sprang from his seat, turned up the gaslight, and pounced on the
+elder boy, who was found to have a nicely stuffed glove drawn partly on
+to the toe of his boot. That, then, was the spirit-hand! The nails that
+the imaginative spiritualist thought he saw were not on the fingers. The
+boy alleged that the spirits made him attempt the deception.
+
+The father of these boys, who had accompanied them to New York, took
+them home immediately after that exposure. In Buffalo, they continued to
+hold "circles," hoping to retrieve their lost reputation as good
+mediums--by being, not more honest, but more cautious. To prevent any
+one getting hold of them while operating, they hit upon the plan of
+passing a rope through a button-hole of each gentleman's coat, the ends
+to be held by a trusty person--assigning, as a reason for that
+arrangement, that it would then be known no one in the circle could
+assist in producing the manifestations. The plan did not always work
+well, however; for a skeptic would sometimes cut the rope, and then
+pounce upon "the spirit"--that is, if he didn't happen to miss that
+individual, on account of the darkness and while trying to avoid a
+collision with the instruments.
+
+To secure greater immunity from detection, and to enable them to exhibit
+in large halls which could not easily be darkened, the boys finally
+fixed upon a "cabinet" as the best thing in which to work. They had,
+some time before, made the "rope-test" a feature of their exhibitions;
+and in their cabinet-show they depended for success in deceiving
+entirely upon the presumption of the audience that their hands were so
+secured with ropes as to prevent their playing upon the musical
+instruments, or doing whatever else the spirits were assumed to do.
+
+Their cabinet is about six feet high, six feet long, and two and a half
+feet deep, the front consisting of three doors, opening outward. In each
+end is a seat, with holes through which the ropes can be passed in
+securing the mediums. In the upper part of the middle door is a
+lozenge-shaped aperture, curtained on the inside with black muslin or
+oilcloth. The bolts are on the inside of the doors.
+
+The mediums are generally first tied by a committee of two gentlemen
+appointed from the audience. The doors of the cabinet are then closed,
+those at the ends first, and then the middle one, the bolt of which is
+reached by the manager through the aperture.
+
+By the time the end doors are closed and bolted, the Davenports, in many
+instances, have succeeded in loosening the knots next their wrists, and
+in slipping their hands out, the latter being then exhibited at the
+aperture. Lest the hands should be recognized as belonging to the
+mediums, they are kept in a constant shaking motion while in view; and
+to make the hands look large or small, they spread or press together the
+fingers. With that peculiar rapid motion imparted to them, four hands in
+the aperture will appear to be half-a-dozen. A lady's flesh colored kid
+glove, nicely stuffed with cotton, is sometimes exhibited as a female
+hand--a critical observation of it never being allowed. It does not
+take the medium long to draw the knots close to their wrists again. They
+are then ready to be inspected by the Committee, who report them tied as
+they were left. Supposing them to have been securely bound all the
+while, those who witness the show are very naturally astonished.
+
+Sometimes, after being tied by a committee, the mediums cannot readily
+extricate their hands and get them back as they were; in which case they
+release themselves entirely from the ropes before the doors are again
+opened, concluding to wait till after "the spirits" have bound them,
+before showing hands or making music.
+
+It is a common thing for these impostors to give the rope between their
+hands a twist while those limbs are being bound; and that movement, if
+dexterously made, while the attention of the committee-men is
+momentarily diverted, is not likely to be detected. Reversing that
+movement will let the hand out.
+
+The great point with the Davenports in tying themselves is, to have a
+knot next their wrists that looks solid, "fair and square," at the same
+time that they can slip it and get their hands out in a moment. There
+are several ways of forming such a knot, one of which I will attempt to
+describe. In the middle of a rope a square knot is tied, loosely at
+first, so that the ends of the rope can be tucked through, in opposite
+directions, below the knot, and the latter is then drawn tight. There
+are then two loops--which should be made small--through which the hands
+are to pass after the rest of the tying is done. Just sufficient slack
+is left to admit of the hands passing through the loops, which, lastly,
+are drawn close to the wrists, the knot coming between the latter. No
+one, from the appearance of such a knot, would suspect it could be
+slipped. The mediums thus tied can, immediately after the committee have
+inspected the knots, and closed the doors, show hands or play upon
+musical instruments, and in a few seconds be, to all appearance, firmly
+tied again.
+
+If flour has been placed in their hands, it makes no difference as to
+their getting those members out of or into the ropes; but, to show hands
+at the aperture, or to make a noise on the musical instruments, it is
+necessary that they should get the flour out of one hand into the other.
+The moisture of the hand and squeezing, packs the flour into a lump,
+which can be laid into the other hand and returned without losing any.
+The little flour that adheres to the empty hand can be wiped off in the
+pantaloons pocket. The mediums seldom if ever take flour in their hands
+while they are in the bonds put upon them by the committee. The
+principal part of the show is after the tying has been done in their own
+way. Wm. Fay, who accompanies the Davenports, is thus fixed when the
+hypothetical spirits take the coat off his back.
+
+As I before remarked, there are several ways in which the mediums tie
+themselves. They always do it, however, in such a manner that, though
+the tying looks secure, they can immediately get one or both hands out.
+Let committees insist upon untying the knots of the spirits, whether the
+mediums are willing or not. A little critical observation will enable
+them to learn the trick.
+
+To make this subject of tying clearer, I will repeat that the Davenports
+always untie themselves by using their hands; as they are able in
+ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, however impossible it may seem, to
+release their hands by loosening the knots next their wrists. Sometimes
+they do this by twisting the rope between their wrists; sometimes it is
+by keeping their muscles as tense as possible during the tying, so that
+when relaxed there shall be some slack. Most "committees" know so little
+about tying, that anybody, by a little pulling, slipping, and wriggling,
+could slip his hands out of their knots.
+
+A violin, bell, and tambourine, with perhaps a guitar and drum, are the
+instruments used by the Davenports in the cabinet. The one who plays the
+violin holds the bell in his hand with the bow. The other chap beats the
+tambourine on his knee, and has a hand for something else.
+
+The "mediums" frequently allow a person to remain with them, providing
+he will let his hands be tied to their knees, the operators having
+previously been tied by "the spirits." The party who ventures upon that
+experiment is apt to be considerably "mussed up," as "the spirits" are
+not very gentle in their manipulations.
+
+To expose all the tricks of these impostors would require more space
+than I can afford at present. They have exhibited throughout the
+Northern States and the Canadas; but never succeeded very well
+pecuniarily until about two years ago, when they employed an agent, who
+advertised them in such a way as to attract public attention. In
+September last, they went to England, where they have since created
+considerable excitement.
+
+If the hands of these boys were tied close against the side of their
+cabinet, the ropes passing through holes and fastened on the outside, I
+think "the spirits" would always fail to work.
+
+Dr. W. F. Van Vleck, of Ohio, to whom I am indebted for some of the
+facts contained in this chapter, can beat the Davenport brothers at
+their own game. In order that he might the better learn the various
+methods pursued by the professed "mediums" in deceiving the public, Dr.
+Van Vleck entered into the medium-business himself, and by establishing
+confidential relations with those of the profession whose acquaintance
+he made, he became duly qualified to expose them.
+
+He was accepted and indorsed by leading spiritualists in different parts
+of the country, as a good medium, who performed the most remarkable
+spiritual wonders. As the worthy doctor practiced this innocent
+deception on the professed mediums solely in order that he might thus be
+able to expose their blasphemous impositions, the public will scarcely
+dispute that in this case the end justified the means. I suppose it is
+not possible for any professed medium to puzzle or deceive the doctor.
+He is up to all their "dodges," because he has learned in their school.
+Mediums always insist upon certain conditions, and those conditions are
+just such as will best enable them to deceive the senses and pervert the
+judgment.
+
+Anderson "the Wizard of the North," and other conjurers in England,
+gave the Davenports battle, but the "prestidigitators" did not reap many
+laurels. Conjurers are no more likely to understand the tricks of the
+mediums than any other person is. Before a trick can be exposed it must
+be learned. Dr. Van Vleck, having learned "the ropes," is competent to
+expose them; and he is doing it in many interesting public lectures and
+illustrations.
+
+If the Davenports were exhibiting simply as jugglers, I might admire
+their dexterity, and have nothing to say against them; but when they
+presumptuously pretend to deal in "things spiritual," I consider it my
+duty, while treating of humbugs, to do this much at least in exposing
+them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE SPIRIT-RAPPING AND MEDIUM HUMBUGS.--THEIR ORIGIN.--HOW THE THING IS
+DONE.--$500 REWARD.
+
+
+The "spirit-rapping" humbug was started in Hydesville, New York, about
+seventeen years ago, by several daughters of a Mr. Fox, living in that
+place. These girls discovered that certain exercises of their anatomy
+would produce mysterious sounds--mysterious to those who heard them,
+simply because the means of their production were not apparent. Reports
+of this wonder soon went abroad, and the Fox family were daily visited
+by people from different sections of the country--all having a greed for
+the marvelous. Not long after the strange sounds were first heard, some
+one suggested that they were, perhaps, produced by spirits; and a
+request was made for a certain number of raps, if that suggestion was
+correct. The specified number were immediately heard. A plan was then
+proposed by means of which communications might be received from "the
+spirits." An investigator would repeat the alphabet, writing down
+whatever letters were designated by the "raps." Sentences were thus
+formed--the orthography, however, being decidedly bad.
+
+What purported to be the spirit of a murdered peddler, gave an account
+of his "taking off." He said that his body was buried beneath that very
+house, in a corner of the cellar; that he had been killed by a former
+occupant of the premises. A peddler really had disappeared, somewhat
+mysteriously, from that part of the country some time before; and ready
+credence was given the statements thus spelled out through the "raps."
+Digging to the depth of eight feet in the cellar did not disclose any
+"dead corpus," or even the remains of one. Soon after that, the missing
+peddler reappeared in Hydesville, still "clothed with mortality," and
+having a new assortment of wares to sell.
+
+That the "raps" were produced by disembodied spirits many firmly
+believed. False communications were attributed to evil spirits. The
+answers to questions were as often wrong as right; and only right when
+the answer could be easily guessed, or inferred from the nature of the
+question itself.
+
+The Fox family moved to Rochester, New York, soon after the
+rapping-humbug was started; and it was there that their first public
+effort was made. A committee was appointed to investigate the matter,
+most of whom reported adversely to the claims of the "mediums;" though
+all of them were puzzled to know how the thing was done. In Buffalo,
+where the Foxes subsequently let their spirits flow, a committee of
+doctors reported that these loosely-constructed girls produced the
+"raps" by snapping their toe and knee joints. That theory, though very
+much ridiculed by the spiritualists then and since, was correct, as
+further developments proved.
+
+Mrs. Culver, a relative of the Fox girls, made a solemn deposition
+before a magistrate, to the effect that one of the girls had instructed
+her how to produce the "raps," on condition that she (Mrs. C.) should
+not communicate a knowledge of the matter to any one. Mrs. Culver was a
+good Christian woman, and she felt it her duty--as the deception had
+been carried so far--to expose the matter. She actually produced the
+"raps," in presence of the magistrate, and explained the manner of
+making them.
+
+Doctor Von Vleck--to whom I referred in connection with my exposition of
+the Davenport imposture--produces very loud "raps" before his audiences,
+and so modulates them that they will seem to be at any desired point in
+his vicinity; yet not a movement of his body betrays the fact that the
+sounds are caused by him.
+
+The Fox family found that the rapping business would be made to pay; and
+so they continued it, with varying success, for a number of years,
+making New York city their place of residence and principal field of
+operation. I believe that none of them are now in the "spiritual line."
+Margaret Fox, the youngest of the rappers, has for some time been a
+member of the Roman Catholic Church.
+
+From the very commencement of spiritualism, there has been a constantly
+increasing demand for "spiritual" wonders, to meet which numerous
+"mediums" have been "developed."
+
+Many, who otherwise would not be in the least distinguished, have become
+"mediums" in order to obtain notoriety, if nothing more.
+
+Communicating by "raps" was a slow process; so some of the mediums took
+to writing spasmodically; others talked in a "trance"--all under the
+influence of spirits!
+
+Mediumship has come to be a profession steadily pursued by quite a
+number of persons, who get their living by it.
+
+There are various classes of "mediums," the operations of each class
+being confined to a particular department of "spiritual" humbuggery.
+
+Some call themselves "test mediums;" and, by insisting upon certain
+formulas, they succeed in astonishing, if they don't convince most of
+them who visit them. It is by this class that the public is most likely
+to be deceived.
+
+There is a person by the name of J. V. Mansfield, who has been called by
+spiritualists the "Great Spirit Postmaster," his specialty being the
+answering of sealed letters addressed to spirits. The letters are
+returned--some of them at least--to the writers without appearing to
+have been opened, accompanied by answers purporting to be written
+through Mansfield by the spirits addressed. Such of these letters as are
+sealed with gum-arabic merely, can be steamed open, and the envelopes
+resealed and reglazed as they were before. If sealing-wax has been used,
+a sharp, thin blade will enable the medium to nicely cut off the seal by
+splitting the paper under it; and then, after a knowledge of the
+contents of the letter is arrived at, the seal can be replaced in its
+original position, and made fast with gum-arabic. Not more than one out
+of a hundred would be likely to observe that the seal had ever been
+tampered with. The investigator opens the envelope, when returned to
+him, at the end, preserving the sealed part intact, in order to show his
+friends that the letter was answered without being opened!
+
+Another method of the medium is, to slit open the envelope at the end
+with a sharp knife, and afterward stick it together again with gum,
+rubbing the edge slightly as soon as the gum is dry. If the job is
+nicely done, a close observer would hardly perceive it.
+
+Mr. Mansfield does not engage to answer all letters; those unanswered
+being too securely sealed for him to open without detection. To secure
+the services of the "Great Spirit-Postmaster," a fee of five dollars
+must accompany your letter to the spirits; and the money is retained
+whether an answer is returned or not.
+
+Rather high postage that!
+
+Several years since, a gentleman living in Buffalo, N. Y., addressed
+some questions to one of his spirit-friends, and inclosed them, together
+with a single hair and a grain of sand, in an envelope, which he sealed
+so closely that no part of the contents could escape while being
+transmitted by mail. The questions were sent to Mr. Mansfield and
+answers requested through his "mediumship." The envelope containing the
+questions was soon returned, with answers to the letter. The former did
+not appear to have been opened. Spreading a large sheet of blank paper
+on a table before him, the gentleman opened the envelope and placed its
+contents on the table. The hair and grain of sand were not there.
+
+Time and again has Mansfield been convicted of imposture, yet he still
+prosecutes his nefarious business.
+
+The "Spirit-Postmaster" fails to get answers to such questions as these:
+
+"Where did you die?"
+
+"When?"
+
+"Who attended you in your last illness?"
+
+"What were your last words?"
+
+"How many were present at your death?"
+
+But if the questions are of such a nature as the following, answers are
+generally obtained:
+
+"Are you happy?"
+
+"Are you often near me?"
+
+"And can you influence me?"
+
+"Have you changed your religious notions since entering the
+spirit-world?"
+
+It is to be observed that the questions which the "Spirit-Postmaster"
+can answer _require no knowledge of facts about the applicant_, while
+those which he cannot answer, do require it.
+
+Address, for instance, your spirit-father without mentioning his name,
+and the name will not be given in connection with the reply purporting
+to come from him--unless the medium knows your family.
+
+I will write a series of questions addressed to one of my
+spirit-friends, inclose them in an envelope, and if Mr. Mansfield or any
+other professed medium will answer those questions pertinently in my
+presence, and without touching the envelope, I will give to such party
+five hundred dollars, and think I have got the worth of my money.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE "BALLOT-TEST."--THE OLD GENTLEMAN AND HIS "DISEASED" RELATIVES.--A
+"HUNGRY SPIRIT."--"PALMING" A BALLOT.--REVELATIONS ON STRIPS OF PAPER.
+
+
+An aptitude for deception is all the capital that a person requires in
+order to become a "spirit-medium;" or, at least, to gain the reputation
+of being one. Backing up the pretence to mediumship with a show of
+something mysterious, is all-sufficient to enlist attention, and insure
+the making of converts.
+
+One of the most noted of the mediumistic fraternity--whose name I do not
+choose to give at present--steadily pursued his business, for several
+years, in a room in Broadway, in this city, and succeeded not only in
+humbugging a good many people, but in what was more important to
+him--acquiring quite an amount of money. His mode of operating was "the
+ballot-test," and was as follows:
+
+Medium and investigator being seated opposite each other at a table, the
+latter was handed several slips of blank paper, with the request that he
+write the first (or Christian) names--one on each paper--of several of
+his deceased relatives, which being done, he was desired to touch the
+folded papers, one after the other, till one should be designated, by
+three tips of the table, as containing the name of the spirit who would
+communicate. The selected paper was laid aside, and the others thrown
+upon the floor, the investigator being further requested to write on as
+many different pieces of paper as contained the names, and the relation
+(to himself) of the spirits bearing them. Supposing the names written
+were Mary, Joseph, and Samuel, being, respectively, the investigator's
+mother, father, and brother. The last-named class would be secondly
+written, and one of them designated by three tips of the table, as in
+the first instance. The respective ages of the deceased parties, at the
+time of their decease, would also be written, and one of them selected.
+The first "test" consisted in having the selected name, relationship,
+and age correspond--that is, refer to the same party; to ascertain which
+the investigator was desired to look at them, and state if it was the
+case. If the correspondence was affirmed, a communication was soon
+given, with the selected name, relationship, and age appended.
+Questions, written in the presence of the medium, were answered
+relevantly, if not pertinently. Investigators generally did their part
+of the writing in a guarded manner, interposing their left hand between
+the paper on which they wrote and the medium's eyes; and they were very
+much astonished when they received a communication, couched in
+affectionate terms, with the names of their spirit-friends attached.
+
+By long practice, the medium was enabled to determine what the
+investigator wrote, by the motion of his hand in writing. Nine out of
+ten wrote the relationship first that corresponded with the first name
+they had written. Therefore, if the medium selected the first that was
+written of each class, they in most cases referred to the same spirit.
+He waited till the investigator had affirmed the coincidence, before
+proceeding; for he did not like to write a communication, appending to
+it, for instance, "Your Uncle John," when it ought to be "Your Father
+John." The reason he did not desire inquirers to write the surnames of
+their spirit-friends, was this: almost all Christian names are common,
+and he was familiar with the motions which the hand must make in writing
+them; but there are comparatively few people who have the same surnames,
+and to determine them would have been more difficult. No fact was
+communicated that had not been surreptitiously gleaned from the
+investigator.
+
+An old gentleman, apparently from the country, one day entered the room
+of this medium and expressed a desire for a "sperit communication."
+
+He was told to take a seat at the table, and to write the names of his
+deceased relatives. The medium, like many others, incorrectly pronounced
+the term "deceased," the same as "diseased"--sounding the s like z.
+
+The old gentleman carefully adjusted his "specs" and did what was
+required of him. A name and relationship having been selected from those
+written, the investigator was desired to examine and state if they
+referred to one party.
+
+"Wal, I declare they do!" said he. "But I say Mister, what has them
+papers to do with a sperit communication?"
+
+"You will see, directly," replied the medium.
+
+Whereupon the latter spasmodically wrote a "communication," which read
+somewhat as follows:
+
+     "MY DEAR HUSBAND:--I am very glad to be able to address you through
+     this channel. Keep on investigating, and you will soon be convinced
+     of the great fact of spirit-intercourse. I am happy in my
+     spirit-home; patiently awaiting the time when you will join me
+     here, etc. Your loving wife, BETSEY."
+
+"Good gracious! But my old woman can't be dead," said the investigator,
+"for I left her tu hum!"
+
+"Not dead!" exclaimed the medium. "Did I not tell you to write the names
+of deceazed relatives?"
+
+"Diseased!" returned the old man; "Wal, she ain't anything else, for
+she's had the rumatiz orfully for six months!"
+
+Saying which, he took his hat and left, concluding that it was not worth
+while to "keep on investigating" any longer at that time.
+
+This same medium, not long since, visited Great Britain for the purpose
+of practicing his profession there.
+
+In one of the cities of Scotland, some shrewd investigator divined that
+he was able to nearly guess from the motion of the hand what questions
+were written.
+
+"Are you happy?" being a question commonly asked the "spirits," one of
+these gentlemen varied it by asking:
+
+"Are you hungry?"
+
+The reply was, an emphatic affirmative.
+
+They tricked the trickster in other ways; one of which was to write the
+names of mortals instead of spirits. It made no difference, however, as
+to getting a "communication."
+
+To tip the table without apparent muscular exertion, this impostor
+placed his hands on it in such a way that the "pisiform bone" (which may
+be felt projecting at the lower corner of the palm, opposite the thumb)
+pressed against the edge. By pushing, the table tipped from him, it
+being prevented from sliding by little spikes in the legs of the side
+opposite the operator.
+
+There are other "ballot-test mediums," as they are called, who have a
+somewhat different method of cheating. They, too, require investigators
+to write the names--in full, however--of their spirit-friends; the slips
+of paper containing the names, to be folded and placed on a table. The
+medium then seizes one of the "ballots," and asks:
+
+"Is the spirit present whose name is on this?"
+
+Dropping that and taking another:
+
+"On this?"
+
+So he handles all the papers without getting a response. During this
+time, however, he has dexterously "palmed" one of the ballots,
+which--while telling the investigator to be patient, as the spirits
+would doubtless soon come--he opens with his left hand, on his knee,
+under the edge of the table.
+
+A mere glance enables him to read the name. Refolding the paper, and
+retaining it in his hand, he remarks:
+
+"I will touch the ballots again, and perhaps one of them will be
+designated this time."
+
+Dropping among the rest the one he had "palmed," he soon picks it up
+again, whereat three loud "raps" are heard.
+
+"That paper," says he to the investigator, "probably contains the name
+of the spirit who rapped; please hold it in your hand."
+
+Then seizing a pencil, he writes a name, which the investigator finds to
+be the one contained in the selected paper.
+
+If the ballots are few in number, a blank is put with the pile, when the
+medium "palms" one, else the latter might be missed.
+
+It seems the spirits can never give their names without being reminded
+of them by the investigator, and then they are so doubtful of their own
+identity that they have but little to say for themselves.
+
+One medium to whom I have already alluded, after a sojourn of several
+years in California--whither he went from Boston, seeking whom he might
+humbug--has now returned to the East, and is operating in this city.
+Besides answering sealed letters, he furnishes written "communications"
+to parties visiting him at his rooms--a "sitting," however, being
+granted to but one person at a time. His terms are only five dollars an
+hour.
+
+Seated at a table in a part of the room where is the most light, he
+hands the investigator a strip of blank, white paper, rather thin and
+light of texture, about a yard long and six inches wide, requesting him
+to write across one end of it a single question, addressed to a
+spirit-friend, then to sign his own name, and fold the paper once or
+twice over what he has written. For instance:
+
+     "BROTHER SAMUEL:--Will you communicate with me through this medium?
+     WILLIAM FRANKLIN."
+
+To learn what has been written, the medium lays the paper down on the
+table, and repeatedly rubs the fingers of his right hand over the folds
+made by the inquirer. If that does not render the writing visible
+through the one thickness of paper that covers it, he slightly raises
+the edge of the folds with his left hand while he continues to rub with
+his right; and that admits of the light shining through, so that the
+writing can be read. The other party is so situated that the writing is
+not visible to him through the paper, and he is not likely to presume
+that it is visible to the medium; the latter having assigned as a reason
+for his manipulations that spirits were able to read the questions only
+by means of the odylic, magnetic, or some other emanation from the ends
+of his fingers!
+
+Having learned the question, of course the medium can reply to it,
+giving the name of the spirit addressed; but before doing so, he
+doubles the two folds made by the inquirer, and, for a show of
+consistency, again rubs his fingers over the paper. Then more folds and
+more rubbing--all the folding, additional to the inquirer's, being done
+to keep the latter from observing, when he comes to read the answer,
+that it was possible for the medium to read the question through the two
+folds of paper. The answer is written upon the same strip of paper that
+accompanies the question.
+
+The medium requires the investigator to write his questions each on a
+different strip of paper; and before answering, he every time
+manipulates the paper in the way I have described. When rubbing his
+fingers over the question, he often shuts the eye which is toward the
+inquirer--which prevents suspicion; but the other eye is open wide
+enough to enable him to read the question through the paper.
+
+Should a person write a test-question, the medium could not answer it
+correctly even if he did see it. In his "communications" he uses many
+terms of endearment, and if possible flatters the recipient out of his
+common-sense, and into the belief that "after all there may be something
+in it!"
+
+Should the inquirer "smell a rat," and take measures to prevent the
+medium from learning, in the way I have stated, what question is
+written, he (the medium) gets nervous and discontinues the "sitting,"
+alleging that conditions are unfavorable for spirit-communication.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+SPIRITUAL "LETTERS ON THE ARM."--HOW TO MAKE THEM YOURSELF.--THE
+TAMBOURINE AND RING FEATS.--DEXTER'S DANCING HATS.--PHOSPHORESCENT
+OIL.--SOME SPIRITUAL SLANG.
+
+
+The mediums produce "blood-red letters on the arm" in a very simple way.
+It is done with a pencil, or some blunt-pointed instrument, it being
+necessary to bear on hard while the movement of writing is being
+executed. The pressure, though not sufficient to abrade the skin, forces
+the blood from the capillary vessels over which the pencil passes, and
+where, when the reaction takes place, an unusual quantity of blood
+gathers and becomes plainly visible through the cuticle. Gradually, as
+an equilibrium of the circulation is restored, the letters pass away.
+
+This "manipulation" is generally produced by the medium in connection
+with the ballot-test. Having learned the name of an investigator's
+spirit-friend, in the manner stated in a previous article, the
+investigator is set to writing some other names. While he is thus
+occupied, the medium quickly slips up his sleeve under the table, and
+writes on his arm the name he has learned.
+
+Try the experiment yourself, reader. Hold out your left arm; clench the
+fist so as to harden the muscle a little, and write your name on the
+skin with a blunt pencil or any similar point, in letters say
+three-quarters of an inch long, pressing firmly enough to feel a little
+pain. Rub the place briskly a dozen times; this brings out the letters
+quickly, in tolerably-distinct red lines.
+
+On thick, tough skins it is difficult to produce letters in this way.
+They might also be outlined more deeply by sharply pricking in dots
+along the lines of the desired letters.
+
+Among others who seek to gain money and notoriety by the exercise of
+their talents for "spiritual" humbuggery, is a certain woman, whom I
+will not further designate, but whose name is at the service of any
+proper person, and who exhibited not long since in Brooklyn and New
+York. This woman is accompanied by her husband, who is a confederate in
+the playing of her "little game."
+
+She seats herself at a table, which has been placed against the wall of
+the room. The audience is so seated as to form a semicircle, at one end
+of which, and near enough to the medium to be able to shake hands with
+her, or nearly so, sits her husband, with perhaps an accommodating
+spiritualist next to him. Then the medium, in an assumed voice, engages
+in a miscellaneous talk, ending with a request that some one sit by her
+and hold her hand.
+
+A skeptic is permitted to do that. When thus placed, skeptic is directly
+between the medium and her husband, and with his back to the latter. The
+husband plays spirit, and with his right hand--which is free, the other
+only being held by the accommodating spiritualist--pats the investigator
+on the head, thumps him with a guitar and other instruments, and may be
+pulls his hair.
+
+The medium assumes all this to be done by a spirit, because her hands
+are held and she could not do it! Profound reasoning! If any one
+suggests that the husband had better sit somewhere else, the medium will
+not hear to it--"he is a part of the battery," and the necessary
+conditions must not be interfered with. Sure enough! Accommodating
+spiritualist also says he holds husband fast.
+
+A tambourine-frame, without the head, and an iron ring, large enough to
+pass over one's arm, are exhibited to the audience. Medium says the
+spirits have such power over matter as to be able to put one or both
+those things on to her arm while some one holds her hands.
+
+The party who is privileged to hold her hands on such occasion, has to
+grope his way to her in the dark. Having reached her, she seizes his
+hands, and passes one of them down her neck and along her arm, saying:
+
+"Now you know there is no ring already there!"
+
+Soon after he feels the tambourine-frame or ring slide over his hand and
+on to his arm. A light is produced in order that he may see it is there.
+
+When he took her hands he felt the frame or ring--or at any rate, a
+frame or ring--under his elbow on the table, from which place it was
+pulled by some power just before it went on to his arm. Such is his
+report to the audience. But in fact, the medium has two frames, or else
+a tambourine, and a tambourine-frame. She allows the investigator to
+feel one of these.
+
+She has, however, previous to his taking her hands, put one arm and head
+through the frame she uses; so that of course he does not feel it when
+she passes his hand down one side of her neck and over one of her arms,
+as it is under that arm. Her husband pulls the tambourine from under the
+investigator's elbow; then the medium gets her head back through the
+frame, leaving it on her arm, or sliding it on to his, and the work is
+done!
+
+She has also two iron rings. One of them she puts over her arm and the
+point of her shoulder, where it snugly remains, covered with a cape
+which she persists in wearing on these occasions, till the investigator
+takes her hands (in the dark) and feels the other ring under his elbows;
+then the husband disposes of the ring on the table, and the medium works
+the other one down on to her arm. The audience saw but one ring, and the
+person sitting with the medium thought he had that under his elbow till
+it was pulled away and put on the arm!
+
+Some years ago, a man by the name of Dexter, who kept an oyster and
+liquor saloon on Bleecker street, devised a somewhat novel exhibition
+for the purpose of attracting custom. A number of hats, placed on the
+floor of his saloon, danced (or bobbed up and down) in time to music.
+His place was visited by a number of the leading spiritualists of New
+York, several of whom were heard to express a belief that the hats were
+moved by spirits! Dexter, however, did not claim to be a medium, though
+he talked vaguely of "the power of electricity," when questioned with
+regard to his exhibition. Besides making the hats dance, he would
+(apparently) cause a violin placed in a box on the floor to sound, by
+waving his hands over it.
+
+The hats were moved by a somewhat complicated arrangement of wires,
+worked by a confederate, out of sight. These wires were attached to
+levers, and finally came up through the floor, through small holes
+hidden from observation by the sawdust strewn there, as is common in
+such places.
+
+The violin in the box did not sound at all. It was another violin, under
+the floor, that was heard. It is not easy for a person to exactly locate
+a sound when the cause is not apparent. In short, Mr. Dexter's
+operations may be described as only consisting of a little well-managed
+Dexterity!
+
+A young man "out West," claiming to be influenced by spirits, astonished
+people by reading names, telling time by watches, etc., in a dark room.
+He sat at a centre-table, which was covered with a cloth, in the middle
+of the room. Investigators sat next the walls. The name of a spirit, for
+instance, would be written and laid on a table, when in a short time he
+pronounced it. To tell the time by a watch, he required it to be placed
+on the table, or in his hand. With the tablecloth over his head, a
+bottle of phosphorated oil enabled him to see, when not the least
+glimmer of light was visible to others in the room.
+
+If any of the "spiritualist" philosophers were to be asked what is the
+philosophy of these proceedings, he would probably reply with a mess of
+balderdash pretty much like the following:
+
+"There is an infinitesimal influence of sympathy between mind and
+matter, which permeates all beings, and pervades all the delicate niches
+and interstices of human intelligence. This sympathetic influence
+working upon the affined intelligence of an affinity, coagulates itself
+into a corporiety, approximating closely to the adumbration of mortality
+in its highest admensuration, at last accuminating in an accumination."
+
+On these great philosophic principles it will not be difficult to
+comprehend the following actual quotation from the Spiritual Telegraph:
+
+"In the twelfth hour, the holy procedure shall crown the Triune Creator
+with the most perfect disclosive illumination. Then shall the creation
+in the effulgence above the divine seraphemal, arise into the dome of
+the disclosure in one comprehensive revolving galaxy of supreme created
+beatitudes."
+
+That those not surcharged with the divine afflatus may be able to get at
+the meaning of the above paragraph, it is translated thus:
+
+"Then shall all the blockheads in the nincompoopdome of disclosive
+procedure above the all-fired leather-fungus of Peter Nephninnygo, the
+gooseberry grinder, rise into the dome of the disclosure until coequaled
+and coexistensive and conglomerate lumuxes in one comprehensive mux
+shall assimilate into nothing, and revolve like a bob-tailed pussy cat
+after the space where the tail was."
+
+What power there is in spiritualism!
+
+I shall be glad to receive, for publication, authentic information, from
+all parts of the world in regard to the doings of pretended
+spiritualists, especially those who perform for money. It is high time
+that the credulous portion of our community should be saved from the
+deceptions, delusions, and swindles of these blasphemous mountebanks and
+impostors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+DEMONSTRATIONS BY "SAMPSON" UNDER A TABLE.--A MEDIUM WHO IS HANDY WITH
+HER FEET.--EXPOSÉ OF ANOTHER OPERATOR IN DARK CIRCLES.
+
+
+Considerable excitement has been created in various parts of the West by
+a young woman, whose name need not here be given, who pretends to be a
+"medium for physical manifestations." She is rather tall and quite
+muscular, her general manner and expression indicating innocence and
+simplicity.
+
+The "manifestations" exhibited by her purport to be produced by Samson,
+the Hebrew champion and anti-philistine.
+
+In preparing for her exhibition, she has a table placed sideways against
+the wall of the room, and covered with a thick blanket that reaches to
+the floor. A large tin dishpan, with handles (or ears,) a German
+accordeon, and a tea-bell are placed under the table, at the end of
+which she seats herself in such a way that her body is against the top,
+and her lower limbs underneath, her skirts being so adjusted as to fill
+the space between the end legs of the table, and at the same time allow
+free play for her pedal extremities. The blanket, at the end where she
+sits, comes to her waist and hangs down to the floor on each side of her
+chair. The space under the table is thus made dark--a necessary
+condition, it is claimed--and all therein concealed from view. The
+"medium" then folds her arms, looks careless, and the "manifestations"
+commence. The accordeon is sounded, no music being executed upon it, and
+the bell rung at the same time. Then the dishpan receives such treatment
+that it makes a terrible noise. Some one is requested to go to the end
+of the table opposite the "medium," put his hand under the blanket, take
+hold of the dishpan, and pull. He does so, and finds that some power is
+opposing him, holding the dishpan to one place. Not being rude, he
+forbears to jerk with all his force, but retires to his seat. The table
+rises several inches and comes down "kerslap," then it tips forward a
+number of times; then one end jumps up and down in time to music, if
+there is any one present to play; loud raps are heard upon it, and the
+hypothetical Samson has quite a lively time generally. Some of the
+mortals present, one at a time, put their fingers, by request, against
+the blankets, through which those members are gingerly squeezed by what
+might be a hand, if there was one under the table. A person being told
+to take hold of the top of the table at the ends, he does so, and finds
+it so heavy that he can barely lift it. Setting it down, he is told to
+raise it again several inches; and at the second lifting it is no
+heavier than one would naturally judge such a piece of furniture to be.
+Another person is asked to lift the end furthest from the medium;
+having done so, it suddenly becomes quite weighty, and, relaxing his
+hold, it comes down with much force upon the floor. Thus, by the
+power--exercised beneath the table--of an assumed spirit, that piece of
+cabinet-ware becomes heavy or light, and is moved in various ways, the
+medium not appearing to do it.
+
+In addition to her other "fixins," this medium has a spirit-dial, so
+called, on which are letters of the alphabet, the numerals, and such
+words as "Yes," "No," and "Don't know." The whole thing is so arranged
+that the pulling of a string makes an index hand go the circuit of the
+dial-face, and it can be made to stop at any of the characters or words
+thereon. This "spirit-dial" is placed on the table, near the end
+furthest from the medium, the string passing through a hole and hanging
+beneath. In the end of the string there is a knot. While the medium
+remains in the same position in which she sat when the other
+"manifestations" were produced, communications are spelled out through
+the dial, the index being moved by some power under the table that pulls
+the string. A coil-spring makes the index fly back to the
+starting-point, when the power is relaxed at each indication of a
+character or word. The orthography of these "spirits" is "bad if not
+worse."
+
+Now for an explanation of the various "manifestations" that I have
+enumerated.
+
+The medium is simply handy with her feet. To sound the accordeon and
+ring the bell at the same time, she has to take off one of her shoes or
+slippers, the latter being generally worn by her on these occasions.
+That done, she gets the handle of the tea-bell between the toes of her
+right foot, through a hole in the stocking, then putting the heel of the
+same foot on the keys of the accordeon, and the other foot into the
+strap on the bellows part of that instrument, she easily sounds it, the
+motion necessary to do this also causing the bell to ring. She can
+readily pass her heels over the keys to produce different notes. She is
+thus able to make sounds on the accordeon that approximate to the very
+simple tune of "Bounding Billows," and that is the extent of her musical
+ability when only using her "pedals."
+
+To get a congress-gaiter off the foot without using the hands is quite
+easy; but how to get one on again, those members not being employed to
+do it, would puzzle most people. It is not difficult to do, however, if
+a cord has been attached to the strap of the gaiter and tied to the leg
+above the calf. The cord should be slack, and that will admit of the
+gaiter coming off. To get it on, the toe has to be worked into the top
+of it, and then pulling on the cord with the toe of the other foot will
+accomplish the rest.
+
+The racket with the dishpan is made by putting the toe of the foot into
+one of the handles or ears, and beating the pan about. By keeping the
+toe in this handle and putting the other foot into the pan, the operator
+can "stand a pull" from an investigator, who reaches under the blanket
+and takes hold of the other handle.
+
+To raise the table, the "medium" puts her knees under and against the
+frame of it, then lifts her heels, pressing the toes against the floor,
+at the same time bearing with her arms on the end. To make the table tip
+forward, one knee only is pressed against the frame at the back side.
+The raps are made with the toe of the medium's shoe against the leg,
+frame, or top of the table.
+
+What feels like a hand pressing the investigator's fingers when he puts
+them against the blanket, is nothing more than the medium's feet, the
+big toe of one foot doing duty for a thumb, and all the toes of the
+other foot being used to imitate fingers. The pressure of these, through
+a thick blanket, cannot well be distinguished from that of a hand. When
+this experiment is to be made, the medium wears slippers that she can
+readily get off her feet.
+
+To make the table heavy, the operator presses her knees outwardly
+against the legs of the table, and then presses down in opposition to
+the party who is lifting, or she presses her knees against that surface
+of the legs of the table that is toward her, while her feet are hooked
+around the lower part of the legs; that gives her a leverage, by means
+of which she can make the whole table or the end furthest from her seem
+quite heavy, and if the person lifting it suddenly relaxes his hold, it
+will come down with a forcible bang to the floor.
+
+To work the "spirit-dial," the medium has only to press the string with
+the toe of her foot against the top of the table, and slide it (the
+string) along till the index points at the letter or word she wishes to
+indicate. The frame of the dial is beveled, the face declining toward
+the medium, so that she has no difficulty in observing where the index
+points.
+
+After concluding her performances under the table, this medium sometimes
+moves her chair about two feet back and sits with her side toward the
+end of the table, with one leg of which, however, the skirt of her dress
+comes in contact. Under cover of the skirt she then hooks her foot
+around the leg of the table and draws it toward her. This is done
+without apparent muscular exertion, while she is engaged in
+conversation; and parties present are humbugged into the belief that the
+table was moved without "mortal contact"--so they report to outsiders.
+
+This medium has a "manager," and he does his best in managing the
+matter, to prevent "Samson being caught" in the act of cheating. The
+medium, too, is vigilant, notwithstanding her appearance of carelessness
+and innocent simplicity. A sudden rising of the blanket once exposed to
+view her pedal extremities in active operation.
+
+Another of the "Dark Circle" mediums gets a good deal of sympathy on
+account of her "delicate health." Her health is not so delicate,
+however, as to prevent her from laboring hard to humbug people with
+"physical demonstrations." She operates only in private, in presence of
+a limited number of people.
+
+A circle being formed, the hands of all the members are joined except at
+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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 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 BROTHER 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 mean
+time, I think I can reasonably account for and explain all pretended
+spiritual gymnastic performances--throwings of hair-brushes--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 dish-water. 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 had locked myself in my gallery, and no other
+person was in the room. It appeared instantly, as you see it there; and
+I have long wished to obtain the opinion of some man, like yourself, who
+has investigated these mysteries."
+
+The spiritualist listened attentively, looked upon the picture, heard
+other explanations, examined other pictures, and sagely gave it as his
+opinion that the inhabitants of the unknown sphere had taken this mode
+of re-appearing to the view of mortal eyes, that this operator must be a
+"medium" of especial power. The New York Herald of Progress, a
+spiritualist paper, printed the first article upon this man's spiritual
+photograph.
+
+The acquaintance thus begun was continued, and the photographer found it
+very profitable to oblige his spiritual friend, by the reproduction of
+ghost-like pictures, ad infinitum, at the rate of five dollars each.
+Mothers came to the room of the artist, and gratefully retired with
+ghostly representations of departed little ones. Widows came to purchase
+the shades of their departed husbands. Husbands visited the photographer
+and procured the spectral pictures of their dead wives. Parents wanted
+the phantom-portraits of their deceased children. Friends wished to
+look upon what they believed to be the lineaments of those who had long
+since gone to the spirit-land. All who sought to look on those pictures
+were satisfied with what had been shown them, and, by conversation on
+the subject, increased the number of visitors. In short, every person
+who heard about this mystery determined to verify the wonderful tales
+related, by looking upon the ghostly lineaments of some person, who,
+they believed, inhabited another sphere. And here I may as well mention
+that one of the faithful obtained a "spirit" picture of a deceased
+brother who had been dead more than five years, and said that he
+recognized also the very pattern of his cravat as the same that he wore
+in life. Can human credulity go further than to suppose that the
+departed still appear in the old clo' of their earthly wardrobe? and the
+fact that the appearance of "the shade" of a young lady in one of the
+fashionable cut Zouave jackets of the hour did not disturb the faith of
+the believers, fills us indeed with wonder.
+
+The fame of the photographer spread throughout the "spiritual circles,"
+and pilgrims to this spiritual Mecca came from remote parts of the land,
+and before many months, caused no little excitement among some persons,
+inclined to believe that the demonstrations were entirely produced by
+human agency.
+
+The demand for "spirit" pictures consequently increased, until the
+operator was forced to raise his price to ten dollars, whenever
+successful in obtaining a true "spirit-picture," or to be overwhelmed
+with business that now interfered with his regular labors.
+
+About this time the famous "Peace Conference" had been concluded by the
+issue of Mr. Lincoln's celebrated letter, "To whom it may concern," and
+William Cornell Jewett (with his head full of projects for restoring
+peace to a suffering country) heard about the mysterious photographer,
+and visited the operator.
+
+"Sir," said he, "I must consult with the spirits of distinguished
+statesmen. We need their counsel. This cruel war must stop. Brethren
+slaying brethren, it is horrible, Sir. Can you show me John Adams? Can
+you show me Daniel Webster? Let me look upon the features of Andrew
+Jackson. I must see that noble, glorious, wise old statesman, Henry
+Clay, whom I knew. Could you reproduce Stephen A. Douglas, with whom to
+counsel at this crisis in our national affairs! I should like to meet
+the great Napoleon. Such, here obtained, would increase my influence in
+the political work that I have in hand."
+
+In his own nervous, impetuous, excited way, Colorado Jewett continued to
+urge upon the photographer the great importance of receiving such
+communications, or some evidence that the spirits of our deceased
+statesmen were watching over and counseling those who desire to re-unite
+the two opposing forces, fighting against each other on the soil of a
+common country.
+
+With much caution, the photographer answered the questions presented.
+Arranging the camera, he produced some indistinct figures, and then
+concluded that the "conditions" were not sufficiently favorable to
+attempt anything more before the next day. On the following morning,
+Jewett appeared--nervous, garrulous, and excited at the prospect of
+being in the presence of those great men, whose spirits he desired to
+invoke. The apparatus was prepared; utter silence imposed, and for some
+time the heart of the peace-seeker could almost be heard thumping within
+the breast of him who sought supernatural aid, in his efforts to end our
+cruel civil war. Then, overcome by his own thoughts, Jewett disturbed
+the "conditions" by changing his position, and muttering short
+invocations, addressed to the shades of those he wished to behold. The
+operator finally declared he could not proceed, and postponed his
+performance for that day. So, excuses were made, until the mental
+condition of Mr. Jewett had reached that state which permitted the
+photographer to expect the most complete success. Everything being
+prepared, Jewett breathlessly awaited the expected presence. Quietly the
+operator produced the spectral representation of the elder Adams. Jewett
+scrutinized the plate, and expressed a silent wonder, accompanied, no
+doubt, with some mental appeals addressed to the ancient statesman.
+Then, writing the name of Webster upon a slip of paper, he passed it
+over to the photographer, who gravely placed the scrap of writing upon
+the camera, and presently drew therefrom the "ghost-like" but well
+remembered features of the "Sage of Marshfield." Colorado Jewett was now
+thoroughly impressed with the spiritual power producing these images;
+and in ecstasy breathed a prayer that Andrew Jackson might appear to
+lend his countenance to the conference he wished to hold with the mighty
+dead. Jackson's well known features came out upon call, after due
+manipulation of the proper instrument. "Glorious trio of departed
+statesmen!" thought Jewett, "help us by your counsels in this the day of
+our nation's great distress." Next Henry Clay's outline was faintly
+shown from the tomb, and here the sitter remarked that he expected him.
+After him came Stephen A. Douglas, and the whole affair was so entirely
+satisfactory to Jewett, that, after paying fifty dollars for what he had
+witnessed, he, the next day, implored the presence of George Washington,
+offering fifty dollars more for a "spiritual" sight of the "Father of
+our Country." This request smote upon the ear of the photographer like
+an invitation to commit sacrilege. His reverence for the memory of
+Washington was not to be disturbed by the tempting offer of so many
+greenbacks. He could not allow the features of that great man to be used
+in connection with an imposture perpetrated upon so deluded a fanatic as
+Colorado Jewett. In short, the "conditions" were unfavorable for the
+apparition of "General Washington;" and his visitor must remain
+satisfied with the council of great men that had been called from the
+spirit world to instill wisdom into the noddle of a foolish man on this
+terrestrial planet. Having failed to obtain, by the agency of the
+operator, a glimpse of Washington, Jewett clasped his hands together,
+and sinking upon his knees, said, looking toward Heaven: "O spirit of
+the immortal Washington! look down upon the warring elements that
+convulse our country, and kindly let thy form appear, to lend its
+influence toward re-uniting a nation convulsed with civil war!"
+
+It is needless to say that this prayer was not answered. The spirit
+would not come forth; and, although quieted by the explanations and half
+promises of the photographer, the peace-messenger departed, convinced
+that he had been in the presence of five great statesmen, and saddened
+by the reflection that the shade of the immortal Washington had turned
+away its face from those who had refused to follow the counsels he gave
+while living.
+
+Soon after this, Jewett ordered duplicates of these photographs to the
+value of $20 more. I now have on exhibition in my Museum several of the
+veritable portraits taken at this time, in which the well-known form and
+face of Mr. Jewett are plainly depicted, and on one of which appears the
+shade of Henry Clay, on another that of Napoleon the First, and on
+others ladies supposed to represent deceased feminines of great
+celebrity. It is said that Jewett sent one of the Napoleonic pictures to
+the Emperor Louis Napoleon.
+
+Not long after Colorado Jewett had beheld these wonderful pictures, and
+worked himself up into the belief that he was surrounded by the great
+and good statesmen of a former generation, a lady, without making
+herself known, called upon the photographer. I am informed that she is
+the wife of a distinguished official. She had heard of the success of
+others, and came to verify their experience under her own bereavement.
+Completely satisfied by the apparition exhibited, she asked for and
+obtained a spectral photograph resembling her son, who, some months
+previously, had gone to the spirit-land. It is said that the same lady
+asked for and obtained a spiritual photograph of her brother, whom she
+had recently heard was slain in battle; and when she returned home she
+found him alive, and as well as could be expected under the
+circumstances. But this did not shake her faith in the least. She simply
+remarked that some evil spirit had assumed her brother's form in order
+to deceive her. This is a very common method of spiritualists "digging
+out" when the impositions of the "money-operators" are detected. This
+same lady has recently given her personal influence in favor of the
+"medium" Colchester, in Washington. One of these impressions bearing the
+likeness of this distinguished lady was accidentally recognized by a
+visitor. This capped the climax of the imposture and satisfied the
+photographer that he was committing a grave injury upon society by
+continuing to produce "spiritual pictures," and subsequently he refused
+to lend himself to any more "manifestations" of this kind. He had
+exhausted the fun.
+
+I need only explain the modus operandi of effecting this illusion, to
+make apparent to the most ignorant that no supernatural agency was
+required to produce photographs bearing a resemblance to the persons
+whose "apparition" was desired. The photographer always took the
+precaution of inquiring about the deceased, his appearance and ordinary
+mode of wearing the hair. Then, selecting from countless old "negatives"
+the nearest resemblance, it was produced for the visitor, in dim,
+ghostlike outline differing so much from anything of the kind ever
+produced, that his customers seldom failed to recognize some lineament
+the dead person possessed when living, especially if such relative had
+deceased long since. The spectral illusions of Adams, Webster, Jackson,
+Clay, and Douglas were readily obtained from excellent portraits of the
+deceased statesmen, from which the scientific operator had prepared his
+illusions for Colorado Jewett.
+
+In placing before my readers this incident of "Spiritual Photography," I
+can assure them that the facts are substantially as related; and I am
+now in correspondence with gentlemen of wealth and position who have
+signified their willingness to support this statement by affidavits and
+other documents prepared for the purpose of opening the eyes of the
+people to the delusions daily practised upon the ignorant and
+superstitious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+BANNER OF LIGHT.--MESSAGES FROM THE DEAD.--SPIRITUAL CIVILITIES.--SPIRIT
+"HOLLERING."--HANS VON VLEET, THE FEMALE DUTCHMAN.--MRS. CONANT'S
+"CIRCLES."--PAINE'S TABLE-TIPPING HUMBUG EXPOSED.
+
+
+"The Banner of Light," a weekly journal of romance, literature, and
+general intelligence, published in Boston, is the principal organ of
+spiritualism in this country. Its "general intelligence" is rather
+questionable, though there is no doubt about its being a "journal of
+romance," strongly tinctured with humbug and imposture. It has a
+"Message Department," the proprietors of the paper claiming that "each
+message in this department of the "Banner" was spoken by the spirit
+whose name it bears, through the instrumentality of Mrs. J. H. Conant,
+while in an abnormal condition called the trance."
+
+I give a few specimens of these "messages." Thus, for instance,
+discourseth the Ghost of Lolley:
+
+     "How do? Don't know me, do you? Know George Lolley? [Yes. How do
+     you do?] I'm first rate. I'm dead; ain't you afraid of me? You know
+     I was familiar with those sort of things, so I wasn't frightened to
+     go.
+
+     "Well, won't you say to the folks that I'm all right, and happy?
+     that I didn't suffer a great deal, had a pretty severe wound, got
+     over that all right; went out from Petersburg. I was in the battle
+     before Petersburg; got my discharge from there. Remember me kindly
+     to Mr. Lord.
+
+     "Well, tell 'em as soon as I get the wheels a little greased up and
+     in running order I'll come back with the good things, as I said I
+     would, George W. Lolley. Good-bye."
+
+Immediately after a "message" from the spirit of John Morgan, the
+guerrilla, came one from Charles Talbot, who began as follows with a
+curious apostrophe to his predecessor:
+
+     "Hi-yah! old grisly. It's lucky for you I didn't get in ahead of
+     you.
+
+     "I am Charlie Talbot, of Chambersburg, Pa. Was wounded in action,
+     captured by the Rebels, and 'died on their hands' as they say of
+     the horse."
+
+It seems a little rude for one "spirit" to term another "Old Grisly;"
+but such may be the style of compliment prevailing in the spirit-world.
+
+Here is what Brother Klink said:
+
+     "John Klink, of the Twenty-fifth South Carolina. I want to open
+     communication with Thomas Lefar, Charleston, S. C. I am deucedly
+     ignorant about this coming back--dead railroad--business. It's new
+     business to me, as I suppose it will be to some of you when you
+     travel this way. Say I will do the best I can to communicate with
+     my friends, if they will give me an opportunity. I desire Mr. Lefar
+     to send my letter to my family when he receives it--he knows where
+     they are--and then report to this office.
+
+     "Good night, afternoon or morning, I don't know which. I walked out
+     at Petersburg."
+
+Here is a message from George W. Gage, with some of the questions which
+he answered:
+
+     "[How do you like your new home?] First rate. I likes--heigho!--I
+     likes to come here, for they clears all the truck away before you
+     get round, and fix up so you can talk right off. [Wasn't you a
+     medium?] No, Sir; I wasn't afraid, though; nor my mother ain't,
+     either. Oh, I knew about it; I knew before I come to die, about it.
+     My mother told me about it. I knew I'd be a woman when I come here,
+     too. [Did you?] Yes, sir; my mother told me, and said I musn't be
+     afraid. Oh, I don't likes that, but I likes to come.
+
+     "I forgot, Sir; my mother's deaf, and always had to holler. That
+     gentleman says folks ain't deaf here."
+
+The observable points are first that he seems to have excused his
+"hollering" by the habits consequent upon his mother's deafness. The
+"hollering" consisted of unusually heavy thumping, I suppose. But the
+second point is of far greater interest. George intimates that he has
+changed his "sect," and become a woman! For this important alteration
+his good mother had prepared his mind. This style of thing will not seem
+so strange if we consider that some men become old women before they
+die!
+
+Here is another case of feminification and restitution combined. Hans
+Von Vleet has become a vrow--what you may call a female Dutchman! It has
+always been claimed that women are purer and better than men; and
+accordingly we see that as soon as Hans became a woman he insisted on
+his widow's returning to a Jew two thousand dollars that naughty Hans
+had "Christianed" the poor Hebrew out of. But let Hans tell his own
+story:
+
+     "I was Hans Von Vleet ven I vas here. I vas Von Vleet here; I is
+     one vrow now. I is one vrow ven I comes back; I vas no vrow ven I
+     vas here (alluding to the fact that he was temporarily occupying
+     the form of our medium.) I wish you to know that I first live in
+     Harlem, State of New York. Ven I vos here, I take something I had
+     no right to take, something that no belongs to me. I takes
+     something; I takes two thousand dollars that was no my own; that's
+     what I come back to say about. I first have some dealings with one
+     Jew; that's what you call him. He likes to Jew me, and I likes to
+     Christian him. I belongs to the Dutch Reform Church. (Do you think
+     you were a good member?) Vell, I vas. I believes in the creed; I
+     takes the sacrament; I lives up to it outside. I no lives up to it
+     inside, I suppose. (How do you find yourself now, Hans?) Vell, I
+     finds myself--vell, I don't know; I not feel very happy. Ven I
+     comes to the spirit-land, I first meet that Jew's brother, and he
+     tells me, 'Hans, you mus go back and makes some right with my
+     brother.' So I comes here.
+
+     "I vants my vrow, what I left in Harlem, to takes that two tousand
+     dollars and gives it back to that Jew's vrow. That's what I came
+     for to-day, Sir. (Has your vrow got it?) Vell, my vrow has got it
+     in a tin box. Ven I first go, I takes the money, I gives it to my
+     vrow, and she takes care of it. Now I vants my vrow to give that
+     two tousand dollars to that Jew's vrow.
+
+     "(How do you spell your name?) The vrow knows how to spell. (Hans
+     Von Vleet.) There's a something you cross in it. The vrow spells
+     the rest. Ah, that's wrong; you makes a blunder. Its V. not F.
+     That's like all vrows. (Do all vrows make blunders?) Vell, I don't
+     know; all do sometimes, I suppose. (Didn't you like vrows here?)
+     Oh, vell, I likes 'em sometimes. I likes mine own vrow. I not likes
+     to be a vrow myself. (Don't the clothes fit?) Ah, vell, I suppose
+     they fits, but I not likes to wear what not becomes me."
+
+It is scarcely necessary to make comments on such horrible nonsense as
+this. I may recur to the subject in future, should it appear expedient.
+At present I must drop the subject of female men.
+
+At the head of the "Message Department" is a standing advertisement,
+which reads as follows:
+
+     "Our free circles are held at No. 158 Washington street, Room No. 4
+     (up stairs,) on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. The
+     circle-room will be open for visitors at two o'clock; services
+     commence at precisely three o'clock, after which time no one will
+     be admitted. Donations solicited."
+
+On the days and at the hour mentioned in the above advertisement, quite
+an audience assembles to hear the messages Mrs. C. may have to deliver.
+If a stranger present should request a message from one of his
+spirit-friends, he would be told that a large number of spirits were
+seeking to communicate through that "instrument," and each must await
+his turn! Having read obituary notices in the files of old newspapers,
+and the published list of those recently killed in battle, the medium
+has data for any number of "messages." She talks in the style that she
+imagines the person whom she attempts to personate would use, being one
+of the doctrines of spiritualism that a person's character and feelings
+are not changed by death. To make the humbug more complete, she narrates
+imaginary incidents, asserting them to have occurred in the
+earth-experience of the spirit who purports to have possession of her at
+the same time she is speaking. Mediums in various parts of the country
+furnish her with the names of and facts relative to different deceased
+people of their acquaintance, and those names and facts are used by her
+in supplying the "Message Department" of the "Banner of Light."
+
+If the assumed "mediumship" of this woman was not an imposture, some of
+the many people who have visited her for the purpose of getting
+communications from their spirit-friends would have been gratified. In
+most of the "messages" published in the Banner, the spirits purporting
+to give them, express a great desire to have their mortal friends
+receive them; but those mortals who seek to obtain through Mrs. Conant
+satisfactory messages from their spirit-friends, are not gratified--the
+medium not being posted. The mediums are as much opposed to "new tests"
+as a non-committal politician.
+
+Time and again have leading spiritualists, in various parts of the
+country, indorsed as "spiritual manifestations," what was subsequently
+proved to be an imposture.
+
+Several years ago, a man by the name of Paine created a great sensation
+in Worcester, Mass., by causing a table to move "without contact," he
+claiming that it was done by spirits through his "mediumship." He
+subsequently came to New York, and exhibited the "manifestation" at the
+house of a spiritualist--where he boarded--in the upper part of the
+city. A great many spiritualists and not a few "skeptics" went to see
+his performance. Paine was a very soft-spoken, "good sort of a fellow,"
+and appeared to be quite sincere in his claims to "mediumship." He
+received no fee from those who witnessed his exhibition; and that fact,
+in connection with others, tended to disarm people of suspicion. His
+séances were held in the evening, and each visitor was received by him
+at the door, and immediately conducted to a seat next the wall of the
+room.
+
+The visitors all in and seated, Mr. Paine took a seat with the rest in
+the "circle." In the middle of the room a small table had previously
+been placed, and the gas had been turned partly off, leaving just enough
+light to make objects look ghostly.
+
+In order to get "harmonized," singing was indulged in for a short time
+by members of the "circle." Soon a number of raps would be heard in the
+direction of the table, and one side of that piece of furniture would be
+seen to rise about an inch from the floor. Some very naturally wanted to
+rush to the table and investigate the matter more closely, but Paine
+forbade that--the necessary "conditions" must be observed, he said, or
+there would be no further manifestation of spirit-power. As there was no
+one nearer to the table than six or eight feet, the fact of its moving,
+very naturally astonished the skeptics present. Several "seeing mediums"
+who attended Mr. Paine's séances, were able to see the spirits--so they
+declared--who moved the table. One was described as a "big Injun," who
+cut various capers, and appeared to be much delighted with the turn of
+affairs. Believers were wonderfully well-pleased to know that at last a
+medium was "developed" through whom the inhabitants of another world
+could manifest their presence to mortals in such a way that no one could
+gainsay the fact. The "invisibles" freely responded, by raps on the
+table, to various questions asked by those in the "circle." They thumped
+time to lively tunes, and seemed to have a decidedly good time of it in
+their particular way. When the séance was concluded, Mr. Paine freely
+permitted an examination of his table.
+
+In the Sunday Spiritual Conferences, then held in Clinton Hall, leading
+spiritualists gave an account of the "manifestations of the spirits"
+through Mr. Paine, and, as believers, congratulated themselves upon the
+existence of such "indubitable facts." The spiritualist in whose house
+this exhibition of table-moving "without contact" took place, was well
+known as a man of strict honesty; and it was reasonably presumed that no
+mechanical contrivance could be used without his cognizance, in thus
+moving a piece of his furniture--for the table belonged to him--and that
+he would countenance a deception was out of the question.
+
+There were in the city three gentlemen who had, for some time, been
+known as spiritualists; but they were, at the period of Paine's début as
+a medium in New York, very skeptical with regard to "physical
+manifestations." They had, a short time before, detected the Davenports
+and other professed mediums in the practice of imposture; and they
+determined not to accept, as true, Paine's pretence to mediumship, till
+after a thorough investigation of his "manifestations," they should fail
+to find a material cause for them. After attending several of his
+séances, these gentlemen concluded that Paine moved the table by means
+of a mechanical contrivance fixed under the floor. One of this trio of
+investigators was a mechanic, and he had conceived a way--and it seemed
+to him the only way--in which the "manifestation" could be produced
+under the circumstances that apparently attended it. Paine was a
+mechanic, and these parties were aware of that fact. They made an
+appointment with him for a private séance. The evening fixed upon,
+having arrived, they met with him at his room. The table was raised and
+raps were made upon it, as had been done on previous occasions. One of
+the three investigators stepped to the door of the room, locked it, put
+the key in his pocket, took off his coat, and told Mr. Paine that he was
+determined to search his (Paine's) person, and that if he did not find
+about him a small short iron rod, by means of which, through a hole in
+the floor, a lever underneath was worked in moving the table, he (the
+speaker) would beg his (Mr. Paine's) pardon, and be forever after a firm
+believer in the power of disembodied spirits to move ponderable bodies.
+This impressive little speech had a decided and instant effect upon the
+"medium." "Gentlemen," said the latter, "I might as well own up. Please
+to be quietly seated, and I will tell you all about it." And he did tell
+them all about it; subsequently repeating his confession before quite a
+number of disgusted and cheaply sold spiritualists at the "New York
+Spiritual Lyceum." The theory formed by one of the three investigators
+referred to, as to Paine's method of moving the table, was singularly
+correct.
+
+Whilst the family with whom Paine boarded was away, one day, in
+attendance at a funeral, he took up several of the floor boards of the
+back parlor, and on the under side of them affixed a lever, with a
+cross-piece at one end of it; and, in the ends of the cross-piece, bits
+of wire were inserted, the wire being just as far apart as the legs of
+the table to be moved. Small holes were made in the floor-boards for the
+wire to come through to reach the table-legs. The other end of the lever
+came within an inch or two of the wall. When all the arrangements were
+completed, and the table being properly placed in order to move it, Mr.
+Paine had only to insert one end of a short iron rod in a hole in the
+heel of his boot, put the other end of the rod through a hole in the
+floor, just under the edge of the carpet near the wall, and then press
+the rod down upon the end of the lever.
+
+The movements necessary in fixing the iron rod to its place were
+executed while he was picking up his handkerchief, that he had purposely
+dropped.
+
+The middle of the lever was attached to the floor, and the end with the
+cross-piece, being the heavier, brought the other end close up against
+the floor, the wires in the cross-piece having their points just within
+the bottom of the holes in the floor. The room was carpeted, and there
+were little marks on the carpet, known only to Paine, that enabled him
+to know just where to place the table. Pressing down the end of the
+lever nearest the wall, an inch would bring the wires in the cross-piece
+on the other end of the lever against the legs of the table, and
+slightly raise the latter. One of the wires would strike the table-leg a
+very little before the other did, and that enabled the "medium" to very
+nicely rap time to the tunes that were sung or played. Of course, no
+holes that any one could observe would be made in the carpet by the
+passage of the wires through it.
+
+For appearance' sake, Paine, before his detection, visited, by
+invitation, the houses of several different spiritualists, for the
+purpose of holding séances; but he never got a table to move "without
+contact" in any other than the place where he had properly prepared the
+conditions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+SPIRITUALIST HUMBUGS WAKING UP.--FOSTER HEARD FROM.--S. B. BRITTAN HEARD
+FROM.--THE BOSTON ARTISTS AND THEIR SPIRITUAL PORTRAITS.--THE WASHINGTON
+MEDIUM AND HIS SPIRITUAL HANDS.--THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS AND THE
+SEA-CAPTAIN'S WHEAT-FLOUR.--THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS ROUGHLY SHOWN UP BY
+JOHN BULL.--HOW A SHINGLE "STUMPED" THE SPIRITS.
+
+
+I hear from spiritualists sometimes. These gentry are much exercised in
+their minds by my letters about them, and some of them fly out at me
+very much as bumble-bees do at one who stirs up their nest. For
+instance, I received, not long ago, from my good friends, Messrs.
+Cauldwell & Whitney, an anonymous letter to them, dated at Washington,
+and suggesting that if I would attend what the latter calls "a séance of
+that celebrated humbug, Foster," I should see something that I could not
+explain. Now, this anonymous letter, as I know by a spiritual
+communication, (or otherwise,) is in a handwriting very wonderfully like
+that of Mr. Foster himself. And as for the substance of it, it is very
+likely that Foster has now gotten up some new tricks. He needs them. The
+exhibiting mediums must, of course, contrive new tricks as fast as Dr.
+Von Vleck and men like him show up their old ones. It is the universal
+method of all sorts of impostors to adopt new means of fooling people
+when their old ones are exposed. And Mr. Foster shall have all the
+attention he wants if I ever find the leisure to bestow on him, though
+my time is fully occupied with worthier objects.
+
+I have also been complimented with a buzz and an attempt to sting from
+my old friend S. B. Brittan, the ex-Universalist minister--the very
+surprisingly efficient "man Friday" of Andrew Jackson Davis, in the
+production of the "Revelations" of the said Davis, and also
+ghost-fancier in general; who has gently aired part of his vocabulary in
+a communication to the "Banner of Light," with the heading "Exposed for
+Two Shillings." I can afford very well to expose friend Brittan and his
+spiritualist humbugs for two shillings. The honester the cheaper. It
+evidently vexes the spiritualists to have their ghosts put with the
+monkeys in the Museum. They can't help it, though; and it is my
+deliberate opinion that the monkeys are much the most respectable. I
+have no wish to displease any honest person; but the more the
+spiritualists squirm, and snarl, and scold, and call names, the more
+they show that I am hurting them. Or--does my friend Brittan himself
+want an engagement at the Museum? Will he produce some "manifestations"
+there, and get that $500?--the money is ready!
+
+A valued friend of mine has furnished me a pleasant and true narrative
+of a fine "spiritual" humbug which took place in a respectable
+Massachusetts village not very long ago. I give the story in his own
+graphic words:
+
+"Two artists of Boston, tired of the atmosphere of their studios,
+resolved themselves, in joint session, into spiritual mediums, as a
+means of raising the wind--or the devil--and of getting a little fresh
+air in the rural districts. One of them had learned Mansfield's trick of
+answering communications and that of writing on the arms. They had large
+handbills printed, announcing that "Mr. W. Howard, the celebrated
+test-medium, would visit the town of ----, and would remain at the ----
+Hotel during three days." One of the artists preceded the other by a few
+hours, engaged rooms, and attended to sundry preliminaries. "Mr. Howard"
+donned a white choker, put his hair behind his ears, and mounted a pair
+of plain glass spectacles; and such was his profoundly spiritual
+appearance on entering his apartments at the hotel, that he had to lock
+the door and give his partner opportunity to explode, and absolutely
+roll about on the floor with laughter.
+
+"Well, they rigged a clothes-horse for a screen; and to heighten the
+effect, the assistant, who was expert in portraiture, covered this
+screen, and, indeed, the walls of the room, with scraggy outlines of the
+human countenance upon large sheets of paper. These, they said, were
+executed by the draftsman, whose right hand, when under spiritual
+influence, uncontrollably jerked off these likenesses. They added, that
+the spirits had given information that, before the mediums left town,
+the people would recognize these pictures as likenesses of persons there
+deceased within twenty years or so. Price, two dollars each! They
+absolutely sold quite a large number of these portraits, as they were
+from time to time recognized by surviving friends! The operation of
+drawing portraits was also illustrated at certain hours, admission,
+fifty cents; if not satisfactory, the money returned.
+
+"Other tricks of various kinds were performed with pleasure to all
+parties and profit to the performers. The artists stood it as long as
+they could, and then departed. But there was every indication that the
+towns-people would have stood it until this day."
+
+Thus far my friend's curious and truthful account.
+
+A little while ago, there was exhibiting, at Washington, a "test-medium"
+whose name I would print, were it not that I do not want to advertise
+him. One of his most impressive feats was, to cause spiritual hands and
+other parts of the human frame to appear in the air à la Davenport
+Brothers. A gentleman, whose name I also know very well indeed, but have
+particular reasons for not mentioning, went one day to see this
+"test-medium," along with a friend, and asked to see a hand.
+"Certainly," the medium said; and the room was darkened, and the
+"circle" made round the table in the usual manner. After about five
+minutes, my friend, who had contrived to place himself pretty near the
+medium, saw, sure enough, a dim glimmering blue light in the air, a foot
+or so before and above the head of the medium. In a minute, he could
+see, dimly outlined in this blue light, the form of a hand, back toward
+him, fingers together, and no thumb.
+
+"Why is no thumb visible?" asked my friend of the medium in a solemn
+manner.
+
+"The reason is," said the medium, still more solemnly, "that the spirits
+have not power enough to produce a whole hand and so they exhibit as
+much as they can."
+
+"And do they always show hands without thumbs?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Here my friend, with a sudden jump, grabbed for the place where the
+wrist of the mysterious hand ought to be. Strange to relate, he caught
+it, and held it stoutly, to. A light was quickly had, when, still
+stranger, the spirit-hand was clearly seen to be the fleshy paw of the
+medium--and a fat paw it was too. Mr. Medium took the matter with the
+coolness of a thorough rascal, and, lighting a cigar, merely observed:
+
+"Well gentlemen, you needn't trouble yourselves to come here any more!"
+
+He also insisted on his usual fee of five dollars, until threatened with
+a prosecution for swindling.
+
+The secret of this worthy gentleman is simple and soon told. Holding one
+hand up in the air, he held up with the other, between the thumb and
+finger, a little pinch of phosphorus and bi-sulphide of carbon, which
+gave the blue light. If inconvenient to hold up the other hand, he had a
+reserve pinch of blue-light under that invisible thumb. It is a curious
+instance of the thorough credulity of genuine spiritualists that a
+believer in this wretched rogue, on being circumstantially told this
+whole story, not only steadily and firmly refused to credit it, and
+continued his faith in the fellow, but absolutely would not go to see
+the application of any other test. That's the sort of follower that is
+worth having!
+
+Another case was witnessed as follows, by the very same person on whose
+authority I give the spirit-hand story. He was present--also, this time
+in Washington, as it happened, at an exhibition by a certain pair of
+spiritual brothers, since well known as the "Davenport Brothers."
+
+These chaps, after the fashion of their kind, caused themselves to be
+tied up in a rope, an old sea-captain tying them. This done, their
+"shop" or cabinet, was shut upon them as usual, and the bangs, throwing
+of sticks, etc., through a window, and the like, took place. Well, this
+sly and inconvenient old sea-captain now slipped out of the hall a few
+minutes, and came back with some wheat flour. Having tied up the
+"brothers" again, he remarked:
+
+"Now, gentlemen, please to take, each, your two hands full of wheat
+flour."
+
+The "brothers" got mad and flatly refused. Then they cooled down and
+argued, saying it wouldn't make any difference, and was of no use.
+
+"Well," said the ancient mariner, "if it won't make any difference you
+can just as well do it, can't you?"
+
+The audience, seeing the point, were so evidently pleased with the old
+sailor, that the grumbling "brothers" though with a very bad grace, took
+their fists full of flour, and were shut up.
+
+There was not the least sign of a "manifestation"--no more than if the
+wheat-flour had shot the "brothers" dead in their tracks. The audience
+were immensely delighted. The "brothers," since that time, have learned
+to perform some tricks with flour in their fists, but only when tied by
+their own friends.
+
+Since these facts came to my knowledge, the Davenport Brothers have
+suffered an unpleasant exposure in Liverpool, in England, the details of
+which have been kindly forwarded to me by attentive friends there. The
+circumstances in question occurred on the evenings of Tuesday and
+Wednesday, February 14 and 15, 1865. On the first of these evenings, a
+gentleman named Cummins, selected by the audience as one of the Tying
+Committee, tied one of the Brothers, and a Mr. Hulley, the other
+committee-man, the other. But the Brothers saw instantly that they could
+not wriggle out of these knots. They, therefore, refused to let the
+tying be finished, saying that it was "brutal" although a surgeon
+present said it was not; one tied brother was untied by Ferguson, the
+agent; and then the Brothers went to work and performed their various
+tricks without the supervision of any committee, but amid a constant
+fire of derision, laughter, groans, shouts, and epithets from the
+audience. On the next evening, the audience insisted on having the same
+committee; the Brothers were very reluctant to allow it, but had to do
+so after a long time. Ira Davenport refused again, however, instantly to
+be tied, as soon as he saw what knot Mr. Cummins was going to use.
+Cummins, however, though Ira squirmed most industriously, got him tied
+fast, and then Ira called to Ferguson to cut the knot! Ferguson did so,
+and cut Ira's hand. Ira now shewed the blood to the audience, and the
+Brothers, with an immense pretense of indignation, went off the stage.
+Cummins at once explained; the audience became disgusted, and, enraged
+at the impudence of the imposture, broke over the foot-lights, knocked
+Ferguson backward into the "cabinet;" and when the discomfited agent had
+scrambled out and run away, smashed the thing fairly into
+kindling-wood, and carried it off, all distributed into splinters and
+chips. Early next morning, the terrified Davenports ran away out of
+Liverpool; and a number of the audience were, at last accounts,
+intending to go to law to get back the money paid for an exhibition
+which they did not see.
+
+The very thorough exposure of the Davenports thus made is an additional
+proof--if such were needed--of the truth of what I have alleged about
+the impostures perpetrated by them and their "mysterious" brethren of
+the exhibiting sort.
+
+Once the "spirits" were "stumped" with a shingle--a very proper yankee
+jaw-bone of an ass to route such disembodied Philistines. One day a
+certain person was present where some tables were rambling about, and
+other revolutions taking place in the furniture-business, when he
+stepped boldly forth like a herald bearing defiance, and cast down a
+common white pine shingle upon the floor. "There," said he, coolly, "if
+you can trot those tables about in that style, do it with that shingle.
+Make it go about the room. Make it move an inch!" And lo, and behold!
+the shingle lay perfectly still.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS SHOWN UP ONCE MORE.--DR. NEWTON AT CHICAGO.--THE
+SPIRITUALIST BOGUS BABY.--A LADY BRINGS FORTH A MOTIVE FORCE.--"GUM"
+ARABIC.--SPIRITUALIST HEBREW.--THE ALLEN BOY.--DR. RANDALL.--PORTLAND
+EVENING COURIER.--THE FOOLS NOT ALL DEAD YET.
+
+
+Other "spiritual" facts have come to my hand, some of them furnishing
+additional details about persons to whom I have already alluded, and
+others being important to illustrate some general tendencies of
+spiritualism.
+
+And first, about the Davenport Brothers; they have met with another
+"awful exposure," at the hands of a merciless Mr. Addison. This
+gentleman is a London stockbroker, and his cool, sharp business habits
+seem to have stood him in good stead in taking some fun out of the fools
+who follow the Davenports. Mr. Addison, it seems, went to work, and,
+just to amuse his friends, executed all the Davenport tricks. Upon this
+the spiritualist newspapers in England, which, like the Boston Herald of
+Progress, claim to believe in the "Brothers," came out and said that
+Addison was a very wonderful medium indeed. On this the cold-blooded
+Addison at once printed a letter, in which he not only said he had done
+all their tricks without spiritual aid, but he moreover explained
+exactly how he caught the Davenports in their impositions. He and a
+long-legged friend went to one of the "dark séances" of the Davenports,
+during which musical instruments were to fly about over the heads of the
+audience, bang their pates, thrum, twang, etc. Addison and his friend
+took a front seat; as soon as the lights were put out they put out their
+legs too; stretching as far as possible; and, to use the unfeeling
+language of Mr. Addison, they "soon had the satisfaction of feeling some
+one falling over them." They then caught hold of an arm, from which a
+guitar was forthwith let drop on the floor. In order to be certain who
+the guitar-carrier was, they waited until the next time the lights were
+put out, took each a mouthful of dry flour, and blew it out right among
+the "manifestations." When the lamps were lighted, lo and behold! there
+was Fay, the agent and manager of the Davenports, with his back all
+powdered with flour. Addison showed this to an acquaintance, who said,
+"Yes, he saw the flour; but he could not understand what made Addison
+and his friend laugh so excessively at it."
+
+The spiritualist newspapers don't think Addison is so great a medium as
+they did!
+
+Great accounts have recently come eastward from Chicago, of a certain
+Doctor Newton, who is said to be working miracles by the hundred in the
+way of healing diseases. This man operates with exactly the weapons all
+the miracle-workers, quacks, and impostors, ancient and modern use. All
+of them have appealed to the imaginations of their patients, and no
+person acquainted with mental philosophy is ignorant that many a sick
+man has been cured either by medicine and imagination together, or by
+imagination alone. Therefore, even if this Newton should really be the
+cause of the recovery of some persons from their ailments, it would be
+no more a miracle than if Dr. Mott should do it; nor would Newton be any
+the less a quack and a humbug.
+
+Newton has operated at the East already. He had a career at New Haven
+and Hartford, and in other places, before he steered westward in the
+wake of the "Star of Empire." What he does is simply to ask what is the
+matter, and where it hurts. Then he sticks his thumb into the seat of
+the difficulty, or he pokes or strokes or pats it, as the case may be.
+Then he says, "There--you're cured! God bless you!--Take yourself off!"
+
+Chicago must be a credulous place, for we are informed of immense crowds
+besieging this man, and undergoing his manipulations. One of the Chicago
+papers, having little faith and a good deal of fun--which in such cases
+is much better--published some burlesque stories and certificates about
+"Doctor" Newton, some of them humorous enough. There is a certificate
+from a woman with fourteen children, all having the measles at once. She
+says that no sooner had Doctor Newton received one lock of hair of one
+of them, than the measles left them all, and she now has said measles
+corked up in a bottle! Another case was that of a merchant who had lost
+his strength, but went and was stroked by Newton, and the very next day
+was able to lift a note in bank, which had before been altogether too
+heavy for him. There was also an old lady, whose story I fear was
+imitated from Hood's funny conceit of the deaf woman who bought an
+ear-trumpet, which was so effective that
+
+                    ----"The very next day
+  She heard from her husband in Botany Bay!"
+
+The Chicago old lady in like manner, after having had Doctor Newton's
+thumbs "jobbed" into her ears, certifies that she heard next morning
+from her son in California.
+
+One would think that this ridicule would put the learned Dr. Newton to
+flight; but it will not until he is through with the fools.
+
+I have already given an account of some of the messages from the other
+world in the "Banner of Light," in which some of the spirits explain
+that they have turned into women since they died. This is by no means
+the first remarkable trick that the spirits have performed upon the
+human organization. Here is what they did at High Rock, in
+Massachusetts, a number of years ago. It beats Joanna Southcott in funny
+absurdity, if not in blasphemy.
+
+At High Rock, in the year 1854 or thereabouts, certain spiritualist
+people were building some mysterious machinery. While this was in
+process of erection, a female medium, of considerable eminence in those
+parts, was informed by certain spirits, with great solemnity and pomp,
+that "she would become the Mary of a new dispensation;" that is, she was
+going to be a mother. Well, this was all proper, no doubt, and the lady
+herself--so say the spiritualist accounts--had for some time experienced
+indications that she was pregnant. These indications continued, and
+became increasingly obvious, and also, it was observed, a little queer
+in some particulars.
+
+After a while, one Spear--a "Reverend Mr. Spear"--who was mixed up, it
+appears, with the machinery-part of the business, and who was a medium
+himself, transmitted to the lady a request from the spirits that she
+would visit said Spear at High Rock on a certain day. She did so, of
+course; and while there was unexpectedly taken with the pains of
+childbirth, which the spiritualist authorities say, were
+"internal"--where should they be, pray?--and "of the spirit rather than
+of the physical nature; but were, nevertheless, quite as uncontrollable
+as those of the latter, and not less severe." The labor proceeded. It
+lasted two hours. As it went on, lo and behold! one part and another
+part of the machinery began to move! And when, at the end of the two
+hours, the parturition was safely over, all the machinery was going!
+
+The lady had given birth to a Motive Force. Does anybody suppose I am
+manufacturing this story? Not a bit of it. It is all told at length in a
+book published by a spiritualist; and probably a good many of my readers
+will remember about it.
+
+Well, the baby had to be nursed--fact! This superhumanly silly female
+actually went through the motions of nursing the motive force for some
+weeks. Though how the thing sucked--Excuse me, ladies; I would not
+discuss such delicate subjects did not the interests of truth require
+it.
+
+If I had been the physician, at any rate, I think I should have
+recommended to hire a healthy female steam-engine for a wet nurse to
+this young motive force; say a locomotive, for instance. I feel sure the
+thing would have lived if it could have had a gauge-faucet or something
+of that sort to draw on. But the medical folks in charge chose to permit
+the mother to nurse the child, and she not being able to supply proper
+nutriment, the poor little innocent faded--if that word be appropriate
+for what couldn't be seen,--and finally "gin eout;" and the machinery,
+after some abortive joggles and turns, stood hopelessly still.
+
+This story is true--that is, it is true that the story was told, the
+pretences were gone through, and the birth was actually believed by a
+good many people. Some of them were prodigiously enthusiastic about it,
+and called the invisible brat the New Motive Power, the Physical Savior,
+Heaven's Last Best Gift to Man, the New Creation, the Great Spiritual
+Revelation of the Age, the Philosopher's Stone, the Act of all Acts, and
+so on, and so forth.
+
+The great question of all was, Who was the daddy? I don't know of
+anybody's asking this question, but its importance is extreme and
+obvious. For if things like this are going to happen, the ladies will be
+afraid to sleep alone in the house if so much as a sewing-machine or
+apple-corer be about, and will not dare take solitary walks along any
+stream where there is a water power.
+
+A couple of miscellaneous anecdotes may not inappropriately be appended
+to this story of monstrous delusion.
+
+Once a "writing medium" was producing sentences in various foreign
+languages. One of these was Arabic. An enthusiastic youth, a
+half-believer, after inspecting the wondrous scroll, handed it to his
+seat-mate, a professor (as it happened) in one of our oldest colleges,
+and a man of real learning. The professor scrutinized the document. What
+was the youth's delight to hear him at last observe gravely, "It is a
+kind of Arabic, sure enough!"
+
+"What kind?" asked the young man with intense interest.
+
+"Gum-arabic," said the professor.
+
+The spirit of the prophet Daniel came one night into the apartment of a
+medium named Fowler, and right before his eyes, he said, wrote down some
+marks on a piece of paper. These were shown to the Reverend George Bush,
+Professor of Hebrew in the New-York University, who said that they were
+"a few verses from the last chapter of Daniel" and were learnedly
+written. Bush was a spiritualist as well as a professor of Hebrew, and
+he ought to have known better than to indorse spirit-Hebrew; for shortly
+there came others, who, to use a rustic phrase, "took the rag off the
+Bush." These inconvenient personages were three or four persons of
+learning: one a Jew, who proved that the document was an attempt to copy
+the verses in question, by some one so ignorant of Hebrew as not to know
+that it is written backward, that is, from right to left.
+
+During the last few months, a "boy medium," by the name of Henry B.
+Allen, thirteen years of age, has been astonishing people in various
+parts of the country by "Physical Manifestations in the Light." The
+exhibitions of this precocious youngster have been "managed" by a Dr.
+Randall, who also lectures upon Spiritualism, expounding its "beautiful
+philosophy." For a number of weeks this couple held forth in Boston,
+sometimes giving several séances during the day, not more than thirty
+being allowed to attend at one time, each of whom were required to pay
+an admission fee of one dollar.
+
+"The Banner of Light" fully indorsed this Allen boy, and gave lengthy
+accounts of his manifestations. The arrangements for his exhibition were
+very simple. A dulcimer, guitar, bell, and small drum being placed on a
+sofa or several chairs set against the wall, a clothes-horse was set in
+front of them and covered with a blanket, which came to the floor. To
+obtain "manifestations," a person was required to take off his coat and
+sit with his back to the clothes-horse. The medium then took a seat
+close to, and facing the investigator's left side, and grasped the left
+arm of the latter on the under side, above the elbow, with his (the
+medium's) right hand and near the wrist with the other hand. The
+"manager" then covered with a coat, the arms and left shoulder of the
+medium including the left arm of the investigator. The medium soon
+commenced to wriggle and twist--the "manager" said he was always nervous
+under "influence"--and worked the coat away from the position in which
+it had been placed. Taking his right hand from the investigator's arm,
+he readjusted the coat, and availed himself of that opportunity to get
+the investigator's wrist between his (the medium's) left arm and knee.
+That brought his left hand in such a position that with it he could
+grasp the investigator's arm where he had previously grasped it with his
+right hand. With the latter he could then reach around the edge of the
+clothes-horse and make a noise on the instruments. With the drumsticks
+he thumped on the dulcimer. Taking the guitar by the neck, he could
+vibrate the strings and show the body of the instrument above the
+clothes-horse, without any one seeing his hand! All persons present were
+so seated that they could not see behind the clothes-horse, or have a
+view of the medium's right shoulder. When asked why people were not
+allowed to occupy such a position, that they could have a fair view of
+the instruments when sounded, the "manager" replied that he did not
+exactly know, but presumed it was because the magnetic emanations from
+the eyes of the beholders would prevent the spirits being able to move
+the instruments at all! What was claimed to be a spirit-hand was often
+shown above the clothes-horse, where it flickered for an instant and was
+withdrawn; but it was invariably a right hand with the wrist toward the
+medium. When the person sitting with the medium was asked if the hands
+of the latter had constantly hold of his arm, he replied in the
+affirmative. Of course, he felt what he supposed to be both the medium's
+hands; but as I before explained, the pressure on his wrist was from the
+medium's left arm--the left hand of whom, by means of a very
+accommodating crook in the elbow, was grasping the investigator's arm
+where the medium's right hand was supposed to be.
+
+From Boston the Allen boy went to Portland, Maine, where he succeeded
+"astonishingly," till some gentleman applied the lampblack test to his
+assumed mediumship, whereupon he "came to grief."
+
+The following is copied from the "Portland Daily Press," of March 21.
+
+     "EXPOSED.--The 'wonderful' spiritual manifestations of the
+     'boy-medium,' Master Henry B. Allen, in charge of Doctor J. H.
+     Randall, of Boston, were brought to a sad end last evening by the
+     impertinent curiosity and wicked doings of some of the gentlemen
+     present at the seance at Congress Hall.
+
+     "As usual, one of the company present was selected to sit at the
+     side of the boy, and allowed his hand and arm to be held by both
+     hands of the boy while the manifestations were going on. The boy
+     seized hold of the gentleman's wrist with his left hand, and his
+     shoulder, or near it, with the right hand. The manifestations then
+     began, and among them was one trick of pulling the gentleman's
+     hair.
+
+     "Immediately after this trick was performed, the hand of the boy
+     was discovered to be very black--from lamp-black, of the best
+     quality, with which the gentleman had dressed his head on purpose
+     to detect whose was the 'spirit-hand' that pulled his hair. His
+     shirt-sleeve, upon which the boy immediately replaced his hand
+     after pulling his hair, was also black where the hand had been
+     placed. The gentleman stated the facts to the company present, and
+     the seance broke up. Dr. Randall refunded the fifty cents admission
+     fee to those present."
+
+The spiritualists of the city were somewhat staggered by this exposé,
+but soon rallied as one of their number announced a new discovery in
+spiritual science. Here it is, as stated by himself:
+
+"Whatever the electrical or 'spirit-hand' touches, will inevitably be
+transferred to the hand of the medium in every instance, unless
+something occurs to prevent the full operation of the law by which this
+result is produced. The spirit-hand being composed in part of the
+magnetic elements drawn from the medium, when it is dissolved again, and
+the magnetic fluid returns whence it came, it must of necessity carry
+with it whatever material substance it has touched, and leave it
+deposited upon the surface or material hand of the medium. This is a
+scientific question. How many innocent mediums have been wronged? and
+the invisible have permitted it, until we should discover that it was
+the natural result of a natural law."
+
+What a great discovery! and how lucidly it is set forth! The author
+(who, by the way, is editor of the "Portland Evening Courier") of this
+new discovery, was not so modest but that he hastened to announce and
+claim full credit for it in the columns of the "Banner of Light"--the
+editor of which journal congratulates him on having done so much for the
+cause of spiritualism! Those skeptics who were present when the
+lamp-black was "transferred" from the gentleman's hair to the medium's
+hand, rashly concluded that the boy was an impostor. It remained for Mr.
+Hall--that is the philosopher's name--to make the "electro-magnetic
+transfer" discovery. The Allen boy ought ever to hold him in grateful
+remembrance for coming to his rescue at such a critical period, when the
+spirits would not vouchsafe an explanation that would exculpate him from
+the grievous charge of imposture. Mr. Hall deserves a leather medal now,
+and a soapstone monument when he is dead.
+
+A person, whose initials are the same as the gentleman's named above,
+once lived in Aroostook, Maine, and was in the habit of attending
+"spiritual circles," in which he was sometimes influenced as a
+"personating medium," and to represent the symptoms of the disease which
+caused the controlling spirit's translation to another sphere. It having
+been reported in Aroostook that a certain well-known individual, living
+further east, had died of cholera, a desire was expressed at the next
+"circle" to have him "manifest" himself. The medium above referred to
+got "under influence," and personated, with an exhibition of all the
+symptoms of cholera, the gentleman who was reported to have died of that
+disease. So faithful to the supposed facts was the representation, that
+the medium had to be cared for as if he was himself a veritable
+cholera-patient. Several days after, the man who was "personated"
+appeared in Aroostook, alive and well, never having been attacked with
+the cholera. The local papers gave a graphic account of the
+"manifestation" soon after it occurred.
+
+But to return to the Allen boy. After his exposure by means of the
+lamp-black test, and Mr. Hall, of the "Portland Evening Courier," had
+announced his new discovery in spiritual science, several of the
+Portland spiritualists had a private "sitting" with the boy. While he
+sat with his hands upon the arm of one of their number, they tied a rope
+to his wrists, and around the person's arm, covering his hands in the
+way I have before described. After some wriggling and twisting (the
+usual amount of "nervousness,") the bell was heard to ring behind the
+clothes-horse. The boy's right hand was then examined, and it was found
+to be stained with some colored matter that had previously been put upon
+the handle of the bell. As the boy's wrists were still tied, and the
+rope remained upon the man's arm, the "transfer" theory was considered
+to be established as a fact, and the previous exposure shown to be not
+only no exposure at all, but a "stepping-stone to a grand truth in
+spiritual science." Again and again did these persistent and infatuated
+spiritualists try what they call the "transfer test," varying with each
+experiment the coloring-material used, and every time the bell was rung
+the medium's right hand was found out to be stained with what had been
+put upon the bell-handle. By having a little slack-rope between his
+wrist and the man's arm, it was not a difficult matter for the medium,
+while his "nervousness" was being manifested, to get hold of the bell
+and ring it, and to make sounds upon the strings of the dulcimer or
+guitar, with a drumstick that the "manager" had placed at a convenient
+distance from his (the boy's) hand.
+
+The "Portland Daily Press," in noticing a lecture against Spiritualism,
+recently delivered by Dr. Von Vleck, in that city, says:--"He (Dr. V.
+V.) performed the principal feats of the Allen boy, with his hands tied
+to the arm of the person with whom he was in communication."
+
+Horace Greeley says that if a man will be a consummate jackass and fool,
+he is not aware of anything in the Constitution to prevent it. I believe
+Mr. Greeley is right; and I think no one can reasonably be expected to
+exercise common sense unless he is known to possess it. It is quite
+natural, therefore, that many of the spiritualists, lacking common
+sense, should pretend to have something better.
+
+
+
+
+III. TRADE AND BUSINESS IMPOSITIONS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+ADULTERATIONS OF FOOD.--ADULTERATIONS OF LIQUOR.--THE COLONEL'S
+WHISKEY.--THE HUMBUGOMETER.
+
+
+It was about eight hundred and fifty years before Christ when the young
+prophet cried out to his master, Elisha, over the pottage of wild
+gourds, "There is death in the pot!" It was two thousand six hundred and
+seventy years afterward, in 1820, that Accum, the chemist cried out over
+again, "There is death in the pot!" in the title page of a book so
+named, which gave almost everybody a pain in the stomach, with its
+horrid stories of the unhealthful humbugs sold for food and drink. This
+excitement has been stirred up more than once since Mr. Accum's time,
+with some success; yet nothing is more certain than that a very large
+proportion of the food we eat, of the liquid we drink--always excepting
+good well-filtered water--and the medicines we take, not to say a word
+about the clothes we wear and the miscellaneous merchandise we use, is
+more or less adulterated with cheaper materials. Sometimes these are
+merely harmless; as flour, starch, annatto, lard, etc.; sometimes they
+are vigorous, destructive poisons--as red lead, arsenic, strychnine, oil
+of vitriol, potash, etc.
+
+It is not agreeable to find ourselves so thickly beset by humbugs; to
+find that we are not merely called on to see them, to hear them, to
+believe them, to invest capital in them, but to eat and drink them. Yet
+so it is; and, if my short discussion of this kind of humbug shall make
+people a little more careful, and help them to preserve their health, I
+shall think myself fortunate.
+
+To begin with bread. Alum is very commonly put into it by the bakers, to
+make it white. Flour of inferior quality, "runny" flour, and even that
+from wormy wheat--ground-up worms, bugs, and all--is often mixed in as
+much as the case will bear. Potato flour has been known to be mixed with
+wheat; and so, thirty years ago, were plaster-of-Paris, bone-dust, white
+clay, etc. But these are little used now, if at all; and the worst thing
+in bread, aside from bad flour, which is bad enough, is usually the
+alum. It is often put in ready mixed with salt, and it accomplishes two
+things, viz., to make the bread white, and to suck up a good deal of
+water, and make the bread weigh well. It has been sometimes found that
+the alum was put in at the mill instead of the bakery.
+
+Milk is most commonly adulterated with cold water; and many are the
+jokes on the milkmen about their best cow being choked etc., by a turnip
+in the pump-spout--their "cow with the wooden tail" (_i. e._, the
+pump-handle,) and so on. Awful stories are told about the London
+milkmen, who are said to manufacture a fearful kind of medicine to be
+sold as milk, the cream being made of a quantity of calf's brain beaten
+to a slime. Stories are told around New York, too, of a mysterious
+powder sold by druggists, which with water makes milk; but it is milk
+that must be used quickly, or it turns into a curious mess. But the
+worst adulteration of milk is to adulterate the old cow herself; as is
+done in the swill-milk establishments which received such an exposure a
+few years ago in a city paper. This milk is still furnished; and many a
+poor little baby is daily suffering convulsions from its effects. So
+difficult is it to find real milk for babies in the city, that
+physicians often prescribe the use of what is called "condensed" milk
+instead; which, though very different from milk not evaporated, is at
+least made of the genuine article. A series of careful experiments to
+develop the milk-humbug was made by a competent physician in Boston
+within a few years, but he found the milk there (aside from swill-milk)
+adulterated with nothing worse than water, salt, and burnt sugar.
+
+Tea is bejuggled first by John Chinaman, who is a very cunning rascal;
+and second, by the seller here. Green and black tea are made from the
+same plant, but by different processes--the green being most expensive.
+To meet the increased demand for green tea, Master John takes immense
+quantities of black tea and "paints" it, by stirring into it over a fire
+a fine powder of plaster Paris and Prussian-blue, at the rate of half a
+pound to each hundred pounds of tea. John also sometimes takes a very
+cheap kind, and puts on a nice gloss by stirring it in gum-water, with
+some stove-polish in it. We may imagine ourselves, after drinking this
+kind of tea, with a beautiful black gloss on our insides. John moreover,
+manufactures vast quantities of what he plainly calls "Lie-tea." This
+is dust and refuse of tea-leaves and other leaves, made up with dust and
+starch or gum into little lumps, and used to adulterate better tea.
+Seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds of this nice stuff were imported
+into England in one period of eighteen months. It seems to be used in
+New-York only for green tea.
+
+Coffee is adulterated with chicory-root (which costs only about
+one-third as much)--dandelion-root, peas, beans, mangold-wurzel, wheat,
+rye, acorns, carrots, parsnips, horse-chestnuts, and sometimes with
+livers of horses and cattle! All these things are roasted or baked to
+the proper color and consistency, and then mixed in. No great sympathy
+need be expended on those who suffer from this particular humbug,
+however; for when it is so easy to buy the real berry, and roast or at
+least grind it one's self, it is our own fault if our laziness leaves us
+to eat all those sorts of stuff.
+
+Cocoa is "extended" with sugar, starch, flour, iron-rust, Venetian-red,
+grease, and various earths. But it is believed by pretty good authority
+that the American-made preparations of cocoa are nearly or quite pure.
+Even if they are not the whole bean can be used instead.
+
+Butter and lard have one tenth, and sometimes even one-quarter, of water
+mixed up in them. It is easy to find this out by melting a sample before
+the fire and putting it away to cool, when the humbug appears by the
+grease going up, and the water, perhaps turbid with whey, settling
+below.
+
+Honey is humbugged with sugar or molasses. Sugar is not often sanded as
+the old stories have it. Fine white sugar is sometimes floured pretty
+well; and brown sugar is sometimes made of a portion of good sugar with
+a cheaper kind mixed in. Inferior brown sugars are often full of a
+certain crab-like animalcule or minute bug, often visible without a
+microscope, in water where the sugar is dissolved. It is believed that
+this pleasing insect sometimes gets into the skin, and produces a kind
+of itch. I do not believe there is much danger of adulteration in good
+loaf or crushed white sugar, or good granulated or brown sugar.
+
+Pepper is mixed with fine dust, dirt, linseed-meal, ground rice, or
+mustard and wheat-flour; ginger, with wheat flour colored by turmeric
+and reinforced by cayenne. Cinnamon is sometimes not present at all in
+what is so called--the stuff being the inferior and cheaper cassia bark;
+sometimes it is only part cassia; sometimes the humbug part of it is
+flour and ochre. Cayenne-pepper is mixed with corn-meal and salt,
+Venetian-red, mustard, brickdust, fine sawdust, and red-lead. Mustard
+with flour and turmeric. Confectionery is often poisoned with
+Prussian-blue, Antwerp-blue, gamboge, ultramarine, chrome yellow,
+red-lead, white-lead, vermilion, Brunswick-green, and Scheele's green,
+or arsenite of copper! Never buy any confectionery that is colored or
+painted. Vinegar is made of whisky, or of oil of vitriol. Pickles have
+verdigris in them to make them a pretty green. "Pretty green" he must be
+who will eat bought pickles! Preserved fruits often have verdigris in
+them, too.
+
+An awful list! Imagine a meal of such bewitched food, where the actual
+articles are named. "Take some of the alum bread." "Have a cup of
+pea-soup and chicory-coffee?" "I'll trouble you for the oil-of-vitriol,
+if you please." "Have some sawdust on your meat, or do you prefer this
+flour and turmeric mustard?" "A piece of this verdigris-preserve
+gooseberry pie, Madam?" "Won't you put a few more sugar-bugs in your
+ash-leaf tea?" "Do you prefer black tea, or Prussian-blue tea?" "Do you
+like your tea with swill-milk, or without?"
+
+I have not left myself space to speak of the tricks played by the
+druggists and the liquor-dealers; but I propose to devote another
+chapter exclusively to the adulteration of liquors in this country. It
+is a subject so fearful and so important that nothing less than a
+chapter can do it justice. I must now end with a story or two and a
+suggestion or two.
+
+Old Colonel P. sold much whisky; and his manner was to sell by sample
+out of a pure barrel over night, at a marvelous cheap rate, and then to
+"rectify" before morning, under pretence of coopering and marking.
+Certain persons having a grudge against the Colonel, once made an
+arrangement with a carman, who executed their plan, thus:--He went to
+the Colonel, and asked to see whisky. The jolly old fellow took him down
+stairs and showed him a great cellar full. Carman samples a barrel.
+"Fust rate, Colonel, how d'ye sell it?" Colonel names his price on the
+rectified basis. "Well, Colonel, how much yer got?" "So many
+barrels--two or three hundred." "Colonel, here's your money. I'll take
+the lot." "All right," says Colonel P.; "there's some coopering to be
+done on it; some of the hoops and heads are a very little loose. You
+shall have it all in the morning." "No, colonel, we'll roll it right out
+this minnit! My trucks are up there, all ready." And, sure enough, he
+had a string of a dozen or more brigaded in the street. The Colonel was
+sadly dumbfounded; he turned several colors--red mostly--stammered, made
+excuses. It was no go, the whisky was the customer's, and the game was
+up. The humbugged old humbug finally "came down," and bought his man off
+by paying him several hundred dollars.
+
+There is a much older and better known story about a grocer who was a
+deacon, and who was heard to call down stairs before breakfast, to his
+clerk: "John, have you watered the rum?" "Yes, Sir." "And sanded the
+sugar?" "Yes, Sir." "And dusted the pepper?" "Yes, Sir." "And chicoried
+the coffee?" "Yes, Sir." "Then come up to prayers." Let us hope that the
+grocers of the present day, while they adulterate less, do not pray
+less.
+
+Between 1851 and 1854, Mr. Wakley of the "London Lancet" gave an awful
+roasting to the adulteration-interest in London. He employed an able
+analyzer, who began by going about without telling what he was at; and
+buying a great number of samples of all kinds of food, drugs, etc., at a
+great number of shops. Then he analyzed them; and when he found humbug
+in any sample, he published the facts, and the seller's name and place
+of business. It may be imagined what a terrible row this kicked up. Very
+numerous and violent threats were made; but the "Lancet," was never once
+sued by any of the aggrieved, for it had told the truth.
+
+Perhaps some discouraged reader may ask, What can I eat? Well, I don't
+pretend to direct people's diet. Ask your doctor, if you can't find out.
+But I will suggest that there are a few things that can't be
+adulterated. You can't adulterate an egg, nor an oyster, nor an apple,
+nor a potato, nor a salt codfish; and if they are spoiled they will
+notify you themselves! and when good, they are all good healthy food. In
+short, one good safeguard is, to use, as far as you can, things with
+their life in them when you buy them, whether vegetable or animal. The
+next best rule against these adulteration-humbugs is, to buy goods crude
+instead of manufactured; coffee, and pepper, and spices, etc., whole
+instead of ground, for instance. Thus, though you give more work, you
+buy purity with it. And lastly, there are various chemical processes,
+and the microscope, to detect adulterations; and milk, in particular,
+may always be tested by a lactometer,--a simple little instrument which
+the milkmen use, which costs a few shillings, and which tells the story
+in an instant. It is a glass bulb, with a stem above and a scale on it,
+and a weight below. In good average milk, at sixty degrees of heat, the
+lactometer floats at twenty on its scale; and in poorer milk, at from
+that figure down. If it floats at fifteen, the milk is one-fourth water;
+if at ten, one half.
+
+It would be a wonderful thing for mankind if some philosophic Yankee
+would contrive some kind of "ometer" that would measure the infusion of
+humbug in anything. A "Humbugometer" he might call it. I would warrant
+him a good sale.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+ADULTERATIONS IN DRINKS.--RIDING HOME ON YOUR WINE-BARREL.--LIST OF
+THINGS TO MAKE RUM.--THINGS TO COLOR IT WITH.--CANAL-BOAT HASH.--ENGLISH
+ADULTERATION LAW.--EFFECTS OF DRUGS USED.--HOW TO USE THEM.--BUYING
+LIQUORS UNDER THE CUSTOM-HOUSE LOCK.--A HOMOEOPATHIC DOSE.
+
+
+As long as the people of the United States tipple down rum and other
+liquors at the rate of a good deal more than one hundred million gallons
+a year, besides what is imported and what is called imported--as long as
+they pay for their tippling a good deal more than fifty millions, and
+probably over a hundred millions of dollars a year--so long it will be a
+great object to manufacture false liquors, and sell them at the price of
+true ones. When liquor of good quality costs from four to fifteen
+dollars a gallon, and an imitation can be had that tastes just as good,
+and has just as much "jizm" in it,--and probably a good deal more,--for
+from twenty-five cents to one dollar a gallon, somebody will surely make
+and sell that imitation.
+
+Adulterating and imitating liquors is a very large business; and I don't
+know of anybody who will deny that this particular humbug is very
+extensively cultivated. There are a great many people, however, who will
+talk about it as they do in Western towns about fever and ague: "We
+don't do anything of the kind here, but those other people over there
+do!"
+
+There is very little pure liquor, either malt or spirituous, to be
+obtained in any way. The more you pay for it, as a rule, the more the
+publican gains, but what you drink is none the purer. Importing don't
+help you. Port is--or used to be, for very little is now made,
+comparatively--imitated in immense quantities at Oporto; and in the
+log-wood trade, the European wine-makers competed with the dyers. It is
+a London proverb, that if you want genuine port-wine, you have got to go
+to Oporto and make your own wine, and then ride on the barrel all the
+way home. It is perhaps possible to get pure wine in France by buying it
+at the vineyard; but if any dealer has had it, give up the idea!
+
+As for what is done this side of the water, now for it. I do not rely
+upon the old work of Mr. "Death-in-the-pot Accum," printed some thirty
+years ago, in England. My statements come mostly from a New York book
+put forth within a few years by a New York man, whose name is now in the
+Directory, and whose business is said to consist to a great extent in
+furnishing one kind or another of the queer stuff he talks about, to
+brewers, or distillers, or wine and brandy merchants.
+
+This gentleman, in a sweet alphabetical miscellany of drugs, herbs,
+minerals, and groceries commonly used in manufacturing our best Old
+Bourbon whisky, Swan gin, Madeira wine, pale ale, London brown stout,
+Heidsieck, Clicquot, Lafitte, and other nice drinks; names the chief of
+such ingredients as follows:
+
+Aloes, alum, calamus (flag-root) capsicum, cocculus indicus, copperas,
+coriander-seed, gentian-root, ginger, grains-of-paradise, honey,
+liquorice, logwood, molasses, onions, opium, orange-peel, quassia, salt,
+stramonium-seed (deadly nightshade), sugar of lead, sulphite of soda,
+sulphuric acid, tobacco, turpentine, vitriol, yarrow. I have left
+strychnine out of the list, as some persons have doubts about this
+poison ever being used in adulterating liquors. A wholesale
+liquor-dealer in New York city, however, assures me that more than
+one-half the so-called whisky is poisoned with it.
+
+Besides these twenty-seven kinds of rum, here come twenty-three more
+articles, used to put the right color to it when it is made; by making a
+soup of one or another, and stirring it in at the right time. I alphabet
+these, too: alkanet-root, annatto, barwood, blackberry, blue-vitriol,
+brazil-wood, burnt sugar, cochineal, elderberry, garancine (an extract
+of madder), indigo, Nicaragua-wood, orchil, pokeberry, potash,
+quercitron, red beet, red cabbage, red carrots, saffron, sanders-wood,
+turmeric, whortleberry.
+
+In all, in both lists, just fifty. There are more, however. But that's
+enough. Now then, my friend, what did you drink this morning? You called
+it Bourbon, or Cognac, or Old Otard, very likely, but what was it? The
+"glorious uncertainty" of drinking liquor under these circumstances is
+enough to make a man's head swim without his getting drunk at all. There
+might, perhaps, be found a consolation like that of the Western
+traveller about the hash. "When I travel in a canal-boat or steam-boat,"
+quoth this brave and stout-stomached man, "I always eat the hash,
+because then I know what I've got!"
+
+It was a good many years ago that the Parliament of England found it
+necessary to make a law to prevent sophisticating malt liquors. Here is
+the list of things they forbid to put into beer: "molasses, honey,
+liquorice, vitriol, quassia, cocculus indicus, grains-of-paradise,
+Guinea-pepper, opium." The penalty was one thousand dollars fine on the
+brewer, and two thousand five hundred dollars on the druggist who
+supplied him.
+
+I know of no such law in this country. The theory of our government
+leaves people to take care of themselves as much as possible. But now
+let us see what some of these fifty ingredients will do. Beets and
+carrots, honey and liquorice, orange-peel and molasses, will not do much
+harm; though I should think tipplers would prefer them as the customer
+at the eating-house preferred his flies, "on a separate plate." But the
+case is different with cocculus indicus, and stramonium, and sulphuric
+acid, and sugar of lead, and the like. I take the following accounts, so
+far as they are medical, from a standard work by Dr. Dunglison:--Aloes
+is a cathartic. Cocculus indicus contains picrotoxin, which is an "acrid
+narcotic poison;" from five to ten grains will kill a strong dog. The
+boys often call it "cockle-cinders;" they pound it and mix it in dough,
+and throw it into the water to catch fish. The poor fish eat it, soon
+become delirious, whirling and dancing furiously about on the top of the
+water, and then die. Copperas tends to produce nausea, vomiting,
+griping, and purging. Grains-of-paradise, a large kind of cardamom, is
+"strongly heating and carminative" (_i. e._, anti-flatulent and
+anti-spasmodic.) Opium is known well enough. Stramonium-seed would seem
+to have been made on purpose for the liquor business. In moderate doses
+it is a powerful narcotic, producing vertigo, headache, dimness or
+perversion of vision (_i. e._, seeing double) and confusion of thought.
+(N. B. What else does liquor do?) In larger doses (still like liquor,)
+you obtain these symptoms aggravated; and then a delirium, sometimes
+whimsical (snakes in your boots) and sometimes furious, a stupor,
+convulsions, and death. A fine drink this stramonium? Sugar of lead is
+what is called a cumulative poison; having the quality of remaining in
+the system when taken in small quantities, and piling itself up, as it
+were, until there is enough to accomplish something, when it causes
+debility, paralysis, and other things. Sulphuric acid is strongly
+corrosive,--a powerful caustic, attacking the teeth, even when very
+dilute; eating up flesh and bones alike when strong enough; and, if
+taken in a large enough dose, an awfully tearing and agonizing fatal
+poison.
+
+The way to use these delectable nutriments is in part as follows:--Stir
+a little sulphuric acid into your beer. This will give you a fine "old
+ale" in about a quarter of a minute. Take a mixture of alum, salt, and
+copperas, ground fine, and stir into your beer, and this will make it
+froth handsomely. Cocculus indicus, tobacco-leaves, and stramonium,
+cooked in the beer, etc., give it force. Potash is sometimes stirred
+into wine to correct acidity. Sulphite of soda is now very commonly
+stirred into cider, to keep it from fermenting further. Sugar of lead is
+stirred into wines to make them clear, and to keep them sweet. And so
+on, through the whole long list.
+
+It is a curious instance of people's quiet acknowledgment of their own
+foolishness, that a popular form of the invitation to take a drink is,
+"Come and h'ist in some pizen!"
+
+I know of no plan by which anybody can be sure of obtaining pure liquor
+of any description. Some persons always purchase their wines and liquors
+while they are under the custom-house lock and consequently before they
+have reached the hands of the importer. Yet there are scores of men in
+New York and Philadelphia who have made large fortunes by sending whisky
+to France, there refining, coloring, flavoring, and doctoring it, then
+re-shipping it to New York as French brandy, paying the duty, and
+selling it before it has left the custom-house! There is a locality in
+France where a certain brand of wine is made. It is adulterated with
+red-lead, and every year more or less of the inhabitants of that
+locality are attacked with "lead-colic," caused by drinking this
+poisoned wine right at the fountain-head where it is made. There is more
+bogus champagne drank in any one year, in the city of Paris alone, than
+there is genuine champagne made in any one year in the world. America
+ordinarily consumes more so-called champagne annually than is made in
+the world, and yet nearly all the genuine champagne in the world is
+taken by the courts of Europe. The genuine Hock wine made at
+Johannisberg on the Rhine is worth three dollars per bottle by the large
+quantity, and nearly all of it is shipped to Russia; yet, at any of the
+hotels in the village of Johannisberg, within half a mile from the
+wine-presses of the pure article, you can be supplied for a dollar per
+bottle with what purports to be the genuine Hock wine. Since chemistry
+has enabled liquor dealers to manufacture any description of wine or
+liquor for twenty-five cents to a dollar a gallon, there are annually
+made and sold thousands of gallons of wine and brandy that never smelt a
+grape.
+
+Suppose a wholesale liquor-merchant imports genuine brandy. He usually
+"rectifies" and adulterates it by adding eighty-five gallons of pure
+spirits (refined whisky,) to fifteen gallons of brandy, to give it a
+flavor; then colors and "doctors" it, and it is ready for sale. Suppose
+an Albany wholesale-dealer purchases, for pure brandy, ten pipes of this
+adulterated brandy from a New York importer. The Albany man immediately
+doubles his stock by adding an equal quantity of pure spirits. There are
+then seven and a half gallons of brandy in a hundred. A Buffalo
+liquor-dealer buys from the Albany man, and he in turn adds one-half
+pure spirits. The Chicago dealer buys from the Buffalo dealer, and as
+nearly all spirit-dealers keep large quantities of pure spirits on hand,
+and know how to use it, he again doubles the quantity of his brandy by
+adding pure spirits; and the Milwaukee liquor-dealer does the same,
+after purchasing from the Chicago man. So, in the ordinary course of
+liquor transactions, by the time a hundred gallon pipe of pure brandy
+reaches Wisconsin, at a cost of five or perhaps ten dollars per gallon,
+ninety-nine gallons and one pint of it is the identical whisky that was
+shipped from Wisconsin the same year at fifty cents per gallon. Truly a
+homoeopathic dose of genuine brandy! And even that whisky when it left
+Wisconsin was only half whisky; for there are men in the whisky-making
+States who make it a business to take whisky direct from the distillery,
+add to it an equal quantity of water, and then bring it up to a bead and
+the power of intoxication, by mixing in a variety of the villainous
+drugs and deadly poisons enumerated in this chapter. The annual loss of
+strength, health, and life caused by the adulteration of liquor is truly
+appalling. Those who have not examined the subject can form no just
+estimate of the atrocious and extensive effects of this murderous
+humbug.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE PETER FUNKS AND THEIR FUNCTIONS.--THE RURAL DIVINE AND THE
+WATCH.--RISE AND PROGRESS OF MOCK AUCTIONS.--THEIR DECLINE AND FALL.
+
+
+Not many years ago, a dignified and reverend man, whose name is well
+known to me, was walking sedately down Broadway. He was dressed in
+clerical garb of black garments and white neckcloth. He was a man of
+great learning, profound thought, long experience, unaffected piety, and
+pure and high reputation.
+
+All at once, a kind of chattering shout smote him fair in the left ear:
+
+"Narfnarfnarf! Three shall I have? Narfnarfnarfnarfnarf! Going at two
+and a half! Gone!!"
+
+And the grave divine, pausing, beheld a doorway, over which waved a
+little red flag. Within, a company of eager bidders thronged around an
+auctioneer's stand; and the auctioneer himself, a well-dressed man with
+a highly respectable look, was just handing over to the delighted
+purchaser a gold watch.
+
+"It would be cheap at one hundred dollars," said he, in a despondent
+tone. "It's mere robbery to sell it for that price. I'd buy it myself if
+'twas legal."
+
+And while the others, with exclamations of surprise and congratulation,
+crowded to see this famous purchase, and the buyer exhibited it with a
+joyful countenance close by the door, the divine, just out of curiosity,
+stepped in. He owned no watch; he was a country clergyman, and poor in
+this world's goods; so poor that, to use a familiar phrase, "if
+steamboats were selling at a dime a piece, he would hardly be able to
+buy a gang-plank." But what if he could, by good luck, buy a good gold
+watch for two dollars and a half in this wonderful city!
+
+Somehow, that watch was snapped open and closed again right under his
+ministerial nose about six times. The auctioneer held up another of
+exactly the same kind, and began to chatter again.
+
+"Now gentlemen, what 'moffered f'this first-class M. I. Tobias gold
+English lever watch--full jeweled, compensation-balance,
+anchor-escapement, hunting case? One, did I hear? Say two cents, wont
+yer? Two and a half! narfnarfnarfnarfnarf and a half! Two and a half,
+and three quarters. Thank you, Sir," to a sailor-like man in the corner.
+
+"Three," said a tall and well-dressed young gentleman with short hair,
+near the clergyman, adding, in an undertone, "I can sell it for fifty
+this afternoon."
+
+"Three I am offered," says Mr. Auctioneer, and chattered on as before:
+"And a half, did you say, Sir? Thank you, Sir. And a halfnarfnarf!"
+
+The reverend divine had said, "And a half." The Peter Funks had got him!
+But he didn't find it out quite yet. The bidding was run up to four
+dollars; the clergyman took the watch, opened and examined it; was
+convinced, handed it back, ventured another half, and the watch was
+knocked down to him. The auctioneer fumbled in some papers, and, in a
+moment, handed him his bargain neatly done up.
+
+"This way to the clerk's office if you please, Sir," he added, with a
+civil bow. The clergyman passed a little further in; and while the sales
+proceeded behind him, the clerk made out a bill and proffered it.
+
+"Fifty-four dollars and a half!" read the country divine, astounded.
+"Four and a half is what I bid!"
+
+"Four and a half!" exclaimed the clerk, with sarcastic indignation;
+"Four dollars and a half! A pretty story! A minister to have the face to
+say he could buy an M. I. Tobias gold watch, full jeweled, for four
+dollars and a half! Ill thank you for the money, Sir. Fifty-four, fifty,
+if you please."
+
+The auctioneer, as if interrupted by the loud tones of the indignant
+clerk, stopped the sale to see what was the matter. On hearing the
+statement of the two parties, he cast a glance of angry contempt upon
+the poor clergyman, who, by this time, was uneasy enough at their
+scowling faces. Then, as if relenting, he said half-sneeringly:
+
+"I don't think you look very well in this business, Sir. But you are
+evidently a clergyman, and we wish everybody to have fair treatment in
+this office. We won't be imposed upon, Sir, by any man!" (Here his face
+darkened, and his fists could be seen to clench with much meaning.) "Pay
+that money, Sir! This establishment is not to be humbugged. But you
+needn't be afraid of losing anything. You may let me take the watch and
+sell it for you again on the spot. Very likely you can get more for it.
+You can't lose. The clergyman hesitated. The tall and well-dressed young
+man with short hair pushed up and said:
+
+"Don't want it? Put her up again. G--! I'd like another chance myself!"
+
+A heavily-built fellow with one eye, observed over the auctioneer's
+shoulder, with an evil look at the divine, "D--d if I don't believe that
+cuss is a gambler, come in here to fool us country-folks. They allus
+wears white neckcloths. I say, search him and boot him out of the shop!"
+
+"Hold your tongue!" answered the auctioneer, with dignity. "I will see
+you safe, Sir," to the clergyman. "But you bid that money, and you must
+pay it. We can't do this business on any other principles."
+
+"You will sell it for me again at once?" asked the poor minister.
+
+"Certainly," said the mollified auctioneer. And the humbugged divine,
+with an indistinct sense of something wrong, but not able to tell what,
+took out forty dollars from his lean wallet and handed it to the clerk.
+
+"It's all I have to get home with," he said, simply.
+
+"Never fear, old gentleman," said the clerk, affably; "You'll be all
+right in two minutes."
+
+The watch was put up again. The clergyman, scarce able to believe his
+ears, heard it rapidly run up to sixty dollars and knocked down at that
+price. The cash was handed to the clerk, and another bill made out; ten
+per cent., deducted, commission on sales. "Usual terms, Sir," observed
+the clerk, handing over the notes just received for the watch. And the
+divine, very thankful to get off for half a dollar, hurried off as fast
+as he could.
+
+I need not say that his fifty-four dollars was all counterfeit money.
+When he went next morning, after endeavoring in vain to part with his
+new funds, to find the place where he had been humbugged, it was close
+shut, and he could hardly identify even the doorway. He went to the
+police, and the shrewd captain told him that it was a difficult
+business; but sent an officer with him to look up the rascals. Officer
+found one; demanded redress; clergyman did the same. Rascal asked
+clergyman's name; got it; told him he could prosecute if he liked.
+Clergyman looked at officer; officer, with indifference, observed:
+
+"Means to stick your name in the papers."
+
+Clergyman said he would take further advice; did take it; thought he
+wouldn't be shown up as a "greeny" in the police reports; borrowed money
+enough to get home with, and if he has a gold watch now--which I really
+hope he has--got it either for its real value, or as a "testimonial."
+
+There, that (with many variations) is the whole story of Peter Funk.
+These "mock auctioneers," sometimes, as in the case I have mentioned,
+take advantage of the respectability of their victims, sometimes of
+their haste to leave the city on business. When they could not possibly
+avoid it, they disgorged their prey. No instance is known to me of any
+legal penalty being inflicted on them by a magistrate; but they were
+always, until 1862, treated by police, by magistrate, and by mayor, just
+as thieves would be who should always be let off on returning their
+stealings; so that they could not lose by thieving, and might gain.
+
+These rascally mock-auctioneers, thus protected by the authorities, used
+to fleece the public out of not less than sixty thousand dollars a year.
+One of them cleared twelve thousand dollars during the year 1861 alone.
+And this totally shameless and brazen-faced humbug flourished in New
+York for twenty-five years!
+
+About the first day of June, 1862, the Peter Funks had eleven dens, or
+traps, in operation in New York; five in Broadway below Fulton street,
+and the others in Park row, and Courtlandt, Greenwich, and Chatham
+streets.
+
+The name, Peter Funk, is said to have been that of the founder of their
+system; but I know nothing more of his career. At this date, in 1862,
+the system was in a high state of organization and success, and included
+the following constituents:
+
+1. Eight chief Funks, or capitalists, and managers, whose names are well
+enough known. I have them on record.
+
+2. About as many more salesmen, who took turns with the chiefs in
+selling and clerking.
+
+3. Seventy or eighty, rank and file, or ropers-in. These acted the part
+of buyers, like the purchaser whose delight over his watch helped to
+deceive the minister and the other bidders on that occasion. These
+fellows dressed up as countrymen, sailors, and persons of miscellaneous
+respectability. They bid and talked when that was sufficient, or helped
+the managers thrash any troublesome person, if necessary. Once in a long
+time they met their match; as, for instance, when the mate of a ship
+brought up a squad of his crew, burst into one of their dens, and beat
+and battered up the whole gang within an inch of their lives. But, in
+most cases, the reckless infamy of these dregs of city vice gave them an
+immense advantage over a decent citizen; for they could not be defiled
+nor made ridiculous, and he could.
+
+4. Two or three traders in cheap jewelry and fancy-goods supplied the
+Funks with their wares. One of these fellows used to sell them fifty or
+a hundred dollars' worth of this trash a day; and he lamented as much
+over their untimely end as the Ephesian silversmiths did over the loss
+of their trade in shrines.
+
+5. A lawyer received a regular salary of $1,200 a year to defend all the
+Funk cases.
+
+6. The city politicians, in office and out of it, who were wont to
+receive the aid of the Funks (a very energetic cohort) at elections, and
+who in return unscrupulously used both power and influence to keep them
+from punishment.
+
+All this cunning machinery was brought to naught and New York relieved
+of a shame and a pest by the courage, energy, perseverance, and good
+sense of one Yankee officer--Russell Wells, a policeman. Mr. Wells took
+about six months to finish up his work. He began it of his own accord,
+finding that the spirit of the police regulations required it;
+prosecuted the undertaking without fear or favor, finding not very much
+support from the judicial authorities, and sometimes actual and direct
+discouragement. His method was to mount guard over one auction shop at a
+time, and warn all whom he saw going in, and to follow up all complaints
+to the utmost until that shop was closed, when he laid siege to another.
+Various offers of money, direct and indirect, were made him. One fellow
+offered him $500 to walk on the other side of the street. Another
+offered him $1,000 to drop the undertaking. Another hinted at a regular
+salary of hush-money, saying "he had now got these fellows where he
+could make as much out of them as he wanted to, right along."
+
+Sometimes they threatened him with "murder and sudden death." Several
+times they got out an injunction upon him, and several times sued him
+for slander. One of their complaints charged, with ludicrous hypocrisy,
+that the defendant, "with malicious intent, stood round the door
+uttering slanderous charges against the good name, fame, and credit of
+the defendant," just as foolish old lawyers used to argue that "the
+greater the truth the greater the libel." Sometimes they argued and
+indignantly denounced. One of them told him, "he was a thief and a
+murderer, driving men out of employment whose wives and children
+depended on their business for support."
+
+Another contended that their business was just as fair as that of the
+stock-operators in Wall street. I fear that wasn't making out much of a
+case.
+
+But their threats were idle; their suits, and prosecutions, and
+injunctions, never came to a head; their bribes did not operate. The
+officer, imperturbably good-natured, but horribly diligent, watched, and
+warned, and hunted, and complained, and squeezed back their money at the
+rate of $500 or $1,000 every month, until they were perfectly sickened.
+One by one they shut up shop. One went to his farm, another to his
+merchandise, another to emigrant running, another (known by the elegant
+surname of Blur-eye Thompson) to raising recruits, several into the
+bounty jumping business.
+
+Such was the life and death of an outrageous humbug and nuisance, whose
+like was not to be found in any other city on earth; and would not have
+been endured in any except this careless, money-getting, misgoverned one
+of New York.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+LOTTERY SHARKS.--BOULT AND HIS BROTHERS.--KENNETH, KIMBALL AND
+COMPANY.--A MORE CENTRAL LOCATION WANTED FOR BUSINESS.--TWO
+SEVENTEENTHLIES.--STRANGE COINCIDENCE.
+
+
+I have before me a mass of letters, printed and lithographed circulars,
+and the like, which illustrate well two or three of the most foolish and
+vicious swindles [it is wrong to call them humbugs] now extant. They
+also prove that there are a good many more fools alive in our Great
+Republic than some of us would like to admit.
+
+These letters and papers are signed, respectively, by the following
+names: Alexander Van Dusen; Thomas Boult & Co.; E. F. Mayo; Geo. P.
+Harper; Browne, Sherman & Co.; Hammett & Co.; Charles A. Herbert; Geo.
+C. Kenneth; T. Seymour & Co.; C. W. White, Purchasing Agency; C. J.
+Darlington; B. H. Robb & Co.; James Conway; S. B. Goodrich; Egerton
+Brothers; C. F. Miner; E. J. Kimball; E. A. Wilson; and J. T. Small.
+
+All these productions, with one or two exceptions, are dated during the
+last three months of 1864, and January 1865. They are mailed from a good
+many different places, and addressed to respectable people in all
+directions.
+
+In particular, should be noticed, however, two lots of them.
+
+The first lot are signed either by Thomas Boult & Co., Hammett & Co.,
+Egerton Brothers, or T. Seymour & Co. When these four documents are
+placed together, each with its inclosure, a story is told that seems
+clear enough to explain itself to the greenest fool in the world.
+
+These fellows--Boult and the rest of them, I mean--are lottery sharks.
+Now, those who buy lottery tickets are very silly and credulous, or very
+lazy, or both. They want to get money without earning it. This foolish
+and vicious wish, however, betrays them into the hands of these lottery
+sharks. I wish that each of these poor foolish, greedy creatures could
+study on this set of letters awhile. Look at them. You see that the
+lithographed handwriting in all four is in the same hand. You observe
+that each of them incloses a printed hand-bill with "scheme," all
+looking as like as so many peas. They refer, you see, to the same
+"Havana scheme," the same "Shelby College Lottery," the same "managers,"
+and the same place of drawing. Now, see what they say. Each knave tells
+his fool his only object is to put said fool in possession of a handsome
+prize, so that fool may run round and show the money, and rope in more
+fools. What an ingenious way to make the fool think he will return value
+for the prize! Each knave further says to his fool (I copy the words of
+the knave from his lithograph letter:) "We are so certain that we know
+how to select a lucky certificate, that if the one we select for you
+does not, at the very least, draw a $5,000 prize, we will"--what? Pay
+the money ourselves? Oh no. Knave does not offer to pay half of it.
+"Will send you another package in one of our extra lotteries for
+nothing!"
+
+Observe how particularly every knave is to tell his fool to "give us the
+name of the nearest bank," so that the draft for the prize-money can be
+forwarded instantly.
+
+And in return for all this kindness, what do Messrs. Boult and-so-forth
+want? Why, almost nothing. "The ridiculously small sum," as Mr. Montague
+Tigg observed to Mr. Pecksniff, of $10. You observe that Hammett & Co.,
+in one circular, demand $20, for the same $5,000 prize. But the amount,
+they would say, is too trifling to be so particular about!
+
+I will suggest a form for answering these gentlemen. Let every one of
+my readers who receives one of their circulars just copy and date and
+sign, and send them the following:
+
+     "GENTLEMEN:--I thank you for your great kindness in wishing to make
+     me the possessor of a $5,000 prize in your truly rich and splendid
+     Royal Havana Lottery. I fully believe that you know, as you say,
+     all about how to get these prizes, and that you can make it a big
+     thing. But I cannot think of taking all that money from such kind
+     of people as you. I must insist upon your having half of it, and I
+     will not hear of any refusal, I therefore hereby authorize you to
+     invest for me the trifle of $10, which you mention; and when the
+     prize is drawn, to put half of it, and $10 over, right into your
+     own benevolent pantaloons-pocket, and to remit the other half to
+     me, addressed as follows: (Here give the name of the "nearest
+     bank.")
+
+     "I have not the least fear that you will cheat me out of my half;
+     and, as you see, I thus place myself confidently in your hands.
+     With many thanks for your great and undeserved kindness, I remain
+     your obliged and obedient servant. ETC., ETC."
+
+My readers will observe that this mode of replying affords full swing to
+the expansive charities of Boult and his brethren, and is a sure method
+of saving the expenditure of $10, although Boult is to get that amount
+back when the prize is drawn.
+
+I charge nothing for these suggestions; but will not be so discourteous
+as to refuse a moderate percentage on all amounts received in pursuance
+of them from Brother Boult & Co.
+
+Here is the second special lot of letters I spoke of. I lay them out on
+my desk as before: There are six letters signed respectively by Kimball,
+Goodrich, Darlington, Kenneth, Harper, and Herbert. Now notice, first
+the form, and next the substance.
+
+As to form--they are all written, not, lithographed; they are on paper
+of the same make and size, and out of the same lot, as you observe by
+the manufacturer's stamp--a representation of the Capitol in the upper
+corner. They are in the same hand, an easy legible business-hand, though
+three of them are written with a backward slope. Those who sent them
+have not sent me the envelopes with them, except in one case, so that I
+cannot tell where they were mailed. Neither is any one of them dated
+inside at any town or post-office. But, by a wonderful coincidence,
+every one of them is dated at "No. 17 Merchants' Exchange." A busy mart
+that No. 17 must be! And it is a still more curious coincidence that
+every one of these six industrious chaps has been unable to find a
+sufficiently central location for transacting his business. Every letter
+you see, contains a printed slip advising of a removal, as follows:
+
+"REMOVAL.--Desiring a more central location for transacting my business,
+I have removed my office to No. 17 Merchants Exchange." Where? One says
+to West Troy, New York; another to Patterson, New Jersey; another to
+Bronxville, New York; another, to Salem, New-York, and so on! It is a
+new thing to find how central all those places are. Undeveloped
+metropolises seem to exist in every corner. Well, the slip ends with a
+notice that in future letters must be directed to the new place.
+
+Next, as to substance. The six letters all tell the same story. They
+are each the second letter; the first one having been sent to the same
+person, and having contained a lottery-ticket, as a gift of love or free
+charity. This second letter is the one which is expected to "fetch." It
+says in substance: "Your ticket has drawn a prize of $200,"--the letters
+all name the same amount--"but you didn't pay for it; and therefore are
+not entitled to it. Now send me $10 and I will cheat the lottery-man by
+altering the post-mark of your letter so that the money shall seem to
+have been sent before the lottery was drawn. This forgery will enable me
+to get the $200, which I will send you."
+
+How cunning that is! It is exactly calculated to hit the notions of a
+vulgar, ignorant, lazy, greedy, and unprincipled bumpkin. Such a fellow
+would see just far enough into the millstone to be tickled at the idea
+of cheating those lottery fellows. And the knave ends his letter with
+one more touch most delicately adapted to make Master Bumpkin feel
+certain that his cash is coming. He says, "Be sure to show your prize to
+all your friends, so as to make them buy tickets at my office."
+
+Moreover, these letters inclose each a "report of the seventeenth
+monthly drawing of the Cosmopolitan Art Union Association." You may
+observe that one of these "seventeenth drawings" took place November 7
+1864, and another December 5, 1864; so that seventeenthly came twice.
+What is a far more remarkable coincidence is this; that in each of these
+"reports" is a list of a hundred and thirty or forty numbers that drew
+prizes, and it is exactly the same list each time, and the same prize
+to each number! There is a third coincidence; that one of these two
+drawings is said to have been at London, New York, and the other at
+London, New Jersey. And lastly, there is a fourth coincidence, viz.,
+that neither of these places exists.
+
+Now, what a transparent swindle this is! how plain, how impudent, how
+rascally! And all done entirely by the use of the Post Office privileges
+of the United States. Try to catch this fellow. You can find where he
+mailed his circular; but he probably stopped there over night to do so,
+and nobody knew it. In each circular, he wrote to his dupes to address
+him at that new "more central location" that he struggles after so hard;
+and how is the pursuer to find it? Would anybody naturally go and watch
+the Post Office at Bronxville, New York, for instance, as a particularly
+central location for business?
+
+Besides, no one person is cheated out of enough to make him follow up
+the affair, and probably nobody who sends the cash wants to say much
+about it afterward. He wants to wait and show the prize!
+
+These dirty sharking traps will always be set, and will always catch
+silly people, as long as there are any to catch. The only means of
+stopping such trickery is to diffuse the conviction that the best way to
+get a living is, to go to work like a man and earn it honestly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+ANOTHER LOTTERY HUMBUG.--TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY RECIPES.--VILE
+BOOKS.--"ADVANTAGE-CARDS."--A PACKAGE FOR YOU; PLEASE SEND THE
+MONEY.--PEDDLING IN WESTERN NEW YORK.
+
+
+The readiness with which people will send off their money to a swindler
+is perfectly astounding. It does really seem as if an independent
+fortune could be made simply by putting forth circulars and
+advertisements, requesting the receiver to send five dollars to the
+advertiser, and saying that "it will be all right."
+
+I have already given an account of the way in which lottery dealers
+operate. From among the same pile of documents which I used then, I have
+selected a few others, as instances in part, of a class of humbugs
+sometimes of a kind even far more noxious, and which show that their
+devisers and patrons are not only sharpers or fools, but often also very
+cold-blooded villains or very nasty ones. Some of them are managed by
+printed circulars and written letters, such as those before me; some of
+them by newspaper advertisements. Some are only to cheat you out of
+money, and others offer in return for money some base gratification. But
+whatever means are used, and whatever purpose is sought, they are all
+alike in one thing--they depend entirely on the monstrous number of
+simpletons who will send money to people they know nothing about.
+
+Of the nasty ones, I can give no details. Vile books, pictures, etc.,
+are from time to time advertised, sold, and forwarded, by circular, and
+through the mails, and for large prices.
+
+There have been some cases where a funny sort of swindle has been
+effected by these peddlers of pruriency, by selling some dirty-minded
+dupe a cheap good book, at the extravagant price of a dear bad one. More
+than one foolish youth has received, instead of the vile thing that he
+sent five dollars for, a nice little New Testament. It is obvious that
+no very loud complaints are likely to be made about such cheating as
+that. It is, perhaps, one of the safest swindles ever contrived.
+
+The first document which I take from my pile is the announcement of a
+fellow who operates lottery-wise. His scheme appeals at once to
+benevolence and to greediness. He says: "The profits of the distribution
+are to be given to the Sanitary Commission;" and secondly, "Every ticket
+brings a prize of at least its full value, and some of them $5,000."
+
+If, therefore you won't buy tickets for filthy lucre's sake, buy for the
+sake of our soldiers.
+
+"But," somebody says, "how can you afford this arrangement, which is a
+direct loss of the whole cost of working your lottery, and moreover of
+the whole value of all prizes costing more than a ticket?"
+
+"Oh," replies our benevolent friend, "a number of manufacturers in New
+England have asked me to do this, and the prizes are given by them as
+friends of the soldier."
+
+One observation will sufficiently show what an impudent mess of lies
+this story is, namely;--If the manufacturers of New England wanted to
+give money to the Sanitary Commission, they would give money; if goods,
+they would give goods. They certainly would not put their gifts through
+the additional roundabout, useless nonsense of a lottery, which is to
+turn over only the same amount of funds to the Commission.
+
+The next document is a circular sent from a Western town by a fellow who
+claims also to be a master of arts, doctor of medicines, and doctor of
+laws, but whose handwriting and language are those of a stable-boy. This
+chap sends round a list of two hundred and fifty recipes at various
+prices, from twenty-five cents to a dollar each. Send him the money for
+any you wish, and he promises to return you the directions for making
+the stuff. You are then to go about and peddle it, and swiftly become
+independently rich. You can begin with a dollar, he says; in two days
+make fifty dollars, and then sweep on in a grand career of affluence,
+making from $75 to $200 a day, "if you are industrious." What is
+petroleum to this? It is a mercy that we don't all turn to and peddle to
+each other; we should all get too rich to speak!
+
+The fellow, out of pure kindness and desire for your good, recommends
+you to buy all his recipes, as then you will be sure to sell something
+to everybody. Most of these recipes are for sufficiently harmless
+purposes--shaving-soap, cement, inks--"five gallons of good ink for
+fifteen cents"--tooth-powders, etc. Some of them are arrant nonsense;
+such as "tea--better than the Chinese," which is as if he promised
+something wetter than water; "to make thieves' vinegar;" "prismatic
+diamond crystals for windows;" "to make yellow butter"--is the butter
+blue where the man lives? Others are of a sort calculated to attract
+foolish rustic rascals who would like to gain an easy living by
+cheating, if they were only smart enough. Thus, there is "Rothschild's
+great secret; or how to make common gold." My readers shall have a
+better recipe than this swindler's--work hard, think hard, be honest,
+and spend little--this will "make common gold," and this is all the
+secret Rothschild ever had. A number of these recipes are barefaced
+quackeries; such as cures for consumption, cancer, rheumatism, and
+sundry other diseases; to make whiskers and mustaches grow--ah, boys,
+you can't hurry up those things. Greasing your cheeks is just as good as
+trying to whistle the hair out, but not a bit better. Don't hurry; you
+will be old quite soon enough! But this fellow is ready for old fools as
+well young ones, for he has recipes for curing baldness and removing
+wrinkles. And last, but not least, quietly inserted among all these
+fooleries and harmless humbugs, are two or three recipes which promise
+the safe gratification of the basest vices. Those are what he really
+hoped to get money for.
+
+I have carefully refrained from giving any names or information which
+would enable anybody to address any of these folks. I do not propose to
+cooperate with them, if I know it.
+
+The next is a circular only to be very briefly alluded to: it promises
+to furnish, on receipt of the price, and "by mail or express, with
+perfect safety, so as to defy detection," any of twenty-two wholly
+infamous books, and various other cards and commodities, well suited to
+the public of Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. The most honest and decent things
+advertised in this unclean list are "advantage-cards" which enable the
+player to swindle his adversary by reading off his hand by the backs of
+the cards.
+
+The next paper I can copy verbatim, except some names, etc., is a letter
+as follows:
+
+"Dear Sir--There is a Package in My care for a Mrs. preston New Griswold
+wich thare is 48 cts. fratage. Pleas forward the same. I shall send it
+Per Express Your recpt."
+
+It is some little comfort to know that this gentleman, who is so much
+opposed to the present prevailing methods of spelling, lost the three
+cents which he invested in seeking "fratage." But a good many sensible
+people have carelessly sent away the small amounts demanded by letters
+like the above, and have wondered why their prepaid parcels never came.
+
+Next, is an account by a half amused and half indignant eye-witness, of
+what happened in a well known town in Western New York, on Friday,
+January 6, 1865. A personage described as "dressed in Yankee style,"
+drove into the principal street of the place with a horse and buggy, and
+began to sell what is called in some parts of New England "Attleboro,"
+that is, imitation jewelry, but promising to return the customers their
+money, if required, and doing so. After a number of transactions of this
+kind, he bawls out, like the sorcerer in Aladdin, who went around
+crying new lamps for old, "Who will give me four dollars for this
+five-dollar greenback?"
+
+He found a customer; sold a one-dollar greenback for ninety cents; then
+sold some half-dollar bills for twenty-five cents each; then flung out
+among the crowd what a fisherman would call ground bait, in the shape of
+a handful of "currency."
+
+Everybody scrambled for the money. This liberal trader now drove slowly
+a little way along, and the crowd pressed after him.
+
+He now began, without any further promises, to sell a lot of bogus
+lockets at five dollars each, and in a few minutes had disposed of about
+forty. Having, therefore, about two hundred dollars in his pocket, and
+trade slackening, he coolly observes, with a terseness and clearness of
+oratory that would not discredit General Sherman:
+
+"Gentlemen--I have sold you those goods at my price. I am a licensed
+peddler. If I give you your money back you will think me a lunatic. I
+wish you all success in your ordinary vocations! Good morning!"
+
+And sure enough, he drove off. That same cunning chap has actually made
+a small fortune in this way. He really is licensed as a peddler, and
+though arrested more than once, has consequently not been found legally
+punishable.
+
+I will specify only one more of my collection, of yet another kind. This
+is a printed circular appealing to a class of fools, if possible, even
+shallower, sillier, and more credulous than any I have named yet. It is
+headed "The Gypsies' Seven Secret Charms." These charms consist of a
+kind of hellbroth or decoction. You are to wet the hands and the
+forehead with them, and this is to render you able to tell what any
+person is thinking of; upon taking any one by the hand, you will be able
+to entirely control the mind and will of such person (it is unnecessary
+to specify the purpose intended to be believed possible). These charms
+are also to enable you to buy lucky lottery-tickets, discover things
+lost or hid, dream correctly of the future, increase the intellectual
+faculties, secure the affections of the other sex, etc. These precious
+conceits are set forth in a ridiculous hodge-podge of statements. The
+"charms," it says, were used by the "Anted_e_luvians;" were the secret
+of the Egyptian enchanters and of Moses, too; of the Pythoness and the
+heathen conjurors and humbugs generally; and (which will be news to the
+geographers of to-day) "are used by the Psyli (the swindler mis-spells
+again) of South America to charm Beasts, Birds, and Serpents." The way
+to control the mind, he says, was discovered by a French traveler named
+Tunear. This Frenchman is perhaps a relative of the equally celebrated
+Russian traveller, Toofaroff.
+
+But here is the point, after all. You send the money, we will say, for
+one of these charms--for they are for sale separately. You receive in
+return a second circular, saying that they work a great deal better all
+together, and so the man will send you all of them when you send the
+rest of the money. Send it, if you choose!
+
+Now, how is it possible for people to be living among us here, who are
+fooled by such wretched balderdash as this? There are such, however, and
+a great many of them. I do not imagine that there are many of these
+addlepates among my readers; but there is no harm in giving once more a
+very plain and easy direction which may possibly save somebody some
+money and some mortification. Be content with what you can honestly
+earn. Know whom you deal with. Do not try to get money without giving
+fair value for it. And pay out no money on strangers' promises, whether
+by word of mouth, written letters, advertisements, or printed circulars.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+A CALIFORNIA COAL MINE.--A HARTFORD COAL MINE.--MYSTERIOUS SUBTERRANEAN
+CANAL ON THE ISTHMUS.
+
+
+Some twelve years ago or so, in the early days of Californian
+immigration, a curious little business humbug came off about six miles
+from Monterey. A United States officer, about the year 1850, was on his
+way into the interior on a surveying expedition, with a party of men, a
+portable forge, a load of coal, and sundry other articles. At the place
+in question, six miles inland, the Lieutenant's coal wagon "stalled" in
+a "tulé" swamp. With true military decision the greater part of the coal
+was thrown out to extricate the team, and not picked up again. The
+expedition went on and so did time, and the latter, in his progress, had
+some years afterward dried up the tulé swamp. Some enterprising
+prospectors, with eyes wide open to the nature of things, now espied one
+fine morning the lumps of coal, sticking their black noses up out of the
+mud. It was a clear case--there was a coal mine there! The happy
+discoverers rushed into town. A company was at once organized under the
+mining laws of the state of California. The corporators at first kept
+the whole matter totally secret except from a few particular friends who
+were as a very great favor allowed to buy stock for cash. A "compromise"
+was made with the owner of the land, largely to his advantage. When
+things had thus been set properly at work, specimens of coal were
+publicly exhibited at Monterey. There was a gigantic excitement; shares
+went up almost out of sight. Twelve hundred dollars in coin for one
+share (par $100) was laughed at. About this time a quiet honest Dutchman
+of the vicinity passing along by the "mine" one evening with his cart,
+innocently and unconsciously picked up the whole at one single load and
+carried it home. Prompt was the discovery of the "sell" by the
+stockholders, and voluble and intense, it is said, their profane
+expressions of dissatisfaction. But the original discoverers of the mine
+vigorously protested that they were "sold" themselves, and that it was
+only a case of common misfortune. It is however reported that a number
+of persons in Monterey, _after_ the explosion of the speculation,
+remembered all about the coal-wagon part of the business, which they
+said, the excitement of the "company" had put entirely out of their
+heads.
+
+An equally unfounded but not quite so barefaced humbug came off a good
+many years ago in the good old city of Hartford, in Connecticut,
+according to the account given me by an old gentleman now deceased, who
+was one of the parties interested. This was a coal mine in the State
+House yard. It sounds like talking about getting sunbeams out of
+cucumbers--but something of the sort certainly took place.
+
+Coal is found among rocks of certain kinds, and not elsewhere. Among
+strata of granite or basalt for instance, nobody expects to find coal.
+But along with a certain kind of sandstone it may reasonably be
+expected. Now the Hartford wiseacres found that tremendously far down
+under their city, there was _a_ sort of sandstone, and they were sure
+that it was _the_ sort. So they gathered together some money,--there is
+a vast deal of _that_ in Hartford, coal or no coal--organized a company,
+employed a Mining Superintendent, set up a boring apparatus, and down
+went their hole into the ground--an orifice some four or six inches
+across. Through the surface stratum of earth it went, and bang it came
+against the sandstone. They pounded away, with good courage, and got
+some fifties or hundreds of feet further. Indefinable sensations were
+aroused in their minds at one time by the coming up among the products
+of boring, of some chips of wood. Now wood, shortly coal, they thought.
+They might, I imagine, have brought up some pieces of boiled potato or
+even of fresh shad, provided it had fallen down first. They dug on
+until they got tired, and then they stopped. If they had gone down ten
+thousand feet they would have found no coal. Coal is found in the new
+red sandstone; but theirs was the old red sandstone, which is a very
+fine old stone itself, but in which no coal was ever found, except what
+might have been put there on purpose, or possibly some faint
+indications. The hole they made, however, as my informant gravely
+observed, was left sticking in the ground, and if he is right is to this
+day a sort of appendix or tail to the well north-west corner of the
+State House Square. So, I suppose, any one who chooses can go and poke
+down there after it and satisfy himself about the accuracy of this
+account. Such an inquirer ought to find satisfaction, for "truth lies in
+the bottom of a well" says the proverb. Yet some ill natured skeptics
+have construed this to mean that all will tell lies sometimes, for--as
+they accent it, even "Truth _lies_, at the bottom of a well!"
+
+Still a different sort of business humbug, again, was a wonderful story
+which went the rounds about fifteen years ago, and which was cooked up
+to help some one or other of the various enterprises for new routes by
+Central America to California. This story started, I believe, in the
+"New Orleans Courier." It was, that a French Doctor of Vera Paz in
+Guatemala, while making a canal from his estate to the sea, discovered,
+away up at the very furthest extremity of the Gulf of Honduras, a vast
+ancient canal, two hundred and forty feet wide, seventy feet deep, and
+walled in on both sides with gigantic masses of rough cut stone. The
+Doctor at once gave up his own trifling modern excavation, and plunged
+into an explanation of this vast ancient one, as zealously as if he were
+probing after some uncertain bullet in a poor fellow's leg. The
+monstrous canal carried him in a straight line up the country, to the
+south-westward. Some twenty miles or so inland it plunged under a
+_volcano!_
+
+But see what a French doctor is made of!
+
+Cutting down the great, old trees that obstructed the entrance, and
+procuring a canoe with a crew of Indians, in he went. The canal became a
+prodigious tunnel, of the same width and depth of water, and vaulted
+three hundred and thirty five feet high in the living rock. Nothing is
+said about the bowels of the volcano, so that we must conclude either
+that such affairs are not planted so deep as is supposed, or that the
+fire-pot of the concern was shoved one side or bridged over by the
+canallers, or that the Frenchman had some remarkably good style of Fire
+Annihilator, or else that there is some mistake!
+
+Eighteen hours of incessant travel brought our intrepid M.D. safe
+through to the Pacific Ocean; during which time, if the maps of that
+country are of any authority, he passed under quite a number of
+mountains and rivers. The trip was not dark at all, as shafts were sunk
+every little way, which lighted up the interior quite well, and then the
+volcano gave--or ought to have given--some light inside. Indeed, if the
+doctor had only thought of it, I presume he would have noticed double
+rows of street gas lamps on each side of the canal! The exclusive right
+to use this excellent transit route has not, to my knowledge, been
+secured to anybody yet. It will be observed that ships as large as the
+Great Eastern could easily pass each other in this canal, which renders
+it a sure thing for any other vessel unless that shrewd and grasping
+fellow the Emperor Louis Napoleon, has got hold of this canal and is
+keeping it dark for some still darker purposes of his own--as for
+instance to run his puppet Maximilian into for refuge, when he is run
+out of Mexico--it is therefore still in the market. And my publication
+of the facts effectually disposes of the Emperor's plan of secrecy, of
+course.
+
+
+
+
+IV. MONEY MANIAS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE PETROLEUM HUMBUG.--THE NEW YORK AND RANGOON PETROLEUM COMPANY.
+
+
+Every sham, as has often been said, proves some reality. Petroleum
+exists, no doubt, and is an important addition to our national wealth.
+But the Petroleum humbug or mania or superstition, or whatever you
+choose to call it, is a humbug, just as truly, and a big one, whether we
+use the word in its milder or its bitterer sense.
+
+There are more than six hundred petroleum companies. The capital they
+call for, is certainly not less than five hundred million dollars. The
+money invested in the notorious South Sea Bubble was less than
+two-fifths as much--only about $190,000,000.
+
+Now, this petroleum business--very much of it--is just as thorough a
+gambling business as any faro bank ever set up in Broadway, or any other
+stock speculation ever conjured up in Wall Street--as much so, for
+instance, as the well known Parker Vein coal company.
+
+I shall here tell exactly how those well known and enterprising
+financiers, Messrs. Peter Rolleum and Diddle Digwell proceeded in
+organizing the New-York and Rangoon Petroleum Company, of which all my
+readers have seen the advertisements everywhere, and of which the former
+is the Vice President and managing officer, and the latter Secretary. In
+June 1864, neither of these worthy gentleman was worth a cent. Rolleum
+shinned up and down in some commission agency or other, and Digwell had
+a small salary as clerk in some insurance or money concern. They barely
+earned a living. Now, Rolleum says he is worth $200,000; and Mr.
+Secretary Digwell, besides about $10,000 worth of stock in the New York
+and Rangoon, has his comfortable salary and his highly respectable
+"posish"--to use a little bit of business slang.
+
+Mr. Rolleum was the originator of the scheme, and let Digwell into it;
+and together they went to work. They had a few hundred dollars in cash,
+no particular credit, an entirely unlimited fund of lies, a good deal of
+industry, plausibility, talk, and cheek, considerable acquaintance with
+business, and an instinctive appreciation of some of the more selfish
+motives commonly influential among men.
+
+First of all, Rolleum made a trip into the oil country. Here, while
+picking up some of his ordinary agency business, he looked around among
+the wells and oil lands, talking, and examining and inquiring of
+everybody about everything, with a busy, solemn face, and the air of one
+who does _not wish_ it to be supposed that he has important interests in
+his care. Then he talked with some men at (we will say) Titusville and
+thereabouts; told all about his valuable business connections in New
+York City: and after getting a little acquainted, he laid before each
+of half-a-dozen or so of them, this proposition:
+
+"You can have a good many shares of a first class new oil company about
+to be formed just for permitting your name to be used in its interest,
+and for being a trustee." A thousand shares apiece, he said; to be
+valued at five dollars each, the par value however, being ten dollars.
+Five thousand dollars each man, and to be made ten thousand, as soon as
+the proposed puffing should enable them to sell out. After a little
+hesitation, a sufficient number consented. There was nothing to pay,
+something handsome to get, and all they were asked for it was, to let a
+man talk about them. What if he did lie? That was his business.
+
+This fixed four out of the nine intended trustees.
+
+Rolleum also obtained memoranda or printed circulars showing the amounts
+for which a number of oil land owners would sell their holes in the
+ground or the room for making others, and describing the premises. He
+now flew back to New York, and went to sundry persons of some means and
+some position but of no great nobility, and thus he said:
+
+"Here are these wealthy and distinguished oil men right there on the
+ground who are going to be trustees of my new company.
+
+"You serve too, won't you? One thousand shares for your trouble--five
+thousand dollars. No money to pay--I will see to all that. Here are the
+lands we can buy,"--and he showed his lists. The bribe, and the names of
+those already bribed, influenced them, and this secured three more
+trustees. Two more were needed, namely the President and Vice
+President. Rolleum himself was to be the latter; his next move was to
+secure the former.
+
+This, the most critical part of the scheme, was cunningly delayed until
+this time. Rolleum went to the Honorable A. Bee, a gentleman of a good
+deal of ability, pretty widely known, not very rich, believed (perhaps
+for that reason) to be honest, no longer young, and of a reverend yet
+agreeable presence. Him the plausible Rolleum told all about the new
+Company; what a respectable board of trustees there was going to be--and
+he showed the names; all either experienced and substantial men of the
+oil country, or reputable business men of New York City. And they have
+agreed to serve, in part because they know what a very honest company
+this is, and still more because they hope that the Honorable A. Bee will
+become President.
+
+"My dear Sir," urged Rolleum, sweetly, "this legitimate business
+enterprise _must_ succeed, and _must_ secure wealth, reputation, and
+influence to all connected with it. We know that you are above pecuniary
+considerations, and that you do not need our influence, or anybody's. We
+need yours. And you need not do any work. I will do that. We only need
+your name. And merely as a matter of form, because the officers are
+expected to be interested in their own company, I have set apart two
+thousand shares, being at half par or $5 a share, $10,000 of stock, to
+stand in your name. See how respectable all these Trustees are!" And he
+showed the list and preached upon the items of it.
+
+"This man is worth so many millions, that man is such an influential
+editor. Could I have obtained such names if this were not a perfectly
+square thing?"
+
+Ten thousand dollars will go some ways towards squaring almost anything,
+with many people, even if it is a mere matter of form; and so the old
+gentleman consented. This fixed the whole official "slate."
+
+Now to set up the machine.
+
+In a few days of sharp running and talking, Rolleum and Digwell
+accomplished this, as follows:
+
+_First_, they hired and furnished handsomely, paying cash whenever they
+couldn't help it, a couple of pleasant first floor rooms close to Wall
+Street. No dingy desk-room up in some dark corner or attic, for them.
+Respectability is the thing for Rolleum.
+
+_Second_, they hired a lawyer to draft the proper papers, and had the
+New York and Rangoon Petroleum Company "Duly incorporated under the
+mining and statute laws of the State of New York," with charter,
+by-laws, seal, officers' names, and everything fine, new, grand,
+magnificent, impressive, formal, respectable and business-like.
+
+_Third_, they now had every requisite of a powerful, enterprising and
+highly successful corporation, except the small trifles of money, land
+and oil. But what are these, to such geniuses as Rolleum and Digwell?
+Singular if having invented and set the trap, they could not catch the
+birds!
+
+They _bought_ about three pints of oil, for one dollar; and that settled
+one part of the question. They bought it ready sorted and vialled and
+labelled; some crude and green, some yellowish, some limpid as water,
+half a dozen or so of different specimens. These, in their tall vials of
+most respectable appearance, they placed casually on the mantel-piece of
+the outer office. They were specimens of the oils which the company's
+wells are confidently expected to yield--when they get 'em!
+
+Last of all--land and money. Subscriptions to capital stock are to
+furnish money, money will buy land. And _saying we've got land_ will
+procure subscriptions.
+
+"It's not much of a lie, after all," said Rolleum, confidentially, to
+brother Digwell. "When we've _said_ we've got it for awhile, we _shall_
+get it. It's not a lie at all. It's only discounting the truth at sixty
+days!"
+
+So he and Digwell went to work and made a splendid prospectus and
+advertisement, the latter an abridged edition of the former. This
+prospectus was a great triumph of business lying mixed with plums and
+spices of truth, and all set forth with taking "display lines."
+
+It began with a stately row of names: New York and Rangoon Petroleum
+Company; Honorable Abraham Bee, President; Peter Rolleum, Esq., Vice
+President; Diddle Digwell, Esq., Secretary; and so on. With cool
+impudence it then gave a list headed "Lands and Property"--not saying
+"of the Company" for fear of a prosecution for swindling. But the list
+below began with the words "the oil lands _to be conveyed_ to the
+Company are as follows:" "that's exactly it" quoth Rolleum--"no lie
+there, at any rate. They _are_ to 'to be conveyed' to us--if we
+choose--just as soon as we can pay for them." And then the list went on
+from "No. 1" to "No. 43," giving in a row all those memoranda which
+Rolleum had obtained in Venango County and the region round about, of
+the descriptions of the real estate which the landsharks up there would
+be glad to sell for what they asked for it.
+
+The Prospectus said the capital of the company was one million dollars,
+in one hundred thousand shares at ten dollars each. But _in order to
+obtain a_ WORKING CAPITAL, twenty thousand shares are offered for a
+_limited period_ at five dollars each, not subject to further
+assessment.
+
+And it added, though with more phrases, something to the following
+effect: Hurry! Pay quick! Or you will lose your chance! In conclusion
+the whole was wound up with many wise and moral observations about
+legitimate business, interests of stockholders, heavy capitalists,
+economical management, and other such things; and it bestowed some
+rather fat compliments upon the honorable Abraham Bee and the Trustees.
+
+Having concocted this choice morsel of bait, they set it in the great
+stream of newspapers, there to catch fish. In plain terms, with some
+cash and some credit--for their means would not even reach to pay in
+advance the whole of their first advertising bill--they managed to have
+their advertisement published during several weeks in a carefully chosen
+group of about thirty of the principal newspapers of the United States.
+
+The whole web was now woven; and Rolleum and Digwell, like two hungry
+spiders, squatted in their den, every nerve thrilling to feel the first
+buzz of the first fly. It was natural that the scamps should feel a
+good deal excited: it was life or death with them. If a confiding
+public, in answer to their impassioned appeal, should generously remit,
+they were made men for life. If not, instead of being rich and respected
+gentlemen, they were ridiculous, detected swindlers.
+
+Well--they succeeded. So truthful is our Great American Nation--so
+confiding, so sure of the truth of what is said in print, even if only
+in the advertising columns of a newspaper--so certain of the good faith
+of people who have their names printed in large capitals and with a
+handle at one end--that actually these fellows had a hundred thousand
+dollars in bank within ten weeks--before they owned one foot of land, or
+one inch of well, or one drop of oil, except those three pints in the
+vials on the office shelf!
+
+And remember this is no imaginary case. I am giving point by point the
+exact transactions of a real Petroleum Company.
+
+Everything I have told was done, only if possible with a more false and
+baseless impudence than I have described. And scores and scores of other
+Petroleum Companies have been organized in ways exactly as unprincipled.
+Some of them may perhaps have proceeded as real business concerns. Some
+have stopped and disappeared as soon as the managers could get a
+handsome sum of money into their pockets for stock.
+
+What the result will be, in the present case, I don't know. The New York
+and Rangoon Petroleum Company, when I last knew about it, "still lived."
+They had--or said they had--bought some land. I have not heard of their
+receiving any oil raised from their own wells. They have sent off a
+monstrous quantity of circulars, prospectuses and advertisements. They
+caused a portrait and biography of the Honorable A. Bee to be printed in
+a very respectable periodical, and paid five hundred dollars for it.
+They had themselves systematically puffed up to the seventh heaven in a
+long series of articles in another periodical, and paid the owner of it
+$2,000 or so _in stock_. They talk very big about a dividend. But
+although they have received a great deal of money, and paid out a great
+deal, I do not know of their paying their stockholders any yet. If they
+should, it would not prove much. For it is sometimes considered "a good
+dodge" to declare and pay a large dividend before any real profits have
+been earned; as this is calculated to enhance the price of shares, and
+to make them "go off like hot cakes."
+
+I shall not make any "moral" about this story. It teaches its own. It is
+a very mild statement of what was done to establish an actual
+specimen,--and far from being of the worst description--of a great part
+of the Petroleum Company enterprises of the day.
+
+It is whispered that somehow or other the trustees and officers of the
+New York and Rangoon do not own so much stock of their company as they
+did, having managed to have their stock sold to subscribers as if it
+were company stock. If this is so, those gentlemen have made their
+reward sure; and Mr. Peter Rolleum, having the cash in hand for that
+very liberal allotment of stock which he gave himself for his trouble in
+getting up the New York and Rangoon Petroleum Company, is very likely
+half or a quarter as rich as he says.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE TULIPOMANIA.
+
+
+Alboni, the singer, had an exquisitely sweet voice, but was a very big
+fat woman. Somebody accordingly remarked that she was an elephant that
+had swallowed a nightingale. About as incongruous is the idea of a
+nation of damp, foggy, fat, full-figured, broad-sterned, gin-drinking,
+tobacco-smoking Dutchmen in Holland, going crazy over a flower. But they
+did so, for three or four years together. Their craze is known in
+history as the Tulipomania, because it was a mania about tulips.
+
+Just a word about the Dutchmen first.
+
+These stout old fellows were not only hardy navigators, keen
+discoverers, ingenious engineers, laborious workmen, able financiers,
+shrewd and rich merchants, enthusiastic patriots and tremendous
+fighters, but they were eminently distinguished (as they still are to a
+considerable extent) by a love of elegant literature, poetry, painting,
+music and other fine arts, including horticulture. It was a Fleming that
+invented painting in oils. Before him, white of egg was used, or
+gum-water, or some such imperfect material, for spreading the color.
+Erasmus, one of the most learned, ready-minded, acute, graceful and
+witty scholars that ever lived, was a Dutchman. All Holland and
+Flanders, in days when they were richer, and stronger compared with the
+rest of the world than they are now, were full of singing societies and
+musical societies and poetry making societies. The universities of
+Leyden and Utrecht and Louvain are of highly an ancient European fame.
+And as for flowers, and bulbs in particular, Holland is a principal home
+and market of them now, more than two hundred years after the time I am
+going to tell of.
+
+Tulips grow wild in Southern Russia, the Crimea and Asia Minor, as
+potatoes do in Peru. The first tulip in Christian Europe was raised in
+Augsburg, in the garden of a flower-loving lawyer, one Counsellor
+Herwart, in the year 1559, thirteen years after Luther died. This tulip
+bulb was sent to Herwart from Constantinople. For about eighty years
+after this the flower continually increased in repute and became more
+and more known and cultivated, until the fantastic eagerness of the
+demand for fine ones and the great prices that they brought, resulted in
+a real mania like that about the morus multicaulis, or the petroleum
+mania of to-day, but much more intense. It began in the year 1635, and
+went out with an explosion in the year 1837.
+
+This tulip business is, I believe, the only speculative excitement in
+history whose subject-matter did not even claim to have any real value.
+Petroleum is worth some shillings a gallon for actual use for many
+purposes. Stocks always claim to represent some real trade or business.
+The morus multicaulis was to be as permanent a source of wealth as corn,
+and was expected to produce the well known mercantile substance of silk.
+But nobody ever pretended that tulips could be eaten, or manufactured,
+or consumed in any way of practical usefulness. They have not one single
+quality of the kind termed useful. They have nothing desirable except
+the beauty of a peculiarly short-lived blossom. You can do absolutely
+nothing with them except to look at them. A speculation in them is
+exactly as reasonable as one in butterflies would be.
+
+In the course of about one year, 1634-5, the tulip frenzy, after having
+increased for fifteen or twenty years with considerable speed, came to a
+climax, and poisoned the whole Dutch nation. Prices had at the end of
+this short period risen from high to extravagant, and from extravagant
+to insane. High and low, counts, burgomasters, merchants, shop-keepers,
+servants, shoe-blacks, all were buying and selling tulips like mad. In
+order to make the commodity of the day accessible to all, a new weight
+was invented, called a perit, so small that there were about eight
+thousand of them in one pound avoirdupois, and a single tulip root
+weighing from half an ounce to an ounce, would contain from 200 to 400
+of these perits. Thus, anybody unable to buy a whole tulip, could buy a
+perit or two, and have what the lawyers call an "undivided interest" in
+a root. This way of owning shows how utterly unreal was the pretended
+value. For imagine a small owner attempting to take his own perits and
+put them in his pocket. He would make a little hole in the tulip-root,
+would probably kill it, and would certainly obtain a little bit of
+utterly worthless pulp for himself, and no value at all. There was a
+whole code of business regulations made to meet the peculiar needs of
+the tulip business, besides, and in every town were to be found
+"tulip-notaries," to conduct the legal part of the business, take
+acknowledgments of deeds, note protests, &c.
+
+To say that the tulips were worth their weight in gold would be a very
+small story. It would not be a very great exaggeration to say that they
+were worth their size in diamonds. The most valuable species of all was
+named "Semper Augustus," and a bulb of it which weighed 200 perits, or
+less than half an ounce avoirdupois, was thought cheap at 5,500 florins.
+A florin may be called about 40 cents; so that the little brown root was
+worth $2,200, or 220 gold eagles, which would weigh, by a rough
+estimate, eight pounds four ounces, or 132 ounces avoirdupois. Thus this
+half ounce Semper Augustus was worth--I mean he would bring--two hundred
+and sixty-four times his weight in gold!
+
+There were many cases where people invested whole fortunes equal to
+$40,000 or $50,000 in collections of forty or fifty tulip roots. Once
+there happened to be only two Semper Augustuses in all Holland, one in
+Haarlem and one in Amsterdam. The Haarlem one was sold for twelve acres
+of building lots, and the Amsterdam one for a sum equal to $1,840,00,
+together with a new carriage, span of grey horses and double harness,
+complete.
+
+Here is the list of merchandise and estimated prices given for one root
+of the Viceroy tulip. It is interesting as showing what real merchandise
+was worth in those days by a cash standard, aside from its exhibition of
+tremendous speculative bedlamism:
+
+  160 bushels wheat            $179,20
+  320 bushels rye               223,20
+  Four fat oxen                 192,00
+  Eight fat hogs                 96,00
+  Twelve fat sheep               48,00
+  Two hogsheads wine             28,00
+  Four tuns beer                 12,80
+  Two tuns butter                76,80
+  1000 lbs. cheese               48,00
+  A bed all complete             40,00
+  One suit clothes               32,00
+  A silver drinking cup          24,00
+                             ---------
+  Total exactly              $1,000,00
+
+In 1636, regular tulip exchanges were established in the nine Dutch
+towns where the largest tulip business was done, and while the gambling
+was at its intensest, the matter was managed exactly as stock gambling
+is managed in Wall street to-day. You went out into "the street" without
+owning a tulip or a perit of a tulip in the world, and met another
+fellow with just as many tulips as yourself. You talk and "banter" with
+him, and finally (we will suppose) you "sell short" ten Semper
+Augustuses, "seller three," for $2,000 each, in all $20,000. This means
+in ordinary English, that without having any tulips (i. e., short,) you
+promise to deliver the ten roots as above in three days from date. Now
+when the three days are up, if Semper Augustuses are worth in the market
+only $1,500, you could, if this were a real transaction, buy ten of them
+for $15,000, and deliver them to the other gambler for $20,000, thus
+winning from him the difference of $5,000. But if the roots have risen
+and are worth $2,500 each, then if the transactions were real you would
+have to pay $25,000 for the ten roots and could only get $20,000 from
+the other gambler, and he, turning round and selling them at the market
+price, would win from you this difference of $5,000. But in fact the
+transaction was not real, it was a stock gambling one; neither party
+owned tulips or meant to, or expected the other to; and the whole was a
+pure game of chance or skill, to see which should win and which should
+lose that $5,000 at the end of three days. When the time came, the
+affair was settled, still without any tulips, by the loser paying the
+difference to the winner, exactly as one loses what the other wins at a
+game of poker or faro. Of course if you can set afloat a smart lie after
+making your bargain, such as will send prices up or down as your profit
+requires, you make money by it, just as stock gamblers do every day in
+New York, London, Paris, and other Christian commercial cities.
+
+While this monstrous Dutch gambling fury lasted, money was plenty,
+everybody felt rich and Holland was in a whiz of windy delight. After
+about three years of fool's paradise, people began to reflect that the
+shuttlecock could not be knocked about in the air forever, and that when
+it came down somebody would be hurt. So first one and then another began
+quietly to sell out and quit the game, without buying in again. This
+cautious infection quickly spread like a pestilence, as it always does
+in such cases, and became a perfect panic or fright. All at once, as it
+were, rich people all over Holland found themselves with nothing in the
+world except a pocket full or a garden-bed full of flower roots that
+nobody would buy and that were not good to eat, and would not have made
+more than one tureen of soup if they were.
+
+Of course this state of things caused innumerable bankruptcies,
+quarrels, and refusals to complete bargains, everywhere. The government
+and the courts were appealed to, but with Dutch good sense they refused
+to enforce gambling transactions, and though the cure was very severe
+because very sudden, they preferred to let "the bottom drop out" of the
+whole affair at once. So it did. Almost everybody was either ruined or
+impoverished. The very few who had kept any or all of their gains by
+selling out in season, remained so far rich. And the vast actual
+business interests of Holland received a damaging check, from which it
+took many years to recover.
+
+There were some curious incidents in the course of the tulipomania. They
+have been told before, but they are worth telling again, as the poet
+says, "To point the moral or adorn the tale."
+
+A sailor brought to a rich Dutch merchant news of the safe arrival of a
+very valuable cargo from the Levant. The old hunks rewarded the mariner
+for his good tidings with one red herring for breakfast. Now Ben Bolt
+(if that was his name--perhaps as he was a Dutchman it was something
+like Benje Boltje) was very fond of onions, and spying one on the
+counter as he went out of the store, he slipped it into his pocket, and
+strolling back to the wharf, sat down to an odoriferous breakfast of
+onions and herring. He munched away without finding anything unusual in
+the flavor, until just as he was through, down came Mr. Merchant,
+tearing along like a madman at the head of an excited procession of
+clerks, and flying upon the luckless son of Neptune, demanded what he
+had carried off besides his herring?
+
+"An onion that I found on the counter."
+
+"Where is it? Give it back instantly!"
+
+"Just ate it up with my herring, mynheer."
+
+Wretched merchant! In a fury of useless grief he apprised the sailor
+that his sacrilegious back teeth had demolished a Semper Augustus
+valuable enough, explained the unhappy old fellow, to have feasted the
+Prince of Orange and the Stadtholder's whole court. "Thieves!" he cried
+out--"Seize the rascal!" So they did seize him, and he was actually
+tried, condemned and imprisoned for some months, all of which however
+did not bring back the tulip root. It is a question after all in my
+mind, whether that sailor was really as green as he pretended, and
+whether he did not know very well what he was taking. It would have been
+just like a reckless seaman's trick to eat up the old miser's twelve
+hundred dollar root, to teach him not to give such stingy gifts next
+time.
+
+An English traveller, very fond of botany, was one day in the
+conservatory of a rich Dutchman, when he saw a strange bulb lying on a
+shelf. With that extreme coolness and selfishness which too many
+travellers have exercised, what does he do but take out his penknife
+and carefully dissect it, peeling off the outer coats, and quartering
+the innermost part, making all the time a great many wise observations
+on the phenomena of the strange new root. In came the Dutchman all at
+once, and seeing what was going on, he asked the Englishman, with rage
+in his eyes, but with a low bow and that sort of restrained formal
+civility which sometimes covers the most furious anger, if he knew what
+he was about?
+
+"Peeling a very curious onion," answered Mr. Traveller, as calmly as if
+one had a perfect right to destroy other people's property to gratify
+his own curiosity.
+
+"One hundred thousand devils!" burst out the Dutchman, expressing the
+extent of his anger by the number of evil spirits he invoked--"It is an
+Admiral van der Eyck!"
+
+"Indeed?" remarked the scientific traveller, "thank you. Are there a
+good many of these admirals in your country?" and he drew forth his note
+book to write down the little fact.
+
+"Death and the devil!" swore the enraged Dutchman again--"come before
+the Syndic and you shall find out all about it!" So he collared the
+astounded onion-peeler, and despite all he could say, dragged him
+straightway before the magistrate, where his scientific zeal suffered a
+dreadful quencher in the shape of an affidavit that the "onion" was
+worth four thousand florins--about $1600--and in the immediate judgment
+of the Court, which "considered" that the prisoner be forthwith clapt
+into jail until he should give security for the amount. He had to do so
+accordingly, and doubtless all his life retained a distaste for
+Dutchmen and Dutch onions.
+
+These stories about such monstrous valuations of flower roots recall to
+my mind another anecdote which I shall tell, not because it has anything
+to do with tulips, but because it is about a Dutchman, and shows in
+striking contrast an equally low valuation of human life. It is this.
+Once, in time of peace, an English and a Dutch Admiral met at sea, each
+in his flag ship, and for some reason or other exchanged complimentary
+salutes. By accident, one of the Englishman's guns was shotted and
+misdirected, and killed one of the Dutch crew. On hearing the fact the
+Englishman at once manned a boat and went to apologize, to inquire about
+the poor fellow's family and to send them some money, provide for the
+funeral, etc., etc., as a kind hearted man would naturally do. But the
+Dutch commander, on meeting him at the quarter-deck, and learning his
+errand, at once put all his kindly intentions completely one side,
+saying in imperfect English:
+
+"It'sh no matter, it'sh no matter--_dere's blaanty more Tutchmen in
+Holland_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+JOHN BULL'S GREAT MONEY HUMBUG.--THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE IN 1720.
+
+
+The "South Sea Bubble" is one of the most startling lessons which
+history gives us of the ease with which the most monstrous, and absurd,
+and wicked humbugs can be crammed down the throat of poor human nature.
+It ought also to be a useful warning of the folly of mere "speculation,"
+as compared with real "business undertakings." The history of the South
+Sea Bubble has been told, before, but it is too prominent a case to be
+entirely passed over. It occupied a period of about eight months, from
+February 1, 1720, to the end of the following September. It was an
+unreasonable expansion of the value of the stock of the "South Sea
+Company." This Company was formed in 1711; its stock was at first about
+$30,000,000, subscribed by the public and handed over by the corporators
+to Government to meet certain troublesome public debts. In return,
+Government guaranteed the stockholders a dividend of six per cent., and
+gave the Company sundry permanent important duties and a monopoly of all
+trade to the South Pacific, or "South Sea." This matter went on with
+fair success as a money enterprise, until the birth of the "Bubble,"
+which was as follows:--In the end of January, 1720, probably in
+consequence of catching infection from "Law's Mississippi Scheme" in
+France, the South Sea Company and the Bank of England made competing
+propositions to the English Government, to repeat the original South Sea
+Company financiering plan on a larger scale. The proposition of the
+Company, which was accepted by Government, was: to assume as before the
+whole public debt, now amounting to over one hundred and fifty millions
+of dollars; and to be guaranteed at first a five per cent. dividend, and
+afterward a four per cent. one, to the stockholders by Government. For
+this privilege, the Company agreed to pay outright a bonus of more than
+seventeen million dollars. This plan is said to have been originated and
+principally carried through by Sir John Blunt, one of the Company's
+directors. Parliament adopted it after two months' discussion--the
+Bubble having, however, been swelling monstrously all the time.
+
+It must be remembered that the wonderful profits expected from the
+Company were to come from their monopoly of the South Sea trade.
+Tremendous stories were told by Blunt and his friends, who can hardly
+have believed more than one half of their own talk, about a free trade
+with all the Spanish Pacific colonies, the importation of silver and
+gold from Peru and Mexico in return for dry goods, etc., etc.; all which
+fine things were going to produce two or three times the amount of the
+Company's stock every year. When the bill authorizing the arrangement
+passed, South Sea stock had already reached a price of four hundred per
+cent. The bill was stoutly opposed in Parliament by Mr.--afterwards
+Sir--Robert Walpole, and a few others but in vain. Under the operation
+of the beautiful stories of the speculative Blunt and his friends, South
+Sea stock, after a short lull in April, began to rise again, and the
+bubble swelled and swelled to a size so monstrous, and with colors so
+gay, that it filled the whole horizon of poor foolish John
+Bull:--perfectly turned his bull-headed brain, and made him for the time
+absolutely crazy. The directors opened books on April 12th for
+£5,000,000 new stock, charging, however, £300 for each share of £100,
+or three hundred per cent. to begin with. Double the amount was
+subscribed in a few days; that is, John Bull subscribed thirty million
+dollars for ten millions of stock, where only five millions were to be
+had. In a few days more, these subscribers were selling at double what
+they paid. April 21st, a ten per cent. dividend was voted for midsummer.
+In a day or two, another five million subscription was opened at four
+hundred per cent. to begin with. The whole, and half as much more, was
+taken in a few hours. In the end of May, South Sea stock was worth five
+hundred to one. On the 28th, it was five hundred and fifty. In four days
+more, for some reason or other, it jumped up to eight hundred and
+ninety. The speculating Blunt kept all this time blowing and blowing at
+his bubble. All summer, he and his friends blew and blew; and all summer
+the bubble swelled and floated, and shone; and high and low, men and
+women, lords and ladies, clergymen, princesses and duchesses, merchants,
+gamblers, tradesmen, dressmakers, footmen, bought and sold. In the
+beginning of August, South Sea stock stood at one thousand per cent! It
+was really worth about twenty-five per cent. The crowding in Exchange
+Alley, the Wall street of the day, was tremendous. So noisy, and
+unmanageable and excited was this mob of greedy fools, that the very
+same stock was sometimes selling ten per cent. higher at one end of the
+Alley than at the other.
+
+The growth of this monstrous, noxious bubble hatched out a multitude of
+young cockatrices. Not only was the stock of the India Company, the Bank
+of England, and other sound concerns, much increased in price by
+sympathy with this fury of speculation, but a great number of utterly
+ridiculous schemes and barefaced swindles were advertised and
+successfully imposed on the public. Any piece of paper purporting to be
+stock could be sold for money. Not the least thought of investigating
+the solvency of advertisers seems to have occurred to anybody. Nor was
+any rank free from the poison. Almost a hundred projects were before the
+public at once, some of them incredibly brazen humbugs. There were
+schemes for a wheel for perpetual motion--capital, $5,000,000; for
+trading in hair (for wigs), in those days "a big thing;" for furnishing
+funerals to any part of Britain; for "improving the art of making soap;"
+for importing walnut-trees from Virginia--capital, $10,000,000; for
+insuring against losses by servants--capital, $15,000,000; for making
+quicksilver malleable; "Puckle's Machine Company," for discharging
+cannon-balls and bullets, both round and square, and so on. One colossal
+genius in humbugging actually advertised in these words: "A company for
+carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what
+it is." The capital he called for was $2,500,000, in shares of $500
+each; deposit on subscribing, $10 per share. Each subscriber was
+promised $500 per share per annum, and full particulars were to be given
+in a month, when the rest of the subscription was to be paid. This great
+financier, having put forth his prospectus, opened his office in
+Cornhill next morning at nine o'clock. Crowds pressed upon him. At three
+P. M., John Bull had paid this immense humbug $10,000, being deposits
+on a thousand shares subscribed for. That night, the financier--a shrewd
+man!--modestly retired to an unknown place upon the Continent, and was
+never heard of again. Another humbug almost as preposterous, was that of
+the "Globe Permits." These were square pieces of playing-cards with a
+seal on them, having the picture of the Globe Tavern, and with the
+words, "Sailcloth Permits." What they "permitted" was a subscription at
+some future period to a sailcloth-factory, projected by a certain
+capitalist. These "permits" sold at one time for $300 each.
+
+But the more sensible members of Government soon exerted their influence
+against these lesser and more palpable humbugs. Some accounts say that
+the South Sea Company itself grew jealous, for it was reckoned that
+these "side-shows" called for a total amount of $1,500,000,000, and
+itself took legal means against them. At any rate, an "order in council"
+was published, peremptorily dismissing and dissolving them all.
+
+During August, it leaked out that Sir John Blunt and some other
+"insiders" had sold out their South Sea stock. There was also some
+charges of unfairness in managing subscriptions. After so long and so
+intense an excitement, the time for reaction and collapse was come. The
+price of stock began to fall in spite of all that the directors could
+do. September 2, it was down to 700.
+
+A general meeting of the company was held to try to whitewash matters,
+but in vain. The stock fell, fell, fell. The great humbug had received
+its death-blow. Thousands of families saw beggary staring them in the
+face, grasping them with its iron hand. The consternation was
+inexpressible. Out of it a great popular rage began to flame up, just as
+fires often break out among the prostrate houses of a city ruined by an
+earthquake. Efforts were meanwhile vainly made to stay the ruin by help
+from the Bank of England. Bankers and goldsmiths (then often doing a
+banking business) absconded daily. Business corporations failed. Credit
+was almost paralyzed. In the end of September, the stock fell to 175,
+150, 135.
+
+Meanwhile violent riots were feared. South Sea directors could not be
+seen in the streets without being insulted. The King, then in Hanover,
+was imperatively sent for home, and had to come. So extensive was the
+misfortune and the wrath of the people, so numerous the public meetings
+and petitions from all over the kingdom, that Parliament found it
+necessary to grant the public demand, and to initiate a formal inquiry
+into the whole enterprise. This was done; and the foolish, swindled,
+disappointed, angry nation, through this proceeding, vented all the
+wrath it could upon the persons and estates of the managers and officers
+of the South Sea Company. They were forbidden to leave the kingdom,
+their property was sequestrated, they were placed in custody and
+examined. Those of them in Parliament were insulted there to their
+faces, several of them expelled, the most violent charges made against
+them all. A secret investigating committee was set to rip up the whole
+affair. Knight, the treasurer, who possessed all the dangerous secrets
+of the concern, ran away to Calais and the Continent, and so escaped.
+
+The books were found to have been either destroyed, secreted, or
+mutilated and garbled. Stock bribes of $250,000, $150,000, $50,000 had
+been paid to the Earl of Sunderland, the Duchess of Kendal (the King's
+favorite,) Mr. Craggs (one of the Secretaries of State,) and others. Mr.
+Aislabie, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had accumulated $4,250,000
+and more out of the business. Many other noblemen, gentlemen, and
+reputable merchants were disgracefully involved.
+
+The trials that were had resulted in the imprisonment, expulsion or
+degradation of Aislabie, Craggs, Sir George Caswell (a banker and member
+of the House,) and others. Blunt, a Mr. Stanhope, and a number more of
+the chief criminals were stripped of their wealth, amounting to from
+$135,000 to $1,200,000 each, and the proceeds used for the partial
+relief of the ruined, except amounts left to the culprits to begin the
+world anew. Blunt, the chief of all the swindlers, was stripped of about
+$925,000, and allowed only $5,000. By this means and by the use of such
+actual property as the Company did possess, about one-third of the money
+lost by its means was ultimately paid to the losers. It was a long time,
+however, before the tone of public credit was thoroughly restored.
+
+The history of the South Sea bubble should always stand as a beacon to
+warn us that reckless speculation is the bane of commerce, and that the
+only sure method of gaining a fortune, and certainly of enjoying it, is
+to diligently prosecute some legitimate calling, which, like the quality
+of mercy, is "twice blessed." Every man's occupation should be
+beneficial to his fellow-man as well as profitable to himself. All else
+is vanity and folly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+BUSINESS HUMBUGS.--JOHN LAW.--THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME.--JOHNNY CRAPAUD AS
+GREEDY AS JOHNNY BULL.
+
+
+In the "good old times," people were just as eager after money as they
+are now; and a great deal more vulgar, unscrupulous, and foolish in
+their endeavors to get it. During about two hundred years after the
+discovery of America, that continent was a constant source of great and
+little money humbugs. The Spaniards and Portuguese and French and
+English all insisted upon thinking that America was chiefly made of
+gold; perhaps believing, as the man said about Colorado, that the
+hardship of the place was, that you have to dig through three or four
+feet of solid silver before the gold could be reached. This curious
+delusion is shown by the fact that the early charters of lands in
+America so uniformly reserved to the King his proportion of all gold and
+silver that should be found. And if gold were not to be had, these lazy
+Europeans were equally crazy about the rich merchandise which they made
+sure of finding in the vast and solitary American mountains and forests.
+
+In a previous letter, I have shown how one of those delusions, about the
+unbounded wealth to be obtained from the countries on the South Sea,
+caused the English South Sea bubble.
+
+A similar belief, at the same time, in the neighboring country of
+France, formed the airy basis of a similar business humbug, even more
+gigantic, noxious, and destructive. This was John Law's Mississippi
+scheme, of which I shall give an account in this chapter. It was, I
+think, the greatest business humbug of history.
+
+Law was a Scotchman, shrewd and able, a really good financier for those
+days, but vicious, a gambler, unprincipled, and liable to wild schemes.
+He had possessed a good deal of property, had traveled and gambled all
+over Europe, was witty, entertaining, and capital company, and had
+become a favorite with the Duke of Orleans and other French nobles. When
+the Duke became Regent of France at the death of Louis XIV, in 1715,
+that country was horribly in debt, and its people in much misery, owing
+to the costly wars and flaying taxations of the late King. When,
+therefore, Law came to Paris with a promising scheme of finance in his
+hand, the Regent was particularly glad to see him, both as financier and
+as friend.
+
+The Regent quickly fell in with Law's plans; and in the spring of 1716,
+the first step--not, however, so intended at the time--toward the
+Mississippi Scheme was taken. This was, the establishment by royal
+authority of the banking firm of Law & Co., consisting of Law and his
+brother. This bank, by a judicious organization and issue of paper
+money, quickly began to help the distressed finances of the kingdom, and
+to invigorate trade and commerce. This success, which seems to have been
+an entirely sound and legitimate business success, made one sadly
+mistaken but very deep impression upon the ignorant and shallow mind of
+the Regent of France, which was the foundation of all the subsequent
+trouble. The Regent became firmly convinced, that if a certain quantity
+of bank bills could do so much good, a hundred thousand times as many
+bills would surely do a hundred thousand times as much. That is, he
+thought printing and issuing the bills was creating money. He paid no
+regard to the need of providing specie for them on demand, but thought
+he had an unlimited money factory in the city of Paris.
+
+So far, so good. Next, Law planned, and, with the ever ready consent of
+the Regent, effected, an enlargement of the business of his bank, based
+on that delusion I spoke of about America. This enlargement was the
+formation of the Mississippi Company, and this was the contrivance which
+swelled into so tremendous a humbug. The company was closely connected
+with the banks, and received (to begin with) the monopoly of all trade
+to the Mississippi River, and all the country west of it. It was
+expected to obtain vast quantities of gold and silver from that region,
+and thus to make immense dividends on its stock. At home, it was to have
+the sole charge of collecting all the taxes and coining all the money.
+Stock was issued to the amount of one hundred thousand shares, at $200
+(five hundred livres) each. And Law's help to the Government funds was
+continued by permitting this stock to be paid for in those funds, at
+their par value, though worth in market only about a third of it.
+Subscriptions came in rapidly--for the French community was far more
+ignorant about commercial affairs, finances, and the real resources of
+distant regions, than we can easily conceive of now-a-days; and not only
+the Regent, but every man, woman, and child in France, except a very few
+tough and hard-headed old skeptics, believed every word Law said, and
+would have believed him if he had told stories a hundred times as
+incredible.
+
+Well, pretty soon the Regent gave the associates--the bank and the
+company--two other monopolies: that of tobacco, always monstrously
+profitable, and that of refining gold and silver. Pretty soon, again, he
+created the bank a state institution, by the magnificent name of The
+Royal Bank of France. Having done this, the Regent could control the
+bank in spite of Law (or order either); for, in those days, the kings of
+France were almost perfectly despotic, and the Regent was acting king. I
+have mentioned the Regent's terrible delusion about paper-money. No
+sooner had he the bank in his power, than he added to the reasonable and
+useful total of $12,000,000 of notes already out, a monstrous issue of
+$200,000,000 worth in one vast batch, with the firm conviction that he
+was thus adding so much to the par currency of France.
+
+The Parliament of France, a body mostly of lawyers, originating in the
+Middle Ages, a steady, conservative, wise, and brave assembly, was
+always hostile to Law and his schemes. When this great expansion of
+paper-currency began, the Parliament made a resolute fight against it,
+petitioning, ordaining, threatening to hang Law, and frightening him
+well, too; for the thorough enmity of an assembly of old lawyers may
+well frighten anybody. At last, the Regent, by the use of the despotic
+power of which the Kings of France had so much, reduced these old
+fellows to silence by sticking a few of them in jail.
+
+The cross-grained Parliament thus disposed of, everything was quickly
+made to "look lovely." In the beginning of 1719, more grants were made
+to Law's associated concerns. The Mississippi Company was granted the
+monopoly of all trade to the East Indies, China, the South Seas, and all
+the territories of the French India Company, and of the Senegal Company.
+It took a new and imposing name: "The Company of the Indies." They had
+already, by the way, also obtained the monopoly of the Canada
+beaver-trade. Of this colossal corporation, monopolizing the whole
+foreign commerce of France with two-thirds or more of the world, its
+whole home finances, and other important interests besides, fifty
+thousand new shares were issued, as before, at $100 each. These might be
+bought as before, with Government securities at par. Law was so bold as
+to promise annual dividends of $20 per share, which, as the Government
+funds stood, was one hundred and twenty per cent. per annum.! Everybody
+believed him. More than three hundred thousand applications were made
+for the new shares. Law was besieged in his house by more than twice as
+many people as General Grant had to help him take Richmond. The Great
+Humbug was at last in full buzz. The street where the wonderful
+Scotchman lived was busy, filled, crowded, jammed, choked. Dangerous
+accidents happened in it every day, from the excessive pressure. From
+the princes of the blood down to cobblers and lackeys, all men and all
+women crowded and crowded to subscribe their money, and to pay their
+money, and to know how many shares they had gotten. Law moved to a
+roomier street, and the crazy mob crowded harder than ever; so that the
+Chancellor, who held his court of law hard by, could not hear his
+lawyers.
+
+A tremendous uproar surely, that could drown the voices of those
+gentlemen! And so he moved again, to the great Hotel de Soissons, a vast
+palace, with a garden of some acres. Fantastic circumstances variegated
+the wild rush of speculation. The haughtiest of the nobility rented mean
+rooms near Law's abode, to be able to get at him. Rents in his
+neighborhood rose to twelve and sixteen times their usual amount. A
+cobbler, whose lines had fallen in those pleasant places, made $40 a day
+by letting his stall and furnishing writing materials to speculators.
+Thieves and disreputable characters of all sorts flocked to this
+concourse. There were riots and quarrels all the time. They often had to
+send a troop of cavalry to clear the street at night. Gamblers posted
+themselves with their implements among the speculators, who gambled
+harder than the gamblers, and took an occasional turn at roulette by way
+of slackening the excitement; as people go to sleep, or go into the
+country. A hunchback fellow made a good deal of money by letting people
+write on his back. When Law had moved into the Hotel de Soissons, the
+former owner, the Prince de Carignan, reserved the gardens, procured an
+edict confining all stock-dealings to that place; put up five hundred
+tents there, leased them at five hundred livres a month each, and thus
+made money at the rate of $50,000 a month. There were just two of the
+aristocracy who were sensible and resolute enough not to speculate in
+the stock--the Duke de St. Simon and the old Marshal Villars.
+
+Law became infinitely the most important person in the kingdom. Great
+and small, male and female, high and low, haunted his offices and
+ante-chambers, hunted him down, plagued his very life out, to get a
+moment's speech with him, and get him to enter their names as buyers of
+stock. The highest nobles would wait half a day for the chance. His
+servants received great sums to announce some visitor's name. Ladies of
+the highest rank gave him anything he would ask of them for leave to buy
+stock. One of them made her coachmen upset her out of her carriage as
+Law came by, to get a word with him. He helped her up; she got the word,
+and bought some stock. Another lady ran into the house where he was at
+dinner, and raised a cry of fire. The rest ran out, but she ran further
+in to reach Law, who saw what she was at, and like a pecuniary Joseph,
+ran away as fast as he could.
+
+As the frenzy rose toward its height, and the Regent took advantage of
+it to issue stock enough to pay the whole national debt, namely, three
+hundred thousand new shares, at $1,000 each, or a thousand per cent. in
+the par value. They were instantly taken. Three times as many would have
+been instantly taken. So violent were the changes of the market, that
+shares rose or fell twenty per cent. within a few hours. A servant was
+sent to sell two hundred and fifty shares of stock; found on reaching
+the gardens of the Hotel de Soissons, that since he left his master's
+house the price had risen from $1,600 (par value $100 remember) to
+$2,000. The servant sold, gave his master the proceeds at $1,600 a
+share, put the remaining $100,000 in his own pocket, and left France
+that evening. Law's coachman became so rich that he left service, and
+set up his own coach; and when his master asked him to find a successor,
+he brought two candidates, and told Law to choose, and he would take the
+other himself. There were many absurd cases of vulgarians made rich.
+There were also many robberies and murders. That committed by the Count
+de Horn, one of the higher nobility and two accomplices, is a famous
+case. The Count, a dissipated rascal, poniarded a broker in a tavern for
+the money the broker carried with him. But he was taken, and, in spite
+of the utmost and most determined exertions of the nobility, the Regent
+had him broken on the wheel in public, like any other murderer.
+
+The stock of the Company of the Indies, though it dashed up and down ten
+and twenty per cent. from day to day, was from the first immensely
+inflated. In August 1719, it sold at 610 per cent.; in a few weeks more
+it arose to 1,200 per cent. All winter it still went up until, in April
+1720, it stood at 2,050 per cent. That is, one one-hundred dollar share
+would sell for two thousand and fifty dollars.
+
+At this extreme point of inflation, the bubble stood a little, shining
+splendidly as bubbles do when they are nearest bursting, and then it
+received two or three quiet pricks. The Prince de Conti, enraged because
+Law would not send him some shares on his own terms, sent three
+wagon-loads of bills to Law's bank, demanding specie. Law paid it, and
+complained to the Regent, who made him put two-thirds of it back again.
+A shrewd stock-gambler drew specie by small sums until he had about
+$200,000 in coin, and lest he should be forced to return it, he packed
+it in a cart, covered it with manure, put on a peasant's disguise, and
+carted his fortune over the frontiers into Belgium. Some others quietly
+realized their means in like manner by driblets and funded them abroad.
+
+By such means coin gradually grew very scarce, and signs of a panic
+appeared. The Regent tried to adjust matters by a decree that coin
+should be five per cent. less than paper; as much as to say, It is
+hereby enacted that there is a great deal more coin than there is!
+This did not serve, and the Regent decreed again, that coin should be
+worth ten per cent. less than paper. Then he decreed that the bank must
+not pay more than $22 at once in specie; and, finally, by a bold stretch
+of his authority, he issued an edict that no person should have over
+$100 in coin, on pain of fine and confiscation. These odious laws made a
+great deal of trouble, spying, and distress, and rapidly aggravated the
+difficulty they were meant to cure. The price of shares in the great
+company began to fall steadily and rapidly. Law and the Regent began to
+be universally hated, cursed, and threatened. Various foolish and vain
+attempts were made to stay the coming ruin, by renewing the stories
+about Louisiana sending out a lot of conscripted laborers, ordering that
+all payments must be made in paper, and printing a new batch of notes,
+to the amount of another $300,000,000. Law's two corporations were also
+doctored in several ways. The distress and fright grew worse. An edict
+was issued that Law's notes and shares should depreciate gradually by
+law for a year, and then be worth but half their face. This made such a
+tumult and outcry that the Regent had to retract it in seven days. On
+this seventh day, Law's bank stopped paying specie. Law was turned out
+of his public employments, but still well treated by the Regent in
+private. He was, however, mobbed and stoned in his coach in the street,
+had to have a company of Swiss Guards in his house, and at last had to
+flee to the Regent's own palace.
+
+I have not space to describe in detail the ruin, misery, tumults, loss
+and confusion which attended the speedy descent of Law's paper and
+shares to entire worthlessness. Thousands of families were made paupers,
+and trade and commerce destroyed by the painful process. Law himself
+escaped out of France poor; and, after another obscure and disreputable
+career of gambling, died in poverty at Venice, in 1729.
+
+Thus this enormous business-humbug first raised a whole nation into a
+fool's paradise of imaginary wealth, and then exploded, leaving its
+projector and many thousands of victims ruined, the country disturbed
+and distressed, long-enduring consequences, in vicious and lawless and
+unsteady habits, contracted while the delusion lasted, and no single
+benefit except one more most dearly-bought lesson of the wicked folly of
+mere speculation without a real business basis and a real business
+method. Let not this lesson be lost on the rampant and half-crazed
+speculators of the present day. Those who buy gold or flour, leather,
+butter, dry goods, groceries, hardware, or anything else on speculation,
+when prices are inflated far beyond the ordinary standard, are taking
+upon themselves great risks, for the bubble must eventually be pricked;
+and whoever is the "holder" when that time comes, must necessarily be
+the loser.
+
+
+
+
+V. MEDICINE AND QUACKS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+DOCTORS AND IMAGINATION.--FIRING A JOKE OUT OF A CANNON.--THE PARIS EYE
+WATER.--MAJENDIE ON MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE.--OLD SANDS OF LIFE.
+
+
+Medical humbugs constitute a very critical subject indeed, because I
+shall be almost certain to offend some of three parties concerned,
+namely; physicians, quacks, and patients. But it will never do to
+neglect so important a division of my whole theme as this.
+
+To begin with, it is necessary to suggest, in the most delicate manner
+in the world, that there is a small infusion of humbug among the very
+best of the regular practitioners. These gentlemen, for whose learning,
+kind-heartedness, self-devotion, and skill I entertain a profound
+respect, make use of what I may call the gaseous element of their
+practice, not for the lucre of gain, but in order to enlist the
+imaginations of their patients in aid of nature and great remedies.
+
+The stories are infinite in number, which illustrate the force of
+imagination, ranging through all the grades of mental action, from the
+lofty visions of good men who dream of seeing heaven opened to them, and
+all its ineffable glories and delights, down to the low comedy conceit
+of the fellow who put a smoked herring into the tail of his coat and
+imagined himself a mermaid.
+
+Probably, however, imagination displays its real power more wonderfully
+in the operations of the mind on the body that holds it, than anywhere
+else. It is true that there are some people even so utterly without
+imagination that they cannot take a joke; such as that grave man of
+Scotland who was at last plainly told by a funny friend quite out of
+patience, "Why, you wouldn't take a joke if it were fired at you out of
+a cannon!"
+
+"Sir," replied the Scot, with sound reasoning and grave thought, "Sir,
+you are absurd. You cannot fire a joke out of a cannon!"
+
+But to return: It is certainly the case that frequently "the doctor"
+takes great care not to let the patient know what is the matter, and
+even not to let him know what he is swallowing. This is because a good
+many people, if at a critical point of disease, may be made to turn
+toward health if made to believe that they are doing so, but would be
+frightened, in the literal sense of the words, to death, if told what a
+dangerous state they are in.
+
+One sort of regular practice humbug is rendered necessary by the demands
+of the patients. This is giving good big doses of something with a
+horrid smell and taste. There are plenty of people who don't believe the
+doctor does anything to earn his money, if he does not pour down some
+dirty brown or black stuff very nasty in flavor. Some, still more
+exacting, wish for that sort of testimony which depends on internal
+convulsions, and will not be satisfied unless they suffer torments and
+expel stuff enough to quiet the inside of Mount Vesuvius or
+Popocatepetl.
+
+"He's a good doctor," was the verdict of one of this class of
+leather-boweled fellows--"he'll work your innards for you!"
+
+It is a milder form of this same method to give what the learned faculty
+term a placebo. This is a thing in the outward form of medicine, but
+quite harmless in itself. Such is a bread-pill, for instance; or a
+draught of colored water, with a little disagreeable taste in it. These
+will often keep the patient's imagination headed in the right direction,
+while good old Dame Nature is quietly mending up the damages in "the
+soul's dark cottage."
+
+One might almost fancy that, in proportion as the physician is more
+skillful, by so much he gives less medicine, and relies more on
+imagination, nature, and, above all, regimen and nursing. Here is a
+story in point. There was an old gentleman in Paris, who sold a famous
+eye-water, and made much gain thereby. He died, however, one fine day,
+and unfortunately forgot to leave the recipe on record. "His
+disconsolate widow continued the business at the old stand," however--to
+quote another characteristic French anecdote--and being a woman of ready
+and decisive mind, she very quietly filled the vials with water from the
+river Seine, and lived respectably on the proceeds, finding, to her
+great relief, that the eye-water was just as good as ever. At last
+however, she found herself about to die, and under the stings of an
+accusing conscience she confessed her trick to her physician, an eminent
+member of the profession. "Be entirely easy, Madam," said the wise man;
+"don't be troubled at all. You are the most innocent physician in the
+world; you have done nobody any harm."
+
+It is an old and illiberal joke to compare medicine to war, on the
+ground that the votaries of both seek to destroy life. It is, however,
+not far from the truth to say that they are alike in this; that they are
+both preëminently liable to mistakes, and that in both he is most
+successful who makes the fewest.
+
+How can it be otherwise, until we know more than we do at present, of
+the great mysteries of life and death? It seems risky enough to permit
+the wisest and most experienced physician to touch those springs of life
+which God only understands. And it is enough to make the most stupid
+stare, to see how people will let the most disgusting quack jangle their
+very heartstrings with his poisonous messes, about as soon as if he were
+the best doctor in the world. A true physician, indeed, does not hasten
+to drug. The great French surgeon, Majendie, is even said to have
+commenced his official course of lectures on one occasion by coolly
+saying to his students: "Gentlemen, the curing of disease is a subject
+that physicians know nothing about." This was doubtless an extreme way
+of putting the case. Yet it was in a certain sense exactly true. There
+is one of the geysers in Iceland, into which visitors throw pebbles or
+turfs, with the invariable result of causing the disgusted geyser in a
+few minutes to vomit the dose out again, along with a great quantity of
+hot water, steam, and stuff. Now the doctor does know that some of his
+doses are pretty sure to work, as the traveler knows that his dose will
+work on the geyser. It is only the exact how and why that is not
+understood.
+
+But however mysterious is nature, however ignorant the doctor, however
+imperfect the present state of physical science, the patronage and the
+success of quacks and quackeries are infinitely more wonderful than
+those of honest and laborious men of science and their careful
+experiments.
+
+I have come about to the end of my tether for this time; and quackery is
+something too monstrous in dimensions as well as character to be dealt
+with in a paragraph. But I may with propriety put one quack at the tail
+of this letter; it is but just that he should let decent people go
+before him. I mean "Old Sands of Life." Everybody has seen his
+advertisement, beginning "A retired Physician whose sands of life have
+nearly run out," etc. And everybody--almost--knows how kind the fellow
+is in sending gratis his recipe. All that is necessary is (as you find
+out when you get the recipe) to buy at a high price from him one
+ingredient which (he says) you can get nowhere else. This swindling
+scamp is in fact a smart brisk fellow of about thirty-five years of age,
+notwithstanding the length of time during which--to use a funny phrase
+which somebody got up for him--he has been "afflicted with a loose
+tail-board to his mortal sand-cart." Some benevolent friend was so much
+distressed about the feebleness of "Old Sands of Life" as to send him
+one day a large parcel by express, marked "C. O. D.," and costing quite
+a figure. "Old Sands" paid, and opening the parcel, found half a bushel
+of excellent sand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE CONSUMPTIVE REMEDY.--E. ANDREWS, M. D.--BORN WITHOUT
+BIRTHRIGHTS.--HASHEESH CANDY.--ROBACK THE GREAT.--A CONJURER OPPOSED TO
+LYING.
+
+
+There is a fellow in Williamsburg who calls himself a clergyman, and
+sells a "consumptive remedy," by which I suppose he means a remedy for
+consumption. It is a mere slop corked in a vial; but there are a good
+many people who are silly enough to buy it of him. A certain gentleman,
+during last November, earnestly sought an interview with this reverend
+brother in the interests of humanity, but he was as inaccessible as a
+chipmunk in a stone fence. The gentleman wrote a polite note to the
+knave asking about prices, and received a printed circular in return,
+stating in an affecting manner the good man's grief at having to raise
+his price in consequence of the cost of gold "with which I am obliged to
+buy my medicines" saith he, "in Paris." This was both sad and
+unsatisfactory; and the gentleman went over to Williamsburg to seek an
+interview and find out all about the prices. He reached the abode of the
+man of piety, but, strange to relate, he wasn't at home.
+
+Gentleman waited.
+
+Reverend brother kept on not being at home. When gentleman had waited to
+his entire satisfaction he came back.
+
+It is understood it is practically out of the question to see the
+reverend brother. Perhaps he is so modest and shy that he will not
+encounter the clamorous gratitude which would obstruct his progress
+through the streets, from the millions saved by his consumptive remedy.
+It is a pity that the reverend man cannot enjoy the still more complete
+seclusion by which the state of New York testifies its appreciation of
+unobtrusive and retiring virtues like his, in the salubrious and quiet
+town of Sing Sing.
+
+A quack in an inland city, who calls himself E. Andrews, M. D., prints a
+"semi-occasional" document in the form of a periodical, of which a copy
+is lying before me. It is an awful hodgepodge of perfect nonsense and
+vulgar rascality. He calls it "The Good Samaritan and Domestic
+Physician," and this number is called "volume twenty." Only think what a
+great man we have among us--unless the Doctor himself is mistaken. He
+says: "I will here state that I have been favored by nature and
+Providence in gaining access to stores of information that has _fell_ to
+the lot of but very few persons heretofore, during the past history of
+mankind." Evidently these "stores" were so vast that the great doctor's
+brain was stuffed too full to have room left for English Grammar.
+Shortly, the Doctor thus bursts forth again with some views having their
+own merits, but not such as concern the healing art very directly: "The
+automaton powers of machinery"--there's a new style of machinery, you
+observe--"must be made to WORK FOR, _instead_ of _as now_, against
+mankind; the Land of _all nations_ must be made FREE to Actual Settlers
+in LIMITED quantities. No one must be born without _his birthright_
+being born with him." The italics, etc., are the Doctor's. What an awful
+thought is this of being born without any birthright, or, as the Doctor
+leaves us to suppose possible, having one's birthright born first, and
+dodging about the world like a stray canary-bird, while the unhappy and
+belated owner tries in vain to put salt on its tail and catch it!
+
+Well, this wiseacre, after his portentous introduction, fills the rest
+of his sixteen loosely printed double-columned octavo pages with a
+farrago of the most indescribable character, made up of brags, lies,
+promises, forged recommendations and letters, boasts of systematic
+charity, funny scraps of stuff in the form of little disquisitions,
+advertisements of remedies, hair-oils, cosmetics, liquors, groceries,
+thistle-killers, anti-bug mixtures, recipes for soap, ink, honey, and
+the Old Harry only knows what. The fellow gives a list of seventy-one
+specific diseases for which his Hasheesh Candy is a sure cure, and he
+adds that it is also a sure cure for all diseases of the liver, brain,
+throat, stomach, ear, and other internal disorders; also for "all long
+standing diseases"--whatever that means!--and for insanity! In this
+monstrous list are jumbled together the most incongruous troubles.
+"Bleeding at the nose, and abortions;" "worms, fits, poisons and
+cramps." And the impudent liar quotes General Grant, General Mitchell,
+the Rebel General Lee, General McClellan, and Doctor Mott of this city,
+all shouting in chorus the praises of the Hasheesh Candy! Next comes the
+"Secret of Beauty," a "preparation of Turkish Roses;" then a lot of
+forged references, and an assertion that the Doctor gives to the poor
+five thousand pounds of bread every winter; then some fearful
+denunciations of the regular doctors.
+
+But--as the auctioneers say--"I can't dwell." I will only add that the
+real villainy of this fellow only appears here and there, where he
+advertises the means of ruining innocence, or of indulging with impunity
+in the foulest vices. He will sell for $3.30, the "Mystic Weird Ring."
+In a chapter of infamous blatherumskite about this ring he says: "The
+wearer can drive from, or draw to him, any one, and for any purpose
+whatever." I need not explain what this scoundrel means. He also will
+sell the professed means of robbery and swindling; saying that he is
+prepared to show how to remove papers, wills, titles, notes, etc., from
+one place to another "by invisible means." It is a wonder that the Bank
+of Commerce can keep any securities in its vaults--of course!
+
+But enough of this degraded panderer to crime and folly. He is beneath
+notice, so far as he himself concerned; I devote the space to him,
+because it is well worth while to understand how base an imposture can
+draw a steady revenue from a nation boasting so much culture and
+intelligence as ours. It is also worth considering whether the
+authorities must not be remiss, who permit such odious deceptions to be
+constantly perpetrated upon the public.
+
+I ought here to give a paragraph to the great C. W. Roback, one of whose
+Astrological Almanacs is before me. This erudite production is
+embellished in front with a picture of the doctor and his six
+brothers--for he is the seventh son of a seventh son. The six elder
+brethren--nice enough boys--stand submissively around their gigantic and
+bearded junior, reaching only to his waist, and gazing up at him with
+reverence, as the sheaves of Joseph's brethren worshipped his sheaf in
+his dream. At the end is a picture of Magnus Roback, the grandfather of
+C. W., a bull-headed, ugly old Dutchman, with a globe and compasses.
+This picture, by the way, is in fact a cheap likeness of the old
+discoverers or geographers. Within the book we find Gustavus Roback, the
+father of C. W., for whom is used a cut of Jupiter--or some other
+heathen god--half-naked, a-straddle of an eagle, with a hook in one hand
+and a quadrant in the other; which is very much like the picture by one
+of the "Old Masters" of Abraham about to offer up Isaac, and taking a
+long aim at the poor boy with a flint-lock horse-pistol. Doctor Roback
+is good enough to tell us where his brothers are: "One, a high officer
+in the Empire of China, another a Catholic Bishop in the city of Rome,"
+and so on. There is also a cut of his sister, whom he cured of
+consumption. She is represented "talking to her bird, after the fashion
+of her country, when a maiden is unexpectedly rescued from the jaws of
+death!"
+
+Roback cures all sorts of diseases, discovers stolen property, insures
+children a marriage, and so on, all by means of "conjurations." He also
+casts nativities and foretells future events; and he shows in full how
+Bernadotte, Louis Philippe, and Napoleon Bonaparte either did well or
+would have done well by following his advice. The chief peculiarity of
+this impostor is, that he really avoids direct pandering to vice and
+crime, and even makes it a specialty to cure drunkenness and--of all
+things in the world--lying! On this point Roback gives in full the
+certificate of Mrs. Abigail Morgan, whose daughter Amanda "was sorely
+given to fibbing, in so much that she would rather lie than speak the
+truth." And the delighted mother certifies that our friend and wizard
+"so changed the nature of the girl that, to the best of our knowledge
+and belief, she has never spoken anything but the truth since."
+
+There is a conjurer "as is a conjurer."
+
+What an uproar the incantation of the great Roback would make, if set
+fairly to work among the politicians, for instance! But after all, on
+second thoughts, what a horrible mass of abominations would they lay
+bare in telling the truth about each other all round! No, no--it won't
+do to have the truth coming out, in politics at any rate! Away with
+Roback! I will not give him another word--not a single chance--not even
+to explain his great power over what he calls "Fits! Fits! Fits! Fits!
+Fits!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+MONSIGNORE CRISTOFORO RISCHIO; OR, IL CRESO, THE NOSTRUM-VENDER OF
+FLORENCE.--A MODEL FOR OUR QUACK DOCTORS.
+
+
+Every visitor to Florence during the last twenty years must have noticed
+on the grand piazza before the Ducal Palace, the strange genius known
+as Monsignore Créso, or, in plain English, Mr. Croesus. He is so called
+because of his reputed great wealth; but his real name is Christoforo
+Rischio, which I may again translate, as Christopher Risk. Mrs. Browning
+refers to him in one of her poems--the "Casa Guidi Windows," I
+think--and he has also been the staple of a tale by one of the Trollope
+brothers.
+
+Twice every week, he comes into the city in a strange vehicle, drawn by
+two fine Lombardy ponies, and unharnesses them in the very centre of the
+square. His assistant, a capital vocalist, begins to sing immediately,
+and a crowd soon collects around the wagon. Then Monsignore takes from
+the box beneath his seat a splendidly jointed human skeleton, which he
+suspends from a tall rod and hook, and also a number of human skulls.
+The latter are carefully arranged on an adjustable shelf, and Créso
+takes his place behind them, while in his rear a perfect chemist's shop
+of flasks, bottles, and pillboxes is disclosed. Very soon his singer
+ceases, and in the purest Tuscan dialect--the very utterance of which is
+music--the Florentine quack-doctor proceeds to address the assemblage.
+Not being conversant with the Italian, I am only able to give the
+substance of his harangue, and pronounce indifferently upon the merit of
+his elocution. I am assured, however, that not only the common people,
+who are his chief patrons, but numbers of the most intelligent citizens,
+are always entertained by what he has to say; and certainly his gestures
+and style of expressions seem to betray great excellence of oratory.
+Having turned the skeleton round and round on its pivot, and minutely
+explained the various anatomical parts, in order to show his proficiency
+in the basis of medical science, he next lifts the skulls, one by one,
+and descants upon their relative perfection, throwing in a shrewd
+anecdote now and then, as to the life of the original owner of each
+cranium.
+
+One skull, for example, he asserts to have belonged to a lunatic, who
+wandered for half a lifetime in the Val d'Ema, subsisting precariously
+upon entirely vegetable food--roots, herbs, and the like; another is the
+superior part of a convict, hung in Arezzo for numerous offences; a
+third is that of a very old man who lived a celibate from his youth up,
+and by his abstinence and goodness exercised an almost priestly
+influence upon the borghesa. When, by this miscellaneous lecture, he has
+both amused and edified his hearers, he ingeniously turns the discourse
+upon his own life, and finally introduces the subject of the marvellous
+cures he has effected. The story of his medical preparations alone,
+their components and method of distillation, is a fine piece of
+popularized art, and he gives a practical exemplification of his skill
+and their virtues by calling from the crowd successively, a number of
+invalid people, whom he examines and prescribes for on the spot. Whether
+these subjects are provided by himself or not, I am unable to decide;
+but it is very possible that by long experience, Christoforo--who has no
+regular diploma--has mastered the simpler elements of Materia Medica,
+and does in reality effect cures. I class him among what are popularly
+known as humbugs, however, for he is a pretender to more wisdom than he
+possesses. It was to me a strange and suggestive scene--the bald,
+beak-nosed, coal-eyed charlatan, standing in the market-place, so
+celebrated in history, peering through his gold spectacles at the
+upturned faces below him, while the bony skeleton at his side swayed in
+the wind, and the grinning skulls below, made grotesque faces, as if
+laughing at the gullibility of the people. Behind him loomed up the
+massive Palazzo Vecchio, with its high tower, sharply cut, and set with
+deep machicolations; to the left, the splendid Loggia of Orgagna, filled
+with rare marbles, and the long picture-gallery of the Uffizi, heaped
+with the rarest art-treasures of the world; to his right, the Giant
+Fountain of Ammanato, throwing jets of pure water--one drop of which
+outvalues all the nostrums in the world; and in front, the Post Office,
+built centuries before, by Pisan captives. If any of these things moved
+the imperturbable Créso, he showed no feeling of the sort; but for three
+long hours, two days in the week, held his hideous clinic in the open
+daylight.
+
+Seeing the man so often, and interested always in his manner--as much
+so, indeed, as the peasants or contadini, who bought his vials and
+pillboxes without stint--I became interested to know the main features
+of his life; and, by the aid of a friend, got some clues which I think
+reliable enough to publish. I do so the more willingly, because his
+career is illustrative, after an odd fashion, of contemporary Italian
+life.
+
+He was the son of a small farmer, not far from Sienna, and grew up in
+daily contact with vine-dressers and olive-gatherers, living upon the
+hard Tuscan fare of macaroni and maroon-nuts, with a cutlet of lean
+mutton once a day, and a pint of sour Tuscan wine. Being tolerably well
+educated for a peasant-boy, he imbibed a desire for the profession of an
+actor, and studied Alfieri closely.
+
+Some little notoriety that he gained by recitations led him, in an evil
+hour, to venture an appearance _en grand role_, in Florence, at a
+third-rate theatre. His father had meanwhile deceased and left him the
+property; but to make the début referred to, he sold almost his entire
+inheritance. As may be supposed, his failure was signal. However easy he
+had found it to amuse the rough, untutored peasantry of his
+neighborhood, the test of a large and polished city was beyond his
+merit.
+
+So, poor and abashed, he sank to the lower walks of dramatic art,
+singing in choruses at the opera, playing minor parts in show-pieces,
+and all the while feeling the sting of disappointed ambition and
+half-deserved penury.
+
+One day found him, at the beginning of winter, without work, and without
+a soldo in his pocket. Passing a druggist's shop, he saw a placard
+asking for men to sell a certain new preparation. The druggist advanced
+him a small sum for travelling expenses, and he took to peripatetic
+lectures at once, going into the country and haranguing at all the
+villages.
+
+Here he found his dramatic education available. Though not good enough
+for an actor, he was sufficiently clever for a nomadic eulogizer of a
+patent-medicine. His vocal abilities were also of service to him in
+gathering the people together. The great secret of success in anything
+is to get a hearing. Half the object is gained when the audience is
+assembled.
+
+Well! poor, vagabond, peddling Christopher Risk, selling so much for
+another party, conceived the idea of becoming his own capitalist. He
+resolved to prepare a medicine of his own; and, profiting by the
+assistance of a young medical student, obtained bona fide prescriptions
+for the commonest maladies. These he had made up in gross, originated
+labels for them, and concealing the real essences thereof by certain
+harmless adulterations, began to advertise himself as the discoverer of
+a panacea.
+
+To gain no ill-will among the priests, whose influence is paramount with
+the peasantry, he dexterously threw in a reverent word for them in his
+nomadic harangues, and now and then made a sounding present to the
+Church.
+
+He profited also by the superstitions abroad, and to the skill of
+Hippocrates added the roguery of Simon Magus. By report, he was both a
+magician and physician, and a knack that he had of slight-of-hand was
+not the least influential of his virtues.
+
+His bodily prowess was as great as his suppleness. One day, at Fiesole,
+a foreign doctor presumed to challenge Monsignore to a debate, and the
+offer was accepted. While the two stood together in Cristoforo's wagon,
+and the intruder was haranguing the people, the quack, without a
+movement of his face or a twitch of his body, jerked his foot against
+his rival's leg and threw him to the ground. He had the effrontery to
+proclaim the feat as magnetic entirely, accomplished without bodily
+means, and by virtue of his black-art acquirements.
+
+An awe fell upon the listeners, and they refused to hear the checkmated
+disputant further.
+
+As soon as Cristoforo began to thrive, he indulged his dramatic taste by
+purchasing a superb wagon, team, and equipments, and hired a servant.
+Such a turnout had never been seen in Tuscany since the Medician days.
+It gained for him the name of Créso straightway, and, enabling him to
+travel more rapidly, enlarged his business sphere, and so vastly
+increased his profits.
+
+He arranged regular days and hours for each place in Tuscany, and soon
+became as widely known as the Grand Duke himself. When it was known that
+he had bought an old castle at Pontassieve on the banks of the Arno, his
+reputation still further increased. He was now so prosperous that he set
+the faculty at defiance. He proclaimed that they were jealous of his
+profounder learning, and threatened to expose the banefulness of their
+systems.
+
+At the same time, his talk to the common people began to savor of
+patronage, and this also enhanced his reputation. It is much better, as
+a rule, to call attention up to you rather than charity down to you. The
+shrewd impostor became also more absolute now. It was known that the
+Grand Duke had once asked him to dine, and that Monsignore had the
+hardihood to refuse. Indeed, he sympathized too greatly with the aroused
+Italian spirit of unity and progress to compromise himself with the
+house of Austria. When at last the revolution came, Cristoforo was one
+of its best champions in Tuscany. His cantante sang only the march of
+Garibaldi and the victories of Savoy. His own speeches teemed with the
+gospel of Italy regenerated; and for a whole month he wasted no time in
+the sale of his bottighias and pillolas, but threw all his vehement,
+persuasive, and dramatic eloquence into the popular cause.
+
+The end we know. Tuscany is a dukedom no longer, but a component part of
+a great peninsular kingdom with "Florence the Beautiful" for its
+capital.
+
+And still before the ducal palace, where the deputies of Italy are to
+assemble, poor, vain Cristoforo Rischio makes his harangue every Tuesday
+and Saturday. He is now--or was four years ago--upward of sixty years of
+age, but spirited and athletic as ever, and so rich that it would be
+superfluous for him to continue his peripatetic career.
+
+His life is to me noteworthy, as showing what may be gained by
+concentrating even humble energies upon a paltry thing. Had Créso
+persevered as well upon the stage, I do not doubt that he would have
+made a splendid actor. If he did so well with a mere nostrum, why should
+he not have gained riches and a less grotesque fame by the sale of a
+better article? He understood human nature, its credulities and
+incredulities, its superstitions, tastes, changefulness, and love of
+display and excitement. He has done no harm, and given as much amusement
+as he has been paid for. Indeed, I consider him more an ornamental and
+useful character than otherwise. He has brightened many a traveler's
+recollections, relieved the tedium of many a weary hour in a foreign
+city, and, with all his deception, has never severed himself from the
+popular faith, nor sold out the popular cause. I dare say his death,
+when it occurs, will cause more sensation and evoke more tears, than
+that of any better physician in Tuscany.
+
+
+
+
+VI. HOAXES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE TWENTY-SEVENTH STREET GHOST.--SPIRITS ON THE RAMPAGE.
+
+
+In classing the ghost excitement that agitated our good people to such
+an extent some two years ago among the "humbugs" of the age, I must, at
+the outset, remind my readers that there was no little accumulation of
+what is termed "respectable" testimony, as to the reality of his
+ghostship in Twenty-seventh street.
+
+One fine Sunday morning, in the early part of 1863, my friends of the
+"Sunday Mercury" astonished their many thousands of patrons with an
+account that had been brought to them of a fearful spectre that had made
+its appearance in one of the best houses in Twenty-seventh Street. The
+narrative was detailed with circumstantial accuracy, and yet with an
+apparent discreet reserve, that gave the finishing touch of delightful
+mystery to the story.
+
+The circumstances, as set forth in the opening letter (for many others
+followed) were briefly these:--A highly respectable family residing on
+Twenty-seventh Street, one of our handsome up-town thoroughfares, became
+aware, toward the close of the year 1862, that something extraordinary
+was taking place in their house, then one of the best in the
+neighborhood. Sundry mutterings and whisperings began to be heard among
+the servants employed about the domicile, and, after a little while it
+became almost impossible to induce them to remain there for love or
+money. The visitors of the family soon began to notice that their calls,
+which formerly were so welcome, particularly among the young people of
+the establishment, seemed to give embarrassment, and that the smiles
+that greeted them, as early as seven in the evening gradually gave place
+to uneasy gestures, and, finally to positive hints at the lateness of
+the hour, or the fatigue of their host by nine o'clock.
+
+The head of the family was a plain, matter-of-fact old gentleman, by no
+means likely to give way to any superstitious terrors--one of your
+hard-headed business men who pooh-poohed demons, hobgoblins, and all
+other kinds of spirits, except the purest Santa Cruz and genuine old
+Otard; and he fell into a great rage, when upon his repeated gruff
+demands for an explanation, he was delicately informed that his parlor
+was "haunted." He vowed that somebody wanted to drive him from the
+house; that there was a conspiracy afoot among the women to get him
+still higher up town, and into a bigger brown-stone front, and refused
+to believe one word of the ghost-story. At length, one day, while
+sitting in his "growlery," as the ladies called it, in the lower story,
+his attention was aroused by a clatter on the stairs, and looking out
+into the entry he saw a party of carpenters and painters who had been
+employed upon the parlor-floor, beating a precipitate retreat toward the
+front door.
+
+"Stop!--stop! you infernal fools! What's all this hullabaloo about?"
+shouted the old gentleman.
+
+No reply--no halt upon the part of the mechanics, but away they went
+down the steps and along the street, as though Satan himself, or Moseby
+the guerrilla, was at their heels. They were pursued and ordered back,
+but absolutely refused to come, swearing that they had seen the Evil
+One, in _propria persona_; and threats, persuasions, and bribes alike
+proved vain to induce them to return. This made the matter look serious,
+and a family-council was held forthwith. It wouldn't do to let matters
+go on in this way, and something must be thought of as a remedy. It was
+in this half-solemn and half-tragic conclave that the pater-familias was
+at last put in possession of the mysterious occurrences that had been
+disturbing the peace of his domestic hearth.
+
+A ghost had been repeatedly seen in his best drawing-room!--a genuine,
+undeniable, unmitigated ghost!
+
+The spectre was described by the female members of the family as making
+his appearance at all hours, chiefly, however in the evening, of course.
+Now the good old orthodox idea of a ghost is, of a very long,
+cadaverous, ghastly personage, of either sex, appearing in white
+draperies, with uplifted finger, and attended or preceded by sepulchral
+sounds--whist! hush! and sometimes the rattling of casements and the
+jingling of chains. A bluish glare and a strong smell of brimstone
+seldom failed to enhance the horror of the scene. This ghost, however,
+came it seems, in more ordinary guise, but none the less terrible for
+his natural style of approach and costume. He was usually seen in the
+front parlor, which was on the second story and faced the street. There
+he would be found seated in a chair near the fire place, his attire the
+garb of a carman or "carter" and hence the name "Carter's Ghost"
+afterward frequently applied to him. There he would sit entirely unmoved
+by the approach of living denizens of the house, who, at first, would
+suppose that he was some drunken or insane intruder, and only discover
+their mistake as they drew near, and saw the fire-light shining through
+him, and notice the glare of his frightful eyes, which threatened all
+comers in a most unearthly way. Such was the purport of the first sketch
+that appeared in the "Sunday Mercury," stated so distinctly and
+impressively that the effect could not fail to be tremendous among our
+sensational public. To help the matter, another brief notice, to the
+same effect, appeared in the Sunday issue of a leading journal on the
+same morning. The news dealers and street-carriers caught up the novelty
+instanter, and before noon not a copy of the "Sunday Mercury" could be
+bought in any direction. The country issue of the "Sunday Mercury" had
+still a larger sale.
+
+On Sunday morning, every sheet in town made some allusion to the Ghost,
+and many even went so far as to give the very (supposed) number of the
+house favored with his visitations. The result of this enterprising
+guess was ludicrous enough, bordering a little, too, upon the serious.
+Indignant house-holders rushed down to the "Sunday Mercury" office with
+the most amusing wrath, threatening and denouncing the astonished
+publishers with all sorts of legal action for their presumed trespass,
+when in reality, their paper had designated no place or person at all.
+But the grandest demonstration of popular excitement was revealed in
+Twenty-seventh street itself. Before noon a considerable portion of the
+thoroughfare below Sixth Avenue was blocked up with a dense mass of
+people of all ages, sizes, sexes, and nationalities, who had come "to
+see the Ghost." A liquor store or two, near by, drove a splendid
+"spiritual" business; and by evening "the fun" grew so "fast and
+furious" that a whole squad of police had to be employed to keep the
+side-walks and even the carriage-way clear. The "Ghost" was shouted for
+to make a speech, like any other new celebrity, and old ladies and
+gentlemen peering out of upper-story windows were saluted with playful
+tokens of regard, such as turnips, eggs of ancient date, and other
+things too numerous to mention, from the crowd. Nor was the throng
+composed entirely of Gothamites. The surrounding country sent in its
+contingent. They came on foot, on horseback, in wagons, and arrayed in
+all the costumes known about these parts, since the days of Rip Van
+Winkle. Cruikshanks would have made a fortune from his easy sketches of
+only a few figures in the scene. And thus the concourse continued for
+days together, arriving at early morn and staying there in the street
+until "dewy eve."
+
+As a matter of course, there were various explanations of the story
+propounded by various people--all wondrously wise in their own conceit.
+Some would have it that "the Ghost" was got up by some of the neighbors,
+who wished, in this manner, to drive away disreputable occupants; others
+insisted that it was the revenge of an ousted tenant, etc., etc.
+Everybody offered his own theory, and, as is usual, in such cases,
+nobody was exactly right.
+
+Meanwhile, the "Sunday Mercury" continued its publications of the
+further progress of the "mystery," from week to week, for a space of
+nearly two months, until the whole country seemed to have gone
+ghost-mad. Apparitions and goblins dire were seen in Washington,
+Rochester, Albany, Montreal, and other cities.
+
+The spiritualists took it up and began to discuss "the Carter Ghost"
+with the utmost zeal. One startling individual--a physician and a
+philosopher--emerged from his professional shell into full-fledged
+glory, as the greatest canard of all, and published revelations of his
+own intermediate intercourse with the terrific "Carter." In every nook
+and corner of the land, tremendous posters, in white and yellow, broke
+out upon the walls and windows of news-depots, with capitals a foot
+long, and exclamation-points like drumsticks, announcing fresh
+installments of the "Ghost" story, and it was a regular fight between
+go-ahead vendors who should get the next batch of horrors in advance of
+his rivals.
+
+Nor was the effect abroad the least feature of this stupendous "sell."
+The English, French, and German press translated some of the articles in
+epitome, and wrote grave commentaries thereon. The stage soon caught the
+blaze; and Professor Pepper, at the Royal Polytechnic Institute, in
+London, invented a most ingenious device for producing ghosts which
+should walk about upon the stage in such a perfectly-astounding manner
+as to throw poor Hamlet's father and the evil genius of Brutus quite
+into the "shade." "Pepper's Ghost" soon crossed the Atlantic, and all
+our theatres were speedily alive with nocturnal apparitions. The only
+real ghosts, however--four in number--came out at the Museum, in an
+appropriate drama, which had an immense run--"all for twenty-five
+cents," or only six and a quarter cents per ghost!
+
+But I must not forget to say that, really, the details given in the
+"Sunday Mercury" were well calculated to lead captive a large class of
+minds prone to luxuriate in the marvelous when well mixed with plausible
+reasoning. The most circumstantial accounts were given of sundry "gifted
+young ladies," "grave and learned professors," "reliable
+gentlemen"--where are those not found?--"lonely watchers," and others,
+who had sought interviews with the "ghost," to their own great
+enlightenment, indeed, but, likewise, complete discomfiture. Pistols
+were fired at him, pianos played and songs sung for him, and, finally,
+his daguerreotype taken on prepared metallic plates set upright in the
+haunted room. One shrewd artist brought out an "exact photographic
+likeness" of the distinguished stranger on cartes de visite, and made
+immense sales. The apparitions, too, multiplied. An old man, a woman,
+and a child made their appearance in the house of wonders, and, at last,
+a gory head with distended eyeballs, swimming in a sea of blood, upon a
+platter--like that of Holofernes--capped the climax.
+
+Certain wiseacres here began to see political allusions in the Ghost,
+and many actually took the whole affair to be a cunningly devised
+political satire upon this or that party, according as their sympathies
+swayed them.
+
+It would have been a remarkable portion of "this strange, eventful
+history," of course, if "Barnum" could have escaped the accusation of
+being its progenitor.
+
+I was continually beset, and frequently, when more than usually busy,
+thoroughly annoyed by the innuendoes of my visitors, that I was the
+father of "the Ghost."
+
+"Come, now, Mr. Barnum--this is going a little too far!" some good old
+dame or grandfather would say to me. "You oughtn't to scare people in
+this way. These ghosts are ugly customers!"
+
+"My dear Sir," or "Madam," I would say, as the case might be, "I do
+assure you I know nothing whatever about the Ghost"--and as for
+"spirits," you know I never touch them, and have been preaching against
+them nearly all my life."
+
+"Well! well! you will have the last turn," they'd retort, as they edged
+away; "but you needn't tell us. We guess we've found the ghost."
+
+Now, all I can add about this strange hallucination is, that those who
+came to me to see the original "Carter," really saw the "Elephant."
+
+The wonderful apparition disappeared, at length, as suddenly as he had
+come. The "Bull's-Eye Brigade," as the squad of police put on duty to
+watch the neighborhood, for various reasons, was termed, hung to their
+work, and flashed the light of their lanterns into the faces of lonely
+couples, for some time afterward; but quiet, at length, settled down
+over all: and it has been it seems, reserved for my pen to record
+briefly the history of "The Twenty-seventh street Ghost."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE MOON-HOAX.
+
+
+The most stupendous scientific imposition upon the public that the
+generation with which we are numbered has known, was the so-called
+"Moon-Hoax," published in the columns of the "New York Sun," in the
+months of August and September, 1835. The sensation created by this
+immense imposture, not only throughout the United States, but in every
+part of the civilized world, and the consummate ability with which it
+was written, will render it interesting so long as our language shall
+endure; and, indeed, astronomical science has actually been indebted to
+it for many most valuable hints--a circumstance that gives the
+production a still higher claim to immortality.
+
+At the period when the wonderful "yarn" to which I allude first
+appeared, the science of astronomy was engaging particular attention,
+and all works on the subject were eagerly bought up and studied by
+immense masses of people. The real discoveries of the younger Herschel,
+whose fame seemed destined to eclipse that of the elder sage of the same
+name, and the eloquent startling works of Dr. Dick, which the Harpers
+were republishing, in popular form, from the English edition, did much
+to increase and keep up this peculiar mania of the time, until the whole
+community at last were literally occupied with but little else than
+"star-gazing." Dick's works on "The Sidereal Heavens," "Celestial
+Scenery," "The improvement of Society," etc., were read with the utmost
+avidity by rich and poor, old and young, in season and out of season.
+They were quoted in the parlor, at the table, on the promenade, at
+church, and even in the bedroom, until it absolutely seemed as though
+the whole community had "Dick" upon the brain. To the highly educated
+and imaginative portion of our good Gothamite population, the Doctor's
+glowing periods, full of the grandest speculations as to the starry
+worlds around us, their wondrous magnificence and ever-varying aspects
+of beauty and happiness were inexpressibly fascinating. The author's
+well-reasoned conjectures as to the majesty and beauty of their
+landscapes, the fertility and diversity of their soil, and the exalted
+intelligence and comeliness of their inhabitants, found hosts of
+believers; and nothing else formed the staple of conversation, until the
+beaux and belles, and dealers in small talk generally, began to grumble,
+and openly express their wishes that the Dickens had Doctor Dick and all
+his works.
+
+It was at the very height of the furor above mentioned, that one morning
+the readers of the "Sun"--at that time only twenty-five hundred in
+number--were thrilled with the announcement in its columns of certain
+"Great Astronomical Discoveries Lately Made by Sir John Herschel, LL.D.,
+F.R.S. etc., at the Cape of Good Hope," purporting to be a republication
+from a Supplement to the Edinburgh Journal of Science. The heading of
+the article was striking enough, yet was far from conveying any adequate
+idea of its contents. When the latter became known, the excitement went
+beyond all bounds, and grew until the "Sun" office was positively
+besieged with crowds of people of the very first class, vehemently
+applying for copies of the issue containing the wonderful details.
+
+As the pamphlet form in which the narrative was subsequently published
+is now out of print, and a copy can hardly be had in the country, I will
+recall a few passages from a rare edition, for the gratification of my
+friends who have never seen the original. Indeed, the whole story is
+altogether too good to be lost; and it is a great pity that we can not
+have a handsome reprint of it given to the world from time to time. It
+is constantly in demand; and, during the year 1859, a single copy of
+sixty pages, sold at the auction of Mr. Haswell's library, brought the
+sum of $3,75. In that same year, a correspondent, in Wisconsin, writing
+to the "Sunday Times" of this city, inquired where the book could be
+procured, and was answered that he could find it at the old bookstore,
+No. 85 Centre Street, if anywhere. Thus, after a search of many weeks,
+the Western bibliopole succeeded in obtaining a well-thumbed specimen of
+the precious work. Acting upon this chance suggestion, Mr. William
+Gowans, of this city, during the same year, brought out a very neat
+edition, in paper covers, illustrated with a view of the moon, as seen
+through Lord Rosse's grand telescope, in 1856. But this, too, has all
+been sold; and the most indefatigable book-collector might find it
+difficult to purchase a single copy at the present time. I, therefore,
+render the inquiring reader no slight service in culling for him some
+of the flowers from this curious astronomical garden.
+
+The opening of the narrative was in the highest Review style; and the
+majestic, yet subdued, dignity of its periods, at once claimed
+respectful attention; while its perfect candor, and its wealth of
+accurate scientific detail exacted the homage of belief from all but
+cross-grained and inexorable skeptics.
+
+It commences thus:
+
+     "In this unusual addition to our Journal, we have the happiness to
+     make known to the British public, and thence to the whole civilized
+     world, recent discoveries in Astronomy, which will build an
+     imperishable monument to the age in which we live, and confer upon
+     the present generation of the human race a proud distinction
+     through all future time. It has been poetically said, that the
+     stars of heaven are the hereditary regalia of man, as the
+     intellectual sovereign of the animal creation. He may now fold the
+     Zodiac around him with a loftier consciousness of his mental
+     superiority," etc., etc.
+
+The writer then eloquently descanted upon the sublime achievement by
+which man pierced the bounds that hemmed him in, and with sensations of
+awe approached the revelations of his own genius in the far-off heavens,
+and with intense dramatic effect described the younger Herschel
+surpassing all that his father had ever attained; and by some stupendous
+apparatus about to unvail the remotest mysteries of the sidereal space,
+pausing for many hours ere the excess of his emotions would allow him to
+lift the vail from his own overwhelming success.
+
+I must quote a line or two of this passage, for it capped the climax of
+public curiosity:
+
+     "Well might he pause! He was about to become the sole depository of
+     wondrous secrets which had been hid from the eyes of all men that
+     had lived since the birth of time. He was about to crown himself
+     with a diadem of knowledge which would give him a conscious
+     preëminence above every individual of his species who then lived or
+     who had lived in the generations that are passed away. He paused
+     ere he broke the seal of the casket that contained it."
+
+Was not this introduction enough to stimulate the wonder bump of all the
+star-gazers, until
+
+  "Each particular hair did stand on end,
+  Like quills upon the fretful porcupine?"
+
+At all events, such was the effect, and it was impossible at first to
+supply the frantic demand, even of the city, not to mention the country
+readers.
+
+I may very briefly sum up the outline of the discoveries alleged to have
+been made, in a few paragraphs, so as not to protract the suspense of my
+readers too long.
+
+It was claimed that the "Edinburgh Journal" was indebted for its
+information to Doctor Andrew Grant--a savant of celebrity, who had, for
+very many years, been the scientific companion, first of the elder and
+subsequently of the younger Herschel, and had gone with the latter in
+September, 1834, to the Cape of Good Hope, whither he had been sent by
+the British Government, acting in conjunction with the Governments of
+France and Austria, to observe the transit of Mercury over the disc of
+the sun--an astronomical point of great importance to the lunar
+observations of longitude, and consequently to the navigation of the
+world. This transit was not calculated to occur before the 7th of
+November, 1835 (the year in which the hoax was printed;) but Sir John
+Herschel set out nearly a year in advance, for the purpose of thoroughly
+testing a new and stupendous telescope devised by himself under this
+peculiar inspiration, and infinitely surpassing anything of the kind
+ever before attempted by mortal man. It has been discovered by previous
+astronomers and among others, by Herschel's illustrious father, that the
+sidereal object becomes dim in proportion as it is magnified, and that,
+beyond a certain limit, the magnifying power is consequently rendered
+almost useless. Thus, an impassable barrier seemed to lie in the way of
+future close observation, unless some means could be devised to
+illuminate the object to the eye. By intense research and the
+application of all recent improvements in optics, Sir John had succeeded
+in securing a beautiful and perfectly lighted image of the moon with a
+magnifying power that increased its apparent size in the heavens six
+thousand times. Dividing the distance of the moon from the earth, viz.:
+240,000 miles, by six thousand, we we have forty miles as the distance
+at which she would then seem to be seen; and as the elder Herschel, with
+a magnifying power, only one thousand, had calculated that he could
+distinguish an object on the moon's surface not more than 122 yards in
+diameter, it was clear that his son, with six times the power, could see
+an object there only twenty-two yards in diameter. But, for any further
+advance in power and light, the way seemed insuperably closed until a
+profound conversation with the great savant and optician, Sir David
+Brewster, led Herschel to suggest to the latter the idea of the
+readoption of the old fashioned telescopes, without tubes, which threw
+their images upon reflectors in a dark apartment, and then the
+illumination of these images by the intense hydro-oxygen light used in
+the ordinary illuminated microscope. At this suggestion, Brewster is
+represented by the veracious chronicler as leaping with enthusiasm from
+his chair, exclaiming in rapture to Herschel:
+
+"Thou art the man!"
+
+The suggestion, thus happily approved, was immediately acted upon, and a
+subscription, headed by that liberal patron of science, the Duke of
+Sussex, with £10,000, was backed by the reigning King of England with
+his royal word for any sum that might be needed to make up £70,000, the
+amount required. No time was lost; and, after one or two failures, in
+January 1833, the house of Hartley & Grant, at Dumbarton, succeeded in
+casting the huge object-glass of the new apparatus, measuring
+twenty-four feet (or six times that of the elder Herschel's glass) in
+diameter; weighing 14,826 pounds, or nearly seven tons, after being
+polished, and possessing a magnifying power of 42,000 times!--a
+perfectly pure, spotless, achromatic lens, without a material bubble or
+flaw!
+
+Of course, after so elaborate a description of so astounding a result as
+this, the "Edinburg Scientific Journal" (_i. e._, the writer in the "New
+York Sun") could not avoid being equally precise in reference to
+subsequent details, and he proceeded to explain that Sir John Herschel
+and his amazing apparatus having been selected by the Board of Longitude
+to observe the transit of Mercury, the Cape of Good Hope was chosen
+because, upon the former expedition to Peru, acting in conjunction with
+one to Lapland, which was sent out for the same purpose in the
+eighteenth century, it had been noticed that the attraction of the
+mountainous regions deflected the plumb-line of the large instruments
+seven or eight seconds from the perpendicular, and, consequently,
+greatly impaired the enterprise. At the Cape, on the contrary, there was
+a magnificent table-land of vast expanse, where this difficulty could
+not occur. Accordingly, on the 4th of September, 1834, with a design to
+become perfectly familiar with the working of his new gigantic
+apparatus, and with the Southern Constellations, before the period of
+his observations of Mercury, Sir John Herschel sailed from London,
+accompanied by Doctor Grant (the supposed informant,) Lieutenant
+Drummond, of the Royal Engineers, F.R.A.S., and a large party of the
+best English workmen. On their arrival at the Cape, the apparatus was
+conveyed, in four days' time, to the great elevated plain, thirty-five
+miles to the N.E. of Cape Town, on trains drawn by two relief-teams of
+oxen, eighteen to a team, the ascent aided by gangs of Dutch boors. For
+the details of the huge fabric in which the lens and its reflectors were
+set up, I must refer the curious reader to the pamphlet itself--not that
+the presence of the "Dutch boors" alarms me at all, since we have plenty
+of boors at home, and one gets used to them in the course of time, but
+because the elaborate scientific description of the structure would
+make most readers see "stars" in broad daylight before they get through.
+
+I shall only go on to say that, by the 10th of January, everything was
+complete, even to the two pillars "one hundred and fifty feet high!"
+that sustained the lens. Operations then commenced forthwith, and so,
+too, did the "special wonder" of the readers. It is a matter of
+congratulation to mankind that the writer of the hoax, with an apology
+(Heaven save the mark!) spared us Herschel's notes of "the Moon's
+tropical, sidereal, and synodic revolutions," and the "phenomena of the
+syzygies," and proceeded at once to the pith of the subject. Here came
+in his grand stroke, informing the world of complete success in
+obtaining a distinct view of objects in the moon "fully equal to that
+which the unaided eye commands of terrestrial objects at the distance of
+a hundred yards, affirmatively settling the question whether the
+satellite be inhabited, and by what order of beings," "firmly
+establishing a new theory of cometary phenomena," etc., etc. This
+announcement alone was enough to take one's breath away, but when the
+green marble shores of the Mare Nubium; the mountains shaped like
+pyramids, and of the purest and most dazzling crystalized, wine-colored
+amethyst, dotting green valleys skirted by "round-breasted hills;"
+summits of the purest vermilion fringed with arching cascades and
+buttresses of white marble glistening in the sun--when these began to be
+revealed, the delight of our Luna-tics knew no bounds--and the whole
+town went moon-mad! But even these immense pictures were surpassed by
+the "lunatic" animals discovered. First came the "herds of brown
+quadrupeds" very like a--no! not a whale, but a bison, and "with a tail
+resembling that of the bos grunniens"--the reader probably understands
+what kind of a "bos" that is, if he's apprenticed to a theatre in
+midsummer with musicians on a strike; then a creature, which the
+hoax-man naïvely declared "would be classed on earth as a monster"--I
+rather think it would!--"of a bluish lead color, about the size of a
+goat, with a head and a beard like him, and a single horn, slightly
+inclined forward from, the perpendicular"--it is clear that if this goat
+was cut down to a single horn, other people were not! I could not but
+fully appreciate the exquisite distinction accorded by the writer to the
+female of this lunar animal--for she, while deprived of horn and beard,
+he explicitly tells us, "had a much larger tail!" When the astronomers
+put their fingers on the beard of this "beautiful" little creature (on
+the reflector, mind you!) it would skip away in high dudgeon, which,
+considering that 240,000 miles intervened, was something to show its
+delicacy of feeling.
+
+Next in the procession of discovery, among other animals of less note,
+was presented "a quadruped with an amazingly long neck, head like a
+sheep, bearing two long spiral horns, white as polished ivory, and
+standing in perpendiculars parallel to each other. Its body was like
+that of a deer, but its forelegs were most disproportionately long, and
+its tail, which was very bushy and of a snowy whiteness, curled high
+over its rump and hung two or three feet by its side. Its colors were
+bright bay and white, brindled in patches, but of no regular form."
+This is probably the animal known to us on earth, and particularly along
+the Mississippi River, as the "guyascutus," to which I may particularly
+refer in a future article.
+
+But all these beings faded into insignificance compared with the first
+sight of the genuine Lunatics, or men in the moon, "four feet high,
+covered, except in the face, with short, glossy, copper-colored hair,"
+and "with wings composed of a thin membrane, without hair, lying snugly
+upon their backs from the top of their shoulders to the calves of their
+legs," "with faces of a yellowish flesh-color--a slight improvement on
+the large ourang-outang." Complimentary for the Lunatics! But, says the
+chronicler, Lieutenant Drummond declared that "but for their long wings,
+they would look as well on a parade-ground as some of the cockney
+militia!" A little rough, my friend the reader will exclaim, for the
+aforesaid militia.
+
+Of course, it is impossible, in a sketch like the present, to do more
+than give a glimpse of this rare combination of astronomical realities
+and the vagaries of mere fancy, and I must omit the Golden-fringed
+Mountains, the Vale of the Triads, with their splendid triangular
+temples, etc., but I positively cannot pass by the glowing mention of
+the inhabitants of this wonderful valley--a superior race of Lunatics,
+as beautiful and as happy as angels, "spread like eagles" on the grass,
+eating yellow gourds and red cucumbers, and played with by snow-white
+stags, with jet-black horns! The description here is positively
+delightful, and I even now remember my poignant sigh of regret when, at
+the conclusion, I read that these innocent and happy beings, although
+evidently "creatures of order and subordination," and "very polite,"
+were seen indulging in amusements which would not be deemed "within the
+bounds of strict propriety" on this degenerate ball. The story wound up
+rather abruptly by referring the reader to an extended work on the
+subject by Herschel, which has not yet appeared.
+
+One can laugh very heartily, now, at all this; but nearly everybody, the
+gravest and the wisest, too, was completely taken in at the time: and
+the "Sun," then established at the corner of Spruce street, where the
+"Tribune" office now stands, reaped an increase of more than fifty
+thousand to its circulation--in fact, there gained the foundation of its
+subsequent prolonged success. Its proprietors sold no less than $25,000
+worth of the "Moon Hoax" over the counter, even exhausting an edition of
+sixty thousand in pamphlet form. And who was the author? A literary
+gentleman, who has devoted very many years of his life to mathematical
+and astronomical studies, and was at the time connected as an editor
+with the "Sun"--one whose name has since been widely known in literature
+and politics--Richard Adams Locke, Esq., then in his youth, and now in
+the decline of years. Mr. Locke, who still survives, is a native of the
+British Isles, and, at the time of his first connection with the New
+York press, was the only short-hand reporter in this city, where he laid
+the basis of a competency he now enjoys. Mr. Locke declares that his
+original object in writing the Moon story was to satirize some of the
+extravagances of Doctor Dick, and to make some astronomical suggestions
+which he felt diffident about offering seriously.
+
+Whatever may have been his object, his hit was unrivaled; and for months
+the press of Christendom, but far more in Europe than here, teemed with
+it, until Sir John Herschel was actually compelled to come out with a
+denial over his own signature. In the meantime, it was printed and
+published in many languages, with superb illustrations. Mr. Endicott,
+the celebrated lithographer, some years ago had in his possession a
+splendid series of engravings, of extra folio size, got up in Italy, in
+the highest style of art, and illustrating the "Moon Hoax."
+
+Here, in New York, the public were, for a long time, divided on the
+subject, the vast majority believing, and a few grumpy customers
+rejecting the story. One day, Mr. Locke was introduced by a mutual
+friend at the door of the "Sun" office to a very grave old orthodox
+Quaker, who, in the calmest manner, went on to tell him all about the
+embarkation of Herschel's apparatus at London, where he had seen it with
+his own eyes. Of course, Locke's optics expanded somewhat while he
+listened to this remarkable statement, but he wisely kept his own
+counsel.
+
+The discussions of the press were very rich; the "Sun," of course,
+defending the affair as genuine, and others doubting it. The "Mercantile
+Advertiser," the "Albany Daily Advertiser," the "New York Commercial
+Advertiser," the "New York Times," the "New Yorker," the "New York
+Spirit of '76," the "Sunday News," the "United States Gazette," the
+"Philadelphia Inquirer," and hosts of other papers came out with the
+most solemn acceptance and admiration of these "wonderful discoveries,"
+and were eclipsed in their approval only by the scientific journals
+abroad. The "Evening Post," however, was decidedly skeptical, and took
+up the matter in this irreverent way:
+
+     "It is quite proper that the "Sun" should be the means of shedding
+     so much light on the Moon. That there should be winged people in
+     the moon does not strike us as more wonderful than the existence of
+     such a race of beings on the earth; and that there does still exist
+     such a race, rests on the evidence of that most veracious of
+     voyagers and circumstantial of chroniclers, Peter Wilkins, whose
+     celebrated work not only gives an account of the general appearance
+     and habits of a most interesting tribe of flying Indians; but,
+     also, of all those more delicate and engaging traits which the
+     author was enabled to discover by reason of the conjugal relations
+     he entered into with one of the females of the winged tribe."
+
+The moon-hoax had its day, and some of its glory still survives. Mr.
+Locke, its author, is now quietly residing in the beautiful little home
+of a friend on the Clove Road, Staten Island, and no doubt, as he gazes
+up at the evening luminary, often fancies that he sees a broad grin on
+the countenance of its only well-authenticated tenant, "the hoary
+solitary whom the criminal code of the nursery has banished thither for
+collecting fuel on the Sabbath-day."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE MISCEGENATION HOAX.--A GREAT LITERARY SELL.--POLITICAL
+HUMBUGGING.--TRICKS OF THE WIRE-PULLERS.--MACHINERY EMPLOYED TO RENDER
+THE PAMPHLET NOTORIOUS.--WHO WERE SOLD AND HOW IT WAS DONE.
+
+
+Some persons say that "all is fair in politics." Without agreeing with
+this doctrine, I nevertheless feel that the history of Ancient and
+Modern Humbugs would not be complete without a record of the last and
+one of the most successful of known literary hoaxes. This is the
+pamphlet entitled "Miscegenation," which advocates the blending of the
+white and black races upon this continent, as a result not only
+inevitable from the freeing of the negro, but desirable as a means of
+creating a more perfect race of men than any now existing. This pamphlet
+is a clever political quiz; and was written by three young gentlemen of
+the "World" newspaper, namely. D. G. Croly, George Wakeman, and E. C.
+Howell.
+
+The design of "Miscegenation" was exceedingly ambitious, and the
+machinery employed was probably among the most ingenious and audacious
+ever put into operation to procure the indorsement of absurd theories,
+and give the subject the widest notoriety. The object was to so make use
+of the prevailing ideas of the extremists of the Anti-Slavery party, as
+to induce them to accept doctrines which would be obnoxious to the
+great mass of the community, and which would, of course, be used in the
+political canvass which was to ensue. It was equally important that the
+"Democrats" should be made to believe that the pamphlet in question
+emanated from a "Republican" source. The idea was suggested by a
+discourse delivered by Mr. Theodore Tilton, at the Cooper Institute,
+before the American Anti-Slavery Society, in May 1863, on the negro, in
+which that distinguished orator argued, that in some future time the
+blood of the negro would form one of the mingled bloods of the great
+regenerated American nation. The scheme once conceived, it began
+immediately to be put into execution. The first stumbling-block was the
+name "amalgamation," by which this fraternizing of the races had been
+always known. It was evident that a book advocating amalgamation would
+fall still-born, and hence some new and novel word had to be discovered,
+with the same meaning, but not so objectionable. Such a word was coined
+by the combination of the Latin _miscere_, to mix, and _genus_, race:
+from these, miscegenation--a mingling of the races. The word is as
+euphonious as "amalgamation," and much more correct in meaning. It has
+passed into the language, and no future dictionary will be complete
+without it. Next, it was necessary to give the book an erudite
+appearance, and arguments from ethnology must form no unimportant part
+of this matter. Neither of the authors being versed in this science,
+they were compelled to depend entirely on encyclopedias and books of
+reference. This obstacle to a New York editor or reporter was not so
+great as it might seem. The public are often favored in our journals
+with dissertations upon various abstruse matters by men who are entirely
+ignorant of what they are writing about. It was said of Cuvier that he
+could restore the skeleton of an extinct animal if he were only given
+one of its teeth, and so a competent editor or reporter of a city
+journal can get up an article of any length on any given subject, if he
+is only furnished one word or name to start with. There was but one
+writer on ethnology distinctly known to the authors, which was Prichard;
+but that being secured, all the rest came easily enough. The authors
+went to the Astor Library and secured a volume of Prichard's works, the
+perusal of which of course gave them the names of many other
+authorities, which were also consulted; and thus a very respectable
+array of scientific arguments in favor of Miscegenation were soon
+compiled. The sentimental and argumentative portions were quickly
+suggested from the knowledge of the authors of current politics, of the
+vagaries of some of the more visionary reformers, and from their own
+native wit.
+
+The book was at first written in a most cursory manner the chapters got
+up without any order or reference to each other, and afterward arranged.
+As the impression sought to be conveyed was a serious one, it would
+clearly not do to commence with the extravagant and absurd theories to
+which it was intended that the reader should gradually be led. The
+scientific portion of the work was therefore given first, and was made
+as grave and terse and unobjectionable as possible; and merely urged,
+by arguments drawn from science and history, that the blending of the
+different races of men resulted in a better progeny. As the work
+progressed, they continued to "pile on the agony," until, at the close,
+the very fact that the statue of the Goddess of Liberty on the Capitol,
+is of a bronze tint, is looked upon as an omen of the color of the
+future American!
+
+     "When the traveler approaches the City of Magnificent Distances,"
+     it says, "the seat of what is destined to be the greatest and most
+     beneficent power on earth, the first object that will strike his
+     eye will be the figure of Liberty surmounting the Capitol; not
+     white, symbolizing but one race, nor black, typifying another, but
+     a statue representing the composite race, whose sway will extend
+     from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, from the Equator to the
+     North Pole--the Miscegens of the Future."
+
+The Book once written, plans were laid to obtain the indorsement of the
+people who were to be humbugged. It was not only necessary to humbug the
+members of the Reform and Progressive party, but to present--as I have
+before said--such serious arguments that Democrats should be led to
+believe it as a _bona fide_ revelation of the "infernal" designs of
+their antagonists. In both respects there was complete success.
+Although, of course, the mass of the Republican leaders entirely ignored
+the book, yet a considerable number of Anti-Slavery men, with more
+transcendental ideas, were decidedly "sold." The machinery employed was
+exceedingly ingenious. Before the book was published, proof-copies were
+furnished to every prominent abolitionist in the country, and also to
+prominent spiritual mediums, to ladies known to wear Bloomers, and to
+all that portion of our population who are supposed to be a little
+"soft" on the subject of reform. A circular was also enclosed,
+requesting them, before the publication of the book, to give the author
+the benefit of their opinions as to the value of the arguments
+presented, and the desirability of the immediate publication of the
+work; to be inclosed to the American News Company, 121 Nassau street,
+New York--the agents for the publishers. The bait took. Letters came
+pouring in from all sides, and among the names of prominent persons who
+gave their indorsements were Albert Brisbane, Parker Pillsbury, Lucretia
+Mott, Sarah M. Grimke, Angelina G. Weld, Dr. J. McCune Smith, Wm. Wells
+Brown. Mr. Pillsbury was quite excited over the book, saying; "Your work
+has cheered and gladdened a winter-morning, which I began in cloud and
+sorrow. You are on the right track. Pursue it, and the good God speed
+you." Mr. Theodore Tilton, upon receiving the pamphlet, wrote a note
+promising to read it, and to write the author a long and candid letter
+as soon as he had time; and saying, that the subject was one to which he
+had given much thought. The promised letter, I believe, however, was
+never received; probably because, on a careful perusal of the book, Mr.
+Tilton "smelt a rat." He might also have been influenced by an ironical
+paragraph relating to himself, and arguing that, as he was a "pure
+specimen of the blonde," and "when a young man was noted for his angelic
+type of feature," his sympathy for the colored race was accounted for by
+the natural love of opposites. Says the author with much gravity:
+
+     "The sympathy Mr. Greeley, Mr. Phillips and Mr. Tilton feel for the
+     negro is the love which the blonde bears for the black; it is the
+     love of race, a sympathy stronger to them than the love they bear
+     to woman. It is founded upon natural law. We love our opposites. It
+     is the nature of things that we should do so, and where Nature has
+     free course, men like those we have indicated, whether Anti-Slavery
+     or Pro-Slavery, Conservative or Radical, Democrat or Republican,
+     will marry and be given in marriage to the most perfect specimens
+     of the colored race."
+
+So far, things worked favorably; and, having thus bagged a goodly number
+of prominent reformers, the next effort was to get the ear of the
+public. Here, new machinery was brought into play. A statement was
+published in the "Philadelphia Inquirer" (a paper which, ever since the
+war commenced, has been notorious for its "sensation" news,) that a
+charming and accomplished young mulatto girl was about to publish a book
+on the subject of the blending of the races, in which she took the
+affirmative view. Of course, so piquant a paragraph was immediately
+copied by almost every paper in the country. Various other stories,
+equally ingenious and equally groundless, were set afloat, and public
+expectation was riveted on the forthcoming work.
+
+Some time in February last, the book was published. Copies, of course,
+were sent to all the leading journals. The "Anglo-African," the organ of
+the colored population of New York, warmly, and at great length,
+indorsed the doctrine. The "Anti-Slavery Standard," edited by Mr. Oliver
+Johnson, gave over a column of serious argument and endorsement to the
+work. Mr. Tilton, of the "Independent," was not to be caught napping.
+In that journal, under date of February 25, 1864, he devoted a
+two-column leader to the subject of Miscegenation and the little
+pamphlet in question. Mr. Tilton was the first to announce a belief that
+the book was a hoax. I quote from his article:
+
+     "Remaining a while on our table unread, our attention was specially
+     called to it by noticing how savagely certain newspapers were
+     abusing it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "The authorship of the pamphlet is a well-kept secret; at least it
+     is unknown to us. Nor, after a somewhat careful reading, are we
+     convinced that the writer is in earnest. Our first impression was,
+     and remains, that the work was meant as a piece of pleasantry--a
+     burlesque upon what are popularly called the extreme and fanatical
+     notions of certain radical men named therein. Certainly, the essay
+     is not such a one as any of these gentlemen would have written on
+     the subject, though some of their speeches are conspicuously quoted
+     and commended in it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "If written in earnest, the work is not thorough enough to be
+     satisfactory; if in jest, we prefer Sydney Smith--or McClellan's
+     Report. Still, to be frank, we agree with a large portion of these
+     pages, but disagree heartily with another portion."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "The idea of scientifically undertaking to intermingle existing
+     populations according to a predetermined plan for reconstructing
+     the human race--for flattening out its present varieties into one
+     final unvarious dead-level of humanity--is so absurd, that we are
+     more than ever convinced such a statement was not written in
+     earnest!"
+
+Mr. Tilton, however, hints that the colored race is finally in some
+degree to form a component part of the future American; and that, in
+time, "the negro of the South, growing paler with every generation, will
+at last completely hide his face under the snow."
+
+One of the editorial writers for the "Tribune" was so impressed with the
+book that he wrote an article on the subject, arguing about it with
+apparent seriousness, and in a manner with some readers supposed to be
+rather favorable than otherwise to the doctrine. Mr. Greeley and the
+publishers, it is understood, were displeased at the publication of the
+article. The next morning nearly all the city journals had editorial
+articles upon the subject.
+
+The next point was, to get the miscegenation controversy into Congress.
+The book, with its indorsements, was brought to the notice of Mr. Cox,
+of Ohio (commonly called "Sunset Cox;") and he made an earnest speech on
+the subject. Mr. Washburne replied wittily, reading and commenting on
+extracts from a work by Cox, in which the latter deplored the existence
+of the prejudice against the Africans. A few days after, Mr. Kelly, of
+Pennsylvania, replied very elaborately to Mr. Cox, bringing all his
+learning and historical research to bear on the topic. It was the
+subject of a deal of talk in Washington afterward. Mr. Cox was charged
+by some of the more shrewd members of Congress with writing it. It was
+said that Mr. Sumner, on reading it, immediately pronounced it a hoax.
+
+Through the influence of the authors, a person visited James Gordon
+Bennett, of the "Herald," and spoke to him about "Miscegenation." Mr.
+Bennett thought the idea too monstrous and absurd to waste an article
+upon.
+
+"But," said the gentleman, "the Democratic papers are all noticing it."
+
+"The Democratic editors are asses," said Bennett.
+
+"Senator Cox has just made a speech in Congress on it."
+
+"Cox is an ass," responded Bennett.
+
+"Greeley had an article about it the other day."
+
+"Well, Greeley's a donkey."
+
+"The 'Independent' yesterday had a leader of a column and a half about
+it."
+
+"Well, Beecher is no better," said Bennett. "They're all asses. But what
+did he say about it?"
+
+"Oh, he rather indorsed it."
+
+"Well, I'll read the article," said Bennett. "And perhaps I'll have an
+article written ridiculing Beecher."
+
+"It will make a very good handle against the radicals," said the other.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," said Bennett. "Let them marry together, if they want
+to, with all my heart."
+
+For some days, the "Herald" said nothing about it, but the occasion of
+the departure of a colored regiment from New York City having called
+forth a flattering address to them from the ladies of the "Loyal
+League," the "Herald," saw a chance to make a point against Mr. Charles
+King and others; and the next day it contained a terrific article,
+introducing miscegenation in the most violent and offensive manner, and
+saying that the ladies of the "Loyal League" had offered to marry the
+colored soldiers on their return! After that, the "Herald" kept up a
+regular fusillade against the supposed miscegenic proclivities of the
+Republicans. And thus, after all, Bennett swallowed the "critter"
+horns, hoofs, tail, and all.
+
+The authors even had the impudence to attempt to entrap Mr. Lincoln into
+an indorsement of the work, and asked permission to dedicate a new work,
+on a kindred subject, "Melaleukation," to him. Honest Old Abe however,
+who can see a joke, was not to be taken in so easily.
+
+About the time the book was first published, Miss Anne E. Dickinson
+happened to lecture in New York. The authors here exhibited a great
+degree of acuteness and tact, as well as sublime impudence, in seizing
+the opportunity to have some small hand bills, with the endorsement of
+the book, printed and distributed by boys among the audience. Before
+Miss Dickinson appeared, therefore, the audience were gravely reading
+the miscegenation handbill; and the reporters, noticing it, coupled the
+facts in their reports. From this, it went forth, and was widely
+circulated, that Miss Dickinson was the author!
+
+Dr. Mackay, the correspondent of the "London Times," in New York, was
+very decidedly sold, and hurled all manner of big words against the
+doctrine in his letters to "The Thunderer;" and thus "the leading paper
+of Europe" was, for the hundredth time during the American Rebellion,
+decidedly taken in and done for.
+
+The "Saturday Review"--perhaps the cleverest and certainly the sauciest
+of the English hebdomadals--also berated the book and its authors in the
+most pompous language at its command. Indeed, the "Westminster Review"
+seriously refers to the arguments of the book in connection with Dr.
+Broca's pamphlet on Human Hybridity, a most profound work.
+"Miscegenation" was republished in England by Trübner & Co.; and very
+extensive translations from it are still passing the rounds of the
+French and German papers.
+
+Thus passes into history one of the most impudent as well as ingenious
+literary hoaxes of the present day. There is probably not a newspaper in
+the country but has printed much about it; and enough of extracts might
+be collected from various journals upon the subject to fill my
+whale-tank.
+
+It is needless to say that the book passed through several editions. Of
+course, the mass of the intelligent American people rejected the
+doctrines of the work, and looked upon it either as a political dodge,
+or as the ravings of some crazy man; but the authors have the
+satisfaction of knowing that it achieved a notoriety which has hardly
+been equalled by any mere pamphlet ever published in this country.
+
+
+
+
+VII. GHOSTS AND WITCHCRAFTS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER. XXXIV.
+
+HAUNTED HOUSES.--A NIGHT SPENT ALONE WITH A GHOST.--KIRBY, THE
+ACTOR.--COLT'S PISTOLS VERSUS HOBGOBLINS.--THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED.
+
+
+A great many persons believe more or less in haunted houses. In almost
+every community there is some building that has had a mysterious
+history. This is true in all countries, and among all races and nations.
+Indeed it is to this very fact that the ingenious author of the
+"Twenty-seventh-street Ghost" may attribute his success in creating such
+an excitement. In fact, I will say, "under the rose," he predicted his
+hopes of success entirely upon this weakness in human nature. Even in
+"this day and age of the world" there are hundreds of deserted buildings
+which are looked upon with awe, or terror, or superstitious interest.
+They have frightened their former inhabitants away, and left the
+buildings in the almost undisputed possession of real moles, bats, and
+owls, and imaginary goblins and sprites.
+
+In the course of my travels in both hemispheres I have been amazed at
+the great number of such cases that have come under my personal
+observation.
+
+But for the present, I will give a brief account of a haunted house in
+Yorkshire, England, in which some twenty years ago, Kirby, the actor,
+who formerly played at the Chatham Theatre, passed a pretty strange
+night. I met Mr. Kirby in London in 1844, and I will give, in nearly his
+own language, a history of his lone night in this haunted house, as he
+gave it to me within a week after its occurrence. I will add, that I saw
+no reason to doubt Mr. Kirby's veracity, and he assured me upon his
+honor that the statement was literally true to the letter. Having myself
+been through several similar places in the daytime, I felt a peculiar
+interest in the subject, and hence I have a vivid recollection of nearly
+the exact words in which he related his singular nocturnal adventure.
+One thing is certain: Kirby was not the man to be afraid of trying such
+an experiment.
+
+"I had heard wonderful stories about this house," said Mr. Kirby to me,
+"and I was very glad to get a chance to enter it, although, I confess,
+the next morning I was about as glad to get out of it."
+
+"It was an old country-seat--a solid stone mansion which had long borne
+the reputation of a haunted house. It was watched only by one man. He
+was the old gardener,--an ancient servant of the family that once lived
+there, and a person in whom the family reposed implicit confidence.
+
+"Having had some inkling of this wonderful place, and having a few days
+to spare before going to London to fulfil an engagement at the Surry
+Theatre, I thought I would probe this haunted-house story to the bottom.
+I therefore called on the old gardener who had charge of the place, and
+introduced myself as an American traveller desirous of spending a night
+with his ghosts. The old man seemed to be about seventy-five or eighty
+years of age. I met him at the gate of the estate, where he kept guard.
+He told me, when I applied, that it was a dangerous spot to enter, but I
+could pass it if I pleased. I should, however, have to return by the
+same door, if I ever came back again.
+
+"Wishing to make sure of the job, I gave him a sovereign, and asked him
+to give me all the privileges of the establishment; and if his bill
+amounted to more, I would settle it when I returned. He looked at me
+with an expression of doubt and apprehension, as much as to say that he
+neither understood what I was going to do nor what was likely to happen.
+He merely remarked:
+
+"'You can go in.'
+
+"'Will you go with me, and show me the road?'
+
+"'I will.'
+
+"'Go ahead.'
+
+"We entered. The gate closed. I suddenly turned on my man, the old
+gardener and custodian of the place, and said to him:
+
+"'Now, my patriarchal friend, I am going to sift this humbug to the
+bottom, even if I stay here forty nights in succession; and I am
+prepared to lay all "spirits" that present themselves; but if you will
+save me all trouble in the matter and frankly explain to me the whole
+affair, I will never mention it to your injury, and I will present you
+with ten golden sovereigns.'
+
+"The old fellow looked astonished; but he smirked, and whimpered, and
+trembled, and said:
+
+"'I am afraid to do that; but I will warn you against going too far.'
+
+"When we had crossed a courtyard, he rang a bell, and several strange
+noises were distinctly heard. I was introduced to the establishment
+through a well-constructed archway, which led to a large stairway, from
+which we proceeded to a great door, which opened into a very large room.
+It was a library. The old custodian had carried a torch (and I was
+prepared with a box of matches.) He was acting evidently 'on the
+square,' and I sat myself down in the library, where he told me that I
+should soon see positive evidence that this was a haunted house.
+
+"Not being a very firm believer in the doctrine of houses really
+haunted, I proposed to keep a pretty good hold of my match-box, and lest
+there should be any doubt about it, I had also provided myself with two
+sperm candles, which I kept in my pocket, so I should not be left too
+suddenly and too long in the dark.
+
+"'Now Sir,' said he, 'I wish you to hold all your nerves steady and keep
+your courage up, because I intend to stand by you as well as I can, but
+I never come into this house alone.'
+
+"'Well, what is the matter with the house?'
+
+"'Oh! everything, Sir!'
+
+"'What?'
+
+"'Well, when I was much younger than I am now, the master of this estate
+got frightened here by some mysterious appearances, noises, sounds,
+etc., and he preferred to leave the place.'
+
+"'Why?'
+
+"'He had a tradition from his grandfather, and pretty well kept alive in
+the family, that it was a haunted house; and he let out the estate to
+the smaller farmers of the neighborhood, and quit the premises, and
+never returned again, except one night, and after that one night he
+left. We suppose he is dead. Now, Sir, if you wish to spend the night
+here as you have requested, what may happen to you I don't know; but I
+tell you it is a haunted house, and I would not sleep here to-night for
+all the wealth of the Bank of England!'
+
+"This did not deter me in the least, and having the means of
+self-protection around me, and plenty of lucifer matches, etc., I
+thought I would explore this mystery and see whether a humbug which had
+terrified the proprietors of that magnificent house in the midst of a
+magnificent estate, for upward of sixty years, could not be explored and
+exploded. That it was a humbug, I had no doubt; that I would find it
+out, I was not so certain.
+
+"I sat down in the library, fully determined to spend the night in the
+establishment. A door was opened into an adjoining room where there was
+a dust-covered lounge, and every thing promised as much comfort as could
+be expected under the circumstances.
+
+"However, before the old keeper of the house left, I asked him to show
+me over the building, and let me explore for myself the different rooms
+and apartments. To all this he readily consented; and as he had some
+prospect before him of making a good job out of it, he displayed a great
+deal of alacrity, and moved along very quick and smart for a man
+apparently eighty years of age.
+
+"I went from room to room and story to story. Everything seemed to be
+well arranged, but somewhat dusty and time-worn. I kept a pretty sharp
+lookout, but I could see no sort of machinery for producing a grand
+effect.
+
+"We finally descended to the library, when I closed the door, and
+bolting and locking it, took the key and put it in my pocket.
+
+"'Now, Sir,' I said to the keeper, 'where is the humbug?'
+
+"'There is no humbug here,' he answered.
+
+"'Well, why don't you show me some evidence of the haunted house?'
+
+"'You wait,' said he, 'till twelve o'clock to-night, and you will see
+"haunting" enough for you. I will not stay till then.'
+
+"He left; I staid. Everything was quiet for some time. Not a mouse was
+heard, not a rat was visible, and I thought I would go to sleep.
+
+"I lay down for this purpose, but I soon heard certain extraordinary
+sounds that disturbed my repose. Chains were clanked, noises were made,
+and shrieks and groans were heard from various parts of the mansion. All
+of these I had expected. They did not frighten me much. A little while
+after, just as I was going to sleep again, a curious string of light
+burned around the room. It ran along on the walls in a zigzag line,
+about six feet high, entirely through the apartment. I did not smell
+anything bituminous or like sulphur. It flashed quicker than powder,
+and it did not smell like it. Thinks I: 'This looks pretty well, we will
+have some amusement now.' Then the jangling of bells, and clanking of
+chains, and flashes of light; then thumpings and knockings of all sorts
+came along, interspersed with shrieks and groans. I sat very quiet. I
+had two of Colt's best pistols in my pocket, and I thought I could shoot
+anything spiritual or material with these machines made in Connecticut.
+I took them out and laid them on the table. One of them suddenly
+disappeared! I did not like that, still my nerves were firm, for I knew
+it was all gammon. I took the other pistol in my hand and surveyed the
+room. Nobody was there; and, finally half suspicious that I had gone to
+sleep and had a dream, I woke up with a grasp on my hand which was
+holding the other pistol. This soon made me fully awake.
+
+"I tried to recover my balance, and at this moment the candle went out.
+I lit it with one of my lucifers. No person was visible, but the noises
+began again, and they were infernal. I then took one of my sperm candles
+out, and went to unlock the door. I attempted to take the key out of my
+pocket. It was not there! Suddenly the door opened, I saw a man or a
+somebody about the size of a man, standing straight in front of me. I
+pointed one of Colt's revolvers at his head, for I thought I saw
+something human about him; and I told him that whether he was ghost or
+spirit, goblin or robber, he had better stand steady, or I would blow
+his brains out, if he had any. And to make sure that he should not
+escape I got hold of his arm, and told him that if he was a ghost he
+would have a tolerably hard time of it, and that if he was a humbug I
+would let him off if he would tell me the whole story about the trick.
+
+"He saw that he was caught, and he earnestly begged me not to fire that
+American pistol at him. I did not; but I did not let go of him. I
+brought him into the library, and with pistol in hand I put him through
+a pretty close examination. He was clad in mailed armor, with
+breastplate and helmet, and a great sword, in the style of the
+Crusaders. He promised, on condition of saving his life, to give me an
+honest account of the facts.
+
+"In substance they were, that he, an old family-servant, and ultimately
+a gardener in charge of the place, had been employed by an enemy of the
+gentleman who owned the property, to render it so uncomfortable that the
+estate should be sold for much less than its value; and that he had got
+an ingenious machinist and chemist to assist him in arranging such
+contrivances as would make the house so intolerable that they could not
+live there. A galvanic battery with wires were provided, and every
+device of chemistry and mechanism was resorted to in order to effect
+this purpose.
+
+"One by one, the family left; and they had remained away for nearly two
+generations under the terror of such forms, and appearances, and sights
+and sounds, as frightened them almost to death. And furthermore, the old
+gardener added, that he expected his own grand-daughter would become the
+lady of that house, when the property should have been neglected so
+long and the place became so fearful that no one in the neighborhood
+would undertake to purchase it, or to even pass one moment after dark in
+exploring its horrible mysteries.
+
+"He begged on his knees that I would spare him with his gray hairs,
+since he had so short a time to live. He declared that he had been
+actuated by no other motive than pride and ambition for his child.
+
+"I told the poor old fellow that his secret should be safe with me, and
+should not be made public so long as he lived. The old man grasped my
+hand eagerly and expressed his gratitude in the strongest terms. Thus,
+Mr. Barnum, I have given you the pure and honest facts in regard to my
+adventure in a so called haunted house. Don't make it public until you
+are convinced that the old gardener has shuffled off this mortal coil."
+
+So much for Kirby's story of the haunted house. No doubt, the old
+gardener has before this become in reality a disembodied spirit, but
+that his grand-daughter became legally possessed of the estate is not at
+all probable. Real estate does not change hands so easily in England. So
+powerful, however is the superstitious belief in haunted houses, that it
+is doubtful whether that property will for many years sustain half so
+great a cash value in the market as it would have done had it not been
+considered a "haunted house."
+
+It is to be hoped that, as schools multiply and education increases, the
+follies and superstitions which underlie a belief in ghosts and
+hobgoblins will pass away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+HAUNTED HOUSES.--GHOSTS.--GHOULS.--PHANTOMS.--VAMPIRES.--CONJURORS.--
+DIVINING.--GOBLINS.--FORTUNE-TELLING.--MAGIC.--WITCHES.--SORCERY.--
+OBI.--DREAMS.--SIGNS.--SPIRITUAL MEDIUMS.--FALSE PROPHETS.--
+DEMONOLOGY.--DEVILTRY GENERALLY.
+
+
+Whether superstition is the father of humbug, or humbug the mother of
+superstition (as well as its nurse,) I do not pretend to say; for the
+biggest fools and the greatest philosophers can be numbered among the
+believers in and victims of the worst humbugs that ever prevailed on the
+earth.
+
+As we grow up from childhood and begin to think we are free from all
+superstitions, absurdities, follies, a belief in dreams, signs, omens,
+and other similar stuff, we afterward learn that experience does not
+cure the complaint. Doubtless much depends upon our "bringing up." If
+children are permitted to feast their ears night after night (as I was)
+with stories of ghosts, hobgoblins, ghouls, witches, apparitions,
+bugaboos, it is more difficult in after-life for them to rid their minds
+of impressions thus made.
+
+But whatever may have been our early education, I am convinced that
+there is an inherent love of the marvelous in every breast, and that
+everybody is more or less superstitious; and every superstition I
+denominate a humbug, for it lays the human mind open to any amount of
+belief, in any amount of deception that may be practised.
+
+One object of these chapters consists in showing how open everybody is
+to deception, that nearly everybody "hankers" after it, that solid and
+solemn realities are frequently set aside for silly impositions and
+delusions, and that people, as a too general thing, like to be led into
+the region of mystery. As Hudibras has it:
+
+  "Doubtless the pleasure is as great
+  Of being cheated as to cheat;
+  As lookers-on feel most delight
+  That least perceive a juggler's sleight;
+  And still the less they understand,
+  The more they admire his sleight of hand."
+
+The amount or strength of man's brains have little to do with the amount
+of their superstitions. The most learned and the greatest men have been
+the deepest believers in ingeniously-contrived machines for running
+human reason off the track. If any expositions I can make on this
+subject will serve to put people on their guard against impositions of
+all sorts, as well as foolish superstitions, I shall feel a pleasure in
+reflecting that I have not written in vain. The heading of this chapter
+enumerates the principal kinds of supernatural humbugs. These, it must
+be remembered, are quite different from religious impostures.
+
+It is astonishing to reflect how ancient is the date of this class of
+superstitions (as well as of most others, in fact,) and how universally
+they have prevailed. Nearly thirty-six hundred years ago, it was thought
+a matter of course that Joseph, the Hebrew Prime Minister of Pharaoh,
+should have a silver cup that he commonly used to do his divining with:
+so that the practice must already have been an established one.
+
+In Homer's time, about twenty-eight hundred years ago, ghosts were
+believed to appear. The Witch of Endor pretended to raise the ghost of
+Samuel, at about the same time.
+
+To-day, here in the City of New York, dream books are sold by the
+edition; a dozen fortune-tellers regularly advertise in the papers; a
+haunted house can gather excited crowds for weeks; abundance of people
+are uneasy if they spill salt, dislike to see the new moon over the
+wrong shoulder, and are delighted if they can find an old horse-shoe to
+nail to their door-post.
+
+I have already told about one or two haunted houses, but must devote
+part of this chapter to that division of the subject. There are hundreds
+of such--that is, of those reputed to be such; and have been for
+hundreds of years. In almost every city, and in many towns and country
+places, they are to be found. I know of one, for instance, in New
+Jersey, one or two in New York, and have heard of several in
+Connecticut. There are great numbers in Europe; for as white men have
+lived there so much longer than in America, ghosts naturally
+accumulated. In this country there are houses and places haunted by
+ghosts of Hessians, and Yankee ghosts, not to mention the headless Dutch
+phantom of Tarrytown, that turned out to be Brom Bones; but who ever
+heard of the ghost of an Indian? And as for the ghost of a black man,
+evidently it would have to appear by daylight. You couldn't see it in
+the dark!
+
+I have no room to even enumerate the cases of haunted houses. One in
+Aix-la-Chapelle, a fine large house, stood empty five years on account
+of the knockings in it, until it was sold for almost nothing, and the
+new owner (lucky man!) discovered that the ghost was a draft through a
+broken window that banged a loose door. An English gentleman once died,
+and his heir, in a day or two, heard of mysterious knockings which the
+frightened servants attributed to the defunct. He, however, investigated
+a little, and found that a rat in an old store room, was trying to get
+out of an old-fashioned box trap, and being able to lift the door only
+partly, it dropped again, constituting the ghost. Better pleased to find
+the rat than his father, the young man exterminated rat and phantom
+together.
+
+A very ancient and impressive specimen of a haunted house was the palace
+of Vauvert, belonging to King Louis IX, of France, who was so pious that
+he was called Saint Louis. This fine building was so situated as to
+become very desirable, in the year 1259, to some monks. So there was
+forthwith horrid shriekings at night-times, red and green lights shone
+through the windows, and, finally, a large green ghost, with a white
+beard and a serpent's tail, came every midnight to a front window, and
+shook his fist, and howled at those who passed by. Everybody was
+frightened--King Louis, good simple soul! as well as the rest. Then the
+bold monks appearing at the nick of time, intimated that if the King
+would give them the palace, they would do up the ghost in short order.
+He did it, and was very thankful to them besides. They moved in, and
+sure enough, the ghost appeared no more. Why should he?
+
+The ghosts of Woodstock are well known. How they tormented the Puritan
+Commissioners who came thither in 1649, to break up the place, and
+dispose of it for the benefit of the Commonwealth! The poor Puritans had
+a horrid time. A disembodied dog growled under their bed, and bit the
+bed-clothes; something invisible walked all about; the chairs and tables
+danced; something threw the dishes about (like the Davenport "spirits;")
+put logs for the pillows; flung brickbats up and down, without regard to
+heads; smashed the windows; threw pebbles in at the frightened
+commissioners; stuck a lot of pewter platters into their beds; ran away
+with their breeches; threw dirty water over them in bed; banged them
+over the head--until, after several weeks, the poor fellows gave it up,
+and ran away back to London. Many years afterward, it came out that all
+this was done by their clerk, who was secretly a royalist, though they
+thought him a furious Puritan, and who knew all the numerous secret
+passages and contrivances in the old palace. Most people have read Sir
+Walter Scott's capital novel of "Woodstock," founded on this very story.
+
+The well known "Demon of Tedworth," that drummed, and scratched, and
+pounded, and threw things about, in 1661, in Mr. Mompesson's house
+turned out to be a gipsy drummer and confederates.
+
+The still more famous "Ghost in Cock Lane," in London in 1762,
+consisted of a Mrs. Parsons and her daughter, a little girl, trained by
+Mr. Parsons to knock and scratch very much after the fashion of the
+alphabet talking of the "spirits" of to-day. Parsons got up the whole
+affair, to revenge himself on a Mr. Kent. The ghost pretended to be that
+of a deceased sister-in-law of Kent, and to have been poisoned by him.
+But Parsons and his assistants were found out, and had to smart for
+their fun, being heavily fined, imprisoned, etc.
+
+A very able ghost indeed, a Methodist ghost--the spectral property,
+consequently, of my good friends the Methodists--used to rattle, and
+clatter, and bang, and communicate, in the house of the Rev. Mr. Wesley,
+the father of John Wesley, at Epworth, in England. This ghost was very
+troublesome, and utterly useless. In fact, none of the ghosts that haunt
+houses are of the least possible use. They plague people, but do no
+good. They act like the spirits of departed monkeys.
+
+I must add two or three short anecdotes about ghosts, got up in the
+devil-manner. They are not new, but illustrate very handsomely the state
+of mind in which a ghost should be met. One is, that somebody undertook
+to scare Cuvier, the great naturalist, with a ghost having an ox's head.
+Cuvier woke, and found the fearful thing glaring and grinning at his
+bedside.
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"To devour you!" growled the ghost.
+
+"Devour me?" quoth the great Frenchman--"Hoofs, horns, _graminivorous_!
+You can't do it--clear out!"
+
+And he did clear out.
+
+A pious maiden lady, in one of our New-England villages, was known to
+possess three peculiarities. First, she was a very religious, honest,
+matter-of-fact woman. Second, she supposed everybody else was equally
+honest; hence she was very credulous, always believing everything she
+heard. And third, having "a conscience void of offense," she saw no
+reason to be afraid of anything; consequently, she feared nothing.
+
+On a dark night, some boys, knowing that she would be returning home
+alone from prayer-meeting, through an unfrequented street, determined to
+test two of her peculiarities, viz., her credulity and her courage. One
+of the boys was sewed up in a huge shaggy bear-skin, and as the old
+lady's feet were heard pattering down the street, he threw himself
+directly in her path and commenced making a terrible noise.
+
+"Mercy!" exclaimed the old lady. "Who are you?"
+
+"I am the devil!" was the reply.
+
+"Well, you are a poor creature!" responded the antiquated virgin, as she
+stepped aside and passed by the strange animal, probably not for a
+moment doubting it was his Satanic Majesty, but certainly not dreaming
+of being afraid of him.
+
+It is said that a Yankee tin peddler, who had frequently cheated most of
+the people in the vicinity of a New England village through which he was
+passing, was induced by some of the acute ones to join them in a
+drinking bout. He finally became stone drunk; and in that condition
+these wags carried him to a dark rocky cave near the village, then,
+dressing themselves in raw-head-and-bloody-bones' style, awaited his
+return to consciousness.
+
+As he began rousing himself, they lighted some huge torches, and also
+set fire to some bundles of straw, and three or four rolls of brimstone,
+which they had placed in different parts of the cavern. The peddler
+rubbed his eyes, and seeing and smelling all these evidences of
+pandemonium, concluded he had died, and was now partaking of his final
+doom. But he took it very philosophically, for he complacently remarked
+to himself.
+
+"In hell--just as I expected!"
+
+A story is told of a cool old sea captain, with a virago of a wife, who
+met one of these artificial devils in a lonely place. As the ghost
+obstructed his path, the old fellow remarked:
+
+"If you are not the devil, get out! If you are, come along with me and
+get supper. I married your sister!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+MAGICAL HUMBUGS.--VIRGIL.--A PICKLED SORCERER.--CORNELIUS AGRIPPA.--HIS
+STUDENTS AND HIS BLACK DOG.--DOCTOR FAUSTUS.--HUMBUGGING
+HORSE-JOCKEYS.--ZIITO AND HIS LARGE SWALLOW.--SALAMANCA.--DEVIL TAKE THE
+HINDMOST.
+
+
+Magic, sorcery, witchcraft, enchantment, necromancy, conjuring,
+incantation, soothsaying, divining, the black art, are all one and the
+same humbug. They show how prone men are to believe in _some_
+supernatural power, in _some_ beings wiser and stronger than
+themselves, but at the same time how they stop short, and find
+satisfaction in some debasing humbug, instead of looking above and
+beyond it all to God, the only being that it is really worth while for
+man to look up to or beseech.
+
+Magic and witchcraft are believed in by the vast majority of mankind,
+and by immense numbers even in Christian countries. They have always
+been believed in, so far as I know. In following up the thread of
+history, we always find conjuring or witch work of some kind, just as
+long as the narrative has space enough to include it. Already, in the
+early dawn of time, the business was a recognized and long established
+one. And its history is as unbroken from that day down to this, as the
+history of the race.
+
+In the narrow space at my command at present, I shall only gather as
+many of the more interesting stories about these humbugs, as I can make
+room for. Reasoning about the subject, or full details of it, are at
+present out of the question. A whole library of books exists about it.
+
+It is a curious fact that throughout the middle ages, the Roman poet
+Virgil was commonly believed to have been a great magician. Traditions
+were recorded by monastic chroniclers about him, that he made a brass
+fly and mounted it over one of the gates of Naples, having instilled
+into this metallic insect such potent magical qualities that as long as
+it kept guard over the gate, no musquitos, or flies, or cockroach, or
+other troublesome insects could exist in the city. What would have
+become of the celebrated Bug Powder man in those days? The story is
+told about Virgil as well as about Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, and
+other magicians, that he made a brazen head which could prophesy. He
+also made some statues of the gods of the various nations subject to
+Rome, so enchanted that if one of those nations was preparing to rebel,
+the statue of its god rung a bell and pointed a finger toward the
+nation. The same set of stories tells how poor Virgil came to an
+untimely end in consequence of trying to live forever. He had become an
+old man, it appears, and wishing to be young again, he used some
+appropriate incantations, and prepared a secret cavern. In this he
+caused a confidential disciple to cut him up like a hog and pack him
+away in a barrel of pickle, out of which he was to emerge in his new
+magic youth after a certain time. But by that special bad luck which
+seems to attend such cases, some malapropos traveller somehow made his
+way into the cavern, where he found the magic pork-barrel standing
+silently all alone in the middle of the place, and an ever-burning lamp
+illuminating the room, and slowly distilling a magic oil upon the salted
+sorcerer who was cooking below. The traveller rudely jarred the barrel,
+the light went out, as the torches flared upon it; and suddenly there
+appeared to the eyes of the astounded man, close at one side of the
+barrel, a little naked child, which ran thrice around the barrel,
+uttering deep curses upon him who had thus destroyed the charm, and
+vanished. The frightened traveller made off as fast as he could, and
+poor old Virgil, for what I know, is in pickle yet.
+
+Cornelius Agrippa was one of the most celebrated magicians of the
+middle ages. He lived from the year 1486 (six years before the discovery
+of America) until 1534, and was a native of Cologne, Agrippa is said to
+have had a magic glass in which he showed to his customers such dead or
+absent persons as they might wish to see. Thus he would call up the
+beautiful Helen of Troy, or Cicero in the midst of an oration; or to a
+pining lover, the figure of his absent lady, as she was employed at the
+moment--a dangerous exhibition! For who knows, whether the consolation
+sought by the fair one, will always be such as her lover will approve?
+Agrippa, they say, had an attendant devil in the form of a huge black
+dog, whom on his death-bed the magician dismissed with curses. The dog
+ran away, plunged into the river Saone and was seen no more. We are of
+course to suppose that his Satanic Majesty got possession of the
+conjuror's soul however, as per agreement. There is a story about
+Agrippa, which shows conclusively how "a little learning" may be "a
+dangerous thing." When Agrippa was absent on a short journey, his
+student in magic slipped into the study and began to read spells out of
+a great book. After a little there was a knock at the door, but the
+young man paid no attention to it. In another moment there was another
+louder one, which startled him, but still he read on. In a moment the
+door opened, and in came a fine large devil who angrily asked, "What do
+you call me for?" The frightened youth answered very much like those
+naughty boys who say "I didn't do nothing!" But it will not do to fool
+with devils. The angry demon caught him by the throat and strangled him.
+Shortly, when Agrippa returned, lo and behold, a strong squad of evil
+spirits were kicking up their heels and playing tag all over the house,
+and crowding his study particularly full. Like a schoolmaster among
+mischievous boys, the great enchanter sent all the little fellows home,
+catechised the big one, and finding the situation unpleasant, made him
+reanimate the corpse of the student and walk it about town all the
+afternoon. The malignant demon however, was free at sunset, and let the
+corpse drop dead in the middle of the market place. The people
+recognized it, found the claw-marks and traces of strangling, suspected
+the fact, and Agrippa had to abscond very suddenly.
+
+Another student of Agrippa's came very near an equally bad end. The
+magician was in the habit of enchanting a broomstick into a servant to
+do his housework, and when it was done, turning it back to a broomstick
+again and putting it behind the door. This young student had overheard
+the charm which made the servant, and one day in his master's absence,
+wanting a pail of water he said over the incantation and told the
+servant "Bring some water." The evil spirit promptly obeyed; flew to the
+river, brought a pailful and emptied it, instantly brought a second,
+instantly a third; and the student, startled, cried out, "that's
+enough!" But this was not the "return charm," and the ill tempered
+demon, rejoicing in doing mischief within the letter of his obligation,
+now flew backward and forward like lightning, so that he even began to
+flood the room about the rash student's feet. Desperate, he seized an
+axe and hewed this diabolical serving-man in two. _Two_ serving-men
+jumped up, with two water-pails, grinning in devilish glee, and both
+went to work harder than ever. The poor student gave himself up for
+lost, when luckily the master came home, dismissed the over-officious
+water carrier with a word, and saved the student's life.
+
+How thoroughly false all these absurd fictions are, and yet how
+ingeniously based on some fact, appears by the case of Agrippa's black
+dog. Wierus, a writer of good authority, and a personal friend of
+Agrippa's, reports that he knew very well all about the dog; that it was
+not a superhuman dog at all, but (if the term be admissible) a mere
+human dog--an animal which he, Wierus, had often led about by a string,
+and only a domestic pet of Agrippa.
+
+Another eminent magician of those days was Doctor Faustus, about whom
+Goethe wrote "Faust," Bailey wrote "Festus," and whose story, mingled of
+human love and of the devilish tricks of Mephistopheles, is known so
+very widely. The truth about Faust seems to be, that he was simply a
+successful juggler of the sixteenth century. Yet the wonderful stories
+about him were very implicitly and extensively believed. It was the time
+of the Protestant Reformation, and even Melanchthon and Luther seem to
+have entirely believed that Faustus could make the forms of the dead
+appear, could carry people invisibly through the air, and play all the
+legendary tricks of the enchanters. So strong a hold does humbug often
+obtain even upon the noblest and clearest and wisest minds!
+
+Faustus, according to the traditions, had a pretty keen eye for a joke.
+He once sold a splendid horse to a horse-jockey at a fair. The fellow
+shortly rode his fine horse to water. When he got into the water, lo and
+behold, the horse vanished, and the humbugged jockey found himself
+sitting up to his neck in the river on a straw saddle. There is
+something quite satisfactory in the idea of playing such a trick on one
+of that sharp generation, and Faust felt so comfortable over it that he
+entered his hotel and went quietly to sleep--or pretended to. Shortly in
+came the angry jockey; he shouted and bawled, but could not awaken the
+doctor, and in his anger he seized his foot and gave it a good pull.
+Foot and leg came off in his hand. Faustus screamed out as if in
+horrible agony, and the terrified jockey ran away as fast as he could,
+and never troubled his very loose-jointed customer for the money.
+
+A magician named Ziito, resident at the court of Wenceslaus of Bohemia
+(A. D. 1368 to 1419,) appears to great advantage in the annals of these
+humbugs. He was a homely, crooked creature, with an immense mouth. He
+had a collision once in public on a question of skill with a brother
+conjuror, and becoming a little excited, opened his big mouth and
+swallowed the other magician, all to his shoes, which as he observed
+were dirty. Then he stepped into a closet, got his rival out of him
+somehow, and calmly led him back to the company. A story is told about
+Ziito and some hogs, just like that about Faust and the horse.
+
+In all these stories about magicians, their power is derived from the
+devil. It was long believed that the ancient university of Salamanca in
+Spain, founded A. D. 1240, was the chief school of magic, and had
+regular professors and classes in it. The devil was supposed to be the
+special patron of this department, and he had a curious fee for his
+trouble, which he collected every commencement day. The last exercise of
+the graduating class on that day was, to run across a certain cavern
+under the University. The devil was always on hand at this time, and had
+the privilege of grabbing at the last man of the crowd. If he caught
+him, as he commonly did, the soul of the unhappy student became the
+property of his captor. Hence arose the phrase "Devil take the
+hindmost." Sometime it happened that some very brisk fellow was left
+last by some accident. If he were brisk enough to dodge the devil's
+grab, that personage only caught his shadow. In this case it was well
+understood that this particular enchanter never had any shadow
+afterwards, and he always became very eminent in his art.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER. XXXVII.
+
+WITCHCRAFT.--NEW YORK WITCHES.--THE WITCH MANIA.--HOW FAST THEY BURNED
+THEM.--THE MODE OF TRIAL.--WITCHES TO DAY IN EUROPE.
+
+
+Witchcraft is one of the most baseless, absurd, disgusting and silly of
+all the humbugs. And it is not a dead humbug either; it is alive, busily
+exercised by knaves and believed by fools all over the world. Witches
+and wizards operate and prosper among the Hottentots and negroes and
+barbarous Indians, among the Siberians and Kirgishes and Lapps, of
+course. Everybody knows _that_--they are poor ignorant creatures! Yes:
+but are the French and Germans and English and Americans poor ignorant
+creatures too? They are, if the belief and practice of witchcraft among
+them is any test; for in all those countries there are witches. I take
+up one of the New York City dailies of this very morning, and find in it
+the advertisements of seven Witches. In 1858, there were in full blast
+in New York and Brooklyn sixteen witches and two wizards. One of these
+wizards was a black man; a very proper style of person to deal with the
+black art.
+
+Witch means, a woman who practices sorcery under an agreement with the
+devil, who helps her. Before the Christian era, the Jewish witch was a
+mere diviner or at most a raiser of the dead, and the Gentile witch was
+a poisoner, a maker of philtres or love potions, and a vulgar sort of
+magician. The devil part of the business did not begin until a good
+while after Christ. During the last century or so, again, while
+witchcraft has been extensively believed in, the witch has degenerated
+into a very vulgar and poverty stricken sort of conjuring woman. Take
+our New York city witches, for instance. They live in cheap and dirty
+streets that smell bad; their houses are in the same style, infected
+with a strong odor of cabbage, onions, washing-day, old dinners, and
+other merely sublunary smells. Their rooms are very ill furnished, and
+often beset with wash-tubs, swill-pails, mops and soiled clothes; their
+personal appearance is commonly unclean, homely, vulgar, coarse, and
+ignorant, and often rummy. Their fee is a quarter or half of a dollar.
+Sometimes a dollar. Their divination is worked by cutting and dealing
+cards or studying the palm of your hand. And the things which they tell
+you are the most silly and shallow babble in the world; a mess of
+phrases worn out over and over again. Here is a specimen, as gabbled to
+the customer over a pack of cards laid out on the table; anybody can do
+the like: "You face a misfortune. I think it will come upon you within
+three weeks, but it may not. A dark complexioned man faces your
+life-card. He is plotting against you, and you must beware of him. Your
+marriage-card faces two young women, one fair and the other dark. One
+you will have, and the other you will not. I think you will have the
+fair one. She favors the dark complexioned man, which means trouble. You
+face money, but you must earn it. There is a good deal, but you may not
+get much of it" etc., etc. These words are exactly the sort of stuff
+that is sold by the witches of to-day. But the greatest witch humbug of
+all the witchcraft of history, is that of Christendom for about three
+hundred years, beginning about the time of the discovery of America. To
+that period belonged the Salem witchcraft of New England, the
+witch-finding of Matthew Hopkins in Old England, the Scotch witch
+trials, and the Swedish and German and French witch mania.
+
+The peculiar traits of the witchcraft of this period are among the most
+mysterious of all humbugs. The most usual points in a case of witchcraft
+were, that the witch had sold herself to the devil for all eternity, in
+order to get the power during a few years of earthly life, to inflict a
+few pains on the persons of those she disliked, or to cause them to lose
+part of their property. This was almost always the whole story, except
+the mere details of the witch baptism and witch sabbath, parodies on the
+ceremonies of the Christian religion. And the mystery is, how anybody
+could believe that to accomplish such very small results, seldom equal
+even to the death of an enemy, one would agree to accept eternal
+damnation in the next world, almost certain poverty, misery, persecution
+and torment in this, besides having for an amusement performances more
+dirty, obscene and vulgar than I can even hint at.
+
+But such a belief was universal, and hundreds of the witches themselves
+confessed as much as I have described, and more, with numerous details,
+and they were burnt alive for their trouble. The extent of wholesale
+murdering perpetrated under forms of law, on charges of witchcraft, is
+astonishing. A magistrate named Remigius, published a book in which he
+told how much he thought of himself for having condemned and burned nine
+hundred witches in sixteen years, in Lorraine. And the one thing that he
+blamed himself for was this: that out of regard for the wishes of a
+colleague, he had only caused certain children to be whipped naked three
+times round the market place where their parents had been burned,
+instead of burning them. At Bamberg, six hundred persons were burned in
+five years, at Wurzburg nine hundred in two years. Sprenger, a German
+inquisitor-general, and author of a celebrated book on detecting and
+punishing witchcraft, called _Malleus Maleficarum_, or "The Mallet of
+Malefactors," burned more than five hundred in one year. In Geneva, five
+hundred persons were burned during 1515 and 1516. In the district of
+Como in Italy, a thousand persons were burned as witches in the single
+year 1524, besides over a hundred a year for several years afterwards.
+_Seventeen thousand_ persons were executed for witchcraft in Scotland
+during thirty-nine years, ending with 1603. _Forty thousand_ were
+executed in England from 1600 to 1680. Bodinus, another of the witch
+killing judges, gravely announced that there were undoubtedly not less
+than three hundred thousand witches in France.
+
+The way in which the witch murderers reasoned, and their modes of
+conducting trials and procuring confessions, were truly infernal. The
+chief rule was that witchcraft being an "exceptional crime," no regard
+need be had to the ordinary forms of justice. All manner of tortures
+were freely applied to force confessions. In Scotland "the boot" was
+used, being an iron case in which the legs are locked up to the knees,
+and an iron wedge then driven in until sometimes the bones were crushed
+and the marrow spouted out. Pin sticking, drowning, starving, the rack,
+were too common to need details. Sometimes the prisoner was hung up by
+the thumbs, and whipped by one person, while another held lighted
+candles to the feet and other parts of the body. At Arras, while the
+prisoners were being torn on the rack, the executioner stood by, sword
+in hand, promising to cut off at once the heads of those who did not
+confess. At Offenburg, when the prisoners had been tortured until
+beyond the power of speaking aloud, they silently assented to abominable
+confessions read to them out of a book. Many were cheated into
+confession by the promise of pardon and release, and then burned. A poor
+woman in Germany was tricked by the hangman, who dressed himself up as a
+devil and went into her cell. Overpowered by pain, fear and
+superstition, she begged him to help her out; her beseeching was taken
+for confession, she was burned, and a ballad which treated the trick as
+a jolly and comical device, was long popular in the country. Several of
+the judges in witch cases tell us how victims, utterly weary of their
+tormented lives, confessed whatever was required, merely as the shortest
+way to death, and an escape out of their misery. All who dared to argue
+against the current of popular and judicial delusion were instantly
+refuted very effectively by being attacked for witchcraft themselves;
+and once accused, there was little hope of escape. The Jesuit Delrio, in
+a book published in 1599, states the witch killers' side of the
+discussion very neatly indeed; for in one and the same chapter he defies
+any opponents to disprove the existence of witchcraft, and then shows
+that a denial of witchcraft is the worst of all heresies, and must be
+punished with death. Quite a number of excellent and sensible people
+were actually burnt on just this principle.
+
+I do not undertake to give details of any witch trials; this sketch of
+the way in which they operated is all I can make room for, and
+sufficiently delineates this cruel and bloody humbug.
+
+I have already referred to the fact that we have right here among us in
+this city a very fair supply of a vulgar, dowdy kind of witchcraft.
+Other countries are favored in like manner. I have not just now the most
+recent information, but in the year 1857 and 1858, for instance, mobbing
+and prosecutions growing out of a popular belief in witchcraft were
+quite plentiful enough in various parts of Europe. No less than eight
+cases of the kind in England alone were reported during those two years.
+Among them was the actual murder of a woman as a witch by a mob in
+Shropshire; and an attack by another mob in Essex, upon a perfectly
+inoffensive person, on suspicion of having "bewitched" a scolding
+ill-conditioned girl, from which attack the mob was diverted with much
+difficulty, and thinking itself very unjustly treated. Some others of
+those cases show a singular quantity of credulity among people of
+respectability.
+
+While therefore some of us may perhaps be justly thankful for safety
+from such horrible follies as these, still we can not properly feel very
+proud of the progress of humanity, since after not less than six
+thousand years of existence and eighteen hundred of revelation, so many
+believers in witchcraft still exist among the most civilized nations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+CHARMS AND INCANTATIONS.--HOW CATO CURED SPRAINS.--THE SECRET NAME OF
+GOD.--SECRET NAMES OF CITIES.--ABRACADABRA.--CURES FOR CRAMP.--MR.
+WRIGHT'S SIGIL.--WHISKERIFUSTICUS.--WITCHES' HORSES.--THEIR CURSES.--HOW
+TO RAISE THE DEVIL.
+
+
+It is worth while to print in plain English for my readers a good
+selection of the very words which have been believed, or are still
+believed, to possess magic power. Then any who choose, may operate by
+themselves or may put some bold friend up in a corner, and blaze away at
+him or her until they are wholly satisfied about the power of magic.
+
+The Roman Cato, so famous for his grumness and virtue, believed that if
+he were ill, it would much help him, and that it would cure sprains in
+others, to say over these words: "Daries, dardaries, astaris, ista,
+pista, sista," or, as another account has it, "motas, daries, dardaries,
+astaries;" or, as still another account says, "Huat, huat, huat; ista,
+pista, sista; domiabo, damnaustra." And sure enough, nothing is truer,
+as any physician will tell you, that if the old censor only believed
+hard enough, it would almost certainly help him; not by the force of the
+words, but by the force of his own ancient Roman imagination. Here are
+some Greek words of no less virtue: "_Aski, Kataski, Tetrax._" When the
+Greek priests let out of their doors those who had been completely
+initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, they said to them last of all the
+awful and powerful words, "_Konx, ompax_." If you want to know what the
+usual result was, just say them to somebody, and you will see,
+instantly. The ancient Hebrews believed that there was a secret name of
+God, usually thought to be inexpressible, and only to be represented by
+a mystic figure kept in the Temple, and that if any one could learn it,
+and repeat it, he could rule the intelligent and unintelligent creation
+at his will. It is supposed by some, that Jehovah is the word which
+stands for this secret name; and some Hebraists think that the word
+"Yahveh" is much more nearly the right one. The Mohammedans, who have
+received many notions from the Jews, believe the same story about the
+secret name of God, and they think it was engraved on Solomon's signet,
+as all readers of the Arabian Nights will very well remember. The Jews
+believed that if you pronounced the word "Satan" any evil spirit that
+happened to be by could in consequence instantly pop into you if he
+wished, and possess you, as the devils in the New Testament possessed
+people.
+
+Some ancient cities had a secret name, and it was believed that if their
+enemies could find this out, they could conjure with it so as to destroy
+such cities. Thus, the secret name of Rome was Valentia, and the word
+was very carefully kept, with the intention that none should know it
+except one or two of the chief pontiffs. Mr. Borrow, in one of his
+books, tells about a charm which a gipsy woman knew, and which she used
+to repeat to herself as a means of obtaining supernatural aid when she
+happened to want it. This was, "Saboca enrecar maria ereria." He induced
+her after much effort to repeat the words to him, but she always wished
+she had not, with an evident conviction that some harm would result. He
+explained to her that they consisted of a very simple phrase, but it
+made no difference.
+
+An ancient physician named Serenus Sammonicus, used to be quite sure of
+curing fevers, by means of what he called Abracadabra, which was a sort
+of inscription to be written on something and worn on the patient's
+person. It was as follows:
+
+  ABRACADABRA
+   BRACADABR
+    RACADAB
+     ACADA
+      CAD
+       A.
+
+Another gentleman of the same school used to cure sore eyes by hanging
+round the patient's neck an inscription made up of only two letters, A
+and Z; but how he mixed them we unfortunately do not know.
+
+By the way, many of the German peasantry in the more ignorant districts
+still believe that to write Abracadabra on a slip of paper and keep it
+with you, will protect you from wounds, and that if your house is on
+fire, to throw this strip into it will put the fire out.
+
+Many charms or incantations call on God, Christ or some saints, just as
+the heathen ones call on a spirit. Here is one for epilepsy that seems
+to appeal to both religions, as if with a queer proviso against any
+possible mistake about either. Taking the epileptic by the hand, you
+whisper in his ear "I adjure thee by the sun and the moon and the gospel
+of to-day, that thou arise and no more fall to the ground; in the name
+of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost."
+
+A charm for the cramp found in vogue in some rustic regions is this:
+
+  "The devil is tying a knot in my leg,
+  Mark, Luke and John, unloose it, I beg,
+  Crosses three we make to ease us--
+  Two for the thieves, and one for Christ Jesus."
+
+Here is another, often used in Ireland, which in the same spirit of
+superstition and ignorant irreverence uses the name of the Savior for a
+slight human occasion. It is to cure the toothache, and requires the
+repeating of the following string of words:
+
+"St. Peter sitting on a marble stone, our Savior passing by, asked him
+what was the matter. 'Oh Lord, a toothache!' Stand up, Peter, and follow
+me; and whoever keeps these words in memory of me, shall never be
+troubled with a toothache, Amen."
+
+The English astrologer Lilly, after the death of his wife, formerly
+a Mrs. Wright, found in a scarlet bag which she wore under her arm a
+pure gold "sigil" or round plate worth about ten dollars in gold,
+which the former husband of the defunct had used to exorcise a
+spirit that plagued him. In case any of my readers can afford
+bullion enough, and would like to drive away any such visitor, let
+them get such a plate and have engraved round the edge of one side,
+"Vicit Leo de tribus Judae tetragrammaton [cross]." Inside this
+engrave a "holy lamb." Round the edge of the other side engrave
+"Annaphel" and three crosses, thus: [cross] [cross] [cross]; and in
+the middle, "Sanctus Petrus Alpha et Omega."
+
+The witches have always had incantations, which they have used to make a
+broom-stick into a horse, to kill or to sicken animals and persons, etc.
+Most of these are sufficiently stupid, and not half so wonderful as one
+I know, which may be found in a certain mysterious volume called "The
+Girl's Own Book," and which, as I can depose, has often power to tickle
+children. It is this:
+
+"Bandy-legged Borachio Mustachio Whiskerifusticus, the bald and brave
+Bombardino of Bagdad, helped Abomilique Bluebeard Bashaw of Babelmandel
+beat down an abominable bumblebee at Balsora."
+
+But to the other witches. Their charms were repeated sometimes in their
+own language and sometimes in gibberish. When the Scotch witches wanted
+to fly away to their "Witches' Sabbath," they straddled a broom-handle,
+a corn stalk, a straw, or a rush, and cried out "Horse and hattock, in
+the Devil's name!" and immediately away they flew, "forty times as high
+as the moon," if they wished. Some English witches in Somersetshire used
+instead to say, "Thout, tout, throughout and about;" and when they
+wished to return from their meeting they said "Rentum, tormentum!" If
+this form of the charm does not manufacture a horse, not even a
+saw-horse, then I recommend another version of it, thus:
+
+  "Horse and pattock, horse and go!
+  Horse and pellats, ho, ho, ho!"
+
+German witches said (in High Dutch:)
+
+  "Up and away!
+  Hi! Up aloft, and nowhere stay!"
+
+Scotch witches had modes of working destruction to the persons or
+property of those to whom they meant evil, which were strikingly like
+the negro obeah or mandinga. One of these was, to make a hash of the
+flesh of an unbaptised child, with that of dogs and sheep, and to put
+this goodly dish in the house of the victim, reciting the following
+rhyme:
+
+  "We put this untill this hame
+  In our Lord the Devil's name;
+  The first hands that handle thee.
+  Burned and scalded may they be!
+  We will destroy houses and hald,
+  With the sheep and nolt (_i. e._ cattle) into the fauld;
+  And little shall come to the fore (_i. e._ remain,)
+  Of all the rest of the little store."
+
+Another, used to destroy the sons of a certain gentleman named Gordon
+was, to make images for the boys, of clay and paste, and put them in a
+fire, saying:
+
+  "We put this water among this meal
+  For long pining and ill heal,
+  We put it into the fire
+  To burn them up stock and stour (_i. e._ stack and band.)
+  That they be burned with our will,
+  Like any stikkle (stubble) in a kiln."
+
+In case any lady reader finds herself changed into a hare, let her
+remember how the witch Isobel Gowdie changed herself from hare back to
+woman. It was by repeating:
+
+  "Hare, hare, God send thee care!
+  I am in a hare's likeness now;
+  But I shall be woman even now--
+  Hare, hare, God send thee care!"
+
+About the year 1600 there was both hanged and burned at Amsterdam a poor
+demented Dutch girl, who alleged that she could make cattle sterile, and
+bewitch pigs and poultry by saying to them "Turius und Shurius
+Inturius." I recommend to say this first to an old hen, and if found
+useful it might then be tried on a pig.
+
+Not far from the same time a woman was executed as a witch at Bamberg,
+having, as was often the case, been forced by torture to make a
+confession. She said that the devil had given her power to send diseases
+upon those she hated, by saying complimentary things about them, as
+"What a strong man!" "what a beautiful woman!" "what a sweet child!" It
+is my own impression that this species of cursing may safely be tried
+where it does not include a falsehood.
+
+Here are two charms which the German witches used to repeat to raise the
+devil with in the form of a he goat:
+
+  "Lalle, Bachea, Magotte, Baphia, Dajam,
+  Vagoth Heneche Ammi Nagaz, Adomator
+  Raphael Immanuel Christus, Tetragrammaton
+  Agra Jod Loi. Konig! Konig!"
+
+The two last words to be screamed out quickly. This second one, it must
+be remembered, is to be read backward except the two last words. It was
+supposed to be the strongest of all, and was used if the first one
+failed:
+
+  "Anion, Lalle, Sabolos, Sado, Poter, Aziel,
+  Adonai Sado Vagoth Agra, Jod,
+  Baphra! Komm! Komm!"
+
+In case the devil staid too long, he could be made to take himself off
+by addressing to him the following statement, repeated backward:
+
+  "Zellianelle Heotti Bonus Vagotha
+  Plisos sother osech unicus Beelzebub
+  Dax! Komm! Komm!"
+
+Which would evidently make almost anybody go away.
+
+A German charm to improve one's finances was perhaps no worse than
+gambling in gold. It ran thus:
+
+  "As God be welcomed, gentle moon--
+  Make thou my money more and soon!"
+
+To get rid of a fever in the German manner, go and tie up a bough of a
+tree, saying, "Twig, I bind thee; fever, now leave me!" To give your
+ague to a willow tree, tie three knots in a branch of it early in the
+morning, and say, "Good morning, old one! I give thee the cold; good
+morning, old one!" and turn and run away as fast as you can without
+looking back.
+
+Enough of this nonsense. It is pure mummery. Yet it is worth while to
+know exactly what the means were which in ancient times were relied on
+for such purposes, and it is not useless to put this matter on record;
+for just such formulas are believed in now by many people. Even in this
+city there are "witches" who humbug the more foolish part of the
+community out of their money by means just as foolish as these.
+
+
+
+
+VIII. ADVENTURERS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+THE PRINCESS CARIBOO; OR, THE QUEEN OF THE ISLES.
+
+
+Bristol was, in 1812, the second commercial city of Great Britain,
+having in particular an extensive East India trade. Among its
+inhabitants were merchants, reckoned remarkably shrewd, and many of them
+very wealthy; and quite a number of aristocratic families, who were
+looked up to with the abject toad-eating kind of civility that follows
+"the nobility." On the whole, Bristol was a very fashionable, rich,
+cultivated, and intelligent place--considering.
+
+One fine evening in the winter of 1812-13, the White Lion hotel, a
+leading inn at Bristol, was thrown into a wonderful flutter by the
+announcement that a very beautiful and fabulously wealthy lady, the
+Princess Cariboo, had just arrived by ship from an oriental port. Her
+agent, a swarthy and wizened little Asiatic, who spoke imperfect
+English, gave this information, and ordered the most sumptuous suite of
+rooms in the house. Of course, there was great activity in all manner of
+preparations; and the mysterious character of this lovely but high-born
+stranger caused a wonderful flutter of excitement, which grew and grew
+until the fair stranger at length deigned to arrive. She came at about
+ten o'clock, in great state, and with two or three coaches packed with
+servants and luggage--the former of singularly dingy complexion and
+fantastic vestments, and the latter of the most curious forms and
+material imaginable. The eager anticipations of hosts and guests alike
+were not only fully justified but even exceeded by the rare beauty of
+the unknown, the oriental style and magnificence of her attire and that
+of her attendants, and the enormous bulk of her baggage--a circumstance
+that has no less weight at an English inn than any where else. The
+stranger, too, was most liberal with her fees to the servants, which
+were always in gold.
+
+It was quickly discovered that her ladyship spoke not one word of
+English, and even her agent--a dark, wild, queer little fellow,--got
+along with it but indifferently, preferring all his requests in very
+"broken China" indeed. The landlord thought it a splendid opportunity to
+create a long bill, and got up rooms and a dinner in flaring style, with
+wax candles, a mob of waiters, ringing of bells, and immense ceremony.
+But the lady, like a real princess, while well enough pleased and very
+gracious, took all this as a matter of course, and preferred her own
+cook, a flat-faced, pug-nosed, yellow-breeched and almond-eyed Oriental,
+with a pigtail dangling from his scalp, which was shaved clean,
+excepting at the back of the head. This gentleman ran about in the
+kitchen-yard with queer little brass utensils, wherein he concocted
+sundry diabolical preparations--as they seemed to the English servants
+to be,--of herbs, rice, curry powder, etc., etc., for the repast of his
+mistress. For the next three or four days, the White Lion was in a
+state bordering upon frenzy, at the singular deportment of the
+"Princess" and her numerous attendants. The former arrayed herself in
+the most astonishing combinations of apparel that had ever been seen by
+the good gossips of Bristol, and the latter indulged in gymnastic antics
+and vocal chantings that almost deafened the neighborhood. There was a
+peculiar nasal ballad in which they were fond of indulging, that
+commenced about midnight and kept up until well nigh morning, that drove
+the neighbors almost beside themselves. It sounded like a concert by a
+committee of infuriated cats, and wound up with protracted whining
+notes, commencing in a whimper, and then with a sudden jerk, bursting
+into a loud, monotonous howl. Yet, withal, these attendants, who slept
+on mats, in the rooms adjacent to that of their mistress, and fed upon
+the preparations of her own cuisine, were, in the main, very civil and
+inoffensive, and seemed to look upon the Princess with the utmost awe.
+The "agent," or "secretary," or "prime-minister," or whatever he might
+be called, was very mysterious as to the objects, purposes, history, and
+antecedents of her Highness, and the quidnuncs were in despair until,
+one morning, the "Bristol Mirror," then a leading paper, came out with a
+flaring announcement, expressing the pleasure it felt in acquainting the
+public with the fact, that a very eminent and interesting foreign
+personage had arrived from her home in the remotest East to proffer His
+Majesty, George III, the unobstructed commerce and friendship of her
+realm, which was as remarkable for its untold wealth as for its
+marvelous beauty. The lady was described as a befitting representative
+of the loveliness and opulence of this new Golconda and Ophir in one,
+since her matchless wealth and munificence were approached only by her
+ravishing personal charms. The other papers took up the topic, and were
+even more extravagant. "Felix Farley's Journal" gave a long narrative of
+her wanderings and extraordinary adventures in the uttermost East, as
+gleaned, of course, from her garrulous agent. The island of her chief
+residence was described as being of vast extent and fertility, immensely
+rich and populous, and possessing many rare and beautiful arts unknown
+to the nations of Europe. The princess had become desperately enamored
+of a certain young Englishman of high rank, who had been shipwrecked on
+her coast, but had afterward escaped, and as she learned, safely reached
+a port in China, and thence departed for Europe. The Princess had
+hereupon set out upon her journeyings over the world in search of him.
+In order to facilitate her enterprise, and softened by the deep
+affection she felt for the son of Albion, she had determined to break
+through the usages of her country, and form an alliance with that of her
+beloved.
+
+Such were the statements everywhere put in circulation; and when the
+Longbows of the place got full hold of it, Gulliver, Peter Wilkins, and
+Sinbad the Sailor were completely eclipsed. Diamonds as big as hen's
+eggs, and pearls the size of hazelnuts, were said to be the commonest
+buttons and ornaments the Princess wore, and her silks and shawls were
+set beyond all price.
+
+The announcement of this romantic and mysterious history, this boundless
+wealth, this interesting mission from majesty to majesty in person and
+the reality which every one could see of so much grace and beauty,
+supplied all that was wanting to set the upper-tendom of the place in a
+blaze. It was hardly etiquette for a royal visitor to receive much
+company before having been presented at Court; but as this princely lady
+came from a point so far outside of the pale of Christendom, and all its
+formalities, it was deemed not out of place, to show her befitting
+attentions; and the ice once broken, there was no arresting the flood.
+The aristocracy of Bristol vied with each other in seeing who should be
+first and most extravagant in their demonstrations. The street in front
+of the "White Lion" was day after day blocked up, with elegant
+equipages, and her reception-rooms thronged with "fair women and brave
+men." Milliners and mantuamakers pressed upon the lovely and mysterious
+Princess Cariboo the most exquisite hats, dresses, and laces, just to
+acquaint her with the fashionable style and solicit her distinguished
+patronage; dry-goodsmen sent her rare patterns of their costliest and
+richest stuffs, perfumers their most exquisite toilet-cases, filled with
+odors sweet; jewellers, their most superb sets of gems; and florists and
+visitors nearly suffocated her with the scarcest and most delicate
+exotics. Pictures, sketches, and engravings, oil-paintings, and
+portraits on ivory of her rapturous admirers, poured in from all sides,
+and her own fine form and features were reproduced by a score of
+artists. Daily she was fêted, and nightly serenaded, until the Princess
+Cariboo became the furore of the United Kingdom. Magnificent
+entertainments were given her in private mansions; and at length, to cap
+the climax, Mr. Worrall, the Recorder of Bristol, managed, by his
+influence, to bring about for her a grand municipal reception in the
+town-hall, and people from far and near thronged to it in thousands.
+
+In the meantime the papers were gravely trying to make out whether the
+Cariboo country meant some remote portion of Japan, or the Island of
+Borneo, or some comparatively unfamiliar archipelago in the remotest
+East, and the "Mirror" was publishing type expressly cut for the purpose
+of representing the characters of the language in which the Princess
+spoke and wrote. They were certainly very uncouth, and pretended sages,
+who knew very well that there was no one to contradict them, declared
+that they were "ancient Coptic!"
+
+Upon reading the sequel of the story, one is irresistibly reminded of
+the ancient Roman inscription discovered by one of Dickens' characters,
+which some irreverent rogue subsequently declared to be nothing more nor
+less than "Bil Stumps His Mark."
+
+All this went on for about a fortnight, until the whole town and a good
+deal of the surrounding country had made complete fools of themselves,
+and only the "naughty little boys" in the streets held out against the
+prevailing mania, probably because they were not admitted to the sport.
+Their salutations took the form of an inharmonious thoroughfare-ballad,
+the chorus of which terminated with:
+
+  "Boo! hoo! hoo!
+  And who's the Princess Cariboo?"
+
+yelled out at the top of their voices.
+
+At length one day, the luggage of her Highness was embarked upon a small
+vessel to be taken round by water to London, while she announced,
+through her "agent," her intention to reach the capital by
+post-coaching.
+
+Of course, the most superb traveling-carriages and teams were placed at
+her disposal; but, courteously declining all these offers, she set out
+in the night-time with a hired establishment, attended by her retinue.
+
+Days and weeks rolled on, and yet no announcement came of the arrival of
+her Highness at London or at any of the intervening cities after the
+first two or three towns eastward of Bristol. Inquiry began to be made,
+and, after long and patient but unavailing search, it became apparent to
+divers and sundry dignitaries in the old town that somebody had been
+very particularly "sold."
+
+The landlord at the "White Lion" who had accepted the agent's order for
+£1,000 on a Calcutta firm in London; poor Mr. Worrall, who had been
+Master of Ceremonies at the town hall affair, and had spent large sums
+of money; and the tradespeople and others who sent their finest goods,
+all felt that they had "heard something drop." The Princess Cariboo had
+disappeared as mysteriously as she came.
+
+For years, the people of Bristol were unmercifully ridiculed throughout
+the entire Kingdom on account of this affair, and burlesque songs and
+plays immortalized its incidents for successive seasons.
+
+One of these insisted that the Princess was no other than an actress of
+more notoriety than note, humbly born in the immediate vicinity of the
+old city, where she practiced this gigantic hoax, and that she had been
+assisted in it by a set of dissolute young noblemen and actors, who
+furnished the money she had spent, got up the oriental dresses,
+published the fibs, and fomented the excitement. At all events, the net
+profit to her and her confederates in the affair must have been some
+£10,000.
+
+Within a few months, and since the first publication of the above
+paragraphs, the English newspapers have recorded the death of the
+"Princess Cariboo," who it appears afterward married in her own rank in
+life and spent a considerable number of years of usefulness in the leech
+trade--an occupation not without a metaphorical likeness to her early
+and more ambitious exploit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+COUNT CAGLIOSTRO, ALIAS JOSEPH BALSAMO, KNOWN ALSO AS "CURSED JOE."
+
+
+One of the most striking, amusing, and instructive pages in the history
+of humbug is the life of Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, whose real name
+was Joseph or Giuseppe Balsamo. He was born at Palermo, in 1743, and
+very early began to manifest his brilliant talents for roguery.
+
+He ran away from his first boarding-school, at the age of eleven or
+twelve, getting up a masquerade of goblins, by the aid of some scampish
+schoolfellows, which frightened the monkish watchmen of the gates away
+from their posts, nearly dead with terror. He had gained little at this
+school, except the pleasant surname of Beppo Maldetto (or cursed Joe.)
+At the age of thirteen he was a second time expelled from the convent of
+Cartegirone, belonging to the order of Benfratelli, the good fathers
+having in vain endeavored to train him up in the way he should go.
+
+While in this convent, the boy was in charge of the apothecary, and
+probably picked up more or less of the smattering of chemistry and
+physics which he afterwards used. His final offence was a ridiculous and
+characteristic one. He was a greedy and thievish fellow, and was by way
+of penalty set to read aloud about the ancient martyrs, those dry though
+pious old gentlemen, while the monks ate dinner. Thus put to what he
+liked least, and deprived of what he liked best, he impudently
+extemporized, instead of the stories of holy agonies, all the indecorous
+scandal he could think of about the more notorious disreputable women of
+Palermo, putting their names instead of those of the martyrs.
+
+After this, Master Joe proceeded to distinguish himself by forging
+opera-tickets, and even documents of various kinds, indiscriminate
+pilfering and swindling, interpreting visions, conjuring, and finally,
+it is declared, a touch of genuine assassination.
+
+Pretty soon he made a foolish, greedy goldsmith, one Marano, believe
+that there was a treasure hidden in the sand on the sea-shore near
+Palermo, and induced the silly man to go one night to dig it up. Having
+reached the spot, the dupe was made to strip himself to his shirt and
+drawers, a magic circle was drawn round him with all sorts of raw-head
+and bloody-bones ceremonies, and Beppo, exhorting him not to leave the
+ring, lest the spirits should kill him, stepped out of sight to make the
+incantations to raise them. Almost instantly, six devils, horned,
+hoofed, tailed, and clawed, breathing fire and smoke, leaped from among
+the rocks and beat the wretched goldsmith senseless, and almost to
+death. They were of course Cursed Joe and some confederates; and taking
+Marano's money and valuables, they left him. He got home in wretched
+plight, but had sense enough left to suspect Master Joe, whom he shortly
+promised, after the Sicilian manner, to assassinate. So Joe ran away
+from Palermo, and went to Messina. Here he said he fell in with a
+venerable humbug, named Athlotas, an "Armenian Sage," who united his
+talents with Beppo's own, in making a peculiar preparation of flax and
+hemp and passing it off upon the people of Alexandria, in Egypt, as a
+new kind of silk. This feat made not only a sensation but plenty of
+money; and the two swindlers now traversed Greece, Turkey, and Arabia,
+in various directions, stirring up the Oriental "old fogies" in amazing
+style. Harems and palaces, according to Cagliostro's own apocryphal
+story, were thrown open to them everywhere, and while the Scherif of
+Mecuca took Balsao under his high protection, one of the Grand Muftis
+actually gave him splendid apartments in his own abode. It is only
+necessary to reflect upon the unbounded reverence felt by all good
+Mussulmen for these exalted dignitaries, to comprehend the height of
+distinction thus attained by the Palermo thimble-rigger. But, among the
+many obscure records that exist in the Italian, French, and German
+languages, touching this arch impostor, there is a hint of a night
+adventure in the harem of a high and mighty personage, at Mecca, whereby
+the latter was put out of doors, with his robes torn and his beard
+singed, by his own domestics, and left to wander in the streets, while
+Beppo, in disguise, received the salaams and sequins of the
+establishment, including the attentions of the fair ones therein caged,
+for an entire night. His escape to the seacoast after this adventure was
+almost miraculous; but escape he did, and shortly afterward turned up in
+Rome, with the title (conferred by himself) of Count Cagliostro, the
+reputation of enormous wealth, and genuine and enthusiastic letters of
+recommendation from Pinto, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. Pinto
+was an alchymist, and had been fooled to the top of his bent by the
+cunning Joseph.
+
+These letters introduced our humbug into the first families of Rome;
+who, like some other first families, were first also as fools. He also
+married a very beautiful, very shrewd, and very wicked Roman donzella,
+Lorenza Feliciani by name; and the worthy couple, combining their
+various talents, and regarding the world as their oyster, at once
+proceeded to open it in the most scientific style. I cannot follow this
+wonderful human chameleon in all his transformations under his various
+names of Fischio, Melissa, Fenice, Anna, Pellegrini, Harat, and
+Belmonte, nor state the studies and processes by which he picked up
+sufficient knowledge of physic, chemistry, the hidden properties of
+numbers, astronomy, astrology, mesmerism, clairvoyance, and the genuine
+old-fashioned "black art;" but suffice it to say, that he travelled
+through every part of Europe, and set it in a blaze with excitement.
+
+There were always enough of silly coxcombs, young and old, of high
+degree, to be allured by the siren smiles of his "Countess;" and dupes
+of both sexes everywhere, to swallow his yarns and gape at his
+juggleries. In the course of his rambles, he paid a visit to his great
+brother humbug, the Count of St. Germain, in Westphalia, or Schleswig,
+and it was not long afterward that he began to publish to the world his
+grand discoveries in Alchemy, of the Philosopher's Stone, and the Elixir
+of Life, or Waters of Perpetual Youth. These and many similar wonders
+were declared to be the result of his investigations under the Arch of
+Old Egyptian Masonry, which degree he claimed to have revived. This
+notion of Egyptian Masonry, Cagliostro is said to have found in some
+manuscripts left by one George Cofton, which fell into our quack's
+hands. This degree was to give perfection to human beings, by means of
+moral and physical regeneration. Of these two the former was to be
+secured by means of a Pentagon, which removes original sin and renews
+pristine innocence. The physical kind of regeneration was to be brought
+about by using the "prime matter" or philosopher's stone, and the
+"Acacia," which two ingredients will give immortal youth. In this new
+structure, he assumed the title of the "Grand Cophta" and actually
+claimed the worship of his followers; declaring that the institution had
+been established by Enoch and Elias, and that he had been summoned by
+"spiritual" agencies to restore it to its pristine glory. In fact, this
+pretension, which influenced thousands upon thousands of believers, was
+one of the most daring impostures that ever saw the light; and it is
+astounding to think that, so late as 1780, it should, for a long time,
+have been entirely successful. The preparatory course of exercises for
+admission to the mystic brotherhood has been described as a series of
+"purgation, starvation, and desperation," lasting for forty days! and
+ending in "physical regeneration" and an immortality on earth. The
+celebrated Lavater, a mild and genial, but feeble man, became one of
+Cagliostro's disciples, and was bamboozled to his heart's content--in
+fact, made to believe that the Count could put the devil into him, or
+take him out, as the case might be.
+
+The wondrous "Water of Beauty," that made old wrinkled faces look young,
+smooth, and blooming again, was the special merchandise of the Countess,
+and was, of course, in great request among the faded beaux and dowagers
+of the day, who were easily persuaded of their own restored loveliness.
+The transmutation of baser metals into gold usually terminated in the
+transmigration of all the gold his victims had into the Count's own
+purse.
+
+In 1776, the Count and Countess came to London. Here, funnily enough,
+they fell into the hands of a gambler, a shyster, and a female scamp,
+who together tormented them almost to death, because the Count would
+not pick them out lucky numbers to gamble by. They persecuted him fairly
+into jail, and plagued and outswindled him so awfully, that, after a
+time, the poor Count sneaked back to the Continent with only fifty
+pounds left out of three thousand which he had brought with him.
+
+One incident of Cagliostro's English experience was the affair of the
+"Arsenical Pigs"--a notice of which may be found in the "Public
+Advertiser," of London of September 3, 1786. A Frenchman named Morande,
+was at that time editing there a paper in his own language, entitled "Le
+Courrier de l'Europe," and lost no opportunity to denounce the Count as
+a humbug. Cagliostro, at length, irritated by these repeated attacks,
+published in the "Advertiser" an open challenge, offering to forfeit
+five thousand guineas if Morande should not be found dead in his bed on
+the morning after partaking of the flesh of a pig, to be selected by
+himself from among a drove fattened by the Count--the cooking, etc., all
+to be done at Morande's own house, and under his own eye. The time was
+fixed for this singular repast, but when it came round, the French
+Editor "backed down" completely, to the great delight of his opponent
+and his credulous followers.
+
+Cagliostro and his spouse now resumed their travels upon the Continent,
+and, by their usual arts and trades, in a great measure renewed their
+fallen fortunes. Among other new dodges, he now assumed so supernatural
+a piety that (he said) he could distinguish an unbeliever by the smell!
+which, of course, was just the opposite of the "odor of sanctity." The
+Count's claim to have lived for hundreds of years was, by some,
+thoroughly believed. He ascribed his immortality to his own Elixir, and
+his comparatively youthful appearance to his "Water of Beauty," his
+Countess readily assisting him by speaking of her son, a Colonel in the
+Dutch service, fifty years old, while she appeared scarcely more than
+twenty.
+
+At length, in Rome, he and the Countess fell into the clutches of the
+Holy Office; and both having been tried for their manifold offences
+against the Church, were found guilty, and, in spite of their contrition
+and eager confessions, immured for life; the Count within the walls of
+the Castle of Sante Leone, in the Duchy of Urbino, where, after eight
+years' imprisonment, he died in 1795, and the Countess in a suburban
+convent, where she died some time after.
+
+The portraits of Cagliostro, of which a number are extant, are pictures
+of a strong-built, bull-necked, fat, gross man, with a snub nose, a
+vulgar face, a look of sensuality and low hypocritical cunning.
+
+The celebrated story of "The Diamond Necklace," in which Cagliostro,
+Marie Antoinette, the Cardinal de Rohan, and others were mixed in such a
+hodge-podge of rascality and folly, must form a narrative by itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.
+
+
+In my sketch of Joseph Balsamo, alias the Count Alessandro de
+Cagliostro, I referred to the affair of the diamond necklace, known in
+French history as the _Collier de la Reine_, or Queen's necklace, from
+the manner in which the name and reputation of Marie Antoinette, the
+consort of Louis XVI, became entangled in it. I shall now give a brief
+account of this celebrated imposition--perhaps the boldest and shrewdest
+ever known, and almost wholly the work of a woman.
+
+On the Quai de la Ferraille, not far from the Pont Neuf, stood the
+establishment, part shop, part manufactory, of Messrs. Boehmer &
+Bassange, the most celebrated jewelers of their day. After triumphs
+which had given them world-wide fame during the reign of Louis XV, and
+made them fabulously rich, they determined, with the advent of Louis
+XVI, to eclipse all their former efforts and crown the professional
+glory of their lives. Their correspondents in every chief jewel market
+of the world were summoned to aid their enterprise, and in the course of
+some two or three years they succeeded in collecting the finest and most
+remarkable diamonds that could be procured in the whole world of
+commerce.
+
+The next idea was to combine all these superb fragments in one grand
+ornament to grace the form of beauty. A necklace was the article fixed
+upon, and the best experience and most delicate taste that Europe could
+boast were expended on the design. Each and every diamond was specially
+set and faced in such manner as to reveal its excellence to the utmost
+advantage, and all were arranged together in the style best calculated
+to harmonize their united effect. Form, shape, and the minutest shades
+of color were studied, and the result, after many attempts and many
+failures, and the anxious labor of many months, was the most exquisite
+triumph that the genius of the lapidary and the goldsmith could
+conceive.
+
+The whole necklace consisted of three triple rows of diamonds, or nine
+rows in all, containing eight hundred faultless gems. The triple rows
+fell away from each in the most graceful and flexible curves over each
+side of the breast and each shoulder of the wearer, the curves starting
+from the throat, whence a magnificent pendant, depending from a single
+knot of diamonds, each as large as a hazel-nut, hung down half way upon
+the bosom in the design of a cross and crown, surrounded by the lilies
+of the royal house--the lilies themselves dangling on stems which were
+strung with smaller jewels. Rich clusters and festoons spread from the
+loop over each shoulder, and the central loop on the back of the neck
+was joined in a pattern of emblematic magnificence corresponding with
+that in front.
+
+It was in 1782 that this grand work was finally completed, and the happy
+owners gloated with delight over a monument of skill as matchless in its
+way as the Pyramids themselves. But, alas! the necklace might as well
+have been constructed of the common boulders piled in those same
+pyramids as of the finest jewels of the mine, for all the good it seemed
+destined to bring the poor jewelers, beyond the rapture of beholding it
+and calling it theirs.
+
+The necklace was worth 1,500,000 francs, equivalent to more than
+$300,000 in gold, as money then went, or nearly $500,000 in gold,
+now-a-days. Rather too large a sum to keep locked up in a casket, the
+reader will confess! And then it seems that Messrs. Boehmer & Bassange
+had not entirely paid for it yet. They had ten creditors on the diamonds
+in different countries, and an immense capital still locked up in their
+other jewelry.
+
+Of course, then, after their first delight had subsided, they were most
+anxious to sell an article that had to be constantly and painfully
+watched, and that might so easily disappear. How many a nimble-fingered
+and stout-hearted rogue would not, in those days, have imperiled a dozen
+lives to clutch that blazing handful of dross, convertible into an
+Elysium of pomp and pleasure! It would hardly have been a safe noonday
+plaything in moral Gotham, let alone the dissolute Paris of eighty years
+ago!
+
+The first thought, of course, that kindled in the breasts of Boehmer and
+Bassange was, that the only proper resting-place for their matchless
+bauble was the snowy neck of the Queen Marie Antoinette, then the
+admired and beloved of all! Her peerless beauty alone could live in the
+glow of such supernal splendor, and the French throne was the only one
+in Christendom that could sustain such glittering weight. Moreover, the
+Queen had already once been a good customer to the court jewelers, for
+in 1774 she bought four diamonds of them for $75,000.
+
+Louis XV would not have hesitated to fling it on the shoulders of the Du
+Barry, and Louis XVI, in spite of his odd notions upon economy and just
+administration, easily listened to the delicate insinuations of his
+court-jewelers; and, one fine morning, laid the necklace in its casket
+on the table of his Queen. Her Majesty, for a moment, yielded to the
+promptings of feminine weakness, and danced and laughed with the glee of
+an overjoyed child in the new sunshine of those burning, sparkling,
+dazzling gems. Once and once only she placed it on her neck and breast,
+and probably the world has never before or since seen such a countenance
+in such a setting. It was almost the head of an angel shining in the
+glory of the spheres. But a better thought prevailed, and quickly
+removing it, she, with a wave of her beautiful hand, declined the gift
+and besought the King to apply the sum to any other purpose that would
+be useful or honorable to France, whose finances were sadly straitened.
+"We want ships of war more than we do necklaces," said she. The King was
+really delighted at this act of the Queen's, and the incident soon
+becoming widely known, gave the latter immense popularity for at least
+twenty-four hours after it occurred. In fact, the amount was really
+applied to the construction of a grand line-of-battle ship called the
+Suffren, after the great Admiral of that name.
+
+Boehmer, who seems to have been the business manager of the jeweler
+firm, found his necklace as troublesome as the cobbler did the elephant
+he won in a raffle, and tried so perseveringly to induce the Queen to
+buy it, that he became a real torment. She seems to have thought him a
+little cracked on the subject; and one day, when he obtained a private
+audience, he besought her either to buy the necklace or to let him go
+and drown himself in the Seine. Out of all patience, the Queen intimated
+that he would have been wiser to secure a customer to begin with; that
+she would not buy; that if he chose to throw himself into the Seine it
+would be entirely on his own responsibility; and that as for the
+necklace, he had better pick it to pieces and sell it. The poor German
+(for Boehmer was a native of Saxony) departed in deep distress, but
+accepted neither his own suggestion nor the Queen's.
+
+For some months after this, the court jewelers busied themselves in
+peddling their necklace about among the courts of Europe. But none of
+these concerns found it convenient just then to pay out three hundred
+and sixty thousand dollars for a concatenation of eight hundred
+diamonds; and still the sparkling elephant remained on the jewelers'
+hands.
+
+Time passed on. Madame Campan, one of the Queen's confidential ladies,
+happened to meet Boehmer one day, and the necklace was alluded to.
+
+"What is the state of affairs about the necklace," asked the lady.
+
+"Highly satisfactory," replied Boehmer, whose serenity of countenance
+Madame Campan had already remarked. "I have sold it to the Sultan at
+Constantinople, for his favorite Sultana."
+
+This the lady thought rather curious, but she was glad the thing was
+disposed of, and said no more.
+
+Time passed on again. In the beginning of August 1785, Boehmer took the
+trouble to call on Madame Campan at her country-house, somewhat to her
+surprise.
+
+"Has the Queen given you no message for me?" he inquired.
+
+"No!" said the lady; "What message should she give?"
+
+"An answer to my note," said the jeweler.
+
+Madame remembered a note which the Queen had received from Boehmer a
+little while before, along with some ornaments sent by his hands to her
+as a present from the King. It congratulated her on having the finest
+diamonds in Europe, and hoped she would remember him. The Queen could
+make nothing of it, and destroyed it. Madame Campan therefore replied,
+
+"There is no answer, the Queen burned the note. She does not even
+understand what you meant by writing that note."
+
+This statement very quickly elicited from the now startled German a
+story which astounded the lady. He said the Queen owed him the first
+instalment of the money for the diamond necklace; that she had bought it
+after all; that the story about the Sultana was a lie told by her
+directions to hide the fact; since the Queen meant to pay by
+instalments, and did not wish the purchase known. And Boehmer said, she
+had employed the Cardinal de Rohan to buy the necklace for her, and it
+had been delivered to him for her, and by him to her.
+
+Now the Queen, as Madame Campan knew very well, had always strongly
+disliked this Cardinal; he had even been kept from attending at Court in
+consequence, and she had not so much as spoken to him for years. And so
+Madame Campan told Boehmer, and further she told him he had been imposed
+upon.
+
+"No," said the man of sparklers decisively, "It is you who are deceived.
+She is decidedly friendly to the cardinal. I have myself the documents
+with her own signature authorizing the transaction, for I have had to
+let the bankers see them in order to get a little time on my own
+payments."
+
+Here was a monstrous mystification for the lady of honor, who told
+Boehmer to instantly go and see his official superior, the chief of the
+king's household. She herself being very soon afterwards summoned to the
+Queen's presence, the affair came up, and she told the Queen all she
+knew about it. Marie Antoinette was profoundly distressed by the evident
+existence of a great scandal and swindle, with which she was plainly to
+be mixed up through the forged signatures to the documents which Boehmer
+had been relying on.
+
+Now for the Cardinal.
+
+Louis de Rohan, a scion of the great house of Rohan, one of the proudest
+of France, was descended of the blood royal of Brittany; was a handsome,
+proud, dissolute, foolish, credulous, unprincipled noble, now almost
+fifty years old, a thorough rake, of large revenues, but deeply in debt.
+He was Peer of France, Archbishop of Strasburg, Grand Almoner of France,
+Commander of the Order of the Holy Ghost, Commendator of the benefice of
+St. Wast d'Arras, said to be the most wealthy in Europe, and a
+Cardinal. He had been ambassador at Vienna a little after Marie
+Antoinette was married to the Dauphin, and while there had taken
+advantage of his official station to do a tremendous quantity of
+smuggling. He had also further and most deeply offended the Empress
+Maria Theresa, by outrageous debaucheries, by gross irreligion, and
+above all by a rather flat but in effect stingingly satirical
+description of her conduct about the partition of Poland. This she never
+forgave him, neither did her daughter Marie Antoinette; and accordingly,
+when he presented himself at Paris soon after she became Queen, he
+received a curt repulse, and an intimation that he had better go
+to--Strasburg.
+
+Now in those days a sentence of exclusion from Court was to a French
+noble but just this side of a banishment to Tophet; and de Rohan was
+just silly enough to feel this infliction most intensely. He went
+however, and from that time onward, for year after year, lived the life
+of a persevering Adam thrust out of his paradise, hanging about the gate
+and trying all possible ways to sneak in again. Once, for instance, he
+had induced the porter at the palace of the Trianon to let him get
+inside the grounds during an illumination, and was recognized by the
+glow of his cardinal's red stockings from under his cloak. But he was
+only laughed at for his pains; the porter was turned off, and the poor
+silly miserable cardinal remained "out in the cold," breaking his heart
+over his exclusion from the most tedious mess of conventionalities that
+ever was contrived--except those of the court of Spain.
+
+About 1783, this great fool fell in with an equally great knave, who
+must be spoken of here, where he begins to converge along with the rest,
+towards the explosion of the necklace swindle. This was Cagliostro, who
+at that time came to Strasburg and created a tremendous excitement with
+his fascinating Countess, his Egyptian masonry, his Spagiric Food (a
+kind of Brandreth's pill of the period,) which he fed out to poor sick
+people, his elixir of life, and other humbugs.
+
+The Cardinal sent an intimation that he would like to see the quack. The
+quack, whose impudence was far greater than the Cardinal's pride, sent
+back this sublime reply: "If he is sick let him come to me, and I will
+cure him. If he is well, he does not need to see me, nor I him."
+
+This piece of impudence made the fool of a cardinal more eager than
+ever. After some more affected shyness, Cagliostro allowed himself to be
+seen. He was just the man to captivate the Cardinal, and they were
+quickly intimate personal friends, practising transmutation, alchemy,
+masonry, and still more particularly conducting a great many experiments
+on the Cardinal's remarkably fine stock of Tokay wine. Whatever poor de
+Rohan had to do, he consulted Cagliostro about it, and when the latter
+went to Switzerland, his dupe maintained a constant communication with
+him in cipher.
+
+Lastly is to be mentioned Jeanne de St. Remi, Countess de Lamotte de
+Valois de France, the chief scoundrel, if the term may be used of a
+woman--of the necklace affair. She seems to have been really a
+descendant of the royal house of Valois, to which Francis I. belonged;
+through an illegitimate son of Henry II. created Count de St. Remi. The
+family had run down and become poor and rascally, one of Jeanne's
+immediate ancestors having practiced counterfeiting for a living. She
+herself had been protected by a certain kind hearted Countess de
+Boulainvilliers; was receiving a small pension from the Court of about
+$325 a year; had married a certain tall soldier named Lamotte; had come
+to Paris, and was living in poverty in a garret, hovering about as it
+were for a chance to better her circumstances. She was a quick-witted,
+bright-eyed, brazen-faced hussy, not beautiful, but with lively pretty
+ways, and indeed somewhat fascinating.
+
+Her protectress, the countess de Boulainvilliers, was now dead; while
+she was alive Jeanne had once visited her at de Rohan's palace of
+Saverne, and had thus scraped a slight acquaintance with the gay
+Cardinal, which she resumed during her abode at Paris.
+
+Everybody at Paris knew about the Diamond Necklace, and about de Rohan's
+desire to get into court favor. This sharp-witted female swindler now
+came in among the elements I have thus far been describing, to frame
+necklace, jeweller, cardinal, queen, and swindler, all together into her
+plot, just as the key-stone drops into an arch and locks it up tight.
+
+No mortal knows where ideas come from. Suddenly a conception is in the
+mind, whence, or how, we do not know, any more than we know Life. The
+devil himself might have furnished that which now popped into the
+cunning, wicked mind of this adventuress. This is what she saw all at
+once:
+
+Boehmer is crazy to sell his necklace. De Rohan is crazy after the
+Queen's favor. I am crazy after money. Now if I can make De Rohan think
+that the Queen wants the necklace, and will become his friend in return
+for his helping her to it; if I can make him think I am her agent to
+him, then I can steal the diamonds in their transit.
+
+A wonderfully cunning and hardy scheme! And most wonderful was the cool,
+keen promptitude with which it was executed.
+
+The countess began to hint to the cardinal that she was fast getting
+into the Queen's good graces, by virtue of being a capital gossip and
+story-teller; and that she had frequent private audiences. Soon she
+added intimations that the Queen was far from being really so displeased
+with the cardinal, as he supposed. At this the old fool bit instantly,
+and showed the keenest emotions of hope and delight. On a further
+suggestion, he presently drew up a letter or memoir humbly and
+plaintively stating his case, which the countess undertook to put into
+the Queen's hands. It was the first of over _two hundred_ notes from
+him, notes of abasement, beseeching argument, expostulation, and so on,
+all entrusted to Jeanne. She burnt them, I suppose.
+
+In order to make her dupe sure that she told the truth about her access
+to the Queen, Jeanne more than once made him go and watch her enter a
+side gate into the grounds of the Trianon palace, to which she had
+somehow obtained a key; and after waiting he saw her come out again,
+sometimes under the escort of a man, who was, she said one Desclos, a
+confidential valet of the Queen. This was Villette de Rétaux, a "pal"
+of Jeanne's and of her husband Lamotte, who had, by the way, become a
+low-class gambler and swindler by occupation.
+
+Next Jeanne talked about the Queen's charities; and on one occasion,
+told how much the amiable Marie Antoinette longed to expend certain sums
+for benevolent purposes if she only had them--but she was out of funds,
+and the King was so close about money!
+
+The poor cardinal bit again--"If the Queen would only allow him the
+honor to furnish the little amount!"
+
+The countess evidently hadn't thought of that. She reflected--hesitated.
+The cardinal urged. She consented--it was not much--and was so kind as
+to carry the cash herself. At their next meeting she reported that the
+Queen was delighted, telling a very nice story about it. The cardinal
+would only be too happy to do so again. And sure enough he did, and
+quite a number of times too; contributing in all to the funds of the
+countess in this manner, about $25,000.
+
+Well: after a time the cardinal is at Strasburg, when he receives a note
+from the countess that brings him back again as quick as post-horses can
+carry him. It says that there is something very important, very secret,
+very delicate, that the queen wants his help about. He is overflowing
+with zeal. What is it? Only let him know--his life, his purse, his soul,
+are at the service of his liege lady.
+
+His purse is all that is needed. With infinite shyness and
+circumspection, the countess gradually, half unwillingly, lets him find
+out that it is the diamond necklace that the Queen wants. By diabolical
+ingenuities of talk she leads de Rohan to the full conviction that if he
+secures the Queen that necklace, he will thenceforward bask in all the
+sunshine of court favor that she can show or control.
+
+And at proper times sundry notes from the Queen are bestowed upon the
+enraptured noodle. These are written in imitation of the Queen's
+handwriting, by that Villette de Rétaux who personated the Queen's
+valet, and who was an expert at counterfeiting.
+
+A last and sublime summit of impudent pretension is reached by a secret
+interview which the Queen, says the countess, desires to grant to her
+beloved servant the cardinal. This suggestion was rendered practicable
+by one of those mere coincidences which are found though rarely in
+history, and which are too improbable to put into a novel--the casual
+discovery of a young woman of loose character who looked much like the
+Queen. Whether her name was d'Essigny or Gay d'Oliva, is uncertain; she
+is usually called by the latter. She was hired and taught; and with
+immense precautions, this ostrich of a cardinal was one night introduced
+into the gardens of the Trianon, and shown a little nook among the
+thickets where a stately female in the similitude of the Queen received
+him with soft spoken words of kindly greeting, allowed him to kneel and
+kiss a fair and shapely hand, and showed no particular timidity of any
+kind. Yet the interview had scarcely more than begun before steps were
+heard. "Some one is coming," exclaimed the lady, "it is Monsieur and
+Madame d'Artois--We must part. There"--she gave him a red rose--"You
+know what that means! Farewell!" And away they went--Mademoiselle
+d'Oliva to report to her employers, and the cardinal, in a seventh
+heaven of ineffable tomfoolery, to his hotel.
+
+But the interview, and the lovely little notes that came sometimes,
+"fixed" the necklace business! And if further encouragement had been
+needed, Cagliostro gave it. For the cardinal now consulted him about the
+future of the affair, having indeed kept him fully informed about it for
+a long time, as he did of all matters of interest. So the quack set up
+his tabernacles of mummery in a parlor of the cardinal's hotel, and
+conducted an Egyptian Invocation there all night long in solitude and
+pomp; and in the morning he decreed (in substance) "go ahead." And the
+cardinal did so. Boehmer and Bassange were only too happy to bargain
+with the great and wealthy church and state dignitary. A memorandum of
+terms and time of payment was drawn up, and was submitted to the Queen.
+That is, swindling Jeanne carried it off, and brought it back, with an
+entry made by Villette de Rétaux in the margin, thus: "_Bon,
+bon--Approuvé, Marie Antoinette de France_." That is, "Good, good--I
+approve. Marie Antoinette de France." The payment was to be by
+instalments, at six months, and quarterly afterwards; the Queen to
+furnish the money to the cardinal, while he remained ostensibly holden
+to the jewellers, she thus keeping out of sight.
+
+So the jewels were handed over to the cardinal de Rohan; he took them
+one evening in great state to the lodgings of the countess, where with
+all imaginable formality there came a knock at the door, and when it was
+open a tall valet entered who said solemnly "On the part of the Queen!"
+De Rohan _knew_ it was the Queen's confidential valet, for he saw with
+his own eyes that it was the same man who had escorted the countess from
+the side gate at the Trianon! And so it was; to wit, Villette de Rétaux,
+who, calmly receiving the fifteen hundred thousand franc treasure,
+marched but as solemnly as he had come in.
+
+As that counterfeiting rascal goes out of the door, the diamond necklace
+itself disappears from our knowledge. The swindle was consummated, but
+there is no whisper of the disposition of the spoils. Villette, and
+Jeanne's husband Lamotte, went to London and Amsterdam, and had some
+money there; but seemingly no more than the previous pillages upon the
+cardinal might have supplied; nor did the countess' subsequent
+expenditures show that she had any of the proceeds.
+
+But that is not the last of the rest of the parties to the affair, by
+any means. Between this scene and the time when the anxious Boehmer,
+having a little bill to meet, beset Madame Campan about his letter and
+the money the Queen was to pay him, there intervened six months. During
+that time countess Jeanne was smoothing as well as she could, with
+endless lies and contrivances, the troubles of the perplexed cardinal,
+who "couldn't seem to see" that he was much better off in spite of his
+loyal performance of his part of the bargain.
+
+But this application by Boehmer, and the enormous swindle which it was
+instantly evident had been perpetrated on somebody or other, of course
+waked up a commotion at once. The baron de Breteuil, a deadly enemy of
+de Rohan, got hold of it all, and in his overpowering eagerness to ruin
+his foe, quickly rendered the matter so public that it was out of the
+question to hush it up. It seems probable that Jeanne de Lamotte
+expected that the business would be kept quiet for the sake of the
+Queen, and that thus any very severe or public punishments would be
+avoided and perhaps no inquiries made. It is clear that this would have
+been the best plan, but de Breteuil's officiousness prevented it, and
+there was nothing for it but legal measures. De Rohan was arrested and
+put in the Bastile, having barely been able to send a message in German
+to his hotel to a trusty secretary, who instantly destroyed all the
+papers relating to the affair. Jeanne was also imprisoned, and Miss Gay
+d'Oliva and Villette de Rétaux, being caught at Brussels and Amsterdam,
+were in like manner secured. As for Cagliostro, he was also imprisoned,
+some accounts saying that he ostentatiously gave himself up for trial.
+
+This was a public trial before the Parliament of Paris, with much form.
+
+The result was that the cardinal, appearing to be only fool, not knave,
+was acquitted. Gay d'Oliva appeared to have known nothing except that
+she was to play a part, and she had been told that the Queen wanted her
+to do so, so she was let go. Villette was banished for life. Lamotte,
+the countess' husband, had escaped to England, and was condemned to the
+galleys in his absence, which didn't hurt him much. Cagliostro was
+acquitted. But Jeanne was sentenced to be whipped, branded on the
+shoulder with the letter V for _Voleuse_ (thief), and banished.
+
+This sentence was executed in full, but with great difficulty; for the
+woman turned perfectly furious on the public scaffold, flew at the
+hangman like a tiger, bit pieces out of his hands, shrieked, cursed,
+rolled on the floor, kicked, squirmed and jumped, until they held her by
+brute force, tore down her dress, and the red hot iron going aside as
+she struggled, plunged full into her snowy white breast, planting there
+indelibly the horrible black V, while she yelled like a fiend under the
+torment of the smoking brand. She fled away to England, lived there some
+time in dissolute courses, and is said to have died in consequence of
+falling out of a window when drunk, or as another account states, of
+being flung out by the companions of her orgy, whom she had stung to
+fury by her frightful scolding. Before her death she put forth one or
+two memoirs,--false, scandalous things.
+
+The unfortunate Queen never entirely escaped some shadow of disrepute
+from the necklace business. For to the very last, both on the trial and
+afterwards, Jeanne de Lamotte impudently stuck to it that at least the
+Queen had known about the trick played on the Cardinal at the Trianon,
+and had in fact been hidden close by and saw and laughed heartily at the
+whole interview. So sore and morbid was the condition of the public mind
+in France in those days, when symptoms of the coming Revolution were
+breaking out on every side, that this odious story found many and
+willing believers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII.
+
+THE COUNT DE ST. GERMAIN, SAGE, PROPHET, AND MAGICIAN.
+
+
+Superior to Cagliostro, even in accomplishments, and second to him in
+notoriety only, was that human nondescript, the so-called Count de St.
+Germain, whom Fredrick the Great called, "a man no one has ever been
+able to make out."
+
+The Marquis de Crequy declares that St. Germain was an Alsatian Jew,
+Simon Wolff by name, and born at Strasburg about the close of the
+seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century; others insist
+that he was a Spanish Jesuit named Aymar; and others again intimate that
+his true title was the Marquis de Betmar, and that he was a native of
+Portugal. The most plausible theory, however, makes him the natural son
+of an Italian princess, and fixes his birth at San Germano, in Savoy,
+about the year 1710; his ostensible father being one Rotondo, a
+tax-collector of that district.
+
+This supposition is borne out by the fact that he spoke all his many
+languages with an Italian accent. It was about the year 1750 that he
+first began to be heard of in Europe as the Count St. Germain, and put
+forth the astounding pretensions that soon gave him celebrity over the
+whole continent. The celebrated Marquis de Belleisle made his
+acquaintance about that time in Germany, and brought him to Paris, where
+he was introduced to Madame de Pompadour, whose favor he very quickly
+gained. The influence of that famous beauty was just then paramount with
+Louis XV, and the Count was soon one of the most eminent men at court.
+He was remarkably handsome--as an old portrait at Friersdorf, in Saxony,
+in the rooms he once occupied, sufficiently indicated; and his musical
+accomplishments, added to the ineffable charm of his manners and
+conversation, and the miracles he performed, rendered him an
+irresistible attraction, especially to the ladies, who appear to have
+almost idolized him. Endowed with an enchanting voice, he could also
+play every instrument then in vogue, but especially excelled upon the
+violin, which he could handle in such a manner as to give it the effect
+of a small orchestra. Cotemporary writers declare that, in his more
+ordinary performances, a connoisseur could distinctly hear the separate
+tones of a full quartet when the count was extemporizing on his favorite
+Cremona. His little work, entitled "La Musique Raisonnée," published in
+England, for private circulation only, bears testimony to his musical
+genius, and to the wondrous eccentricity, as well as beauty, of his
+conceptions. But it was in alectromancy, or divination by signs and
+circles; hydromancy, or divination by water; cleidomancy, or divination
+by the key, and dactylomancy, or divination by the fingers, that the
+count chiefly excelled, although he, at the same time, professed
+alchemy, astrology, and prophecy in the higher branches.
+
+The fortunes of the Count St. Germain rose so rapidly in France, that in
+1760 he was sent by Louis XV, to the Court of England, to assist in
+negotiations for a peace. M. de Choiseul, then Prime Minister of France,
+however, greatly feared and detested the Count; and secretly wrote to
+Pitt, begging the latter to have that personage arrested, as he was
+certainly a Russian spy. But St. Germain, through his attendant sprites,
+of course, received timely warning, and escaped to the Continent. In
+England, he was the inseparable friend of Prince Lobkowitz--a
+circumstance that gave some color to his alleged connection with the
+Russians. His sojourn there was equally distinguished by his devotion to
+the ladies, and his unwavering success at the gaming-table, where he won
+fabulous sums, which were afterward dispensed with imperial munificence.
+It was there, too, that he put forward his claims to the highest rank in
+Masonry; and, of course, added, thereby, immensely to the _éclat_ of his
+position. He spoke English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian,
+German, Russian, Polish, the Scandinavian, and many of the Oriental
+tongues, with equal fluency; and pretended to have traveled over the
+whole earth, and even to have visited the most distant starry orbs
+frequently, in the course of a lifetime which, with continual
+transmigrations, he declared to have lasted for thousands of years. His
+birth, he said, had been in Chaldea, in the dawn of time; and that he
+was the sole inheritor of the lost sciences and mysteries of his own and
+the Egyptian race. He spoke of his personal intimacy with all the twelve
+Apostles--and even the august presence of the Savior; and one of his
+pretensions would have been most singularly amusing, had it not bordered
+upon profanity. This was no less an assertion than that he had upon
+several occasions remonstrated with the Apostle Peter upon the
+irritability of his temperament! In regard to later periods of history,
+he spoke with the careless ease of an every-day looker on; and told
+anecdotes that the researches of scholars afterwards fully verified. His
+predictions were, indeed, most startling; and the cotemporaneous
+evidence is very strong and explicit, that he did foretell the time,
+place, and manner of the death of Louis XV, several years before it
+occurred. His gift of memory was perfectly amazing. Having once read a
+journal of the day, he could repeat its contents accurately, from
+beginning to end; and to this endowment he united the faculty of writing
+with both hands, in characters like copperplate. Thus, he could indite a
+love-letter with his right while he composed a verse with his left hand,
+and, apparently, with the utmost facility--a splendid acquisition for
+the Treasury Department or a literary newspaper! He would, however, have
+been ineligible for any faithful Post Office, since he read the contents
+of sealed letters at a glance; and, by his clairvoyant powers, detected
+crime, or, in fact, the movements of men and the phenomena of nature, at
+any distance. Like all the great Magi, and Brothers of the Rosy Cross,
+of whom he claimed to be a shining light, he most excelled in medicine;
+and along with remedies for "every ill that flesh is heir to," boasted
+his "Aqua Benedetta" as the genuine elixir of life, capable of restoring
+youth to age, beauty and strength to decay, and brilliant intellect to
+the exhausted brain; and, if properly applied, protracting human
+existence through countless centuries. As a proof of its virtues, he
+pointed to his own youthful appearance, and the testimony of old men who
+had seen him sixty or seventy years earlier, and who declared that time
+had made no impression on him. Strangely enough, the Margrave of
+Anspach, of whom I shall presently speak, purchased what purported to be
+the recipe of the "Aqua Benedetta," from John Dyke, the English Consul
+at Leghorn, towards the close of the last century; and copies of it are
+still preserved with religious care and the utmost secrecy by certain
+noble families in Berlin and Vienna, where the preparation has been used
+(as they believe) with perfect success against a host of diseases.
+
+Still another peculiarity of the Count would be highly advantageous to
+any of us, particularly at this period of high prices and culinary
+scarcity. He never ate nor drank; or, at least, he was never seen to do
+so! It is said that boarding house _régime_ in these days is rapidly
+accustoming a considerable class of our fellow-citizens to a similar
+condition, but I can scarcely believe it.
+
+Again, the Count would fall into cataleptic swoons, which continued
+often for hours, and even days; and, during these periods, he declared
+that he visited, in spirit, the most remote regions of the earth, and
+even the farthest stars, and would relate, with astonishing power, the
+scenes he there had witnessed!
+
+He, of course, laid claim to the transmutation of baser metals into
+gold, and stated that, in 1755, while on a visit to India, to consult
+the erudition of the Hindoo Brahmins, he solved, by their assistance,
+the problem of the artificial crystallization of pure carbon--or, in
+other words, the production of diamonds! One thing is certain, viz.:
+that upon a visit to the French ambassador to the Hague, in 1780, he, in
+the presence of that functionary, induced him to believe and testify
+that he broke to pieces, with a hammer, a superb diamond, of his own
+manufacture, the exact counterpart of another, of similar origin, which
+he had just sold for 5,500 louis d'or.
+
+His career and transformations on the Continent were multiform. In 1762,
+he was mixed up with the dynastic conspiracies and changes at St.
+Petersburg; and his importance there was indicated ten years later, by
+the reception given to him at Vienna by the Russian Count Orloff, who
+accosted him joyously as "caro padre" (dear father,) and gave him twenty
+thousand golden Venetian sequins.
+
+From Petersburg he went to Berlin, where he at once attracted the
+attention of Frederick the Great, who questioned Voltaire about him; the
+latter replying, as it is said, that he was a man who knew all things,
+and would live to the end of the world--a fair statement, in brief, of
+the position assumed by more than one of our ward politicians!
+
+In 1774, he took up his abode at Schwabach, in Germany, under the name
+of Count Tzarogy, which is a transposition of Ragotzy, a well-known
+noble name. The Margrave of Anspach met him at the house of his
+favorite Clairon, the actress, and became so fond of him, that he
+insisted upon his company to Italy. On his return, he went to Dresden,
+Leipzig, and Hamburg, and finally to Eckernfiorde, in Schleswig, where
+he took up his residence with the Landgrave Karl of Hesse; and at
+length, in 1783, tired, as he said, of life, and disdaining any longer
+immortality, he gave up the ghost.
+
+It was during St. Germain's residence in Schleswig that he was visited
+by the renowned Cagliostro, who openly acknowledged him as master, and
+learned many of his most precious secrets from him--among others, the
+faculty of discriminating the character by the handwriting, and of
+fascinating birds, animals, and reptiles.
+
+To trace the wanderings of St. Germain is a difficult task, as he had
+innumerable aliases, and often totally disappeared for months together.
+In Venice, he was known as the Count de Bellamare; at Pisa, as the
+Chevalier de Schoening; at Milan, as the Chevalier Welldone; at Genoa,
+as the Count Soltikow, etc.
+
+In all these journeys, his own personal tastes were quiet and simple,
+and he manifested more attachment for a pocket-copy of Guarini's "Pastor
+Fido"--his only library--than for any other object in his possession.
+
+On the whole, the Count de St. Germain was a man of magnificent
+attainments, but the use he made of his talents proved him to be also a
+most magnificent humbug.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+RIZA BEY, THE PERSIAN ENVOY TO LOUIS XIV.
+
+
+The most gorgeous, and with one sole exception the most glorious reign
+that France has known, so far as military success is concerned, was that
+of Louis XIV, the Grand Monarque. His was the age of lavish expenditure,
+of magnificent structures, grand festivals, superb dress and equipage,
+aristocratic arrogance, brilliant campaigns, and great victories. It
+was, moreover, particularly distinguished for the number and high
+character of the various special embassies sent to the court of France
+by foreign powers. Among these, Spain, the Netherlands, Great Britain,
+and Venice rivaled each other in extravagant display and pomp. The
+singular and really tangible imposture I am about to describe, practiced
+at such a period and on such a man as Louis of France, was indeed a bold
+and dashing affair.
+
+"L'Etat c'est moi"--"I am the State," was Louis' celebrated and very
+significant motto; for in his own hands he had really concentrated all
+the powers of the realm, and woe to him who trifled with a majesty so
+real and so imperial!
+
+However, notwithstanding all this imposing strength, this mighty
+domineering will, and this keen intelligence, a man was found bold
+enough to brave them all in the arena of pure humbug. It was toward the
+close of the year 1667, when Louis, in the plenitude of military
+success, returned from his campaign in Flanders, where his invincible
+troops had proven too much for the broad breeched but gallant Dutchmen.
+In the short space of three months he had added whole provinces,
+including some forty or fifty cities and towns, to his dominions; and
+his fame was ringing throughout Christendom. It had even penetrated to
+the farthest East; and the King of Siam sent a costly embassy from his
+remote kingdom, to offer his congratulations and fraternal greeting to
+the most eminent potentate of Europe.
+
+Louis had already removed the pageantries of his royal household to his
+magnificent new palace of Versailles, on which the wealth of conquered
+kingdoms had been lavished, and there, in the Great Hall of Mirrors,
+received the homage of his own nobles and the ambassadors of foreign
+powers. The utmost splendor of which human life was susceptible seemed
+so common and familiar in those days, that the train was dazzling indeed
+that could excite any very particular attention. What would have seemed
+stupendous elsewhere was only in conformity with all the rest of the
+scene at Versailles. But, at length, there came something that made even
+the pampered courtiers of the new Babylon stare--a Persian embassy. Yes,
+a genuine, actual, living envoy from that wonderful Empire in the East,
+which in her time had ruled the whole Oriental world, and still retained
+almost fabulous wealth and splendor.
+
+It was announced formally, one morning, to Louis, that His Most Serene
+Excellency, Riza Bey, with an interminable tail of titles, hangers-on
+and equipages, had reached the port of Marseilles, having journeyed by
+way of Trebizond and Constantinople, to lay before the great "King of
+the Franks" brotherly congratulations and gorgeous presents from his own
+illustrious master, the Shah of Persia. This was something entirely to
+the taste of the vain French ruler, whom unlimited good fortune had
+inflated beyond all reasonable proportions. He firmly believed that he
+was by far the greatest man who had ever lived; and had an embassy from
+the moon or the planet Jupiter been announced to him, would have deemed
+it not only natural enough, but absolutely due to his preëminence above
+all other human beings. Nevertheless, he was, secretly, immensely
+pleased with the Persian demonstration, and gave orders that no expense
+should be spared in giving the strangers a reception worthy of himself
+and France.
+
+It would be needless for me to detail the events of the progress of Riza
+Bey from Marseilles to Paris, by way of Avignon and Lyons. It was
+certainly in keeping with the pretensions of the Ambassador. From town
+to town the progress was a continued ovation. Triumphal arches,
+bonfires, chimes of bells, and hurrahing crowds in their best bibs and
+tuckers, military parades and civic ceremonies, everywhere awaited the
+children of the farthest East, who were stared at, shouted at--and by
+some wretched cynics sneered and laughed at--to their hearts' content.
+All modern glory very largely consists in being nearly stunned with
+every species of noise, choked with dust, and dragged about through the
+streets, until you are well nigh dead. Witness the Japanese Embassy and
+their visit to this country, where, in some cases, the poor creatures,
+after hours of unmitigated boring with all sorts of mummery, actually
+had their pigtails pulled by Young America in the rear, and--as at the
+windows of Willard's Hotel in Washington--were stirred up with long
+canes, like the Polar Bear or the Learned Seal.
+
+Still Riza Bey and his dozen or two of dusky companions did not, by any
+means, cut so splendid a figure as had been expected. They had with them
+some camels, antelopes, bulbuls, and monkeys--like any travelling
+caravan, and were dressed in the most outrageous and outlandish attire.
+They jabbered, too, a gibberish utterly incomprehensible to the crowd,
+and did everything that had never been seen or done before. All this,
+however, delighted the populace. Had they been similarly transmogrified,
+or played such queer pranks themselves, it would only have been food for
+mockery; but the foreign air and fame of the thing made it all
+wonderful, and, as the chief rogue in the plot had foreseen, blinded the
+popular eye and made his "embassy" a complete success.
+
+At length, after some four weeks of slow progress, the "Persians"
+arrived at Paris, where they were received, as had been expected, with
+tremendous _éclat_. They entered by Barriére du Trône, so styled because
+it was there that Louis Quatorze himself had been received upon a
+temporary throne, set up, with splendid decorations and triumphal
+arches, in the open air, when he returned from his Flanders campaign.
+Riza Bey was upon this occasion a little more splendid than he had been
+on his way from the sea-coast, and really loomed up in startling style
+in his tall, black, rimless hat of wool, shaped precisely like an
+elongated flower-pot, and his silk robes dangling to his heels and
+covered with huge painted figures and bright metal decorations of every
+shape and size unknown, to European man-millinery. A circlet or collar,
+apparently of gold, set with precious stones (California diamonds!)
+surrounded his neck, and monstrous glittering rings covered all the
+fingers, and even the thumbs of both his hands. His train, consisting of
+sword, cup, and pipe bearers, doctors, chief cooks, and bottle-washers,
+cork extractors and chiropodists (literally so, for it seems that
+sharing the common lot of humanity, great men have corns even in
+Persia,) were similarly arrayed as to fashion, but less stupendously in
+jewelry.
+
+Well, after the throng had scampered, crowded, and shouted themselves
+hoarse, and had straggled to their homes, sufficiently tired and
+pocket-picked, the Ambassador and his suite were lodged in sumptuous
+apartments in the old royal residence of the Tuileries, under the care
+and charge of King Louis' own assistant Major-Domo and a guard of
+courtiers and regiments of Royal Swiss. Banqueting and music filled up
+the first evening; and upon the ensuing day His Majesty, who thus did
+his visitors especial honor, sent the Duc de Richelieu, the most
+polished courtier and diplomatist in France, to announce that he would
+graciously receive them on the third evening at Versailles.
+
+Meanwhile the most extensive preparations were made for the grand
+audience thus accorded; and when the appointed occasion had arrived, the
+entire Gallery of Mirrors with all the adjacent spaces and corridors,
+were crowded with the beauty, the chivalry, the wit, taste, and
+intellect of France at that dazzling period. The gallery, which is three
+hundred and eighty feet in length by fifty in height, derives its name
+from the priceless mirrors which adorn its walls, reaching from floor to
+ceiling, opposite the long row of equally tall and richly mullioned
+windows that look into the great court and gardens. These windows, hung
+with the costliest silk curtains and adorned with superb historical
+statuary, give to the hall a light and aërial appearance indescribably
+enchanting; while the mirrors reflect in ten thousand variations the
+hall itself and its moving pageantry, rendering both apparently
+interminable. Huge marble vases filled with odorous exotics lined the
+stairways, and twelve thousand wax lights in gilded brackets, and
+chandeliers of the richest workmanship, shone upon three thousand titled
+heads.
+
+Louis the Great himself never appeared to finer advantage. His truly
+royal countenance was lighted up with pride and satisfaction as the
+Envoy of the haughty Oriental king approached the splendid throne on
+which he sat, and as he descended a step to meet him and stood there in
+his magnificent robes of state, the Persian envoy bent the knee, and
+with uncovered head presented the credentials of his mission. Of the
+crowd that immediately surrounded the throne, it is something to say
+that the Grand Colbert, the famous Minister, and the Admiral Duquesne
+were by no means the most eminent, nor the lovely Duchess of Orleans and
+her companion, the bewitching Mademoiselle de Kerouaille, who afterward
+changed the policy of Charles II, of England, by no means the most
+beautiful personages in the galaxy.
+
+A grand ball and supper concluded this night of splendor, and Riza Bey
+was fairly launched at the French court; every member of which, to
+please the King, tried to outvie his compeers in the assiduity of his
+attentions, and the value of the books, pictures, gems, equipages, arms,
+&c., which they heaped upon the illustrious Persian. The latter
+gentleman very quietly smoked his pipe and lounged on his divan before
+company, and diligently packed up the goods when he and his "jolly
+companions" were left alone. The presents of the Shah had not yet
+arrived, but were daily expected via Marseilles, and from time to time
+the olive-colored suite was diminished by the departure of one of the
+number with his chest on a special mission (so stated) to England,
+Austria, Portugal, Spain, and other European powers.
+
+In the meantime, the Bey was feted in all directions, with every species
+of entertainment, and it was whispered that the fair ones of that
+dissolute court were, from the first, eager in the bestowal of their
+smiles. The King favored his Persian pet with numerous personal
+interviews, at which, in broken French, the Envoy unfolded the most
+imposing schemes of Oriental conquest and commerce that his master was
+cordially willing to share with his great brother of France. At one of
+these chatty tête-á-têtes, the munificent Riza Bey, upon whom the King
+had already conferred his own portrait set in diamonds, and other gifts
+worth several millions of francs, placed in the Royal hand several
+superb fragments of opal and turquoise said to have been found in a
+district of country bordering on the Caspian sea, which teemed with
+limitless treasures of the same kind, and which the Shah of Persia
+proposed to divide with France for the honor of her alliance. The king
+was enchanted; for these mere specimens, as they were deemed, must, if
+genuine, be worth in themselves a mint of money; and a province full of
+such--why, the thought was charming!
+
+Thus the great King-fish was fairly hooked, and Riza Bey could take his
+time. The golden tide that flowed in to him did not slacken, and his own
+expenses were all provided for at the Tuileries. The only thing
+remaining to be done was a grand foray on the tradesmen of Paris, and
+this was splendidly executed. The most exquisite wares of all
+descriptions were gathered in, without mention of payment; and one by
+one the Persian phalanx distributed itself through Europe until only two
+or three were left with the Ambassador.
+
+At length, word was sent to Versailles that the gifts from the Shah had
+come, and a day was appointed for their presentation. The day arrived,
+and the Hall of Audience was again thrown open. All was jubilee; the
+King and the court waited, but no Persian--no Riza Bey--no presents from
+the Shah!
+
+That morning three men, without either caftans or robes, but very much
+resembling the blacklegs of the day in their attire and deportment, had
+left the Tuileries at daylight with a bag and a bundle, and returned no
+more. They were Riza Bey and his last body-guard; the bag and the
+bundle were the smallest in bulk but the most precious in value of a
+month's successful plunder. The turquoises and opals left with the King
+turned out, upon close inspection, to be a new and very ingenious
+variety of colored glass, now common enough, and then worth, if
+anything, about thirty cents in cash.
+
+Of course, a hue and cry was raised in all directions, but totally in
+vain. Riza Bey, the Persian Shah, and the gentlemen in flower-pots, had
+"gone glimmering through the dream of things that were." L'etat c'est
+moi had been sold for thirty cents! It was afterward believed that a
+noted barber and suspected bandit at Leghorn, who had once really
+traveled in Persia, and there picked up the knowledge and the ready
+money that served his turn, was the perpetrator of this pretty joke and
+speculation, as he disappeared from his native city about the time of
+the embassy in France, and did not return.
+
+All Europe laughed heartily at the Grand Monarque and his fair
+court-dames, and "An Embassy from Persia" was for many years thereafter
+an expression similar to "Walker!" in English, or "Buncombe!" in
+American conversation, when the party using it seeks to intimate that
+the color of his optics is not a distinct pea-green!
+
+
+
+
+IX. RELIGIOUS HUMBUGS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND; OR, YANKEE SUPERSTITIONS.--MATTHIAS THE
+IMPOSTOR.--NEW YORK FOLLIES THIRTY YEARS AGO.
+
+
+There is a story that on a great and solemn public occasion of the
+Romish Church, a Pope and a Cardinal were, with long faces, performing
+some of the gyrations of the occasion, when, instead of a pious
+ejaculation and reply, which were down in the programme, one said to the
+other gravely, in Latin "_mundus vult decipi_;" and the other replied,
+with equal gravity and learning, "_decipiatur ergo_:" that is, "All the
+world chooses to be fooled."--"Let it be fooled then."
+
+This seems, perhaps, a reasonable way for priests to talk about ignorant
+Italians. It may seem inapplicable to cool, sharp, school-trained
+Protestant Yankees. It is not, however--at least, not entirely.
+Intelligent Northerners have, sometimes, superstition enough in them to
+make a first-class Popish saint. If it had not been so, I should not
+have such an absurd religious humbug to tell of as Robert Matthews,
+notorious in our goodly city some thirty years ago as "Matthias, the
+Impostor."
+
+In the summer of 1832, there was often seen riding in Broadway, in a
+handsome barouche, or promenading on the Battery (usually attended by a
+sort of friend or servant,) a tall man, of some forty years of age,
+quite thin, with sunken, sharp gray eyes, with long, coarse, brown and
+gray hair, parted in the middle and curling on his shoulders, and a long
+and coarse but well-tended beard and mustache. These Esau-like
+adornments attracted much attention in those close-shaving days. He was
+commonly dressed in a fine green frock-coat, lined with white or pink
+satin, black or green pantaloons, with polished Wellington boots drawn
+on outside, fine cambric ruffles and frill, and a crimson silk sash
+worked with gold and with twelve tassels, for the twelve tribes of
+Israel. On his head was a steeple-crowned patent-leather shining black
+cap with a shade.
+
+Thus bedizened, this fantastic-looking personage marched gravely up and
+down, or rode in pomp in the streets. Sometimes he lounged in a
+bookstore or other place of semi-public resort; and in such places he
+often preached or exhorted. His preachments were sufficiently horrible.
+He claimed to be God the Father; and his doctrine was, in substance,
+this:--"The true kingdom of God on earth began in Albany in June 1830,
+and will be completed in twenty-one years, or by 1851. During this time,
+wars are to stop, and I, Matthias, am to execute the divine judgments
+and destroy the wicked. The day of grace is to close on December 1,
+1836; and all who do not begin to reform by that time, I shall kill."
+The discourses by which this blasphemous humbug supported his
+pretensions were a hodge-podge of impiety and utter nonsense, with
+rants, curses and cries, and frightful threats against all objectors.
+Here is a passage from one;--"All who eat swine's flesh are of the
+devil; and just as certain as he eats it he will tell a lie in less than
+half an hour. If you eat a piece of pork, it will go crooked through
+you, and the Holy Ghost will not stay in you; but one or the other must
+leave the house pretty soon. The pork will be as crooked in you as rams'
+horns." Again, he made these pleasant points about the ladies: "They who
+teach women are of the wicked. All females who lecture their husbands
+their sentence is: 'Depart, ye wicked, I know you not.' Everything that
+has the smell of woman will be destroyed. Woman is the cap-sheaf of the
+abomination of desolation, full of all deviltry." There, ladies! Is
+anything further necessary to convince you what a peculiarly wicked and
+horrible humbug this fellow was?
+
+If we had followed this impostor home, we should have found him lodged,
+during most of his stay in New-York city, with one or the other of his
+three chief disciples. These were Pierson, who commonly attended him
+abroad, Folger, and--for a time only--Mills. All three of these men were
+wealthy merchants. In their handsome and luxuriously-furnished homes,
+this noxious humbug occupied the best rooms, and controlled the whole
+establishment, directing the marketing, meal times, and all other
+household-matters. Master, mistress (in Mr. Folger's home,) and
+domestics were disciples, and obeyed the scamp with an implicitness and
+prostrate humility even more melancholy than absurd, both as to
+housekeeping and as to the ceremonies, washing of feet, etc., which he
+enjoined. When he was angry with his female disciples, he frequently
+whipped them; but, being a monstrous coward, he never tried it on a man.
+The least opposition or contradiction threw him into a great rage, and
+set him screaming, and cursing, and gesticulating like any street drab.
+When he wished more clothes, which was pretty often, one of his dupes
+furnished the money. When he wanted cash for any purpose indeed, they
+gave it him.
+
+This half-crazy knave and abominable humbug was Robert Matthews, who
+called himself Matthias. He was of Scotch descent, and born about 1790,
+in Washington county, New York; and his blood was tainted with insanity,
+for a brother of his died a lunatic. He was a carpenter and joiner of
+uncommon skill, and up to nearly his fortieth year lived, on the whole,
+a useful and respectable life, being industrious, a professing Christian
+of good standing, and (having married in 1813) a steady family-man. In
+1828 and 1829, while living at Albany, he gradually became excited about
+religious subjects; his first morbid symptoms appearing after hearing
+some sermons by Rev. E. N. Kirk, and Mr. Finney the revivalist. He soon
+began to exhort his fellow-journeymen instead of minding his work, so
+uproariously that his employer turned him away.
+
+He discovered a text in the Bible that forbid Christians to shave. He
+let his hair and beard grow; began street-preaching in a noisy, brawling
+style; announced that he was going to set about converting the whole
+city of Albany--which needed it badly enough, if we may believe the
+political gentlemen. Finding however, that the Lobby, or the Regency,
+or something or other about the peculiar wickedness of Albany, was
+altogether too much for him, he began, like Jonah at Nineveh, to
+announce the destruction of the obstinate town; and at midnight, one
+night in June, 1826, he waked up his household, and saying that Albany
+was to be destroyed next day, took his three little boys--two, four, and
+six years old--his wife and oldest child (a daughter refusing to go,)
+and "fled to the mountains." He actually walked the poor little fellows
+forty miles in twenty-four hours, to his sister's in Washington county.
+Here he was reckoned raving crazy; was forcibly turned out of church for
+one of his brawling interruptions of service, and sent back to Albany,
+where he resumed his street-preaching more noisily than ever. He now
+began to call himself Matthias, and claimed to be a Jew. Then he went on
+a long journey to the Western and Southern States, preaching his
+doctrines, getting into jail, and sometimes fairly cursing his way out;
+and, returning to New York city, preached up and down the streets in his
+crazy, bawling fashion, sometimes on foot and sometimes on an old bony
+horse.
+
+His New York city dupes, Elijah Pierson and Benjamin H. Folger and their
+families, together with a Mr. Mills and a few more, figured prominently
+in the chief chapter of Matthews' career, during two years and a half,
+from May, 1832, to the fall of 1834.
+
+Pierson and Folger were the leaders in the folly. These men, merchants
+of wealth and successful in business, were of that sensitive and
+impressible religious nature which is peculiarly credulous and liable to
+enthusiasms and delusions. They had been, with a number of other
+persons, eagerly engaged in some extravagant religious performances,
+including excessive fasts and asceticisms, and a plan, formed by one of
+their lady friends, to convert all New York by a system of female
+visitations and preachings--a plan not so very foolish, I may just
+remark, if the she apostles are only pretty enough!
+
+Pierson, the craziest of the crew, besides other wretched delusions, had
+already fancied himself Elijah the Tishbite; and when his wife fell ill
+and died a little while before this time, had first tried to cure her,
+and then to raise her from the dead, by anointing with oil and by the
+prayer of faith, as mentioned in the Epistle of Saint James.
+
+Curiously enough, a sort of lair or nest, very soft and comfortable, was
+thus made ready for our religious humbug, just as he wanted it worst;
+for in these days he was but seedy. He heard something of Pierson, I
+don't know how; and on the 5th of May, 1832, he called on him. Very
+quickly the poor fellow recognized the long-bearded prophetical humbug
+as all that he claimed to be--a possessor and teacher of all truth, and
+as God himself.
+
+Mills and Folger easily fell into the same pitiable foolery, on
+Pierson's introduction. And the lucky humbug was very soon living in
+clover in Mills' house, which he chose first; had admitted the happy
+fools, Pierson and Folger, as the first two members of his true church;
+Pierson, believing that from Elijah the Tishbite he had become John the
+Baptist, devoted himself as a kind of servant to his new Messiah; and
+the deluded men began to supply all the temporal wants of the impostor,
+believing their estates set apart as the beginning of the material
+Kingdom of God!
+
+After three months, some of Mills' friends, on charges of lunacy, caused
+Mills to be sent to Bloomingdale Asylum, and Matthias to be thrust into
+the insane poor's ward at Bellevue, where his beard was forcibly cut
+off, to his extreme disgust. His brother, however, got him out by a
+habeas corpus, and he went to live with Folger. Mills now disappears
+from the story.
+
+Matthias remained in the full enjoyment of his luxurious establishment,
+until September, 1834, it is true, with a few uncomfortable
+interruptions. He was always both insolent and cowardly, and thus often
+irritated some strong-minded auditor, and got himself into some pickle
+where he had to sneak out, which he did with much ease. In his seedy
+days the landlord of a hotel in whose bar-room he used to preach and
+curse, put him down when he grew too abusive, by coolly and sternly
+telling him to go to bed. Mr. Folger himself had one or two brief
+intervals of sense, in one of which, angered at some insolence of
+Matthias, he seized him by the throat, shook him well, and flung him
+down upon a sofa. The humbug knowing that his living was in danger, took
+this very mildly, and readily accepted the renewed assurances of belief
+which poor Folger soon gave him. In the village of Sing Sing where
+Folger had a country-seat which he called Mount Zion, Matthias was
+exceedingly obnoxious. His daughter had married a Mr. Laisdell; and the
+humbug, who claimed that all Christian marriages were void and wicked,
+by some means induced the young wife to come to Sing Sing, where he
+whipped her more than once quite cruelly. Her husband came and took her
+away after encountering all the difficulty which Matthias dared make;
+and, at a hearing in the matter before a magistrate, he was very near
+getting tarred and feathered, if not something worse, and the danger
+frightened him very much.
+
+He barely escaped being shaved by violence, and being thrown overboard
+to test his asserted miraculous powers, at the hands of a stout and
+incredulous farmer on the steamboat between Sing Sing and New York.
+While imprisoned at Bellevue before his trial, he was tossed in a
+blanket by the prisoners, to make him give them some money. The unlucky
+prophet dealt out damnation to them in great quantities; but they told
+him it wouldn't work, and the poor humbug finally, instead of casting
+them into hell, paid them a quarter of a dollar apiece to let him off.
+When he was about to leave Folger's house, some roguish young men of
+Sing Sing forged a warrant, and with a counterfeit officer seized the
+humbug, and a second time shaved him by force. He was one day terribly
+"set back" as the phrase is, by a sharpish answer. He gravely asserted
+to a certain man that he had been on the earth eighteen hundred years.
+His hearer, startled and irreverent, exclaimed:
+
+"The devil you have! Do you tell me so?"
+
+"I do," said the prophet.
+
+"Then," rejoined the other, "all I have to say is, you are a remarkably
+good-looking fellow for one of your age."
+
+The confounded prophet grinned, scowled, and exclaimed indignantly:
+
+"You are a devil, Sir!" and marched off.
+
+In the beginning of August, 1834, the unhappy Pierson died in Folger's
+house, under circumstances amounting to strong circumstantial evidence
+that Matthias, with the help of the colored cook, an enthusiastic
+disciple, had poisoned him with arsenic. The rascal pretended that his
+own curse had slain Pierson. There was a post mortem, an indictment, and
+a trial, but the evidence was not strong enough for conviction. Being
+acquitted, he was at once tried again for an assault and battery on his
+daughter by the aforesaid whippings; and on this charge he was found
+guilty and sent to the county jail for three months, in April, 1835. The
+trial for murder was just before--the prophet having lain in prison
+since his apprehension for murder in the preceding autumn. Mr. Folger's
+delusion had pretty much disappeared by the end of the summer of 1834.
+He had now become ruined, partly in consequence of foolish speculations
+jointly with Pierson, believed to be conducted under Divine guidance,
+and partly because his strange conduct destroyed his business reputation
+and standing. The death of Pierson, and some very queer matters about
+another apparent poisoning-trick, awakened the suspicions of the
+Folgers; and after a good deal of scolding and trouble with the
+impostor, who hung on to his comfortable home like a good fellow, Folger
+finally turned him out, and then had him taken up for swindling. He had
+been too foolish himself, however, to maintain this charge; but, shortly
+after, the others, for murder and assault, followed, with a little
+better success.
+
+This imprisonment seems to have put a sudden and final period to the
+prophetical and religious operations of Master Matthias, and to the
+follies of his victims, too. I know of no subsequent developments of
+either kind. Matthias disappears from public life, and died, it is said,
+in Arkansas; but when, or after what further career, I don't know. He
+was a shallow knave, and undoubtedly also partly crazy and partly the
+dupe of his own nonsense. If he had not so opportunely found victims of
+good standing, he would not have been remembered at all, except as
+George Munday, the "hatless prophet," and "Angel Gabriel Orr," are
+remembered--as one more obscure, crazy street-preacher. And as soon as
+his accidental supports of other people's money and enthusiasm failed
+him, he disappeared at once. Many of my readers will remember
+distinctly, as I do, the remarkable career of this man, and the
+humiliating position in which his victims were placed. In the face of
+such an exposition as this of the weakness and credulity of poor human
+nature in this enlightened country of common schools and colleges, in
+the boasted wide-awake nineteenth century, who shall deny that we can
+study with interest and profit the history of impositions which have
+been practiced upon mankind in every possible phase throughout every age
+of the world, including the age in which we live? There is literally no
+end to these humbugs; and the reader of these pages, weak as may be my
+attempts to do the subject justice, will learn that there is no country,
+no period, and no sphere in life which has not been impiously invaded
+by the genius of humbug, under more disguises and in more shapes than it
+has entered into the heart of man to conceive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+A RELIGIOUS HUMBUG ON JOHN BULL.--JOANNA SOUTHCOTT.--THE SECOND SHILOH.
+
+
+Joanna Southcott was born at St. Mary's Ottery in Devonshire, about the
+year 1750. She was a plain, stout-limbed, hard-fisted farmer lass, whose
+toils in the field--for her father was in but very moderate
+circumstances--had tawned her complexion and hardened her muscles, at an
+early age. As she grew toward woman's estate, necessity compelled her to
+leave her home and seek service in the city of Exeter, where for many
+years, she plodded on very quietly in her obscure path, first, as a
+domestic hireling, and subsequently as a washer woman.
+
+I have an old and esteemed friend on Staten Island whose father, still
+living, recollects Joanna well, as she used to come regularly to his
+house of a Monday morning, to her task of cleansing the family linen. He
+was then but a little lad, yet he remembers her quite well, with her
+stout, robust frame, and buxom and rather attractive countenance, and
+her queer ways. Even then she was beginning to invite attention by her
+singular manners and discourse, which led many to believe her demented.
+
+It was at Exeter that Joanna became religiously impressed, and joined
+the Wesleyan Methodists, as a strict and extreme believer in the
+doctrines of that sect. During her attendance upon the Wesleyan rites,
+she became intimate with one Sanderson, who, whether a designing rogue,
+or only a very fanatical believer, pretended that he had discovered in
+the good washerwoman a Bible prodigy; and it was not long before the
+poor creature began literally, to "see sights" and dream dreams of the
+most preternatural description, for which Sanderson always had ready
+some very telling interpretation. Her visions were of the most
+thoroughly "mixed" character withal, sometimes transporting her to the
+courts of heaven, and sometimes to a very opposite region, celebrated
+for its latent and active caloric. When she ranged into the lower world,
+she had a very unpleasant habit of seeing sundry scoffers and
+unbelievers (in herself) belonging to the congregation, in very close
+but disadvantageous intercourse with the Evil One, who was represented
+as having a particular eye to others around her, even while they laid
+claim to special piety. Of course, such revelations as these could not
+be tolerated in any well regulated community, and when some most
+astounding religious gymnastics performed by Joanna in the midst of
+prayers and sermons, occurred to heap up the measure of her offences, it
+became full time to take the matter in hand, and the prophetess was
+expelled. Now, those whom she had not served up openly with brimstone,
+agreeing with her about those whom she had thus "cooked," and delighted
+in their own exemption from that sort of dressing, seceded in
+considerable numbers, and became Joanna's followers. This gave her a
+nucleus to work upon, and between 1790 and 1800, she managed to make
+herself known throughout Britain, proclaiming that she was to be the
+destined Mother of the Second Messiah, and although originally quite
+illiterate, picking up enough general information and Bible lore, to
+facilitate her publication of several very curious, though sometimes
+incoherent works. One of the earliest and most startling of these was
+her "Warning to the whole World, from the Sealed Prophecies of Joanna
+Southcott, and other communications given since the writings were opened
+on the 12th of January, 1803." This foretold the close approach of the
+great red dragon of the Revelations, "with seven heads and ten horns,
+and seven crowns upon his heads," and the birth of the "man-child who
+was to rule all nations with a rod of iron."
+
+In 1805, a shoemaker named Tozer built her a chapel in Exeter at his
+own expense, and it was, from the first, constantly filled on
+service-days with eager worshipers. Here she gave exhortations, and
+prophesied in a species of religious frenzy or convulsion, sometimes
+uttering very heavy prose, and sometimes the most fearful doggerel
+rhyme resembling--well--perhaps our album effusions here at home!
+Indeed, I can think of nothing else equally fearful. In these
+paroxysms, Joanna raved like an ancient Pythoness whirling on her
+tripod, and to just about the same purpose. Yet, it was astonishing to
+see how the thing went down. Crowds of intelligent people came from all
+parts of the United Kingdom to listen, be converted, and to receive
+the "seals" (as they were called) that secured their fortunate
+possessor unimpeded and immediate admission to heaven. Of course,
+tickets so precious could not be given away for nothing, and the seal
+trade in this new form proved very lucrative.
+
+The most remarkable of all these conversions was that of the celebrated
+engraver, William Sharp, who, notwithstanding his eminent position as an
+artist, by no means bore out his name in other things. He had previously
+become thoroughly imbued with the notions of Swedenborg, Mesmer, and the
+famous Richard Brothers, and was quite ripe for anything fantastic. Such
+a convert was a perfect godsend to Joanna, and she was easily persuaded
+to accompany him to London, where her congregations rapidly increased to
+enormous proportions, even rivaling those now summoned by the "drum
+ecclesiastical" and orthodox of the Rev. Mr. Spurgeon.
+
+The whole sect extended until, in 1813, it numbered no less than one
+hundred thousand members, signed and "sealed"--Mr. Sharp occupying a
+most conspicuous position at the very footstool of the Prophetess. Late
+in 1813, appeared the "Book of Wonders," "in five parts," and it was a
+clincher. Poor Sharp came in largely for the expenses, but valiantly
+stood his ground against it all. At length, in 1814, the great Joanna
+dazzled the eyes of her adherents and the world at large with her
+"Prophecies concerning the Prince of Peace." This delectable manifesto
+flatly announced to mankind that the second Shiloh, so long expected,
+would be born of the Prophetess at midnight, on October 19, in that
+same year, _i. e._ 1814. The inspired writer was then enceinte, although
+a virgin, as she expressly and solemnly declared, and in the
+sixty-fourth year of her age. Among the other preternatural concomitants
+of this anticipated eventful birth, was the fact that the period of her
+pregnancy had lasted for several years.
+
+Of course, this stupendous announcement threw the whole sect into
+ecstasies of religious exultation; while, on the other hand, it afforded
+a fruitful subject of ridicule for the utterly irreverent London
+pamphleteers. Poor Sharp, who had caused a magnificent cradle and
+baby-wardrobe to be got ready at his own expense, was most unmercifully
+scored. The infant was caricatured with a long gray beard and
+spectacles, with Sharp in a duster carefully rocking him to sleep, while
+Joanna the Prophetess treated the engraver to some "cuts" in her own
+style, with a bunch of twigs.
+
+On the appointed night, the street in which Joanna lived was thronged
+with the faithful, who, undeterred by sarcasm, fully credited her
+prediction. They bivouacked on the side-walks in motley crowds of men,
+women, and children; and as the hours wore on, and their interest
+increased, burst forth into spontaneous psalmody. The adjacent
+thoroughfares were as densely jammed with curious and incredulous
+spectators, and the mutton pie and ballad businesses flourished
+extensively. The interior of the house, with the exception of the sick
+chamber, was illuminated in all directions, and the dignitaries of the
+sect held the ante-rooms and corridors, "in full fig," to receive the
+expected guest. But the evening passed, then midnight came, then
+morning, but alas! no Shiloh; and, little by little, the disappointed
+throngs dispersed! Poor Joanna, however, kept her bed, and finally,
+after many fresh paroxysms and prophecies, on the 27th of December,
+1814, gave up the ghost--the indefatigable Sharp still declaring that
+she had gone to heaven for a season, only to legitimatize the unborn
+infant, and would re-arise again from death, after four days, with the
+Shiloh in her arms. So firm was this faith in him and many other
+respectable persons, that the body of the Prophetess was retained in her
+house until the very last moment. When the dissection demanded by the
+majority of the sect could no longer be delayed, that operation was
+performed, and it was found that the subject had died of ovarian dropsy;
+but was--as she had always maintained herself to be--a virgin. Dr.
+Reece, who had been a devout believer, but was now undeceived, published
+a full account of this and all the other circumstances of her death, and
+another equally earnest disciple bore the expenses of her burial at St.
+John's Wood, and placed over her a tombstone with appropriate
+inscriptions.
+
+As late as 1863, there were many families of believers still existing
+near Chatham, in Kent; and even in this country can here and there be
+found admirers of the creed of Joanna Southcott, who are firmly
+convinced that she will re-appear some fine morning, with Sanderson on
+one side of her and Sharp on the other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+THE FIRST HUMBUG IN THE WORLD.--ADVANTAGES OF STUDYING THE IMPOSITIONS
+OF FORMER AGES.--HEATHEN HUMBUGS.--THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES.--THE
+CABIRI.--ELEUSIS.--ISIS.
+
+
+The domain of humbug reaches back to the Garden of Eden, where the
+Father of lies practised it upon our poor, innocent first grandmother,
+Eve. This was the first and worst of all humbugs. But from that eventful
+day to the present moment, falsehood, hypocrisy, deception, imposition,
+cant, bigotry, false appearances and false pretences, superstitions, and
+all conceivable sorts of humbugs, have had a full swing, and he or she
+who watches these things most closely, and reflects most deeply upon
+these various peculiarities, bearings, and results, will be best
+qualified to detect and to avoid them. For this reason, I should look
+upon myself as somewhat of a public benefactor, in exposing the humbugs
+of the world, if I felt competent to do the subject full justice.
+
+Next to the fearful humbug practiced upon our first parents, came
+heathen humbugs generally. All heathenism and idolatry are one grand
+complex humbug to begin with. All the heathen religions always were, and
+are still, audacious, colossal, yet shallow and foolish, humbugs. The
+heathen humbugs were played off by the priests, the shrewdest men then
+alive. It is a curious fact that the heathen humbugs were all solemn.
+This was because they were intended to maintain the existing religions,
+which, like all false religions, could not endure ridicule. They always
+appealed to the pious terrors of the public, as well as to its ignorance
+and appetite for marvels. They offered nothing pleasant, nothing to
+love, nothing to gladden the heart and lift it up in joyful gratitude,
+true adoration, and childlike confidence, prayer, and thanksgiving. On
+the contrary, awful noises, fearful sights, frightful threats, foaming
+at the mouth, dark sayings, secret processions, bloody sacrifices, grim
+priests, costly offerings, sleeps in darksome caverns to wait for a
+dream from the god--these were the machineries of the ancient heathen.
+They were as crude and as ferocious as those of the King of Dahomey, or
+of the barbarous negroes of the Guinea coast. But they often show a
+cunning as keen and effective as that of any quack, or Philadelphia
+lawyer, or Davenport Brother, or Jackson Davis of to-day.
+
+The most prominent of the heathen humbugs were the mysteries, the
+oracles, the sibyls (N. B., the word is often mis-spelled sybils,) and
+augury. Every respectable Pagan religion had some mysteries, just as
+every respectable Christian family has a bible--and, as an ill-natured
+proverb has it, a skeleton. It was considered a poor religion--a one
+horse religion, so to speak--that had no mysteries.
+
+The chief mysteries were those of the Cabiri, of Eleusis, and of Isis.
+These mysteries used exactly the same kind of machinery which proves so
+effective every day in modern mysteries, viz., shows, processions,
+voices, lights, dark rooms, frightful sights, solemn mummeries,
+striking costumes, big talks and preachments, threats, gabbles of
+nonsense, etc., etc.
+
+The mysteries of the Cabiri are the most ancient of which anything is
+known. These Cabiri were a sort of "Original old Dr. Jacob Townsends" of
+divinities. They were considered senior and superior to Jupiter,
+Neptune, Plato, and the gods of Olympus. They were Pelasgic, that is,
+they belonged to that unknown ancient people from whom both the Greek
+and the Latin nations are thought to have come. The Cabiri afterward
+figured as the "elder gods" of Greece, the inventors of religion, and of
+the human race in fact, and were kept so very dark that it is not even
+known, with any certainty, who they were. The ancient heathen gods, like
+modern thieves, very usually objected to pass by their real names. The
+Cabiri were particularly at home in Lemnos, and afterward in Samothrace.
+
+Their mysteries were of a somewhat unpleasant character, as far as we
+know them. The candidate had to pass a long time almost starved, and
+without any enjoyment whatever; was then let into a dark temple, crowned
+with olive, tied round with a purple girdle, and frightened almost to
+death with horrid noises, terrible sights of some kind, great flashes of
+light and deep darkness between, etc., etc. There was a ceremony of
+absolution from past sin, and a formal beginning of a new life. It is a
+curious fact, that this performance seems to have been a kind of pious
+marine insurance company; as the initiated, it was believed, could not
+be drowned. Perhaps they were put in a way to obtain a drier
+strangulation. The reason why these ceremonies were kept so successfully
+secret, is plain. Each man, as he was let in, and found what nonsense it
+was, was sure to hold his tongue and help the next man in, as in the
+modern case of the celebrated "Sons of Malta." It is to be admitted,
+however, to the credit of the Cabiri, that a doctrine of reformation, or
+of living a better practical life, seems to have been part of their
+religion. This is an interesting recognition, by heathen consciences, of
+one of the greatest moral truths which Christianity has enforced.
+Something of the same kind can be traced in other heathen mysteries. But
+these heathen attempts at virtue invariably rotted out into aggravations
+of vice. No religion except Christianity ever contained the principle of
+improvement in it. Bugaboos and hob-goblins may serve for a time to
+frighten the ignorant into obedience; but if they get a chance to cheat
+the devil, they will be sure to do it. Nothing but the great doctrine of
+Christian love and brotherhood, and of a kind and paternal Divine
+government, has ever proved to be permanently reformatory, and tending
+to lift the heart above the vices and passions to which poor human
+nature is prone.
+
+The mysteries of Eleusis were celebrated every year at Eleusis, near
+Athens, in honor of Ceres, and were a regular "May Anniversary," so to
+speak, for the pious heathens of the period. It took just nine days to
+complete them; long enough for a puppy to get its eyes open. The
+candidates were very handsomely put through. On the first day, they got
+together; on the second, they took a wash in the sea; on the third,
+they had some ceremonies about Proserpine; on the fourth, no mortal
+knows what they did; on the fifth, they marched round a temple, two and
+two, with torches, like a Wide-Awake procession; on the sixth, seventh,
+and eighth, there were more processions, and the initiation proper, said
+to have been something like that of Free-masonry; so that we may suppose
+the victims rode the goat and were broiled on the gridiron. On the ninth
+day, the ceremony, they say, consisted in overturning two vessels of
+wine. I fear by this means that they all got drunk; and the more so,
+because the coins of Eleusis have a hog on one side, as much as to say,
+We make hogs of ourselves.
+
+There was a set of mysteries at Athens, called Thesmophoria, and one at
+Rome, called the mysteries of the Bona Dea, which were celebrated by
+married women only. Various notions prevailed as to what they did. But
+can there be any reasonable doubt about it? They were, I fear,
+systematic conspirators' meetings, in which the more experienced matrons
+instructed the junior ones how to manage their husbands. If this was not
+their object, then it was to maintain the influence of the heathen
+clergy over the heathen ladies. Women have always been the constituents
+of priests where false religions prevailed, as they have, for better
+purposes, of the ministers of the Gospel among Christians.
+
+The mysteries of the goddess Isis, which originated in Egypt, were, in
+general, like those of Ceres at Eleusis. The Persian mysteries of
+Mithra, which were very popular during part of the latter days of the
+Roman empire, were of the same sort. So were those of Bacchus, Juno,
+Jupiter, and various other heathen gods. All of them were celebrated
+with great solemnity and secrecy; all included much that was terrifying;
+and all of their secrets have been so faithfully kept that we have only
+guesses and general statements about the details of the performances.
+Their principal object seems to have been to secure the initiated
+against misfortunes, and to gain prosperity in the future. Some have
+imagined that very wonderful and glorious truths were revealed in the
+midst of these heathen humbugs. But I guess that the more we find out
+about them, the bigger humbugs they will appear, as happened to the
+travelers who held a _post mortem_ on the great heathen god in the
+story. This was a certain very terrible and powerful divinity among some
+savage tribes, of whom dreadful stories were told--very authentic, of
+course! Some unbelieving scamps of travelers, by unlawful ways, managed
+to get into the innermost sacred place of the temple one night. They
+found the god to be done up in a very large and suspicious looking
+bundle. Having sacrilegiously cut the string, they unrolled one envelop
+of mats and cloths after another, until they had taken off more than a
+hundred wrappers. The god grew smaller, and smaller, and smaller; and
+the wonder of the travelers what he could be, larger and larger. At
+last, the very innermost of all the coverings fell off, and the great
+heathen god was revealed in all his native majesty. It was a cracked
+soda-water bottle! This indicates--what is beyond all question the
+fact--that the heathen mysteries had their foundation in gas. Indeed,
+the whole composition of these impositions was, gammon, deception,
+hypocrisy--Humbug! Truly, the science of Humbug is entitled to some
+consideration, simply for its antiquity, if for nothing else.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+HEATHEN HUMBUGS NO. 2.--HEATHEN STATED
+SERVICES.--ORACLES.--SIBYLS.--AUGURIES.
+
+
+Something must be said about the Oracles, the Sibyls, and the Auguries;
+which, besides the mysteries elsewhere spoken of, were the chief
+assistant humbugs or side shows used for keeping up the great humbug
+heathen religion.
+
+One word about the regular worship of heathenism; what maybe called
+their stated services. They had no weekly day of worship, indeed no
+week, and no preaching such as ours is; that is, no regular instruction
+by the ministers of religion, intended for all the people. They had
+singing and praying after their fashion; the singing being a sort of
+chant of praise to whatever idol was under treatment at the time, and
+the praying being in part vain repetitions of the name of their god, and
+for the rest a request that the god would do or give whatever was asked
+of him as a fair business transaction, in return for the agreeable smell
+of the fine beef they had just roasted under his nose, or for whatever
+else they had given him; as, a sum of money, a pair of pantaloons (or
+whatever they wore instead,) a handsome golden cup. This made the temple
+a regular shop, where the priests traded off promised benefits for real
+beef; coining blessings into cash on the nail; a very thorough humbug.
+Such public religious ceremonies as the heathen had were mostly annual,
+sometimes monthly. There were also daily ones, which were, however, the
+daily business of the priests, and none of the business of the laymen.
+To return to the subject.
+
+All the heathen oracles, old and new (for abundance of them are still
+agoing,) sibyls, auguries and all, show how universally and naturally,
+and humbly and helplessly too, poor human nature longs to see into the
+future, and longs for help and guidance from some power, higher than
+itself.
+
+Thus considered, these shallow humbugs teach a useful lesson, for they
+constitute a strong proof of man's inborn natural recognition of some
+God, of some obligation to a higher power, of some disembodied
+existence; and so they show a natural human want of exactly what the
+Christian revelation supplies, and constitute a powerful evidence for
+Christianity.
+
+All the heathen religions, I believe, had oracles of some kind. But the
+Greek and Latin ones tell the whole story. Of these there were over a
+hundred; more than twenty of Apollo, who was the god of soothsaying,
+divination, prophecy, and of the supernatural side of heathen humbug
+generally; thirty or forty collectively of Jupiter, Ceres, Mercury,
+Pluto, Juno, Ino (a very good name for a goddess that gave oracles,
+though she didn't know!), Faunus, Fortune, Mars, etc., and nearly as
+many of demi-gods, heroes, giants, etc., such as Amphiaraus,
+Amphilochus, Trophonius, Geryon, Ulysses, Calchas, Æsculapius,
+Hercules, Pasiphae, Phryxus, etc. The most celebrated and most
+patronized of them all was the great oracle of Apollo, at Delphi. The
+"little fee" appears to have been the only universal characteristic of
+the proceedings for obtaining an answer from the god. Whether you got
+your reply in words spoken by the rattling of an old pot, by observing
+an ox's appetite, throwing dice, or sleeping for a dream, your own
+proceedings were essentially the same. "Terms invariably net cash in
+advance or its equivalent." A fine ox or sheep sacrificed was cash; for
+after the god had had his smell (those ladies and gentlemen appear to
+have eaten as they say the Yankees talk--through their noses,) all the
+rest was put carefully away by the reverend clergy for dinner, and saved
+so much on the butcher's bill. If your credit was good, you might
+receive your oracle and afterward send in any little acknowledgment in
+the form of a golden goblet, or statue, or vase, or even of a remittance
+in specie. Such gifts accumulated in the oracle at Delphi and to an
+immense amount, and to the great emolument of Brennus, a matter of fact
+Gaulish commander, who, at his invasion of Greece, coolly carried off
+all the bullion, without any regard to the screeches of the Pythoness,
+and with no more scruples than any burglar.
+
+The Delphian oracle worked through a woman, who, on certain days, went
+and sat on a three-legged stool over a hole in the ground in Apollo's
+temple. This hole sent out gas; which, instead of being used like that
+afforded by holes in the ground at Fredonia, N. Y., to illuminate the
+village, was much more shrewdly employed by the clerical gentlemen to
+shine up the knowledge-boxes of their customers, and introduce the
+glitter of gold into their own pockets. I merely throw out the hint to
+any speculating Fredonian who owns a hole in the ground. Well, the
+Pythia, as this female was termed, warmed up her understanding over this
+hole, as you have seen ladies do over the register of a hot-air furnace,
+and becoming excited, she presently began to be drunk or crazy, and in
+her fit she gabbled forth some words or noises. These the priests took
+down, and then told the customer that the noises meant so-and-so! When
+business was brisk they worked two Pythias, turn and turn about (or, as
+they say at sea, watch and watch), and kept a third all cocked and
+primed in case of accident, besides; for this gas sometimes gave the
+priestess (literally) fits, which killed her in a few days.
+
+Other oracles gave answers in many various ways. The priest quietly
+wrote down whatever answer he chose; or inspected the insides of a
+slaughtered beast, and said that the bowels meant this and that. At
+Telmessus the inquirer peeped into a well, where he must see a picture
+in the water which was his answer; at any rate, if this wouldn't do he
+got none. This plan was evidently based on the idea that "truth is at
+the bottom of a well." At Dodona, they hung brass pots on the trees and
+translated the banging these made when the wind blew them together. At
+Pheræ, you whispered your question in the ear of the image of Mercury,
+and then shutting your ears until you got out of the market-place, the
+first remark you heard from anybody was the answer, and you might make
+the best of it. At Pluto's oracle at Charæ, the priest took a dream,
+and in the morning told you what he chose. In the cave of Trophonius,
+after various terrifying performances, they pulled you through a hole
+the wrong way of the feathers, and then back again, and then stuck you
+upon a seat, and made you write down your own oracle, being what you had
+seen, which would, I imagine, usually be "the elephant."
+
+And so-forth, and so on. Humbug _ad libitum!_
+
+Like some of the more celebrated modern fortune-tellers, the managers of
+the oracles were frequently shrewd fellows, and could often pick up the
+materials of a very smart and judicious answer from the appearance of
+the customer and his question. Very often the answer was sheer nonsense.
+It was, in fact, believed by many that as a rule you couldn't tell what
+the response meant until after it was fulfilled, when you were expected
+to see it. In many cases the answers were ingeniously arranged, so as to
+mean either a good or evil result, one of which was pretty likely.
+
+Thus, one of the oracles answered a general who asked after the fate of
+his campaign as follows: (the ancients, remember, using no punctuation
+marks) "Thou shalt go thou shalt return never in war shalt thou perish."
+The point becomes visible when you first make a pause before "never,"
+and then after it.
+
+On a similar occasion, the Delphic oracle told Croesus that if he
+crossed the River Halys he would overthrow a great empire. This empire
+he chose to understand as that of Cyrus, whom he was going to fight. It
+came out the other way, and it was his own empire that was overthrown.
+The immense wisdom of the oracle, however, was tremendously respected in
+consequence!
+
+Pyrrhus, of Epirus, on setting off against the Romans, received equal
+satisfaction, the Pythia telling him (in Latin) what amounted to this:
+
+"I say that you Pyrrhus the Romans are able to conquer!"
+
+Pyrrhus took it as he wished it, but found himself sadly thimble-rigged,
+the little joker being under the wrong cup. The Romans beat him, and
+most wofully too.
+
+Trajan was advised to consult the oracle at Heliopolis, about his
+intended expedition against the Parthians. The custom was to send your
+query in a letter; so Trajan sent a blank note in an envelope. The god
+(very naturally) sent back a blank note in reply, which was thought
+wonderfully smart; and so the imperial dupe sent again, a square
+question:
+
+"Shall I finish this war and get safe back to Rome?"
+
+The Heliopolitan humbug replied by sending a piece of an old grape-vine
+cut into pieces, which meant either: "You will cut them up," or "They
+will cut you up;" and Trajan, like the little boy at the peep-show who
+asked: "which is Lord Wellington and which is the Emperor Napoleon?" had
+paid his penny and might take his choice.
+
+Sometimes the oracles were quite jocular. A man asked one of them how to
+get rich? The oracle said: "Own all there is between Sicyon and
+Corinth." Which places are some fifteen miles apart.
+
+Another fellow asked how he should cure his gout? The oracle coolly
+said: "Drink nothing but cold water!"
+
+The Delphic oracle, and some of the others, used for a long time to give
+their answers in verses. At last, however, irreverent critics of the
+period made so much fun of the peculiarly miserable style of this
+poetry, that the poor oracle gave it up and came down to plain prose.
+Every once in a while some energetic and cunning man, of skeptical
+character, insisted on having just such an answer as he wanted. It was
+well known that Philip of Macedon bought what responses he wished at
+Delphi. Anybody with plenty of money, who would quietly "see" the
+priests, could have such a response as he chose. Or, if he was a
+bull-headed, hard-fisted, fighting-man, of irreligious but energetic
+mind, the priests gave him what he wished, out of fear. When
+Themistocles wanted to encourage the Greeks against the Persians, he
+"fixed" Delphi by bribes. When Alexander the Great came to consult the
+same oracle, the Pythia was disinclined to perform. But Alexander rather
+roughly gave her to understand that she must, and she did. The Greek and
+Roman oracles finally all gave out not far from the time of Christ's
+coming, having gradually become more or less disreputable for many
+years.
+
+All the heathen nations, as I have said, had their oracles too. The
+heathen Scandinavians had a famous one at Upsal. The Getae, in Scythia,
+had one. The Druids had them; so did the Mexican priests. The Egyptian
+and Syrian divinities had them; in short, oracles were quite as
+necessary as mysteries, and continue so in heathen religions. The only
+exception, I believe, is in Mohammedanism, whose votaries save
+themselves any trouble about the future by their thorough fatalism. They
+believe so fully and vividly that everything is immovably predestinated,
+being at the same time perfectly sure of heaven at last, that they
+quietly receive everything as it comes, and don't take the least trouble
+to find out how it is coming.
+
+The Sibyls were women, supposed to be inspired by some divinity, who
+prophesied of the future. Some say there was but one; some two, three,
+four, or ten. All sorts of obscure stories are told about the time and
+place of their activity. There was the Persian or Chaldean, who is said
+to have foretold with many details the coming and career of Christ; the
+Lybian, the Delphic, the Cumæan, much honored by the Romans, and half a
+dozen more. Then there was Mantho, the daughter of Tiresias, who was
+sent from Thebes to Delphi in a bag, seven hundred and twenty years
+before the destruction of Troy. These ladies lived in caves, and among
+them are said to have composed the Sibylline books, which contained the
+mysteries of religion, were carefully kept out of sight at Rome, and
+finally came into the hands of the Emperor Constantine. They were
+burned, one story has it, about fifty years after his death. But there
+are some Sibylline books extant, which, however, are among the most
+transparent of humbugs, for they are full of all sorts of extracts and
+statements from the Old and New Testaments. I do not believe there ever
+were any Sibyls. If there were any, they were probably ill-natured and
+desperate old maids, who turned so sour-tempered that their friends had
+to drive them off to live by themselves, and who, under these
+circumstances, went to work and wrote books.
+
+I must crowd in here a word or two about the Auguries and the Augurs.
+These gentlemen were a sort of Roman priests, who were accustomed to
+foretell future events, decide on coming good or bad fortune, whether it
+would do to go on with the elections, to begin any enterprise or not,
+etc., by means of various signs. These were thunder; the way any birds
+happened to fly; the way that the sacred chickens ate; the appearance of
+the entrails of beasts sacrificed, etc., etc. These augurs were, for a
+long time, much respected in Rome, but, at last, the more thoughtful
+people lost their belief in them, and they became so ridiculous that
+Cicero, who was himself one of them, said he could not see how one augur
+could look another in the face without laughing.
+
+It is humiliating to reflect how long and how extensively such barefaced
+and monstrous humbugs as these have maintained unquestioned authority
+over almost the whole race of man. Nor has humanity, by any means,
+escaped from such debasing slavery now; for millions and millions of men
+still believe and practice forms and ceremonies even more absurd, if
+possible, than the Mysteries, Oracles, and Auguries.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+MODERN HEATHEN HUMBUGS.--FETISHISM.--OBI.--VAUDOUX.--INDIAN
+POWWOWS.--LAMAISM.--REVOLVING PRAYERS.--PRAYING TO DEATH.
+
+
+A scale of superstition and religious beliefs of to-day, arranged from
+the lowest to the highest, would show many curious coincidences with
+another scale, which should trace the history of superstitions and
+religious beliefs backward in time toward the origin of man. Thus, for
+instance, the heathen humbugs, whether revolting or ridiculous, which I
+am to speak of in this chapter, are in full blast to day; and they
+furnish perfect specimens of the beliefs which prevailed among the
+heathen of four thousand and of eighteen hundred years ago; of the
+Chaldee and Canaanite superstitions, and equally of those of the Romans
+under Augustus Cæsar.
+
+The most dirty, vulgar, low, silly and absurd of all the superstitions
+in the world are, as is natural, those of the darkest minded of all the
+heathen, who have any superstition at all. For, as if for the
+humiliation of our proud human nature, there are really some human
+beings who seem to have too little intellect even to rise to the height
+of a superstition. Such are the Andaman Islanders, who crawl on all
+fours, wear nothing but a plaster of mud to keep the musquitos off, eat
+bugs, and grubs, and ants, and turn their children out to shift for
+themselves as soon as the little wretches can learn to crawl and eat
+bugs.
+
+These lowest of superstitions are Fetishism and Obi, believed and
+practiced by negro tribes, and, remember this, even by their ignorant
+white mistresses in the West Indies and in the United States, to day.
+Yes, I know where Southern refugee secessionist women are living in and
+about New York city at this moment, who really believe in the negro
+witchcraft called Obi, practiced by the slaves.
+
+A Fetish is anything not a living being, worshiped because supposed to
+be inhabited by some god. In some parts of Africa the Fetishes are a
+sort of guardian divinity, and there is one for each district like a
+town constable; and sometimes one for each family. The Fetish is any
+stone picked up in the street--a tree, a chip, a rag. It may be some
+stone or wooden image--an old pot, a knife, a feather. Before this
+precious divinity the poor darkeys bow down and worship, and sometimes,
+sacrifice a sheep or a rooster. Each more important Fetish has a priest,
+and here is where the humbug comes in. This gentleman lives on the
+offerings made to the Fetish, and he "exploits" his god, as a Frenchman
+would say, with great profit.
+
+Obi or Obeah, is the name of the witchcraft of the negro tribes; and the
+practitioner is termed an Obi-man or Obi-woman. They practice it at home
+in Africa, and carry it with them to continue it when they are made
+slaves in other lands. Obi is now practiced, as I have already hinted,
+in Cuba and in the Southern States, and is believed in by the more
+ignorant and foolish white people, as much as by their barbarous
+slaves. Obi is used only to injure, and the way to perform it upon your
+enemy is, to hire the Obi man or woman to concoct a charm, and then to
+hide this, or cause it to be hidden, in some place about the person or
+abode of the victim where he will find it. He is expected thereupon to
+fall ill, to wither and waste away, and so to die.
+
+Absurd as it may seem, this cursing business operates with a good deal
+of certainty on the poor negroes, who fall sick instantly on finding the
+ball of Obi, two or three inches in diameter, hidden in their bed, or in
+the roof, or under the threshold, or in the earthen floor of their huts.
+The poor wretches become dejected, lose appetite, strength, and spirits,
+grow thin and ill, and really wither away and die. It is a curious fact,
+however, that if under these circumstances you can cause one of them to
+become converted to Christianity, or to become a Christian by
+profession, he becomes at once free from the witches' dominion and
+quickly recovers.
+
+The ball of Obi--or, as it is called among the Brazilian negroes,
+Mandinga--may be made of various materials, always, I believe, including
+some which are disgusting or horrible. Leaves of trees and scraps of rag
+may be used; ashes, usually from bones or flesh of some kind; pieces of
+cats' bones and skulls, feathers, hair, earth, or clay, which ought to
+be from a grave; teeth of men and of snakes, alligators or other beasts;
+vegetable gum, or other sticky stuff; human blood, pieces of eggshell,
+etc., etc. This mixture is curiously like that in the witches' caldron
+in Macbeth, which, among other equally toothsome matters, contained
+frogs' toes, bats' wool, lizards' legs, owlets' wings, wolfs' teeth,
+witches' mummy, Jew's liver, tigers' bowels, and lastly, as a sort of
+thickening to the gravy, baboon's blood.
+
+A creole lady, now at the North, recently told a friend of mine that
+"the negroes can put some pieces of paper, or powder, or something or
+other in your shoes, that will make you sick, or make you do anything
+they want!" The poor foolish woman told this with a face full of awe and
+eyes wide open. Another lady known to me, long resident at the South,
+tells me that the belief in this sort of devilism is often found among
+the white people.
+
+The practices called Vaudoux or Voudoux, are a sort of Obi; being, like
+that, an invoking of the aid of some god to do what the worshipers wish.
+The Vaudoux humbug is quite prevalent in Cuba, Hayti, and other West
+India islands, where there are wild negroes, or where they are still
+imported from Africa. There is also a good deal of this sort of humbug
+among the slaves in New Orleans, and cases arising from it have recently
+quite often appeared in the police reports in the newspapers of that
+city.
+
+The Vaudoux worshipers assemble secretly, with a kind of chief witch or
+mistress of ceremonies; there is a boiling caldron of hell-broth, _a la_
+Macbeth; the votaries dance naked around their soup; amulets and charms
+are made and distributed. During a quarter of a century last past, some
+hundreds of these orgies have been broken up by the New Orleans police,
+and probably as many more have come off as per programme. The Vaudoux
+processes are most frequently appealed to for the purposes of some
+unsuccessful or jealous lover; and the Creole ladies believe in
+Vaudouxism as much as in Obi.
+
+In the West Indies, the Vaudoux orgies are more savage than in this
+country. It is but a little while since in Hayti, under the energetic
+and sensible administration of President Geffrard, eight Vaudoux
+worshipers were regularly tried and executed for having murdered a young
+girl, the niece of two of them, by way of human sacrifice to the god.
+They tied the poor child tight, put her in a box called a humfort, fed
+her with some kind of stuff for four days, and then deliberately
+strangled her, beheaded her, flayed her, cooked the head with yams, ate
+of the soup, and then performed a solemn dance and chant around an altar
+with the skull on it.
+
+The Caffres in Southern Africa have a kind of humbug somewhat like the
+Obi-men, who are known as rainmakers. These gentlemen furnish what
+blessing and cursing may be required for other purposes; but as that
+country is liable to tremendous droughts, their best business is to make
+rain. This they do by various prayers and ceremonies, of which the most
+important part is, receiving a large fee in advance from the customer.
+The rain-making business, though very lucrative, is not without its
+disadvantages; for whenever Moselekatse, or Dingaan, or any other chief
+sets his rainmaker at work, and the rain was not forthcoming as per
+application, the indignant ruler caused an assegai or two to be stuck
+through the wizard, for the encouragement of the other wizards. This
+was not so unreasonable as it may seem; for if the man could not make
+rain when it was wanted, what was he good for?
+
+The ceremonies of the pow-wows or medicine-men of the North American
+Indians, are less brutal than the African ones. These soothsayers, like
+the Obi-men, prepared charms for their customers, usually, however, not
+so much to destroy others as to protect the wearer. These charms consist
+of some trifling matters tied up in a small bag, the "medicine-bag,"
+which is to be worn round the neck, and will, it is supposed, insure the
+wearer the special help and protection of the Great Spirit. The pow-wows
+sometimes do a little in the cursing line.
+
+There is a funny story of a Puritan minister in the early times of New
+England, who coolly defied one of the most famous Indian magicians to
+play off his infernal artillery. A formal meeting was had, and the
+pow-wow rattled his traps, howled, danced, blew feathers, and
+vociferated jargon until he was perfectly exhausted, the old minister
+quietly looking at him all the time. The savage humbug was dumbfounded,
+but quickly recovering his presence of mind, saved his home-reputation
+by explaining to the red gentlemen in breech-cloths and nose-rings, that
+the Yankee ate so much salt that curses wouldn't take hold on him at
+all.
+
+The Shamans (or Schamans) of Siberia, follow a very similar business,
+but are not so much priestly humbugs as mere conjurors. The Lamas, or
+Buddhist leaders of Central and Southern Asia are, however, regular
+priests, again, and may be said, with singular propriety, to "run their
+machine" on principles of thorough religious humbug, for they do really
+pray by a machine. They set up a little mill to go by water or wind,
+which turns a cylinder. On this cylinder is written a prayer, and every
+time the barrel goes round once, it counts, they say, for one prayer. It
+may be imagined how piety intensifies in a freshet, or in a heavy gale
+of wind! And there is a ludicrous notion of economy, as well as a
+pitiable folly in the conception of profiting by such windy
+supplications, and of saving all one's time and thoughts for business,
+while the prayers rattle out by the hundred at home. Only imagine the
+pious fervor of one of these priests in a first-class Lowell mill, of
+say a hundred thousand spindles. Print a large edition of some good
+prayer and paste a copy on each spindle, and the place would seem to him
+the very gate of a Buddhist heaven. He would feel sure of taking heaven
+by storm, with a sustained fire of one hundred thousand prayers every
+second. His first requisite for a prosperous church would be a good
+water-power for prayer-mills. And yet, absurd as these prayer-mills of
+the heathen really are, it may not be safe to bring them under
+unqualified condemnation: for who among us has not sometimes heard windy
+prayers even in our Christian churches? Young clergymen are especially
+liable and, I might say, prone to this mockery. These, however, are but
+exceptions to the general Christian rule, viz.: that the Omniscient
+careth only for heart-service; and that, before Him, all mere
+lip-service or machine-service, is simply an abomination.
+
+A less innocent kind of praying is one of the religious humbugs of the
+bloody and cruel Sandwich Islands form of heathenism. Here a practice
+prevailed, and does yet, of paying money to a priest to pray your enemy
+to death. For cash in advance, this bargain could always be made, and so
+groveling was the spiritual cowardice of these poor savages, that, like
+the negro victim of Obi, the man prayed at seldom failed to sicken as
+soon as he found out what was going on, and to waste away and die.
+
+This bit of heathen humbug now in operation, from so many distant
+portions of the earth, shows how radically similar is all heathenism. It
+shows, too, how mean, vulgar, filthy, and altogether vile, is such
+religion as man, unassisted, contrives for himself. It shows, again, how
+sadly great is the proportion of the human race still remaining in this
+brutal darkness. And, by contrast, it affords us great reason for
+thankfulness that we live in a land of better culture, and happier hopes
+and practices.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+ORDEALS.--DUELS.--WAGER OF BATTLE.--ABRAHAM THORNTON.--RED HOT
+IRON.--BOILING WATER.--SWIMMING.--SWEARING.--CORSNED.--PAGAN ORDEALS.
+
+
+Ordeals belong to times and communities of rudeness, violence,
+materialism, ignorance, gross superstition and blind faith. The theory
+of ordeals is, that God will miraculously decide in the case of any
+accused person referred to Him. He will cause the accused to be
+victorious or defeated in a duel, will punish him on the spot for
+perjury, and if the innocent be exposed to certain physical dangers,
+will preserve him harmless.
+
+The duel, for instance, used to be called the "ordeal by battle," and
+was simply the commitment of the decision of a cause to God. Duels were
+regularly prefaced by the solemn prayer "God show the right." Now-a-days
+nobody believes that skill with a pistol is going to be specially
+bestowed by the Almighty, without diligent practice at a mark.
+Accordingly, the idea of a divine interposition has long ago dropped out
+of the question, and duelling is exclusively in the hands of the devil
+and his human votaries,--is a purely brutal absurdity. But in England,
+so long was this bloody, superstitious humbug kept up, that any hardened
+scoundrel who was a good hand at his weapon might, down to the year
+1819, absolutely have committed murder under the protection of English
+law. Two years before that date, a country "rough" named Abraham
+Thornton, murdered his sweetheart, Mary Ashford, but by deficiency of
+proof was acquitted on trial. There was however a moral conviction that
+Thornton had killed the girl, and her brother, a mere lad, caused an
+appeal to be entered according to the English statute, and Thornton was
+again arraigned before the King's Bench. In the mean time his counsel
+had looked up the obsolete proceedings about "assize of battle," and
+when Thornton was placed at the bar he threw down his glove upon the
+floor according to the ancient forms, and challenged his accuser to
+mortal combat. In reply, the appellant, Ashford, set forth facts so
+clearly showing Thornton's guilt as to constitute (as he alleged,)
+cause for exemption from the combat, and for condemnation of the
+prisoner. The court, taken by surprise, spent five months in studying on
+the matter. At last it decided that the fighting man had the law of
+England on his side, admitted his demand, and further, found that the
+matters alleged for exemption from combat were not sufficient. On this,
+poor William Ashford, who was but a boy, declined the combat by reason
+of his youth, and the prisoner was discharged, and walked in triumph out
+of court, the innocent blood still unavenged upon his hands. The old
+fogies of Parliament were startled at finding themselves actually
+permitting the practice of barbarisms abolished by the Greek emperor,
+Michael Palaeologus, in 1259, and by the good King Louis IX of France in
+1270; and two years afterwards, in 1819, the legal duel or "assize of
+battle" was by law abolished in England. It had been legal there for
+five centuries and a half, having been introduced by statute in 1261.
+
+Before that time, the ordeals by fire and by water were the regular
+legal ones in England. These were known even to the Anglo Saxon law,
+being mentioned in the code of Ina, A. D., about 700. It appears that
+fire was thought the most aristocratic element, for the ordeal by fire
+was used for nobles, and that by water for vulgarians and serfs. The
+operations were as follows: When one was accused of a crime, murder for
+instance, he had his choice whether to be tried "by God and his
+country," or "by God." If he chose the former he went before a jury. If
+the latter, he underwent the ordeal. Nine red hot ploughshares were
+laid on the ground in a row. The accused was blindfolded, and sent to
+walk over them. If he burnt himself he was guilty; if not, not.
+Sometimes, instead of this, the accused carried a piece of red hot iron
+of from one to three pounds' weight in his hand for a certain distance.
+
+The ordeal by water was, in one form at least, the same wise alternative
+in after years so often offered to witches. The accused was tied up in a
+heap, each arm to the other leg, and flung into water. If he floated he
+was guilty, and must be killed. If he sank and drowned, he was
+innocent--but killed. Trial was therefore synonymous with execution. The
+nature of such alternatives shows how important it was to have a
+character above suspicion! Another mode was, for the accused to plunge
+his bare arm into boiling water to the elbow. The arm was then instantly
+sealed up in bandages under charge of the clergy for three days. If it
+was then found perfectly well, the accused was acquitted; if not, he was
+found guilty.
+
+Another ordeal was expurgation or compurgation. It was a simple
+business--"as easy as swearing;" very much like a "custom house oath."
+It was only this: the accused made solemn oath that he was not guilty,
+and all the respectable men he could muster came and made their solemn
+oath that they believed so too. This is much like the jurisprudence of
+the Dutch justice of the peace in the old story, before whom two men
+swore that they saw the prisoner steal chickens. The thief however,
+getting a little time to collect testimony, brought in twelve men who
+swore that they did not see him take the chickens. "Balance of evidence
+overwhelmingly in favor of the prisoner," said the sapient justice (in
+Dutch I suppose,) and finding him innocent in a ratio of six to one, he
+discharged him at once.
+
+This ordeal by oath was reserved for people of eminence, whose word went
+for something, and who had a good many thorough-going friends.
+
+Another sort of ordeal was reserved for priests. It was called
+_corsned_. The priest who took the ordeal by _corsned_ received a bit of
+bread or a bit of cheese which was loaded heavily, by way of sauce, with
+curses upon whomsoever should eat it falsely. This he ate, together with
+the bread of the Lord's supper. Everybody knew that if he were guilty,
+the sacred mouthful would choke him to death on the spot. History
+records no instance of the choking of any priest in this ordeal, but
+there is a story that the Saxon Earl Godwin of Kent took the _corsned_
+to clear himself of a charge of murder, and (being a layman) was choked.
+I fully believe that Earl Godwin is dead, for he was born about the year
+1000. But I have not the least idea that _corsned_ killed him.
+
+The priests had the management of ordeals, which, being appeals to God,
+were reckoned religious ceremonies. They of course much preferred the
+swearing and eating and hot iron and water ordeals, which could be kept
+under the regulation of clerical good sense. Not so with the ordeal by
+battle. No priests could do anything with the wrath of two great mad
+ugly brutes, hot to kill each other, and crazy to risk having their own
+throats cut or skulls cleft rather than not have the chance. In
+consequence, the whole influence of the Romish church went against the
+ordeal by battle, and in favor of the others. Thus the former soon lost
+its religious element and became the mere duel; a base indulgence of a
+beast's passion for murder and revenge. The progress of enlightenment
+gradually pushed ordeals out of court. Mobs have however always tried
+the ordeal by water on witches.
+
+Almost all the heathen ordeals have depended on fire, water, or
+something to eat or drink. Even in the Bible we find an ordeal
+prescribed to the Jews (Numbers, chap v.,) for an unfaithful wife, who
+is there directed to drink some water with certain ceremonies, which
+drink God promises shall cause a fatal disease if she be guilty, and if
+not, not. It is worth noticing that Moses says not a word about any
+"water of jealousy," or any other ordeal, for unfaithful husbands!
+
+This drinking or eating ordeal prevails quite extensively even now. In
+Hindostan, theft is often enquired into by causing the suspected party
+to chew some dry rice or rice flour, which has some very strong curses
+stirred into it, _corsned_ fashion. After chewing, the accused spits out
+his mouthful, and if it is either dry or bloody, he is guilty. It is
+easy to see how a rascal, if as credulous as rascals often are, would be
+so frightened that his mouth would be dry, and would thus betray his own
+peccadillo. Another Hindoo mode was, to give a certain quantity of
+poison in butter, and if it did no harm, to acquit. Here, the man who
+mixes the dose is evidently the important person. In Madagascar they
+give some _tangena_ water. Now tangena is a fruit of which a little
+vomits the patient, and a good deal poisons or kills him; a quality
+which sufficiently explains how they manage that ordeal.
+
+Ordeals by fire and water are still practiced, with some variations, in
+Hindostan, China, Pegu, Siberia, Congo, Guinea, Senegambia and other
+pagan nations. Some of those still in use are odd enough. A Malabar one
+is to swim across a certain river, which is full of crocodiles. A Hindoo
+one is, for the two parties to an accusation to stand out doors, each
+with one bare leg in a hole, he to win who can longest endure the bites
+they are sure to get. This would be a famous method in some of the New
+Jersey and New York and Connecticut seashore lowlands I know of. The
+mosquitoes would decide cases both civil and criminal, at a speed that
+would make a Judge of the Supreme Court as dizzy as a humming-top.
+Another Hindoo plan was for the accused to hold his head under water
+while a man walked a certain distance. If the walker chose to be lazy
+about it, or the prisoner had diseased lungs, this would be a rather
+severe method. The Wanakas in Eastern Africa, draw a red hot needle
+through the culprit's lips--a most judicious place to get hold of an
+African!--and if the wound bleeds, he is guilty. In Siam, accuser and
+accused are put into a pen and a tiger is let loose on them. He whom the
+tiger kills is guilty. If he kills both, both are guilty; if neither,
+they try another mode.
+
+Blackstone says that an ordeal might always be tried by attorney. I
+should think this would give the legal profession a very lively time
+whenever the courts were chiefly using tigers, poison, drowning, fire
+and red hot iron, but not so much so when a little swearing or eating
+was the only thing required.
+
+This whole business of ordeals is a singular superstition, and the
+extent of its employment shows how ready the human race is to believe
+that God is constantly influencing even their ordinary private affairs.
+In other words, it is in principle like the doctrine of "special
+providence." Looked at as a superstition however--considered as a
+humbug--the history of ordeals show how corrupt becomes the nuisance of
+religious ways of deciding secular business, and how proper is our great
+American principle of the separation of state and church.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+APOLLONIUS OF TYANA.
+
+
+The annals of ancient history are peculiarly rich in narratives of
+pretension and imposition, and either owing to the greater ignorance and
+credulity of mankind, or the superior skill of gifted but unscrupulous
+men in those days, present a few examples that even surpass the most
+remarkable products of the modern science of humbug.
+
+One of their most surprising instances--in fact, perhaps, absolutely the
+leading impostor--was the sage or charlatan (for it is difficult to
+determine which) known as Apollonius Tyanæus so called from Tyana, in
+Cappadocia, Asia Minor, his birthplace, where he first saw the light
+about four years earlier than Christ, and consequently more than
+eighteen and a half centuries ago. His arrival upon this planet was
+attended with some very amazing demonstrations. With his first cry, a
+flash of lightning darted from the heavens to the earth and back again,
+dogs howled, cats mewed, roosters crowed, and flocks of swans, so say
+the olden chroniclers--probably geese, every one of them--clapped their
+wings in the adjacent meadows with a supernatural clatter. Ushered into
+the world with such surprising omens as these, young Apollonius could
+not fail to make a noise himself, ere long. Sent by his doting father to
+Tarsus, in Cilicia, to be educated, he found the dissipations of the
+place too much for him, and soon removed to Ægæ, a smaller city, at no
+great distance from the other. There he adopted the doctrines of
+Pythagoras, and subjected himself to the regular discipline of that
+curious system whose first process was a sort of juvenile gag-law, the
+pupils being required to keep perfectly silent for a period of five
+years, during which time it was forbidden to utter a single word. Even
+in those days, few female scholars preferred this practice, and the boys
+had it all to themselves, nor were they by any means numerous. After
+this probation was over, they were enjoined to speak and argue with
+moderation.
+
+At Ægæ there stood a temple dedicated to Æsculapius, who figured on
+earth as a great physician and compounder of simples, and after death
+was made a god. The edifice was much larger and more splendid than the
+Brandreth House on Broadway, although we have no record of Æsculapius
+having bestowed upon the world any such benefaction as the universal
+pills. However, unlike our modern M. D.s, the latter was in the habit of
+re-appearing after death, in this temple, and there holding forth to the
+faithful on various topics of domestic medicine. Apollonius was allowed
+to take up his residence in the establishment, and, no doubt, the
+priests initiated him into all their dodges to impose upon the people.
+Another tenet of the Pythagorean faith was a total abstinence from
+beans, an arrangement which would be objectionable in New England and in
+Nassau street eating houses.
+
+Apollonius however, who knew nothing of Yankees or Nassau street,
+manfully completed his novitiate. Restored at length to the use of beans
+and of his talking apparatus, he set forth upon a lecturing tour through
+Pamphylia and Cilicia. His themes were temperance, economy, and good
+behavior, and for the very novelty of the thing, crowds of disciples
+soon gathered about him. At the town of Aspenda he made a great hit,
+when he "pitched into" the corn merchants who had bought up all the
+grain during a period of scarcity, and sold it to the people at
+exorbitant prices. Of course, such things are not permitted in our day!
+Apollonius moved by the sufferings of women and children, took his stand
+in the market place, and with his stylus wrote in large characters upon
+a tablet the following advice to the speculators in grain:
+
+"The earth, the common mother of all, is just. But, ye being unjust,
+would make her a bountiful mother to yourselves alone. Leave off your
+dishonest traffic, or ye shall be no longer permitted to live."
+
+The grain-merchants, upon beholding this appeal, relented, for there was
+conscience in those days; and, moreover, the populace had prepared
+torches, and proposed to fry a few of the offenders, like oysters in
+bread-crumbs. So they yielded at once, and great was the fame of the
+prophet. Thus elevated in his own opinion, Apollonius, still preaching
+virtue by the wayside, set out for Babylon, after visiting the cities of
+Antioch, Ephesus, etc., always attracting immense crowds. As he
+penetrated further toward the remote East, his troops of followers fell
+off, until he was left with only three companions, who went with him to
+the end. One of these was a certain Damis, who wrote a description of
+the journey, and, by the way, tells us that his master spoke all
+languages, even those of the animals. We have men in our own country who
+can talk "horse-talk" at the races, but probably none so perfectly as
+this great Tyanean. The author of "The Ruined Cities of Africa," a
+recent publication, informs us that at Lamba, an African village, there
+is a leopard who can "speak." This would go to show that the "animals,"
+are aspiring in a direction directly the opposite of the acquirements of
+Apollonius, and I shall secure that leopard, if possible, for exhibition
+in the Museum, and for a fair consideration send him to any public
+meeting where some one is needed who will come up to the scratch!
+
+But, to resume. On his way to Babylon, Apollonius saw by the roadside a
+lioness and eight whelps, where they had been killed by a party of
+hunters, and argued from the omen that he should remain in that city
+just one year and eight months, which of course turned out to be exactly
+the case. The Babylonish monarch was so delighted with the eloquence and
+skill of the noted stranger, that he promised him any twelve gifts that
+he might choose to ask for, but Apollonius declined accepting anything
+but food and raiment. However, the King gave him camels and escort to
+assist his journey over the northern mountains of Hindostan, which he
+crossed, and entered the ancient city of Taxilia. On the way, he had a
+high time in the gorges of the hills with a horrible hobgoblin of the
+species called empusa by the Greeks. This demon terrified his companions
+half out of their wits, but Apollonius bravely assailed him with all
+sorts of hard words, and, to literally translate the old Greek
+narrative, "blackguarded" him so effectually that the poor devil fled
+with his tail between his legs. At Taxilia, Phraortes, the King, a
+lineal descendant of the famous Porus--and truly a porous personage,
+since he was renowned for drinking--gave the philosopher a grand
+reception, and introduced him to the chief of the Brahmins, whose
+temples he explored. These Hindoo gentlemen opened the eyes of
+Apollonius wider than they had ever been before, and taught him a few
+things he had never dreamed of, but which served him admirably during
+his latter career. He returned to Europe by way of the Red Sea, passing
+through Ephesus, where he vehemently denounced the speculators in gold
+and other improper persons. As they did not heed him, he predicted the
+plague, and left for Smyrna. Sure enough, the pestilence broke out just
+after his departure, and the Ephesians telegraphed to Smyrna, by the
+only means in their power, for his immediate return; gold, in the
+meanwhile, falling at least ten per cent. Apollonius reappeared in the
+twinkling of an eye, suddenly, in the very midst of the wailing crowd,
+on the market place. Pointing to a beggar, he directed the people to
+stone that particular unfortunate, and they obeyed so effectually, that
+the hapless creature was in a few moments completely buried under a huge
+heap of brickbats. The next morning, the philosopher commanded the
+throng to remove the pile of stones, and as they did so, a dog was
+discovered instead of the beggar. The dog sprang up, wagged his tail,
+and made away at "two-forty" and with him the pestilence departed. For
+this feat, the Ephesians called Apollonius a god, and reared a statue to
+his honor. The appellation of divinity he willingly accepted, declaring
+that it was only justice to good men. In these degenerate days, we have
+accorded the term to only one person, "the divine Fanny Ellsler!" That,
+too, was a tribute to superior understanding!
+
+Our hero next visited Pergamus, the site of ancient Troy, where he shut
+himself up all night in the tomb of Achilles; and having raised the
+great departed, held conversation with him on a variety of military
+topics. Among other things, Achilles told him that the theory of his
+having been killed by a wound in the heel was all nonsense, as he had
+really died from being bitten by a puppy, in the back. If the reader
+does not believe me, let him consult the original MS. of Damis. The
+same accident has disabled several great generals in modern times.
+
+Apollonius next made a tour through Greece, visiting Athens, Sparta,
+Olympia, and other cities, and exhorting the dissolute Greeks to mend
+their evil courses. The Spartans, particularly, came in for a severe
+lecture on the advantages of soap and water; and, it is said, that the
+first clean face ever seen in that republic was the result of the great
+Tyanean's teachings. At Athens, he cured a man possessed of a demon; the
+latter bouncing out of his victim, at length, with such fury and
+velocity as to dash down a neighboring marble statue.
+
+The Isle of Crete was the next point on the journey, and an earthquake
+occurring at the time, Apollonius suddenly exclaimed in the streets:
+
+"The earth is bringing forth land."
+
+Folks looked as he pointed toward the sea, and there beheld a new island
+in the direction of Therae.
+
+He arrived at Rome, whither his fame had preceded him, just as the
+Emperor Nero had issued an edict against all who dealt in magic; and,
+although he knew that he was included in the denunciation, he boldly
+went to the forum, where he restored to life the dead body of a
+beautiful lady, and predicted an eclipse of the sun, which shortly
+occurred. Nero caused him to be arrested, loaded with chains, and flung
+into an underground dungeon. When his jailers next made their rounds,
+they found the chains broken and the cell empty, but heard the chanting
+of invisible angels. This story would not be believed by the head
+jailer at Sing Sing.
+
+Prolonging his trip as far as Spain, Apollonius there got up a sedition
+against the authority of Nero, and thence crossed over into Africa. This
+was the darkest period of his history. From Africa, he proceeded to the
+South of Italy and the island of Sicily, still discoursing as he went.
+About this time, he heard of Nero's death, and returned to Egypt, where
+Vespasian was endeavoring to establish his authority. While in Egypt, he
+explored the supposed sources of the Nile, and learned all the lore of
+the Ethiopean necromancers, who could do any thing, even to making a
+black man white; thus greatly excelling the skill of after ages.
+
+Vespasian had immense faith in the Tyanean sage, and consulted him upon
+the most important matters of State. Titus, the successor of that
+monarch, manifested equal confidence, and regarded him absolutely as an
+oracle. Apollonius, who really seems to have been a most sensible
+politician, wrote the following brief but pithy note to Titus, when the
+latter modestly refused the crown of victory, after having destroyed
+Jerusalem.
+
+"Apollonius to Titus, Emperor of Rome, sendeth greeting. Since you have
+refused to be applauded for bloodshed and victory in war, I send you the
+crown of moderation. You know to what kind of merit crowns are due."
+
+Yet Apollonius was by no means an ultra peace man, for he strongly
+advocated the shaving and clothing of the Ethiopians, and their thorough
+chastisement when they refused to be combed and purified.
+
+When Domitian grasped at the imperial sceptre, the great Tyanean sided
+with his rival, Nerva, and having for this offence been seized and cast
+into prison, suddenly vanished from sight and reappeared on the instant
+at Puteoli, one hundred and fifty miles away. The distinguished Mr.
+Jewett, of Colorado, is the only instance of similar rapidity of
+locomotion known to us in this country and time.
+
+After taking breath at Puteoli, the sage resumed his travels and
+revisited Greece, Asia Minor, etc. At Ephesus he established his
+celebrated school, and then, once more returning to Crete, happened to
+give his old friends, the Cretans, great offence, and was shut up in the
+temple Dictymna to be devoured by famished dogs; but the next morning
+was found perfectly unharmed in the midst of the docile animals, who had
+already made considerable progress in the Pythagorean philosophy, and
+were gathered around the philosopher, seated on their hind legs, with
+open mouths and lolling tongues, intently listening to him while he
+lectured them in the canine tongue. So devoted had they become to their
+eloquent instructor, and so enraged were they at the interruption when
+the Cretans re-opened the temple, that they rushed out upon the latter
+and made a breakfast of a few of the leading men.
+
+This is one of the last of the remarkable incidents that we find
+recorded of the mighty Apollonius. How he came to his end is quite
+uncertain, but some veracious chroniclers declare that he simply dried
+up and blew away. Others aver that he lived to the good old age of
+ninety-seven, and then quietly gave up the ghost at Tyana, where a
+temple was dedicated to his memory.
+
+However that may be, he was subsequently worshiped with divine honors,
+and so highly esteemed by the greatest men of after days, that even
+Aurelian refused to sack Tyana, out of respect to the philosopher's
+ashes.
+
+Dion Cassius, the historian, records one of the most remarkable
+instances of his clairvoyance or second sight. He states that
+Apollonius, in the midst of a discourse at Ephesus, suddenly paused, and
+then in a different voice, exclaimed, to the astonishment of all:--"Have
+courage, good Stephanus! Strike! strike! Kill the tyrant!" On that same
+day, the hated Domitian was assassinated at Rome by a man named
+Stephanus. The humdrum interpretation of this "miracle" is simply that
+Apollonius had a foreknowledge of the intended attempt upon the tyrant's
+life.
+
+Long afterwards, Cagliostro claimed that he had been a fellow-traveler
+with Apollonius, and that his mysterious companion, the sage Athlotas,
+was the very same personage, who, consequently, at that time, must have
+reached the ripe age of some 1784 years--a lapse of time beyond the
+memory of even "the oldest inhabitant," in these parts, at least!
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  A Catalogue of
+  BOOKS
+  ISSUED BY
+  Carleton, Publisher,
+  NEW YORK.
+
+1866.]
+
+
+
+
+  "_There is a kind of physiognomy in the titles
+       of books no less than in the faces of
+         men, by which a skilful observer
+         will know as well what to expect
+               from the one as the
+                other._"--BUTLER.
+
+
+
+
+  NEW BOOKS
+  And New Editions Recently Issued by
+  CARLETON, PUBLISHER,
+  NEW YORK.
+ _418 BROADWAY, CORNER OF LISPENARD STREET._
+
+     N.B.--THE PUBLISHER, upon receipt of the price in advance, will
+     send any of the following Books, by mail, POSTAGE FREE, to any part
+     of the United States. This convenient and very safe mode may be
+     adopted when the neighboring Booksellers are not supplied with the
+     desired work. State name and address in full.
+
+
+  =Victor Hugo.=
+
+  LES MISERABLES.--_The best edition_, two elegant 8vo. vols.,
+    beautifully bound in cloth, $5.50; half calf,               $10.00
+
+  LES MISERABLES.--_The popular edition_, one large octavo volume,
+    paper covers, $2.00; cloth bound,                            $2.50
+
+  JARGAL.--A very remarkable novel. With six illustrations.
+    _In press._                                     12mo. cloth, $1.50
+
+  LES MISERABLES.--In the Spanish language. Fine 8vo. edition,
+    two vols., paper covers, $4.00; or cloth, bound,             $5.00
+
+  THE LIFE OF VICTOR HUGO.--By himself. 8vo. cloth,              $1.75
+
+
+  =By the Author of "Rutledge."=
+
+  RUTLEDGE.--A deeply interesting novel.  12mo. cloth,           $1.75
+
+  THE SUTHERLANDS.--      do.                do.                 $1.75
+
+  FRANK WARRINGTON.--     do.                do.                 $1.75
+
+  LOUIE'S LAST TERM AT ST. MARY'S.--         do.                 $1.75
+
+  ST. PHILIP'S.--_Just published_.           do.                 $1.75
+
+
+  =Hand-Books of Good Society.=
+
+  THE HABITS OF GOOD SOCIETY; with Thoughts, Hints, and Anecdotes,
+    concerning nice points of taste, good manners and the art of
+    making oneself agreeable. Reprinted from the London Edition.
+    The best and most entertaining work of the kind ever
+    published.                                      12mo. cloth, $1.75
+
+  THE ART OF CONVERSATION.--With directions for self-culture. A
+    sensible and instructive work, that ought to be in the hands
+    of every one who wishes to be either an agreeable talker or
+    listener.                                       12mo. cloth, $1.50
+
+
+  =Miss Augusta J. Evans.=
+
+  BEULAH.--A novel of great power.                  12mo. cloth, $1.75
+
+  MACARIA.--   do.        do.                           do.      $1.75
+
+
+  =Mrs. Mary J. Holmes' Works.=
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+  HUGH WORTHINGTON.--_Just published._                    do.    $1.50
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+  =Artemus Ward.=
+
+  HIS BOOK.--An irresistibly funny volume of writings by the immortal
+    American humorist.                              12mo. cloth, $1.50
+
+  HIS TRAVELS.--A rich and racy new volume with Mormon adventures.
+    Full of laughable illustrations.                  12mo. cl., $1.50
+
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+  =Miss Muloch.=
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+  JOHN HALIFAX.--A novel.      With illust.        12mo., cloth, $1.75
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+
+  THE PALACE BEAUTIFUL.--   And other poems.              do.    $1.50
+
+
+  =M. Michelet's Works.=
+
+  LOVE (L'AMOUR).--         From the French.        12mo. cloth, $1.50
+
+  WOMAN (LA FEMME).--                 do.                 do.    $1.50
+
+
+  =Edmund Kirke.=
+
+  AMONG THE PINES.--      A Southern sketch.        12mo. cloth, $1.50
+
+  MY SOUTHERN FRIENDS.--             do.                  do.    $1.50
+
+  DOWN IN TENNESSEE.--       Just published.              do.    $1.50
+
+
+  =Cuthbert Bede.=
+
+  VERDANT GREEN.--A rollicking, humorous novel of English student
+    life; with 200 comic illustrations.             12mo. cloth, $1.50
+
+  NEARER AND DEARER.--A novel, illustrated.          12mo. clo.  $1.50
+
+
+  =Ernest Renan.=
+
+  THE LIFE OF JESUS.--Translated by C. E. Wilbour from the celebrated
+    French work.                                    12mo. cloth, $1.75
+
+  RELIGIOUS HISTORY AND CRITICISM.--                 8vo. cloth, $2.50
+
+
+  =Cuyler Pine.=
+
+  MARY BRANDEGEE.--An American novel.                            $1.75
+
+  A NEW NOVEL.--_In press._                                      $1.75
+
+
+  =Josh Billings.=
+
+  HIS BOOK.--Containing all the rich comic sayings of this celebrated
+    writer. Illustrated. _In press._                12mo. cloth, $1.50
+
+
+  =Epes Sargent.=
+
+  PECULIAR.--One of the most remarkable and successful novels
+    published in this country.                      12mo. cloth, $1.75
+
+
+  =Mrs. Ritchie (Anna Cora Mowatt).=
+
+  FAIRY FINGERS.--A new novel.                      12mo. cloth, $1.75
+
+  THE MUTE SINGER.--   do.  _In press._                   do.    $1.75
+
+
+  =Robert B. Roosevelt.=
+
+  THE GAME FISH OF THE NORTH.--Illustrated.            12mo. cl. $2.00
+
+  SUPERIOR FISHING.--               do.                   do.    $2.00
+
+  THE GAME BIRDS OF THE NORTH.--_In press._               do.    $2.00
+
+
+  =John Phoenix.=
+
+  THE SQUIBOB PAPERS.--A new humorous volume, filled with comic
+    illustrations by the author.                    12mo. cloth, $1.50
+
+
+  =J. Sheridan Le Fanu.=
+
+  WYLDER'S HAND.--A powerful new novel.             12mo. cloth, $1.75
+
+  THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCHYARD.-- do.                      do.    $1.75
+
+
+  =P. T. Barnum.=
+
+  THE HUMBUGS OF THE WORLD.--_In press._            12mo. cloth, $1.75
+
+
+  =Charles Reade.=
+
+  THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH.--A magnificent new novel, by the
+    author of "Hard Cash," etc.                      8vo. cloth, $2.00
+
+
+  =The Opera.=
+
+  TALES FROM THE OPERAS.--A collection of clever stories, based
+    upon the plots of all the famous operas.          12mo. cl., $1.50
+
+
+  =J. C. Jeaffreson.=
+
+  A BOOK ABOUT DOCTORS.--An entertaining volume about famous
+    physicians and surgeons.                        12mo. cloth, $1.75
+
+
+  =F. D. Guerrazzi.=
+
+  BEATRICE CENCI.--The great historical novel. Translated from the
+    Italian; with a portrait of the Cenci, from Guido's famous
+    picture in Rome.                                12mo. cloth, $1.75
+
+
+  =Private Miles O'Reilly.=
+
+  HIS BOOK.--Comic songs, speeches, etc.            12mo. cloth, $1.50
+
+  A NEW BOOK.--_In press._                              do.      $1.50
+
+
+  =Rev. John Cumming, D.D., of London.=
+
+  THE GREAT TRIBULATION.--Two series.               12mo. cloth, $1.50
+
+  THE GREAT PREPARATION.--    do.                       do.      $1.50
+
+  THE GREAT CONSUMMATION.--   do.                       do.      $1.50
+
+
+  =Gomery of Montgomery.=
+
+  A striking new novel.  One thick vol.,            12mo. cloth, $2.00
+
+
+  =M. A. Fisher.=
+
+  A SPINSTER'S STORY.--A novel. _In press._         12mo. cloth, $1.75
+
+
+  =Novels by Ruffini.=
+
+  DR. ANTONIO.--A love story of Italy.              12mo. cloth, $1.75
+
+  LAVINIA; OR, THE ITALIAN ARTIST.--                    do.      $1.75
+
+  VINCENZO; OR, SUNKEN ROCKS.--                      8vo. cloth, $1.75
+
+
+  =Mother Goose for Grown Folks.=
+
+  HUMOROUS RHYMES for grown people; based upon the famous "Mother
+    Goose Melodies."                                12mo. cloth, $1.00
+
+
+  =The New York Central Park.=
+
+  A SUPERB GIFT BOOK.--The Central Park pleasantly described, and
+    magnificently embellished with more than 50 exquisite photographs
+    of the principal views and objects of interest. A large quarto
+    volume, sumptuously bound in Turkey morocco. An elegant
+    Presentation Book.                                          $30.00
+
+
+  =M. T. Walworth.=
+
+  LULU.--A new novel.                               12mo. cloth, $1.50
+
+  HOTSPUR.-- do.                                       do.       $1.50
+
+
+  =Author of "Olie."=
+
+  NEPENTHE.--A new novel.                           12mo. cloth, $1.50
+
+  TOGETHER.--    do.                                   do.       $1.50
+
+
+  =N. H. Chamberlain.=
+
+  THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A NEW ENGLAND FARM-HOUSE.--               $1.75
+
+
+  =Amelia B. Edwards.=
+
+  BALLADS.--By author of "Barbara's History."                    $1.50
+
+
+  =S. M. Johnson.=
+
+  FREE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA.--             8vo. cl. $3.00
+
+
+  =Captain Semmes.=
+
+  CRUISE OF THE ALABAMA AND SUMTER.--                12mo. clo., $2.00
+
+
+  =Hewes Gordon.=
+
+  LOVERS AND THINKERS.--A new novel.                             $1.50
+
+
+  =Caroline May.=
+
+  POEMS.--Printed on tinted paper.                  12mo. cloth, $1.50
+
+
+  =James H. Hackett.=
+
+  NOTES AND COMMENTS ON SHAKSPEARE.--               12mo. cloth, $1.50
+
+
+  =Stephen Massett.=
+
+  DRIFTING ABOUT.--Comic book, illustrated,         12mo. cloth, $1.50
+
+
+  =Miscellaneous Works.=
+
+  VICTOIRE.--A new novel                            12mo. cloth, $1.75
+
+  QUEST.--       do.                                       do.   $1.50
+
+  POEMS.--By Mrs. Sarah T. Bolton.                         do.   $1.50
+
+  THE MORGESONS.--A novel by Mrs. Stoddard.                do.   $1.50
+
+  THE SUPPRESSED BOOK ABOUT SLAVERY.--                     do.   $2.00
+
+  JOHN GUILDERSTRING'S SIN.--A novel.               12mo. cloth, $1.50
+
+  CENTEOLA.--By author "Green Mountain Boys."              do.   $1.50
+
+  RED TAPE AND PIGEON-HOLE GENERALS.--                     do.   $1.50
+
+  THE PARTISAN LEADER.--By Beverly Tucker.                 do.   $1.50
+
+  TREATISE ON DEAFNESS.--By Dr. E. B. Lighthill.           do.   $1.50
+
+  THE PRISONER OF STATE.--By D. A. Mahoney.                do.   $1.50
+
+  AROUND THE PYRAMIDS.--By Gen. Aaron Ward.                do.   $1.50
+
+  CHINA AND THE CHINESE.--By W. L. G. Smith.               do.   $1.50
+
+  THE WINTHROPS.--A novel by J. R. Beckwith.               do.   $1.75
+
+  SPREES AND SPLASHES.--By Henry Morford.                  do.   $1.50
+
+  GARRET VAN HORN.--A novel by J. S. Sauzade.              do.   $1.50
+
+  SCHOOL FOR THE SOLDIER.--By Capt. Van Ness.              do. 50 cts.
+
+  THE YACHTMAN'S PRIMER.--By T. R. Warren.                 do. 50 cts.
+
+  EDGAR POE AND HIS CRITICS.--By Mrs. Whitman.             do.   $1.00
+
+  ERIC; OR, LITTLE BY LITTLE.--By F. W. Farrar.            do.   $1.50
+
+  SAINT WINIFRED'S.--By the author of "Eric."              do.   $1.50
+
+  A WOMAN'S THOUGHTS ABOUT WOMEN.--                        do.   $1.50
+
+  MARRIED OFF.--Illustrated satirical poem.                do. 50 cts.
+
+  SCHOOL-DAYS OF EMINENT MEN.--By Timbs.                   do.   $1.50
+
+  ROMANCE OF A POOR YOUNG MAN.--                           do.   $1.50
+
+  THE FLYING DUTCHMAN.--J. G. Saxe, illustrated.           do. 75 cts.
+
+  ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.--Life and travels.               do.   $1.50
+
+  LIFE OF HUGH MILLER.--The celebrated geologist.          do.   $1.50
+
+  TACTICS; or, Cupid in Shoulder-Straps.                   do.   $1.50
+
+  DEBT AND GRACE.--By Rev. C. F. Hudson.                   do.   $1.75
+
+  THE RUSSIAN BALL.--Illustrated satirical poem.           do. 50 cts.
+
+  THE SNOBLACE BALL.--   do.        do.     do.            do. 50 cts.
+
+  TEACH US TO PRAY.--By Dr. Cumming.                       do.   $1.50
+
+  AN ANSWER TO HUGH MILLER.--By T. A. Davies.              do.   $1.50
+
+  COSMOGONY.--By Thomas A. Davies.                   8vo. cloth, $2.00
+
+  TWENTY YEARS around the World. J. Guy Vassar.            do.   $3.75
+
+  THE SLAVE POWER.--By J. E. Cairnes.                      do.   $2.00
+
+  RURAL ARCHITECTURE.--By M. Field, illustrated.           do.   $2.00
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+The following errors were corrected:
+
+  viii  EXPOSE changed to EXPOSÉ
+  viii  BY JOHN BULL changed to BY JOHN BULL.
+  viii  HOMEOPATHIC changed to HOMOEOPATHIC
+  ix    TWO-HUNDRED changed to TWO HUNDRED
+  ix    "ADVANTAGE CARDS." changed to "ADVANTAGE-CARDS."
+  x     DIVINING GOBLINS. changed to DIVINING.--GOBLINS.
+  x     SORCEROR. changed to SORCERER.
+  x     ZUTE changed to ZIITO
+  x     MR. WRIGHT'S SIGEL changed to MR. WRIGHT'S SIGIL
+  x     WHISKERFUSTICUS. changed to WHISKERIFUSTICUS
+  x     RELIGOUS HUMBUGS changed to RELIGIOUS HUMBUGS
+  x     IMPOSTER changed to IMPOSTOR
+  x     A RELIGOUS HUMBUG changed to A RELIGIOUS HUMBUG
+  25    attractt he changed to attract the
+  32    Quixotte. changed to Quixote
+  32    Great Britian changed to Great Britain
+  37    million of frances changed to million of francs
+  39    "California Menagrie," changed to "California Menagerie,"
+  47    THE GOLDEN PIGEONS--GRIZZLY ADAMS--GERMAN CHEMIST--HAPPY
+        FAMILY--FRENCH NATURALIST. changed to
+        THE GOLDEN PIGEONS.--GRIZZLY ADAMS.--GERMAN CHEMIST.--HAPPY
+        FAMILY.--FRENCH NATURALIST.
+  56    "Golden Australian Pigeons," changed to 'Golden Australian
+        Pigeons,'"
+  57    PHELADELPHIA changed to PHILADELPHIA
+  58    package of Pease's changed to package of "Pease's
+  60    'pay,' havn't changed to 'pay,' haven't
+  64    tragic scene.' changed to tragic scene."
+  65    is now published' changed to is now published.
+  79    after the trying changed to after the tying
+  91    Britian changed to Britain
+  92    dextrously changed to dexterously
+  110   pretentions changed to pretensions
+  111   Presidental changed to Presidential
+  115   invocations, adressed changed to invocations, addressed
+  115   complete success changed to complete success.
+  115   in ecstacy changed to in ecstasy
+  119   Spirtual Photography changed to Spiritual Photography
+  119   MRS. COANT'S changed to MRS. CONANT'S
+  119   called the trance. changed to called the trance."
+  122   occuping changed to occupying
+  127   professsed changed to professed
+  136   supervison changed to supervision
+  141   she was pregnant changed to she was pregnant.
+  143   guage-faucet changed to gauge-faucet
+  147   by this expose, changed to by this exposé
+  156   vermillion changed to vermilion
+  161   Cliquot changed to Clicquot
+  170   But you bid changed to "But you bid
+  173   persverance changed to perseverance
+  180   $200, changed to $200,"
+  185   cant changed to can't
+  189   SUBTERANEAN changed to SUBTERRANEAN
+  190   prospecters changed to prospectors
+  194   Napolean changed to Napoleon
+  195   reaity changed to reality
+  199   matter of form;" changed to matter of form;
+  200   as follows: changed to as follows:"
+  202   impudence then changed to impudence than
+  210   they prefered changed to they preferred
+  211   odorifous changed to odoriferous
+  211   apprized changed to apprised
+  213   etc. etc., changed to etc., etc.,
+  213   _Holland_! changed to _Holland_!"
+  216   April 21st. changed to April 21st,
+  221   merchandize changed to merchandise
+  225   Every body changed to Everybody
+  227   stock--The changed to stock--the
+  228   all winter changed to All winter
+  229   coin than than changed to coin than
+  232   CHAPTER XXVII. changed to CHAPTER XXVIII.
+  234   Popocatapetl changed to Popocatepetl
+  237   over to Williamsburgh changed to over to Williamsburg
+  242   FLORENCE changed to FLORENCE.
+  245   gullability changed to gullibility?
+  246   maccaroni changed to macaroni
+  246   sold almost- changed to sold almost
+  252   domicil changed to domicile
+  265   "The suggestion, changed to The suggestion,
+  269   with faces of changed to "with faces of
+  271   The "Albany changed to the "Albany
+  271   "the New York changed to the "New York
+  274   enclyclopedias changed to encyclopedias
+  276   Magnficent changed to Magnificent
+  280   Pensylvania changed to Pennsylvania
+  281   ridiculing Beecher. changed to ridiculing Beecher."
+  281   fusilade changed to fusillade
+  284   THE ACTOR changed to THE ACTOR.
+  286   sovereigns." changed to sovereigns.'
+  287   "Now Sir," said he, "I wish changed to "'Now Sir,' said he, 'I wish
+  287   this house alone." changed to this house alone.'
+  288   However, before changed to "However, before
+  291   futhermore changed to furthermore
+  298   ghost havin changed to ghost having
+  305   amissable changed to admissible
+  307   CHAPTER. XXX. changed to CHAPTER XXXVII.
+  317   Holy Ghost. changed to Holy Ghost."
+  318   ho, ho! changed to ho, ho!"
+  320   failed; changed to failed:
+  322   swarthy and wizzened changed to swarthy and wizened
+  324   "prime-minister, changed to "prime-minister,"
+  327   Mr Worrall changed to Mr. Worrall
+  334   transmigra- changed to transmigration
+  339   elysium changed to Elysium
+  339   Antionette changed to Antoinette
+  341   remarked." I changed to remarked. "I
+  341   Constantiople changed to Constantinople
+  342   What message changed to "What message
+  342   "She does changed to She does
+  346   from the the Court changed to from the Court
+  348   evidently had'nt changed to evidently hadn't
+  351   could'nt seem changed to couldn't seem
+  354   CHAPTER LXII. changed to CHAPTER XLII.
+  355   Raisonnée, changed to Raisonnée,"
+  363   Constantiople changed to Constantinople
+  367   arms, &c, changed to arms, &c.,
+  368   hand seveeral changed to hand several
+  368   no Riza Rey changed to no Riza Bey
+  375   enthusiams changed to enthusiasms
+  375   ascetisms changed to asceticisms
+  381   intepretation changed to interpretation
+  382   doggrel changed to doggerel
+  392   HUMBUGS NO. 2 changed to HUMBUGS NO. 2.
+  393   know!) changed to know!),
+  398   hard-fisted changed to hard-fisted,
+  403   other beasts: changed to other beasts;
+  423   revisted changed to revisited
+  Ads 3 N.B changed to N.B.
+  Ads 3 United States changed to United States.
+  Ads 3 in full changed to in full.
+  Ads 3 MISERABLES--In changed to MISERABLES.--In
+  Ads 3 self-culture changed to self-culture.
+  Ads 4 MARIAN GREY-- do changed to MARIAN GREY.-- do.
+  Ads 5 RUE changed to TRUE
+  Ads 5 OW changed to HOW
+  Ads 5 do changed to do. (line of LOOKING AROUND)
+  Ads 5 FEMME.) changed to FEMME).
+  Ads 7 DRIFTING ABOUT, changed to DRIFTING ABOUT.
+  Ads 8 ABOUT WOMEN changed to ABOUT WOMEN.
+  Ads 8 HUGH MILLER changed to HUGH MILLER.
+
+The following words had inconsistent spelling and hyphenation:
+
+  broom-stick / broomstick
+  CONJUROR / CONJURER
+  conjuror / conjurer
+  conjurors / conjurers
+  Christoforo / Cristoforo
+  death-bed / deathbed
+  etc. / &c.
+  Ethiopean / Ethiopian
+  fêted / feted
+  ghost-like / ghostlike
+  hand-bill / handbill
+  hell-broth / hellbroth
+  hob-goblins / hobgoblins
+  hodge-podge / hodgepodge
+  lamp-black / lampblack
+  log-wood / logwood
+  M.D. / M. D.
+  meantime / mean time
+  mosquitoes / musquitos
+  New-York / New York
+  sea-coast / seacoast
+  sea-shore / seashore
+  stock-broker / stockbroker
+  to-day / to day
+  Twenty-seventh street / Twenty-seventh Street
+  Wall street / Wall Street
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Humbugs of the World, by P. T. Barnum
+
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Humbugs of the World, by P. T. Barnum.
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Humbugs of the World, by P. T. Barnum
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Humbugs of the World
+       An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries,
+              Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages
+
+Author: P. T. Barnum
+
+Release Date: September 18, 2008 [EBook #26640]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HUMBUGS OF THE WORLD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Julia Miller and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="tn">
+<p class="titlepage"><b>Transcriber&rsquo;s&nbsp;Note</b></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A <a href="#trans_note">list</a> of these changes
+is found at the end of the text. Inconsistencies in spelling and
+hyphenation have been maintained. A <a href="#trans_note">list</a> of inconsistently spelled and
+hyphenated words is found at the end of the text.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h1 class="chapterhead"><span style="font-size: 50%;">THE</span><br />
+
+HUMBUGS OF THE WORLD.</h1>
+
+<p class="titlepage" style="margin-top: 2em;">AN ACCOUNT OF HUMBUGS, DELUSIONS, IMPOSITIONS,<br />
+QUACKERIES, DECEITS AND DECEIVERS<br />
+GENERALLY, IN ALL AGES.</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage" style="margin-top: 2em;">BY<br />
+
+<span style="font-size: 120%;">P. T. BARNUM.</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage" style="margin-top: 2em;">&#8220;Omne ignotum pro mirifico.&#8221;&mdash;&#8220;Wonderful, because mysterious.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 50px; margin-top: 2em;">
+<img src="images/illus-001.png" width="50" height="38" alt="decorative" title="decorative" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="titlepage" style="margin-top: 2em;">NEW YORK:<br />
+<i>CARLETON. PUBLISHER. 413 BROADWAY.</i><br />
+1866.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by<br />
+
+G. W. CARLETON,<br />
+
+In the Clerk&#8217;s Office of the District Court for the Southern District of
+New York.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="PUBLISHERS_NOTE" id="PUBLISHERS_NOTE"></a>PUBLISHER&#8217;S NOTE.</h2>
+
+<hr class="declong" />
+
+<p>One of Mr. Barnum&#8217;s secrets of success is his unique methods of
+advertising, and we can readily understand how he can bear to be
+denounced as a &#8220;Humbug,&#8221; because this popular designation though
+undeserved in the popular acceptation of it, &#8220;brought grist to his
+mill.&#8221; He has constantly kept himself before the public&mdash;nay, we may say
+that he has <i>been</i> kept before the public constantly, by the stereotyped
+word in question; and what right, or what desire, could he have to
+discard or complain of an epithet which was one of the prospering
+elements of his business as &#8220;a showman?&#8221; In a narrow sense of the word
+he is a &#8220;Humbug:&#8221; in the larger acceptation he is <i>not</i>.</p>
+
+<p>He has in several chapters of this book elaborated the distinction, and
+we will only say in this place, what, indeed, no one who knows him will
+doubt, that, aside from his qualities as a caterer to popular
+entertainment, he is one of the most remarkable men of the age. As a
+business man, of far-reaching vision and singular executive force, he
+has for years been the life of Bridgeport, near which city he has long
+resided, and last winter he achieved high rank in the Legislature of
+Connecticut, as both an effective speaker and a patriot, having &#8220;no axe
+to grind,&#8221; and seeking only the public welfare. We, indeed, agree with
+the editor of <i>The New York Independent</i>, who, in an article drawn out
+by the burning of the American Museum, says: &#8220;Mr. Barnum&#8217;s rare talent
+as a speaker has always been exercised in behalf of good morals, and for
+patriotic objects. No man has done better service in the temperance
+cause by public lectures during the past ten years, both in America and
+Great Britain, and during the war he was most efficient in stimulating
+the spirit which resulted in the preservation of the Union, and the
+destruction of Slavery.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>We cannot forbear quoting two or three additional paragraphs from that
+article, especially as they are so strongly expressive of the merits of
+the case:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Barnum&#8217;s whole career has been a very transparent one. He has never
+befooled the public to its injury, and, though his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span> name has come to be
+looked upon as a synonym for humbuggery, there never was a public man
+who was less of one.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The hearty good wishes of many good men, and the sympathies of the
+community in which he has lived, go with him, and the public he has so
+long amused, but never abused, will be ready to sustain him whenever he
+makes another appeal to them. Mr. Barnum is a very good sort of
+representative Yankee. When crowds of English traders and manufacturers
+in Liverpool, Manchester, and London, flocked to hear his lectures on
+the art of making money, they expected to hear from him some very smart
+recipes for knavery; but they were as much astonished as they were
+edified to learn that the only secret he had to tell them was to be
+honest, and not to expect something for nothing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>We could fill many pages with quotations of corresponding tenor from the
+leading and most influential men and journals in the land, but we will
+close this publisher&#8217;s note with the following from the <i>N. Y. Sun</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;One of the happiest impromptu oratorical efforts that we have heard for
+some time was that made by Barnum at the benefit performance given for
+his employ&eacute;s on Friday afternoon. If a stranger wanted to satisfy
+himself how the great showman had managed so to monopolize the ear and
+eye of the public during his long career he could not have had a better
+opportunity of doing so than by listening to this address. Every word,
+though delivered with apparent carelessness, struck a key-note in the
+hearts of his listeners. Simple, forcible, and touching, it showed how
+thoroughly this extraordinary man comprehends the character of his
+countrymen, and how easily he can play upon their feelings.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Those who look upon Barnum as a mere charlatan, have really no
+knowledge of him. It would be easy to demonstrate that the qualities
+that have placed him in his present position of notoriety and affluence
+would, in another pursuit, have raised him to far greater eminence. In
+his breadth of views, his profound knowledge of mankind, his courage
+under reverses, his indomitable perseverance, his ready eloquence, and
+his admirable business tact, we recognise the elements that are
+conducive to success in most other pursuits. More than almost any other
+living man, Barnum may be said to be a representative type of the
+American mind.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION.</h2>
+
+<hr class="declong" />
+
+<p>In the &#8220;Autobiography of P. T. Barnum,&#8221; published in 1855, I partly
+promised to write a book which should expose some of the chief humbugs
+of the world. The invitation of my friends Messrs. Cauldwell and Whitney
+of the &#8220;Weekly Mercury&#8221; caused me to furnish for that paper a series of
+articles in which I very naturally took up the subject in question. This
+book is a revision and re-arrangement of a portion of those articles. If
+I should find that I have met a popular demand, I shall in due time put
+forth a second volume. There is not the least danger of a dearth of
+materials.</p>
+
+<p>I once travelled through the Southern States in company with a magician.
+The first day in each town, he astonished his auditors with his
+deceptions. He then announced that on the following day he would show
+how each trick was performed, and how every man might thus become his
+own magician. That <i>expos&eacute;</i> spoiled the legerdemain market on that
+particular route, for several years. So, if we could have a full
+exposure of &#8220;the tricks of trade&#8221; of all sorts, of humbugs and deceivers
+of past times, religious, political, financial, scientific, quackish and
+so forth, we might perhaps look for a somewhat wiser generation to
+follow us. I shall be well satisfied if I can do something towards so
+good a purpose.</p>
+
+<p class="right">P. T. BARNUM.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<hr class="decshort" />
+
+<p class="tocsect"><a href="#I_PERSONAL_REMINISCENCES">I. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.</a></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">GENERAL VIEW OF THE SUBJECT.&mdash;&#8203;HUMBUG UNIVERSAL.&mdash;&#8203;IN
+RELIGION.&mdash;&#8203;IN POLITICS.&mdash;&#8203;IN BUSINESS.&mdash;&#8203;IN SCIENCE.&mdash;&#8203;IN MEDICINE.&mdash;&#8203;HOW
+IT IS TO CEASE.&mdash;&#8203;THE GREATEST HUMBUG OF <span class="chapword">ALL.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">11</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">DEFINITION OF THE WORD HUMBUG.&mdash;&#8203;WARREN OF
+LONDON.&mdash;&#8203;GENIN THE HATTER.&mdash;&#8203;GOSLING&#8217;S <span class="chapword">BLACKING.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">18</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">MONSIEUR MANGIN, THE FRENCH <span class="chapword">HUMBUG.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">29</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">OLD GRIZZLY <span class="chapword">ADAMS.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">37</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">THE GOLDEN PIGEONS.&mdash;&#8203;GRIZZLY ADAMS.&mdash;&#8203;GERMAN
+CHEMIST.&mdash;&#8203;HAPPY FAMILY.&mdash;&#8203;FRENCH <span class="chapword">NATURALIST.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">46</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">THE WHALE, THE ANGEL FISH, AND THE GOLDEN <span class="chapword">PIGEON.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">53</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">PEASE&#8217;S HOARHOUND CANDY.&mdash;&#8203;THE DORR REBELLION.&mdash;&#8203;THE
+PHILADELPHIA <span class="chapword">ALDERMAN.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">57</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">BRANDRETH&#8217;S PILLS.&mdash;&#8203;MAGNIFICENT ADVERTISING.&mdash;&#8203;POWER
+OF <span class="chapword">IMAGINATION.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">65</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="tocsect"><a href="#II_THE_SPIRITUALISTS">II. THE SPIRITUALISTS.</a></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS, THEIR RISE AND PROGRESS.&mdash;&#8203;SPIRITUAL
+ROPE-TYING.&mdash;&#8203;MUSIC PLAYING.&mdash;&#8203;CABINET
+SECRETS.&mdash;&#8203;&#8220;THEY CHOOSE DARKNESS RATHER THAN LIGHT,&#8221; ETC.&mdash;&#8203;THE
+SPIRITUAL HAND.&mdash;&#8203;HOW THE THING IS DONE.&mdash;&#8203;DR. W. F.
+VAN <span class="chapword">VLECK.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">73</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">THE SPIRIT-RAPPING AND MEDIUM HUMBUGS.&mdash;&#8203;THEIR
+ORIGIN.&mdash;&#8203;HOW THE THING IS DONE.&mdash;&#8203;$500 <span class="chapword">REWARD.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">82</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">THE &#8220;BALLOT TEST.&#8221;&mdash;&#8203;THE OLD GENTLEMAN AND
+HIS &#8220;DISEASED&#8221; RELATIVES.&mdash;&#8203;A &#8220;HUNGRY SPIRIT.&#8221;&mdash;&#8203;&#8220;PALMING&#8221;
+A BALLOT.&mdash;&#8203;REVELATIONS ON STRIPS OF <span class="chapword">PAPER.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">88</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">SPIRITUAL &#8220;LETTERS ON THE ARM.&#8221;&mdash;&#8203;HOW TO
+MAKE THEM YOURSELF.&mdash;&#8203;THE TAMBOURINE AND RING FEATS.&mdash;&#8203;DEXTER&#8217;S
+DANCING HATS.&mdash;&#8203;PHOSPHORESCENT OIL.&mdash;&#8203;SOME SPIRITUAL
+<span class="chapword">SLANG.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">96</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">DEMONSTRATIONS BY &#8220;SAMPSON&#8221; UNDER A TABLE.&mdash;&#8203;A
+MEDIUM WHO IS HAPPY WITH HER FEET.&mdash;&#8203;<a name="corr1" id="corr1"></a>EXPOS&Eacute; OF
+ANOTHER OPERATOR IN DARK <span class="chapword">CIRCLES.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">102</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">SPIRITUAL PHOTOGRAPHING.&mdash;&#8203;COLORADO JEWETT
+AND THE SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHS OF GENERAL JACKSON, HENRY
+CLAY, DANIEL WEBSTER, STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, NAPOLEON BONAPARTE,
+ETC.&mdash;&#8203;A LADY OF DISTINCTION SEEKS AND FINDS A SPIRITUAL
+PHOTOGRAPH OF HER DECEASED INFANT, AND HER DEAD
+BROTHER WHO WAS YET ALIVE.&mdash;&#8203;HOW IT WAS <span class="chapword">DONE.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">109</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">BANNER OF LIGHT.&mdash;&#8203;MESSAGES FROM THE DEAD.&mdash;&#8203;SPIRITUAL
+CIVILITIES.&mdash;&#8203;SPIRIT &#8220;HOLLERING.&#8221;&mdash;&#8203;HANS VON
+VLEET, THE FEMALE DUTCHMAN.&mdash;&#8203;MRS. CONANT&#8217;S &#8220;CIRCLES.&#8221;&mdash;&#8203;PAINE&#8217;S
+TABLE-TIPPING HUMBUG <span class="chapword">EXPOSED.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">119</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">SPIRITUALIST HUMBUGS WAKING UP.&mdash;&#8203;FOSTER
+HEARD FROM.&mdash;&#8203;S. B. BRITTAIN HEARD FROM.&mdash;&#8203;THE BOSTON ARTISTS
+AND THEIR SPIRITUAL PORTRAITS.&mdash;&#8203;THE WASHINGTON MEDIUM
+AND HIS SPIRITUAL HANDS.&mdash;&#8203;THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS AND THE
+SEA-CAPTAIN&#8217;S WHEAT-FLOUR.&mdash;&#8203;THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS ROUGHLY
+SHOWN UP BY JOHN <a name="corr2" id="corr2"></a>BULL.&mdash;&#8203;HOW A SHINGLE &#8220;STUMPED&#8221;
+THE <span class="chapword">SPIRITS.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">130</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS SHOWN UP ONCE
+MORE.&mdash;&#8203;THE SPIRITUALIST BOGUS BABY.&mdash;&#8203;A LADY BRINGS FORTH
+A MOTIVE FORCE.&mdash;&#8203;&#8220;GUM&#8221; ARABIC.&mdash;&#8203;SPIRITUALIST HEBREW.&mdash;&#8203;THE
+ALLEN BOY.&mdash;&#8203;DR. RANDALL.&mdash;&#8203;PORTLAND EVENING COURIER.&mdash;&#8203;THE
+FOOLS NOT ALL DEAD <span class="chapword">YET.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">145</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="tocsect"><a href="#III_TRADE_AND_BUSINESS_IMPOSITIONS">III. TRADE AND BUSINESS IMPOSITIONS.</a></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">ADULTERATIONS OF FOOD.&mdash;&#8203;ADULTERATIONS OF
+LIQUOR.&mdash;&#8203;THE COLONEL&#8217;S WHISKEY.&mdash;&#8203;THE <span class="chapword">HUMBUGOMETER.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">152</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">ADULTERATIONS IN DRINKS.&mdash;&#8203;RIDING HOME ON
+YOUR WINE-BARREL.&mdash;&#8203;LIST OF THINGS TO MAKE RUM.&mdash;&#8203;THINGS
+TO COLOR IT WITH.&mdash;&#8203;CANAL-BOAT HASH.&mdash;&#8203;ENGLISH ADULTERATION
+LAW.&mdash;&#8203;EFFECT OF DRUGS USED.&mdash;&#8203;HOW TO USE THEM.&mdash;&#8203;BUYING
+LIQUORS UNDER THE CUSTOM-HOUSE LOCK.&mdash;&#8203;<a name="corr3" id="corr3"></a>HOM&#338;OPATHIC
+<span class="chapword">DOSE.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">160</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">THE PETER FUNKS AND THEIR FUNCTIONS.&mdash;&#8203;THE
+RURAL DIVINE AND THE WATCH.&mdash;&#8203;RISE AND PROGRESS OF MOCK
+AUCTIONS.&mdash;&#8203;THEIR DECLINE AND <span class="chapword">FALL.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">167</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">LOTTERY SHARKS.&mdash;&#8203;BOULT AND HIS BROTHERS.&mdash;&#8203;KENNETH,
+KIMBALL &amp; COMPANY.&mdash;&#8203;A MORE CENTRAL LOCATION
+WANTED FOR BUSINESS.&mdash;&#8203;TWO SEVENTEENTHLIES.&mdash;&#8203;STRANGE <span class="chapword">COINCIDENCE.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">175</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">ANOTHER LOTTERY HUMBUG.&mdash;&#8203;<a name="corr4" id="corr4"></a>TWO HUNDRED
+AND FIFTY RECIPES.&mdash;&#8203;VILE BOOKS.&mdash;&#8203;&#8220;<a name="corr5" id="corr5"></a>ADVANTAGE-CARDS.&#8221;&mdash;&#8203;A
+PACKAGE FOR YOU; PLEASE SEND THE MONEY.&mdash;&#8203;PEDDLING IN
+WESTERN NEW <span class="chapword">YORK.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">182</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">A CALIFORNIA COAL MINE.&mdash;&#8203;A HARTFORD COAL
+MINE.&mdash;&#8203;MYSTERIOUS SUBTERRANEAN CANAL ON THE <span class="chapword">ISTHMUS.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">189</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="tocsect"><a href="#IV_MONEY_MANIAS">IV. MONEY MANIAS.</a></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">THE PETROLEUM HUMBUG.&mdash;&#8203;THE NEW YORK
+AND RANGOON PETROLEUM <span class="chapword">COMPANY.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">195</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">THE <span class="chapword">TULIPOMANIA.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">204</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">JOHN BULL&#8217;S GREAT MONEY HUMBUG.&mdash;&#8203;THE
+SOUTH SEA BUBBLE IN <span class="chapword">1720.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">213</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">BUSINESS HUMBUGS.&mdash;&#8203;JOHN LAW.&mdash;&#8203;THE MISSISSIPPI
+SCHEME.&mdash;&#8203;JOHNNY CRAPAUD AS GREEDY AS JOHNNY <span class="chapword">BULL.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">221</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="tocsect"><a href="#V_MEDICINE_AND_QUACKS">V. MEDICINE AND QUACKS.</a></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">DOCTORS AND IMAGINATION.&mdash;&#8203;FIRING A JOKE
+OUT OF A CANNON.&mdash;&#8203;THE PARIS EYE WATER.&mdash;&#8203;MAJENDIE ON MEDICAL
+KNOWLEDGE.&mdash;&#8203;OLD SANDS OF <span class="chapword">LIFE.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">232</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">THE CONSUMPTIVE REMEDY.&mdash;&#8203;E. ANDREWS,
+M. D.&mdash;&#8203;BORN WITHOUT BIRTHRIGHTS.&mdash;&#8203;HASHEESH CANDY.&mdash;&#8203;ROBACK
+THE GREAT.&mdash;&#8203;A CONJUROR OPPOSED TO <span class="chapword">LYING.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">237</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">MONSIGNORE CRISTOFORO RISCHIO; OR IL
+CRESO, THE NOSTRUM-VENDER OF FLORENCE.&mdash;&#8203;A MODEL FOR OUR
+QUACK <span class="chapword">DOCTORS.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">242</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="tocsect"><a href="#VI_HOAXES">VI. HOAXES.</a></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">THE TWENTY-SEVENTH STREET GHOST.&mdash;&#8203;SPIRITS
+ON THE <span class="chapword">RAMPAGE.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">251</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">THE MOON <span class="chapword">HOAX.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">259</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">THE MISCEGENATION HOAX.&mdash;&#8203;A GREAT LITERARY
+SELL.&mdash;&#8203;POLITICAL HUMBUGGING.&mdash;&#8203;TRICKS OF THE WIRE-PULLERS.&mdash;&#8203;MACHINERY
+EMPLOYED TO RENDER THE PAMPHLET
+NOTORIOUS.&mdash;&#8203;WHO WERE SOLD AND HOW IT WAS <span class="chapword">DONE.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">273</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="tocsect"><a href="#VII_GHOSTS_AND_WITCHCRAFTS">VII. GHOSTS AND WITCHCRAFTS.</a></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">HAUNTED HOUSES.&mdash;&#8203;A NIGHT SPENT ALONE
+WITH A GHOST.&mdash;&#8203;KIRBY THE ACTOR.&mdash;&#8203;COLT&#8217;S PISTOLS VERSUS
+HOBGOBLINS.&mdash;&#8203;THE MYSTERY <span class="chapword">EXPLAINED.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">284</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">HAUNTED HOUSES.&mdash;&#8203;GHOSTS.&mdash;&#8203;GHOULS.&mdash;&#8203;PHANTOMS.&mdash;&#8203;VAMPIRES.&mdash;&#8203;CONJURORS.&mdash;&#8203;<a name="corr6" id="corr6"></a>DIVINING&mdash;&#8203;GOBLINS.&mdash;&#8203;FORTUNE-TELLING.&mdash;&#8203;MAGIC.&mdash;&#8203;WITCHES.&mdash;&#8203;SORCERY.&mdash;&#8203;OBI.&mdash;&#8203;DREAMS.&mdash;&#8203;SIGNS.&mdash;&#8203;SPIRITUAL
+MEDIUMS.&mdash;&#8203;FALSE PROPHETS.&mdash;&#8203;DEMONOLOGY.&mdash;&#8203;DEVILTRY
+<span class="chapword">GENERALLY.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">293</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">CHAPTER XXXVI.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">MAGICAL HUMBUGS.&mdash;&#8203;VIRGIL.&mdash;&#8203;A PICKLED
+<a name="corr7" id="corr7"></a>SORCERER.&mdash;&#8203;CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, HIS STUDENTS AND HIS BLACK
+DOG.&mdash;&#8203;DOCTOR FAUSTUS.&mdash;&#8203;HUMBUGGING HORSE-JOCKEYS.&mdash;&#8203;<a name="corr8" id="corr8"></a>ZIITO
+AND HIS LARGE SWALLOW.&mdash;&#8203;DEVIL TAKE THE <span class="chapword">HINDERMOST.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">300</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">CHAPTER XXXVII.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">WITCHCRAFT.&mdash;&#8203;NEW YORK WITCHES.&mdash;&#8203;THE
+WITCH MANIA.&mdash;&#8203;HOW FAST THEY BURNED THEM.&mdash;&#8203;THE MODE OF
+TRIAL.&mdash;&#8203;WITCHES TO-DAY IN <span class="chapword">EUROPE.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">308</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">CHAPTER XXXVIII.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">CHARMS AND INCANTATIONS.&mdash;&#8203;HOW CATO
+CURED SPRAINS.&mdash;&#8203;THE SECRET NAME OF GOD.&mdash;&#8203;SECRET NAMES OF
+CITIES.&mdash;&#8203;ABRACADABRA CURES FOR CRAMP.&mdash;&#8203;MR. WRIGHT&#8217;S <a name="corr9" id="corr9"></a>SIGIL.&mdash;&#8203;<a name="corr10" id="corr10"></a>WHISKERIFUSTICUS.&mdash;&#8203;WITCHES&#8217;
+HORSES.&mdash;&#8203;THEIR CURSES.&mdash;&#8203;HOW TO
+RAISE THE <span class="chapword">DEVIL.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">314</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="tocsect"><a href="#VIII_ADVENTURERS">VIII. ADVENTURERS.</a></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">CHAPTER XXXIX.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">THE PRINCESS <span class="chapword">CARIBOO.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">323</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XL">CHAPTER XL.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">COUNT CAGLIOSTRO, ALIAS JOSEPH BALSAMO,
+KNOWN ALSO AS &#8220;CURSED <span class="chapword">JOE.&#8221;</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XL">330</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">CHAPTER XLI.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">THE DIAMOND <span class="chapword">NECKLACE.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">338</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">CHAPTER XLII.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">THE COUNT DE ST. GERMAIN, SAGE, PROPHET,
+AND <span class="chapword">MAGICIAN.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">354</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">CHAPTER XLIII.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">RIZA BEY, THE PERSIAN ENVOY TO LOUIS <span class="chapword">XIV.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">361</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="tocsect"><a name="corr11" id="corr11"></a><a href="#IX_RELIGIOUS_HUMBUGS">IX. RELIGIOUS HUMBUGS.</a></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">CHAPTER XLIV.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND.&mdash;&#8203;MATTHIAS THE <a name="corr12" id="corr12"></a>IMPOSTOR.&mdash;&#8203;NEW
+YORK FOLLIES THIRTY YEARS <span class="chapword">AGO.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">370</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLV">CHAPTER XLV.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom"><a name="corr13" id="corr13"></a>A RELIGIOUS HUMBUG ON JOHN BULL.&mdash;&#8203;JOANNA
+SOUTHCOTT.&mdash;&#8203;THE SECOND <span class="chapword">SHILOH.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLV">380</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI">CHAPTER XLVI.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">THE FIRST HUMBUG IN THE WORLD.&mdash;&#8203;ADVANTAGES
+OF STUDYING THE IMPOSITIONS OF FORMER AGES.&mdash;&#8203;HEATHEN
+HUMBUGS.&mdash;&#8203;THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES.&mdash;&#8203;THE CABIRI.&mdash;&#8203;ELEUSIS.&mdash;&#8203;<span class="chapword">ISIS.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI">386</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII">CHAPTER XLVII.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">HEATHEN HUMBUGS NO. 2.&mdash;&#8203;HEATHEN STATED
+SERVICES.&mdash;&#8203;ORACLES.&mdash;&#8203;SIBYLS.&mdash;&#8203;<span class="chapword">AUGURIES.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII">392</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVIII">CHAPTER XLVIII.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">MODERN HEATHEN <span class="chapword">HUMBUGS.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVIII">401</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIX">CHAPTER XLIX.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom"><span class="chapword">ORDEALS.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIX">408</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#CHAPTER_L">CHAPTER L.</a>&mdash;<span class="smrom">APOLLONIUS OF <span class="chapword">TYANA.</span></span> <span class="chappg"><a href="#CHAPTER_L">415</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="HUMBUGS_OF_THE_WORLD" id="HUMBUGS_OF_THE_WORLD"></a>HUMBUGS OF THE WORLD.</h2>
+
+<hr class="declong" />
+
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="I_PERSONAL_REMINISCENCES" id="I_PERSONAL_REMINISCENCES"></a>I. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.</h2>
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">GENERAL VIEW OF THE SUBJECT.&mdash;&#8203;HUMBUG UNIVERSAL.&mdash;&#8203;IN RELIGION.&mdash;&#8203;IN
+POLITICS.&mdash;&#8203;IN BUSINESS.&mdash;&#8203;IN SCIENCE.&mdash;&#8203;IN MEDICINE.&mdash;&#8203;HOW IS IT TO
+CEASE.&mdash;&#8203;THE GREATEST HUMBUG OF ALL.</p>
+
+
+<p>A little reflection will show that humbug is an astonishingly
+wide-spread phenomenon&mdash;in fact almost universal. And this is true,
+although we exclude crimes and arrant swindles from the definition of
+it, according to the somewhat careful explanation which is given in the
+beginning of the chapter succeeding this one.</p>
+
+<p>I apprehend that there is no sort of object which men seek to attain,
+whether secular, moral or religious, in which humbug is not very often
+an instrumentality. Religion is and has ever been a chief chapter of
+human life. False religions are the only ones known to two thirds of the
+human race, even now, after nineteen centuries of Christianity; and
+false religions are perhaps the most monstrous, complicated and
+thorough-going specimens of humbug that can be found. And even within
+the pale of Christianity, how unbroken has been the succession of
+impostors, hypocrites and pre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>tenders, male and female, of every
+possible variety of age, sex, doctrine and discipline!</p>
+
+<p>Politics and government are certainly among the most important of
+practical human interests. Now it was a diplomatist&mdash;that is, a
+practical manager of one kind of government matters&mdash;who invented that
+wonderful phrase&mdash;a whole world full of humbug in half-a-dozen
+words&mdash;that &#8220;Language was given to us to conceal our thoughts.&#8221; It was
+another diplomatist, who said &#8220;An ambassador is a gentleman sent to
+<i>lie</i> abroad for the good of his country.&#8221; But need I explain to my own
+beloved countrymen that there is humbug in politics? Does anybody go
+into a political campaign without it? are no exaggerations of <i>our</i>
+candidate&#8217;s merits to be allowed? no depreciations of the <i>other</i>
+candidate? Shall we no longer prove that the success of the party
+opposed to us will overwhelm the land in ruin? Let me see. Leaving out
+the two elections of General Washington, eighteen times that very fact
+has been proved by the party that was beaten, and immediately we have
+<i>not</i> been ruined, notwithstanding that the dreadful fatal fellows on
+the other side got their hands on the offices and their fingers into the
+treasury.</p>
+
+<p>Business is the ordinary means of living for nearly all of us. And in
+what business is there not humbug? &#8220;There&#8217;s cheating in all trades but
+ours,&#8221; is the prompt reply from the boot-maker with his brown paper
+soles, the grocer with his floury sugar and chicoried coffee, the
+butcher with his mysterious sausages and queer veal, the dry goods man
+with his &#8220;damaged goods wet at the great fire&#8221; and his &#8220;selling at a
+ruinous loss,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>&#8221; the stock-broker with his brazen assurance that your
+company is bankrupt and your stock not worth a cent (if he wants to buy
+it,) the horse jockey with his black arts and spavined brutes, the
+milkman with his tin aquaria, the land agent with his nice new maps and
+beautiful descriptions of distant scenery, the newspaper man with his
+&#8220;immense circulation,&#8221; the publisher with his &#8220;Great American Novel,&#8221;
+the city auctioneer with his &#8220;Pictures by the Old Masters&#8221;&mdash;all and
+every one protest each his own innocence, and warn you against the
+deceits of the rest. My inexperienced friend, take it for granted that
+they all tell the truth&mdash;about each other! and then transact your
+business to the best of your ability on your own judgment. Never fear
+but that you will get experience enough, and that you will pay well for
+it too; and towards the time when you shall no longer need earthly
+goods, you will begin to know how to buy.</p>
+
+<p>Literature is one of the most interesting and significant expressions of
+humanity. Yet books are thickly peppered with humbug. &#8220;Travellers&#8217;
+stories&#8221; have been the scoff of ages, from the &#8220;True Story&#8221; of witty old
+Lucian the Syrian down to the gorillarities&mdash;if I may coin a word&mdash;of
+the Frenchman Du Chaillu. Ireland&#8217;s counterfeited Shakspeare plays,
+Chatterton&#8217;s forged manuscripts, George Psalmanazar&#8217;s forged Formosan
+language, Jo Smith&#8217;s Mormon Bible, (it should be noted that this and the
+Koran sounded two strings of humbug together&mdash;the literary and the
+religious,) the more recent counterfeits of the notorious Greek
+Simonides&mdash;such literary humbugs as these are equal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> in presumption and
+in ingenuity too, to any of a merely business kind, though usually
+destitute of that sort of impiety which makes the great religious
+humbugs horrible as well as impudent.</p>
+
+<p>Science is another important field of human effort. Science is the
+pursuit of pure truth, and the systematizing of it. In such an
+employment as that, one might reasonably hope to find all things done in
+honesty and sincerity. Not at all, my ardent and inquiring friends,
+there is a scientific humbug just as large as any other. We have all
+heard of the Moon Hoax. Do none of you remember the Hydrarchos
+Sillimannii, that awful Alabama snake? It was only a little while ago
+that a grave account appeared in a newspaper of a whole new business of
+compressing ice. Perpetual motion has been the dream of scientific
+visionaries, and a pretended but cheating realization of it has been
+exhibited by scamp after scamp. I understand that one is at this moment
+being invented over in Jersey City. I have purchased more than one
+&#8220;perpetual motion&#8221; myself. Many persons will remember Mr. Paine&mdash;&#8220;The
+Great Shot-at&#8221; as he was called, from his story that people were
+constantly trying to kill him&mdash;and his water-gas. There have been other
+water gases too, which were each going to show us how to set the North
+River on fire, but something or other has always broken down just at the
+wrong moment. Nobody seems to reflect, when these water gases come up,
+that if water could really be made to burn, the right conditions would
+surely have happened at some one of the thousands of city fires, and
+that the very stuff with which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> our stout firemen were extinguishing the
+flames, would have itself caught and exterminated the whole brave wet
+crowd!</p>
+
+<p>Medicine is the means by which we poor feeble creatures try to keep from
+dying or aching. In a world so full of pain it would seem as if people
+could not be so foolish, or practitioners so knavish, as to sport with
+men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s and children&#8217;s lives by their professional humbugs.
+Yet there are many grave M. D.&#8217;s who, if there is nobody to hear, and if
+they speak their minds, will tell you plainly that the whole practice of
+medicine is in one sense a humbug. One of its features is certainly a
+humbug, though so innocent and even useful that it seems difficult to
+think of any objection to it. This is the practice of giving a
+<i>placebo</i>; that is, a bread pill or a dose of colored water, to keep the
+patient&#8217;s mind easy while imagination helps nature to perfect a cure. As
+for the quacks, patent medicines and universal remedies, I need only
+mention their names. Prince Hohenlohe, Valentine Greatrakes, John St.
+John Long, Doctor Graham and his wonderful bed, Mesmer and his tub,
+Perkins&#8217; metallic tractors&mdash;these are half a dozen. Modern history knows
+of hundreds of such.</p>
+
+<p>It would almost seem as if human delusions became more unreasoning and
+abject in proportion as their subject is of greater importance. A
+machine, a story, an animal skeleton, are not so very important. But the
+humbugs which have prevailed about that wondrous machine, the human
+body, its ailments and its cures, about the unspeakable mystery of human
+life, and still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> more about the far greater and more awful mysteries of
+the life beyond the grave, and the endless happiness and misery believed
+to exist there, the humbugs about these have been infinitely more
+absurd, more shocking, more unreasonable, more inhuman, more
+destructive.</p>
+
+<p>I can only allude to whole sciences (falsely so called) which are
+unmingled humbugs from beginning to end. Such was Alchemy, such was
+Magic, such was and still is Astrology, and above all, Fortune-telling.</p>
+
+<p>But there is a more thorough humbug than any of these enterprises or
+systems. The greatest humbug of all is the man who believes&mdash;or pretends
+to believe&mdash;that everything and everybody are humbugs. We sometimes meet
+a person who professes that there is no virtue; that every man has his
+price, and every woman hers; that any statement from anybody is just as
+likely to be false as true, and that the only way to decide which, is to
+consider whether truth or a lie was likely to have paid best in that
+particular case. Religion he thinks one of the smartest business dodges
+extant, a firstrate investment, and by all odds the most respectable
+disguise that a lying or swindling business man can wear. Honor he
+thinks is a sham. Honesty he considers a plausible word to flourish in
+the eyes of the greener portion of our race, as you would hold out a
+cabbage leaf to coax a donkey. What people want, he thinks, or says he
+thinks, is something good to eat, something good to drink, fine clothes,
+luxury, laziness, wealth. If you can imagine a hog&#8217;s mind in a man&#8217;s
+body&mdash;sensual, greedy, selfish, cruel, cunning, sly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> coarse, yet
+stupid, short-sighted, unreasoning, unable to comprehend anything except
+what concerns the flesh, you have your man. He thinks himself
+philosophic and practical, a man of the world; he thinks to show
+knowledge and wisdom, penetration, deep acquaintance with men and
+things. Poor fellow! he has exposed his own nakedness. Instead of
+showing that others are rotten inside, he has proved that he is. He
+claims that it is not safe to believe others&mdash;it is perfectly safe to
+disbelieve him. He claims that every man will get the better of you if
+possible&mdash;let him alone! Selfishness, he says, is the universal
+rule&mdash;leave nothing to depend on his generosity or honor; trust him just
+as far as you can sling an elephant by the tail. A bad world, he sneers,
+full of deceit and nastiness&mdash;it is his own foul breath that he smells;
+only a thoroughly corrupt heart could suggest such vile thoughts. He
+sees only what suits him, as a turkey-buzzard spies only carrion, though
+amid the loveliest landscape. I pronounce him who thus virtually
+slanders his father and dishonors his mother and defiles the sanctities
+of home and the glory of patriotism and the merchant&#8217;s honor and the
+martyr&#8217;s grave and the saint&#8217;s crown&mdash;who does not even know that every
+sham shows that there is a reality, and that hypocrisy is the homage
+that vice pays to virtue&mdash;I pronounce him&mdash;no, I do not pronounce him a
+humbug, the word does not apply to him. He is a fool.</p>
+
+<p>Looked at on one side, the history of humbug is truly humiliating to
+intellectual pride, yet the long silly story is less absurd during the
+later ages of history,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> and grows less and less so in proportion to the
+spread of real Christianity. This religion promotes good sense, actual
+knowledge, contentment with what we cannot help, and the exclusive use
+of intelligent means for increasing human happiness and decreasing human
+sorrow. And whenever the time shall come when men are kind and just and
+honest; when they only want what is fair and right, judge only on real
+and true evidence, and take nothing for granted, then there will be no
+place left for any humbugs, either harmless or hurtful.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">DEFINITION OF THE WORD HUMBUG.&mdash;&#8203;WARREN OF LONDON.&mdash;&#8203;GENIN, THE
+HATTER.&mdash;&#8203;GOSLING&#8217;S BLACKING.</p>
+
+
+<p>Upon a careful consideration of my undertaking to give an account of the
+&#8220;Humbugs of the World,&#8221; I find myself somewhat puzzled in regard to the
+true definition of that word. To be sure, Webster says that humbug, as a
+noun, is an &#8220;imposition under fair pretences;&#8221; and as a verb, it is &#8220;to
+deceive; to impose on.&#8221; With all due deference to Doctor Webster, I
+submit that, according to present usage, this is not the only, nor even
+the generally accepted definition of that term.</p>
+
+<p>We will suppose, for instance, that a man with &#8220;fair pretences&#8221; applies
+to a wholesale merchant for credit on a large bill of goods. His &#8220;fair
+pretences&#8221; compre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>hend an assertion that he is a moral and religious
+man, a member of the church, a man of wealth, etc., etc. It turns out
+that he is not worth a dollar, but is a base, lying wretch, an impostor
+and a cheat. He is arrested and imprisoned &#8220;for obtaining property under
+false pretences&#8221; or, as Webster says, &#8220;fair pretences.&#8221; He is punished
+for his villainy. The public do not call him a &#8220;humbug;&#8221; they very
+properly term him a swindler.</p>
+
+<p>A man, bearing the appearance of a gentleman in dress and manners,
+purchases property from you, and with &#8220;fair pretences&#8221; obtains your
+confidence. You find, when he has left, that he paid you with
+counterfeit bank-notes, or a forged draft. This man is justly called a
+&#8220;forger,&#8221; or &#8220;counterfeiter;&#8221; and if arrested, he is punished as such;
+but nobody thinks of calling him a &#8220;humbug.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A respectable-looking man sits by your side in an omnibus or rail-car.
+He converses fluently, and is evidently a man of intelligence and
+reading. He attracts your attention by his &#8220;fair pretences.&#8221; Arriving at
+your journey&#8217;s end, you miss your watch and your pocket-book. Your
+fellow passenger proves to be the thief. Everybody calls him a
+&#8220;pickpocket,&#8221; and not withstanding his &#8220;fair pretences,&#8221; not a person in
+the community calls him a &#8220;humbug.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Two actors appear as stars at two rival theatres. They are equally
+talented, equally pleasing. One advertises himself simply as a
+tragedian, under his proper name&mdash;the other boasts that he is a prince,
+and wears decorations presented by all the potentates of the world,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+including the &#8220;King of the Cannibal Islands.&#8221; He is correctly set down
+as a &#8220;humbug,&#8221; while this term is never applied to the other actor. But
+if the man who boasts of having received a foreign title is a miserable
+actor, and he gets up gift-enterprises and bogus entertainments, or
+pretends to devote the proceeds of his tragic efforts to some charitable
+object, without, in fact, doing so&mdash;he is then a humbug in Dr. Webster&#8217;s
+sense of that word, for he is an &#8220;impostor under fair pretences.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Two physicians reside in one of our fashionable avenues. They were both
+educated in the best medical colleges; each has passed an examination,
+received his diploma, and been dubbed an M. D. They are equally skilled
+in the healing art. One rides quietly about the city in his gig or
+brougham, visiting his patients without noise or clamor&mdash;the other
+sallies out in his coach and four, preceded by a band of music, and his
+carriage and horses are covered with handbills and placards, announcing
+his &#8220;wonderful cures.&#8221; This man is properly called a quack and a humbug.
+Why? Not because he cheats or imposes upon the public, for he does not,
+but because, as generally understood, &#8220;humbug&#8221; consists in putting on
+glittering appearances&mdash;outside show&mdash;novel expedients, by which to
+suddenly arrest public attention, and attract the public eye and ear.</p>
+
+<p>Clergymen, lawyers, or physicians, who should resort to such methods of
+attracting the public, would not, for obvious reasons, be apt to
+succeed. Bankers, insurance-agents, and others, who aspire to become
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> custodians of the money of their fellow-men, would require a
+different species of advertising from this; but there are various trades
+and occupations which need only notoriety to insure success, always
+provided that when customers are once attracted, they never fail to get
+their money&#8217;s worth. An honest man who thus arrests public attention
+will be called a &#8220;humbug,&#8221; but he is not a swindler or an impostor. If,
+however, after attracting crowds of customers by his unique displays, a
+man foolishly fails to give them a full equivalent for their money, they
+never patronize him a second time, but they very properly denounce him
+as a swindler, a cheat, an impostor; they do not, however, call him a
+&#8220;humbug.&#8221; He fails, not because he advertises his wares in an <i>outre</i>
+manner, but because, after attracting crowds of patrons, he stupidly and
+wickedly cheats them.</p>
+
+<p>When the great blacking-maker of London dispatched his agent to Egypt to
+write on the pyramids of Ghiza, in huge letters, &#8220;Buy Warren&#8217;s Blacking,
+30 Strand, London,&#8221; he was not &#8220;cheating&#8221; travelers upon the Nile. His
+blacking was really a superior article, and well worth the price charged
+for it, but he was &#8220;humbugging&#8221; the public by this queer way of
+arresting attention. It turned out just as he anticipated, that English
+travelers in that part of Egypt were indignant at this desecration, and
+they wrote back to the London Times (every Englishman writes or
+threatens to &#8220;write to the Times,&#8221; if anything goes wrong,) denouncing
+the &#8220;Goth&#8221; who had thus disfigured these ancient pyramids by writing on
+them in monstrous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> letters: &#8220;Buy Warren&#8217;s Blacking, 30 Strand, London.&#8221;
+The Times published these letters, and backed them up by several of
+those awful, grand and dictatorial editorials peculiar to the great
+&#8220;Thunderer,&#8221; in which the blacking-maker, &#8220;Warren, 30 Strand,&#8221; was
+stigmatized as a man who had no respect for the ancient patriarchs, and
+it was hinted that he would probably not hesitate to sell his blacking
+on the sarcophagus of Pharaoh, &#8220;or any other&#8221;&mdash;mummy, if he could only
+make money by it. In fact, to cap the climax, Warren was denounced as a
+&#8220;humbug.&#8221; These indignant articles were copied into all the Provincial
+journals, and very soon, in this manner, the columns of every newspaper
+in Great Britain were teeming with this advice: &#8220;Try Warren&#8217;s Blacking,
+30 Strand, London.&#8221; The curiosity of the public was thus aroused, and
+they did &#8220;try&#8221; it, and finding it a superior article, they continued to
+purchase it and recommend it to their friends, and Warren made a fortune
+by it. He always attributed his success to his having &#8220;humbugged&#8221; the
+public by this unique method of advertising his blacking in Egypt! But
+Warren did not cheat his customers, nor practice &#8220;an imposition under
+fair pretences.&#8221; He was a humbug, but he was an honest upright man, and
+no one called him an impostor or a cheat.</p>
+
+<p>When the tickets for Jenny Lind&#8217;s first concert in America were sold at
+auction, several business-men, aspiring to notoriety, &#8220;bid high&#8221; for the
+first ticket. It was finally knocked down to &#8220;Genin, the hatter,&#8221; for
+$225. The journals in Portland (Maine) and Houston (Texas,) and all
+other journals throughout the United<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> States, between these two cities,
+which were connected with the telegraph, announced the fact in their
+columns the next morning. Probably two millions of readers read the
+announcement, and asked, &#8220;Who is Genin, the hatter?&#8221; Genin became famous
+in a day. Every man involuntarily examined his hat, to see if it was
+made by Genin; and an Iowa editor declared that one of his neighbors
+discovered the name of Genin in his old hat and immediately announced
+the fact to his neighbors in front of the Post Office. It was suggested
+that the old hat should be sold at auction. It was done then and there,
+and the Genin hat sold for fourteen dollars! Gentlemen from city and
+country rushed to Genin&#8217;s store to buy their hats, many of them willing
+to pay even an extra dollar, if necessary, provided they could get a
+glimpse of Genin himself. This singular freak put thousands of dollars
+into the pocket of &#8220;Genin, the hatter,&#8221; and yet I never heard it charged
+that he made poor hats, or that he would be guilty of an &#8220;imposition
+under fair pretences.&#8221; On the contrary, he is a gentleman of probity,
+and of the first respectability.</p>
+
+<p>When the laying of the Atlantic Telegraph was nearly completed, I was in
+Liverpool. I offered the company one thousand pounds sterling ($5,000)
+for the privilege of sending the first twenty words over the cable to my
+Museum in New York&mdash;not that there was any intrinsic merit in the words,
+but that I fancied there was more than $5,000 worth of notoriety in the
+operation. But Queen Victoria and &#8220;Old Buck&#8221; were ahead of me. Their
+messages had the preference, and I was compelled to &#8220;take a back seat.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>By thus illustrating what I believe the public will concede to be the
+sense in which the word &#8220;humbug&#8221; is generally used and understood at the
+present time, in this country as well as in England, I do not propose
+that my letters on this subject shall be narrowed down to that
+definition of the word. On the contrary, I expect to treat of various
+fallacies, delusions, and deceptions in ancient and modern times, which,
+according to Webster&#8217;s definition, may be called &#8220;humbugs,&#8221; inasmuch as
+they were &#8220;impositions under fair pretences.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In writing of modern humbugs, however, I shall sometimes have occasion
+to give the names of honest and respectable parties now living, and I
+felt it but just that the public should fully comprehend my doctrine,
+that a man may, by common usage, be termed a &#8220;humbug,&#8221; without by any
+means impeaching his integrity.</p>
+
+<p>Speaking of &#8220;blacking-makers,&#8221; reminds me that one of the first
+sensationists in advertising whom I remember to have seen, was Mr.
+Leonard Gosling, known as &#8220;Monsieur Gosling, the great French
+blacking-maker.&#8221; He appeared in New York in 1830. He flashed like a
+meteor across the horizon; and before he had been in the city three
+months, nearly everybody had heard of &#8220;Gosling&#8217;s Blacking.&#8221; I well
+remember his magnificent &#8220;four in hand.&#8221; A splendid team of blood bays,
+with long black tails, was managed with such dexterity by Gosling
+himself, who was a great &#8220;whip,&#8221; that they almost seemed to fly. The
+carriage was emblazoned with the words &#8220;Gosling&#8217;s Blacking,&#8221; in large
+gold letters, and the whole turnout was so elaborately ornamented and
+bedizened that everybody stopped and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> gazed with wondering admiration. A
+bugle-player or a band of music always accompanied the great Gosling,
+and, of course, helped to <a name="corr14" id="corr14"></a>attract the public attention to his
+establishment. At the turning of every street-corner your eyes rested
+upon &#8220;Gosling&#8217;s Blacking.&#8221; From every show-window gilded placards
+discoursed eloquently of the merits of &#8220;Gosling&#8217;s Blacking.&#8221; The
+newspapers teemed with poems written in its praise, and showers of
+pictorial handbills, illustrated almanacs, and tinseled souvenirs, all
+lauding the virtues of &#8220;Gosling&#8217;s Blacking,&#8221; smothered you at every
+point.</p>
+
+<p>The celebrated originator of delineations, &#8220;Jim Crow Rice,&#8221; made his
+first appearance at Hamblin&#8217;s Bowery Theatre at about this time. The
+crowds which thronged there were so great that hundreds from the
+audience were frequently admitted upon the stage. In one of his scenes,
+Rice introduced a negro boot-blacking establishment. Gosling was too
+&#8220;wide awake&#8221; to let such an opportunity pass unimproved, and Rice was
+paid for singing an original black Gosling ditty, while a score of
+placards bearing the inscription, &#8220;Use Gosling&#8217;s Blacking,&#8221; were
+suspended at different points in this negro boot polishing hall.
+Everybody tried &#8220;Gosling&#8217;s Blacking;&#8221; and as it was a really good
+article, his sales in city and country soon became immense; Gosling made
+a fortune in seven years, and retired but, as with thousands before him,
+it was &#8220;easy come easy go.&#8221; He engaged in a lead-mining speculation, and
+it was generally understood that his fortune was, in a great measure,
+lost as rapidly as it was made.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>Here let me digress, in order to observe that one of the most difficult
+things in life is for men to bear discreetly sudden prosperity. Unless
+considerable time and labor are devoted to earning money, it is not
+appreciated by its possessor; and, having no practical knowledge of the
+value of money, he generally gets rid of it with the same ease that
+marked its accumulation. Mr. Astor gave the experience of thousands when
+he said that he found more difficulty in earning and saving his first
+thousand dollars than in accumulating all the subsequent millions which
+finally made up his fortune. The very economy, perseverance, and
+discipline which he was obliged to practice, as he gained his money
+dollar by dollar, gave him a just appreciation of its value, and thus
+led him into those habits of industry, prudence, temperance, and
+untiring diligence so conducive and necessary to his future success.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gosling, however, was not a man to be put down by a single financial
+reverse. He opened a store in Canajoharie, N. Y., which was burned, and
+on which there was no insurance. He came again to New York in 1839, and
+established a restaurant, where, by devoting the services of himself and
+several members of his family assiduously to the business, he soon
+reveled in his former prosperity, and snapped his fingers in glee at
+what unreflecting persons term &#8220;the freaks of Dame Fortune.&#8221; He is still
+living in New York, hale and hearty at the age of seventy. Although
+called a &#8220;French&#8221; blacking-maker, Mr. Gosling is in reality a Dutchman,
+having been born in the city of Amsterdam, Holland. He is the father of
+twenty-four child<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>ren, twelve of whom are still living, to cheer him in
+his declining years, and to repay him in grateful attentions for the
+valuable lessons of prudence, integrity, and industry through the
+adoption of which they are honored as respectable and worthy members of
+society.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot however permit this chapter to close without recording a
+protest in principle against that method of advertising of which
+Warren&#8217;s on the Pyramid is an instance. Not that it is a crime or even
+an immorality in the usual sense of the words; but it is a violent
+offence against good taste, and a selfish and inexcusable destruction of
+other people&#8217;s enjoyments. No man ought to advertise in the midst of
+landscapes or scenery, in such a way as to destroy or injure their
+beauty by introducing totally incongruous and relatively vulgar
+associations. Too many transactions of the sort have been perpetrated in
+our own country. The principle on which the thing is done is, to seek
+out the most attractive spot possible&mdash;the wildest, the most lovely, and
+there, in the most staring and brazen manner to paint up advertisements
+of quack medicines, rum, or as the case may be, in letters of monstrous
+size, in the most obtrusive colors, in such a prominent place, and in
+such a lasting way as to destroy the beauty of the scene both thoroughly
+and permanently.</p>
+
+<p>Any man with a beautiful wife or daughter would probably feel
+disagreeably, if he should find branded indelibly across her smooth
+white forehead, or on her snowy shoulder in blue and red letters such a
+phrase as this: &#8220;Try the Jigamaree Bitters!&#8221; Very much like this is the
+sort of advertising I am speaking of. It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> not likely that I shall be
+charged with squeamishness on this question. I can readily enough see
+the selfishness and vulgarity of this particular sort of advertising,
+however.</p>
+
+<p>It is outrageously selfish to destroy the pleasure of thousands, for the
+sake of a chance of additional gain. And it is an atrocious piece of
+vulgarity to flaunt the names of quack nostrums, and of the coarse
+stimulants of sots, among the beautiful scenes of nature. The pleasure
+of such places depends upon their freedom from the associations of every
+day concerns and troubles and weaknesses. A lovely nook of forest
+scenery, or a grand rock, like a beautiful woman, depends for much of
+its attractiveness upon the attendant sense of freedom from whatever is
+low; upon a sense of purity and of romance. And it is about as nauseous
+to find &#8220;Bitters&#8221; or &#8220;Worm Syrup&#8221; daubed upon the landscape, as it would
+be upon the lady&#8217;s brow.</p>
+
+<p>Since writing this I observe that two legislatures&mdash;those of New
+Hampshire and New York&mdash;have passed laws to prevent this dirty
+misdemeanor. It is greatly to their credit, and it is in good season.
+For it is matter of wonder that some more colossal vulgarian has not
+stuck up a sign a mile long on the Palisades. But it is matter of
+thankfulness too. At the White Mountains, many grand and beautiful views
+have been spoiled by these nostrum and bedbug souled fellows.</p>
+
+<p>It is worth noticing that the chief haunts of the city of New York, the
+Central Park, has thus far remained unviolated by the dirty hands of
+these vulgar advertisers. Without knowing anything about it, I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> no
+doubt whatever that the commissioners have been approached often by
+parties desiring the privilege of advertising within its limits. Among
+the advertising fraternity it would be thought a gigantic opportunity to
+be able to flaunt the name of some bug-poison, fly-killer,
+bowel-rectifier, or disguised rum, along the walls of the Reservoir;
+upon the delicate stone-work of the Terrace, or the graceful lines of
+the Bow Bridge; to nail up a tin sign on every other tree, to stick one
+up right in front of every seat; to keep a gang of young wretches
+thrusting pamphlet or handbill into every person&#8217;s palm that enters the
+gate, to paint a vulgar sign across every gray rock; to cut quack words
+in ditch-work in the smooth green turf of the mall or ball-ground. I
+have no doubt that it is the peremptory decision and clear good taste of
+the Commissioners alone, which have kept this last retreat of nature
+within our crowded city from being long ago plastered and daubed with
+placards, handbills, sign-boards and paint, from side to side and from
+end to end, over turf, tree, rock, wall, bridge, archway, building and
+all.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">MONSIEUR MANGIN, THE FRENCH HUMBUG.</p>
+
+
+<p>One of the most original, unique, and successful humbugs of the present
+day was the late Monsieur Mangin, the blacklead pencil maker of Paris.
+Few persons who have visited the French capital within the last ten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> or
+twelve years can have failed to have seen him, and once seen he was not
+to be forgotten. While passing through the public streets, there was
+nothing in his personal appearance to distinguish him from any ordinary
+gentlemen. He drove a pair of bay horses, attached to an open carriage
+with two seats, the back one always occupied by his valet. Sometimes he
+would take up his stand in the Champs Elys&eacute;es; at other times, near the
+column in the Place Vend&ocirc;me; but usually he was seen in the afternoon in
+the Place de la Bastille, or the Place de la Madeleine. On Sundays, his
+favorite locality was the Place de la Bourse. Mangin was a well-formed,
+stately-looking individual, with a most self-satisfied countenance,
+which seemed to say: &#8220;I am master here; and all that my auditors have to
+do is, to listen and obey.&#8221; Arriving at his destined stopping-place, his
+carriage halted. His servant handed him a case from which he took
+several large portraits of himself, which he hung prominently upon the
+sides of his carriage, and also placed in front of him a vase filled
+with medals bearing his likeness on one side and a description of his
+pencils on the other. He then leisurely commenced a change of costume.
+His round hat was displaced by a magnificent burnished helmet, mounted
+with rich plumes of various brilliant colors. His overcoat was laid
+aside, and he donned in its stead a costly velvet tunic with gold
+fringes. He then drew a pair of polished steel gauntlets upon his hands,
+covered his breast with a brilliant cuirass, and placed a richly-mounted
+sword at his side. His servant watched him closely, and upon receiving a
+sign<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> from his master, he too put on his official costume, which
+consisted of a velvet robe and a helmet. The servant then struck up a
+tune on the richly-toned organ which always formed a part of Mangin&#8217;s
+outfit. The grotesque appearance of these individuals, and the music,
+soon drew together an admiring crowd.</p>
+
+<p>Then the great charlatan stood upon his feet. His manner was calm,
+dignified, imposing, indeed almost solemn, for his face was as serious
+as that of the chief mourner at a funeral. His sharp, intelligent eye
+scrutinized the throng which was pressing around his carriage, until it
+rested apparently upon some particular individual, when he gave a start;
+then, with a dark, angry expression, as if the sight was repulsive, he
+abruptly dropped the visor of his helmet and thus covered his face from
+the gaze of the anxious crowd. This bit of coquetry produced the desired
+effect in whetting the appetite of the multitude, who were impatiently
+waiting to hear him speak. When he had carried this kind of by-play as
+far as he thought the audience would bear it, he raised his hand, and
+his servant understanding the sign, stopped the organ. Mangin then rang
+a small bell, stepped forward to the front of the carriage, gave a
+slight cough indicative of a preparation to speak, opened his mouth, but
+instantly giving a more fearful start and assuming a more sudden frown
+than before, he took his seat as if quite overcome by some unpleasant
+object which his eyes had rested upon. Thus far he had not spoken a
+word. At last the prelude ended, and the comedy commenced. Stepping
+forward again to the front of his carriage where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> all the gaping crowd
+could catch every word, he exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Gentlemen, you look astonished! You seem to wonder and ask yourselves
+who is this modern <a name="corr15" id="corr15"></a>Quixote. What mean this costume of by-gone
+centuries&mdash;this golden chariot&mdash;these richly caparisoned steeds? What is
+the name and purpose of this curious knight-errant? Gentlemen, I will
+condescend to answer your queries. I am Monsieur Mangin, the great
+charlatan of France! Yes, gentlemen, I am a charlatan&mdash;a mountebank; it
+is my profession, not from choice, but from necessity. You, gentlemen,
+created that necessity! You would not patronize true, unpretending,
+honest merit, but you are attracted by my glittering casque, my sweeping
+crest, my waving plumes. You are captivated by din and glitter, and
+therein lies my strength. Years ago, I hired a modest shop in the Rue
+Rivoli, but I could not sell pencils enough to pay my rent, whereas, by
+assuming this disguise&mdash;it is nothing else&mdash;I have succeeded in
+attracting general attention, and in selling literally millions of my
+pencils; and I assure you there is at this moment scarcely an artist in
+France or in <a name="corr16" id="corr16"></a>Great Britain who don&#8217;t know that I manufacture by far the
+best blacklead pencils ever seen.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And this assertion was indeed true. His pencils were everywhere
+acknowledged to be superior to any other.</p>
+
+<p>While he was thus addressing his audience, he would take a blank card,
+and with one of his pencils would pretend to be drawing the portrait of
+some man standing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> near him; then showing his picture to the crowd, it
+proved to be the head of a donkey, which, of course, produced roars of
+laughter.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There, do you see what wonderful pencils these are? Did you ever behold
+a more striking likeness?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A hearty laugh would be sure to follow, and then he would exclaim: &#8220;Now
+who will have the first pencil&mdash;only five sous.&#8221; One would buy, and then
+another; a third and a fourth would follow; and with the delivery of
+each pencil he would rattle off a string of witticisms which kept his
+patrons in capital good-humor; and frequently he would sell from two
+hundred to five hundred pencils in immediate succession. Then he would
+drop down in his carriage for a few minutes and wipe the perspiration
+from his face, while his servant played another overture on the organ.
+This gave his purchasers a chance to withdraw, and afforded a good
+opportunity for a fresh audience to congregate. Then would follow a
+repetition of his previous sales, and in this way he would continue for
+hours. To those disposed to have a <i>souvenir</i> of the great humbug he
+would sell six pencils, a medal and a photograph of himself for a franc
+(twenty cents.) After taking a rest he would commence a new speech.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;When I was modestly dressed, like any of my hearers, I was half
+starved. Punch and his bells would attract crowds, but my good pencils
+attracted nobody. I imitated Punch and his bells, and now I have two
+hundred depots in Paris. I dine at the best caf&eacute;s, drink the best wine,
+live on the best of everything, while my defamers get poor and lank, as
+they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> deserve to be. Who are my defamers? Envious swindlers! Men who try
+to ape me, but are too stupid and too dishonest to succeed. They
+endeavor to attract notice as mountebanks, and then foist upon the
+public worthless trash, and hope thus to succeed. Ah! defamers of mine,
+you are fools as well as knaves. Fools, to think that any man can
+succeed by systematically and persistently cheating the public. Knaves,
+for desiring the public&#8217;s money without giving them an equivalent. I am
+an honest man. I have no bad habits; and I now declare, if any trader,
+inventor, manufacturer, or philanthropist will show me better pencils
+than mine, I will give him 1,000f.&mdash;no, not to him, for I abhor
+betting&mdash;but to the poor of the Thirty-first Arrondissement, where I
+live.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mangin&#8217;s harangues were always accompanied by a peculiar play of feature
+and of voice, and with unique and original gestures, which seemed to
+excite and captivate his audience.</p>
+
+<p>About seven years ago, I met him in one of the principal restaurants in
+the Palais Royale. A mutual friend introduced me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah!&#8221; said he, &#8220;Monsieur Barnum, I am delighted to see you. I have read
+your book with infinite satisfaction. It has been published here in
+numerous editions. I see you have the right idea of things. Your motto
+is a good one&mdash;&#8216;we study to please.&#8217; I have much wanted to visit
+America; but I cannot speak English, so I must remain in my dear belle
+France.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I remarked that I had often seen him in public, and bought his pencils.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>&#8220;Aha! you never saw better pencils. You know I could never maintain my
+reputation if I sold poor pencils. But <i>sacre bleu</i>, my miserable
+would-be imitators do not know our grand secret. First, attract the
+public by din and tinsel, by brilliant sky-rockets and Bengola lights,
+then give them as much as possible for their money.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are very happy,&#8221; I replied, &#8220;in your manner of attracting the
+public. Your costume is elegant, your chariot is superb, and your valet
+and music are sure to draw.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thank you for your compliment, Mr. B., but I have not forgotten your
+Buffalo-hunt, your Mermaid, nor your Woolly Horse. They were a good
+offset to my rich helmet and sword, my burnished gauntlets and gaudy
+cuirass. Both are intended as advertisements of something genuine, and
+both answer the purpose.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After comparing notes in this way for an hour, we parted, and his last
+words were:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. B., I have got a grand humbug in my head, which I shall put in
+practice within a year, and it shall double the sale of my pencils.
+Don&#8217;t ask me what it is, but within one year you shall see it for
+yourself, and you shall acknowledge Monsieur Mangin knows something of
+human nature. My idea is magnifique, but it is one grand secret.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I confess my curiosity was somewhat excited, and I hoped that Monsieur
+Mangin would &#8220;add another wrinkle to my horns.&#8221; But, poor fellow! within
+four months after I bade him adieu, the Paris newspapers announced his
+sudden death. They added that he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> left two hundred thousand francs,
+which he had given in his will to charitable objects. The announcement
+was copied into nearly all the papers on the Continent and in Great
+Britain, for almost everybody had seen or heard of the eccentric pencil
+maker.</p>
+
+<p>His death caused many an honest sigh, and his absence seemed to cast a
+gloom over several of his favorite halting-places. The Parisians really
+loved him, and were proud of his genius.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; people in Paris would remark, &#8220;Mangin was a clever fellow. He
+was shrewd, and possessed a thorough knowledge of the world. He was a
+gentleman and a man of intelligence, extremely agreeable and witty. His
+habits were good; he was charitable. He never cheated anybody. He always
+sold a good article, and no person who purchased from him had cause to
+complain.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I confess I felt somewhat chagrined that the Monsieur had thus suddenly
+taken &#8220;French leave&#8221; without imparting to me the &#8220;grand secret&#8221; by which
+he was to double the sales of his pencils. But I had not long to mourn
+on that account; for after Monsieur Mangin had been for six months&mdash;as
+they say of John Brown&mdash;&#8220;mouldering in his grave&#8221; judge of the
+astonishment and delight of all Paris at his reappearance in his native
+city in precisely the same costume and carriage as formerly, and
+heralded by the same servant and organ that had always attended him. It
+now turned out that Monsieur Mangin had lived in the most rigid
+seclusion for half a year, and that the extensively-circulated
+announcements of his sudden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> death had been made by himself, merely as
+an &#8220;advertising dodge&#8221; to bring him still more into notice, and give the
+public something to talk about. I met Mangin in Paris soon after this
+event.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aha, Monsieur Barnum!&#8221; he exclaimed, &#8220;did I not tell you I had a new
+humbug that would double the sales of my pencils? I assure you my sales
+are more than quadrupled, and it is sometimes impossible to have them
+manufactured fast enough to supply the demand. You Yankees are very
+clever, but by gar, none of you have discovered you should live all the
+better if you would die for six months. It took Mangin to teach you
+that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The patronizing air with which he made this speech, slapping me at the
+same time familiarly upon the back, showed him in his true character of
+egotist. Although good-natured and social to a degree, he was really one
+of the most self-conceited men I ever met.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Mangin died the present year, and it is said that his heirs
+received more than half a million of <a name="corr17" id="corr17"></a>francs as the fruit of his
+eccentric labors.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">OLD GRIZZLY ADAMS.<a name="FNanchor_37-1_1" id="FNanchor_37-1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_37-1_1" class="fnanchor">[37-*]</a></p>
+
+
+<p>James C. Adams, or &#8220;Grizzly Adams,&#8221; as he was generally termed, from the
+fact of his having captured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> so many grizzly bears, and encountered such
+fearful perils by his unexampled daring, was an extraordinary character.
+For many years a hunter and trapper in the Rocky and Sierra Nevada
+Mountains, he acquired a recklessness which, added to his natural
+invincible courage, rendered him truly one of the most striking men of
+the age. He was emphatically what the English call a man of &#8220;pluck.&#8221; In
+1860, he arrived in New York with his famous collection of California
+animals, captured by himself, consisting of twenty or thirty immense
+grizzly bears, at the head of which stood &#8220;Old Sampson&#8221;&mdash;now in the
+American Museum&mdash;wolves, half a dozen other species of bear, California
+lions, tigers, buffalo, elk, etc., and Old Neptune, the great sea-lion,
+from the Pacific.</p>
+
+<p>Old Adams had trained all these monsters so that with him they were as
+docile as kittens, while many of the most ferocious among them would
+attack a stranger without hesitation, if he came within their grasp. In
+fact, the training of these animals was no fool&#8217;s play, as Old Adams
+learned to his cost; for the terrific blows which he received from time
+to time, while teaching them &#8220;docility,&#8221; finally cost him his life.</p>
+
+<p>When Adams and his other wild beasts (for he was nearly as wild as any
+of them) arrived in New York, he called immediately at the Museum. He
+was dressed in his hunter&#8217;s suit of buckskin, trimmed with the skins and
+bordered with the hanging tails of small Rocky Mountain animals; his cap
+consisting of the skin of a wolf&#8217;s head and shoulders, from which
+depended several tails as natural as life, and under which appeared his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+stiff bushy gray hair and his long white grizzly beard. In fact, Old
+Adams was quite as much of a show as his bears. They had come around
+Cape Horn on the clipper-ship Golden Fleece, and a sea-voyage of three
+and a half months had probably not added much to the beauty or neat
+appearance of the old bear-hunter.</p>
+
+<p>During our conversation, Grizzly Adams took off his cap, and showed me
+the top of his head. His skull was literally broken in. It had on
+various occasions been struck by the fearful paws of his grizzly
+students; and the last blow, from the bear called &#8220;General Fremont,&#8221; had
+laid open his brain, so that its workings were plainly visible. I
+remarked that I thought that was a dangerous wound, and might possibly
+prove fatal.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; replied Adams, &#8220;that will fix me out. It had nearly healed; but
+old Fremont opened it for me, for the third or fourth time, before I
+left California, and he did his business so thoroughly, I&#8217;m a used-up
+man. However, I reckon I may live six months or a year yet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was spoken as coolly as if he had been talking about the life of a
+dog.</p>
+
+<p>The immediate object of &#8220;Old Adams&#8221; in calling upon me was this. I had
+purchased one-half interest in his California menagerie from a man who
+had come by way of the Isthmus from California, and who claimed to own
+an equal interest with Adams in the show. Adams declared that the man
+had only advanced him some money, and did not possess the right to sell
+half of the concern. However, the man held a bill of sale for one-half
+of the &#8220;California <a name="corr18" id="corr18"></a>Menagerie,&#8221; and Old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> Adams finally consented to
+accept me as an equal partner in the speculation, saying that he guessed
+I could do the managing part, and he would show up the animals. I
+obtained a canvas tent, and erecting it on the present site of Wallack&#8217;s
+Theatre, Adams there opened his novel California Menagerie. On the
+morning of opening, a band of music preceded a procession of
+animal-cages, down Broadway and up the Bowery; Old Adams dressed in his
+hunting costume, heading the line, with a platform-wagon on which were
+placed three immense grizzly bears, two of which he held by chains,
+while he was mounted on the back of the largest grizzly, which stood in
+the centre, and was not secured in any manner whatever. This was the
+bear known as &#8220;General Fremont;&#8221; and so docile had he become that Adams
+said he had used him as a packbear to carry his cooking and hunting
+apparatus through the mountains for six months, and had ridden him
+hundreds of miles. But apparently docile as were many of these animals,
+there was not one among them that would not occasionally give even Adams
+a sly blow or a sly bite when a good chance offered; hence Old Adams was
+but a wreck of his former self, and expressed pretty nearly the truth
+when he said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Barnum, I am not the man I was five years ago. Then I felt able to
+stand the hug of any grizzly living, and was always glad to encounter,
+single-handed, any sort of an animal that dared present himself. But I
+have been beaten to a jelly, torn almost limb from limb, and nearly
+chawed up and spit out by these treacherous grizzly bears. However, I am
+good for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> few months yet, and by that time I hope we shall gain enough
+to make my old woman comfortable, for I have been absent from her some
+years.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His wife came from Massachusetts to New York, and nursed him. Dr. Johns
+dressed his wounds every day, and not only told Adams he could never
+recover, but assured his friends that probably a very few weeks would
+lay him in his grave.</p>
+
+<p>But Adams was as firm as adamant and as resolute as a lion. Among the
+thousands who saw him dressed in his grotesque hunter&#8217;s suit, and
+witnessed the apparent vigor with which he &#8220;performed&#8221; the savage
+monsters, beating and whipping them into apparently the most perfect
+docility, probably not one suspected that this rough, fierce-looking,
+powerful demi-savage, as he appeared to be, was suffering intense pain
+from his broken skull and fevered system, and that nothing kept him from
+stretching himself on his deathbed but that most indomitable and
+extraordinary will of his.</p>
+
+<p>After the exhibition had been open six weeks, the Doctor insisted that
+Adams should sell out his share in the animals and settle up all his
+worldly affairs; for he assured him that he was growing weaker every
+day, and his earthly existence must soon terminate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall live a good deal longer than you doctors think for,&#8221; replied
+Adams, doggedly; and then, seeming after all to realize the truth of the
+Doctor&#8217;s assertion, he turned to me and said: &#8220;Well, Mr. B., you must
+buy me out.&#8221; He named his price for his half of the &#8220;show,&#8221; and I
+accepted his offer. We had arranged to exhibit the bears in Connecticut
+and Massa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>chusetts during the summer, in connection with a circus, and
+Adams insisted that I should hire him to travel for the summer, and
+exhibit the bears in their curious performances. He offered to go for
+$60 per week and traveling expenses of himself and wife.</p>
+
+<p>I replied that I would gladly engage him as long as he could stand it,
+but I advised him to give up business and go to his home in
+Massachusetts; &#8220;for,&#8221; I remarked, &#8220;you are growing weaker every day, and
+at best cannot stand it more than a fortnight.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What will you give me extra if I will travel and exhibit the bears
+every day for ten weeks?&#8221; asked old Adams, eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Five hundred dollars,&#8221; I replied, with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Done!&#8221; exclaimed Adams. &#8220;I will do it; so draw up an agreement to that
+effect at once. But mind you, draw it payable to my wife, for I may be
+too weak to attend to business after the ten weeks are up, and if I
+perform my part of the contract, I want her to get the $500 without any
+trouble.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I drew up a contract to pay him $60 per week for his services, and if he
+continued to exhibit the bears for ten consecutive weeks I was then to
+hand him, or his wife $500 extra.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You have lost your $500!&#8221; exclaimed Adams on taking the contract; &#8220;for
+I am bound to live and earn it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hope you may, with all my heart, and a hundred years more if you
+desire it,&#8221; I replied.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Call me a fool if I don&#8217;t earn the $500!&#8221; exclaimed Adams, with a
+triumphant laugh.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>The &#8220;show&#8221; started off in a few days, and at the end of a fortnight I
+met it at Hartford, Connecticut.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; says I, &#8220;Adams, you seem to stand it pretty well. I hope you and
+your wife are comfortable?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; he replied, with a laugh; &#8220;and you may as well try to be
+comfortable too, for your $500 is a goner.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All right,&#8221; I replied; &#8220;I hope you will grow better every day.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But I saw by his pale face, and other indications, that he was rapidly
+failing.</p>
+
+<p>In three weeks more, I met him again at New Bedford, Mass. It seemed to
+me, then, that he could not live a week, for his eyes were glassy and
+his hands trembled, but his pluck was great as ever.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This hot weather is pretty bad for me,&#8221; he said, &#8220;but my ten weeks are
+half expired, and I am good for your $500, and, probably, a month or two
+longer.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was said with as much bravado as if he was offering to bet upon a
+horse-race. I offered to pay him half of the $500 if he would give up
+and go home; but he peremptorily declined making any compromise
+whatever.</p>
+
+<p>I met him the ninth week in Boston. He had failed considerably since I
+last saw him, but he still continued to exhibit the bears and chuckled
+over his almost certain triumph. I laughed in return, and sincerely
+congratulated him on his nerve and probable success. I remained with him
+until the tenth week was finished, and handed him his $500. He took it
+with a leer of satisfaction, and remarked, that he was sorry I was a
+teetotaller, for he would like to stand treat!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>Just before the menagerie left New York, I had paid $150 for a new
+hunting-suit, made of beaver-skins similar to the one which Adams had
+worn. This I intended for Herr Driesbach, the animal-tamer, who was
+engaged by me to take the place of Adams whenever he should be compelled
+to give up.</p>
+
+<p>Adams, on starting from New York, asked me to loan this new dress to him
+to perform in once in a while in a fair day when we had a large
+audience, for his own costume was considerably soiled. I did so, and now
+when I handed him his $500 he remarked:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. B., I suppose you are going to give me this new hunting-dress.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh no,&#8221; I replied. &#8220;I got that for your successor, who will exhibit the
+bears to-morrow; besides, you have no possible use for it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now, don&#8217;t be mean, but <i>lend</i> me the dress, if you won&#8217;t <i>give</i> it to
+me, for I want to wear it home to my native village.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I could not refuse the poor old man anything, and I therefore replied:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Adams, I will lend you the dress; but you will send it back to
+me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, when I have done with it,&#8221; he replied, with an evident chuckle of
+triumph.</p>
+
+<p>I thought to myself, he will soon be done with it, and replied:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s all right.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A new idea evidently seized him, for, with a brightening look of
+satisfaction, he said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now, Barnum, you have made a good thing out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> the California
+menagerie, and so have I; but you will make a heap more. So, if you
+won&#8217;t give me this new hunter&#8217;s dress, just draw a little writing, and
+sign it, saying that I may wear it until I have done with it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Of course, I knew that in a few days at longest he would be &#8220;done&#8221; with
+this world altogether, and, to gratify him, I cheerfully drew and signed
+the paper.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come, old Yankee, I&#8217;ve got you this time&mdash;see if I hain&#8217;t!&#8221; exclaimed
+Adams, with a broad grin, as he took the paper.</p>
+
+<p>I smiled, and said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All right, my dear fellow; the longer you live, the better I shall like
+it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>We parted, and he went to Neponset, a small town near Boston, where his
+wife and daughter lived. He took at once to his bed, and never rose from
+it again. The excitement had passed away, and his vital energies could
+accomplish no more.</p>
+
+<p>The fifth day after arriving home, the physician told him he could not
+live until the next morning. He received the announcement in perfect
+calmness, and with the most apparent indifference; then, turning to his
+wife, with a smile, he requested her to have him buried in the new
+hunting suit.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;For,&#8221; said he, &#8220;Barnum agreed to let me have it until I have done with
+it, and I was determined to fix his flint this time. He shall never see
+that dress again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His wife assured him that his request should be complied with. He then
+sent for the clergyman, and they spent several hours in communing
+together.</p>
+
+<p>Adams told the clergyman he had told some pretty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> big stories about his
+bears, but he had always endeavored to do the straight thing between man
+and man. &#8220;I have attended preaching every day, Sundays and all,&#8221; said
+he, &#8220;for the last six years. Sometimes an old grizzly gave me the
+sermon, sometimes it was a panther; often it was the thunder and
+lightning, the tempest, or the hurricane on the peaks of the Sierra
+Nevada, or in the gorges of the Rocky Mountains; but whatever preached
+to me, it always taught me the majesty of the Creator, and revealed to
+me the undying and unchanging love of our kind Father in heaven.
+Although I am a pretty rough customer,&#8221; continued the dying man, &#8220;I
+fancy my heart is in about the right place, and look with confidence to
+the blessed Saviour for that rest which I so much need, and which I have
+never enjoyed upon earth.&#8221; He then desired the clergyman to pray with
+him, after which he grasped him by the hand, thanked him for his
+kindness, and bade him farewell.</p>
+
+<p>In another hour his spirit had taken its flight; and it was said by
+those present that his face lighted up into a smile as the last breath
+escaped him, and that smile he carried into his grave. Almost his last
+words were: &#8220;Won&#8217;t Barnum open his eyes when he finds I have humbugged
+him by being buried in his new hunting-dress?&#8221; That dress was indeed the
+shroud in which he was entombed.</p>
+
+<p>And that was the last on earth of &#8220;Old Grizzly Adams.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p><a name="Footnote_37-1_1" id="Footnote_37-1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37-1_1"><span class="label">[37-*]</span></a> Although the subject of the following sketch can hardly
+be classed under the head of &#8220;Humbugs,&#8221; he was an original genius, and a
+knowledge of some of his prominent traits seems appropriate in
+connection with one or two other passages of this book.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging"><a name="corr19" id="corr19"></a>THE GOLDEN PIGEONS.&mdash;&#8203;GRIZZLY ADAMS.&mdash;&#8203;GERMAN CHEMIST.&mdash;&#8203;HAPPY
+FAMILY.&mdash;&#8203;FRENCH NATURALIST.</p>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;Old Grizzly Adams&#8221; was quite candid when, in his last hours, he
+confessed to the clergyman that he had &#8220;told some pretty large stories
+about his bears.&#8221; In fact, these &#8220;large stories&#8221; were Adam&#8217;s &#8220;besetting
+sin.&#8221; To hear him talk, one would suppose that he had seen and handled
+everything ever read or heard of. In fact, according to his story,
+California contained specimens of all things, animate and inanimate, to
+be found in any part of the globe. He talked glibly about California
+lions, California tigers, California leopards, California hyenas,
+California camels, and California hippopotami. He furthermore declared
+he had, on one occasion, seen a California elephant, &#8220;at a great
+distance,&#8221; but it was &#8220;very shy,&#8221; and he would not permit himself to
+doubt that California giraffes existed somewhere in the neighborhood of
+the &#8220;tall trees.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I was anxious to get a chance of exposing to Adams his weak point, and
+of showing him the absurdity of telling such ridiculous stories. A fit
+occasion soon presented itself. One day, while engaged in my office at
+the Museum, a man with marked Teutonic features and accent approached
+the door and asked if I would like to buy a pair of living golden
+pigeons.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; I replied, &#8220;I would like a <i>flock</i> of &#8216;golden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> pigeons,&#8217; if I
+could buy them for their weight in <i>silver</i>; for there are no &#8216;<i>golden</i>&#8217;
+pigeons in existence, unless they are made from the pure metal.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You shall see some golden pigeons alive,&#8221; he replied, at the same time
+entering my office and closing the door after him. He then removed the
+lid from a small basket which he carried in his hand, and sure enough
+there were snugly ensconced a pair of beautiful living ruff-necked
+pigeons, as yellow as saffron and as bright as a double eagle fresh from
+the mint.</p>
+
+<p>I confess I was somewhat staggered at this sight, and quickly asked the
+man where those birds came from.</p>
+
+<p>A dull, lazy smile crawled over the sober face of my German visitor, as
+he replied in a slow, guttural tone of voice:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What you think yourself?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Catching his meaning, I quickly answered:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think it is a humbug?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course, I know you will say so; because you &#8216;forstha&#8217; such things
+better as any man living, so I shall not try to humbug you. I have color
+them myself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>On further inquiry, I learned that this German was a chemist, and that
+he possessed the art of coloring birds any hue desired, and yet retain a
+natural gloss on the feathers, which gave every shade the appearance of
+reality.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can paint a green pigeon or a blue pigeon, a gray pigeon or a black
+pigeon, a brown pigeon or a pigeon half blue and half green,&#8221; said the
+German; &#8220;and if you prefer it, I can paint them pink or purple, or give<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+you a little of each color, and make you a rainbow pigeon.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The &#8220;rainbow pigeon&#8221; did not strike me as particularly desirable; but,
+thinking here was a good chance to catch &#8220;Grizzly Adams,&#8221; I bought the
+pair of golden pigeons for ten dollars, and sent them up to the &#8220;Happy
+Family,&#8221; marked &#8220;Golden Pigeons from California.&#8221; Mr. Taylor the great
+pacificator, who has charge of the Happy Family, soon came down in a
+state of perspiration.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Really, Mr. Barnum,&#8221; said he, &#8220;I could not think of putting those
+elegant golden pigeons into the Happy Family&mdash;they are too valuable a
+bird&mdash;they might get injured&mdash;they are by far the most beautiful pigeons
+I ever saw; and as they are so rare, I would not jeopardize their lives
+for anything.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; I replied, &#8220;you may put them in a separate cage, properly
+labeled.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Guillaudeu, the naturalist and taxidermist of the Museum, has
+been attached to that establishment since the year it was founded, 1810.
+He is a Frenchman, and has read everything upon Natural History that was
+ever published in his own or in the English language. He is now
+seventy-five years old, but is lively as a cricket, and takes as much
+interest in Natural History as he ever did. When he saw the &#8220;golden
+pigeons from California,&#8221; he was considerably astonished! He examined
+them with great delight for half an hour, expatiating upon their
+beautiful color, and the near resemblance which every feature bore to
+the Amer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>ican ruff-neck pigeon. He soon came to my office and said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. B., these golden pigeons are superb, but they cannot be from
+California. Audubon mentions no such bird in his work upon American
+Ornithology.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I told him he had better take Audubon home with him that night, and
+perhaps by studying him attentively he would see occasion to change his
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, the old naturalist called at my office and remarked:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. B., those pigeons are a more rare bird than you imagine. They are
+not mentioned by Linn&aelig;us, Cuvier, Goldsmith, or any other writer on
+Natural History, so far as I have been able to discover. I expect they
+must have come from some unexplored portion of Australia.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Never mind,&#8221; I replied, &#8220;we may get more light on the subject, perhaps,
+before long. We will continue to label them &#8216;California Pigeons&#8217; until
+we can fix their nativity elsewhere.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The next, morning, &#8220;Old Grizzly Adams,&#8221; whose exhibition of bears was
+then open in Fourteenth street, happened to be passing through the
+Museum, when his eyes fell on the &#8220;Golden California Pigeons.&#8221; He looked
+a moment and doubtless admired. He soon after came to my office.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. B,&#8221; said he, &#8220;you must let me have those California pigeons.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t spare them,&#8221; I replied.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you <i>must</i> spare them. All the birds and animals from California
+ought to be together. You own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> half of my California menagerie, and you
+must lend me those pigeons.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Adams, they are too rare and valuable a bird to be hawked about in
+that manner; besides, I expect they will attract considerable attention
+here.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, don&#8217;t be a fool,&#8221; replied Adams. &#8220;Rare bird, indeed! Why, they are
+just as common in California as any other pigeon! I could have brought a
+hundred of them from San Francisco, if I had thought of it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But why did you not think of it?&#8221; I asked, with a suppressed smile.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Because they are <i>so common</i> there,&#8221; said Adams. &#8220;I did not think they
+would be any curiosity here. I have eaten them in pigeon-pies hundreds
+of times, and shot them by the thousand!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I was ready to burst with laughter to see how readily Adams swallowed
+the bait, but maintaining the most rigid gravity, I replied:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh well, Mr. Adams, if they are really so common in California, you had
+probably better take them, and you may write over and have half a dozen
+pairs sent to me for the Museum.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All right,&#8221; said Adams; &#8220;I will send over to a friend in San Francisco,
+and you shall have them here in a couple of months.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I told Adams that, for certain reasons, I would prefer to change the
+label so as to have it read: &#8220;Golden Pigeons from Australia.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, call them what you like,&#8221; replied Adams; &#8220;I suppose they are
+probably about as plenty in Australia as they are in California.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>I fancied I could discover a sly smile lurking in the eye of the old
+bear-hunter as he made this reply.</p>
+
+<p>The pigeons were labeled as I suggested, and this is how it happened
+that the Bridgeport non-believing lady, mentioned in the next chapter,
+was so much attracted as to solicit some of their eggs in order to
+perpetuate the species in old Connecticut.</p>
+
+<p>Six or eight weeks after this incident, I was in the California
+Menagerie, and noticed that the &#8220;Golden Pigeons&#8221; had assumed a
+frightfully mottled appearance. Their feathers had grown out, and they
+were half white. Adams had been so busy with his bears that he had not
+noticed the change. I called him up to the pigeon cage, and remarked:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Adams, I fear you will lose your Golden Pigeons; they must be very
+sick; I observe they are turning quite pale!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Adams looked at them a moment with astonishment; then turning to me, and
+seeing that I could not suppress a smile, he indignantly exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Blast the Golden Pigeons! You had better take them back to the Museum.
+You can&#8217;t humbug me with your painted pigeons!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was too much, and &#8220;I laughed till I cried&#8221; to witness the mixed
+look of astonishment and vexation which marked the &#8220;grizzly&#8221; features of
+old Adams.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;These Golden Pigeons,&#8221; I remarked, &#8220;are very common in California, I
+think I heard you say? When do you expect my half-dozen pairs will
+arrive?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You go to thunder, you old humbug!&#8221; replied Adams, as he marched off
+indignantly, and soon disappeared behind the cages of his grizzly
+bears.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>From that time, Adams seemed to be more careful about telling his large
+stories. Perhaps he was not cured altogether of his habit, but he took
+particular pains when making marvelous statements to have them of such a
+nature that they could not be disproved so easily as was that regarding
+the &#8220;Golden California Pigeons.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">THE WHALE, THE ANGEL FISH, AND THE GOLDEN PIGEON.</p>
+
+
+<p>If the fact could be definitely determined, I think it would be
+discovered that in this &#8220;wide awake&#8221; country there are more persons
+humbugged by believing too little than too much. Many persons have such
+a horror of being taken in, or such an elevated opinion of their own
+acuteness, that they believe everything to be a sham, and in this way
+are continually humbugging themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Several years since, I purchased a living white whale, captured near
+Labrador, and succeeded in placing it, &#8220;in good condition,&#8221; in a large
+tank, fifty feet long, and supplied with salt water, in the basement of
+the American Museum. I was obliged to light the basement with gas, and
+that frightened the sea-monster to such an extent that he kept at the
+bottom of the tank, except when he was compelled to stick his nose above
+the surface in order to breathe or &#8220;blow,&#8221; and then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> down he would go
+again as quick as possible. Visitors would sometimes stand for half an
+hour, watching in vain to get a look at the whale; for, although he
+could remain under water only about two minutes at a time, he would
+happen to appear in some unlooked for quarter of the huge tank, and
+before they could all get a chance to see him, he would be out of sight
+again. Some impatient and incredulous persons after waiting ten minutes,
+which seemed to them an hour, would sometimes exclaim:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, humbug! I don&#8217;t believe there is a whale here at all!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This incredulity often put me out of patience, and I would say:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ladies and gentlemen, there is a living whale in the tank. He is
+frightened by the gaslight and by visitors; but he is obliged to come to
+the surface every two minutes, and if you will watch sharply, you will
+see him. I am sorry we can&#8217;t make him dance a hornpipe and do all sorts
+of wonderful things at the word of command; but if you will exercise
+your patience a few minutes longer, I assure you the whale will be seen
+at considerably less trouble than it would be to go to Labrador
+expressly for that purpose.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This would usually put my patrons in good humor; but I was myself often
+vexed at the persistent stubbornness of the whale in not calmly floating
+on the surface for the gratification of my visitors.</p>
+
+<p>One day, a sharp Yankee lady and her daughter, from Connecticut, called
+at the Museum. I knew them well; and in answer to their inquiry for the
+locality of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> the whale, I directed them to the basement. Half an hour
+afterward, they called at my office, and the acute mother, in a
+half-confidential, serio-comic whisper, said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. B., it&#8217;s astonishing to what a number of purposes the ingenuity of
+us Yankees has applied india-rubber.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I asked her meaning, and was soon informed that she was perfectly
+convinced that it was an india-rubber whale, worked by steam and
+machinery, by means of which he was made to rise to the surface at short
+intervals, and puff with the regularity of a pair of bellows. From her
+earnest, confident manner, I saw it would be useless to attempt to
+disabuse her mind on the subject. I therefore very candidly acknowledged
+that she was quite too sharp for me, and I must plead guilty to the
+imposition; but I begged her not to expose me, for I assured her that
+she was the only person who had discovered the trick.</p>
+
+<p>It was worth more than a dollar to see with what a smile of satisfaction
+she received the assurance that nobody else was as shrewd as herself;
+and the patronizing manner in which she bade me be perfectly tranquil,
+for the secret should be considered by her as &#8220;strictly confidential,&#8221;
+was decidedly rich. She evidently received double her money&#8217;s worth in
+the happy reflection that she could not be humbugged, and that I was
+terribly humiliated in being detected through her marvelous powers of
+discrimination! I occasionally meet the good lady, and always try to
+look a little sheepish, but she invariably assures me that she has never
+divulged my secret and never will!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>On another occasion, a lady equally shrewd, who lives neighbor to me in
+Connecticut, after regarding for a few minutes the &#8220;Golden Angel Fish&#8221;
+swimming in one of the Aquaria, abruptly addressed me with:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t humbug me, Mr. Barnum; that fish is painted!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nonsense!&#8221; said I, with a laugh; &#8220;the thing is impossible!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t care, I know it is painted; it is as plain as can be.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, my dear Mrs. H., paint would not adhere to a fish while in the
+water; and if it would, it would kill him. Besides,&#8221; I added, with an
+extra serious air, &#8220;we never allow humbugging here!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, here is just the place to look for such things,&#8221; she replied with a
+smile; &#8220;and I must say I more than half believe that Angel Fish is
+painted.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She was finally nearly convinced of her error, and left. In the
+afternoon of the same day, I met her in Old Adams&#8217; California Menagerie.
+She knew that I was part-proprietor of that establishment, and seeing me
+in conversation with &#8220;Grizzly Adams,&#8221; she came up to me in some haste,
+and with her eyes glistening with excitement, she said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;O, Mr. B., I never saw anything so beautiful as those elegant &#8216;Golden
+Pigeons&#8217; from Australia. I want you to secure some of their eggs for me,
+and let my pigeons hatch them at home. I should prize them beyond all
+measure.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, you don&#8217;t want <a name="corr20" id="corr20"></a>&#8216;Golden Australian Pigeons,&#8217;&#8221; I replied; &#8220;they are
+painted.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>&#8220;No, they are not painted,&#8221; said she, with a laugh, &#8220;but I half think
+the Angel Fish is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I could not control myself at the curious coincidence, and I roared with
+laughter while I replied:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now, Mrs. H., I never let a good joke be spoiled, even if it serves to
+expose my own secrets. I assure you, upon honor, that the Golden
+Australian Pigeons, as they are labeled, are really painted; and that in
+their natural state they are nothing more nor less than the common
+ruff-necked white American pigeons!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And it was a fact. How they happened to be exhibited under that
+auriferous disguise was owing to an amusing circumstance, explained in
+another chapter.</p>
+
+<p>Suffice it at present to say, that Mrs. H. to this day &#8220;blushes to her
+eyebrows&#8221; whenever an allusion is made to &#8220;Angel Fish&#8221; or &#8220;Golden
+Pigeons.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">PEASE&#8217;S HOARHOUND CANDY.&mdash;&#8203;THE DORR REBELLION.&mdash;&#8203;THE <a name="corr21" id="corr21"></a>PHILADELPHIA
+ALDERMEN.</p>
+
+
+<p>In the year 1842, a new style of advertising appeared in the newspapers
+and in handbills which arrested public attention at once on account of
+its novelty. The thing advertised was an article called &#8220;Pease&#8217;s
+Hoarhound Candy;&#8221; a very good specific for coughs and colds. It was put
+up in twenty-five cent packages, and was eventually sold wholesale and
+retail in enormous quantities. Mr. Pease&#8217;s system of advertising was
+one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> which, I believe, originated with him in this country, although
+many have practiced it since, but of course, with less success&mdash;for
+imitations seldom succeed. Mr. Pease&#8217;s plan was to seize upon the most
+prominent topic of interest and general conversation, and discourse
+eloquently upon that topic in fifty to a hundred lines of a
+newspaper-column, then glide off gradually into a panegyric of &#8220;Pease&#8217;s
+Hoarhound Candy.&#8221; The consequence was, every reader was misled by the
+caption and commencement of his article, and thousands of persons had
+&#8220;Pease&#8217;s Hoarhound Candy&#8221; in their mouths long before they had seen it!
+In fact, it was next to impossible to take up a newspaper and attempt to
+read the legitimate news of the day without stumbling upon a package of
+<a name="corr22" id="corr22"></a>&#8220;Pease&#8217;s Hoarhound Candy.&#8221; The reader would often feel vexed to find
+that, after reading a quarter of a column of interesting news upon the
+subject uppermost in his mind, he was trapped into the perusal of one of
+Pease&#8217;s hoarhound candy advertisements. Although inclined sometimes to
+throw down the newspaper in disgust, he would generally laugh at the
+talent displayed by Mr. Pease in thus captivating and capturing the
+reader. The result of all this would generally be, a trial of the candy
+on the first premonitory symptoms of a cough or influenza. The degree to
+which this system of advertising has since been carried has rendered it
+a bore and a nuisance. The usual result of almost any great and original
+achievement is, the production of a shoal of brainless imitators, who
+are &#8220;neither useful nor ornamental.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In the same year that Pease&#8217;s hoarhound candy ap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>peared upon the
+commercial and newspaper horizon, the &#8220;Governor Dorr Rebellion&#8221; occurred
+in Rhode Island. As many will remember, this rebellion caused a great
+excitement throughout the country. Citizens of Rhode Island took up arms
+against each other, and it was feared by some that a bloody civil war
+would ensue.</p>
+
+<p>At about this time a municipal election was to come off in the city of
+Philadelphia. The two political parties were pretty equally divided
+there, and there were some special causes why this was regarded as an
+unusually important election. Its near approach caused more excitement
+in the &#8220;Quaker City&#8221; than had been witnessed there since the preceding
+Presidential election. The party-leaders began to lay their plans early,
+and the wire-pullers on both sides were unusually busy in their
+vocation. At the head of the rabble upon which one of the parties
+depended for many votes, was a drunken and profane fellow, whom we will
+call Tom Simmons. Tom was great at electioneering and stump-spouting in
+bar-rooms and rum-caucuses, and his party always looked to him, at each
+election, to stir up the subterraneans &#8220;with a long pole&#8221;&mdash;and a
+whiskey-jug at the end of it.</p>
+
+<p>The exciting election which was now to come off for Mayor and Aldermen
+of the good city of Brotherly Love soon brought several of the &#8220;ring&#8221; to
+Tom.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now, Tom,&#8221; said the head wire-puller, &#8220;this is going to be a close
+election, and we want you to spare neither talent nor liquor in arousing
+up and bringing to the polls every voter within your influence.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Squire,&#8221; replied Tom carelessly, &#8220;I&#8217;ve con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>cluded I won&#8217;t bother
+myself with this &#8217;lection&mdash;it don&#8217;t pay!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t pay!&#8221; exclaimed the frightened politician. &#8220;Why, Tom, are you not
+a true friend to your party? Haven&#8217;t you always been on hand at the
+primary meetings, knocked down interlopers, and squelched every man who
+talked about conscience, or who refused to support regular nominations,
+and vote the entire clean ticket straight through? And as for &#8216;pay,&#8217;
+<a name="corr23" id="corr23"></a>haven&#8217;t you always been supplied with money enough to treat all doubtful
+voters, and in fact to float them up to the polls in an ocean of
+whiskey? I confess Tom, I am almost petrified with astonishment at
+witnessing your present indifference to the alarming crisis in which our
+country and our party are involved, and which nothing on earth can
+avert, except our success at the coming election.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, tell that to the marines,&#8221; said Tom. &#8220;We never yet had an election
+that there wasn&#8217;t a &#8216;crisis,&#8217; and yet, whichever party gained, we
+somehow managed to live through it, crisis or no crisis. In fact, my
+curiosity has got a little excited, and I would like to see this
+&#8216;crisis&#8217; that is such a bugaboo at every election; so trot out your
+crisis&mdash;let us see how it looks. Besides, talking of pay, I acknowledge
+the whiskey, and that is all. While I and my companions lifted you and
+your companions into fat offices that enabled you to roll in your
+carriages, and live on the fat of the land, we got nothing&mdash;or, at
+least, next to nothing&mdash;all we got was&mdash;well&mdash;we got drunk! Now, Squire,
+I will go for the other party this &#8217;lection if you don&#8217;t give me an
+office.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>&#8220;Give you an office!&#8221; exclaimed the &#8220;Squire,&#8221; raising his hands and
+rolling his eyes in utter amazement; &#8220;why, Tom, what office do you
+want?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I want to be Alderman!&#8221; replied Tom, &#8220;and I can control votes enough to
+turn the &#8217;lection either way; and if our party don&#8217;t gratefully remember
+my past services and give me my reward, t&#8217;other party will be glad to
+run me on their ticket, and over I go.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman of the &#8220;ring&#8221; saw by Tom&#8217;s firmness and clenched teeth
+that he was immovable; that his principles, like those of too many
+others, consisted of &#8220;loaves and fishes;&#8221; they therefore consented to
+put Tom&#8217;s name on the municipal ticket; and the worst part of the story
+is, he was elected.</p>
+
+<p>In a very short time, Tom was duly installed into the Aldermanic chair,
+and, opening his office on a prominent corner, he was soon doing a
+thriving business. He was generally occupied throughout the day in
+sitting as a judge in cases of book debt and promissory notes which were
+brought before him, for various small sums ranging from two to five,
+six, eight, and ten dollars. He would frequently dispose of thirty or
+forty of these cases in a day, and as imprisonment for debt was
+permitted at that time, the poor defendants would &#8220;shin&#8221; around and make
+any sacrifice almost, rather than go to jail. The enormous &#8220;costs&#8221; went
+into the capacious pocket of the Alderman; and this dignitary, as a
+natural sequence, &#8220;waxed fat&#8221; and saucy, exemplifying the truth of the
+adage &#8220;Put a beggar on horseback,&#8221; etc.</p>
+
+<p>As the Alderman grew rich, he became overbearing,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> headstrong, and
+dictatorial. He began to fancy that he monopolized the concentrated
+wisdom of his party, and that his word should be law. Not a party-caucus
+or a political meeting could be held without witnessing the vulgar and
+profane harangues of the self-conceited Alderman, Tom Simmons. As he was
+one of the &#8220;ring,&#8221; his fingers were in all the &#8220;pickings and stealings;&#8221;
+he kept his family-coach, and in his general swagger exhibited all the
+peculiarities of &#8220;high life below stairs.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But after Tom had disgraced his office for two years, a State election
+took place and the other party were successful. Among the first laws
+which they passed after the convening of the Legislature, was one
+declaring that from that date imprisonment for debt should not be
+permitted in the State of Pennsylvania for any sum less than ten
+dollars.</p>
+
+<p>This enactment, of course, knocked away the chief prop which sustained
+the Alderman, and when the news of its passage reached Philadelphia, Tom
+was the most indignant man that had been seen there for some years.</p>
+
+<p>Standing in front of his office the next morning, surrounded by several
+of his political chums, Tom exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you see what them infernal tories have done down there at
+Harrisburg? They have been and passed an outrageous, oppressive,
+barbarous, and unconstitutional law! A pretty idea, indeed, if a man
+can&#8217;t put a debtor in jail for a less sum than ten dollars! How am I
+going to support my family, I should like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> to know, if this law is
+allowed to stand? I tell you, gentlemen, this law is unconstitutional,
+and you will see blood running in our streets, if them tory scoundrels
+try to carry it out!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His friends laughed, for they saw that Tom was reasoning from his pocket
+instead of his head; and, as he almost foamed at the mouth in his
+impotent wrath they could not suppress a smile.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, you may laugh, gentlemen&mdash;you may laugh; but you will see it. Our
+party will never disgrace itself a permitting the tories to rob them of
+their rights by passing unconstitutional laws; and I say, the sooner we
+come to blood, the better!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At this moment, a gentleman stepped up, and addressing the Alderman,
+said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Alderman, I want to bring a case of book debt before you this morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How much is your claim?&#8221; asked Tom.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Four dollars,&#8221; replied the rumseller&mdash;for such he proved to be&mdash;and his
+debt was for drinks chalked up against one of his &#8220;customers.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t have your four dollars, Sir,&#8221; replied the excited Alderman.
+&#8220;You are robbed of your four dollars, Sir. Them legislative tories at
+Harrisburg, Sir, have cheated you out of your four dollars, Sir. I
+undertake to say, Sir, that fifty thousand honest men in Philadelphia
+have been robbed of their four dollars by these bloody tories and their
+cursed unconstitutional law! Ah, gentlemen, you will see blood running
+in our streets before you are a month older. (A laugh.) Oh, you may
+laugh; but you will see it&mdash;see if you don&#8217;t!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>A newsboy was just passing by.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here, boy, give me the Morning Ledger,&#8221; said the Alderman, at the same
+time taking the paper and handing the boy a penny. &#8220;Let us see what them
+blasted cowboys are doing down at Harrisburg now. Ah!&mdash;what is this?&#8221;
+(Reading:) &#8220;&#8216;Blood, blood, blood!&#8217; Aha! laugh, will you, gentlemen? Here
+it is.&#8221; Reads:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;&#8216;Blood, blood, blood! The Dorrites have got possession of
+Providence. The military are called out. Father is arrayed against
+father, and son against son. Blood is already running in our
+streets.&#8217;</p></div>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now laugh, will you, gentlemen? Blood is running in the streets of
+Providence; blood will be running in the streets of Philadelphia before
+you are a fortnight older! The tories of Providence and the tories of
+Harrisburg must answer for this blood, for they and their
+unconstitutional proceedings are the cause of its flowing! Let us see
+the rest of this <a name="corr24" id="corr24"></a>tragic scene.&#8221; Reads:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;&#8216;Is there any remedy for this dreadful state of things?&#8217;&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alderman.</span>&mdash;&#8220;Of course not, except to hang every rascal of them for
+trampling on our g-l-orious Constitution.&#8221; Reads:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;&#8216;Is there any remedy for this dreadful state of things? Yes, there
+is.&#8217;&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alderman.</span>&mdash;&#8220;Oh, there is, is there? What is it? Let me see.&#8221; Reads:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;&#8216;Buy two packages of Pease&#8217;s hoarhound candy.&#8217;&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>&#8220;Blast the infernal Ledger!&#8221; exclaimed the now doubly incensed and
+indignant Alderman, throwing the paper upon the pavement with the most
+ineffable disgust, amid the shouts and hurrahs of a score of men who by
+this time had gathered around the excited Alderman Tom Simmons.</p>
+
+<p>As I before remarked, the &#8220;candy&#8221; was a very good article for the
+purposes for which it was made; and as Pease was an indefatigable man,
+as well as a good advertiser, he soon acquired a fortune. Mr. Pease,
+Junior, is now living in affluence in Brooklyn, and is bringing up a
+&#8220;happy family&#8221; to enjoy the fruits of his industry, probity, good
+habits, and genius.</p>
+
+<p>The &#8220;humbug&#8221; in this transaction, of course consisted solely in the
+manner of advertising. There was no humbug or deception about the
+article manufactured.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">BRANDRETH&#8217;S PILLS.&mdash;&#8203;MAGNIFICENT ADVERTISING.&mdash;&#8203;POWER OF IMAGINATION.</p>
+
+
+<p>In the year 1834, Dr. Benjamin Brandreth commenced advertising in the
+city of New York, &#8220;Brandreth&#8217;s Pills specially recommended to purify the
+blood.&#8221; His office consisted of a room about ten feet square, located in
+what was then known as the Sun building, an edifice ten by forty feet,
+situated at the corner of Spruce and Nassau streets, where the Tribune
+is now <a name="corr25" id="corr25"></a>published. His &#8220;factory&#8221; was at his residence in Hudson street.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+He put up a large gilt sign over the Sun office, five or six feet wide
+by the length of the building, which attracted much attention, as at
+that time it was probably the largest sign in New York. Dr. Brandreth
+had great faith in his pills, and I believe not without reason; for
+multitudes of persons soon became convinced of the truth of his
+assertions, that &#8220;all diseases arise from impurity or imperfect
+circulation of the blood, and by purgation with Brandreth&#8217;s Pills all
+disease may be cured.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But great and reasonable as might have been the faith of Dr. Brandreth
+in the efficacy of his pills, his faith in the potency of advertising
+them was equally strong. Hence he commenced advertising largely in the
+Sun newspaper&mdash;paying at least $5,000 to that paper alone, for his
+first year&#8217;s advertisements. That may not seem a large sum in these
+days, when parties have been known to pay more than five thousand
+dollar for a single day&#8217;s advertising in the leading journals; but, at
+the time Brandreth started, his was considered the most liberal
+newspaper-advertising of the day.</p>
+
+<p>Advertising is to a genuine article what manure is to land,&mdash;it largely
+increases the product. Thousands of persons may be reading your
+advertisement while you are eating, or sleeping, or attending to your
+business; hence public attention is attracted, new customers come to
+you, and, if you render them a satisfactory equivalent for their money,
+they continue to patronize you and recommend you to their friends.</p>
+
+<p>At the commencement of his career, Dr. Brandreth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> was indebted to Mr.
+Moses Y. Beach, proprietor of the New York Sun, for encouragement and
+means of advertising. But this very advertising soon caused his receipts
+to be enormous. Although the pills were but twenty-five cents per box,
+they were soon sold to such a great extent, that tons of huge cases
+filled with the &#8220;purely vegetable pill&#8221; were sent from the new and
+extensive manufactory every week. As his business increased, so in the
+same ratio did he extend his advertising. The doctor engaged at one time
+a literary gentleman to attend, under the supervision of himself, solely
+to the advertising department. Column upon column of advertisements
+appeared in the newspapers, in the shape of learned and scientific
+pathological dissertations, the very reading of which would tempt a poor
+mortal to rush for a box of Brandreth&#8217;s Pills; so evident was it
+(according to the advertisement) that nobody ever had or ever would have
+&#8220;pure blood,&#8221; until from one to a dozen boxes of the pills had been
+taken as &#8220;purifiers.&#8221; The ingenuity displayed in concocting these
+advertisements was superb, and was probably hardly equaled by that
+required to concoct the pills.</p>
+
+<p>No pain, ache, twinge, or other sensation, good, bad, or indifferent,
+ever experienced by a member of the human family, but was a most
+irrefragable evidence of the impurity of the blood; and it would have
+been blasphemy to have denied the &#8220;self-evident&#8221; theory, that &#8220;all
+diseases arise from impurity or imperfect circulation of the blood, and
+that by purgation with Brandreth&#8217;s Pills all disease may be cured.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The doctor claims that his grandfather first manu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>factured the pills in
+1751. I suppose this may be true; at all events, no <i>living</i> man will be
+apt to testify to the contrary. Here is an extract from one of Dr.
+Brandreth&#8217;s early advertisements, which will give an idea of his style:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;&#8216;What has been longest known has been most considered, and what
+has been most considered is best understood.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;The life of the flesh is in the blood.&#8217;&mdash;Lev. xxii, 2.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Bleeding reduces the vital powers; Brandreth&#8217;s Pills increase
+them. So in sickness never be bled, especially in Dizziness and
+Apoplexy, but always use Brandreth&#8217;s Pills.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The laws of life are written upon the face of Nature. The Tempest,
+Whirlwind, and Thunder-storm bring health from the Solitudes of
+God. The Tides are the daily agitators and purifiers of the Mighty
+World of Waters.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What these Providential means are as purifiers of the Atmosphere
+or Air, Brandreth&#8217;s Pills are to man.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>This splendid system of advertising, and the almost reckless outlay
+which was required to keep it up, challenged the admiration of the
+business community. In the course of a few years, his office was
+enlarged; and still being too small, he took the store 241 Broadway, and
+also opened a branch at 187 Hudson street. The doctor continued to let
+his advertising keep pace with his patronage; and he was finally, in the
+year 1836, compelled to remove his manufactory to Sing Sing, where such
+perfectly incredible quantities of Brandreth&#8217;s Pills have been
+manufactured and sold that it would hardly be safe to give the
+statistics. Suffice it to say, that the only &#8220;humbug&#8221; which I suspect in
+connection with the pills was, the very harmless and unobjectionable yet
+novel method of advertising them;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> and as the doctor amassed a great
+fortune by their manufacture, this very fact is <i>prima facie</i> evidence
+that the pill was a valuable purgative.</p>
+
+<p>A funny incident occurred to me in connection with this great pill. In
+the year 1836, while I was travelling through the States of Alabama,
+Mississippi, and Louisiana, I became convinced by reading Doctor
+Brandreth&#8217;s advertisements that I needed his pills. Indeed, I there read
+the proof that every symptom that I experienced, either in imagination
+or in reality, rendered their extensive consumption absolutely necessary
+to preserve my life. I purchased a box of Brandreth&#8217;s Pills in Columbus,
+Miss. The effect was miraculous! Of course, it was just what the
+advertisement told me it would be. In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, I purchased
+half a dozen boxes. They were all used up before my perambulating show
+reached Vicksburg, Miss., and I was a confirmed disciple of the blood
+theory. There I laid in a dozen boxes. In Natchez, I made a similar
+purchase. In New Orleans, where I remained several months, I was a
+profitable customer, and had become thoroughly convinced that the only
+real &#8220;greenhorns&#8221; in the world were those who preferred meat or bread to
+Brandreth&#8217;s Pills. I took them morning, noon, and night. In fact, the
+advertisements announced that one could not take too many; for if one
+box was sufficient to purify the blood, eleven extra boxes would have no
+injurious effect.</p>
+
+<p>I arrived in New York in June 1838, and by that time I had become such a
+firm believer in the efficacy of Brandreth&#8217;s Pills, that I hardly
+stopped long enough<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> to speak with my family, before I hastened to the
+&#8220;principal office&#8221; of Doctor Brandreth to congratulate him on being the
+greatest public benefactor of the age.</p>
+
+<p>I found the doctor &#8220;at home,&#8221; and introduced myself without ceremony. I
+told him my experiences. He was delighted. I next heartily indorsed
+every word stated in his advertisements. He was not surprised, for he
+knew the effects of his pills were such as I described. Still he was
+elated in having another witness whose extensive experiments with his
+pills were so eminently satisfactory. The doctor and myself were both
+happy&mdash;he in being able to do so much good to mankind; I in being the
+recipient of such untold benefits through his valuable discovery.</p>
+
+<p>At last, the doctor chanced to say that he wondered how I happened to
+get his pills in Natchez, &#8220;for,&#8221; said he, &#8220;I have no agent there as
+yet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; I replied, &#8220;I always bought my pills at the drug stores.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good Heavens!&#8221; exclaimed the doctor, &#8220;then they are were all
+counterfeits! vile impositions! poisonous compounds! I never sell a pill
+to a druggist&mdash;I never permit an apothecary to handle one of my pills.
+But they counterfeit them by the bushel; the unprincipled, heartless,
+murderous impostors!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I need not say I was surprised. Was it possible, then, that my
+imagination had done all this business, and that I had been cured by
+poisons which I supposed were Brandreth&#8217;s Pill? I confess I laughed
+heartily; and told the doctor that, after all, it seemed the
+coun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>terfeits were as good as the real pills, provided the patient had
+sufficient faith.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was puzzled as well as vexed, but an idea struck him that
+soon enabled him to recover his usual equanimity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll tell you what it is,&#8221; said he, &#8220;those Southern druggists have
+undoubtedly obtained the pills from me under false pretences. They have
+pretended to be planters, and have purchased pills from me in large
+quantities for use on the plantations, and then they have retailed the
+pills from their drug-shops.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I laughed at this shrewd suggestion, and remarked: &#8220;This may be so, but
+I guess my imagination did the business!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was uneasy, but he asked me as a favor to bring him one of
+the empty pill boxes which I had brought from the South. The next day, I
+complied with his request, and I will do the doctor justice to say that,
+on comparison, it proved as he had suspected; the pills were genuine,
+and although he had advertised that no druggist should sell them, they
+were so popular that druggists found it necessary to get them &#8220;by hook
+or by crook;&#8221; and the consequence was, I had the pleasure of a glorious
+laugh, and Doctor Brandreth experienced &#8220;a great scare.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The doctor &#8220;made his pile&#8221; long ago, although he still devotes his
+personal attention to the &#8220;entirely vegetable and innocent pills, whose
+life-giving power no pen can describe.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In 1849, the doctor was elected President of the Village of Sing Sing,
+N. Y. (where he still resides,)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> and was re-elected to the same office
+for seven consecutive years. In the same year, he was elected to the New
+York State Senate, and in 1859 was again elected.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Brandreth is a liberal man and a pleasant, entertaining, and
+edifying companion. He deserves all the success he has ever received.
+&#8220;Long may he wave!&#8221;</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="II_THE_SPIRITUALISTS" id="II_THE_SPIRITUALISTS"></a>II. THE SPIRITUALISTS.</h2>
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS, THEIR RISE AND PROGRESS.&mdash;&#8203;SPIRITUAL
+ROPE-TYING.&mdash;&#8203;MUSIC PLAYING.&mdash;&#8203;CABINET SECRETS.&mdash;&#8203;&#8220;THEY CHOOSE DARKNESS
+RATHER THAN LIGHT,&#8221; ETC.&mdash;&#8203;THE SPIRITUAL HAND.&mdash;&#8203;HOW THE THING IS
+DONE.&mdash;&#8203;DR. W. F. VAN VLECK.</p>
+
+
+<p>The Davenport Brothers are natives of Buffalo, N. Y., and in that city
+commenced their career as &#8220;mediums&#8221; about twelve years ago. They were
+then mere lads. For some time, their operations were confined to their
+own place, where, having obtained considerable notoriety through the
+press, they were visited by people from all parts of the country. But,
+in 1855, they were induced by John F. Coles, a very worthy spiritualist
+of New York City, to visit that metropolis, and there exhibit their
+powers. Under the management of Mr. Coles, they held &#8220;circles&#8221; afternoon
+and evening, for several days, in a small hall at 195 Bowery. The
+audience were seated next the walls, the principal space being required
+for the use of &#8220;the spirits.&#8221; The &#8220;manifestations&#8221; mostly consisted in
+the thrumming and seemingly rapid movement about the hall of several
+stringed instruments, the room having been made entirely dark, while the
+boys were supposed or asserted to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> be quietly seated at the table in the
+centre. Two guitars, with sometimes a banjo, were the instruments used,
+and the noise made by &#8220;the spirits&#8221; was about equal to the united
+honking of a large flock of wild geese. The manifestations were stunning
+as well as astonishing; for not only was the sense of hearing smitten by
+the dreadful sounds, but, sometimes, a member of the circle would get a
+&#8220;striking demonstration&#8221; over his head!</p>
+
+<p>At the request of the &#8220;controlling spirit,&#8221; made through a horn, the
+hall was lighted at intervals during the entertainment, at which times
+the mediums could be seen seated at the table, looking very innocent and
+demure, as if they had never once thought of deceiving anybody. On one
+of these occasions, however, a policeman suddenly lighted the hall by
+means of a dark lantern, without having been specially called upon to do
+so; and the boys were clearly seen with instruments in their hands. They
+dropped them as soon as they could, and resumed their seats at the
+table. Satisfied that the thing was a humbug, the audience left in
+disgust; and the policeman was about to march the boys to the
+station-house on the charge of swindling, when he was prevailed upon to
+remain and farther test the matter. Left alone with them, and the three
+seated together at the table on which the instruments had been placed,
+he laid, at their request, a hand on each medium&#8217;s head; they then
+clasped both his arms with their hands. While they remained thus
+situated (as he supposed,) the room being dark, one of the instruments,
+with an infernal twanging of its strings, rose from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> table and hit
+the policeman several times on the head; then a strange voice through
+the trumpet advised him not to interfere with the work of the spirits by
+persecuting the mediums! Considerably astonished, if not positively
+scared, he took his hat and left, fully persuaded that there was
+&#8220;something in it!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The boys produced the manifestations by grasping the neck of the
+instrument, swinging it around, and thrusting it into different parts of
+the open space of the room, at the same time vibrating the strings with
+the fore-finger. The faster the finger passed over the strings, the more
+rapidly the instrument seemed to move. Two hands could thus use as many
+instruments.</p>
+
+<p>When sitting with a person at the table, as they did with the policeman,
+one hand could be taken off the investigator&#8217;s arm without his knowing
+it, by gently increasing, at the same time, the pressure of the other
+hand. It was an easy matter then to raise and thrum the instrument or
+talk through the horn.</p>
+
+<p>About a dozen gentlemen&mdash;several of whom were members of the press&mdash;had
+a private s&eacute;ance with the boys one afternoon, on which occasion &#8220;the
+spirits&#8221; ventured upon an extra &#8220;manifestation.&#8221; All took seats at one
+side of a long, high table&mdash;the position of the mediums being midway of
+the row. This time, a little, dim, ghostly gaslight was allowed in the
+room. What seemed to be a hand soon appeared, partly above the edge of
+the vacant side of the table, and opposite the &#8220;mediums.&#8221; One excited
+spiritualist present said he could see the finger-nails.</p>
+
+<p>John F. Coles&mdash;who had for several days, sus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>pected the innocence of the
+boys&mdash;sprang from his seat, turned up the gaslight, and pounced on the
+elder boy, who was found to have a nicely stuffed glove drawn partly on
+to the toe of his boot. That, then, was the spirit-hand! The nails that
+the imaginative spiritualist thought he saw were not on the fingers. The
+boy alleged that the spirits made him attempt the deception.</p>
+
+<p>The father of these boys, who had accompanied them to New York, took
+them home immediately after that exposure. In Buffalo, they continued to
+hold &#8220;circles,&#8221; hoping to retrieve their lost reputation as good
+mediums&mdash;by being, not more honest, but more cautious. To prevent any
+one getting hold of them while operating, they hit upon the plan of
+passing a rope through a button-hole of each gentleman&#8217;s coat, the ends
+to be held by a trusty person&mdash;assigning, as a reason for that
+arrangement, that it would then be known no one in the circle could
+assist in producing the manifestations. The plan did not always work
+well, however; for a skeptic would sometimes cut the rope, and then
+pounce upon &#8220;the spirit&#8221;&mdash;that is, if he didn&#8217;t happen to miss that
+individual, on account of the darkness and while trying to avoid a
+collision with the instruments.</p>
+
+<p>To secure greater immunity from detection, and to enable them to exhibit
+in large halls which could not easily be darkened, the boys finally
+fixed upon a &#8220;cabinet&#8221; as the best thing in which to work. They had,
+some time before, made the &#8220;rope-test&#8221; a feature of their exhibitions;
+and in their cabinet-show they de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>pended for success in deceiving
+entirely upon the presumption of the audience that their hands were so
+secured with ropes as to prevent their playing upon the musical
+instruments, or doing whatever else the spirits were assumed to do.</p>
+
+<p>Their cabinet is about six feet high, six feet long, and two and a half
+feet deep, the front consisting of three doors, opening outward. In each
+end is a seat, with holes through which the ropes can be passed in
+securing the mediums. In the upper part of the middle door is a
+lozenge-shaped aperture, curtained on the inside with black muslin or
+oilcloth. The bolts are on the inside of the doors.</p>
+
+<p>The mediums are generally first tied by a committee of two gentlemen
+appointed from the audience. The doors of the cabinet are then closed,
+those at the ends first, and then the middle one, the bolt of which is
+reached by the manager through the aperture.</p>
+
+<p>By the time the end doors are closed and bolted, the Davenports, in many
+instances, have succeeded in loosening the knots next their wrists, and
+in slipping their hands out, the latter being then exhibited at the
+aperture. Lest the hands should be recognized as belonging to the
+mediums, they are kept in a constant shaking motion while in view; and
+to make the hands look large or small, they spread or press together the
+fingers. With that peculiar rapid motion imparted to them, four hands in
+the aperture will appear to be half-a-dozen. A lady&#8217;s flesh colored kid
+glove, nicely stuffed with cotton, is sometimes exhibited as a female
+hand&mdash;a critical observation of it never being allowed. It does<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> not
+take the medium long to draw the knots close to their wrists again. They
+are then ready to be inspected by the Committee, who report them tied as
+they were left. Supposing them to have been securely bound all the
+while, those who witness the show are very naturally astonished.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, after being tied by a committee, the mediums cannot readily
+extricate their hands and get them back as they were; in which case they
+release themselves entirely from the ropes before the doors are again
+opened, concluding to wait till after &#8220;the spirits&#8221; have bound them,
+before showing hands or making music.</p>
+
+<p>It is a common thing for these impostors to give the rope between their
+hands a twist while those limbs are being bound; and that movement, if
+dexterously made, while the attention of the committee-men is
+momentarily diverted, is not likely to be detected. Reversing that
+movement will let the hand out.</p>
+
+<p>The great point with the Davenports in tying themselves is, to have a
+knot next their wrists that looks solid, &#8220;fair and square,&#8221; at the same
+time that they can slip it and get their hands out in a moment. There
+are several ways of forming such a knot, one of which I will attempt to
+describe. In the middle of a rope a square knot is tied, loosely at
+first, so that the ends of the rope can be tucked through, in opposite
+directions, below the knot, and the latter is then drawn tight. There
+are then two loops&mdash;which should be made small&mdash;through which the hands
+are to pass after the rest of the tying is done. Just sufficient slack
+is left to admit of the hands passing through the loops, which,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> lastly,
+are drawn close to the wrists, the knot coming between the latter. No
+one, from the appearance of such a knot, would suspect it could be
+slipped. The mediums thus tied can, immediately after the committee have
+inspected the knots, and closed the doors, show hands or play upon
+musical instruments, and in a few seconds be, to all appearance, firmly
+tied again.</p>
+
+<p>If flour has been placed in their hands, it makes no difference as to
+their getting those members out of or into the ropes; but, to show hands
+at the aperture, or to make a noise on the musical instruments, it is
+necessary that they should get the flour out of one hand into the other.
+The moisture of the hand and squeezing, packs the flour into a lump,
+which can be laid into the other hand and returned without losing any.
+The little flour that adheres to the empty hand can be wiped off in the
+pantaloons pocket. The mediums seldom if ever take flour in their hands
+while they are in the bonds put upon them by the committee. The
+principal part of the show is after the <a name="corr26" id="corr26"></a>tying has been done in their own
+way. Wm. Fay, who accompanies the Davenports, is thus fixed when the
+hypothetical spirits take the coat off his back.</p>
+
+<p>As I before remarked, there are several ways in which the mediums tie
+themselves. They always do it, however, in such a manner that, though
+the tying looks secure, they can immediately get one or both hands out.
+Let committees insist upon untying the knots of the spirits, whether the
+mediums are willing or not. A little critical observation will enable
+them to learn the trick.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>To make this subject of tying clearer, I will repeat that the Davenports
+always untie themselves by using their hands; as they are able in
+ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, however impossible it may seem, to
+release their hands by loosening the knots next their wrists. Sometimes
+they do this by twisting the rope between their wrists; sometimes it is
+by keeping their muscles as tense as possible during the tying, so that
+when relaxed there shall be some slack. Most &#8220;committees&#8221; know so little
+about tying, that anybody, by a little pulling, slipping, and wriggling,
+could slip his hands out of their knots.</p>
+
+<p>A violin, bell, and tambourine, with perhaps a guitar and drum, are the
+instruments used by the Davenports in the cabinet. The one who plays the
+violin holds the bell in his hand with the bow. The other chap beats the
+tambourine on his knee, and has a hand for something else.</p>
+
+<p>The &#8220;mediums&#8221; frequently allow a person to remain with them, providing
+he will let his hands be tied to their knees, the operators having
+previously been tied by &#8220;the spirits.&#8221; The party who ventures upon that
+experiment is apt to be considerably &#8220;mussed up,&#8221; as &#8220;the spirits&#8221; are
+not very gentle in their manipulations.</p>
+
+<p>To expose all the tricks of these impostors would require more space
+than I can afford at present. They have exhibited throughout the
+Northern States and the Canadas; but never succeeded very well
+pecuniarily until about two years ago, when they employed an agent, who
+advertised them in such a way as to attract public<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> attention. In
+September last, they went to England, where they have since created
+considerable excitement.</p>
+
+<p>If the hands of these boys were tied close against the side of their
+cabinet, the ropes passing through holes and fastened on the outside, I
+think &#8220;the spirits&#8221; would always fail to work.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. W. F. Van Vleck, of Ohio, to whom I am indebted for some of the
+facts contained in this chapter, can beat the Davenport brothers at
+their own game. In order that he might the better learn the various
+methods pursued by the professed &#8220;mediums&#8221; in deceiving the public, Dr.
+Van Vleck entered into the medium-business himself, and by establishing
+confidential relations with those of the profession whose acquaintance
+he made, he became duly qualified to expose them.</p>
+
+<p>He was accepted and indorsed by leading spiritualists in different parts
+of the country, as a good medium, who performed the most remarkable
+spiritual wonders. As the worthy doctor practiced this innocent
+deception on the professed mediums solely in order that he might thus be
+able to expose their blasphemous impositions, the public will scarcely
+dispute that in this case the end justified the means. I suppose it is
+not possible for any professed medium to puzzle or deceive the doctor.
+He is up to all their &#8220;dodges,&#8221; because he has learned in their school.
+Mediums always insist upon certain conditions, and those conditions are
+just such as will best enable them to deceive the senses and pervert the
+judgment.</p>
+
+<p>Anderson &#8220;the Wizard of the North,&#8221; and other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> conjurers in England,
+gave the Davenports battle, but the &#8220;prestidigitators&#8221; did not reap many
+laurels. Conjurers are no more likely to understand the tricks of the
+mediums than any other person is. Before a trick can be exposed it must
+be learned. Dr. Van Vleck, having learned &#8220;the ropes,&#8221; is competent to
+expose them; and he is doing it in many interesting public lectures and
+illustrations.</p>
+
+<p>If the Davenports were exhibiting simply as jugglers, I might admire
+their dexterity, and have nothing to say against them; but when they
+presumptuously pretend to deal in &#8220;things spiritual,&#8221; I consider it my
+duty, while treating of humbugs, to do this much at least in exposing
+them.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE SPIRIT-RAPPING AND MEDIUM HUMBUGS.&mdash;&#8203;THEIR ORIGIN.&mdash;&#8203;HOW THE THING IS
+DONE.&mdash;&#8203;$500 REWARD.</p>
+
+
+<p>The &#8220;spirit-rapping&#8221; humbug was started in Hydesville, New York, about
+seventeen years ago, by several daughters of a Mr. Fox, living in that
+place. These girls discovered that certain exercises of their anatomy
+would produce mysterious sounds&mdash;mysterious to those who heard them,
+simply because the means of their production were not apparent. Reports
+of this wonder soon went abroad, and the Fox family were daily visited
+by people from different sections of the country&mdash;all having a greed for
+the marvelous. Not long after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> the strange sounds were first heard, some
+one suggested that they were, perhaps, produced by spirits; and a
+request was made for a certain number of raps, if that suggestion was
+correct. The specified number were immediately heard. A plan was then
+proposed by means of which communications might be received from &#8220;the
+spirits.&#8221; An investigator would repeat the alphabet, writing down
+whatever letters were designated by the &#8220;raps.&#8221; Sentences were thus
+formed&mdash;the orthography, however, being decidedly bad.</p>
+
+<p>What purported to be the spirit of a murdered peddler, gave an account
+of his &#8220;taking off.&#8221; He said that his body was buried beneath that very
+house, in a corner of the cellar; that he had been killed by a former
+occupant of the premises. A peddler really had disappeared, somewhat
+mysteriously, from that part of the country some time before; and ready
+credence was given the statements thus spelled out through the &#8220;raps.&#8221;
+Digging to the depth of eight feet in the cellar did not disclose any
+&#8220;dead corpus,&#8221; or even the remains of one. Soon after that, the missing
+peddler reappeared in Hydesville, still &#8220;clothed with mortality,&#8221; and
+having a new assortment of wares to sell.</p>
+
+<p>That the &#8220;raps&#8221; were produced by disembodied spirits many firmly
+believed. False communications were attributed to evil spirits. The
+answers to questions were as often wrong as right; and only right when
+the answer could be easily guessed, or inferred from the nature of the
+question itself.</p>
+
+<p>The Fox family moved to Rochester, New York, soon after the
+rapping-humbug was started; and it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> there that their first public
+effort was made. A committee was appointed to investigate the matter,
+most of whom reported adversely to the claims of the &#8220;mediums;&#8221; though
+all of them were puzzled to know how the thing was done. In Buffalo,
+where the Foxes subsequently let their spirits flow, a committee of
+doctors reported that these loosely-constructed girls produced the
+&#8220;raps&#8221; by snapping their toe and knee joints. That theory, though very
+much ridiculed by the spiritualists then and since, was correct, as
+further developments proved.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Culver, a relative of the Fox girls, made a solemn deposition
+before a magistrate, to the effect that one of the girls had instructed
+her how to produce the &#8220;raps,&#8221; on condition that she (Mrs. C.) should
+not communicate a knowledge of the matter to any one. Mrs. Culver was a
+good Christian woman, and she felt it her duty&mdash;as the deception had
+been carried so far&mdash;to expose the matter. She actually produced the
+&#8220;raps,&#8221; in presence of the magistrate, and explained the manner of
+making them.</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Von Vleck&mdash;to whom I referred in connection with my exposition of
+the Davenport imposture&mdash;produces very loud &#8220;raps&#8221; before his audiences,
+and so modulates them that they will seem to be at any desired point in
+his vicinity; yet not a movement of his body betrays the fact that the
+sounds are caused by him.</p>
+
+<p>The Fox family found that the rapping business would be made to pay; and
+so they continued it, with varying success, for a number of years,
+making New York city their place of residence and principal field of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+operation. I believe that none of them are now in the &#8220;spiritual line.&#8221;
+Margaret Fox, the youngest of the rappers, has for some time been a
+member of the Roman Catholic Church.</p>
+
+<p>From the very commencement of spiritualism, there has been a constantly
+increasing demand for &#8220;spiritual&#8221; wonders, to meet which numerous
+&#8220;mediums&#8221; have been &#8220;developed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Many, who otherwise would not be in the least distinguished, have become
+&#8220;mediums&#8221; in order to obtain notoriety, if nothing more.</p>
+
+<p>Communicating by &#8220;raps&#8221; was a slow process; so some of the mediums took
+to writing spasmodically; others talked in a &#8220;trance&#8221;&mdash;all under the
+influence of spirits!</p>
+
+<p>Mediumship has come to be a profession steadily pursued by quite a
+number of persons, who get their living by it.</p>
+
+<p>There are various classes of &#8220;mediums,&#8221; the operations of each class
+being confined to a particular department of &#8220;spiritual&#8221; humbuggery.</p>
+
+<p>Some call themselves &#8220;test mediums;&#8221; and, by insisting upon certain
+formulas, they succeed in astonishing, if they don&#8217;t convince most of
+them who visit them. It is by this class that the public is most likely
+to be deceived.</p>
+
+<p>There is a person by the name of J. V. Mansfield, who has been called by
+spiritualists the &#8220;Great Spirit Postmaster,&#8221; his specialty being the
+answering of sealed letters addressed to spirits. The letters are
+returned&mdash;some of them at least&mdash;to the writers without appear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>ing to
+have been opened, accompanied by answers purporting to be written
+through Mansfield by the spirits addressed. Such of these letters as are
+sealed with gum-arabic merely, can be steamed open, and the envelopes
+resealed and reglazed as they were before. If sealing-wax has been used,
+a sharp, thin blade will enable the medium to nicely cut off the seal by
+splitting the paper under it; and then, after a knowledge of the
+contents of the letter is arrived at, the seal can be replaced in its
+original position, and made fast with gum-arabic. Not more than one out
+of a hundred would be likely to observe that the seal had ever been
+tampered with. The investigator opens the envelope, when returned to
+him, at the end, preserving the sealed part intact, in order to show his
+friends that the letter was answered without being opened!</p>
+
+<p>Another method of the medium is, to slit open the envelope at the end
+with a sharp knife, and afterward stick it together again with gum,
+rubbing the edge slightly as soon as the gum is dry. If the job is
+nicely done, a close observer would hardly perceive it.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Mansfield does not engage to answer all letters; those unanswered
+being too securely sealed for him to open without detection. To secure
+the services of the &#8220;Great Spirit-Postmaster,&#8221; a fee of five dollars
+must accompany your letter to the spirits; and the money is retained
+whether an answer is returned or not.</p>
+
+<p>Rather high postage that!</p>
+
+<p>Several years since, a gentleman living in Buffalo, N. Y., addressed
+some questions to one of his spirit-friends, and inclosed them, together
+with a single hair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> and a grain of sand, in an envelope, which he sealed
+so closely that no part of the contents could escape while being
+transmitted by mail. The questions were sent to Mr. Mansfield and
+answers requested through his &#8220;mediumship.&#8221; The envelope containing the
+questions was soon returned, with answers to the letter. The former did
+not appear to have been opened. Spreading a large sheet of blank paper
+on a table before him, the gentleman opened the envelope and placed its
+contents on the table. The hair and grain of sand were not there.</p>
+
+<p>Time and again has Mansfield been convicted of imposture, yet he still
+prosecutes his nefarious business.</p>
+
+<p>The &#8220;Spirit-Postmaster&#8221; fails to get answers to such questions as these:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where did you die?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;When?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who attended you in your last illness?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What were your last words?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How many were present at your death?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But if the questions are of such a nature as the following, answers are
+generally obtained:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you happy?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you often near me?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And can you influence me?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Have you changed your religious notions since entering the
+spirit-world?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It is to be observed that the questions which the &#8220;Spirit-Postmaster&#8221;
+can answer <i>require no knowledge of facts about the applicant</i>, while
+those which he cannot answer, do require it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>Address, for instance, your spirit-father without mentioning his name,
+and the name will not be given in connection with the reply purporting
+to come from him&mdash;unless the medium knows your family.</p>
+
+<p>I will write a series of questions addressed to one of my
+spirit-friends, inclose them in an envelope, and if Mr. Mansfield or any
+other professed medium will answer those questions pertinently in my
+presence, and without touching the envelope, I will give to such party
+five hundred dollars, and think I have got the worth of my money.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE &#8220;BALLOT-TEST.&#8221;&mdash;&#8203;THE OLD GENTLEMAN AND HIS &#8220;DISEASED&#8221; RELATIVES.&mdash;&#8203;A
+&#8220;HUNGRY SPIRIT.&#8221;&mdash;&#8203;&#8220;PALMING&#8221; A BALLOT.&mdash;&#8203;REVELATIONS ON STRIPS OF PAPER.</p>
+
+
+<p>An aptitude for deception is all the capital that a person requires in
+order to become a &#8220;spirit-medium;&#8221; or, at least, to gain the reputation
+of being one. Backing up the pretence to mediumship with a show of
+something mysterious, is all-sufficient to enlist attention, and insure
+the making of converts.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most noted of the mediumistic fraternity&mdash;whose name I do not
+choose to give at present&mdash;steadily pursued his business, for several
+years, in a room in Broadway, in this city, and succeeded not only in
+humbugging a good many people, but in what was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> more important to
+him&mdash;acquiring quite an amount of money. His mode of operating was &#8220;the
+ballot-test,&#8221; and was as follows:</p>
+
+<p>Medium and investigator being seated opposite each other at a table, the
+latter was handed several slips of blank paper, with the request that he
+write the first (or Christian) names&mdash;one on each paper&mdash;of several of
+his deceased relatives, which being done, he was desired to touch the
+folded papers, one after the other, till one should be designated, by
+three tips of the table, as containing the name of the spirit who would
+communicate. The selected paper was laid aside, and the others thrown
+upon the floor, the investigator being further requested to write on as
+many different pieces of paper as contained the names, and the relation
+(to himself) of the spirits bearing them. Supposing the names written
+were Mary, Joseph, and Samuel, being, respectively, the investigator&#8217;s
+mother, father, and brother. The last-named class would be secondly
+written, and one of them designated by three tips of the table, as in
+the first instance. The respective ages of the deceased parties, at the
+time of their decease, would also be written, and one of them selected.
+The first &#8220;test&#8221; consisted in having the selected name, relationship,
+and age correspond&mdash;that is, refer to the same party; to ascertain which
+the investigator was desired to look at them, and state if it was the
+case. If the correspondence was affirmed, a communication was soon
+given, with the selected name, relationship, and age appended.
+Questions, written in the presence of the medium, were answered
+relevantly, if not perti<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>nently. Investigators generally did their part
+of the writing in a guarded manner, interposing their left hand between
+the paper on which they wrote and the medium&#8217;s eyes; and they were very
+much astonished when they received a communication, couched in
+affectionate terms, with the names of their spirit-friends attached.</p>
+
+<p>By long practice, the medium was enabled to determine what the
+investigator wrote, by the motion of his hand in writing. Nine out of
+ten wrote the relationship first that corresponded with the first name
+they had written. Therefore, if the medium selected the first that was
+written of each class, they in most cases referred to the same spirit.
+He waited till the investigator had affirmed the coincidence, before
+proceeding; for he did not like to write a communication, appending to
+it, for instance, &#8220;Your Uncle John,&#8221; when it ought to be &#8220;Your Father
+John.&#8221; The reason he did not desire inquirers to write the surnames of
+their spirit-friends, was this: almost all Christian names are common,
+and he was familiar with the motions which the hand must make in writing
+them; but there are comparatively few people who have the same surnames,
+and to determine them would have been more difficult. No fact was
+communicated that had not been surreptitiously gleaned from the
+investigator.</p>
+
+<p>An old gentleman, apparently from the country, one day entered the room
+of this medium and expressed a desire for a &#8220;sperit communication.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He was told to take a seat at the table, and to write the names of his
+deceased relatives. The medium, like many others, incorrectly pronounced
+the term &#8220;de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>ceased,&#8221; the same as &#8220;diseased&#8221;&mdash;sounding the s like z.</p>
+
+<p>The old gentleman carefully adjusted his &#8220;specs&#8221; and did what was
+required of him. A name and relationship having been selected from those
+written, the investigator was desired to examine and state if they
+referred to one party.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wal, I declare they do!&#8221; said he. &#8220;But I say Mister, what has them
+papers to do with a sperit communication?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You will see, directly,&#8221; replied the medium.</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon the latter spasmodically wrote a &#8220;communication,&#8221; which read
+somewhat as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;<span class="smcap">My Dear Husband:</span>&mdash;I am very glad to be able to address you through
+this channel. Keep on investigating, and you will soon be convinced
+of the great fact of spirit-intercourse. I am happy in my
+spirit-home; patiently awaiting the time when you will join me
+here, etc. Your loving wife, <span class="smcap">Betsey</span>.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good gracious! But my old woman can&#8217;t be dead,&#8221; said the investigator,
+&#8220;for I left her tu hum!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not dead!&#8221; exclaimed the medium. &#8220;Did I not tell you to write the names
+of deceazed relatives?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Diseased!&#8221; returned the old man; &#8220;Wal, she ain&#8217;t anything else, for
+she&#8217;s had the rumatiz orfully for six months!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Saying which, he took his hat and left, concluding that it was not worth
+while to &#8220;keep on investigating&#8221; any longer at that time.</p>
+
+<p>This same medium, not long since, visited Great <a name="corr27" id="corr27"></a>Britain for the purpose
+of practicing his profession there.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>In one of the cities of Scotland, some shrewd investigator divined that
+he was able to nearly guess from the motion of the hand what questions
+were written.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you happy?&#8221; being a question commonly asked the &#8220;spirits,&#8221; one of
+these gentlemen varied it by asking:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you hungry?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The reply was, an emphatic affirmative.</p>
+
+<p>They tricked the trickster in other ways; one of which was to write the
+names of mortals instead of spirits. It made no difference, however, as
+to getting a &#8220;communication.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>To tip the table without apparent muscular exertion, this impostor
+placed his hands on it in such a way that the &#8220;pisiform bone&#8221; (which may
+be felt projecting at the lower corner of the palm, opposite the thumb)
+pressed against the edge. By pushing, the table tipped from him, it
+being prevented from sliding by little spikes in the legs of the side
+opposite the operator.</p>
+
+<p>There are other &#8220;ballot-test mediums,&#8221; as they are called, who have a
+somewhat different method of cheating. They, too, require investigators
+to write the names&mdash;in full, however&mdash;of their spirit-friends; the slips
+of paper containing the names, to be folded and placed on a table. The
+medium then seizes one of the &#8220;ballots,&#8221; and asks:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is the spirit present whose name is on this?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Dropping that and taking another:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;On this?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>So he handles all the papers without getting a response. During this
+time, however, he has <a name="corr28" id="corr28"></a>dexterously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> &#8220;palmed&#8221; one of the ballots,
+which&mdash;while telling the investigator to be patient, as the spirits
+would doubtless soon come&mdash;he opens with his left hand, on his knee,
+under the edge of the table.</p>
+
+<p>A mere glance enables him to read the name. Refolding the paper, and
+retaining it in his hand, he remarks:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will touch the ballots again, and perhaps one of them will be
+designated this time.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Dropping among the rest the one he had &#8220;palmed,&#8221; he soon picks it up
+again, whereat three loud &#8220;raps&#8221; are heard.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That paper,&#8221; says he to the investigator, &#8220;probably contains the name
+of the spirit who rapped; please hold it in your hand.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then seizing a pencil, he writes a name, which the investigator finds to
+be the one contained in the selected paper.</p>
+
+<p>If the ballots are few in number, a blank is put with the pile, when the
+medium &#8220;palms&#8221; one, else the latter might be missed.</p>
+
+<p>It seems the spirits can never give their names without being reminded
+of them by the investigator, and then they are so doubtful of their own
+identity that they have but little to say for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>One medium to whom I have already alluded, after a sojourn of several
+years in California&mdash;whither he went from Boston, seeking whom he might
+humbug&mdash;has now returned to the East, and is operating in this city.
+Besides answering sealed letters, he furnishes written &#8220;communications&#8221;
+to parties visiting him at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> his rooms&mdash;a &#8220;sitting,&#8221; however, being
+granted to but one person at a time. His terms are only five dollars an
+hour.</p>
+
+<p>Seated at a table in a part of the room where is the most light, he
+hands the investigator a strip of blank, white paper, rather thin and
+light of texture, about a yard long and six inches wide, requesting him
+to write across one end of it a single question, addressed to a
+spirit-friend, then to sign his own name, and fold the paper once or
+twice over what he has written. For instance:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;<span class="smcap">Brother Samuel:</span>&mdash;Will you communicate with me through this medium?
+<span class="smcap">William Franklin.</span>&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>To learn what has been written, the medium lays the paper down on the
+table, and repeatedly rubs the fingers of his right hand over the folds
+made by the inquirer. If that does not render the writing visible
+through the one thickness of paper that covers it, he slightly raises
+the edge of the folds with his left hand while he continues to rub with
+his right; and that admits of the light shining through, so that the
+writing can be read. The other party is so situated that the writing is
+not visible to him through the paper, and he is not likely to presume
+that it is visible to the medium; the latter having assigned as a reason
+for his manipulations that spirits were able to read the questions only
+by means of the odylic, magnetic, or some other emanation from the ends
+of his fingers!</p>
+
+<p>Having learned the question, of course the medium can reply to it,
+giving the name of the spirit addressed;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> but before doing so, he
+doubles the two folds made by the inquirer, and, for a show of
+consistency, again rubs his fingers over the paper. Then more folds and
+more rubbing&mdash;all the folding, additional to the inquirer&#8217;s, being done
+to keep the latter from observing, when he comes to read the answer,
+that it was possible for the medium to read the question through the two
+folds of paper. The answer is written upon the same strip of paper that
+accompanies the question.</p>
+
+<p>The medium requires the investigator to write his questions each on a
+different strip of paper; and before answering, he every time
+manipulates the paper in the way I have described. When rubbing his
+fingers over the question, he often shuts the eye which is toward the
+inquirer&mdash;which prevents suspicion; but the other eye is open wide
+enough to enable him to read the question through the paper.</p>
+
+<p>Should a person write a test-question, the medium could not answer it
+correctly even if he did see it. In his &#8220;communications&#8221; he uses many
+terms of endearment, and if possible flatters the recipient out of his
+common-sense, and into the belief that &#8220;after all there may be something
+in it!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Should the inquirer &#8220;smell a rat,&#8221; and take measures to prevent the
+medium from learning, in the way I have stated, what question is
+written, he (the medium) gets nervous and discontinues the &#8220;sitting,&#8221;
+alleging that conditions are unfavorable for spirit-communication.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">SPIRITUAL &#8220;LETTERS ON THE ARM.&#8221;&mdash;&#8203;HOW TO MAKE THEM YOURSELF.&mdash;&#8203;THE
+TAMBOURINE AND RING FEATS.&mdash;&#8203;DEXTER&#8217;S DANCING HATS.&mdash;&#8203;PHOSPHORESCENT
+OIL.&mdash;&#8203;SOME SPIRITUAL SLANG.</p>
+
+
+<p>The mediums produce &#8220;blood-red letters on the arm&#8221; in a very simple way.
+It is done with a pencil, or some blunt-pointed instrument, it being
+necessary to bear on hard while the movement of writing is being
+executed. The pressure, though not sufficient to abrade the skin, forces
+the blood from the capillary vessels over which the pencil passes, and
+where, when the reaction takes place, an unusual quantity of blood
+gathers and becomes plainly visible through the cuticle. Gradually, as
+an equilibrium of the circulation is restored, the letters pass away.</p>
+
+<p>This &#8220;manipulation&#8221; is generally produced by the medium in connection
+with the ballot-test. Having learned the name of an investigator&#8217;s
+spirit-friend, in the manner stated in a previous article, the
+investigator is set to writing some other names. While he is thus
+occupied, the medium quickly slips up his sleeve under the table, and
+writes on his arm the name he has learned.</p>
+
+<p>Try the experiment yourself, reader. Hold out your left arm; clench the
+fist so as to harden the muscle a little, and write your name on the
+skin with a blunt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> pencil or any similar point, in letters say
+three-quarters of an inch long, pressing firmly enough to feel a little
+pain. Rub the place briskly a dozen times; this brings out the letters
+quickly, in tolerably-distinct red lines.</p>
+
+<p>On thick, tough skins it is difficult to produce letters in this way.
+They might also be outlined more deeply by sharply pricking in dots
+along the lines of the desired letters.</p>
+
+<p>Among others who seek to gain money and notoriety by the exercise of
+their talents for &#8220;spiritual&#8221; humbuggery, is a certain woman, whom I
+will not further designate, but whose name is at the service of any
+proper person, and who exhibited not long since in Brooklyn and New
+York. This woman is accompanied by her husband, who is a confederate in
+the playing of her &#8220;little game.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She seats herself at a table, which has been placed against the wall of
+the room. The audience is so seated as to form a semicircle, at one end
+of which, and near enough to the medium to be able to shake hands with
+her, or nearly so, sits her husband, with perhaps an accommodating
+spiritualist next to him. Then the medium, in an assumed voice, engages
+in a miscellaneous talk, ending with a request that some one sit by her
+and hold her hand.</p>
+
+<p>A skeptic is permitted to do that. When thus placed, skeptic is directly
+between the medium and her husband, and with his back to the latter. The
+husband plays spirit, and with his right hand&mdash;which is free, the other
+only being held by the accommodating spiritualist&mdash;pats the investigator
+on the head, thumps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> him with a guitar and other instruments, and may be
+pulls his hair.</p>
+
+<p>The medium assumes all this to be done by a spirit, because her hands
+are held and she could not do it! Profound reasoning! If any one
+suggests that the husband had better sit somewhere else, the medium will
+not hear to it&mdash;&#8220;he is a part of the battery,&#8221; and the necessary
+conditions must not be interfered with. Sure enough! Accommodating
+spiritualist also says he holds husband fast.</p>
+
+<p>A tambourine-frame, without the head, and an iron ring, large enough to
+pass over one&#8217;s arm, are exhibited to the audience. Medium says the
+spirits have such power over matter as to be able to put one or both
+those things on to her arm while some one holds her hands.</p>
+
+<p>The party who is privileged to hold her hands on such occasion, has to
+grope his way to her in the dark. Having reached her, she seizes his
+hands, and passes one of them down her neck and along her arm, saying:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now you know there is no ring already there!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Soon after he feels the tambourine-frame or ring slide over his hand and
+on to his arm. A light is produced in order that he may see it is there.</p>
+
+<p>When he took her hands he felt the frame or ring&mdash;or at any rate, a
+frame or ring&mdash;under his elbow on the table, from which place it was
+pulled by some power just before it went on to his arm. Such is his
+report to the audience. But in fact, the medium has two frames, or else
+a tambourine, and a tambourine-frame. She allows the investigator to
+feel one of these.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>She has, however, previous to his taking her hands, put one arm and head
+through the frame she uses; so that of course he does not feel it when
+she passes his hand down one side of her neck and over one of her arms,
+as it is under that arm. Her husband pulls the tambourine from under the
+investigator&#8217;s elbow; then the medium gets her head back through the
+frame, leaving it on her arm, or sliding it on to his, and the work is
+done!</p>
+
+<p>She has also two iron rings. One of them she puts over her arm and the
+point of her shoulder, where it snugly remains, covered with a cape
+which she persists in wearing on these occasions, till the investigator
+takes her hands (in the dark) and feels the other ring under his elbows;
+then the husband disposes of the ring on the table, and the medium works
+the other one down on to her arm. The audience saw but one ring, and the
+person sitting with the medium thought he had that under his elbow till
+it was pulled away and put on the arm!</p>
+
+<p>Some years ago, a man by the name of Dexter, who kept an oyster and
+liquor saloon on Bleecker street, devised a somewhat novel exhibition
+for the purpose of attracting custom. A number of hats, placed on the
+floor of his saloon, danced (or bobbed up and down) in time to music.
+His place was visited by a number of the leading spiritualists of New
+York, several of whom were heard to express a belief that the hats were
+moved by spirits! Dexter, however, did not claim to be a medium, though
+he talked vaguely of &#8220;the power of electricity,&#8221; when questioned with
+regard to his ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>hibition. Besides making the hats dance, he would
+(apparently) cause a violin placed in a box on the floor to sound, by
+waving his hands over it.</p>
+
+<p>The hats were moved by a somewhat complicated arrangement of wires,
+worked by a confederate, out of sight. These wires were attached to
+levers, and finally came up through the floor, through small holes
+hidden from observation by the sawdust strewn there, as is common in
+such places.</p>
+
+<p>The violin in the box did not sound at all. It was another violin, under
+the floor, that was heard. It is not easy for a person to exactly locate
+a sound when the cause is not apparent. In short, Mr. Dexter&#8217;s
+operations may be described as only consisting of a little well-managed
+Dexterity!</p>
+
+<p>A young man &#8220;out West,&#8221; claiming to be influenced by spirits, astonished
+people by reading names, telling time by watches, etc., in a dark room.
+He sat at a centre-table, which was covered with a cloth, in the middle
+of the room. Investigators sat next the walls. The name of a spirit, for
+instance, would be written and laid on a table, when in a short time he
+pronounced it. To tell the time by a watch, he required it to be placed
+on the table, or in his hand. With the tablecloth over his head, a
+bottle of phosphorated oil enabled him to see, when not the least
+glimmer of light was visible to others in the room.</p>
+
+<p>If any of the &#8220;spiritualist&#8221; philosophers were to be asked what is the
+philosophy of these proceedings, he would probably reply with a mess of
+balderdash pretty much like the following:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>&#8220;There is an infinitesimal influence of sympathy between mind and
+matter, which permeates all beings, and pervades all the delicate niches
+and interstices of human intelligence. This sympathetic influence
+working upon the affined intelligence of an affinity, coagulates itself
+into a corporiety, approximating closely to the adumbration of mortality
+in its highest admensuration, at last accuminating in an accumination.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>On these great philosophic principles it will not be difficult to
+comprehend the following actual quotation from the Spiritual Telegraph:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In the twelfth hour, the holy procedure shall crown the Triune Creator
+with the most perfect disclosive illumination. Then shall the creation
+in the effulgence above the divine seraphemal, arise into the dome of
+the disclosure in one comprehensive revolving galaxy of supreme created
+beatitudes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>That those not surcharged with the divine afflatus may be able to get at
+the meaning of the above paragraph, it is translated thus:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then shall all the blockheads in the nincompoopdome of disclosive
+procedure above the all-fired leather-fungus of Peter Nephninnygo, the
+gooseberry grinder, rise into the dome of the disclosure until coequaled
+and coexistensive and conglomerate lumuxes in one comprehensive mux
+shall assimilate into nothing, and revolve like a bob-tailed pussy cat
+after the space where the tail was.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>What power there is in spiritualism!</p>
+
+<p>I shall be glad to receive, for publication, authentic information, from
+all parts of the world in regard to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> the doings of pretended
+spiritualists, especially those who perform for money. It is high time
+that the credulous portion of our community should be saved from the
+deceptions, delusions, and swindles of these blasphemous mountebanks and
+impostors.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">DEMONSTRATIONS BY &#8220;SAMPSON&#8221; UNDER A TABLE.&mdash;&#8203;A MEDIUM WHO IS HANDY WITH
+HER FEET.&mdash;&#8203;EXPOS&Eacute; OF ANOTHER OPERATOR IN DARK CIRCLES.</p>
+
+
+<p>Considerable excitement has been created in various parts of the West by
+a young woman, whose name need not here be given, who pretends to be a
+&#8220;medium for physical manifestations.&#8221; She is rather tall and quite
+muscular, her general manner and expression indicating innocence and
+simplicity.</p>
+
+<p>The &#8220;manifestations&#8221; exhibited by her purport to be produced by Samson,
+the Hebrew champion and anti-philistine.</p>
+
+<p>In preparing for her exhibition, she has a table placed sideways against
+the wall of the room, and covered with a thick blanket that reaches to
+the floor. A large tin dishpan, with handles (or ears,) a German
+accordeon, and a tea-bell are placed under the table, at the end of
+which she seats herself in such a way that her body is against the top,
+and her lower limbs underneath, her skirts being so adjusted as to fill
+the space between the end legs of the table, and at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> same time allow
+free play for her pedal extremities. The blanket, at the end where she
+sits, comes to her waist and hangs down to the floor on each side of her
+chair. The space under the table is thus made dark&mdash;a necessary
+condition, it is claimed&mdash;and all therein concealed from view. The
+&#8220;medium&#8221; then folds her arms, looks careless, and the &#8220;manifestations&#8221;
+commence. The accordeon is sounded, no music being executed upon it, and
+the bell rung at the same time. Then the dishpan receives such treatment
+that it makes a terrible noise. Some one is requested to go to the end
+of the table opposite the &#8220;medium,&#8221; put his hand under the blanket, take
+hold of the dishpan, and pull. He does so, and finds that some power is
+opposing him, holding the dishpan to one place. Not being rude, he
+forbears to jerk with all his force, but retires to his seat. The table
+rises several inches and comes down &#8220;kerslap,&#8221; then it tips forward a
+number of times; then one end jumps up and down in time to music, if
+there is any one present to play; loud raps are heard upon it, and the
+hypothetical Samson has quite a lively time generally. Some of the
+mortals present, one at a time, put their fingers, by request, against
+the blankets, through which those members are gingerly squeezed by what
+might be a hand, if there was one under the table. A person being told
+to take hold of the top of the table at the ends, he does so, and finds
+it so heavy that he can barely lift it. Setting it down, he is told to
+raise it again several inches; and at the second lifting it is no
+heavier than one would naturally judge such a piece of furniture to be.
+Another person is asked to lift the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> end furthest from the medium;
+having done so, it suddenly becomes quite weighty, and, relaxing his
+hold, it comes down with much force upon the floor. Thus, by the
+power&mdash;exercised beneath the table&mdash;of an assumed spirit, that piece of
+cabinet-ware becomes heavy or light, and is moved in various ways, the
+medium not appearing to do it.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to her other &#8220;fixins,&#8221; this medium has a spirit-dial, so
+called, on which are letters of the alphabet, the numerals, and such
+words as &#8220;Yes,&#8221; &#8220;No,&#8221; and &#8220;Don&#8217;t know.&#8221; The whole thing is so arranged
+that the pulling of a string makes an index hand go the circuit of the
+dial-face, and it can be made to stop at any of the characters or words
+thereon. This &#8220;spirit-dial&#8221; is placed on the table, near the end
+furthest from the medium, the string passing through a hole and hanging
+beneath. In the end of the string there is a knot. While the medium
+remains in the same position in which she sat when the other
+&#8220;manifestations&#8221; were produced, communications are spelled out through
+the dial, the index being moved by some power under the table that pulls
+the string. A coil-spring makes the index fly back to the
+starting-point, when the power is relaxed at each indication of a
+character or word. The orthography of these &#8220;spirits&#8221; is &#8220;bad if not
+worse.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Now for an explanation of the various &#8220;manifestations&#8221; that I have
+enumerated.</p>
+
+<p>The medium is simply handy with her feet. To sound the accordeon and
+ring the bell at the same time, she has to take off one of her shoes or
+slippers, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> latter being generally worn by her on these occasions.
+That done, she gets the handle of the tea-bell between the toes of her
+right foot, through a hole in the stocking, then putting the heel of the
+same foot on the keys of the accordeon, and the other foot into the
+strap on the bellows part of that instrument, she easily sounds it, the
+motion necessary to do this also causing the bell to ring. She can
+readily pass her heels over the keys to produce different notes. She is
+thus able to make sounds on the accordeon that approximate to the very
+simple tune of &#8220;Bounding Billows,&#8221; and that is the extent of her musical
+ability when only using her &#8220;pedals.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>To get a congress-gaiter off the foot without using the hands is quite
+easy; but how to get one on again, those members not being employed to
+do it, would puzzle most people. It is not difficult to do, however, if
+a cord has been attached to the strap of the gaiter and tied to the leg
+above the calf. The cord should be slack, and that will admit of the
+gaiter coming off. To get it on, the toe has to be worked into the top
+of it, and then pulling on the cord with the toe of the other foot will
+accomplish the rest.</p>
+
+<p>The racket with the dishpan is made by putting the toe of the foot into
+one of the handles or ears, and beating the pan about. By keeping the
+toe in this handle and putting the other foot into the pan, the operator
+can &#8220;stand a pull&#8221; from an investigator, who reaches under the blanket
+and takes hold of the other handle.</p>
+
+<p>To raise the table, the &#8220;medium&#8221; puts her knees<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> under and against the
+frame of it, then lifts her heels, pressing the toes against the floor,
+at the same time bearing with her arms on the end. To make the table tip
+forward, one knee only is pressed against the frame at the back side.
+The raps are made with the toe of the medium&#8217;s shoe against the leg,
+frame, or top of the table.</p>
+
+<p>What feels like a hand pressing the investigator&#8217;s fingers when he puts
+them against the blanket, is nothing more than the medium&#8217;s feet, the
+big toe of one foot doing duty for a thumb, and all the toes of the
+other foot being used to imitate fingers. The pressure of these, through
+a thick blanket, cannot well be distinguished from that of a hand. When
+this experiment is to be made, the medium wears slippers that she can
+readily get off her feet.</p>
+
+<p>To make the table heavy, the operator presses her knees outwardly
+against the legs of the table, and then presses down in opposition to
+the party who is lifting, or she presses her knees against that surface
+of the legs of the table that is toward her, while her feet are hooked
+around the lower part of the legs; that gives her a leverage, by means
+of which she can make the whole table or the end furthest from her seem
+quite heavy, and if the person lifting it suddenly relaxes his hold, it
+will come down with a forcible bang to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>To work the &#8220;spirit-dial,&#8221; the medium has only to press the string with
+the toe of her foot against the top of the table, and slide it (the
+string) along till the index points at the letter or word she wishes to
+indicate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> The frame of the dial is beveled, the face declining toward
+the medium, so that she has no difficulty in observing where the index
+points.</p>
+
+<p>After concluding her performances under the table, this medium sometimes
+moves her chair about two feet back and sits with her side toward the
+end of the table, with one leg of which, however, the skirt of her dress
+comes in contact. Under cover of the skirt she then hooks her foot
+around the leg of the table and draws it toward her. This is done
+without apparent muscular exertion, while she is engaged in
+conversation; and parties present are humbugged into the belief that the
+table was moved without &#8220;mortal contact&#8221;&mdash;so they report to outsiders.</p>
+
+<p>This medium has a &#8220;manager,&#8221; and he does his best in managing the
+matter, to prevent &#8220;Samson being caught&#8221; in the act of cheating. The
+medium, too, is vigilant, notwithstanding her appearance of carelessness
+and innocent simplicity. A sudden rising of the blanket once exposed to
+view her pedal extremities in active operation.</p>
+
+<p>Another of the &#8220;Dark Circle&#8221; mediums gets a good deal of sympathy on
+account of her &#8220;delicate health.&#8221; Her health is not so delicate,
+however, as to prevent her from laboring hard to humbug people with
+&#8220;physical demonstrations.&#8221; She operates only in private, in presence of
+a limited number of people.</p>
+
+<p>A circle being formed, the hands of all the members are joined except at
+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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Several years ago, at one of the circles of this medium, in St. John&#8217;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 &#8220;spirits.&#8221; She has also
+been exposed as an impostor in other places.</p>
+
+<p>As I have said before, the mediums always insist on having such
+&#8220;conditions&#8221; as will best enable them to deceive the senses and mislead
+the judgment.</p>
+
+<p>If there were a few more &#8220;detectives&#8221; like Doctor Von Vleck, the whole
+mediumistic fraternity would soon &#8220;come to grief.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">SPIRITUAL PHOTOGRAPHING.&mdash;&#8203;COLORADO JEWETT AND THE SPIRIT-PHOTOGRAPHS OF
+GENERAL JACKSON, HENRY CLAY, DANIEL WEBSTER, STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS,
+NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, ETC.&mdash;&#8203;A LADY OF DISTINCTION SEEKS AND FINDS A
+SPIRITUAL PHOTOGRAPH OF HER DECEASED INFANT, AND HER DEAD BROTHER WHO
+WAS YET ALIVE.&mdash;&#8203;HOW IT WAS DONE.</p>
+
+
+<p>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 &#8220;Ancient and Modern Humbugs of the World,&#8221; I am determined so far as
+in me lies, to publish nothing but the truth. This I shall do, &#8220;with
+good motives and for justifiable ends,&#8221; 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.</p>
+
+<p>Some correspondents ask me if I believe that all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span><a name="corr29" id="corr29"></a>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&mdash;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&mdash;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
+&#8220;wonderful manifestations&#8221; 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&mdash;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 mean
+time, I think I can reasonably account for and explain all pretended
+spiritual gymnastic performances&mdash;throwings of hair-brushes&mdash;dancing
+pianos&mdash;spirit-rapping&mdash;table-tipping&mdash;playing of musical instruments,
+and flying through the air (in the dark,) and a thousand other
+&#8220;wonderful manifestations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>&#8221; which, like most of the performances of
+modern &#8220;magicians,&#8221; are &#8220;passing strange&#8221; until explained, and then they
+are as flat as dish-water. Dr. Von Vleck publicly produces all of these
+pretended &#8220;manifestations&#8221; in open daylight, without claiming spiritual
+aid.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Some time before the <a name="corr30" id="corr30"></a>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 &#8220;picturing the human
+form divine,&#8221; 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-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>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:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;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 had locked myself in my gallery, and no other
+person was in the room. It appeared instantly, as you see it there; and
+I have long wished to obtain the opinion of some man, like yourself, who
+has investigated these mysteries.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The spiritualist listened attentively, looked upon the picture, heard
+other explanations, examined other pictures, and sagely gave it as his
+opinion that the inhabitants of the unknown sphere had taken this mode
+of re-appearing to the view of mortal eyes, that this operator must be a
+&#8220;medium&#8221; of especial power. The New York Herald of Progress, a
+spiritualist paper, printed the first article upon this man&#8217;s spiritual
+photograph.</p>
+
+<p>The acquaintance thus begun was continued, and the photographer found it
+very profitable to oblige his spiritual friend, by the reproduction of
+ghost-like pictures, ad infinitum, at the rate of five dollars each.
+Mothers came to the room of the artist, and gratefully retired with
+ghostly representations of departed little ones. Widows came to purchase
+the shades of their departed husbands. Husbands visited the photographer
+and procured the spectral pictures of their dead wives. Parents wanted
+the phantom-portraits of their deceased child<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>ren. Friends wished to
+look upon what they believed to be the lineaments of those who had long
+since gone to the spirit-land. All who sought to look on those pictures
+were satisfied with what had been shown them, and, by conversation on
+the subject, increased the number of visitors. In short, every person
+who heard about this mystery determined to verify the wonderful tales
+related, by looking upon the ghostly lineaments of some person, who,
+they believed, inhabited another sphere. And here I may as well mention
+that one of the faithful obtained a &#8220;spirit&#8221; picture of a deceased
+brother who had been dead more than five years, and said that he
+recognized also the very pattern of his cravat as the same that he wore
+in life. Can human credulity go further than to suppose that the
+departed still appear in the old clo&#8217; of their earthly wardrobe? and the
+fact that the appearance of &#8220;the shade&#8221; of a young lady in one of the
+fashionable cut Zouave jackets of the hour did not disturb the faith of
+the believers, fills us indeed with wonder.</p>
+
+<p>The fame of the photographer spread throughout the &#8220;spiritual circles,&#8221;
+and pilgrims to this spiritual Mecca came from remote parts of the land,
+and before many months, caused no little excitement among some persons,
+inclined to believe that the demonstrations were entirely produced by
+human agency.</p>
+
+<p>The demand for &#8220;spirit&#8221; pictures consequently increased, until the
+operator was forced to raise his price to ten dollars, whenever
+successful in obtaining a true &#8220;spirit-picture,&#8221; or to be overwhelmed
+with business that now interfered with his regular labors.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>About this time the famous &#8220;Peace Conference&#8221; had been concluded by the
+issue of Mr. Lincoln&#8217;s celebrated letter, &#8220;To whom it may concern,&#8221; and
+William Cornell Jewett (with his head full of projects for restoring
+peace to a suffering country) heard about the mysterious photographer,
+and visited the operator.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Sir,&#8221; said he, &#8220;I must consult with the spirits of distinguished
+statesmen. We need their counsel. This cruel war must stop. Brethren
+slaying brethren, it is horrible, Sir. Can you show me John Adams? Can
+you show me Daniel Webster? Let me look upon the features of Andrew
+Jackson. I must see that noble, glorious, wise old statesman, Henry
+Clay, whom I knew. Could you reproduce Stephen A. Douglas, with whom to
+counsel at this crisis in our national affairs! I should like to meet
+the great Napoleon. Such, here obtained, would increase my influence in
+the political work that I have in hand.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In his own nervous, impetuous, excited way, Colorado Jewett continued to
+urge upon the photographer the great importance of receiving such
+communications, or some evidence that the spirits of our deceased
+statesmen were watching over and counseling those who desire to re-unite
+the two opposing forces, fighting against each other on the soil of a
+common country.</p>
+
+<p>With much caution, the photographer answered the questions presented.
+Arranging the camera, he produced some indistinct figures, and then
+concluded that the &#8220;conditions&#8221; were not sufficiently favorable to
+attempt anything more before the next day. On the following morning,
+Jewett appeared&mdash;nervous, garru<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>lous, and excited at the prospect of
+being in the presence of those great men, whose spirits he desired to
+invoke. The apparatus was prepared; utter silence imposed, and for some
+time the heart of the peace-seeker could almost be heard thumping within
+the breast of him who sought supernatural aid, in his efforts to end our
+cruel civil war. Then, overcome by his own thoughts, Jewett disturbed
+the &#8220;conditions&#8221; by changing his position, and muttering short
+invocations, <a name="corr31" id="corr31"></a>addressed to the shades of those he wished to behold. The
+operator finally declared he could not proceed, and postponed his
+performance for that day. So, excuses were made, until the mental
+condition of Mr. Jewett had reached that state which permitted the
+photographer to expect the most complete <a name="corr32" id="corr32"></a>success. Everything being
+prepared, Jewett breathlessly awaited the expected presence. Quietly the
+operator produced the spectral representation of the elder Adams. Jewett
+scrutinized the plate, and expressed a silent wonder, accompanied, no
+doubt, with some mental appeals addressed to the ancient statesman.
+Then, writing the name of Webster upon a slip of paper, he passed it
+over to the photographer, who gravely placed the scrap of writing upon
+the camera, and presently drew therefrom the &#8220;ghost-like&#8221; but well
+remembered features of the &#8220;Sage of Marshfield.&#8221; Colorado Jewett was now
+thoroughly impressed with the spiritual power producing these images;
+and in <a name="corr33" id="corr33"></a>ecstasy breathed a prayer that Andrew Jackson might appear to
+lend his countenance to the conference he wished to hold with the mighty
+dead. Jackson&#8217;s well known features came out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> upon call, after due
+manipulation of the proper instrument. &#8220;Glorious trio of departed
+statesmen!&#8221; thought Jewett, &#8220;help us by your counsels in this the day of
+our nation&#8217;s great distress.&#8221; Next Henry Clay&#8217;s outline was faintly
+shown from the tomb, and here the sitter remarked that he expected him.
+After him came Stephen A. Douglas, and the whole affair was so entirely
+satisfactory to Jewett, that, after paying fifty dollars for what he had
+witnessed, he, the next day, implored the presence of George Washington,
+offering fifty dollars more for a &#8220;spiritual&#8221; sight of the &#8220;Father of
+our Country.&#8221; This request smote upon the ear of the photographer like
+an invitation to commit sacrilege. His reverence for the memory of
+Washington was not to be disturbed by the tempting offer of so many
+greenbacks. He could not allow the features of that great man to be used
+in connection with an imposture perpetrated upon so deluded a fanatic as
+Colorado Jewett. In short, the &#8220;conditions&#8221; were unfavorable for the
+apparition of &#8220;General Washington;&#8221; and his visitor must remain
+satisfied with the council of great men that had been called from the
+spirit world to instill wisdom into the noddle of a foolish man on this
+terrestrial planet. Having failed to obtain, by the agency of the
+operator, a glimpse of Washington, Jewett clasped his hands together,
+and sinking upon his knees, said, looking toward Heaven: &#8220;O spirit of
+the immortal Washington! look down upon the warring elements that
+convulse our country, and kindly let thy form appear, to lend its
+influence toward re-uniting a nation convulsed with civil war!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>It is needless to say that this prayer was not answered. The spirit
+would not come forth; and, although quieted by the explanations and half
+promises of the photographer, the peace-messenger departed, convinced
+that he had been in the presence of five great statesmen, and saddened
+by the reflection that the shade of the immortal Washington had turned
+away its face from those who had refused to follow the counsels he gave
+while living.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after this, Jewett ordered duplicates of these photographs to the
+value of $20 more. I now have on exhibition in my Museum several of the
+veritable portraits taken at this time, in which the well-known form and
+face of Mr. Jewett are plainly depicted, and on one of which appears the
+shade of Henry Clay, on another that of Napoleon the First, and on
+others ladies supposed to represent deceased feminines of great
+celebrity. It is said that Jewett sent one of the Napoleonic pictures to
+the Emperor Louis Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>Not long after Colorado Jewett had beheld these wonderful pictures, and
+worked himself up into the belief that he was surrounded by the great
+and good statesmen of a former generation, a lady, without making
+herself known, called upon the photographer. I am informed that she is
+the wife of a distinguished official. She had heard of the success of
+others, and came to verify their experience under her own bereavement.
+Completely satisfied by the apparition exhibited, she asked for and
+obtained a spectral photograph resembling her son, who, some months
+previously, had gone to the spirit-land. It is said that the same lady<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+asked for and obtained a spiritual photograph of her brother, whom she
+had recently heard was slain in battle; and when she returned home she
+found him alive, and as well as could be expected under the
+circumstances. But this did not shake her faith in the least. She simply
+remarked that some evil spirit had assumed her brother&#8217;s form in order
+to deceive her. This is a very common method of spiritualists &#8220;digging
+out&#8221; when the impositions of the &#8220;money-operators&#8221; are detected. This
+same lady has recently given her personal influence in favor of the
+&#8220;medium&#8221; Colchester, in Washington. One of these impressions bearing the
+likeness of this distinguished lady was accidentally recognized by a
+visitor. This capped the climax of the imposture and satisfied the
+photographer that he was committing a grave injury upon society by
+continuing to produce &#8220;spiritual pictures,&#8221; and subsequently he refused
+to lend himself to any more &#8220;manifestations&#8221; of this kind. He had
+exhausted the fun.</p>
+
+<p>I need only explain the modus operandi of effecting this illusion, to
+make apparent to the most ignorant that no supernatural agency was
+required to produce photographs bearing a resemblance to the persons
+whose &#8220;apparition&#8221; was desired. The photographer always took the
+precaution of inquiring about the deceased, his appearance and ordinary
+mode of wearing the hair. Then, selecting from countless old &#8220;negatives&#8221;
+the nearest resemblance, it was produced for the visitor, in dim,
+ghostlike outline differing so much from anything of the kind ever
+produced, that his customers seldom failed to recognize some lineament
+the dead person pos<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>sessed when living, especially if such relative had
+deceased long since. The spectral illusions of Adams, Webster, Jackson,
+Clay, and Douglas were readily obtained from excellent portraits of the
+deceased statesmen, from which the scientific operator had prepared his
+illusions for Colorado Jewett.</p>
+
+<p>In placing before my readers this incident of <a name="corr34" id="corr34"></a>&#8220;Spiritual Photography,&#8221; I
+can assure them that the facts are substantially as related; and I am
+now in correspondence with gentlemen of wealth and position who have
+signified their willingness to support this statement by affidavits and
+other documents prepared for the purpose of opening the eyes of the
+people to the delusions daily practised upon the ignorant and
+superstitious.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">BANNER OF LIGHT.&mdash;&#8203;MESSAGES FROM THE DEAD.&mdash;&#8203;SPIRITUAL CIVILITIES.&mdash;&#8203;SPIRIT
+&#8220;HOLLERING.&#8221;&mdash;&#8203;HANS VON VLEET, THE FEMALE DUTCHMAN.&mdash;&#8203;MRS. <a name="corr35" id="corr35"></a>CONANT&#8217;S
+&#8220;CIRCLES.&#8221;&mdash;&#8203;PAINE&#8217;S TABLE-TIPPING HUMBUG EXPOSED.</p>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;The Banner of Light,&#8221; a weekly journal of romance, literature, and
+general intelligence, published in Boston, is the principal organ of
+spiritualism in this country. Its &#8220;general intelligence&#8221; is rather
+questionable, though there is no doubt about its being a &#8220;journal of
+romance,&#8221; strongly tinctured with humbug and imposture. It has a
+&#8220;Message Department,&#8221; the proprie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>tors of the paper claiming that &#8220;each
+message in this department of the &#8220;Banner&#8221; was spoken by the spirit
+whose name it bears, through the instrumentality of Mrs. J. H. Conant,
+while in an abnormal condition called the <a name="corr36" id="corr36"></a>trance.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I give a few specimens of these &#8220;messages.&#8221; Thus, for instance,
+discourseth the Ghost of Lolley:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;How do? Don&#8217;t know me, do you? Know George Lolley? [Yes. How do
+you do?] I&#8217;m first rate. I&#8217;m dead; ain&#8217;t you afraid of me? You know
+I was familiar with those sort of things, so I wasn&#8217;t frightened to
+go.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, won&#8217;t you say to the folks that I&#8217;m all right, and happy?
+that I didn&#8217;t suffer a great deal, had a pretty severe wound, got
+over that all right; went out from Petersburg. I was in the battle
+before Petersburg; got my discharge from there. Remember me kindly
+to Mr. Lord.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, tell &#8217;em as soon as I get the wheels a little greased up and
+in running order I&#8217;ll come back with the good things, as I said I
+would, George W. Lolley. Good-bye.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>Immediately after a &#8220;message&#8221; from the spirit of John Morgan, the
+guerrilla, came one from Charles Talbot, who began as follows with a
+curious apostrophe to his predecessor:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Hi-yah! old grisly. It&#8217;s lucky for you I didn&#8217;t get in ahead of
+you.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am Charlie Talbot, of Chambersburg, Pa. Was wounded in action,
+captured by the Rebels, and &#8216;died on their hands&#8217; as they say of
+the horse.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>It seems a little rude for one &#8220;spirit&#8221; to term another &#8220;Old Grisly;&#8221;
+but such may be the style of compliment prevailing in the spirit-world.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>Here is what Brother Klink said:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;John Klink, of the Twenty-fifth South Carolina. I want to open
+communication with Thomas Lefar, Charleston, S. C. I am deucedly
+ignorant about this coming back&mdash;dead railroad&mdash;business. It&#8217;s new
+business to me, as I suppose it will be to some of you when you
+travel this way. Say I will do the best I can to communicate with
+my friends, if they will give me an opportunity. I desire Mr. Lefar
+to send my letter to my family when he receives it&mdash;he knows where
+they are&mdash;and then report to this office.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good night, afternoon or morning, I don&#8217;t know which. I walked out
+at Petersburg.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>Here is a message from George W. Gage, with some of the questions which
+he answered:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;[How do you like your new home?] First rate. I likes&mdash;heigho!&mdash;I
+likes to come here, for they clears all the truck away before you
+get round, and fix up so you can talk right off. [Wasn&#8217;t you a
+medium?] No, Sir; I wasn&#8217;t afraid, though; nor my mother ain&#8217;t,
+either. Oh, I knew about it; I knew before I come to die, about it.
+My mother told me about it. I knew I&#8217;d be a woman when I come here,
+too. [Did you?] Yes, sir; my mother told me, and said I musn&#8217;t be
+afraid. Oh, I don&#8217;t likes that, but I likes to come.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I forgot, Sir; my mother&#8217;s deaf, and always had to holler. That
+gentleman says folks ain&#8217;t deaf here.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>The observable points are first that he seems to have excused his
+&#8220;hollering&#8221; by the habits consequent upon his mother&#8217;s deafness. The
+&#8220;hollering&#8221; consisted of unusually heavy thumping, I suppose. But the
+second point is of far greater interest. George intimates that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> he has
+changed his &#8220;sect,&#8221; and become a woman! For this important alteration
+his good mother had prepared his mind. This style of thing will not seem
+so strange if we consider that some men become old women before they
+die!</p>
+
+<p>Here is another case of feminification and restitution combined. Hans
+Von Vleet has become a vrow&mdash;what you may call a female Dutchman! It has
+always been claimed that women are purer and better than men; and
+accordingly we see that as soon as Hans became a woman he insisted on
+his widow&#8217;s returning to a Jew two thousand dollars that naughty Hans
+had &#8220;Christianed&#8221; the poor Hebrew out of. But let Hans tell his own
+story:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;I was Hans Von Vleet ven I vas here. I vas Von Vleet here; I is
+one vrow now. I is one vrow ven I comes back; I vas no vrow ven I
+vas here (alluding to the fact that he was temporarily <a name="corr37" id="corr37"></a>occupying
+the form of our medium.) I wish you to know that I first live in
+Harlem, State of New York. Ven I vos here, I take something I had
+no right to take, something that no belongs to me. I takes
+something; I takes two thousand dollars that was no my own; that&#8217;s
+what I come back to say about. I first have some dealings with one
+Jew; that&#8217;s what you call him. He likes to Jew me, and I likes to
+Christian him. I belongs to the Dutch Reform Church. (Do you think
+you were a good member?) Vell, I vas. I believes in the creed; I
+takes the sacrament; I lives up to it outside. I no lives up to it
+inside, I suppose. (How do you find yourself now, Hans?) Vell, I
+finds myself&mdash;vell, I don&#8217;t know; I not feel very happy. Ven I
+comes to the spirit-land, I first meet that Jew&#8217;s brother, and he
+tells me, &#8216;Hans, you mus go back and makes some right with my
+brother.&#8217; So I comes here.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I vants my vrow, what I left in Harlem, to takes that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> two tousand
+dollars and gives it back to that Jew&#8217;s vrow. That&#8217;s what I came
+for to-day, Sir. (Has your vrow got it?) Vell, my vrow has got it
+in a tin box. Ven I first go, I takes the money, I gives it to my
+vrow, and she takes care of it. Now I vants my vrow to give that
+two tousand dollars to that Jew&#8217;s vrow.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;(How do you spell your name?) The vrow knows how to spell. (Hans
+Von Vleet.) There&#8217;s a something you cross in it. The vrow spells
+the rest. Ah, that&#8217;s wrong; you makes a blunder. Its V. not F.
+That&#8217;s like all vrows. (Do all vrows make blunders?) Vell, I don&#8217;t
+know; all do sometimes, I suppose. (Didn&#8217;t you like vrows here?)
+Oh, vell, I likes &#8217;em sometimes. I likes mine own vrow. I not likes
+to be a vrow myself. (Don&#8217;t the clothes fit?) Ah, vell, I suppose
+they fits, but I not likes to wear what not becomes me.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>It is scarcely necessary to make comments on such horrible nonsense as
+this. I may recur to the subject in future, should it appear expedient.
+At present I must drop the subject of female men.</p>
+
+<p>At the head of the &#8220;Message Department&#8221; is a standing advertisement,
+which reads as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Our free circles are held at No. 158 Washington street, Room No. 4
+(up stairs,) on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. The
+circle-room will be open for visitors at two o&#8217;clock; services
+commence at precisely three o&#8217;clock, after which time no one will
+be admitted. Donations solicited.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>On the days and at the hour mentioned in the above advertisement, quite
+an audience assembles to hear the messages Mrs. C. may have to deliver.
+If a stranger present should request a message from one of his
+spirit-friends, he would be told that a large number of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> spirits were
+seeking to communicate through that &#8220;instrument,&#8221; and each must await
+his turn! Having read obituary notices in the files of old newspapers,
+and the published list of those recently killed in battle, the medium
+has data for any number of &#8220;messages.&#8221; She talks in the style that she
+imagines the person whom she attempts to personate would use, being one
+of the doctrines of spiritualism that a person&#8217;s character and feelings
+are not changed by death. To make the humbug more complete, she narrates
+imaginary incidents, asserting them to have occurred in the
+earth-experience of the spirit who purports to have possession of her at
+the same time she is speaking. Mediums in various parts of the country
+furnish her with the names of and facts relative to different deceased
+people of their acquaintance, and those names and facts are used by her
+in supplying the &#8220;Message Department&#8221; of the &#8220;Banner of Light.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>If the assumed &#8220;mediumship&#8221; of this woman was not an imposture, some of
+the many people who have visited her for the purpose of getting
+communications from their spirit-friends would have been gratified. In
+most of the &#8220;messages&#8221; published in the Banner, the spirits purporting
+to give them, express a great desire to have their mortal friends
+receive them; but those mortals who seek to obtain through Mrs. Conant
+satisfactory messages from their spirit-friends, are not gratified&mdash;the
+medium not being posted. The mediums are as much opposed to &#8220;new tests&#8221;
+as a non-committal politician.</p>
+
+<p>Time and again have leading spiritualists, in various<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> parts of the
+country, indorsed as &#8220;spiritual manifestations,&#8221; what was subsequently
+proved to be an imposture.</p>
+
+<p>Several years ago, a man by the name of Paine created a great sensation
+in Worcester, Mass., by causing a table to move &#8220;without contact,&#8221; he
+claiming that it was done by spirits through his &#8220;mediumship.&#8221; He
+subsequently came to New York, and exhibited the &#8220;manifestation&#8221; at the
+house of a spiritualist&mdash;where he boarded&mdash;in the upper part of the
+city. A great many spiritualists and not a few &#8220;skeptics&#8221; went to see
+his performance. Paine was a very soft-spoken, &#8220;good sort of a fellow,&#8221;
+and appeared to be quite sincere in his claims to &#8220;mediumship.&#8221; He
+received no fee from those who witnessed his exhibition; and that fact,
+in connection with others, tended to disarm people of suspicion. His
+s&eacute;ances were held in the evening, and each visitor was received by him
+at the door, and immediately conducted to a seat next the wall of the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>The visitors all in and seated, Mr. Paine took a seat with the rest in
+the &#8220;circle.&#8221; In the middle of the room a small table had previously
+been placed, and the gas had been turned partly off, leaving just enough
+light to make objects look ghostly.</p>
+
+<p>In order to get &#8220;harmonized,&#8221; singing was indulged in for a short time
+by members of the &#8220;circle.&#8221; Soon a number of raps would be heard in the
+direction of the table, and one side of that piece of furniture would be
+seen to rise about an inch from the floor. Some very naturally wanted to
+rush to the table and investigate the matter more closely, but Paine
+forbade that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>&mdash;the necessary &#8220;conditions&#8221; must be observed, he said, or
+there would be no further manifestation of spirit-power. As there was no
+one nearer to the table than six or eight feet, the fact of its moving,
+very naturally astonished the skeptics present. Several &#8220;seeing mediums&#8221;
+who attended Mr. Paine&#8217;s s&eacute;ances, were able to see the spirits&mdash;so they
+declared&mdash;who moved the table. One was described as a &#8220;big Injun,&#8221; who
+cut various capers, and appeared to be much delighted with the turn of
+affairs. Believers were wonderfully well-pleased to know that at last a
+medium was &#8220;developed&#8221; through whom the inhabitants of another world
+could manifest their presence to mortals in such a way that no one could
+gainsay the fact. The &#8220;invisibles&#8221; freely responded, by raps on the
+table, to various questions asked by those in the &#8220;circle.&#8221; They thumped
+time to lively tunes, and seemed to have a decidedly good time of it in
+their particular way. When the s&eacute;ance was concluded, Mr. Paine freely
+permitted an examination of his table.</p>
+
+<p>In the Sunday Spiritual Conferences, then held in Clinton Hall, leading
+spiritualists gave an account of the &#8220;manifestations of the spirits&#8221;
+through Mr. Paine, and, as believers, congratulated themselves upon the
+existence of such &#8220;indubitable facts.&#8221; The spiritualist in whose house
+this exhibition of table-moving &#8220;without contact&#8221; took place, was well
+known as a man of strict honesty; and it was reasonably presumed that no
+mechanical contrivance could be used without his cognizance, in thus
+moving a piece of his furniture&mdash;for the table belonged to him&mdash;and that
+he would countenance a deception was out of the question.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>There were in the city three gentlemen who had, for some time, been
+known as spiritualists; but they were, at the period of Paine&#8217;s d&eacute;but as
+a medium in New York, very skeptical with regard to &#8220;physical
+manifestations.&#8221; They had, a short time before, detected the Davenports
+and other <a name="corr38" id="corr38"></a>professed mediums in the practice of imposture; and they
+determined not to accept, as true, Paine&#8217;s pretence to mediumship, till
+after a thorough investigation of his &#8220;manifestations,&#8221; they should fail
+to find a material cause for them. After attending several of his
+s&eacute;ances, these gentlemen concluded that Paine moved the table by means
+of a mechanical contrivance fixed under the floor. One of this trio of
+investigators was a mechanic, and he had conceived a way&mdash;and it seemed
+to him the only way&mdash;in which the &#8220;manifestation&#8221; could be produced
+under the circumstances that apparently attended it. Paine was a
+mechanic, and these parties were aware of that fact. They made an
+appointment with him for a private s&eacute;ance. The evening fixed upon,
+having arrived, they met with him at his room. The table was raised and
+raps were made upon it, as had been done on previous occasions. One of
+the three investigators stepped to the door of the room, locked it, put
+the key in his pocket, took off his coat, and told Mr. Paine that he was
+determined to search his (Paine&#8217;s) person, and that if he did not find
+about him a small short iron rod, by means of which, through a hole in
+the floor, a lever underneath was worked in moving the table, he (the
+speaker) would beg his (Mr. Paine&#8217;s) pardon, and be forever after a firm
+believer in the power of disembod<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>ied spirits to move ponderable bodies.
+This impressive little speech had a decided and instant effect upon the
+&#8220;medium.&#8221; &#8220;Gentlemen,&#8221; said the latter, &#8220;I might as well own up. Please
+to be quietly seated, and I will tell you all about it.&#8221; And he did tell
+them all about it; subsequently repeating his confession before quite a
+number of disgusted and cheaply sold spiritualists at the &#8220;New York
+Spiritual Lyceum.&#8221; The theory formed by one of the three investigators
+referred to, as to Paine&#8217;s method of moving the table, was singularly
+correct.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst the family with whom Paine boarded was away, one day, in
+attendance at a funeral, he took up several of the floor boards of the
+back parlor, and on the under side of them affixed a lever, with a
+cross-piece at one end of it; and, in the ends of the cross-piece, bits
+of wire were inserted, the wire being just as far apart as the legs of
+the table to be moved. Small holes were made in the floor-boards for the
+wire to come through to reach the table-legs. The other end of the lever
+came within an inch or two of the wall. When all the arrangements were
+completed, and the table being properly placed in order to move it, Mr.
+Paine had only to insert one end of a short iron rod in a hole in the
+heel of his boot, put the other end of the rod through a hole in the
+floor, just under the edge of the carpet near the wall, and then press
+the rod down upon the end of the lever.</p>
+
+<p>The movements necessary in fixing the iron rod to its place were
+executed while he was picking up his handkerchief, that he had purposely
+dropped.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>The middle of the lever was attached to the floor, and the end with the
+cross-piece, being the heavier, brought the other end close up against
+the floor, the wires in the cross-piece having their points just within
+the bottom of the holes in the floor. The room was carpeted, and there
+were little marks on the carpet, known only to Paine, that enabled him
+to know just where to place the table. Pressing down the end of the
+lever nearest the wall, an inch would bring the wires in the cross-piece
+on the other end of the lever against the legs of the table, and
+slightly raise the latter. One of the wires would strike the table-leg a
+very little before the other did, and that enabled the &#8220;medium&#8221; to very
+nicely rap time to the tunes that were sung or played. Of course, no
+holes that any one could observe would be made in the carpet by the
+passage of the wires through it.</p>
+
+<p>For appearance&#8217; sake, Paine, before his detection, visited, by
+invitation, the houses of several different spiritualists, for the
+purpose of holding s&eacute;ances; but he never got a table to move &#8220;without
+contact&#8221; in any other than the place where he had properly prepared the
+conditions.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">SPIRITUALIST HUMBUGS WAKING UP.&mdash;&#8203;FOSTER HEARD FROM.&mdash;&#8203;S. B. BRITTAN HEARD
+FROM.&mdash;&#8203;THE BOSTON ARTISTS AND THEIR SPIRITUAL PORTRAITS.&mdash;&#8203;THE WASHINGTON
+MEDIUM AND HIS SPIRITUAL HANDS.&mdash;&#8203;THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS AND THE
+SEA-CAPTAIN&#8217;S WHEAT-FLOUR.&mdash;&#8203;THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS ROUGHLY SHOWN UP BY
+JOHN BULL.&mdash;&#8203;HOW A SHINGLE &#8220;STUMPED&#8221; THE SPIRITS.</p>
+
+
+<p>I hear from spiritualists sometimes. These gentry are much exercised in
+their minds by my letters about them, and some of them fly out at me
+very much as bumble-bees do at one who stirs up their nest. For
+instance, I received, not long ago, from my good friends, Messrs.
+Cauldwell &amp; Whitney, an anonymous letter to them, dated at Washington,
+and suggesting that if I would attend what the latter calls &#8220;a s&eacute;ance of
+that celebrated humbug, Foster,&#8221; I should see something that I could not
+explain. Now, this anonymous letter, as I know by a spiritual
+communication, (or otherwise,) is in a handwriting very wonderfully like
+that of Mr. Foster himself. And as for the substance of it, it is very
+likely that Foster has now gotten up some new tricks. He needs them. The
+exhibiting mediums must, of course, contrive new tricks as fast as Dr.
+Von Vleck and men like him show up their old ones. It is the universal
+method of all sorts of impostors to adopt new means of fooling people
+when their old ones are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> exposed. And Mr. Foster shall have all the
+attention he wants if I ever find the leisure to bestow on him, though
+my time is fully occupied with worthier objects.</p>
+
+<p>I have also been complimented with a buzz and an attempt to sting from
+my old friend S. B. Brittan, the ex-Universalist minister&mdash;the very
+surprisingly efficient &#8220;man Friday&#8221; of Andrew Jackson Davis, in the
+production of the &#8220;Revelations&#8221; of the said Davis, and also
+ghost-fancier in general; who has gently aired part of his vocabulary in
+a communication to the &#8220;Banner of Light,&#8221; with the heading &#8220;Exposed for
+Two Shillings.&#8221; I can afford very well to expose friend Brittan and his
+spiritualist humbugs for two shillings. The honester the cheaper. It
+evidently vexes the spiritualists to have their ghosts put with the
+monkeys in the Museum. They can&#8217;t help it, though; and it is my
+deliberate opinion that the monkeys are much the most respectable. I
+have no wish to displease any honest person; but the more the
+spiritualists squirm, and snarl, and scold, and call names, the more
+they show that I am hurting them. Or&mdash;does my friend Brittan himself
+want an engagement at the Museum? Will he produce some &#8220;manifestations&#8221;
+there, and get that $500?&mdash;the money is ready!</p>
+
+<p>A valued friend of mine has furnished me a pleasant and true narrative
+of a fine &#8220;spiritual&#8221; humbug which took place in a respectable
+Massachusetts village not very long ago. I give the story in his own
+graphic words:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Two artists of Boston, tired of the atmosphere of their studios,
+resolved themselves, in joint session, into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> spiritual mediums, as a
+means of raising the wind&mdash;or the devil&mdash;and of getting a little fresh
+air in the rural districts. One of them had learned Mansfield&#8217;s trick of
+answering communications and that of writing on the arms. They had large
+handbills printed, announcing that &#8220;Mr. W. Howard, the celebrated
+test-medium, would visit the town of &mdash;&mdash;, and would remain at the &mdash;&mdash;
+Hotel during three days.&#8221; One of the artists preceded the other by a few
+hours, engaged rooms, and attended to sundry preliminaries. &#8220;Mr. Howard&#8221;
+donned a white choker, put his hair behind his ears, and mounted a pair
+of plain glass spectacles; and such was his profoundly spiritual
+appearance on entering his apartments at the hotel, that he had to lock
+the door and give his partner opportunity to explode, and absolutely
+roll about on the floor with laughter.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, they rigged a clothes-horse for a screen; and to heighten the
+effect, the assistant, who was expert in portraiture, covered this
+screen, and, indeed, the walls of the room, with scraggy outlines of the
+human countenance upon large sheets of paper. These, they said, were
+executed by the draftsman, whose right hand, when under spiritual
+influence, uncontrollably jerked off these likenesses. They added, that
+the spirits had given information that, before the mediums left town,
+the people would recognize these pictures as likenesses of persons there
+deceased within twenty years or so. Price, two dollars each! They
+absolutely sold quite a large number of these portraits, as they were
+from time to time recognized by surviving friends! The operation of
+drawing portraits was also illustrated at certain hours,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> admission,
+fifty cents; if not satisfactory, the money returned.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Other tricks of various kinds were performed with pleasure to all
+parties and profit to the performers. The artists stood it as long as
+they could, and then departed. But there was every indication that the
+towns-people would have stood it until this day.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Thus far my friend&#8217;s curious and truthful account.</p>
+
+<p>A little while ago, there was exhibiting, at Washington, a &#8220;test-medium&#8221;
+whose name I would print, were it not that I do not want to advertise
+him. One of his most impressive feats was, to cause spiritual hands and
+other parts of the human frame to appear in the air &agrave; la Davenport
+Brothers. A gentleman, whose name I also know very well indeed, but have
+particular reasons for not mentioning, went one day to see this
+&#8220;test-medium,&#8221; along with a friend, and asked to see a hand.
+&#8220;Certainly,&#8221; the medium said; and the room was darkened, and the
+&#8220;circle&#8221; made round the table in the usual manner. After about five
+minutes, my friend, who had contrived to place himself pretty near the
+medium, saw, sure enough, a dim glimmering blue light in the air, a foot
+or so before and above the head of the medium. In a minute, he could
+see, dimly outlined in this blue light, the form of a hand, back toward
+him, fingers together, and no thumb.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why is no thumb visible?&#8221; asked my friend of the medium in a solemn
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The reason is,&#8221; said the medium, still more solemnly, &#8220;that the spirits
+have not power enough to produce a whole hand and so they exhibit as
+much as they can.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>&#8220;And do they always show hands without thumbs?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Here my friend, with a sudden jump, grabbed for the place where the
+wrist of the mysterious hand ought to be. Strange to relate, he caught
+it, and held it stoutly, to. A light was quickly had, when, still
+stranger, the spirit-hand was clearly seen to be the fleshy paw of the
+medium&mdash;and a fat paw it was too. Mr. Medium took the matter with the
+coolness of a thorough rascal, and, lighting a cigar, merely observed:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well gentlemen, you needn&#8217;t trouble yourselves to come here any more!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He also insisted on his usual fee of five dollars, until threatened with
+a prosecution for swindling.</p>
+
+<p>The secret of this worthy gentleman is simple and soon told. Holding one
+hand up in the air, he held up with the other, between the thumb and
+finger, a little pinch of phosphorus and bi-sulphide of carbon, which
+gave the blue light. If inconvenient to hold up the other hand, he had a
+reserve pinch of blue-light under that invisible thumb. It is a curious
+instance of the thorough credulity of genuine spiritualists that a
+believer in this wretched rogue, on being circumstantially told this
+whole story, not only steadily and firmly refused to credit it, and
+continued his faith in the fellow, but absolutely would not go to see
+the application of any other test. That&#8217;s the sort of follower that is
+worth having!</p>
+
+<p>Another case was witnessed as follows, by the very same person on whose
+authority I give the spirit-hand story. He was present&mdash;also, this time
+in Washington, as it happened, at an exhibition by a certain pair of
+spirit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>ual brothers, since well known as the &#8220;Davenport Brothers.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>These chaps, after the fashion of their kind, caused themselves to be
+tied up in a rope, an old sea-captain tying them. This done, their
+&#8220;shop&#8221; or cabinet, was shut upon them as usual, and the bangs, throwing
+of sticks, etc., through a window, and the like, took place. Well, this
+sly and inconvenient old sea-captain now slipped out of the hall a few
+minutes, and came back with some wheat flour. Having tied up the
+&#8220;brothers&#8221; again, he remarked:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now, gentlemen, please to take, each, your two hands full of wheat
+flour.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The &#8220;brothers&#8221; got mad and flatly refused. Then they cooled down and
+argued, saying it wouldn&#8217;t make any difference, and was of no use.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said the ancient mariner, &#8220;if it won&#8217;t make any difference you
+can just as well do it, can&#8217;t you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The audience, seeing the point, were so evidently pleased with the old
+sailor, that the grumbling &#8220;brothers&#8221; though with a very bad grace, took
+their fists full of flour, and were shut up.</p>
+
+<p>There was not the least sign of a &#8220;manifestation&#8221;&mdash;no more than if the
+wheat-flour had shot the &#8220;brothers&#8221; dead in their tracks. The audience
+were immensely delighted. The &#8220;brothers,&#8221; since that time, have learned
+to perform some tricks with flour in their fists, but only when tied by
+their own friends.</p>
+
+<p>Since these facts came to my knowledge, the Davenport Brothers have
+suffered an unpleasant exposure in Liverpool, in England, the details of
+which have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> kindly forwarded to me by attentive friends there. The
+circumstances in question occurred on the evenings of Tuesday and
+Wednesday, February 14 and 15, 1865. On the first of these evenings, a
+gentleman named Cummins, selected by the audience as one of the Tying
+Committee, tied one of the Brothers, and a Mr. Hulley, the other
+committee-man, the other. But the Brothers saw instantly that they could
+not wriggle out of these knots. They, therefore, refused to let the
+tying be finished, saying that it was &#8220;brutal&#8221; although a surgeon
+present said it was not; one tied brother was untied by Ferguson, the
+agent; and then the Brothers went to work and performed their various
+tricks without the <a name="corr39" id="corr39"></a>supervision of any committee, but amid a constant
+fire of derision, laughter, groans, shouts, and epithets from the
+audience. On the next evening, the audience insisted on having the same
+committee; the Brothers were very reluctant to allow it, but had to do
+so after a long time. Ira Davenport refused again, however, instantly to
+be tied, as soon as he saw what knot Mr. Cummins was going to use.
+Cummins, however, though Ira squirmed most industriously, got him tied
+fast, and then Ira called to Ferguson to cut the knot! Ferguson did so,
+and cut Ira&#8217;s hand. Ira now shewed the blood to the audience, and the
+Brothers, with an immense pretense of indignation, went off the stage.
+Cummins at once explained; the audience became disgusted, and, enraged
+at the impudence of the imposture, broke over the foot-lights, knocked
+Ferguson backward into the &#8220;cabinet;&#8221; and when the discomfited agent had
+scrambled out and run away, smashed the thing fairly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> into
+kindling-wood, and carried it off, all distributed into splinters and
+chips. Early next morning, the terrified Davenports ran away out of
+Liverpool; and a number of the audience were, at last accounts,
+intending to go to law to get back the money paid for an exhibition
+which they did not see.</p>
+
+<p>The very thorough exposure of the Davenports thus made is an additional
+proof&mdash;if such were needed&mdash;of the truth of what I have alleged about
+the impostures perpetrated by them and their &#8220;mysterious&#8221; brethren of
+the exhibiting sort.</p>
+
+<p>Once the &#8220;spirits&#8221; were &#8220;stumped&#8221; with a shingle&mdash;a very proper yankee
+jaw-bone of an ass to route such disembodied Philistines. One day a
+certain person was present where some tables were rambling about, and
+other revolutions taking place in the furniture-business, when he
+stepped boldly forth like a herald bearing defiance, and cast down a
+common white pine shingle upon the floor. &#8220;There,&#8221; said he, coolly, &#8220;if
+you can trot those tables about in that style, do it with that shingle.
+Make it go about the room. Make it move an inch!&#8221; And lo, and behold!
+the shingle lay perfectly still.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS SHOWN UP ONCE MORE.&mdash;&#8203;DR. NEWTON AT CHICAGO.&mdash;&#8203;THE
+SPIRITUALIST BOGUS BABY.&mdash;&#8203;A LADY BRINGS FORTH A MOTIVE FORCE.&mdash;&#8203;&#8220;GUM&#8221;
+ARABIC.&mdash;&#8203;SPIRITUALIST HEBREW.&mdash;&#8203;THE ALLEN BOY.&mdash;&#8203;DR. RANDALL.&mdash;&#8203;PORTLAND
+EVENING COURIER.&mdash;&#8203;THE FOOLS NOT ALL DEAD YET.</p>
+
+
+<p>Other &#8220;spiritual&#8221; facts have come to my hand, some of them furnishing
+additional details about persons to whom I have already alluded, and
+others being important to illustrate some general tendencies of
+spiritualism.</p>
+
+<p>And first, about the Davenport Brothers; they have met with another
+&#8220;awful exposure,&#8221; at the hands of a merciless Mr. Addison. This
+gentleman is a London stockbroker, and his cool, sharp business habits
+seem to have stood him in good stead in taking some fun out of the fools
+who follow the Davenports. Mr. Addison, it seems, went to work, and,
+just to amuse his friends, executed all the Davenport tricks. Upon this
+the spiritualist newspapers in England, which, like the Boston Herald of
+Progress, claim to believe in the &#8220;Brothers,&#8221; came out and said that
+Addison was a very wonderful medium indeed. On this the cold-blooded
+Addison at once printed a letter, in which he not only said he had done
+all their tricks without spiritual aid, but he moreover explained
+exactly how he caught the Davenports<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> in their impositions. He and a
+long-legged friend went to one of the &#8220;dark s&eacute;ances&#8221; of the Davenports,
+during which musical instruments were to fly about over the heads of the
+audience, bang their pates, thrum, twang, etc. Addison and his friend
+took a front seat; as soon as the lights were put out they put out their
+legs too; stretching as far as possible; and, to use the unfeeling
+language of Mr. Addison, they &#8220;soon had the satisfaction of feeling some
+one falling over them.&#8221; They then caught hold of an arm, from which a
+guitar was forthwith let drop on the floor. In order to be certain who
+the guitar-carrier was, they waited until the next time the lights were
+put out, took each a mouthful of dry flour, and blew it out right among
+the &#8220;manifestations.&#8221; When the lamps were lighted, lo and behold! there
+was Fay, the agent and manager of the Davenports, with his back all
+powdered with flour. Addison showed this to an acquaintance, who said,
+&#8220;Yes, he saw the flour; but he could not understand what made Addison
+and his friend laugh so excessively at it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The spiritualist newspapers don&#8217;t think Addison is so great a medium as
+they did!</p>
+
+<p>Great accounts have recently come eastward from Chicago, of a certain
+Doctor Newton, who is said to be working miracles by the hundred in the
+way of healing diseases. This man operates with exactly the weapons all
+the miracle-workers, quacks, and impostors, ancient and modern use. All
+of them have appealed to the imaginations of their patients, and no
+person acquainted with mental philosophy is ignorant that many a sick<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+man has been cured either by medicine and imagination together, or by
+imagination alone. Therefore, even if this Newton should really be the
+cause of the recovery of some persons from their ailments, it would be
+no more a miracle than if Dr. Mott should do it; nor would Newton be any
+the less a quack and a humbug.</p>
+
+<p>Newton has operated at the East already. He had a career at New Haven
+and Hartford, and in other places, before he steered westward in the
+wake of the &#8220;Star of Empire.&#8221; What he does is simply to ask what is the
+matter, and where it hurts. Then he sticks his thumb into the seat of
+the difficulty, or he pokes or strokes or pats it, as the case may be.
+Then he says, &#8220;There&mdash;you&#8217;re cured! God bless you!&mdash;Take yourself off!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Chicago must be a credulous place, for we are informed of immense crowds
+besieging this man, and undergoing his manipulations. One of the Chicago
+papers, having little faith and a good deal of fun&mdash;which in such cases
+is much better&mdash;published some burlesque stories and certificates about
+&#8220;Doctor&#8221; Newton, some of them humorous enough. There is a certificate
+from a woman with fourteen children, all having the measles at once. She
+says that no sooner had Doctor Newton received one lock of hair of one
+of them, than the measles left them all, and she now has said measles
+corked up in a bottle! Another case was that of a merchant who had lost
+his strength, but went and was stroked by Newton, and the very next day
+was able to lift a note in bank, which had before been altogether too
+heavy for him. There was also an old lady, whose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> story I fear was
+imitated from Hood&#8217;s funny conceit of the deaf woman who bought an
+ear-trumpet, which was so effective that</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span class="i7">&mdash;&mdash;&#8220;The very next day</span><br />
+She heard from her husband in Botany Bay!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Chicago old lady in like manner, after having had Doctor Newton&#8217;s
+thumbs &#8220;jobbed&#8221; into her ears, certifies that she heard next morning
+from her son in California.</p>
+
+<p>One would think that this ridicule would put the learned Dr. Newton to
+flight; but it will not until he is through with the fools.</p>
+
+<p>I have already given an account of some of the messages from the other
+world in the &#8220;Banner of Light,&#8221; in which some of the spirits explain
+that they have turned into women since they died. This is by no means
+the first remarkable trick that the spirits have performed upon the
+human organization. Here is what they did at High Rock, in
+Massachusetts, a number of years ago. It beats Joanna Southcott in funny
+absurdity, if not in blasphemy.</p>
+
+<p>At High Rock, in the year 1854 or thereabouts, certain spiritualist
+people were building some mysterious machinery. While this was in
+process of erection, a female medium, of considerable eminence in those
+parts, was informed by certain spirits, with great solemnity and pomp,
+that &#8220;she would become the Mary of a new dispensation;&#8221; that is, she was
+going to be a mother. Well, this was all proper, no doubt, and the lady
+herself&mdash;so say the spiritualist accounts&mdash;had for some time experienced
+indications that she was <a name="corr40" id="corr40"></a>pregnant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>. These indications continued, and
+became increasingly obvious, and also, it was observed, a little queer
+in some particulars.</p>
+
+<p>After a while, one Spear&mdash;a &#8220;Reverend Mr. Spear&#8221;&mdash;who was mixed up, it
+appears, with the machinery-part of the business, and who was a medium
+himself, transmitted to the lady a request from the spirits that she
+would visit said Spear at High Rock on a certain day. She did so, of
+course; and while there was unexpectedly taken with the pains of
+childbirth, which the spiritualist authorities say, were
+&#8220;internal&#8221;&mdash;where should they be, pray?&mdash;and &#8220;of the spirit rather than
+of the physical nature; but were, nevertheless, quite as uncontrollable
+as those of the latter, and not less severe.&#8221; The labor proceeded. It
+lasted two hours. As it went on, lo and behold! one part and another
+part of the machinery began to move! And when, at the end of the two
+hours, the parturition was safely over, all the machinery was going!</p>
+
+<p>The lady had given birth to a Motive Force. Does anybody suppose I am
+manufacturing this story? Not a bit of it. It is all told at length in a
+book published by a spiritualist; and probably a good many of my readers
+will remember about it.</p>
+
+<p>Well, the baby had to be nursed&mdash;fact! This superhumanly silly female
+actually went through the motions of nursing the motive force for some
+weeks. Though how the thing sucked&mdash;Excuse me, ladies; I would not
+discuss such delicate subjects did not the interests of truth require
+it.</p>
+
+<p>If I had been the physician, at any rate, I think I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> should have
+recommended to hire a healthy female steam-engine for a wet nurse to
+this young motive force; say a locomotive, for instance. I feel sure the
+thing would have lived if it could have had a <a name="corr41" id="corr41"></a>gauge-faucet or something
+of that sort to draw on. But the medical folks in charge chose to permit
+the mother to nurse the child, and she not being able to supply proper
+nutriment, the poor little innocent faded&mdash;if that word be appropriate
+for what couldn&#8217;t be seen,&mdash;and finally &#8220;gin eout;&#8221; and the machinery,
+after some abortive joggles and turns, stood hopelessly still.</p>
+
+<p>This story is true&mdash;that is, it is true that the story was told, the
+pretences were gone through, and the birth was actually believed by a
+good many people. Some of them were prodigiously enthusiastic about it,
+and called the invisible brat the New Motive Power, the Physical Savior,
+Heaven&#8217;s Last Best Gift to Man, the New Creation, the Great Spiritual
+Revelation of the Age, the Philosopher&#8217;s Stone, the Act of all Acts, and
+so on, and so forth.</p>
+
+<p>The great question of all was, Who was the daddy? I don&#8217;t know of
+anybody&#8217;s asking this question, but its importance is extreme and
+obvious. For if things like this are going to happen, the ladies will be
+afraid to sleep alone in the house if so much as a sewing-machine or
+apple-corer be about, and will not dare take solitary walks along any
+stream where there is a water power.</p>
+
+<p>A couple of miscellaneous anecdotes may not inappropriately be appended
+to this story of monstrous delusion.</p>
+
+<p>Once a &#8220;writing medium&#8221; was producing sentences<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> in various foreign
+languages. One of these was Arabic. An enthusiastic youth, a
+half-believer, after inspecting the wondrous scroll, handed it to his
+seat-mate, a professor (as it happened) in one of our oldest colleges,
+and a man of real learning. The professor scrutinized the document. What
+was the youth&#8217;s delight to hear him at last observe gravely, &#8220;It is a
+kind of Arabic, sure enough!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What kind?&#8221; asked the young man with intense interest.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Gum-arabic,&#8221; said the professor.</p>
+
+<p>The spirit of the prophet Daniel came one night into the apartment of a
+medium named Fowler, and right before his eyes, he said, wrote down some
+marks on a piece of paper. These were shown to the Reverend George Bush,
+Professor of Hebrew in the New-York University, who said that they were
+&#8220;a few verses from the last chapter of Daniel&#8221; and were learnedly
+written. Bush was a spiritualist as well as a professor of Hebrew, and
+he ought to have known better than to indorse spirit-Hebrew; for shortly
+there came others, who, to use a rustic phrase, &#8220;took the rag off the
+Bush.&#8221; These inconvenient personages were three or four persons of
+learning: one a Jew, who proved that the document was an attempt to copy
+the verses in question, by some one so ignorant of Hebrew as not to know
+that it is written backward, that is, from right to left.</p>
+
+<p>During the last few months, a &#8220;boy medium,&#8221; by the name of Henry B.
+Allen, thirteen years of age, has been astonishing people in various
+parts of the country by &#8220;Physical Manifestations in the Light.&#8221; The
+exhi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>bitions of this precocious youngster have been &#8220;managed&#8221; by a Dr.
+Randall, who also lectures upon Spiritualism, expounding its &#8220;beautiful
+philosophy.&#8221; For a number of weeks this couple held forth in Boston,
+sometimes giving several s&eacute;ances during the day, not more than thirty
+being allowed to attend at one time, each of whom were required to pay
+an admission fee of one dollar.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Banner of Light&#8221; fully indorsed this Allen boy, and gave lengthy
+accounts of his manifestations. The arrangements for his exhibition were
+very simple. A dulcimer, guitar, bell, and small drum being placed on a
+sofa or several chairs set against the wall, a clothes-horse was set in
+front of them and covered with a blanket, which came to the floor. To
+obtain &#8220;manifestations,&#8221; a person was required to take off his coat and
+sit with his back to the clothes-horse. The medium then took a seat
+close to, and facing the investigator&#8217;s left side, and grasped the left
+arm of the latter on the under side, above the elbow, with his (the
+medium&#8217;s) right hand and near the wrist with the other hand. The
+&#8220;manager&#8221; then covered with a coat, the arms and left shoulder of the
+medium including the left arm of the investigator. The medium soon
+commenced to wriggle and twist&mdash;the &#8220;manager&#8221; said he was always nervous
+under &#8220;influence&#8221;&mdash;and worked the coat away from the position in which
+it had been placed. Taking his right hand from the investigator&#8217;s arm,
+he readjusted the coat, and availed himself of that opportunity to get
+the investigator&#8217;s wrist between his (the medium&#8217;s) left arm and knee.
+That brought his left hand in such a position that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> with it he could
+grasp the investigator&#8217;s arm where he had previously grasped it with his
+right hand. With the latter he could then reach around the edge of the
+clothes-horse and make a noise on the instruments. With the drumsticks
+he thumped on the dulcimer. Taking the guitar by the neck, he could
+vibrate the strings and show the body of the instrument above the
+clothes-horse, without any one seeing his hand! All persons present were
+so seated that they could not see behind the clothes-horse, or have a
+view of the medium&#8217;s right shoulder. When asked why people were not
+allowed to occupy such a position, that they could have a fair view of
+the instruments when sounded, the &#8220;manager&#8221; replied that he did not
+exactly know, but presumed it was because the magnetic emanations from
+the eyes of the beholders would prevent the spirits being able to move
+the instruments at all! What was claimed to be a spirit-hand was often
+shown above the clothes-horse, where it flickered for an instant and was
+withdrawn; but it was invariably a right hand with the wrist toward the
+medium. When the person sitting with the medium was asked if the hands
+of the latter had constantly hold of his arm, he replied in the
+affirmative. Of course, he felt what he supposed to be both the medium&#8217;s
+hands; but as I before explained, the pressure on his wrist was from the
+medium&#8217;s left arm&mdash;the left hand of whom, by means of a very
+accommodating crook in the elbow, was grasping the investigator&#8217;s arm
+where the medium&#8217;s right hand was supposed to be.</p>
+
+<p>From Boston the Allen boy went to Portland, Maine, where he succeeded
+&#8220;astonishingly,&#8221; till some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> gentleman applied the lampblack test to his
+assumed mediumship, whereupon he &#8220;came to grief.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The following is copied from the &#8220;Portland Daily Press,&#8221; of March 21.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;<span class="smcap">Exposed.</span>&mdash;The &#8216;wonderful&#8217; spiritual manifestations of the
+&#8216;boy-medium,&#8217; Master Henry B. Allen, in charge of Doctor J. H.
+Randall, of Boston, were brought to a sad end last evening by the
+impertinent curiosity and wicked doings of some of the gentlemen
+present at the seance at Congress Hall.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As usual, one of the company present was selected to sit at the
+side of the boy, and allowed his hand and arm to be held by both
+hands of the boy while the manifestations were going on. The boy
+seized hold of the gentleman&#8217;s wrist with his left hand, and his
+shoulder, or near it, with the right hand. The manifestations then
+began, and among them was one trick of pulling the gentleman&#8217;s
+hair.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Immediately after this trick was performed, the hand of the boy
+was discovered to be very black&mdash;from lamp-black, of the best
+quality, with which the gentleman had dressed his head on purpose
+to detect whose was the &#8216;spirit-hand&#8217; that pulled his hair. His
+shirt-sleeve, upon which the boy immediately replaced his hand
+after pulling his hair, was also black where the hand had been
+placed. The gentleman stated the facts to the company present, and
+the seance broke up. Dr. Randall refunded the fifty cents admission
+fee to those present.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>The spiritualists of the city were somewhat staggered by this <a name="corr42" id="corr42"></a>expos&eacute;,
+but soon rallied as one of their number announced a new discovery in
+spiritual science. Here it is, as stated by himself:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Whatever the electrical or &#8216;spirit-hand&#8217; touches, will inevitably be
+transferred to the hand of the medium<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> in every instance, unless
+something occurs to prevent the full operation of the law by which this
+result is produced. The spirit-hand being composed in part of the
+magnetic elements drawn from the medium, when it is dissolved again, and
+the magnetic fluid returns whence it came, it must of necessity carry
+with it whatever material substance it has touched, and leave it
+deposited upon the surface or material hand of the medium. This is a
+scientific question. How many innocent mediums have been wronged? and
+the invisible have permitted it, until we should discover that it was
+the natural result of a natural law.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>What a great discovery! and how lucidly it is set forth! The author
+(who, by the way, is editor of the &#8220;Portland Evening Courier&#8221;) of this
+new discovery, was not so modest but that he hastened to announce and
+claim full credit for it in the columns of the &#8220;Banner of Light&#8221;&mdash;the
+editor of which journal congratulates him on having done so much for the
+cause of spiritualism! Those skeptics who were present when the
+lamp-black was &#8220;transferred&#8221; from the gentleman&#8217;s hair to the medium&#8217;s
+hand, rashly concluded that the boy was an impostor. It remained for Mr.
+Hall&mdash;that is the philosopher&#8217;s name&mdash;to make the &#8220;electro-magnetic
+transfer&#8221; discovery. The Allen boy ought ever to hold him in grateful
+remembrance for coming to his rescue at such a critical period, when the
+spirits would not vouchsafe an explanation that would exculpate him from
+the grievous charge of imposture. Mr. Hall deserves a leather medal now,
+and a soapstone monument when he is dead.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>A person, whose initials are the same as the gentleman&#8217;s named above,
+once lived in Aroostook, Maine, and was in the habit of attending
+&#8220;spiritual circles,&#8221; in which he was sometimes influenced as a
+&#8220;personating medium,&#8221; and to represent the symptoms of the disease which
+caused the controlling spirit&#8217;s translation to another sphere. It having
+been reported in Aroostook that a certain well-known individual, living
+further east, had died of cholera, a desire was expressed at the next
+&#8220;circle&#8221; to have him &#8220;manifest&#8221; himself. The medium above referred to
+got &#8220;under influence,&#8221; and personated, with an exhibition of all the
+symptoms of cholera, the gentleman who was reported to have died of that
+disease. So faithful to the supposed facts was the representation, that
+the medium had to be cared for as if he was himself a veritable
+cholera-patient. Several days after, the man who was &#8220;personated&#8221;
+appeared in Aroostook, alive and well, never having been attacked with
+the cholera. The local papers gave a graphic account of the
+&#8220;manifestation&#8221; soon after it occurred.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to the Allen boy. After his exposure by means of the
+lamp-black test, and Mr. Hall, of the &#8220;Portland Evening Courier,&#8221; had
+announced his new discovery in spiritual science, several of the
+Portland spiritualists had a private &#8220;sitting&#8221; with the boy. While he
+sat with his hands upon the arm of one of their number, they tied a rope
+to his wrists, and around the person&#8217;s arm, covering his hands in the
+way I have before described. After some wriggling and twisting (the
+usual amount of &#8220;nervousness,&#8221;) the bell was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> heard to ring behind the
+clothes-horse. The boy&#8217;s right hand was then examined, and it was found
+to be stained with some colored matter that had previously been put upon
+the handle of the bell. As the boy&#8217;s wrists were still tied, and the
+rope remained upon the man&#8217;s arm, the &#8220;transfer&#8221; theory was considered
+to be established as a fact, and the previous exposure shown to be not
+only no exposure at all, but a &#8220;stepping-stone to a grand truth in
+spiritual science.&#8221; Again and again did these persistent and infatuated
+spiritualists try what they call the &#8220;transfer test,&#8221; varying with each
+experiment the coloring-material used, and every time the bell was rung
+the medium&#8217;s right hand was found out to be stained with what had been
+put upon the bell-handle. By having a little slack-rope between his
+wrist and the man&#8217;s arm, it was not a difficult matter for the medium,
+while his &#8220;nervousness&#8221; was being manifested, to get hold of the bell
+and ring it, and to make sounds upon the strings of the dulcimer or
+guitar, with a drumstick that the &#8220;manager&#8221; had placed at a convenient
+distance from his (the boy&#8217;s) hand.</p>
+
+<p>The &#8220;Portland Daily Press,&#8221; in noticing a lecture against Spiritualism,
+recently delivered by Dr. Von Vleck, in that city, says:&mdash;&#8220;He (Dr. V.
+V.) performed the principal feats of the Allen boy, with his hands tied
+to the arm of the person with whom he was in communication.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Horace Greeley says that if a man will be a consummate jackass and fool,
+he is not aware of anything in the Constitution to prevent it. I believe
+Mr. Greeley is right; and I think no one can reasonably be expect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>ed to
+exercise common sense unless he is known to possess it. It is quite
+natural, therefore, that many of the spiritualists, lacking common
+sense, should pretend to have something better.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="III_TRADE_AND_BUSINESS_IMPOSITIONS" id="III_TRADE_AND_BUSINESS_IMPOSITIONS"></a>III. TRADE AND BUSINESS IMPOSITIONS.</h2>
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">ADULTERATIONS OF FOOD.&mdash;&#8203;ADULTERATIONS OF LIQUOR.&mdash;&#8203;THE COLONEL&#8217;S
+WHISKEY.&mdash;&#8203;THE HUMBUGOMETER.</p>
+
+
+<p>It was about eight hundred and fifty years before Christ when the young
+prophet cried out to his master, Elisha, over the pottage of wild
+gourds, &#8220;There is death in the pot!&#8221; It was two thousand six hundred and
+seventy years afterward, in 1820, that Accum, the chemist cried out over
+again, &#8220;There is death in the pot!&#8221; in the title page of a book so
+named, which gave almost everybody a pain in the stomach, with its
+horrid stories of the unhealthful humbugs sold for food and drink. This
+excitement has been stirred up more than once since Mr. Accum&#8217;s time,
+with some success; yet nothing is more certain than that a very large
+proportion of the food we eat, of the liquid we drink&mdash;always excepting
+good well-filtered water&mdash;and the medicines we take, not to say a word
+about the clothes we wear and the miscellaneous merchandise we use, is
+more or less adulterated with cheaper materials. Sometimes these are
+merely harmless; as flour, starch, annatto, lard, etc.; sometimes they
+are vigorous, destructive poisons&mdash;as red lead, arsenic, strychnine, oil
+of vitriol, potash, etc.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>It is not agreeable to find ourselves so thickly beset by humbugs; to
+find that we are not merely called on to see them, to hear them, to
+believe them, to invest capital in them, but to eat and drink them. Yet
+so it is; and, if my short discussion of this kind of humbug shall make
+people a little more careful, and help them to preserve their health, I
+shall think myself fortunate.</p>
+
+<p>To begin with bread. Alum is very commonly put into it by the bakers, to
+make it white. Flour of inferior quality, &#8220;runny&#8221; flour, and even that
+from wormy wheat&mdash;ground-up worms, bugs, and all&mdash;is often mixed in as
+much as the case will bear. Potato flour has been known to be mixed with
+wheat; and so, thirty years ago, were plaster-of-Paris, bone-dust, white
+clay, etc. But these are little used now, if at all; and the worst thing
+in bread, aside from bad flour, which is bad enough, is usually the
+alum. It is often put in ready mixed with salt, and it accomplishes two
+things, viz., to make the bread white, and to suck up a good deal of
+water, and make the bread weigh well. It has been sometimes found that
+the alum was put in at the mill instead of the bakery.</p>
+
+<p>Milk is most commonly adulterated with cold water; and many are the
+jokes on the milkmen about their best cow being choked etc., by a turnip
+in the pump-spout&mdash;their &#8220;cow with the wooden tail&#8221; (<i>i. e.</i>, the
+pump-handle,) and so on. Awful stories are told about the London
+milkmen, who are said to manufacture a fearful kind of medicine to be
+sold as milk, the cream being made of a quantity of calf&#8217;s brain beaten
+to a slime. Stories are told around New York, too, of a mysteri<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>ous
+powder sold by druggists, which with water makes milk; but it is milk
+that must be used quickly, or it turns into a curious mess. But the
+worst adulteration of milk is to adulterate the old cow herself; as is
+done in the swill-milk establishments which received such an exposure a
+few years ago in a city paper. This milk is still furnished; and many a
+poor little baby is daily suffering convulsions from its effects. So
+difficult is it to find real milk for babies in the city, that
+physicians often prescribe the use of what is called &#8220;condensed&#8221; milk
+instead; which, though very different from milk not evaporated, is at
+least made of the genuine article. A series of careful experiments to
+develop the milk-humbug was made by a competent physician in Boston
+within a few years, but he found the milk there (aside from swill-milk)
+adulterated with nothing worse than water, salt, and burnt sugar.</p>
+
+<p>Tea is bejuggled first by John Chinaman, who is a very cunning rascal;
+and second, by the seller here. Green and black tea are made from the
+same plant, but by different processes&mdash;the green being most expensive.
+To meet the increased demand for green tea, Master John takes immense
+quantities of black tea and &#8220;paints&#8221; it, by stirring into it over a fire
+a fine powder of plaster Paris and Prussian-blue, at the rate of half a
+pound to each hundred pounds of tea. John also sometimes takes a very
+cheap kind, and puts on a nice gloss by stirring it in gum-water, with
+some stove-polish in it. We may imagine ourselves, after drinking this
+kind of tea, with a beautiful black gloss on our insides. John moreover,
+manufactures vast quantities of what he plainly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> calls &#8220;Lie-tea.&#8221; This
+is dust and refuse of tea-leaves and other leaves, made up with dust and
+starch or gum into little lumps, and used to adulterate better tea.
+Seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds of this nice stuff were imported
+into England in one period of eighteen months. It seems to be used in
+New-York only for green tea.</p>
+
+<p>Coffee is adulterated with chicory-root (which costs only about
+one-third as much)&mdash;dandelion-root, peas, beans, mangold-wurzel, wheat,
+rye, acorns, carrots, parsnips, horse-chestnuts, and sometimes with
+livers of horses and cattle! All these things are roasted or baked to
+the proper color and consistency, and then mixed in. No great sympathy
+need be expended on those who suffer from this particular humbug,
+however; for when it is so easy to buy the real berry, and roast or at
+least grind it one&#8217;s self, it is our own fault if our laziness leaves us
+to eat all those sorts of stuff.</p>
+
+<p>Cocoa is &#8220;extended&#8221; with sugar, starch, flour, iron-rust, Venetian-red,
+grease, and various earths. But it is believed by pretty good authority
+that the American-made preparations of cocoa are nearly or quite pure.
+Even if they are not the whole bean can be used instead.</p>
+
+<p>Butter and lard have one tenth, and sometimes even one-quarter, of water
+mixed up in them. It is easy to find this out by melting a sample before
+the fire and putting it away to cool, when the humbug appears by the
+grease going up, and the water, perhaps turbid with whey, settling
+below.</p>
+
+<p>Honey is humbugged with sugar or molasses. Sugar is not often sanded as
+the old stories have it. Fine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> white sugar is sometimes floured pretty
+well; and brown sugar is sometimes made of a portion of good sugar with
+a cheaper kind mixed in. Inferior brown sugars are often full of a
+certain crab-like animalcule or minute bug, often visible without a
+microscope, in water where the sugar is dissolved. It is believed that
+this pleasing insect sometimes gets into the skin, and produces a kind
+of itch. I do not believe there is much danger of adulteration in good
+loaf or crushed white sugar, or good granulated or brown sugar.</p>
+
+<p>Pepper is mixed with fine dust, dirt, linseed-meal, ground rice, or
+mustard and wheat-flour; ginger, with wheat flour colored by turmeric
+and reinforced by cayenne. Cinnamon is sometimes not present at all in
+what is so called&mdash;the stuff being the inferior and cheaper cassia bark;
+sometimes it is only part cassia; sometimes the humbug part of it is
+flour and ochre. Cayenne-pepper is mixed with corn-meal and salt,
+Venetian-red, mustard, brickdust, fine sawdust, and red-lead. Mustard
+with flour and turmeric. Confectionery is often poisoned with
+Prussian-blue, Antwerp-blue, gamboge, ultramarine, chrome yellow,
+red-lead, white-lead, <a name="corr43" id="corr43"></a>vermilion, Brunswick-green, and Scheele&#8217;s green,
+or arsenite of copper! Never buy any confectionery that is colored or
+painted. Vinegar is made of whisky, or of oil of vitriol. Pickles have
+verdigris in them to make them a pretty green. &#8220;Pretty green&#8221; he must be
+who will eat bought pickles! Preserved fruits often have verdigris in
+them, too.</p>
+
+<p>An awful list! Imagine a meal of such bewitched food, where the actual
+articles are named. &#8220;Take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> some of the alum bread.&#8221; &#8220;Have a cup of
+pea-soup and chicory-coffee?&#8221; &#8220;I&#8217;ll trouble you for the oil-of-vitriol,
+if you please.&#8221; &#8220;Have some sawdust on your meat, or do you prefer this
+flour and turmeric mustard?&#8221; &#8220;A piece of this verdigris-preserve
+gooseberry pie, Madam?&#8221; &#8220;Won&#8217;t you put a few more sugar-bugs in your
+ash-leaf tea?&#8221; &#8220;Do you prefer black tea, or Prussian-blue tea?&#8221; &#8220;Do you
+like your tea with swill-milk, or without?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I have not left myself space to speak of the tricks played by the
+druggists and the liquor-dealers; but I propose to devote another
+chapter exclusively to the adulteration of liquors in this country. It
+is a subject so fearful and so important that nothing less than a
+chapter can do it justice. I must now end with a story or two and a
+suggestion or two.</p>
+
+<p>Old Colonel P. sold much whisky; and his manner was to sell by sample
+out of a pure barrel over night, at a marvelous cheap rate, and then to
+&#8220;rectify&#8221; before morning, under pretence of coopering and marking.
+Certain persons having a grudge against the Colonel, once made an
+arrangement with a carman, who executed their plan, thus:&mdash;He went to
+the Colonel, and asked to see whisky. The jolly old fellow took him down
+stairs and showed him a great cellar full. Carman samples a barrel.
+&#8220;Fust rate, Colonel, how d&#8217;ye sell it?&#8221; Colonel names his price on the
+rectified basis. &#8220;Well, Colonel, how much yer got?&#8221; &#8220;So many
+barrels&mdash;two or three hundred.&#8221; &#8220;Colonel, here&#8217;s your money. I&#8217;ll take
+the lot.&#8221; &#8220;All right,&#8221; says Colonel P.; &#8220;there&#8217;s some coopering to be
+done<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> on it; some of the hoops and heads are a very little loose. You
+shall have it all in the morning.&#8221; &#8220;No, colonel, we&#8217;ll roll it right out
+this minnit! My trucks are up there, all ready.&#8221; And, sure enough, he
+had a string of a dozen or more brigaded in the street. The Colonel was
+sadly dumbfounded; he turned several colors&mdash;red mostly&mdash;stammered, made
+excuses. It was no go, the whisky was the customer&#8217;s, and the game was
+up. The humbugged old humbug finally &#8220;came down,&#8221; and bought his man off
+by paying him several hundred dollars.</p>
+
+<p>There is a much older and better known story about a grocer who was a
+deacon, and who was heard to call down stairs before breakfast, to his
+clerk: &#8220;John, have you watered the rum?&#8221; &#8220;Yes, Sir.&#8221; &#8220;And sanded the
+sugar?&#8221; &#8220;Yes, Sir.&#8221; &#8220;And dusted the pepper?&#8221; &#8220;Yes, Sir.&#8221; &#8220;And chicoried
+the coffee?&#8221; &#8220;Yes, Sir.&#8221; &#8220;Then come up to prayers.&#8221; Let us hope that the
+grocers of the present day, while they adulterate less, do not pray
+less.</p>
+
+<p>Between 1851 and 1854, Mr. Wakley of the &#8220;London Lancet&#8221; gave an awful
+roasting to the adulteration-interest in London. He employed an able
+analyzer, who began by going about without telling what he was at; and
+buying a great number of samples of all kinds of food, drugs, etc., at a
+great number of shops. Then he analyzed them; and when he found humbug
+in any sample, he published the facts, and the seller&#8217;s name and place
+of business. It may be imagined what a terrible row this kicked up. Very
+numerous and violent threats were made; but the &#8220;Lancet,&#8221; was never once
+sued by any of the aggrieved, for it had told the truth.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>Perhaps some discouraged reader may ask, What can I eat? Well, I don&#8217;t
+pretend to direct people&#8217;s diet. Ask your doctor, if you can&#8217;t find out.
+But I will suggest that there are a few things that can&#8217;t be
+adulterated. You can&#8217;t adulterate an egg, nor an oyster, nor an apple,
+nor a potato, nor a salt codfish; and if they are spoiled they will
+notify you themselves! and when good, they are all good healthy food. In
+short, one good safeguard is, to use, as far as you can, things with
+their life in them when you buy them, whether vegetable or animal. The
+next best rule against these adulteration-humbugs is, to buy goods crude
+instead of manufactured; coffee, and pepper, and spices, etc., whole
+instead of ground, for instance. Thus, though you give more work, you
+buy purity with it. And lastly, there are various chemical processes,
+and the microscope, to detect adulterations; and milk, in particular,
+may always be tested by a lactometer,&mdash;a simple little instrument which
+the milkmen use, which costs a few shillings, and which tells the story
+in an instant. It is a glass bulb, with a stem above and a scale on it,
+and a weight below. In good average milk, at sixty degrees of heat, the
+lactometer floats at twenty on its scale; and in poorer milk, at from
+that figure down. If it floats at fifteen, the milk is one-fourth water;
+if at ten, one half.</p>
+
+<p>It would be a wonderful thing for mankind if some philosophic Yankee
+would contrive some kind of &#8220;ometer&#8221; that would measure the infusion of
+humbug in anything. A &#8220;Humbugometer&#8221; he might call it. I would warrant
+him a good sale.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">ADULTERATIONS IN DRINKS.&mdash;&#8203;RIDING HOME ON YOUR WINE-BARREL.&mdash;&#8203;LIST OF
+THINGS TO MAKE RUM.&mdash;&#8203;THINGS TO COLOR IT WITH.&mdash;&#8203;CANAL-BOAT HASH.&mdash;&#8203;ENGLISH
+ADULTERATION LAW.&mdash;&#8203;EFFECTS OF DRUGS USED.&mdash;&#8203;HOW TO USE THEM.&mdash;&#8203;BUYING
+LIQUORS UNDER THE CUSTOM-HOUSE LOCK.&mdash;&#8203;A HOM&#338;OPATHIC DOSE.</p>
+
+
+<p>As long as the people of the United States tipple down rum and other
+liquors at the rate of a good deal more than one hundred million gallons
+a year, besides what is imported and what is called imported&mdash;as long as
+they pay for their tippling a good deal more than fifty millions, and
+probably over a hundred millions of dollars a year&mdash;so long it will be a
+great object to manufacture false liquors, and sell them at the price of
+true ones. When liquor of good quality costs from four to fifteen
+dollars a gallon, and an imitation can be had that tastes just as good,
+and has just as much &#8220;jizm&#8221; in it,&mdash;and probably a good deal more,&mdash;for
+from twenty-five cents to one dollar a gallon, somebody will surely make
+and sell that imitation.</p>
+
+<p>Adulterating and imitating liquors is a very large business; and I don&#8217;t
+know of anybody who will deny that this particular humbug is very
+extensively cultivated. There are a great many people, however, who will
+talk about it as they do in Western towns about fever and ague: &#8220;We
+don&#8217;t do anything of the kind here, but those other people over there
+do!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>There is very little pure liquor, either malt or spirituous, to be
+obtained in any way. The more you pay for it, as a rule, the more the
+publican gains, but what you drink is none the purer. Importing don&#8217;t
+help you. Port is&mdash;or used to be, for very little is now made,
+comparatively&mdash;imitated in immense quantities at Oporto; and in the
+log-wood trade, the European wine-makers competed with the dyers. It is
+a London proverb, that if you want genuine port-wine, you have got to go
+to Oporto and make your own wine, and then ride on the barrel all the
+way home. It is perhaps possible to get pure wine in France by buying it
+at the vineyard; but if any dealer has had it, give up the idea!</p>
+
+<p>As for what is done this side of the water, now for it. I do not rely
+upon the old work of Mr. &#8220;Death-in-the-pot Accum,&#8221; printed some thirty
+years ago, in England. My statements come mostly from a New York book
+put forth within a few years by a New York man, whose name is now in the
+Directory, and whose business is said to consist to a great extent in
+furnishing one kind or another of the queer stuff he talks about, to
+brewers, or distillers, or wine and brandy merchants.</p>
+
+<p>This gentleman, in a sweet alphabetical miscellany of drugs, herbs,
+minerals, and groceries commonly used in manufacturing our best Old
+Bourbon whisky, Swan gin, Madeira wine, pale ale, London brown stout,
+Heidsieck, <a name="corr44" id="corr44"></a>Clicquot, Lafitte, and other nice drinks; names the chief of
+such ingredients as follows:</p>
+
+<p>Aloes, alum, calamus (flag-root) capsicum, cocculus indicus, copperas,
+coriander-seed, gentian-root, ginger,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> grains-of-paradise, honey,
+liquorice, logwood, molasses, onions, opium, orange-peel, quassia, salt,
+stramonium-seed (deadly nightshade), sugar of lead, sulphite of soda,
+sulphuric acid, tobacco, turpentine, vitriol, yarrow. I have left
+strychnine out of the list, as some persons have doubts about this
+poison ever being used in adulterating liquors. A wholesale
+liquor-dealer in New York city, however, assures me that more than
+one-half the so-called whisky is poisoned with it.</p>
+
+<p>Besides these twenty-seven kinds of rum, here come twenty-three more
+articles, used to put the right color to it when it is made; by making a
+soup of one or another, and stirring it in at the right time. I alphabet
+these, too: alkanet-root, annatto, barwood, blackberry, blue-vitriol,
+brazil-wood, burnt sugar, cochineal, elderberry, garancine (an extract
+of madder), indigo, Nicaragua-wood, orchil, pokeberry, potash,
+quercitron, red beet, red cabbage, red carrots, saffron, sanders-wood,
+turmeric, whortleberry.</p>
+
+<p>In all, in both lists, just fifty. There are more, however. But that&#8217;s
+enough. Now then, my friend, what did you drink this morning? You called
+it Bourbon, or Cognac, or Old Otard, very likely, but what was it? The
+&#8220;glorious uncertainty&#8221; of drinking liquor under these circumstances is
+enough to make a man&#8217;s head swim without his getting drunk at all. There
+might, perhaps, be found a consolation like that of the Western
+traveller about the hash. &#8220;When I travel in a canal-boat or steam-boat,&#8221;
+quoth this brave and stout-stomached man, &#8220;I always eat the hash,
+because then I know what I&#8217;ve got!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>It was a good many years ago that the Parliament of England found it
+necessary to make a law to prevent sophisticating malt liquors. Here is
+the list of things they forbid to put into beer: &#8220;molasses, honey,
+liquorice, vitriol, quassia, cocculus indicus, grains-of-paradise,
+Guinea-pepper, opium.&#8221; The penalty was one thousand dollars fine on the
+brewer, and two thousand five hundred dollars on the druggist who
+supplied him.</p>
+
+<p>I know of no such law in this country. The theory of our government
+leaves people to take care of themselves as much as possible. But now
+let us see what some of these fifty ingredients will do. Beets and
+carrots, honey and liquorice, orange-peel and molasses, will not do much
+harm; though I should think tipplers would prefer them as the customer
+at the eating-house preferred his flies, &#8220;on a separate plate.&#8221; But the
+case is different with cocculus indicus, and stramonium, and sulphuric
+acid, and sugar of lead, and the like. I take the following accounts, so
+far as they are medical, from a standard work by Dr. Dunglison:&mdash;Aloes
+is a cathartic. Cocculus indicus contains picrotoxin, which is an &#8220;acrid
+narcotic poison;&#8221; from five to ten grains will kill a strong dog. The
+boys often call it &#8220;cockle-cinders;&#8221; they pound it and mix it in dough,
+and throw it into the water to catch fish. The poor fish eat it, soon
+become delirious, whirling and dancing furiously about on the top of the
+water, and then die. Copperas tends to produce nausea, vomiting,
+griping, and purging. Grains-of-paradise, a large kind of cardamom, is
+&#8220;strongly heating and carminative&#8221; (<i>i. e.</i>, anti-flatulent and
+anti-spasmodic.) Opium is known well enough.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> Stramonium-seed would seem
+to have been made on purpose for the liquor business. In moderate doses
+it is a powerful narcotic, producing vertigo, headache, dimness or
+perversion of vision (<i>i. e.</i>, seeing double) and confusion of thought.
+(N. B. What else does liquor do?) In larger doses (still like liquor,)
+you obtain these symptoms aggravated; and then a delirium, sometimes
+whimsical (snakes in your boots) and sometimes furious, a stupor,
+convulsions, and death. A fine drink this stramonium? Sugar of lead is
+what is called a cumulative poison; having the quality of remaining in
+the system when taken in small quantities, and piling itself up, as it
+were, until there is enough to accomplish something, when it causes
+debility, paralysis, and other things. Sulphuric acid is strongly
+corrosive,&mdash;a powerful caustic, attacking the teeth, even when very
+dilute; eating up flesh and bones alike when strong enough; and, if
+taken in a large enough dose, an awfully tearing and agonizing fatal
+poison.</p>
+
+<p>The way to use these delectable nutriments is in part as follows:&mdash;Stir
+a little sulphuric acid into your beer. This will give you a fine &#8220;old
+ale&#8221; in about a quarter of a minute. Take a mixture of alum, salt, and
+copperas, ground fine, and stir into your beer, and this will make it
+froth handsomely. Cocculus indicus, tobacco-leaves, and stramonium,
+cooked in the beer, etc., give it force. Potash is sometimes stirred
+into wine to correct acidity. Sulphite of soda is now very commonly
+stirred into cider, to keep it from fermenting further. Sugar of lead is
+stirred into wines to make them clear, and to keep them sweet. And so
+on, through the whole long list.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>It is a curious instance of people&#8217;s quiet acknowledgment of their own
+foolishness, that a popular form of the invitation to take a drink is,
+&#8220;Come and h&#8217;ist in some pizen!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I know of no plan by which anybody can be sure of obtaining pure liquor
+of any description. Some persons always purchase their wines and liquors
+while they are under the custom-house lock and consequently before they
+have reached the hands of the importer. Yet there are scores of men in
+New York and Philadelphia who have made large fortunes by sending whisky
+to France, there refining, coloring, flavoring, and doctoring it, then
+re-shipping it to New York as French brandy, paying the duty, and
+selling it before it has left the custom-house! There is a locality in
+France where a certain brand of wine is made. It is adulterated with
+red-lead, and every year more or less of the inhabitants of that
+locality are attacked with &#8220;lead-colic,&#8221; caused by drinking this
+poisoned wine right at the fountain-head where it is made. There is more
+bogus champagne drank in any one year, in the city of Paris alone, than
+there is genuine champagne made in any one year in the world. America
+ordinarily consumes more so-called champagne annually than is made in
+the world, and yet nearly all the genuine champagne in the world is
+taken by the courts of Europe. The genuine Hock wine made at
+Johannisberg on the Rhine is worth three dollars per bottle by the large
+quantity, and nearly all of it is shipped to Russia; yet, at any of the
+hotels in the village of Johannisberg, within half a mile from the
+wine-presses of the pure article, you can be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> supplied for a dollar per
+bottle with what purports to be the genuine Hock wine. Since chemistry
+has enabled liquor dealers to manufacture any description of wine or
+liquor for twenty-five cents to a dollar a gallon, there are annually
+made and sold thousands of gallons of wine and brandy that never smelt a
+grape.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose a wholesale liquor-merchant imports genuine brandy. He usually
+&#8220;rectifies&#8221; and adulterates it by adding eighty-five gallons of pure
+spirits (refined whisky,) to fifteen gallons of brandy, to give it a
+flavor; then colors and &#8220;doctors&#8221; it, and it is ready for sale. Suppose
+an Albany wholesale-dealer purchases, for pure brandy, ten pipes of this
+adulterated brandy from a New York importer. The Albany man immediately
+doubles his stock by adding an equal quantity of pure spirits. There are
+then seven and a half gallons of brandy in a hundred. A Buffalo
+liquor-dealer buys from the Albany man, and he in turn adds one-half
+pure spirits. The Chicago dealer buys from the Buffalo dealer, and as
+nearly all spirit-dealers keep large quantities of pure spirits on hand,
+and know how to use it, he again doubles the quantity of his brandy by
+adding pure spirits; and the Milwaukee liquor-dealer does the same,
+after purchasing from the Chicago man. So, in the ordinary course of
+liquor transactions, by the time a hundred gallon pipe of pure brandy
+reaches Wisconsin, at a cost of five or perhaps ten dollars per gallon,
+ninety-nine gallons and one pint of it is the identical whisky that was
+shipped from Wisconsin the same year at fifty cents per gallon. Truly a
+hom&#339;opathic dose of genuine brandy! And even that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> whisky when it
+left Wisconsin was only half whisky; for there are men in the
+whisky-making States who make it a business to take whisky direct from
+the distillery, add to it an equal quantity of water, and then bring it
+up to a bead and the power of intoxication, by mixing in a variety of
+the villainous drugs and deadly poisons enumerated in this chapter. The
+annual loss of strength, health, and life caused by the adulteration of
+liquor is truly appalling. Those who have not examined the subject can
+form no just estimate of the atrocious and extensive effects of this
+murderous humbug.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE PETER FUNKS AND THEIR FUNCTIONS.&mdash;&#8203;THE RURAL DIVINE AND THE
+WATCH.&mdash;&#8203;RISE AND PROGRESS OF MOCK AUCTIONS.&mdash;&#8203;THEIR DECLINE AND FALL.</p>
+
+
+<p>Not many years ago, a dignified and reverend man, whose name is well
+known to me, was walking sedately down Broadway. He was dressed in
+clerical garb of black garments and white neckcloth. He was a man of
+great learning, profound thought, long experience, unaffected piety, and
+pure and high reputation.</p>
+
+<p>All at once, a kind of chattering shout smote him fair in the left ear:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Narfnarfnarf! Three shall I have? Narfnarfnarfnarfnarf! Going at two
+and a half! Gone!!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And the grave divine, pausing, beheld a doorway,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> over which waved a
+little red flag. Within, a company of eager bidders thronged around an
+auctioneer&#8217;s stand; and the auctioneer himself, a well-dressed man with
+a highly respectable look, was just handing over to the delighted
+purchaser a gold watch.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It would be cheap at one hundred dollars,&#8221; said he, in a despondent
+tone. &#8220;It&#8217;s mere robbery to sell it for that price. I&#8217;d buy it myself if
+&#8217;twas legal.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And while the others, with exclamations of surprise and congratulation,
+crowded to see this famous purchase, and the buyer exhibited it with a
+joyful countenance close by the door, the divine, just out of curiosity,
+stepped in. He owned no watch; he was a country clergyman, and poor in
+this world&#8217;s goods; so poor that, to use a familiar phrase, &#8220;if
+steamboats were selling at a dime a piece, he would hardly be able to
+buy a gang-plank.&#8221; But what if he could, by good luck, buy a good gold
+watch for two dollars and a half in this wonderful city!</p>
+
+<p>Somehow, that watch was snapped open and closed again right under his
+ministerial nose about six times. The auctioneer held up another of
+exactly the same kind, and began to chatter again.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now gentlemen, what &#8216;moffered f&#8217;this first-class M. I. Tobias gold
+English lever watch&mdash;full jeweled, compensation-balance,
+anchor-escapement, hunting case? One, did I hear? Say two cents, wont
+yer? Two and a half! narfnarfnarfnarfnarf and a half! Two and a half,
+and three quarters. Thank you, Sir,&#8221; to a sailor-like man in the corner.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Three,&#8221; said a tall and well-dressed young gentleman with short hair,
+near the clergyman, adding, in an undertone, &#8220;I can sell it for fifty
+this afternoon.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>&#8220;Three I am offered,&#8221; says Mr. Auctioneer, and chattered on as before:
+&#8220;And a half, did you say, Sir? Thank you, Sir. And a halfnarfnarf!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The reverend divine had said, &#8220;And a half.&#8221; The Peter Funks had got him!
+But he didn&#8217;t find it out quite yet. The bidding was run up to four
+dollars; the clergyman took the watch, opened and examined it; was
+convinced, handed it back, ventured another half, and the watch was
+knocked down to him. The auctioneer fumbled in some papers, and, in a
+moment, handed him his bargain neatly done up.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This way to the clerk&#8217;s office if you please, Sir,&#8221; he added, with a
+civil bow. The clergyman passed a little further in; and while the sales
+proceeded behind him, the clerk made out a bill and proffered it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Fifty-four dollars and a half!&#8221; read the country divine, astounded.
+&#8220;Four and a half is what I bid!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Four and a half!&#8221; exclaimed the clerk, with sarcastic indignation;
+&#8220;Four dollars and a half! A pretty story! A minister to have the face to
+say he could buy an M. I. Tobias gold watch, full jeweled, for four
+dollars and a half! Ill thank you for the money, Sir. Fifty-four, fifty,
+if you please.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The auctioneer, as if interrupted by the loud tones of the indignant
+clerk, stopped the sale to see what was the matter. On hearing the
+statement of the two parties, he cast a glance of angry contempt upon
+the poor clergyman, who, by this time, was uneasy enough at their
+scowling faces. Then, as if relenting, he said half-sneeringly:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think you look very well in this business,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> Sir. But you are
+evidently a clergyman, and we wish everybody to have fair treatment in
+this office. We won&#8217;t be imposed upon, Sir, by any man!&#8221; (Here his face
+darkened, and his fists could be seen to clench with much meaning.) &#8220;Pay
+that money, Sir! This establishment is not to be humbugged. But you
+needn&#8217;t be afraid of losing anything. You may let me take the watch and
+sell it for you again on the spot. Very likely you can get more for it.
+You can&#8217;t lose. The clergyman hesitated. The tall and well-dressed young
+man with short hair pushed up and said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t want it? Put her up again. G&mdash;! I&#8217;d like another chance myself!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A heavily-built fellow with one eye, observed over the auctioneer&#8217;s
+shoulder, with an evil look at the divine, &#8220;D&mdash;d if I don&#8217;t believe that
+cuss is a gambler, come in here to fool us country-folks. They allus
+wears white neckcloths. I say, search him and boot him out of the shop!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hold your tongue!&#8221; answered the auctioneer, with dignity. &#8220;I will see
+you safe, Sir,&#8221; to the clergyman. <a name="corr45" id="corr45"></a>&#8220;But you bid that money, and you must
+pay it. We can&#8217;t do this business on any other principles.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You will sell it for me again at once?&#8221; asked the poor minister.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Certainly,&#8221; said the mollified auctioneer. And the humbugged divine,
+with an indistinct sense of something wrong, but not able to tell what,
+took out forty dollars from his lean wallet and handed it to the clerk.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s all I have to get home with,&#8221; he said, simply.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Never fear, old gentleman,&#8221; said the clerk, affably; &#8220;You&#8217;ll be all
+right in two minutes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>The watch was put up again. The clergyman, scarce able to believe his
+ears, heard it rapidly run up to sixty dollars and knocked down at that
+price. The cash was handed to the clerk, and another bill made out; ten
+per cent., deducted, commission on sales. &#8220;Usual terms, Sir,&#8221; observed
+the clerk, handing over the notes just received for the watch. And the
+divine, very thankful to get off for half a dollar, hurried off as fast
+as he could.</p>
+
+<p>I need not say that his fifty-four dollars was all counterfeit money.
+When he went next morning, after endeavoring in vain to part with his
+new funds, to find the place where he had been humbugged, it was close
+shut, and he could hardly identify even the doorway. He went to the
+police, and the shrewd captain told him that it was a difficult
+business; but sent an officer with him to look up the rascals. Officer
+found one; demanded redress; clergyman did the same. Rascal asked
+clergyman&#8217;s name; got it; told him he could prosecute if he liked.
+Clergyman looked at officer; officer, with indifference, observed:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Means to stick your name in the papers.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Clergyman said he would take further advice; did take it; thought he
+wouldn&#8217;t be shown up as a &#8220;greeny&#8221; in the police reports; borrowed money
+enough to get home with, and if he has a gold watch now&mdash;which I really
+hope he has&mdash;got it either for its real value, or as a &#8220;testimonial.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There, that (with many variations) is the whole story of Peter Funk.
+These &#8220;mock auctioneers,&#8221; sometimes, as in the case I have mentioned,
+take advantage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> of the respectability of their victims, sometimes of
+their haste to leave the city on business. When they could not possibly
+avoid it, they disgorged their prey. No instance is known to me of any
+legal penalty being inflicted on them by a magistrate; but they were
+always, until 1862, treated by police, by magistrate, and by mayor, just
+as thieves would be who should always be let off on returning their
+stealings; so that they could not lose by thieving, and might gain.</p>
+
+<p>These rascally mock-auctioneers, thus protected by the authorities, used
+to fleece the public out of not less than sixty thousand dollars a year.
+One of them cleared twelve thousand dollars during the year 1861 alone.
+And this totally shameless and brazen-faced humbug flourished in New
+York for twenty-five years!</p>
+
+<p>About the first day of June, 1862, the Peter Funks had eleven dens, or
+traps, in operation in New York; five in Broadway below Fulton street,
+and the others in Park row, and Courtlandt, Greenwich, and Chatham
+streets.</p>
+
+<p>The name, Peter Funk, is said to have been that of the founder of their
+system; but I know nothing more of his career. At this date, in 1862,
+the system was in a high state of organization and success, and included
+the following constituents:</p>
+
+<p>1. Eight chief Funks, or capitalists, and managers, whose names are well
+enough known. I have them on record.</p>
+
+<p>2. About as many more salesmen, who took turns with the chiefs in
+selling and clerking.</p>
+
+<p>3. Seventy or eighty, rank and file, or ropers-in.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> These acted the part
+of buyers, like the purchaser whose delight over his watch helped to
+deceive the minister and the other bidders on that occasion. These
+fellows dressed up as countrymen, sailors, and persons of miscellaneous
+respectability. They bid and talked when that was sufficient, or helped
+the managers thrash any troublesome person, if necessary. Once in a long
+time they met their match; as, for instance, when the mate of a ship
+brought up a squad of his crew, burst into one of their dens, and beat
+and battered up the whole gang within an inch of their lives. But, in
+most cases, the reckless infamy of these dregs of city vice gave them an
+immense advantage over a decent citizen; for they could not be defiled
+nor made ridiculous, and he could.</p>
+
+<p>4. Two or three traders in cheap jewelry and fancy-goods supplied the
+Funks with their wares. One of these fellows used to sell them fifty or
+a hundred dollars&#8217; worth of this trash a day; and he lamented as much
+over their untimely end as the Ephesian silversmiths did over the loss
+of their trade in shrines.</p>
+
+<p>5. A lawyer received a regular salary of $1,200 a year to defend all the
+Funk cases.</p>
+
+<p>6. The city politicians, in office and out of it, who were wont to
+receive the aid of the Funks (a very energetic cohort) at elections, and
+who in return unscrupulously used both power and influence to keep them
+from punishment.</p>
+
+<p>All this cunning machinery was brought to naught and New York relieved
+of a shame and a pest by the courage, energy, <a name="corr46" id="corr46"></a>perseverance, and good
+sense of one Yankee officer&mdash;Russell Wells, a policeman. Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> Wells took
+about six months to finish up his work. He began it of his own accord,
+finding that the spirit of the police regulations required it;
+prosecuted the undertaking without fear or favor, finding not very much
+support from the judicial authorities, and sometimes actual and direct
+discouragement. His method was to mount guard over one auction shop at a
+time, and warn all whom he saw going in, and to follow up all complaints
+to the utmost until that shop was closed, when he laid siege to another.
+Various offers of money, direct and indirect, were made him. One fellow
+offered him $500 to walk on the other side of the street. Another
+offered him $1,000 to drop the undertaking. Another hinted at a regular
+salary of hush-money, saying &#8220;he had now got these fellows where he
+could make as much out of them as he wanted to, right along.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes they threatened him with &#8220;murder and sudden death.&#8221; Several
+times they got out an injunction upon him, and several times sued him
+for slander. One of their complaints charged, with ludicrous hypocrisy,
+that the defendant, &#8220;with malicious intent, stood round the door
+uttering slanderous charges against the good name, fame, and credit of
+the defendant,&#8221; just as foolish old lawyers used to argue that &#8220;the
+greater the truth the greater the libel.&#8221; Sometimes they argued and
+indignantly denounced. One of them told him, &#8220;he was a thief and a
+murderer, driving men out of employment whose wives and children
+depended on their business for support.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Another contended that their business was just as fair as that of the
+stock-operators in Wall street. I fear that wasn&#8217;t making out much of a
+case.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>But their threats were idle; their suits, and prosecutions, and
+injunctions, never came to a head; their bribes did not operate. The
+officer, imperturbably good-natured, but horribly diligent, watched, and
+warned, and hunted, and complained, and squeezed back their money at the
+rate of $500 or $1,000 every month, until they were perfectly sickened.
+One by one they shut up shop. One went to his farm, another to his
+merchandise, another to emigrant running, another (known by the elegant
+surname of Blur-eye Thompson) to raising recruits, several into the
+bounty jumping business.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the life and death of an outrageous humbug and nuisance, whose
+like was not to be found in any other city on earth; and would not have
+been endured in any except this careless, money-getting, misgoverned one
+of New York.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">LOTTERY SHARKS.&mdash;&#8203;BOULT AND HIS BROTHERS.&mdash;&#8203;KENNETH, KIMBALL AND
+COMPANY.&mdash;&#8203;A MORE CENTRAL LOCATION WANTED FOR BUSINESS.&mdash;&#8203;TWO
+SEVENTEENTHLIES.&mdash;&#8203;STRANGE COINCIDENCE.</p>
+
+
+<p>I have before me a mass of letters, printed and lithographed circulars,
+and the like, which illustrate well two or three of the most foolish and
+vicious swindles [it is wrong to call them humbugs] now extant. They
+also prove that there are a good many more fools alive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> in our Great
+Republic than some of us would like to admit.</p>
+
+<p>These letters and papers are signed, respectively, by the following
+names: Alexander Van Dusen; Thomas Boult &amp; Co.; E. F. Mayo; Geo. P.
+Harper; Browne, Sherman &amp; Co.; Hammett &amp; Co.; Charles A. Herbert; Geo.
+C. Kenneth; T. Seymour &amp; Co.; C. W. White, Purchasing Agency; C. J.
+Darlington; B. H. Robb &amp; Co.; James Conway; S. B. Goodrich; Egerton
+Brothers; C. F. Miner; E. J. Kimball; E. A. Wilson; and J. T. Small.</p>
+
+<p>All these productions, with one or two exceptions, are dated during the
+last three months of 1864, and January 1865. They are mailed from a good
+many different places, and addressed to respectable people in all
+directions.</p>
+
+<p>In particular, should be noticed, however, two lots of them.</p>
+
+<p>The first lot are signed either by Thomas Boult &amp; Co., Hammett &amp; Co.,
+Egerton Brothers, or T. Seymour &amp; Co. When these four documents are
+placed together, each with its inclosure, a story is told that seems
+clear enough to explain itself to the greenest fool in the world.</p>
+
+<p>These fellows&mdash;Boult and the rest of them, I mean&mdash;are lottery sharks.
+Now, those who buy lottery tickets are very silly and credulous, or very
+lazy, or both. They want to get money without earning it. This foolish
+and vicious wish, however, betrays them into the hands of these lottery
+sharks. I wish that each of these poor foolish, greedy creatures could
+study on this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> set of letters awhile. Look at them. You see that the
+lithographed handwriting in all four is in the same hand. You observe
+that each of them incloses a printed hand-bill with &#8220;scheme,&#8221; all
+looking as like as so many peas. They refer, you see, to the same
+&#8220;Havana scheme,&#8221; the same &#8220;Shelby College Lottery,&#8221; the same &#8220;managers,&#8221;
+and the same place of drawing. Now, see what they say. Each knave tells
+his fool his only object is to put said fool in possession of a handsome
+prize, so that fool may run round and show the money, and rope in more
+fools. What an ingenious way to make the fool think he will return value
+for the prize! Each knave further says to his fool (I copy the words of
+the knave from his lithograph letter:) &#8220;We are so certain that we know
+how to select a lucky certificate, that if the one we select for you
+does not, at the very least, draw a $5,000 prize, we will&#8221;&mdash;what? Pay
+the money ourselves? Oh no. Knave does not offer to pay half of it.
+&#8220;Will send you another package in one of our extra lotteries for
+nothing!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Observe how particularly every knave is to tell his fool to &#8220;give us the
+name of the nearest bank,&#8221; so that the draft for the prize-money can be
+forwarded instantly.</p>
+
+<p>And in return for all this kindness, what do Messrs. Boult and-so-forth
+want? Why, almost nothing. &#8220;The ridiculously small sum,&#8221; as Mr. Montague
+Tigg observed to Mr. Pecksniff, of $10. You observe that Hammett &amp; Co.,
+in one circular, demand $20, for the same $5,000 prize. But the amount,
+they would say, is too trifling to be so particular about!</p>
+
+<p>I will suggest a form for answering these gentlemen.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> Let every one of
+my readers who receives one of their circulars just copy and date and
+sign, and send them the following:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;<span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>:&mdash;I thank you for your great kindness in wishing to make
+me the possessor of a $5,000 prize in your truly rich and splendid
+Royal Havana Lottery. I fully believe that you know, as you say,
+all about how to get these prizes, and that you can make it a big
+thing. But I cannot think of taking all that money from such kind
+of people as you. I must insist upon your having half of it, and I
+will not hear of any refusal, I therefore hereby authorize you to
+invest for me the trifle of $10, which you mention; and when the
+prize is drawn, to put half of it, and $10 over, right into your
+own benevolent pantaloons-pocket, and to remit the other half to
+me, addressed as follows: (Here give the name of the &#8220;nearest
+bank.&#8221;)</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have not the least fear that you will cheat me out of my half;
+and, as you see, I thus place myself confidently in your hands.
+With many thanks for your great and undeserved kindness, I remain
+your obliged and obedient <span class="lastword">servant.</span> <span class="price smcap">Etc., Etc.&#8221;</span></p></div>
+
+<p>My readers will observe that this mode of replying affords full swing to
+the expansive charities of Boult and his brethren, and is a sure method
+of saving the expenditure of $10, although Boult is to get that amount
+back when the prize is drawn.</p>
+
+<p>I charge nothing for these suggestions; but will not be so discourteous
+as to refuse a moderate percentage on all amounts received in pursuance
+of them from Brother Boult &amp; Co.</p>
+
+<p>Here is the second special lot of letters I spoke of. I lay them out on
+my desk as before: There are six letters signed respectively by Kimball,
+Goodrich, Dar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>lington, Kenneth, Harper, and Herbert. Now notice, first
+the form, and next the substance.</p>
+
+<p>As to form&mdash;they are all written, not, lithographed; they are on paper
+of the same make and size, and out of the same lot, as you observe by
+the manufacturer&#8217;s stamp&mdash;a representation of the Capitol in the upper
+corner. They are in the same hand, an easy legible business-hand, though
+three of them are written with a backward slope. Those who sent them
+have not sent me the envelopes with them, except in one case, so that I
+cannot tell where they were mailed. Neither is any one of them dated
+inside at any town or post-office. But, by a wonderful coincidence,
+every one of them is dated at &#8220;No. 17 Merchants&#8217; Exchange.&#8221; A busy mart
+that No. 17 must be! And it is a still more curious coincidence that
+every one of these six industrious chaps has been unable to find a
+sufficiently central location for transacting his business. Every letter
+you see, contains a printed slip advising of a removal, as follows:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<span class="smcap">Removal.</span>&mdash;Desiring a more central location for transacting my business,
+I have removed my office to No. 17 Merchants Exchange.&#8221; Where? One says
+to West Troy, New York; another to Patterson, New Jersey; another to
+Bronxville, New York; another, to Salem, New-York, and so on! It is a
+new thing to find how central all those places are. Undeveloped
+metropolises seem to exist in every corner. Well, the slip ends with a
+notice that in future letters must be directed to the new place.</p>
+
+<p>Next, as to substance. The six letters all tell the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> same story. They
+are each the second letter; the first one having been sent to the same
+person, and having contained a lottery-ticket, as a gift of love or free
+charity. This second letter is the one which is expected to &#8220;fetch.&#8221; It
+says in substance: &#8220;Your ticket has drawn a prize of <a name="corr47" id="corr47"></a>$200,&#8221;&mdash;the letters
+all name the same amount&mdash;&#8220;but you didn&#8217;t pay for it; and therefore are
+not entitled to it. Now send me $10 and I will cheat the lottery-man by
+altering the post-mark of your letter so that the money shall seem to
+have been sent before the lottery was drawn. This forgery will enable me
+to get the $200, which I will send you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>How cunning that is! It is exactly calculated to hit the notions of a
+vulgar, ignorant, lazy, greedy, and unprincipled bumpkin. Such a fellow
+would see just far enough into the millstone to be tickled at the idea
+of cheating those lottery fellows. And the knave ends his letter with
+one more touch most delicately adapted to make Master Bumpkin feel
+certain that his cash is coming. He says, &#8220;Be sure to show your prize to
+all your friends, so as to make them buy tickets at my office.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, these letters inclose each a &#8220;report of the seventeenth
+monthly drawing of the Cosmopolitan Art Union Association.&#8221; You may
+observe that one of these &#8220;seventeenth drawings&#8221; took place November 7
+1864, and another December 5, 1864; so that seventeenthly came twice.
+What is a far more remarkable coincidence is this; that in each of these
+&#8220;reports&#8221; is a list of a hundred and thirty or forty numbers that drew
+prizes, and it is exactly the same list each time,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> and the same prize
+to each number! There is a third coincidence; that one of these two
+drawings is said to have been at London, New York, and the other at
+London, New Jersey. And lastly, there is a fourth coincidence, viz.,
+that neither of these places exists.</p>
+
+<p>Now, what a transparent swindle this is! how plain, how impudent, how
+rascally! And all done entirely by the use of the Post Office privileges
+of the United States. Try to catch this fellow. You can find where he
+mailed his circular; but he probably stopped there over night to do so,
+and nobody knew it. In each circular, he wrote to his dupes to address
+him at that new &#8220;more central location&#8221; that he struggles after so hard;
+and how is the pursuer to find it? Would anybody naturally go and watch
+the Post Office at Bronxville, New York, for instance, as a particularly
+central location for business?</p>
+
+<p>Besides, no one person is cheated out of enough to make him follow up
+the affair, and probably nobody who sends the cash wants to say much
+about it afterward. He wants to wait and show the prize!</p>
+
+<p>These dirty sharking traps will always be set, and will always catch
+silly people, as long as there are any to catch. The only means of
+stopping such trickery is to diffuse the conviction that the best way to
+get a living is, to go to work like a man and earn it honestly.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">ANOTHER LOTTERY HUMBUG.&mdash;&#8203;TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY RECIPES.&mdash;&#8203;VILE
+BOOKS.&mdash;&#8203;&#8220;ADVANTAGE-CARDS.&#8221;&mdash;&#8203;A PACKAGE FOR YOU; PLEASE SEND THE
+MONEY.&mdash;&#8203;PEDDLING IN WESTERN NEW YORK.</p>
+
+
+<p>The readiness with which people will send off their money to a swindler
+is perfectly astounding. It does really seem as if an independent
+fortune could be made simply by putting forth circulars and
+advertisements, requesting the receiver to send five dollars to the
+advertiser, and saying that &#8220;it will be all right.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I have already given an account of the way in which lottery dealers
+operate. From among the same pile of documents which I used then, I have
+selected a few others, as instances in part, of a class of humbugs
+sometimes of a kind even far more noxious, and which show that their
+devisers and patrons are not only sharpers or fools, but often also very
+cold-blooded villains or very nasty ones. Some of them are managed by
+printed circulars and written letters, such as those before me; some of
+them by newspaper advertisements. Some are only to cheat you out of
+money, and others offer in return for money some base gratification. But
+whatever means are used, and whatever purpose is sought, they are all
+alike in one thing&mdash;they depend entirely on the monstrous number of
+simpletons who will send money to people they know nothing about.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>Of the nasty ones, I can give no details. Vile books, pictures, etc.,
+are from time to time advertised, sold, and forwarded, by circular, and
+through the mails, and for large prices.</p>
+
+<p>There have been some cases where a funny sort of swindle has been
+effected by these peddlers of pruriency, by selling some dirty-minded
+dupe a cheap good book, at the extravagant price of a dear bad one. More
+than one foolish youth has received, instead of the vile thing that he
+sent five dollars for, a nice little New Testament. It is obvious that
+no very loud complaints are likely to be made about such cheating as
+that. It is, perhaps, one of the safest swindles ever contrived.</p>
+
+<p>The first document which I take from my pile is the announcement of a
+fellow who operates lottery-wise. His scheme appeals at once to
+benevolence and to greediness. He says: &#8220;The profits of the distribution
+are to be given to the Sanitary Commission;&#8221; and secondly, &#8220;Every ticket
+brings a prize of at least its full value, and some of them $5,000.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>If, therefore you won&#8217;t buy tickets for filthy lucre&#8217;s sake, buy for the
+sake of our soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; somebody says, &#8220;how can you afford this arrangement, which is a
+direct loss of the whole cost of working your lottery, and moreover of
+the whole value of all prizes costing more than a ticket?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh,&#8221; replies our benevolent friend, &#8220;a number of manufacturers in New
+England have asked me to do this, and the prizes are given by them as
+friends of the soldier.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>One observation will sufficiently show what an impudent mess of lies
+this story is, namely;&mdash;If the manufacturers of New England wanted to
+give money to the Sanitary Commission, they would give money; if goods,
+they would give goods. They certainly would not put their gifts through
+the additional roundabout, useless nonsense of a lottery, which is to
+turn over only the same amount of funds to the Commission.</p>
+
+<p>The next document is a circular sent from a Western town by a fellow who
+claims also to be a master of arts, doctor of medicines, and doctor of
+laws, but whose handwriting and language are those of a stable-boy. This
+chap sends round a list of two hundred and fifty recipes at various
+prices, from twenty-five cents to a dollar each. Send him the money for
+any you wish, and he promises to return you the directions for making
+the stuff. You are then to go about and peddle it, and swiftly become
+independently rich. You can begin with a dollar, he says; in two days
+make fifty dollars, and then sweep on in a grand career of affluence,
+making from $75 to $200 a day, &#8220;if you are industrious.&#8221; What is
+petroleum to this? It is a mercy that we don&#8217;t all turn to and peddle to
+each other; we should all get too rich to speak!</p>
+
+<p>The fellow, out of pure kindness and desire for your good, recommends
+you to buy all his recipes, as then you will be sure to sell something
+to everybody. Most of these recipes are for sufficiently harmless
+purposes&mdash;shaving-soap, cement, inks&mdash;&#8220;five gallons of good ink for
+fifteen cents&#8221;&mdash;tooth-powders, etc. Some of them are arrant nonsense;
+such as &#8220;tea&mdash;better than the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> Chinese,&#8221; which is as if he promised
+something wetter than water; &#8220;to make thieves&#8217; vinegar;&#8221; &#8220;prismatic
+diamond crystals for windows;&#8221; &#8220;to make yellow butter&#8221;&mdash;is the butter
+blue where the man lives? Others are of a sort calculated to attract
+foolish rustic rascals who would like to gain an easy living by
+cheating, if they were only smart enough. Thus, there is &#8220;Rothschild&#8217;s
+great secret; or how to make common gold.&#8221; My readers shall have a
+better recipe than this swindler&#8217;s&mdash;work hard, think hard, be honest,
+and spend little&mdash;this will &#8220;make common gold,&#8221; and this is all the
+secret Rothschild ever had. A number of these recipes are barefaced
+quackeries; such as cures for consumption, cancer, rheumatism, and
+sundry other diseases; to make whiskers and mustaches grow&mdash;ah, boys,
+you <a name="corr48" id="corr48"></a>can&#8217;t hurry up those things. Greasing your cheeks is just as good as
+trying to whistle the hair out, but not a bit better. Don&#8217;t hurry; you
+will be old quite soon enough! But this fellow is ready for old fools as
+well young ones, for he has recipes for curing baldness and removing
+wrinkles. And last, but not least, quietly inserted among all these
+fooleries and harmless humbugs, are two or three recipes which promise
+the safe gratification of the basest vices. Those are what he really
+hoped to get money for.</p>
+
+<p>I have carefully refrained from giving any names or information which
+would enable anybody to address any of these folks. I do not propose to
+cooperate with them, if I know it.</p>
+
+<p>The next is a circular only to be very briefly alluded to: it promises
+to furnish, on receipt of the price, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> &#8220;by mail or express, with
+perfect safety, so as to defy detection,&#8221; any of twenty-two wholly
+infamous books, and various other cards and commodities, well suited to
+the public of Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. The most honest and decent things
+advertised in this unclean list are &#8220;advantage-cards&#8221; which enable the
+player to swindle his adversary by reading off his hand by the backs of
+the cards.</p>
+
+<p>The next paper I can copy verbatim, except some names, etc., is a letter
+as follows:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dear Sir&mdash;There is a Package in My care for a Mrs. preston New Griswold
+wich thare is 48 cts. fratage. Pleas forward the same. I shall send it
+Per Express Your recpt.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It is some little comfort to know that this gentleman, who is so much
+opposed to the present prevailing methods of spelling, lost the three
+cents which he invested in seeking &#8220;fratage.&#8221; But a good many sensible
+people have carelessly sent away the small amounts demanded by letters
+like the above, and have wondered why their prepaid parcels never came.</p>
+
+<p>Next, is an account by a half amused and half indignant eye-witness, of
+what happened in a well known town in Western New York, on Friday,
+January 6, 1865. A personage described as &#8220;dressed in Yankee style,&#8221;
+drove into the principal street of the place with a horse and buggy, and
+began to sell what is called in some parts of New England &#8220;Attleboro,&#8221;
+that is, imitation jewelry, but promising to return the customers their
+money, if required, and doing so. After a number of transactions of this
+kind, he bawls out, like the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> sorcerer in Aladdin, who went around
+crying new lamps for old, &#8220;Who will give me four dollars for this
+five-dollar greenback?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He found a customer; sold a one-dollar greenback for ninety cents; then
+sold some half-dollar bills for twenty-five cents each; then flung out
+among the crowd what a fisherman would call ground bait, in the shape of
+a handful of &#8220;currency.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Everybody scrambled for the money. This liberal trader now drove slowly
+a little way along, and the crowd pressed after him.</p>
+
+<p>He now began, without any further promises, to sell a lot of bogus
+lockets at five dollars each, and in a few minutes had disposed of about
+forty. Having, therefore, about two hundred dollars in his pocket, and
+trade slackening, he coolly observes, with a terseness and clearness of
+oratory that would not discredit General Sherman:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Gentlemen&mdash;I have sold you those goods at my price. I am a licensed
+peddler. If I give you your money back you will think me a lunatic. I
+wish you all success in your ordinary vocations! Good morning!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And sure enough, he drove off. That same cunning chap has actually made
+a small fortune in this way. He really is licensed as a peddler, and
+though arrested more than once, has consequently not been found legally
+punishable.</p>
+
+<p>I will specify only one more of my collection, of yet another kind. This
+is a printed circular appealing to a class of fools, if possible, even
+shallower, sillier, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> more credulous than any I have named yet. It is
+headed &#8220;The Gypsies&#8217; Seven Secret Charms.&#8221; These charms consist of a
+kind of hellbroth or decoction. You are to wet the hands and the
+forehead with them, and this is to render you able to tell what any
+person is thinking of; upon taking any one by the hand, you will be able
+to entirely control the mind and will of such person (it is unnecessary
+to specify the purpose intended to be believed possible). These charms
+are also to enable you to buy lucky lottery-tickets, discover things
+lost or hid, dream correctly of the future, increase the intellectual
+faculties, secure the affections of the other sex, etc. These precious
+conceits are set forth in a ridiculous hodge-podge of statements. The
+&#8220;charms,&#8221; it says, were used by the &#8220;Anted<i>e</i>luvians;&#8221; were the secret
+of the Egyptian enchanters and of Moses, too; of the Pythoness and the
+heathen conjurors and humbugs generally; and (which will be news to the
+geographers of to-day) &#8220;are used by the Psyli (the swindler mis-spells
+again) of South America to charm Beasts, Birds, and Serpents.&#8221; The way
+to control the mind, he says, was discovered by a French traveler named
+Tunear. This Frenchman is perhaps a relative of the equally celebrated
+Russian traveller, Toofaroff.</p>
+
+<p>But here is the point, after all. You send the money, we will say, for
+one of these charms&mdash;for they are for sale separately. You receive in
+return a second circular, saying that they work a great deal better all
+together, and so the man will send you all of them when you send the
+rest of the money. Send it, if you choose!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>Now, how is it possible for people to be living among us here, who are
+fooled by such wretched balderdash as this? There are such, however, and
+a great many of them. I do not imagine that there are many of these
+addlepates among my readers; but there is no harm in giving once more a
+very plain and easy direction which may possibly save somebody some
+money and some mortification. Be content with what you can honestly
+earn. Know whom you deal with. Do not try to get money without giving
+fair value for it. And pay out no money on strangers&#8217; promises, whether
+by word of mouth, written letters, advertisements, or printed circulars.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">A CALIFORNIA COAL MINE.&mdash;&#8203;A HARTFORD COAL MINE.&mdash;&#8203;MYSTERIOUS <a name="corr49" id="corr49"></a>SUBTERRANEAN
+CANAL ON THE ISTHMUS.</p>
+
+
+<p>Some twelve years ago or so, in the early days of Californian
+immigration, a curious little business humbug came off about six miles
+from Monterey. A United States officer, about the year 1850, was on his
+way into the interior on a surveying expedition, with a party of men, a
+portable forge, a load of coal, and sundry other articles. At the place
+in question, six miles inland, the Lieutenant&#8217;s coal wagon &#8220;stalled&#8221; in
+a &#8220;tul&eacute;&#8221; swamp. With true military decision the greater part of the coal
+was thrown out to extricate the team, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> not picked up again. The
+expedition went on and so did time, and the latter, in his progress, had
+some years afterward dried up the tul&eacute; swamp. Some enterprising
+<a name="corr50" id="corr50"></a>prospectors, with eyes wide open to the nature of things, now espied one
+fine morning the lumps of coal, sticking their black noses up out of the
+mud. It was a clear case&mdash;there was a coal mine there! The happy
+discoverers rushed into town. A company was at once organized under the
+mining laws of the state of California. The corporators at first kept
+the whole matter totally secret except from a few particular friends who
+were as a very great favor allowed to buy stock for cash. A &#8220;compromise&#8221;
+was made with the owner of the land, largely to his advantage. When
+things had thus been set properly at work, specimens of coal were
+publicly exhibited at Monterey. There was a gigantic excitement; shares
+went up almost out of sight. Twelve hundred dollars in coin for one
+share (par $100) was laughed at. About this time a quiet honest Dutchman
+of the vicinity passing along by the &#8220;mine&#8221; one evening with his cart,
+innocently and unconsciously picked up the whole at one single load and
+carried it home. Prompt was the discovery of the &#8220;sell&#8221; by the
+stockholders, and voluble and intense, it is said, their profane
+expressions of dissatisfaction. But the original discoverers of the mine
+vigorously protested that they were &#8220;sold&#8221; themselves, and that it was
+only a case of common misfortune. It is however reported that a number
+of persons in Monterey, <i>after</i> the explosion of the speculation,
+remembered all about the coal-wagon part of the business, which they
+said, the excite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>ment of the &#8220;company&#8221; had put entirely out of their
+heads.</p>
+
+<p>An equally unfounded but not quite so barefaced humbug came off a good
+many years ago in the good old city of Hartford, in Connecticut,
+according to the account given me by an old gentleman now deceased, who
+was one of the parties interested. This was a coal mine in the State
+House yard. It sounds like talking about getting sunbeams out of
+cucumbers&mdash;but something of the sort certainly took place.</p>
+
+<p>Coal is found among rocks of certain kinds, and not elsewhere. Among
+strata of granite or basalt for instance, nobody expects to find coal.
+But along with a certain kind of sandstone it may reasonably be
+expected. Now the Hartford wiseacres found that tremendously far down
+under their city, there was <i>a</i> sort of sandstone, and they were sure
+that it was <i>the</i> sort. So they gathered together some money,&mdash;there is
+a vast deal of <i>that</i> in Hartford, coal or no coal&mdash;organized a company,
+employed a Mining Superintendent, set up a boring apparatus, and down
+went their hole into the ground&mdash;an orifice some four or six inches
+across. Through the surface stratum of earth it went, and bang it came
+against the sandstone. They pounded away, with good courage, and got
+some fifties or hundreds of feet further. Indefinable sensations were
+aroused in their minds at one time by the coming up among the products
+of boring, of some chips of wood. Now wood, shortly coal, they thought.
+They might, I imagine, have brought up some pieces of boiled potato or
+even of fresh shad, provided it had fallen down first. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> dug on
+until they got tired, and then they stopped. If they had gone down ten
+thousand feet they would have found no coal. Coal is found in the new
+red sandstone; but theirs was the old red sandstone, which is a very
+fine old stone itself, but in which no coal was ever found, except what
+might have been put there on purpose, or possibly some faint
+indications. The hole they made, however, as my informant gravely
+observed, was left sticking in the ground, and if he is right is to this
+day a sort of appendix or tail to the well north-west corner of the
+State House Square. So, I suppose, any one who chooses can go and poke
+down there after it and satisfy himself about the accuracy of this
+account. Such an inquirer ought to find satisfaction, for &#8220;truth lies in
+the bottom of a well&#8221; says the proverb. Yet some ill natured skeptics
+have construed this to mean that all will tell lies sometimes, for&mdash;as
+they accent it, even &#8220;Truth <i>lies</i>, at the bottom of a well!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Still a different sort of business humbug, again, was a wonderful story
+which went the rounds about fifteen years ago, and which was cooked up
+to help some one or other of the various enterprises for new routes by
+Central America to California. This story started, I believe, in the
+&#8220;New Orleans Courier.&#8221; It was, that a French Doctor of Vera Paz in
+Guatemala, while making a canal from his estate to the sea, discovered,
+away up at the very furthest extremity of the Gulf of Honduras, a vast
+ancient canal, two hundred and forty feet wide, seventy feet deep, and
+walled in on both sides with gigantic masses of rough cut stone. The
+Doctor at once gave up his own trifling modern exca<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>vation, and plunged
+into an explanation of this vast ancient one, as zealously as if he were
+probing after some uncertain bullet in a poor fellow&#8217;s leg. The
+monstrous canal carried him in a straight line up the country, to the
+south-westward. Some twenty miles or so inland it plunged under a
+<i>volcano!</i></p>
+
+<p>But see what a French doctor is made of!</p>
+
+<p>Cutting down the great, old trees that obstructed the entrance, and
+procuring a canoe with a crew of Indians, in he went. The canal became a
+prodigious tunnel, of the same width and depth of water, and vaulted
+three hundred and thirty five feet high in the living rock. Nothing is
+said about the bowels of the volcano, so that we must conclude either
+that such affairs are not planted so deep as is supposed, or that the
+fire-pot of the concern was shoved one side or bridged over by the
+canallers, or that the Frenchman had some remarkably good style of Fire
+Annihilator, or else that there is some mistake!</p>
+
+<p>Eighteen hours of incessant travel brought our intrepid M.D. safe
+through to the Pacific Ocean; during which time, if the maps of that
+country are of any authority, he passed under quite a number of
+mountains and rivers. The trip was not dark at all, as shafts were sunk
+every little way, which lighted up the interior quite well, and then the
+volcano gave&mdash;or ought to have given&mdash;some light inside. Indeed, if the
+doctor had only thought of it, I presume he would have noticed double
+rows of street gas lamps on each side of the canal! The exclusive right
+to use this excellent transit route has not, to my knowledge, been
+secured to anybody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> yet. It will be observed that ships as large as the
+Great Eastern could easily pass each other in this canal, which renders
+it a sure thing for any other vessel unless that shrewd and grasping
+fellow the Emperor Louis <a name="corr51" id="corr51"></a>Napoleon, has got hold of this canal and is
+keeping it dark for some still darker purposes of his own&mdash;as for
+instance to run his puppet Maximilian into for refuge, when he is run
+out of Mexico&mdash;it is therefore still in the market. And my publication
+of the facts effectually disposes of the Emperor&#8217;s plan of secrecy, of
+course.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="IV_MONEY_MANIAS" id="IV_MONEY_MANIAS"></a>IV. MONEY MANIAS.</h2>
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">THE PETROLEUM HUMBUG.&mdash;&#8203;THE NEW YORK AND RANGOON PETROLEUM COMPANY.</p>
+
+
+<p>Every sham, as has often been said, proves some <a name="corr52" id="corr52"></a>reality. Petroleum
+exists, no doubt, and is an important addition to our national wealth.
+But the Petroleum humbug or mania or superstition, or whatever you
+choose to call it, is a humbug, just as truly, and a big one, whether we
+use the word in its milder or its bitterer sense.</p>
+
+<p>There are more than six hundred petroleum companies. The capital they
+call for, is certainly not less than five hundred million dollars. The
+money invested in the notorious South Sea Bubble was less than
+two-fifths as much&mdash;only about $190,000,000.</p>
+
+<p>Now, this petroleum business&mdash;very much of it&mdash;is just as thorough a
+gambling business as any faro bank ever set up in Broadway, or any other
+stock speculation ever conjured up in Wall Street&mdash;as much so, for
+instance, as the well known Parker Vein coal company.</p>
+
+<p>I shall here tell exactly how those well known and enterprising
+financiers, Messrs. Peter Rolleum and Diddle Digwell proceeded in
+organizing the New-York and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> Rangoon Petroleum Company, of which all my
+readers have seen the advertisements everywhere, and of which the former
+is the Vice President and managing officer, and the latter Secretary. In
+June 1864, neither of these worthy gentleman was worth a cent. Rolleum
+shinned up and down in some commission agency or other, and Digwell had
+a small salary as clerk in some insurance or money concern. They barely
+earned a living. Now, Rolleum says he is worth $200,000; and Mr.
+Secretary Digwell, besides about $10,000 worth of stock in the New York
+and Rangoon, has his comfortable salary and his highly respectable
+&#8220;posish&#8221;&mdash;to use a little bit of business slang.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rolleum was the originator of the scheme, and let Digwell into it;
+and together they went to work. They had a few hundred dollars in cash,
+no particular credit, an entirely unlimited fund of lies, a good deal of
+industry, plausibility, talk, and cheek, considerable acquaintance with
+business, and an instinctive appreciation of some of the more selfish
+motives commonly influential among men.</p>
+
+<p>First of all, Rolleum made a trip into the oil country. Here, while
+picking up some of his ordinary agency business, he looked around among
+the wells and oil lands, talking, and examining and inquiring of
+everybody about everything, with a busy, solemn face, and the air of one
+who does <i>not wish</i> it to be supposed that he has important interests in
+his care. Then he talked with some men at (we will say) Titusville and
+thereabouts; told all about his valuable business connections in New
+York City: and after getting a little acquainted, he laid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> before each
+of half-a-dozen or so of them, this proposition:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You can have a good many shares of a first class new oil company about
+to be formed just for permitting your name to be used in its interest,
+and for being a trustee.&#8221; A thousand shares apiece, he said; to be
+valued at five dollars each, the par value however, being ten dollars.
+Five thousand dollars each man, and to be made ten thousand, as soon as
+the proposed puffing should enable them to sell out. After a little
+hesitation, a sufficient number consented. There was nothing to pay,
+something handsome to get, and all they were asked for it was, to let a
+man talk about them. What if he did lie? That was his business.</p>
+
+<p>This fixed four out of the nine intended trustees.</p>
+
+<p>Rolleum also obtained memoranda or printed circulars showing the amounts
+for which a number of oil land owners would sell their holes in the
+ground or the room for making others, and describing the premises. He
+now flew back to New York, and went to sundry persons of some means and
+some position but of no great nobility, and thus he said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here are these wealthy and distinguished oil men right there on the
+ground who are going to be trustees of my new company.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You serve too, won&#8217;t you? One thousand shares for your trouble&mdash;five
+thousand dollars. No money to pay&mdash;I will see to all that. Here are the
+lands we can buy,&#8221;&mdash;and he showed his lists. The bribe, and the names of
+those already bribed, influenced them, and this secured three more
+trustees. Two more were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> needed, namely the President and Vice
+President. Rolleum himself was to be the latter; his next move was to
+secure the former.</p>
+
+<p>This, the most critical part of the scheme, was cunningly delayed until
+this time. Rolleum went to the Honorable A. Bee, a gentleman of a good
+deal of ability, pretty widely known, not very rich, believed (perhaps
+for that reason) to be honest, no longer young, and of a reverend yet
+agreeable presence. Him the plausible Rolleum told all about the new
+Company; what a respectable board of trustees there was going to be&mdash;and
+he showed the names; all either experienced and substantial men of the
+oil country, or reputable business men of New York City. And they have
+agreed to serve, in part because they know what a very honest company
+this is, and still more because they hope that the Honorable A. Bee will
+become President.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My dear Sir,&#8221; urged Rolleum, sweetly, &#8220;this legitimate business
+enterprise <i>must</i> succeed, and <i>must</i> secure wealth, reputation, and
+influence to all connected with it. We know that you are above pecuniary
+considerations, and that you do not need our influence, or anybody&#8217;s. We
+need yours. And you need not do any work. I will do that. We only need
+your name. And merely as a matter of form, because the officers are
+expected to be interested in their own company, I have set apart two
+thousand shares, being at half par or $5 a share, $10,000 of stock, to
+stand in your name. See how respectable all these Trustees are!&#8221; And he
+showed the list and preached upon the items of it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>&#8220;This man is worth so many millions, that man is such an influential
+editor. Could I have obtained such names if this were not a perfectly
+square thing?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Ten thousand dollars will go some ways towards squaring almost anything,
+with many people, even if it is a mere matter of <a name="corr53" id="corr53"></a>form; and so the old
+gentleman consented. This fixed the whole official &#8220;slate.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Now to set up the machine.</p>
+
+<p>In a few days of sharp running and talking, Rolleum and Digwell
+accomplished this, as follows:</p>
+
+<p><i>First</i>, they hired and furnished handsomely, paying cash whenever they
+couldn&#8217;t help it, a couple of pleasant first floor rooms close to Wall
+Street. No dingy desk-room up in some dark corner or attic, for them.
+Respectability is the thing for Rolleum.</p>
+
+<p><i>Second</i>, they hired a lawyer to draft the proper papers, and had the
+New York and Rangoon Petroleum Company &#8220;Duly incorporated under the
+mining and statute laws of the State of New York,&#8221; with charter,
+by-laws, seal, officers&#8217; names, and everything fine, new, grand,
+magnificent, impressive, formal, respectable and business-like.</p>
+
+<p><i>Third</i>, they now had every requisite of a powerful, enterprising and
+highly successful corporation, except the small trifles of money, land
+and oil. But what are these, to such geniuses as Rolleum and Digwell?
+Singular if having invented and set the trap, they could not catch the
+birds!</p>
+
+<p>They <i>bought</i> about three pints of oil, for one dollar; and that settled
+one part of the question. They bought it ready sorted and vialled and
+labelled; some crude<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> and green, some yellowish, some limpid as water,
+half a dozen or so of different specimens. These, in their tall vials of
+most respectable appearance, they placed casually on the mantel-piece of
+the outer office. They were specimens of the oils which the company&#8217;s
+wells are confidently expected to yield&mdash;when they get &#8217;em!</p>
+
+<p>Last of all&mdash;land and money. Subscriptions to capital stock are to
+furnish money, money will buy land. And <i>saying we&#8217;ve got land</i> will
+procure subscriptions.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not much of a lie, after all,&#8221; said Rolleum, confidentially, to
+brother Digwell. &#8220;When we&#8217;ve <i>said</i> we&#8217;ve got it for awhile, we <i>shall</i>
+get it. It&#8217;s not a lie at all. It&#8217;s only discounting the truth at sixty
+days!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>So he and Digwell went to work and made a splendid prospectus and
+advertisement, the latter an abridged edition of the former. This
+prospectus was a great triumph of business lying mixed with plums and
+spices of truth, and all set forth with taking &#8220;display lines.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It began with a stately row of names: New York and Rangoon Petroleum
+Company; Honorable Abraham Bee, President; Peter Rolleum, Esq., Vice
+President; Diddle Digwell, Esq., Secretary; and so on. With cool
+impudence it then gave a list headed &#8220;Lands and Property&#8221;&mdash;not saying
+&#8220;of the Company&#8221; for fear of a prosecution for swindling. But the list
+below began with the words &#8220;the oil lands <i>to be conveyed</i> to the
+Company are as <a name="corr54" id="corr54"></a>follows:&#8221; &#8220;that&#8217;s exactly it&#8221; quoth Rolleum&mdash;&#8220;no lie
+there, at any rate. They <i>are</i> to &#8216;to be conveyed&#8217; to us&mdash;if we
+choose&mdash;just as soon as we can pay for them.&#8221; And then the list went on
+from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> &#8220;No. 1&#8221; to &#8220;No. 43,&#8221; giving in a row all those memoranda which
+Rolleum had obtained in Venango County and the region round about, of
+the descriptions of the real estate which the landsharks up there would
+be glad to sell for what they asked for it.</p>
+
+<p>The Prospectus said the capital of the company was one million dollars,
+in one hundred thousand shares at ten dollars each. But <i>in order to
+obtain a</i> <span class="smrom">WORKING CAPITAL</span>, twenty thousand shares are offered for a
+<i>limited period</i> at five dollars each, not subject to further
+assessment.</p>
+
+<p>And it added, though with more phrases, something to the following
+effect: Hurry! Pay quick! Or you will lose your chance! In conclusion
+the whole was wound up with many wise and moral observations about
+legitimate business, interests of stockholders, heavy capitalists,
+economical management, and other such things; and it bestowed some
+rather fat compliments upon the honorable Abraham Bee and the Trustees.</p>
+
+<p>Having concocted this choice morsel of bait, they set it in the great
+stream of newspapers, there to catch fish. In plain terms, with some
+cash and some credit&mdash;for their means would not even reach to pay in
+advance the whole of their first advertising bill&mdash;they managed to have
+their advertisement published during several weeks in a carefully chosen
+group of about thirty of the principal newspapers of the United States.</p>
+
+<p>The whole web was now woven; and Rolleum and Digwell, like two hungry
+spiders, squatted in their den, every nerve thrilling to feel the first
+buzz of the first fly. It was natural that the scamps should feel a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
+good deal excited: it was life or death with them. If a confiding
+public, in answer to their impassioned appeal, should generously remit,
+they were made men for life. If not, instead of being rich and respected
+gentlemen, they were ridiculous, detected swindlers.</p>
+
+<p>Well&mdash;they succeeded. So truthful is our Great American Nation&mdash;so
+confiding, so sure of the truth of what is said in print, even if only
+in the advertising columns of a newspaper&mdash;so certain of the good faith
+of people who have their names printed in large capitals and with a
+handle at one end&mdash;that actually these fellows had a hundred thousand
+dollars in bank within ten weeks&mdash;before they owned one foot of land, or
+one inch of well, or one drop of oil, except those three pints in the
+vials on the office shelf!</p>
+
+<p>And remember this is no imaginary case. I am giving point by point the
+exact transactions of a real Petroleum Company.</p>
+
+<p>Everything I have told was done, only if possible with a more false and
+baseless <a name="corr55" id="corr55"></a>impudence than I have described. And scores and scores of other
+Petroleum Companies have been organized in ways exactly as unprincipled.
+Some of them may perhaps have proceeded as real business concerns. Some
+have stopped and disappeared as soon as the managers could get a
+handsome sum of money into their pockets for stock.</p>
+
+<p>What the result will be, in the present case, I don&#8217;t know. The New York
+and Rangoon Petroleum Company, when I last knew about it, &#8220;still lived.&#8221;
+They had&mdash;or said they had&mdash;bought some land. I have not heard of their
+receiving any oil raised from their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> own wells. They have sent off a
+monstrous quantity of circulars, prospectuses and advertisements. They
+caused a portrait and biography of the Honorable A. Bee to be printed in
+a very respectable periodical, and paid five hundred dollars for it.
+They had themselves systematically puffed up to the seventh heaven in a
+long series of articles in another periodical, and paid the owner of it
+$2,000 or so <i>in stock</i>. They talk very big about a dividend. But
+although they have received a great deal of money, and paid out a great
+deal, I do not know of their paying their stockholders any yet. If they
+should, it would not prove much. For it is sometimes considered &#8220;a good
+dodge&#8221; to declare and pay a large dividend before any real profits have
+been earned; as this is calculated to enhance the price of shares, and
+to make them &#8220;go off like hot cakes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I shall not make any &#8220;moral&#8221; about this story. It teaches its own. It is
+a very mild statement of what was done to establish an actual
+specimen,&mdash;and far from being of the worst description&mdash;of a great part
+of the Petroleum Company enterprises of the day.</p>
+
+<p>It is whispered that somehow or other the trustees and officers of the
+New York and Rangoon do not own so much stock of their company as they
+did, having managed to have their stock sold to subscribers as if it
+were company stock. If this is so, those gentlemen have made their
+reward sure; and Mr. Peter Rolleum, having the cash in hand for that
+very liberal allotment of stock which he gave himself for his trouble in
+getting up the New York and Rangoon Petroleum Company, is very likely
+half or a quarter as rich as he says.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">THE TULIPOMANIA.</p>
+
+
+<p>Alboni, the singer, had an exquisitely sweet voice, but was a very big
+fat woman. Somebody accordingly remarked that she was an elephant that
+had swallowed a nightingale. About as incongruous is the idea of a
+nation of damp, foggy, fat, full-figured, broad-sterned, gin-drinking,
+tobacco-smoking Dutchmen in Holland, going crazy over a flower. But they
+did so, for three or four years together. Their craze is known in
+history as the Tulipomania, because it was a mania about tulips.</p>
+
+<p>Just a word about the Dutchmen first.</p>
+
+<p>These stout old fellows were not only hardy navigators, keen
+discoverers, ingenious engineers, laborious workmen, able financiers,
+shrewd and rich merchants, enthusiastic patriots and tremendous
+fighters, but they were eminently distinguished (as they still are to a
+considerable extent) by a love of elegant literature, poetry, painting,
+music and other fine arts, including horticulture. It was a Fleming that
+invented painting in oils. Before him, white of egg was used, or
+gum-water, or some such imperfect material, for spreading the color.
+Erasmus, one of the most learned, ready-minded, acute, graceful and
+witty scholars that ever lived, was a Dutchman. All Holland and
+Flanders, in days when they were richer, and stronger compared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> with the
+rest of the world than they are now, were full of singing societies and
+musical societies and poetry making societies. The universities of
+Leyden and Utrecht and Louvain are of highly an ancient European fame.
+And as for flowers, and bulbs in particular, Holland is a principal home
+and market of them now, more than two hundred years after the time I am
+going to tell of.</p>
+
+<p>Tulips grow wild in Southern Russia, the Crimea and Asia Minor, as
+potatoes do in Peru. The first tulip in Christian Europe was raised in
+Augsburg, in the garden of a flower-loving lawyer, one Counsellor
+Herwart, in the year 1559, thirteen years after Luther died. This tulip
+bulb was sent to Herwart from Constantinople. For about eighty years
+after this the flower continually increased in repute and became more
+and more known and cultivated, until the fantastic eagerness of the
+demand for fine ones and the great prices that they brought, resulted in
+a real mania like that about the morus multicaulis, or the petroleum
+mania of to-day, but much more intense. It began in the year 1635, and
+went out with an explosion in the year 1837.</p>
+
+<p>This tulip business is, I believe, the only speculative excitement in
+history whose subject-matter did not even claim to have any real value.
+Petroleum is worth some shillings a gallon for actual use for many
+purposes. Stocks always claim to represent some real trade or business.
+The morus multicaulis was to be as permanent a source of wealth as corn,
+and was expected to produce the well known mercantile substance of silk.
+But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> nobody ever pretended that tulips could be eaten, or manufactured,
+or consumed in any way of practical usefulness. They have not one single
+quality of the kind termed useful. They have nothing desirable except
+the beauty of a peculiarly short-lived blossom. You can do absolutely
+nothing with them except to look at them. A speculation in them is
+exactly as reasonable as one in butterflies would be.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of about one year, 1634-5, the tulip frenzy, after having
+increased for fifteen or twenty years with considerable speed, came to a
+climax, and poisoned the whole Dutch nation. Prices had at the end of
+this short period risen from high to extravagant, and from extravagant
+to insane. High and low, counts, burgomasters, merchants, shop-keepers,
+servants, shoe-blacks, all were buying and selling tulips like mad. In
+order to make the commodity of the day accessible to all, a new weight
+was invented, called a perit, so small that there were about eight
+thousand of them in one pound avoirdupois, and a single tulip root
+weighing from half an ounce to an ounce, would contain from 200 to 400
+of these perits. Thus, anybody unable to buy a whole tulip, could buy a
+perit or two, and have what the lawyers call an &#8220;undivided interest&#8221; in
+a root. This way of owning shows how utterly unreal was the pretended
+value. For imagine a small owner attempting to take his own perits and
+put them in his pocket. He would make a little hole in the tulip-root,
+would probably kill it, and would certainly obtain a little bit of
+utterly worthless pulp for himself, and no value at all. There was a
+whole code of business regulations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> made to meet the peculiar needs of
+the tulip business, besides, and in every town were to be found
+&#8220;tulip-notaries,&#8221; to conduct the legal part of the business, take
+acknowledgments of deeds, note protests, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>To say that the tulips were worth their weight in gold would be a very
+small story. It would not be a very great exaggeration to say that they
+were worth their size in diamonds. The most valuable species of all was
+named &#8220;Semper Augustus,&#8221; and a bulb of it which weighed 200 perits, or
+less than half an ounce avoirdupois, was thought cheap at 5,500 florins.
+A florin may be called about 40 cents; so that the little brown root was
+worth $2,200, or 220 gold eagles, which would weigh, by a rough
+estimate, eight pounds four ounces, or 132 ounces avoirdupois. Thus this
+half ounce Semper Augustus was worth&mdash;I mean he would bring&mdash;two hundred
+and sixty-four times his weight in gold!</p>
+
+<p>There were many cases where people invested whole fortunes equal to
+$40,000 or $50,000 in collections of forty or fifty tulip roots. Once
+there happened to be only two Semper Augustuses in all Holland, one in
+Haarlem and one in Amsterdam. The Haarlem one was sold for twelve acres
+of building lots, and the Amsterdam one for a sum equal to $1,840,00,
+together with a new carriage, span of grey horses and double harness,
+complete.</p>
+
+<p>Here is the list of merchandise and estimated prices given for one root
+of the Viceroy tulip. It is interesting as showing what real merchandise
+was worth in those days by a cash standard, aside from its exhibition of
+tremendous speculative bedlamism:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr>
+  <td>160 bushels wheat</td>
+  <td class="tdr">$179,20</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>320 bushels rye</td>
+  <td class="tdr">223,20</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Four fat oxen</td>
+  <td class="tdr">192,00</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Eight fat hogs</td>
+  <td class="tdr">96,00</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Twelve fat sheep</td>
+  <td class="tdr">48,00</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Two hogsheads wine</td>
+  <td class="tdr">28,00</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Four tuns beer</td>
+  <td class="tdr">12,80</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>Two tuns butter</td>
+  <td class="tdr">76,80</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>1000 lbs. cheese</td>
+  <td class="tdr">48,00</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>A bed all complete</td>
+  <td class="tdr">40,00</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>One suit clothes</td>
+  <td class="tdr">32,00</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>A silver drinking cup</td>
+  <td class="tdr">24,00</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr">Total exactly</td>
+  <td class="bt tdr">$1,000,00</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>In 1636, regular tulip exchanges were established in the nine Dutch
+towns where the largest tulip business was done, and while the gambling
+was at its intensest, the matter was managed exactly as stock gambling
+is managed in Wall street to-day. You went out into &#8220;the street&#8221; without
+owning a tulip or a perit of a tulip in the world, and met another
+fellow with just as many tulips as yourself. You talk and &#8220;banter&#8221; with
+him, and finally (we will suppose) you &#8220;sell short&#8221; ten Semper
+Augustuses, &#8220;seller three,&#8221; for $2,000 each, in all $20,000. This means
+in ordinary English, that without having any tulips (i. e., short,) you
+promise to deliver the ten roots as above in three days from date. Now
+when the three days are up, if Semper Augustuses are worth in the market
+only $1,500, you could, if this were a real transaction, buy ten of them
+for $15,000, and deliver them to the other gambler for $20,000, thus
+winning from him the difference of $5,000. But if the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> roots have risen
+and are worth $2,500 each, then if the transactions were real you would
+have to pay $25,000 for the ten roots and could only get $20,000 from
+the other gambler, and he, turning round and selling them at the market
+price, would win from you this difference of $5,000. But in fact the
+transaction was not real, it was a stock gambling one; neither party
+owned tulips or meant to, or expected the other to; and the whole was a
+pure game of chance or skill, to see which should win and which should
+lose that $5,000 at the end of three days. When the time came, the
+affair was settled, still without any tulips, by the loser paying the
+difference to the winner, exactly as one loses what the other wins at a
+game of poker or faro. Of course if you can set afloat a smart lie after
+making your bargain, such as will send prices up or down as your profit
+requires, you make money by it, just as stock gamblers do every day in
+New York, London, Paris, and other Christian commercial cities.</p>
+
+<p>While this monstrous Dutch gambling fury lasted, money was plenty,
+everybody felt rich and Holland was in a whiz of windy delight. After
+about three years of fool&#8217;s paradise, people began to reflect that the
+shuttlecock could not be knocked about in the air forever, and that when
+it came down somebody would be hurt. So first one and then another began
+quietly to sell out and quit the game, without buying in again. This
+cautious infection quickly spread like a pestilence, as it always does
+in such cases, and became a perfect panic or fright. All at once, as it
+were, rich people all over Holland found themselves with nothing in the
+world<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> except a pocket full or a garden-bed full of flower roots that
+nobody would buy and that were not good to eat, and would not have made
+more than one tureen of soup if they were.</p>
+
+<p>Of course this state of things caused innumerable bankruptcies,
+quarrels, and refusals to complete bargains, everywhere. The government
+and the courts were appealed to, but with Dutch good sense they refused
+to enforce gambling transactions, and though the cure was very severe
+because very sudden, they <a name="corr56" id="corr56"></a>preferred to let &#8220;the bottom drop out&#8221; of the
+whole affair at once. So it did. Almost everybody was either ruined or
+impoverished. The very few who had kept any or all of their gains by
+selling out in season, remained so far rich. And the vast actual
+business interests of Holland received a damaging check, from which it
+took many years to recover.</p>
+
+<p>There were some curious incidents in the course of the tulipomania. They
+have been told before, but they are worth telling again, as the poet
+says, &#8220;To point the moral or adorn the tale.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A sailor brought to a rich Dutch merchant news of the safe arrival of a
+very valuable cargo from the Levant. The old hunks rewarded the mariner
+for his good tidings with one red herring for breakfast. Now Ben Bolt
+(if that was his name&mdash;perhaps as he was a Dutchman it was something
+like Benje Boltje) was very fond of onions, and spying one on the
+counter as he went out of the store, he slipped it into his pocket, and
+strolling back to the wharf, sat down to an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span><a name="corr57" id="corr57"></a>odoriferous breakfast of
+onions and herring. He munched away without finding anything unusual in
+the flavor, until just as he was through, down came Mr. Merchant,
+tearing along like a madman at the head of an excited procession of
+clerks, and flying upon the luckless son of Neptune, demanded what he
+had carried off besides his herring?</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;An onion that I found on the counter.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where is it? Give it back instantly!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Just ate it up with my herring, mynheer.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Wretched merchant! In a fury of useless grief he <a name="corr58" id="corr58"></a>apprised the sailor
+that his sacrilegious back teeth had demolished a Semper Augustus
+valuable enough, explained the unhappy old fellow, to have feasted the
+Prince of Orange and the Stadtholder&#8217;s whole court. &#8220;Thieves!&#8221; he cried
+out&mdash;&#8220;Seize the rascal!&#8221; So they did seize him, and he was actually
+tried, condemned and imprisoned for some months, all of which however
+did not bring back the tulip root. It is a question after all in my
+mind, whether that sailor was really as green as he pretended, and
+whether he did not know very well what he was taking. It would have been
+just like a reckless seaman&#8217;s trick to eat up the old miser&#8217;s twelve
+hundred dollar root, to teach him not to give such stingy gifts next
+time.</p>
+
+<p>An English traveller, very fond of botany, was one day in the
+conservatory of a rich Dutchman, when he saw a strange bulb lying on a
+shelf. With that extreme coolness and selfishness which too many
+travellers have exercised, what does he do but take out his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> penknife
+and carefully dissect it, peeling off the outer coats, and quartering
+the innermost part, making all the time a great many wise observations
+on the phenomena of the strange new root. In came the Dutchman all at
+once, and seeing what was going on, he asked the Englishman, with rage
+in his eyes, but with a low bow and that sort of restrained formal
+civility which sometimes covers the most furious anger, if he knew what
+he was about?</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Peeling a very curious onion,&#8221; answered Mr. Traveller, as calmly as if
+one had a perfect right to destroy other people&#8217;s property to gratify
+his own curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;One hundred thousand devils!&#8221; burst out the Dutchman, expressing the
+extent of his anger by the number of evil spirits he invoked&mdash;&#8220;It is an
+Admiral van der Eyck!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Indeed?&#8221; remarked the scientific traveller, &#8220;thank you. Are there a
+good many of these admirals in your country?&#8221; and he drew forth his note
+book to write down the little fact.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Death and the devil!&#8221; swore the enraged Dutchman again&mdash;&#8220;come before
+the Syndic and you shall find out all about it!&#8221; So he collared the
+astounded onion-peeler, and despite all he could say, dragged him
+straightway before the magistrate, where his scientific zeal suffered a
+dreadful quencher in the shape of an affidavit that the &#8220;onion&#8221; was
+worth four thousand florins&mdash;about $1600&mdash;and in the immediate judgment
+of the Court, which &#8220;considered&#8221; that the prisoner be forthwith clapt
+into jail until he should give security for the amount. He had to do so
+accordingly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> and doubtless all his life retained a distaste for
+Dutchmen and Dutch onions.</p>
+
+<p>These stories about such monstrous valuations of flower roots recall to
+my mind another anecdote which I shall tell, not because it has anything
+to do with tulips, but because it is about a Dutchman, and shows in
+striking contrast an equally low valuation of human life. It is this.
+Once, in time of peace, an English and a Dutch Admiral met at sea, each
+in his flag ship, and for some reason or other exchanged complimentary
+salutes. By accident, one of the Englishman&#8217;s guns was shotted and
+misdirected, and killed one of the Dutch crew. On hearing the fact the
+Englishman at once manned a boat and went to apologize, to inquire about
+the poor fellow&#8217;s family and to send them some money, provide for the
+funeral, <a name="corr59" id="corr59"></a>etc., etc., as a kind hearted man would naturally do. But the
+Dutch commander, on meeting him at the quarter-deck, and learning his
+errand, at once put all his kindly intentions completely one side,
+saying in imperfect English:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;sh no matter, it&#8217;sh no matter&mdash;<i>dere&#8217;s blaanty more Tutchmen in
+<a name="corr60" id="corr60"></a>Holland</i>!&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">JOHN BULL&#8217;S GREAT MONEY HUMBUG.&mdash;&#8203;THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE IN 1720.</p>
+
+
+<p>The &#8220;South Sea Bubble&#8221; is one of the most startling lessons which
+history gives us of the ease with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> which the most monstrous, and absurd,
+and wicked humbugs can be crammed down the throat of poor human nature.
+It ought also to be a useful warning of the folly of mere &#8220;speculation,&#8221;
+as compared with real &#8220;business undertakings.&#8221; The history of the South
+Sea Bubble has been told, before, but it is too prominent a case to be
+entirely passed over. It occupied a period of about eight months, from
+February 1, 1720, to the end of the following September. It was an
+unreasonable expansion of the value of the stock of the &#8220;South Sea
+Company.&#8221; This Company was formed in 1711; its stock was at first about
+$30,000,000, subscribed by the public and handed over by the corporators
+to Government to meet certain troublesome public debts. In return,
+Government guaranteed the stockholders a dividend of six per cent., and
+gave the Company sundry permanent important duties and a monopoly of all
+trade to the South Pacific, or &#8220;South Sea.&#8221; This matter went on with
+fair success as a money enterprise, until the birth of the &#8220;Bubble,&#8221;
+which was as follows:&mdash;In the end of January, 1720, probably in
+consequence of catching infection from &#8220;Law&#8217;s Mississippi Scheme&#8221; in
+France, the South Sea Company and the Bank of England made competing
+propositions to the English Government, to repeat the original South Sea
+Company financiering plan on a larger scale. The proposition of the
+Company, which was accepted by Government, was: to assume as before the
+whole public debt, now amounting to over one hundred and fifty millions
+of dollars; and to be guaranteed at first a five per cent. dividend, and
+afterward a four per cent. one, to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> stockholders by Government. For
+this privilege, the Company agreed to pay outright a bonus of more than
+seventeen million dollars. This plan is said to have been originated and
+principally carried through by Sir John Blunt, one of the Company&#8217;s
+directors. Parliament adopted it after two months&#8217; discussion&mdash;the
+Bubble having, however, been swelling monstrously all the time.</p>
+
+<p>It must be remembered that the wonderful profits expected from the
+Company were to come from their monopoly of the South Sea trade.
+Tremendous stories were told by Blunt and his friends, who can hardly
+have believed more than one half of their own talk, about a free trade
+with all the Spanish Pacific colonies, the importation of silver and
+gold from Peru and Mexico in return for dry goods, etc., etc.; all which
+fine things were going to produce two or three times the amount of the
+Company&#8217;s stock every year. When the bill authorizing the arrangement
+passed, South Sea stock had already reached a price of four hundred per
+cent. The bill was stoutly opposed in Parliament by Mr.&mdash;afterwards
+Sir&mdash;Robert Walpole, and a few others but in vain. Under the operation
+of the beautiful stories of the speculative Blunt and his friends, South
+Sea stock, after a short lull in April, began to rise again, and the
+bubble swelled and swelled to a size so monstrous, and with colors so
+gay, that it filled the whole horizon of poor foolish John
+Bull:&mdash;perfectly turned his bull-headed brain, and made him for the time
+absolutely crazy. The directors opened books on April 12th for
+&pound;5,000,000 new stock, charging, how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>ever, &pound;300 for each share of &pound;100,
+or three hundred per cent. to begin with. Double the amount was
+subscribed in a few days; that is, John Bull subscribed thirty million
+dollars for ten millions of stock, where only five millions were to be
+had. In a few days more, these subscribers were selling at double what
+they paid. April <a name="corr61" id="corr61"></a>21st, a ten per cent. dividend was voted for midsummer.
+In a day or two, another five million subscription was opened at four
+hundred per cent. to begin with. The whole, and half as much more, was
+taken in a few hours. In the end of May, South Sea stock was worth five
+hundred to one. On the 28th, it was five hundred and fifty. In four days
+more, for some reason or other, it jumped up to eight hundred and
+ninety. The speculating Blunt kept all this time blowing and blowing at
+his bubble. All summer, he and his friends blew and blew; and all summer
+the bubble swelled and floated, and shone; and high and low, men and
+women, lords and ladies, clergymen, princesses and duchesses, merchants,
+gamblers, tradesmen, dressmakers, footmen, bought and sold. In the
+beginning of August, South Sea stock stood at one thousand per cent! It
+was really worth about twenty-five per cent. The crowding in Exchange
+Alley, the Wall street of the day, was tremendous. So noisy, and
+unmanageable and excited was this mob of greedy fools, that the very
+same stock was sometimes selling ten per cent. higher at one end of the
+Alley than at the other.</p>
+
+<p>The growth of this monstrous, noxious bubble hatched out a multitude of
+young cockatrices. Not only was the stock of the India Company, the Bank
+of England,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> and other sound concerns, much increased in price by
+sympathy with this fury of speculation, but a great number of utterly
+ridiculous schemes and barefaced swindles were advertised and
+successfully imposed on the public. Any piece of paper purporting to be
+stock could be sold for money. Not the least thought of investigating
+the solvency of advertisers seems to have occurred to anybody. Nor was
+any rank free from the poison. Almost a hundred projects were before the
+public at once, some of them incredibly brazen humbugs. There were
+schemes for a wheel for perpetual motion&mdash;capital, $5,000,000; for
+trading in hair (for wigs), in those days &#8220;a big thing;&#8221; for furnishing
+funerals to any part of Britain; for &#8220;improving the art of making soap;&#8221;
+for importing walnut-trees from Virginia&mdash;capital, $10,000,000; for
+insuring against losses by servants&mdash;capital, $15,000,000; for making
+quicksilver malleable; &#8220;Puckle&#8217;s Machine Company,&#8221; for discharging
+cannon-balls and bullets, both round and square, and so on. One colossal
+genius in humbugging actually advertised in these words: &#8220;A company for
+carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what
+it is.&#8221; The capital he called for was $2,500,000, in shares of $500
+each; deposit on subscribing, $10 per share. Each subscriber was
+promised $500 per share per annum, and full particulars were to be given
+in a month, when the rest of the subscription was to be paid. This great
+financier, having put forth his prospectus, opened his office in
+Cornhill next morning at nine o&#8217;clock. Crowds pressed upon him. At three
+<span class="smrom">P. M.</span>, John Bull had paid this immense humbug<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> $10,000, being deposits
+on a thousand shares subscribed for. That night, the financier&mdash;a shrewd
+man!&mdash;modestly retired to an unknown place upon the Continent, and was
+never heard of again. Another humbug almost as preposterous, was that of
+the &#8220;Globe Permits.&#8221; These were square pieces of playing-cards with a
+seal on them, having the picture of the Globe Tavern, and with the
+words, &#8220;Sailcloth Permits.&#8221; What they &#8220;permitted&#8221; was a subscription at
+some future period to a sailcloth-factory, projected by a certain
+capitalist. These &#8220;permits&#8221; sold at one time for $300 each.</p>
+
+<p>But the more sensible members of Government soon exerted their influence
+against these lesser and more palpable humbugs. Some accounts say that
+the South Sea Company itself grew jealous, for it was reckoned that
+these &#8220;side-shows&#8221; called for a total amount of $1,500,000,000, and
+itself took legal means against them. At any rate, an &#8220;order in council&#8221;
+was published, peremptorily dismissing and dissolving them all.</p>
+
+<p>During August, it leaked out that Sir John Blunt and some other
+&#8220;insiders&#8221; had sold out their South Sea stock. There was also some
+charges of unfairness in managing subscriptions. After so long and so
+intense an excitement, the time for reaction and collapse was come. The
+price of stock began to fall in spite of all that the directors could
+do. September 2, it was down to 700.</p>
+
+<p>A general meeting of the company was held to try to whitewash matters,
+but in vain. The stock fell, fell, fell. The great humbug had received
+its death-blow. Thousands of families saw beggary staring them in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>
+face, grasping them with its iron hand. The consternation was
+inexpressible. Out of it a great popular rage began to flame up, just as
+fires often break out among the prostrate houses of a city ruined by an
+earthquake. Efforts were meanwhile vainly made to stay the ruin by help
+from the Bank of England. Bankers and goldsmiths (then often doing a
+banking business) absconded daily. Business corporations failed. Credit
+was almost paralyzed. In the end of September, the stock fell to 175,
+150, 135.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile violent riots were feared. South Sea directors could not be
+seen in the streets without being insulted. The King, then in Hanover,
+was imperatively sent for home, and had to come. So extensive was the
+misfortune and the wrath of the people, so numerous the public meetings
+and petitions from all over the kingdom, that Parliament found it
+necessary to grant the public demand, and to initiate a formal inquiry
+into the whole enterprise. This was done; and the foolish, swindled,
+disappointed, angry nation, through this proceeding, vented all the
+wrath it could upon the persons and estates of the managers and officers
+of the South Sea Company. They were forbidden to leave the kingdom,
+their property was sequestrated, they were placed in custody and
+examined. Those of them in Parliament were insulted there to their
+faces, several of them expelled, the most violent charges made against
+them all. A secret investigating committee was set to rip up the whole
+affair. Knight, the treasurer, who possessed all the dangerous secrets
+of the concern, ran away to Calais and the Continent, and so escaped.</p>
+
+<p>The books were found to have been either destroyed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> secreted, or
+mutilated and garbled. Stock bribes of $250,000, $150,000, $50,000 had
+been paid to the Earl of Sunderland, the Duchess of Kendal (the King&#8217;s
+favorite,) Mr. Craggs (one of the Secretaries of State,) and others. Mr.
+Aislabie, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had accumulated $4,250,000
+and more out of the business. Many other noblemen, gentlemen, and
+reputable merchants were disgracefully involved.</p>
+
+<p>The trials that were had resulted in the imprisonment, expulsion or
+degradation of Aislabie, Craggs, Sir George Caswell (a banker and member
+of the House,) and others. Blunt, a Mr. Stanhope, and a number more of
+the chief criminals were stripped of their wealth, amounting to from
+$135,000 to $1,200,000 each, and the proceeds used for the partial
+relief of the ruined, except amounts left to the culprits to begin the
+world anew. Blunt, the chief of all the swindlers, was stripped of about
+$925,000, and allowed only $5,000. By this means and by the use of such
+actual property as the Company did possess, about one-third of the money
+lost by its means was ultimately paid to the losers. It was a long time,
+however, before the tone of public credit was thoroughly restored.</p>
+
+<p>The history of the South Sea bubble should always stand as a beacon to
+warn us that reckless speculation is the bane of commerce, and that the
+only sure method of gaining a fortune, and certainly of enjoying it, is
+to diligently prosecute some legitimate calling, which, like the quality
+of mercy, is &#8220;twice blessed.&#8221; Every man&#8217;s occupation should be
+beneficial to his fellow-man as well as profitable to himself. All else
+is vanity and folly.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">BUSINESS HUMBUGS.&mdash;&#8203;JOHN LAW.&mdash;&#8203;THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME.&mdash;&#8203;JOHNNY CRAPAUD AS
+GREEDY AS JOHNNY BULL.</p>
+
+
+<p>In the &#8220;good old times,&#8221; people were just as eager after money as they
+are now; and a great deal more vulgar, unscrupulous, and foolish in
+their endeavors to get it. During about two hundred years after the
+discovery of America, that continent was a constant source of great and
+little money humbugs. The Spaniards and Portuguese and French and
+English all insisted upon thinking that America was chiefly made of
+gold; perhaps believing, as the man said about Colorado, that the
+hardship of the place was, that you have to dig through three or four
+feet of solid silver before the gold could be reached. This curious
+delusion is shown by the fact that the early charters of lands in
+America so uniformly reserved to the King his proportion of all gold and
+silver that should be found. And if gold were not to be had, these lazy
+Europeans were equally crazy about the rich <a name="corr62" id="corr62"></a>merchandise which they made
+sure of finding in the vast and solitary American mountains and forests.</p>
+
+<p>In a previous letter, I have shown how one of those delusions, about the
+unbounded wealth to be obtained from the countries on the South Sea,
+caused the English South Sea bubble.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>A similar belief, at the same time, in the neighboring country of
+France, formed the airy basis of a similar business humbug, even more
+gigantic, noxious, and destructive. This was John Law&#8217;s Mississippi
+scheme, of which I shall give an account in this chapter. It was, I
+think, the greatest business humbug of history.</p>
+
+<p>Law was a Scotchman, shrewd and able, a really good financier for those
+days, but vicious, a gambler, unprincipled, and liable to wild schemes.
+He had possessed a good deal of property, had traveled and gambled all
+over Europe, was witty, entertaining, and capital company, and had
+become a favorite with the Duke of Orleans and other French nobles. When
+the Duke became Regent of France at the death of Louis XIV, in 1715,
+that country was horribly in debt, and its people in much misery, owing
+to the costly wars and flaying taxations of the late King. When,
+therefore, Law came to Paris with a promising scheme of finance in his
+hand, the Regent was particularly glad to see him, both as financier and
+as friend.</p>
+
+<p>The Regent quickly fell in with Law&#8217;s plans; and in the spring of 1716,
+the first step&mdash;not, however, so intended at the time&mdash;toward the
+Mississippi Scheme was taken. This was, the establishment by royal
+authority of the banking firm of Law &amp; Co., consisting of Law and his
+brother. This bank, by a judicious organization and issue of paper
+money, quickly began to help the distressed finances of the kingdom, and
+to invigorate trade and commerce. This success, which seems to have been
+an entirely sound and legitimate business success, made one sadly
+mistaken but very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> deep impression upon the ignorant and shallow mind of
+the Regent of France, which was the foundation of all the subsequent
+trouble. The Regent became firmly convinced, that if a certain quantity
+of bank bills could do so much good, a hundred thousand times as many
+bills would surely do a hundred thousand times as much. That is, he
+thought printing and issuing the bills was creating money. He paid no
+regard to the need of providing specie for them on demand, but thought
+he had an unlimited money factory in the city of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>So far, so good. Next, Law planned, and, with the ever ready consent of
+the Regent, effected, an enlargement of the business of his bank, based
+on that delusion I spoke of about America. This enlargement was the
+formation of the Mississippi Company, and this was the contrivance which
+swelled into so tremendous a humbug. The company was closely connected
+with the banks, and received (to begin with) the monopoly of all trade
+to the Mississippi River, and all the country west of it. It was
+expected to obtain vast quantities of gold and silver from that region,
+and thus to make immense dividends on its stock. At home, it was to have
+the sole charge of collecting all the taxes and coining all the money.
+Stock was issued to the amount of one hundred thousand shares, at $200
+(five hundred livres) each. And Law&#8217;s help to the Government funds was
+continued by permitting this stock to be paid for in those funds, at
+their par value, though worth in market only about a third of it.
+Subscriptions came in rapidly&mdash;for the French community was far more
+ignorant about commercial affairs, finances, and the real re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>sources of
+distant regions, than we can easily conceive of now-a-days; and not only
+the Regent, but every man, woman, and child in France, except a very few
+tough and hard-headed old skeptics, believed every word Law said, and
+would have believed him if he had told stories a hundred times as
+incredible.</p>
+
+<p>Well, pretty soon the Regent gave the associates&mdash;the bank and the
+company&mdash;two other monopolies: that of tobacco, always monstrously
+profitable, and that of refining gold and silver. Pretty soon, again, he
+created the bank a state institution, by the magnificent name of The
+Royal Bank of France. Having done this, the Regent could control the
+bank in spite of Law (or order either); for, in those days, the kings of
+France were almost perfectly despotic, and the Regent was acting king. I
+have mentioned the Regent&#8217;s terrible delusion about paper-money. No
+sooner had he the bank in his power, than he added to the reasonable and
+useful total of $12,000,000 of notes already out, a monstrous issue of
+$200,000,000 worth in one vast batch, with the firm conviction that he
+was thus adding so much to the par currency of France.</p>
+
+<p>The Parliament of France, a body mostly of lawyers, originating in the
+Middle Ages, a steady, conservative, wise, and brave assembly, was
+always hostile to Law and his schemes. When this great expansion of
+paper-currency began, the Parliament made a resolute fight against it,
+petitioning, ordaining, threatening to hang Law, and frightening him
+well, too; for the thorough enmity of an assembly of old lawyers may
+well frighten anybody. At last, the Regent, by the use of the des<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>potic
+power of which the Kings of France had so much, reduced these old
+fellows to silence by sticking a few of them in jail.</p>
+
+<p>The cross-grained Parliament thus disposed of, everything was quickly
+made to &#8220;look lovely.&#8221; In the beginning of 1719, more grants were made
+to Law&#8217;s associated concerns. The Mississippi Company was granted the
+monopoly of all trade to the East Indies, China, the South Seas, and all
+the territories of the French India Company, and of the Senegal Company.
+It took a new and imposing name: &#8220;The Company of the Indies.&#8221; They had
+already, by the way, also obtained the monopoly of the Canada
+beaver-trade. Of this colossal corporation, monopolizing the whole
+foreign commerce of France with two-thirds or more of the world, its
+whole home finances, and other important interests besides, fifty
+thousand new shares were issued, as before, at $100 each. These might be
+bought as before, with Government securities at par. Law was so bold as
+to promise annual dividends of $20 per share, which, as the Government
+funds stood, was one hundred and twenty per cent. per annum.! <a name="corr63" id="corr63"></a>Everybody
+believed him. More than three hundred thousand applications were made
+for the new shares. Law was besieged in his house by more than twice as
+many people as General Grant had to help him take Richmond. The Great
+Humbug was at last in full buzz. The street where the wonderful
+Scotchman lived was busy, filled, crowded, jammed, choked. Dangerous
+accidents happened in it every day, from the excessive pressure. From
+the princes of the blood down to cobblers and lackeys,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> all men and all
+women crowded and crowded to subscribe their money, and to pay their
+money, and to know how many shares they had gotten. Law moved to a
+roomier street, and the crazy mob crowded harder than ever; so that the
+Chancellor, who held his court of law hard by, could not hear his
+lawyers.</p>
+
+<p>A tremendous uproar surely, that could drown the voices of those
+gentlemen! And so he moved again, to the great Hotel de Soissons, a vast
+palace, with a garden of some acres. Fantastic circumstances variegated
+the wild rush of speculation. The haughtiest of the nobility rented mean
+rooms near Law&#8217;s abode, to be able to get at him. Rents in his
+neighborhood rose to twelve and sixteen times their usual amount. A
+cobbler, whose lines had fallen in those pleasant places, made $40 a day
+by letting his stall and furnishing writing materials to speculators.
+Thieves and disreputable characters of all sorts flocked to this
+concourse. There were riots and quarrels all the time. They often had to
+send a troop of cavalry to clear the street at night. Gamblers posted
+themselves with their implements among the speculators, who gambled
+harder than the gamblers, and took an occasional turn at roulette by way
+of slackening the excitement; as people go to sleep, or go into the
+country. A hunchback fellow made a good deal of money by letting people
+write on his back. When Law had moved into the Hotel de Soissons, the
+former owner, the Prince de Carignan, reserved the gardens, procured an
+edict confining all stock-dealings to that place; put up five hundred
+tents there, leased them at five hundred livres a month each,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> and thus
+made money at the rate of $50,000 a month. There were just two of the
+aristocracy who were sensible and resolute enough not to speculate in
+the <a name="corr64" id="corr64"></a>stock&mdash;the Duke de St. Simon and the old Marshal Villars.</p>
+
+<p>Law became infinitely the most important person in the kingdom. Great
+and small, male and female, high and low, haunted his offices and
+ante-chambers, hunted him down, plagued his very life out, to get a
+moment&#8217;s speech with him, and get him to enter their names as buyers of
+stock. The highest nobles would wait half a day for the chance. His
+servants received great sums to announce some visitor&#8217;s name. Ladies of
+the highest rank gave him anything he would ask of them for leave to buy
+stock. One of them made her coachmen upset her out of her carriage as
+Law came by, to get a word with him. He helped her up; she got the word,
+and bought some stock. Another lady ran into the house where he was at
+dinner, and raised a cry of fire. The rest ran out, but she ran further
+in to reach Law, who saw what she was at, and like a pecuniary Joseph,
+ran away as fast as he could.</p>
+
+<p>As the frenzy rose toward its height, and the Regent took advantage of
+it to issue stock enough to pay the whole national debt, namely, three
+hundred thousand new shares, at $1,000 each, or a thousand per cent. in
+the par value. They were instantly taken. Three times as many would have
+been instantly taken. So violent were the changes of the market, that
+shares rose or fell twenty per cent. within a few hours. A servant was
+sent to sell two hundred and fifty shares of stock; found on reaching
+the gardens of the Hotel de Soissons,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> that since he left his master&#8217;s
+house the price had risen from $1,600 (par value $100 remember) to
+$2,000. The servant sold, gave his master the proceeds at $1,600 a
+share, put the remaining $100,000 in his own pocket, and left France
+that evening. Law&#8217;s coachman became so rich that he left service, and
+set up his own coach; and when his master asked him to find a successor,
+he brought two candidates, and told Law to choose, and he would take the
+other himself. There were many absurd cases of vulgarians made rich.
+There were also many robberies and murders. That committed by the Count
+de Horn, one of the higher nobility and two accomplices, is a famous
+case. The Count, a dissipated rascal, poniarded a broker in a tavern for
+the money the broker carried with him. But he was taken, and, in spite
+of the utmost and most determined exertions of the nobility, the Regent
+had him broken on the wheel in public, like any other murderer.</p>
+
+<p>The stock of the Company of the Indies, though it dashed up and down ten
+and twenty per cent. from day to day, was from the first immensely
+inflated. In August 1719, it sold at 610 per cent.; in a few weeks more
+it arose to 1,200 per cent. <a name="corr65" id="corr65"></a>All winter it still went up until, in April
+1720, it stood at 2,050 per cent. That is, one one-hundred dollar share
+would sell for two thousand and fifty dollars.</p>
+
+<p>At this extreme point of inflation, the bubble stood a little, shining
+splendidly as bubbles do when they are nearest bursting, and then it
+received two or three quiet pricks. The Prince de Conti, enraged because
+Law<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> would not send him some shares on his own terms, sent three
+wagon-loads of bills to Law&#8217;s bank, demanding specie. Law paid it, and
+complained to the Regent, who made him put two-thirds of it back again.
+A shrewd stock-gambler drew specie by small sums until he had about
+$200,000 in coin, and lest he should be forced to return it, he packed
+it in a cart, covered it with manure, put on a peasant&#8217;s disguise, and
+carted his fortune over the frontiers into Belgium. Some others quietly
+realized their means in like manner by driblets and funded them abroad.</p>
+
+<p>By such means coin gradually grew very scarce, and signs of a panic
+appeared. The Regent tried to adjust matters by a decree that coin
+should be five per cent. less than paper; as much as to say, It is
+hereby enacted that there is a great deal more coin <a name="corr66" id="corr66"></a>than there is!
+This did not serve, and the Regent decreed again, that coin should be
+worth ten per cent. less than paper. Then he decreed that the bank must
+not pay more than $22 at once in specie; and, finally, by a bold stretch
+of his authority, he issued an edict that no person should have over
+$100 in coin, on pain of fine and confiscation. These odious laws made a
+great deal of trouble, spying, and distress, and rapidly aggravated the
+difficulty they were meant to cure. The price of shares in the great
+company began to fall steadily and rapidly. Law and the Regent began to
+be universally hated, cursed, and threatened. Various foolish and vain
+attempts were made to stay the coming ruin, by renewing the stories
+about Louisiana sending out a lot of conscripted laborers, ordering that
+all payments must be made in paper,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> and printing a new batch of notes,
+to the amount of another $300,000,000. Law&#8217;s two corporations were also
+doctored in several ways. The distress and fright grew worse. An edict
+was issued that Law&#8217;s notes and shares should depreciate gradually by
+law for a year, and then be worth but half their face. This made such a
+tumult and outcry that the Regent had to retract it in seven days. On
+this seventh day, Law&#8217;s bank stopped paying specie. Law was turned out
+of his public employments, but still well treated by the Regent in
+private. He was, however, mobbed and stoned in his coach in the street,
+had to have a company of Swiss Guards in his house, and at last had to
+flee to the Regent&#8217;s own palace.</p>
+
+<p>I have not space to describe in detail the ruin, misery, tumults, loss
+and confusion which attended the speedy descent of Law&#8217;s paper and
+shares to entire worthlessness. Thousands of families were made paupers,
+and trade and commerce destroyed by the painful process. Law himself
+escaped out of France poor; and, after another obscure and disreputable
+career of gambling, died in poverty at Venice, in 1729.</p>
+
+<p>Thus this enormous business-humbug first raised a whole nation into a
+fool&#8217;s paradise of imaginary wealth, and then exploded, leaving its
+projector and many thousands of victims ruined, the country disturbed
+and distressed, long-enduring consequences, in vicious and lawless and
+unsteady habits, contracted while the delusion lasted, and no single
+benefit except one more most dearly-bought lesson of the wicked folly of
+mere speculation without a real business basis and a real business<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>
+method. Let not this lesson be lost on the rampant and half-crazed
+speculators of the present day. Those who buy gold or flour, leather,
+butter, dry goods, groceries, hardware, or anything else on speculation,
+when prices are inflated far beyond the ordinary standard, are taking
+upon themselves great risks, for the bubble must eventually be pricked;
+and whoever is the &#8220;holder&#8221; when that time comes, must necessarily be
+the loser.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="V_MEDICINE_AND_QUACKS" id="V_MEDICINE_AND_QUACKS"></a>V. MEDICINE AND QUACKS.</h2>
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="corr67" id="corr67"></a><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">DOCTORS AND IMAGINATION.&mdash;&#8203;FIRING A JOKE OUT OF A CANNON.&mdash;&#8203;THE PARIS EYE
+WATER.&mdash;&#8203;MAJENDIE ON MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE.&mdash;&#8203;OLD SANDS OF LIFE.</p>
+
+
+<p>Medical humbugs constitute a very critical subject indeed, because I
+shall be almost certain to offend some of three parties concerned,
+namely; physicians, quacks, and patients. But it will never do to
+neglect so important a division of my whole theme as this.</p>
+
+<p>To begin with, it is necessary to suggest, in the most delicate manner
+in the world, that there is a small infusion of humbug among the very
+best of the regular practitioners. These gentlemen, for whose learning,
+kind-heartedness, self-devotion, and skill I entertain a profound
+respect, make use of what I may call the gaseous element of their
+practice, not for the lucre of gain, but in order to enlist the
+imaginations of their patients in aid of nature and great remedies.</p>
+
+<p>The stories are infinite in number, which illustrate the force of
+imagination, ranging through all the grades of mental action, from the
+lofty visions of good men who dream of seeing heaven opened to them, and
+all its ineffable glories and delights, down to the low comedy conceit
+of the fellow who put a smoked herring into the tail of his coat and
+imagined himself a mermaid.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>Probably, however, imagination displays its real power more wonderfully
+in the operations of the mind on the body that holds it, than anywhere
+else. It is true that there are some people even so utterly without
+imagination that they cannot take a joke; such as that grave man of
+Scotland who was at last plainly told by a funny friend quite out of
+patience, &#8220;Why, you wouldn&#8217;t take a joke if it were fired at you out of
+a cannon!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Sir,&#8221; replied the Scot, with sound reasoning and grave thought, &#8220;Sir,
+you are absurd. You cannot fire a joke out of a cannon!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But to return: It is certainly the case that frequently &#8220;the doctor&#8221;
+takes great care not to let the patient know what is the matter, and
+even not to let him know what he is swallowing. This is because a good
+many people, if at a critical point of disease, may be made to turn
+toward health if made to believe that they are doing so, but would be
+frightened, in the literal sense of the words, to death, if told what a
+dangerous state they are in.</p>
+
+<p>One sort of regular practice humbug is rendered necessary by the demands
+of the patients. This is giving good big doses of something with a
+horrid smell and taste. There are plenty of people who don&#8217;t believe the
+doctor does anything to earn his money, if he does not pour down some
+dirty brown or black stuff very nasty in flavor. Some, still more
+exacting, wish for that sort of testimony which depends on internal
+convulsions, and will not be satisfied unless they suffer torments and
+expel stuff enough to quiet the inside of Mount Vesuvius or
+<a name="corr68" id="corr68"></a>Popocatepetl.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>&#8220;He&#8217;s a good doctor,&#8221; was the verdict of one of this class of
+leather-boweled fellows&mdash;&#8220;he&#8217;ll work your innards for you!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It is a milder form of this same method to give what the learned faculty
+term a placebo. This is a thing in the outward form of medicine, but
+quite harmless in itself. Such is a bread-pill, for instance; or a
+draught of colored water, with a little disagreeable taste in it. These
+will often keep the patient&#8217;s imagination headed in the right direction,
+while good old Dame Nature is quietly mending up the damages in &#8220;the
+soul&#8217;s dark cottage.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>One might almost fancy that, in proportion as the physician is more
+skillful, by so much he gives less medicine, and relies more on
+imagination, nature, and, above all, regimen and nursing. Here is a
+story in point. There was an old gentleman in Paris, who sold a famous
+eye-water, and made much gain thereby. He died, however, one fine day,
+and unfortunately forgot to leave the recipe on record. &#8220;His
+disconsolate widow continued the business at the old stand,&#8221; however&mdash;to
+quote another characteristic French anecdote&mdash;and being a woman of ready
+and decisive mind, she very quietly filled the vials with water from the
+river Seine, and lived respectably on the proceeds, finding, to her
+great relief, that the eye-water was just as good as ever. At last
+however, she found herself about to die, and under the stings of an
+accusing conscience she confessed her trick to her physician, an eminent
+member of the profession. &#8220;Be entirely easy, Madam,&#8221; said the wise man;
+&#8220;don&#8217;t be troubled at all. You are the most in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>nocent physician in the
+world; you have done nobody any harm.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It is an old and illiberal joke to compare medicine to war, on the
+ground that the votaries of both seek to destroy life. It is, however,
+not far from the truth to say that they are alike in this; that they are
+both pre&euml;minently liable to mistakes, and that in both he is most
+successful who makes the fewest.</p>
+
+<p>How can it be otherwise, until we know more than we do at present, of
+the great mysteries of life and death? It seems risky enough to permit
+the wisest and most experienced physician to touch those springs of life
+which God only understands. And it is enough to make the most stupid
+stare, to see how people will let the most disgusting quack jangle their
+very heartstrings with his poisonous messes, about as soon as if he were
+the best doctor in the world. A true physician, indeed, does not hasten
+to drug. The great French surgeon, Majendie, is even said to have
+commenced his official course of lectures on one occasion by coolly
+saying to his students: &#8220;Gentlemen, the curing of disease is a subject
+that physicians know nothing about.&#8221; This was doubtless an extreme way
+of putting the case. Yet it was in a certain sense exactly true. There
+is one of the geysers in Iceland, into which visitors throw pebbles or
+turfs, with the invariable result of causing the disgusted geyser in a
+few minutes to vomit the dose out again, along with a great quantity of
+hot water, steam, and stuff. Now the doctor does know that some of his
+doses are pretty sure to work, as the traveler knows that his dose will
+work on the gey<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>ser. It is only the exact how and why that is not
+understood.</p>
+
+<p>But however mysterious is nature, however ignorant the doctor, however
+imperfect the present state of physical science, the patronage and the
+success of quacks and quackeries are infinitely more wonderful than
+those of honest and laborious men of science and their careful
+experiments.</p>
+
+<p>I have come about to the end of my tether for this time; and quackery is
+something too monstrous in dimensions as well as character to be dealt
+with in a paragraph. But I may with propriety put one quack at the tail
+of this letter; it is but just that he should let decent people go
+before him. I mean &#8220;Old Sands of Life.&#8221; Everybody has seen his
+advertisement, beginning &#8220;A retired Physician whose sands of life have
+nearly run out,&#8221; etc. And everybody&mdash;almost&mdash;knows how kind the fellow
+is in sending gratis his recipe. All that is necessary is (as you find
+out when you get the recipe) to buy at a high price from him one
+ingredient which (he says) you can get nowhere else. This swindling
+scamp is in fact a smart brisk fellow of about thirty-five years of age,
+notwithstanding the length of time during which&mdash;to use a funny phrase
+which somebody got up for him&mdash;he has been &#8220;afflicted with a loose
+tail-board to his mortal sand-cart.&#8221; Some benevolent friend was so much
+distressed about the feebleness of &#8220;Old Sands of Life&#8221; as to send him
+one day a large parcel by express, marked &#8220;C. O. D.,&#8221; and costing quite
+a figure. &#8220;Old Sands&#8221; paid, and opening the parcel, found half a bushel
+of excellent sand.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE CONSUMPTIVE REMEDY.&mdash;&#8203;E. ANDREWS, M. D.&mdash;&#8203;BORN WITHOUT
+BIRTHRIGHTS.&mdash;&#8203;HASHEESH CANDY.&mdash;&#8203;ROBACK THE GREAT.&mdash;&#8203;A CONJURER OPPOSED TO
+LYING.</p>
+
+
+<p>There is a fellow in Williamsburg who calls himself a clergyman, and
+sells a &#8220;consumptive remedy,&#8221; by which I suppose he means a remedy for
+consumption. It is a mere slop corked in a vial; but there are a good
+many people who are silly enough to buy it of him. A certain gentleman,
+during last November, earnestly sought an interview with this reverend
+brother in the interests of humanity, but he was as inaccessible as a
+chipmunk in a stone fence. The gentleman wrote a polite note to the
+knave asking about prices, and received a printed circular in return,
+stating in an affecting manner the good man&#8217;s grief at having to raise
+his price in consequence of the cost of gold &#8220;with which I am obliged to
+buy my medicines&#8221; saith he, &#8220;in Paris.&#8221; This was both sad and
+unsatisfactory; and the gentleman went over to <a name="corr69" id="corr69"></a>Williamsburg to seek an
+interview and find out all about the prices. He reached the abode of the
+man of piety, but, strange to relate, he wasn&#8217;t at home.</p>
+
+<p>Gentleman waited.</p>
+
+<p>Reverend brother kept on not being at home. When gentleman had waited to
+his entire satisfaction he came back.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>It is understood it is practically out of the question to see the
+reverend brother. Perhaps he is so modest and shy that he will not
+encounter the clamorous gratitude which would obstruct his progress
+through the streets, from the millions saved by his consumptive remedy.
+It is a pity that the reverend man cannot enjoy the still more complete
+seclusion by which the state of New York testifies its appreciation of
+unobtrusive and retiring virtues like his, in the salubrious and quiet
+town of Sing Sing.</p>
+
+<p>A quack in an inland city, who calls himself E. Andrews, M. D., prints a
+&#8220;semi-occasional&#8221; document in the form of a periodical, of which a copy
+is lying before me. It is an awful hodgepodge of perfect nonsense and
+vulgar rascality. He calls it &#8220;The Good Samaritan and Domestic
+Physician,&#8221; and this number is called &#8220;volume twenty.&#8221; Only think what a
+great man we have among us&mdash;unless the Doctor himself is mistaken. He
+says: &#8220;I will here state that I have been favored by nature and
+Providence in gaining access to stores of information that has <i>fell</i> to
+the lot of but very few persons heretofore, during the past history of
+mankind.&#8221; Evidently these &#8220;stores&#8221; were so vast that the great doctor&#8217;s
+brain was stuffed too full to have room left for English Grammar.
+Shortly, the Doctor thus bursts forth again with some views having their
+own merits, but not such as concern the healing art very directly: &#8220;The
+automaton powers of machinery&#8221;&mdash;there&#8217;s a new style of machinery, you
+observe&mdash;&#8220;must be made to <span class="smrom">WORK FOR</span>, <i>instead</i> of <i>as now</i>, against
+mankind; the Land of <i>all nations</i> must be made <span class="smrom">FREE</span> to Actual Set<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>tlers
+in <span class="smrom">LIMITED</span> quantities. No one must be born without <i>his birthright</i>
+being born with him.&#8221; The italics, etc., are the Doctor&#8217;s. What an awful
+thought is this of being born without any birthright, or, as the Doctor
+leaves us to suppose possible, having one&#8217;s birthright born first, and
+dodging about the world like a stray canary-bird, while the unhappy and
+belated owner tries in vain to put salt on its tail and catch it!</p>
+
+<p>Well, this wiseacre, after his portentous introduction, fills the rest
+of his sixteen loosely printed double-columned octavo pages with a
+farrago of the most indescribable character, made up of brags, lies,
+promises, forged recommendations and letters, boasts of systematic
+charity, funny scraps of stuff in the form of little disquisitions,
+advertisements of remedies, hair-oils, cosmetics, liquors, groceries,
+thistle-killers, anti-bug mixtures, recipes for soap, ink, honey, and
+the Old Harry only knows what. The fellow gives a list of seventy-one
+specific diseases for which his Hasheesh Candy is a sure cure, and he
+adds that it is also a sure cure for all diseases of the liver, brain,
+throat, stomach, ear, and other internal disorders; also for &#8220;all long
+standing diseases&#8221;&mdash;whatever that means!&mdash;and for insanity! In this
+monstrous list are jumbled together the most incongruous troubles.
+&#8220;Bleeding at the nose, and abortions;&#8221; &#8220;worms, fits, poisons and
+cramps.&#8221; And the impudent liar quotes General Grant, General Mitchell,
+the Rebel General Lee, General McClellan, and Doctor Mott of this city,
+all shouting in chorus the praises of the Hasheesh Candy! Next comes the
+&#8220;Secret of Beauty,&#8221; a &#8220;preparation of Turkish Roses;&#8221; then a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> lot of
+forged references, and an assertion that the Doctor gives to the poor
+five thousand pounds of bread every winter; then some fearful
+denunciations of the regular doctors.</p>
+
+<p>But&mdash;as the auctioneers say&mdash;&#8220;I can&#8217;t dwell.&#8221; I will only add that the
+real villainy of this fellow only appears here and there, where he
+advertises the means of ruining innocence, or of indulging with impunity
+in the foulest vices. He will sell for $3.30, the &#8220;Mystic Weird Ring.&#8221;
+In a chapter of infamous blatherumskite about this ring he says: &#8220;The
+wearer can drive from, or draw to him, any one, and for any purpose
+whatever.&#8221; I need not explain what this scoundrel means. He also will
+sell the professed means of robbery and swindling; saying that he is
+prepared to show how to remove papers, wills, titles, notes, etc., from
+one place to another &#8220;by invisible means.&#8221; It is a wonder that the Bank
+of Commerce can keep any securities in its vaults&mdash;of course!</p>
+
+<p>But enough of this degraded panderer to crime and folly. He is beneath
+notice, so far as he himself concerned; I devote the space to him,
+because it is well worth while to understand how base an imposture can
+draw a steady revenue from a nation boasting so much culture and
+intelligence as ours. It is also worth considering whether the
+authorities must not be remiss, who permit such odious deceptions to be
+constantly perpetrated upon the public.</p>
+
+<p>I ought here to give a paragraph to the great C. W. Roback, one of whose
+Astrological Almanacs is before me. This erudite production is
+embellished in front<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> with a picture of the doctor and his six
+brothers&mdash;for he is the seventh son of a seventh son. The six elder
+brethren&mdash;nice enough boys&mdash;stand submissively around their gigantic and
+bearded junior, reaching only to his waist, and gazing up at him with
+reverence, as the sheaves of Joseph&#8217;s brethren worshipped his sheaf in
+his dream. At the end is a picture of Magnus Roback, the grandfather of
+C. W., a bull-headed, ugly old Dutchman, with a globe and compasses.
+This picture, by the way, is in fact a cheap likeness of the old
+discoverers or geographers. Within the book we find Gustavus Roback, the
+father of C. W., for whom is used a cut of Jupiter&mdash;or some other
+heathen god&mdash;half-naked, a-straddle of an eagle, with a hook in one hand
+and a quadrant in the other; which is very much like the picture by one
+of the &#8220;Old Masters&#8221; of Abraham about to offer up Isaac, and taking a
+long aim at the poor boy with a flint-lock horse-pistol. Doctor Roback
+is good enough to tell us where his brothers are: &#8220;One, a high officer
+in the Empire of China, another a Catholic Bishop in the city of Rome,&#8221;
+and so on. There is also a cut of his sister, whom he cured of
+consumption. She is represented &#8220;talking to her bird, after the fashion
+of her country, when a maiden is unexpectedly rescued from the jaws of
+death!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Roback cures all sorts of diseases, discovers stolen property, insures
+children a marriage, and so on, all by means of &#8220;conjurations.&#8221; He also
+casts nativities and foretells future events; and he shows in full how
+Bernadotte, Louis Philippe, and Napoleon Bonaparte either did well or
+would have done well by following his ad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>vice. The chief peculiarity of
+this impostor is, that he really avoids direct pandering to vice and
+crime, and even makes it a specialty to cure drunkenness and&mdash;of all
+things in the world&mdash;lying! On this point Roback gives in full the
+certificate of Mrs. Abigail Morgan, whose daughter Amanda &#8220;was sorely
+given to fibbing, in so much that she would rather lie than speak the
+truth.&#8221; And the delighted mother certifies that our friend and wizard
+&#8220;so changed the nature of the girl that, to the best of our knowledge
+and belief, she has never spoken anything but the truth since.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There is a conjurer &#8220;as is a conjurer.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>What an uproar the incantation of the great Roback would make, if set
+fairly to work among the politicians, for instance! But after all, on
+second thoughts, what a horrible mass of abominations would they lay
+bare in telling the truth about each other all round! No, no&mdash;it won&#8217;t
+do to have the truth coming out, in politics at any rate! Away with
+Roback! I will not give him another word&mdash;not a single chance&mdash;not even
+to explain his great power over what he calls &#8220;Fits! Fits! Fits! Fits!
+Fits!&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">MONSIGNORE CRISTOFORO RISCHIO; OR, IL CRESO, THE NOSTRUM-VENDER OF
+<a name="corr70" id="corr70"></a>FLORENCE.&mdash;&#8203;A MODEL FOR OUR QUACK DOCTORS.</p>
+
+
+<p>Every visitor to Florence during the last twenty years must have noticed
+on the grand piazza before the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> Ducal Palace, the strange genius known
+as Monsignore Cr&eacute;so, or, in plain English, Mr. Cr&#339;sus. He is so
+called because of his reputed great wealth; but his real name is
+Christoforo Rischio, which I may again translate, as Christopher Risk.
+Mrs. Browning refers to him in one of her poems&mdash;the &#8220;Casa Guidi
+Windows,&#8221; I think&mdash;and he has also been the staple of a tale by one of
+the Trollope brothers.</p>
+
+<p>Twice every week, he comes into the city in a strange vehicle, drawn by
+two fine Lombardy ponies, and unharnesses them in the very centre of the
+square. His assistant, a capital vocalist, begins to sing immediately,
+and a crowd soon collects around the wagon. Then Monsignore takes from
+the box beneath his seat a splendidly jointed human skeleton, which he
+suspends from a tall rod and hook, and also a number of human skulls.
+The latter are carefully arranged on an adjustable shelf, and Cr&eacute;so
+takes his place behind them, while in his rear a perfect chemist&#8217;s shop
+of flasks, bottles, and pillboxes is disclosed. Very soon his singer
+ceases, and in the purest Tuscan dialect&mdash;the very utterance of which is
+music&mdash;the Florentine quack-doctor proceeds to address the assemblage.
+Not being conversant with the Italian, I am only able to give the
+substance of his harangue, and pronounce indifferently upon the merit of
+his elocution. I am assured, however, that not only the common people,
+who are his chief patrons, but numbers of the most intelligent citizens,
+are always entertained by what he has to say; and certainly his gestures
+and style of expressions seem to betray great excellence of oratory.
+Having turned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> the skeleton round and round on its pivot, and minutely
+explained the various anatomical parts, in order to show his proficiency
+in the basis of medical science, he next lifts the skulls, one by one,
+and descants upon their relative perfection, throwing in a shrewd
+anecdote now and then, as to the life of the original owner of each
+cranium.</p>
+
+<p>One skull, for example, he asserts to have belonged to a lunatic, who
+wandered for half a lifetime in the Val d&#8217;Ema, subsisting precariously
+upon entirely vegetable food&mdash;roots, herbs, and the like; another is the
+superior part of a convict, hung in Arezzo for numerous offences; a
+third is that of a very old man who lived a celibate from his youth up,
+and by his abstinence and goodness exercised an almost priestly
+influence upon the borghesa. When, by this miscellaneous lecture, he has
+both amused and edified his hearers, he ingeniously turns the discourse
+upon his own life, and finally introduces the subject of the marvellous
+cures he has effected. The story of his medical preparations alone,
+their components and method of distillation, is a fine piece of
+popularized art, and he gives a practical exemplification of his skill
+and their virtues by calling from the crowd successively, a number of
+invalid people, whom he examines and prescribes for on the spot. Whether
+these subjects are provided by himself or not, I am unable to decide;
+but it is very possible that by long experience, Christoforo&mdash;who has no
+regular diploma&mdash;has mastered the simpler elements of Materia Medica,
+and does in reality effect cures. I class him among what are popularly
+known as humbugs, however, for he is a pretender to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> more wisdom than he
+possesses. It was to me a strange and suggestive scene&mdash;the bald,
+beak-nosed, coal-eyed charlatan, standing in the market-place, so
+celebrated in history, peering through his gold spectacles at the
+upturned faces below him, while the bony skeleton at his side swayed in
+the wind, and the grinning skulls below, made grotesque faces, as if
+laughing at the <a name="corr71" id="corr71"></a>gullibility of the people. Behind him loomed up the
+massive Palazzo Vecchio, with its high tower, sharply cut, and set with
+deep machicolations; to the left, the splendid Loggia of Orgagna, filled
+with rare marbles, and the long picture-gallery of the Uffizi, heaped
+with the rarest art-treasures of the world; to his right, the Giant
+Fountain of Ammanato, throwing jets of pure water&mdash;one drop of which
+outvalues all the nostrums in the world; and in front, the Post Office,
+built centuries before, by Pisan captives. If any of these things moved
+the imperturbable Cr&eacute;so, he showed no feeling of the sort; but for three
+long hours, two days in the week, held his hideous clinic in the open
+daylight.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing the man so often, and interested always in his manner&mdash;as much
+so, indeed, as the peasants or contadini, who bought his vials and
+pillboxes without stint&mdash;I became interested to know the main features
+of his life; and, by the aid of a friend, got some clues which I think
+reliable enough to publish. I do so the more willingly, because his
+career is illustrative, after an odd fashion, of contemporary Italian
+life.</p>
+
+<p>He was the son of a small farmer, not far from Sienna, and grew up in
+daily contact with vine-dressers and olive-gatherers, living upon the
+hard Tuscan fare of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> <a name="corr72" id="corr72"></a>macaroni and maroon-nuts, with a cutlet of lean
+mutton once a day, and a pint of sour Tuscan wine. Being tolerably well
+educated for a peasant-boy, he imbibed a desire for the profession of an
+actor, and studied Alfieri closely.</p>
+
+<p>Some little notoriety that he gained by recitations led him, in an evil
+hour, to venture an appearance <i>en grand role</i>, in Florence, at a
+third-rate theatre. His father had meanwhile deceased and left him the
+property; but to make the d&eacute;but referred to, he sold <a name="corr73" id="corr73"></a>almost his entire
+inheritance. As may be supposed, his failure was signal. However easy he
+had found it to amuse the rough, untutored peasantry of his
+neighborhood, the test of a large and polished city was beyond his
+merit.</p>
+
+<p>So, poor and abashed, he sank to the lower walks of dramatic art,
+singing in choruses at the opera, playing minor parts in show-pieces,
+and all the while feeling the sting of disappointed ambition and
+half-deserved penury.</p>
+
+<p>One day found him, at the beginning of winter, without work, and without
+a soldo in his pocket. Passing a druggist&#8217;s shop, he saw a placard
+asking for men to sell a certain new preparation. The druggist advanced
+him a small sum for travelling expenses, and he took to peripatetic
+lectures at once, going into the country and haranguing at all the
+villages.</p>
+
+<p>Here he found his dramatic education available. Though not good enough
+for an actor, he was sufficiently clever for a nomadic eulogizer of a
+patent-medicine. His vocal abilities were also of service to him in
+gath<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>ering the people together. The great secret of success in anything
+is to get a hearing. Half the object is gained when the audience is
+assembled.</p>
+
+<p>Well! poor, vagabond, peddling Christopher Risk, selling so much for
+another party, conceived the idea of becoming his own capitalist. He
+resolved to prepare a medicine of his own; and, profiting by the
+assistance of a young medical student, obtained bona fide prescriptions
+for the commonest maladies. These he had made up in gross, originated
+labels for them, and concealing the real essences thereof by certain
+harmless adulterations, began to advertise himself as the discoverer of
+a panacea.</p>
+
+<p>To gain no ill-will among the priests, whose influence is paramount with
+the peasantry, he dexterously threw in a reverent word for them in his
+nomadic harangues, and now and then made a sounding present to the
+Church.</p>
+
+<p>He profited also by the superstitions abroad, and to the skill of
+Hippocrates added the roguery of Simon Magus. By report, he was both a
+magician and physician, and a knack that he had of slight-of-hand was
+not the least influential of his virtues.</p>
+
+<p>His bodily prowess was as great as his suppleness. One day, at Fiesole,
+a foreign doctor presumed to challenge Monsignore to a debate, and the
+offer was accepted. While the two stood together in Cristoforo&#8217;s wagon,
+and the intruder was haranguing the people, the quack, without a
+movement of his face or a twitch of his body, jerked his foot against
+his rival&#8217;s leg and threw him to the ground. He had the effrontery to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>
+proclaim the feat as magnetic entirely, accomplished without bodily
+means, and by virtue of his black-art acquirements.</p>
+
+<p>An awe fell upon the listeners, and they refused to hear the checkmated
+disputant further.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Cristoforo began to thrive, he indulged his dramatic taste by
+purchasing a superb wagon, team, and equipments, and hired a servant.
+Such a turnout had never been seen in Tuscany since the Medician days.
+It gained for him the name of Cr&eacute;so straightway, and, enabling him to
+travel more rapidly, enlarged his business sphere, and so vastly
+increased his profits.</p>
+
+<p>He arranged regular days and hours for each place in Tuscany, and soon
+became as widely known as the Grand Duke himself. When it was known that
+he had bought an old castle at Pontassieve on the banks of the Arno, his
+reputation still further increased. He was now so prosperous that he set
+the faculty at defiance. He proclaimed that they were jealous of his
+profounder learning, and threatened to expose the banefulness of their
+systems.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time, his talk to the common people began to savor of
+patronage, and this also enhanced his reputation. It is much better, as
+a rule, to call attention up to you rather than charity down to you. The
+shrewd impostor became also more absolute now. It was known that the
+Grand Duke had once asked him to dine, and that Monsignore had the
+hardihood to refuse. Indeed, he sympathized too greatly with the aroused
+Italian spirit of unity and progress to compromise himself with the
+house of Austria. When at last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> the revolution came, Cristoforo was one
+of its best champions in Tuscany. His cantante sang only the march of
+Garibaldi and the victories of Savoy. His own speeches teemed with the
+gospel of Italy regenerated; and for a whole month he wasted no time in
+the sale of his bottighias and pillolas, but threw all his vehement,
+persuasive, and dramatic eloquence into the popular cause.</p>
+
+<p>The end we know. Tuscany is a dukedom no longer, but a component part of
+a great peninsular kingdom with &#8220;Florence the Beautiful&#8221; for its
+capital.</p>
+
+<p>And still before the ducal palace, where the deputies of Italy are to
+assemble, poor, vain Cristoforo Rischio makes his harangue every Tuesday
+and Saturday. He is now&mdash;or was four years ago&mdash;upward of sixty years of
+age, but spirited and athletic as ever, and so rich that it would be
+superfluous for him to continue his peripatetic career.</p>
+
+<p>His life is to me noteworthy, as showing what may be gained by
+concentrating even humble energies upon a paltry thing. Had Cr&eacute;so
+persevered as well upon the stage, I do not doubt that he would have
+made a splendid actor. If he did so well with a mere nostrum, why should
+he not have gained riches and a less grotesque fame by the sale of a
+better article? He understood human nature, its credulities and
+incredulities, its superstitions, tastes, changefulness, and love of
+display and excitement. He has done no harm, and given as much amusement
+as he has been paid for. Indeed, I consider him more an ornamental and
+useful character than otherwise. He has brightened many a travele<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>r&#8217;s
+recollections, relieved the tedium of many a weary hour in a foreign
+city, and, with all his deception, has never severed himself from the
+popular faith, nor sold out the popular cause. I dare say his death,
+when it occurs, will cause more sensation and evoke more tears, than
+that of any better physician in Tuscany.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="VI_HOAXES" id="VI_HOAXES"></a>VI. HOAXES.</h2>
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">THE TWENTY-SEVENTH STREET GHOST.&mdash;&#8203;SPIRITS ON THE RAMPAGE.</p>
+
+
+<p>In classing the ghost excitement that agitated our good people to such
+an extent some two years ago among the &#8220;humbugs&#8221; of the age, I must, at
+the outset, remind my readers that there was no little accumulation of
+what is termed &#8220;respectable&#8221; testimony, as to the reality of his
+ghostship in Twenty-seventh street.</p>
+
+<p>One fine Sunday morning, in the early part of 1863, my friends of the
+&#8220;Sunday Mercury&#8221; astonished their many thousands of patrons with an
+account that had been brought to them of a fearful spectre that had made
+its appearance in one of the best houses in Twenty-seventh Street. The
+narrative was detailed with circumstantial accuracy, and yet with an
+apparent discreet reserve, that gave the finishing touch of delightful
+mystery to the story.</p>
+
+<p>The circumstances, as set forth in the opening letter (for many others
+followed) were briefly these:&mdash;A highly respectable family residing on
+Twenty-seventh Street, one of our handsome up-town thoroughfares, became
+aware, toward the close of the year 1862, that something extraordinary
+was taking place in their house, then one of the best in the
+neighborhood. Sundry mutterings and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> whisperings began to be heard among
+the servants employed about the <a name="corr74" id="corr74"></a>domicile, and, after a little while it
+became almost impossible to induce them to remain there for love or
+money. The visitors of the family soon began to notice that their calls,
+which formerly were so welcome, particularly among the young people of
+the establishment, seemed to give embarrassment, and that the smiles
+that greeted them, as early as seven in the evening gradually gave place
+to uneasy gestures, and, finally to positive hints at the lateness of
+the hour, or the fatigue of their host by nine o&#8217;clock.</p>
+
+<p>The head of the family was a plain, matter-of-fact old gentleman, by no
+means likely to give way to any superstitious terrors&mdash;one of your
+hard-headed business men who pooh-poohed demons, hobgoblins, and all
+other kinds of spirits, except the purest Santa Cruz and genuine old
+Otard; and he fell into a great rage, when upon his repeated gruff
+demands for an explanation, he was delicately informed that his parlor
+was &#8220;haunted.&#8221; He vowed that somebody wanted to drive him from the
+house; that there was a conspiracy afoot among the women to get him
+still higher up town, and into a bigger brown-stone front, and refused
+to believe one word of the ghost-story. At length, one day, while
+sitting in his &#8220;growlery,&#8221; as the ladies called it, in the lower story,
+his attention was aroused by a clatter on the stairs, and looking out
+into the entry he saw a party of carpenters and painters who had been
+employed upon the parlor-floor, beating a precipitate retreat toward the
+front door.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Stop!&mdash;stop! you infernal fools! What&#8217;s all this hullabaloo about?&#8221;
+shouted the old gentleman.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>No reply&mdash;no halt upon the part of the mechanics, but away they went
+down the steps and along the street, as though Satan himself, or Moseby
+the guerrilla, was at their heels. They were pursued and ordered back,
+but absolutely refused to come, swearing that they had seen the Evil
+One, in <i>propria persona</i>; and threats, persuasions, and bribes alike
+proved vain to induce them to return. This made the matter look serious,
+and a family-council was held forthwith. It wouldn&#8217;t do to let matters
+go on in this way, and something must be thought of as a remedy. It was
+in this half-solemn and half-tragic conclave that the pater-familias was
+at last put in possession of the mysterious occurrences that had been
+disturbing the peace of his domestic hearth.</p>
+
+<p>A ghost had been repeatedly seen in his best drawing-room!&mdash;a genuine,
+undeniable, unmitigated ghost!</p>
+
+<p>The spectre was described by the female members of the family as making
+his appearance at all hours, chiefly, however in the evening, of course.
+Now the good old orthodox idea of a ghost is, of a very long,
+cadaverous, ghastly personage, of either sex, appearing in white
+draperies, with uplifted finger, and attended or preceded by sepulchral
+sounds&mdash;whist! hush! and sometimes the rattling of casements and the
+jingling of chains. A bluish glare and a strong smell of brimstone
+seldom failed to enhance the horror of the scene. This ghost, however,
+came it seems, in more ordinary guise, but none the less terrible for
+his natural style of approach and costume. He was usually seen in the
+front parlor, which was on the second story and faced the street.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> There
+he would be found seated in a chair near the fire place, his attire the
+garb of a carman or &#8220;carter&#8221; and hence the name &#8220;Carter&#8217;s Ghost&#8221;
+afterward frequently applied to him. There he would sit entirely unmoved
+by the approach of living denizens of the house, who, at first, would
+suppose that he was some drunken or insane intruder, and only discover
+their mistake as they drew near, and saw the fire-light shining through
+him, and notice the glare of his frightful eyes, which threatened all
+comers in a most unearthly way. Such was the purport of the first sketch
+that appeared in the &#8220;Sunday Mercury,&#8221; stated so distinctly and
+impressively that the effect could not fail to be tremendous among our
+sensational public. To help the matter, another brief notice, to the
+same effect, appeared in the Sunday issue of a leading journal on the
+same morning. The news dealers and street-carriers caught up the novelty
+instanter, and before noon not a copy of the &#8220;Sunday Mercury&#8221; could be
+bought in any direction. The country issue of the &#8220;Sunday Mercury&#8221; had
+still a larger sale.</p>
+
+<p>On Sunday morning, every sheet in town made some allusion to the Ghost,
+and many even went so far as to give the very (supposed) number of the
+house favored with his visitations. The result of this enterprising
+guess was ludicrous enough, bordering a little, too, upon the serious.
+Indignant house-holders rushed down to the &#8220;Sunday Mercury&#8221; office with
+the most amusing wrath, threatening and denouncing the astonished
+publishers with all sorts of legal action for their presumed trespass,
+when in reality, their paper had designated no place or person at all.
+But the grandest demonstration<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> of popular excitement was revealed in
+Twenty-seventh street itself. Before noon a considerable portion of the
+thoroughfare below Sixth Avenue was blocked up with a dense mass of
+people of all ages, sizes, sexes, and nationalities, who had come &#8220;to
+see the Ghost.&#8221; A liquor store or two, near by, drove a splendid
+&#8220;spiritual&#8221; business; and by evening &#8220;the fun&#8221; grew so &#8220;fast and
+furious&#8221; that a whole squad of police had to be employed to keep the
+side-walks and even the carriage-way clear. The &#8220;Ghost&#8221; was shouted for
+to make a speech, like any other new celebrity, and old ladies and
+gentlemen peering out of upper-story windows were saluted with playful
+tokens of regard, such as turnips, eggs of ancient date, and other
+things too numerous to mention, from the crowd. Nor was the throng
+composed entirely of Gothamites. The surrounding country sent in its
+contingent. They came on foot, on horseback, in wagons, and arrayed in
+all the costumes known about these parts, since the days of Rip Van
+Winkle. Cruikshanks would have made a fortune from his easy sketches of
+only a few figures in the scene. And thus the concourse continued for
+days together, arriving at early morn and staying there in the street
+until &#8220;dewy eve.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of course, there were various explanations of the story
+propounded by various people&mdash;all wondrously wise in their own conceit.
+Some would have it that &#8220;the Ghost&#8221; was got up by some of the neighbors,
+who wished, in this manner, to drive away disreputable occupants; others
+insisted that it was the revenge of an ousted tenant, etc., etc.
+Everybody offered his own theory, and, as is usual, in such cases,
+nobody was exactly right.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>Meanwhile, the &#8220;Sunday Mercury&#8221; continued its publications of the
+further progress of the &#8220;mystery,&#8221; from week to week, for a space of
+nearly two months, until the whole country seemed to have gone
+ghost-mad. Apparitions and goblins dire were seen in Washington,
+Rochester, Albany, Montreal, and other cities.</p>
+
+<p>The spiritualists took it up and began to discuss &#8220;the Carter Ghost&#8221;
+with the utmost zeal. One startling individual&mdash;a physician and a
+philosopher&mdash;emerged from his professional shell into full-fledged
+glory, as the greatest canard of all, and published revelations of his
+own intermediate intercourse with the terrific &#8220;Carter.&#8221; In every nook
+and corner of the land, tremendous posters, in white and yellow, broke
+out upon the walls and windows of news-depots, with capitals a foot
+long, and exclamation-points like drumsticks, announcing fresh
+installments of the &#8220;Ghost&#8221; story, and it was a regular fight between
+go-ahead vendors who should get the next batch of horrors in advance of
+his rivals.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was the effect abroad the least feature of this stupendous &#8220;sell.&#8221;
+The English, French, and German press translated some of the articles in
+epitome, and wrote grave commentaries thereon. The stage soon caught the
+blaze; and Professor Pepper, at the Royal Polytechnic Institute, in
+London, invented a most ingenious device for producing ghosts which
+should walk about upon the stage in such a perfectly-astounding manner
+as to throw poor Hamlet&#8217;s father and the evil genius of Brutus quite
+into the &#8220;shade.&#8221; &#8220;Pepper&#8217;s Ghost&#8221; soon crossed the Atlantic, and all
+our theatres were speedily alive with nocturnal appari<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>tions. The only
+real ghosts, however&mdash;four in number&mdash;came out at the Museum, in an
+appropriate drama, which had an immense run&mdash;&#8220;all for twenty-five
+cents,&#8221; or only six and a quarter cents per ghost!</p>
+
+<p>But I must not forget to say that, really, the details given in the
+&#8220;Sunday Mercury&#8221; were well calculated to lead captive a large class of
+minds prone to luxuriate in the marvelous when well mixed with plausible
+reasoning. The most circumstantial accounts were given of sundry &#8220;gifted
+young ladies,&#8221; &#8220;grave and learned professors,&#8221; &#8220;reliable
+gentlemen&#8221;&mdash;where are those not found?&mdash;&#8220;lonely watchers,&#8221; and others,
+who had sought interviews with the &#8220;ghost,&#8221; to their own great
+enlightenment, indeed, but, likewise, complete discomfiture. Pistols
+were fired at him, pianos played and songs sung for him, and, finally,
+his daguerreotype taken on prepared metallic plates set upright in the
+haunted room. One shrewd artist brought out an &#8220;exact photographic
+likeness&#8221; of the distinguished stranger on cartes de visite, and made
+immense sales. The apparitions, too, multiplied. An old man, a woman,
+and a child made their appearance in the house of wonders, and, at last,
+a gory head with distended eyeballs, swimming in a sea of blood, upon a
+platter&mdash;like that of Holofernes&mdash;capped the climax.</p>
+
+<p>Certain wiseacres here began to see political allusions in the Ghost,
+and many actually took the whole affair to be a cunningly devised
+political satire upon this or that party, according as their sympathies
+swayed them.</p>
+
+<p>It would have been a remarkable portion of &#8220;this strange, eventful
+history,&#8221; of course, if &#8220;Barnum<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>&#8221; could have escaped the accusation of
+being its progenitor.</p>
+
+<p>I was continually beset, and frequently, when more than usually busy,
+thoroughly annoyed by the innuendoes of my visitors, that I was the
+father of &#8220;the Ghost.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come, now, Mr. Barnum&mdash;this is going a little too far!&#8221; some good old
+dame or grandfather would say to me. &#8220;You oughtn&#8217;t to scare people in
+this way. These ghosts are ugly customers!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My dear Sir,&#8221; or &#8220;Madam,&#8221; I would say, as the case might be, &#8220;I do
+assure you I know nothing whatever about the Ghost&#8221;&mdash;and as for
+&#8220;spirits,&#8221; you know I never touch them, and have been preaching against
+them nearly all my life.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well! well! you will have the last turn,&#8221; they&#8217;d retort, as they edged
+away; &#8220;but you needn&#8217;t tell us. We guess we&#8217;ve found the ghost.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Now, all I can add about this strange hallucination is, that those who
+came to me to see the original &#8220;Carter,&#8221; really saw the &#8220;Elephant.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The wonderful apparition disappeared, at length, as suddenly as he had
+come. The &#8220;Bull&#8217;s-Eye Brigade,&#8221; as the squad of police put on duty to
+watch the neighborhood, for various reasons, was termed, hung to their
+work, and flashed the light of their lanterns into the faces of lonely
+couples, for some time afterward; but quiet, at length, settled down
+over all: and it has been it seems, reserved for my pen to record
+briefly the history of &#8220;The Twenty-seventh street Ghost.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">THE MOON-HOAX.</p>
+
+
+<p>The most stupendous scientific imposition upon the public that the
+generation with which we are numbered has known, was the so-called
+&#8220;Moon-Hoax,&#8221; published in the columns of the &#8220;New York Sun,&#8221; in the
+months of August and September, 1835. The sensation created by this
+immense imposture, not only throughout the United States, but in every
+part of the civilized world, and the consummate ability with which it
+was written, will render it interesting so long as our language shall
+endure; and, indeed, astronomical science has actually been indebted to
+it for many most valuable hints&mdash;a circumstance that gives the
+production a still higher claim to immortality.</p>
+
+<p>At the period when the wonderful &#8220;yarn&#8221; to which I allude first
+appeared, the science of astronomy was engaging particular attention,
+and all works on the subject were eagerly bought up and studied by
+immense masses of people. The real discoveries of the younger Herschel,
+whose fame seemed destined to eclipse that of the elder sage of the same
+name, and the eloquent startling works of Dr. Dick, which the Harpers
+were republishing, in popular form, from the English edition, did much
+to increase and keep up this peculiar mania of the time, until the whole
+community at last were literally occupied with but little else than
+&#8220;star-gazing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>&#8221; Dick&#8217;s works on &#8220;The Sidereal Heavens,&#8221; &#8220;Celestial
+Scenery,&#8221; &#8220;The improvement of Society,&#8221; etc., were read with the utmost
+avidity by rich and poor, old and young, in season and out of season.
+They were quoted in the parlor, at the table, on the promenade, at
+church, and even in the bedroom, until it absolutely seemed as though
+the whole community had &#8220;Dick&#8221; upon the brain. To the highly educated
+and imaginative portion of our good Gothamite population, the Doctor&#8217;s
+glowing periods, full of the grandest speculations as to the starry
+worlds around us, their wondrous magnificence and ever-varying aspects
+of beauty and happiness were inexpressibly fascinating. The author&#8217;s
+well-reasoned conjectures as to the majesty and beauty of their
+landscapes, the fertility and diversity of their soil, and the exalted
+intelligence and comeliness of their inhabitants, found hosts of
+believers; and nothing else formed the staple of conversation, until the
+beaux and belles, and dealers in small talk generally, began to grumble,
+and openly express their wishes that the Dickens had Doctor Dick and all
+his works.</p>
+
+<p>It was at the very height of the furor above mentioned, that one morning
+the readers of the &#8220;Sun&#8221;&mdash;at that time only twenty-five hundred in
+number&mdash;were thrilled with the announcement in its columns of certain
+&#8220;Great Astronomical Discoveries Lately Made by Sir John Herschel, LL.D.,
+F.R.S. etc., at the Cape of Good Hope,&#8221; purporting to be a republication
+from a Supplement to the Edinburgh Journal of Science. The heading of
+the article was striking enough, yet was far from conveying any adequate
+idea of its contents.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> When the latter became known, the excitement went
+beyond all bounds, and grew until the &#8220;Sun&#8221; office was positively
+besieged with crowds of people of the very first class, vehemently
+applying for copies of the issue containing the wonderful details.</p>
+
+<p>As the pamphlet form in which the narrative was subsequently published
+is now out of print, and a copy can hardly be had in the country, I will
+recall a few passages from a rare edition, for the gratification of my
+friends who have never seen the original. Indeed, the whole story is
+altogether too good to be lost; and it is a great pity that we can not
+have a handsome reprint of it given to the world from time to time. It
+is constantly in demand; and, during the year 1859, a single copy of
+sixty pages, sold at the auction of Mr. Haswell&#8217;s library, brought the
+sum of $3,75. In that same year, a correspondent, in Wisconsin, writing
+to the &#8220;Sunday Times&#8221; of this city, inquired where the book could be
+procured, and was answered that he could find it at the old bookstore,
+No. 85 Centre Street, if anywhere. Thus, after a search of many weeks,
+the Western bibliopole succeeded in obtaining a well-thumbed specimen of
+the precious work. Acting upon this chance suggestion, Mr. William
+Gowans, of this city, during the same year, brought out a very neat
+edition, in paper covers, illustrated with a view of the moon, as seen
+through Lord Rosse&#8217;s grand telescope, in 1856. But this, too, has all
+been sold; and the most indefatigable book-collector might find it
+difficult to purchase a single copy at the present time. I, therefore,
+render the inquiring reader no slight service in culling for him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> some
+of the flowers from this curious astronomical garden.</p>
+
+<p>The opening of the narrative was in the highest Review style; and the
+majestic, yet subdued, dignity of its periods, at once claimed
+respectful attention; while its perfect candor, and its wealth of
+accurate scientific detail exacted the homage of belief from all but
+cross-grained and inexorable skeptics.</p>
+
+<p>It commences thus:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;In this unusual addition to our Journal, we have the happiness to
+make known to the British public, and thence to the whole civilized
+world, recent discoveries in Astronomy, which will build an
+imperishable monument to the age in which we live, and confer upon
+the present generation of the human race a proud distinction
+through all future time. It has been poetically said, that the
+stars of heaven are the hereditary regalia of man, as the
+intellectual sovereign of the animal creation. He may now fold the
+Zodiac around him with a loftier consciousness of his mental
+superiority,&#8221; etc., etc.</p></div>
+
+<p>The writer then eloquently descanted upon the sublime achievement by
+which man pierced the bounds that hemmed him in, and with sensations of
+awe approached the revelations of his own genius in the far-off heavens,
+and with intense dramatic effect described the younger Herschel
+surpassing all that his father had ever attained; and by some stupendous
+apparatus about to unvail the remotest mysteries of the sidereal space,
+pausing for many hours ere the excess of his emotions would allow him to
+lift the vail from his own overwhelming success.</p>
+
+<p>I must quote a line or two of this passage, for it capped the climax of
+public curiosity:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Well might he pause! He was about to become the sole depository of
+wondrous secrets which had been hid from the eyes of all men that
+had lived since the birth of time. He was about to crown himself
+with a diadem of knowledge which would give him a conscious
+pre&euml;minence above every individual of his species who then lived or
+who had lived in the generations that are passed away. He paused
+ere he broke the seal of the casket that contained it.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>Was not this introduction enough to stimulate the wonder bump of all the
+star-gazers, until</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Each particular hair did stand on end,<br />
+Like quills upon the fretful porcupine?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At all events, such was the effect, and it was impossible at first to
+supply the frantic demand, even of the city, not to mention the country
+readers.</p>
+
+<p>I may very briefly sum up the outline of the discoveries alleged to have
+been made, in a few paragraphs, so as not to protract the suspense of my
+readers too long.</p>
+
+<p>It was claimed that the &#8220;Edinburgh Journal&#8221; was indebted for its
+information to Doctor Andrew Grant&mdash;a savant of celebrity, who had, for
+very many years, been the scientific companion, first of the elder and
+subsequently of the younger Herschel, and had gone with the latter in
+September, 1834, to the Cape of Good Hope, whither he had been sent by
+the British Government, acting in conjunction with the Governments of
+France and Austria, to observe the transit of Mercury over the disc of
+the sun&mdash;an astronomical point of great importance to the lunar
+observations of longitude,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> and consequently to the navigation of the
+world. This transit was not calculated to occur before the 7th of
+November, 1835 (the year in which the hoax was printed;) but Sir John
+Herschel set out nearly a year in advance, for the purpose of thoroughly
+testing a new and stupendous telescope devised by himself under this
+peculiar inspiration, and infinitely surpassing anything of the kind
+ever before attempted by mortal man. It has been discovered by previous
+astronomers and among others, by Herschel&#8217;s illustrious father, that the
+sidereal object becomes dim in proportion as it is magnified, and that,
+beyond a certain limit, the magnifying power is consequently rendered
+almost useless. Thus, an impassable barrier seemed to lie in the way of
+future close observation, unless some means could be devised to
+illuminate the object to the eye. By intense research and the
+application of all recent improvements in optics, Sir John had succeeded
+in securing a beautiful and perfectly lighted image of the moon with a
+magnifying power that increased its apparent size in the heavens six
+thousand times. Dividing the distance of the moon from the earth, viz.:
+240,000 miles, by six thousand, we we have forty miles as the distance
+at which she would then seem to be seen; and as the elder Herschel, with
+a magnifying power, only one thousand, had calculated that he could
+distinguish an object on the moon&#8217;s surface not more than 122 yards in
+diameter, it was clear that his son, with six times the power, could see
+an object there only twenty-two yards in diameter. But, for any further
+advance in power and light, the way seemed insuperably closed until a
+profound conversation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> with the great savant and optician, Sir David
+Brewster, led Herschel to suggest to the latter the idea of the
+readoption of the old fashioned telescopes, without tubes, which threw
+their images upon reflectors in a dark apartment, and then the
+illumination of these images by the intense hydro-oxygen light used in
+the ordinary illuminated microscope. At this suggestion, Brewster is
+represented by the veracious chronicler as leaping with enthusiasm from
+his chair, exclaiming in rapture to Herschel:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thou art the man!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><a name="corr75" id="corr75"></a>The suggestion, thus happily approved, was immediately acted upon, and a
+subscription, headed by that liberal patron of science, the Duke of
+Sussex, with &pound;10,000, was backed by the reigning King of England with
+his royal word for any sum that might be needed to make up &pound;70,000, the
+amount required. No time was lost; and, after one or two failures, in
+January 1833, the house of Hartley &amp; Grant, at Dumbarton, succeeded in
+casting the huge object-glass of the new apparatus, measuring
+twenty-four feet (or six times that of the elder Herschel&#8217;s glass) in
+diameter; weighing 14,826 pounds, or nearly seven tons, after being
+polished, and possessing a magnifying power of 42,000 times!&mdash;a
+perfectly pure, spotless, achromatic lens, without a material bubble or
+flaw!</p>
+
+<p>Of course, after so elaborate a description of so astounding a result as
+this, the &#8220;Edinburg Scientific Journal&#8221; (<i>i. e.</i>, the writer in the &#8220;New
+York Sun&#8221;) could not avoid being equally precise in reference to
+subsequent details, and he proceeded to explain that Sir John<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> Herschel
+and his amazing apparatus having been selected by the Board of Longitude
+to observe the transit of Mercury, the Cape of Good Hope was chosen
+because, upon the former expedition to Peru, acting in conjunction with
+one to Lapland, which was sent out for the same purpose in the
+eighteenth century, it had been noticed that the attraction of the
+mountainous regions deflected the plumb-line of the large instruments
+seven or eight seconds from the perpendicular, and, consequently,
+greatly impaired the enterprise. At the Cape, on the contrary, there was
+a magnificent table-land of vast expanse, where this difficulty could
+not occur. Accordingly, on the 4th of September, 1834, with a design to
+become perfectly familiar with the working of his new gigantic
+apparatus, and with the Southern Constellations, before the period of
+his observations of Mercury, Sir John Herschel sailed from London,
+accompanied by Doctor Grant (the supposed informant,) Lieutenant
+Drummond, of the Royal Engineers, F.R.A.S., and a large party of the
+best English workmen. On their arrival at the Cape, the apparatus was
+conveyed, in four days&#8217; time, to the great elevated plain, thirty-five
+miles to the N.E. of Cape Town, on trains drawn by two relief-teams of
+oxen, eighteen to a team, the ascent aided by gangs of Dutch boors. For
+the details of the huge fabric in which the lens and its reflectors were
+set up, I must refer the curious reader to the pamphlet itself&mdash;not that
+the presence of the &#8220;Dutch boors&#8221; alarms me at all, since we have plenty
+of boors at home, and one gets used to them in the course of time, but
+because the elaborate scientific description of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> the structure would
+make most readers see &#8220;stars&#8221; in broad daylight before they get through.</p>
+
+<p>I shall only go on to say that, by the 10th of January, everything was
+complete, even to the two pillars &#8220;one hundred and fifty feet high!&#8221;
+that sustained the lens. Operations then commenced forthwith, and so,
+too, did the &#8220;special wonder&#8221; of the readers. It is a matter of
+congratulation to mankind that the writer of the hoax, with an apology
+(Heaven save the mark!) spared us Herschel&#8217;s notes of &#8220;the Moon&#8217;s
+tropical, sidereal, and synodic revolutions,&#8221; and the &#8220;phenomena of the
+syzygies,&#8221; and proceeded at once to the pith of the subject. Here came
+in his grand stroke, informing the world of complete success in
+obtaining a distinct view of objects in the moon &#8220;fully equal to that
+which the unaided eye commands of terrestrial objects at the distance of
+a hundred yards, affirmatively settling the question whether the
+satellite be inhabited, and by what order of beings,&#8221; &#8220;firmly
+establishing a new theory of cometary phenomena,&#8221; etc., etc. This
+announcement alone was enough to take one&#8217;s breath away, but when the
+green marble shores of the Mare Nubium; the mountains shaped like
+pyramids, and of the purest and most dazzling crystalized, wine-colored
+amethyst, dotting green valleys skirted by &#8220;round-breasted hills;&#8221;
+summits of the purest vermilion fringed with arching cascades and
+buttresses of white marble glistening in the sun&mdash;when these began to be
+revealed, the delight of our Luna-tics knew no bounds&mdash;and the whole
+town went moon-mad! But even these immense pictures were surpassed by
+the &#8220;lunatic&#8221; animals discov<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>ered. First came the &#8220;herds of brown
+quadrupeds&#8221; very like a&mdash;no! not a whale, but a bison, and &#8220;with a tail
+resembling that of the bos grunniens&#8221;&mdash;the reader probably understands
+what kind of a &#8220;bos&#8221; that is, if he&#8217;s apprenticed to a theatre in
+midsummer with musicians on a strike; then a creature, which the
+hoax-man na&iuml;vely declared &#8220;would be classed on earth as a monster&#8221;&mdash;I
+rather think it would!&mdash;&#8220;of a bluish lead color, about the size of a
+goat, with a head and a beard like him, and a single horn, slightly
+inclined forward from, the perpendicular&#8221;&mdash;it is clear that if this goat
+was cut down to a single horn, other people were not! I could not but
+fully appreciate the exquisite distinction accorded by the writer to the
+female of this lunar animal&mdash;for she, while deprived of horn and beard,
+he explicitly tells us, &#8220;had a much larger tail!&#8221; When the astronomers
+put their fingers on the beard of this &#8220;beautiful&#8221; little creature (on
+the reflector, mind you!) it would skip away in high dudgeon, which,
+considering that 240,000 miles intervened, was something to show its
+delicacy of feeling.</p>
+
+<p>Next in the procession of discovery, among other animals of less note,
+was presented &#8220;a quadruped with an amazingly long neck, head like a
+sheep, bearing two long spiral horns, white as polished ivory, and
+standing in perpendiculars parallel to each other. Its body was like
+that of a deer, but its forelegs were most disproportionately long, and
+its tail, which was very bushy and of a snowy whiteness, curled high
+over its rump and hung two or three feet by its side. Its colors were
+bright bay and white, brindled in patches, but of no regular<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> form.&#8221;
+This is probably the animal known to us on earth, and particularly along
+the Mississippi River, as the &#8220;guyascutus,&#8221; to which I may particularly
+refer in a future article.</p>
+
+<p>But all these beings faded into insignificance compared with the first
+sight of the genuine Lunatics, or men in the moon, &#8220;four feet high,
+covered, except in the face, with short, glossy, copper-colored hair,&#8221;
+and &#8220;with wings composed of a thin membrane, without hair, lying snugly
+upon their backs from the top of their shoulders to the calves of their
+legs,&#8221; <a name="corr76" id="corr76"></a>&#8220;with faces of a yellowish flesh-color&mdash;a slight improvement on
+the large ourang-outang.&#8221; Complimentary for the Lunatics! But, says the
+chronicler, Lieutenant Drummond declared that &#8220;but for their long wings,
+they would look as well on a parade-ground as some of the cockney
+militia!&#8221; A little rough, my friend the reader will exclaim, for the
+aforesaid militia.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, it is impossible, in a sketch like the present, to do more
+than give a glimpse of this rare combination of astronomical realities
+and the vagaries of mere fancy, and I must omit the Golden-fringed
+Mountains, the Vale of the Triads, with their splendid triangular
+temples, etc., but I positively cannot pass by the glowing mention of
+the inhabitants of this wonderful valley&mdash;a superior race of Lunatics,
+as beautiful and as happy as angels, &#8220;spread like eagles&#8221; on the grass,
+eating yellow gourds and red cucumbers, and played with by snow-white
+stags, with jet-black horns! The description here is positively
+delightful, and I even now remember my poignant sigh of regret when, at
+the conclusion, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> read that these innocent and happy beings, although
+evidently &#8220;creatures of order and subordination,&#8221; and &#8220;very polite,&#8221;
+were seen indulging in amusements which would not be deemed &#8220;within the
+bounds of strict propriety&#8221; on this degenerate ball. The story wound up
+rather abruptly by referring the reader to an extended work on the
+subject by Herschel, which has not yet appeared.</p>
+
+<p>One can laugh very heartily, now, at all this; but nearly everybody, the
+gravest and the wisest, too, was completely taken in at the time: and
+the &#8220;Sun,&#8221; then established at the corner of Spruce street, where the
+&#8220;Tribune&#8221; office now stands, reaped an increase of more than fifty
+thousand to its circulation&mdash;in fact, there gained the foundation of its
+subsequent prolonged success. Its proprietors sold no less than $25,000
+worth of the &#8220;Moon Hoax&#8221; over the counter, even exhausting an edition of
+sixty thousand in pamphlet form. And who was the author? A literary
+gentleman, who has devoted very many years of his life to mathematical
+and astronomical studies, and was at the time connected as an editor
+with the &#8220;Sun&#8221;&mdash;one whose name has since been widely known in literature
+and politics&mdash;Richard Adams Locke, Esq., then in his youth, and now in
+the decline of years. Mr. Locke, who still survives, is a native of the
+British Isles, and, at the time of his first connection with the New
+York press, was the only short-hand reporter in this city, where he laid
+the basis of a competency he now enjoys. Mr. Locke declares that his
+original object in writing the Moon story was to satirize some of the
+extravagances of Doctor Dick, and to make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> some astronomical suggestions
+which he felt diffident about offering seriously.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may have been his object, his hit was unrivaled; and for months
+the press of Christendom, but far more in Europe than here, teemed with
+it, until Sir John Herschel was actually compelled to come out with a
+denial over his own signature. In the meantime, it was printed and
+published in many languages, with superb illustrations. Mr. Endicott,
+the celebrated lithographer, some years ago had in his possession a
+splendid series of engravings, of extra folio size, got up in Italy, in
+the highest style of art, and illustrating the &#8220;Moon Hoax.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Here, in New York, the public were, for a long time, divided on the
+subject, the vast majority believing, and a few grumpy customers
+rejecting the story. One day, Mr. Locke was introduced by a mutual
+friend at the door of the &#8220;Sun&#8221; office to a very grave old orthodox
+Quaker, who, in the calmest manner, went on to tell him all about the
+embarkation of Herschel&#8217;s apparatus at London, where he had seen it with
+his own eyes. Of course, Locke&#8217;s optics expanded somewhat while he
+listened to this remarkable statement, but he wisely kept his own
+counsel.</p>
+
+<p>The discussions of the press were very rich; the &#8220;Sun,&#8221; of course,
+defending the affair as genuine, and others doubting it. The &#8220;Mercantile
+Advertiser,&#8221; <a name="corr77" id="corr77"></a>the &#8220;Albany Daily Advertiser,&#8221; <a name="corr78" id="corr78"></a>the &#8220;New York Commercial
+Advertiser,&#8221; the &#8220;New York Times,&#8221; the &#8220;New Yorker,&#8221; the &#8220;New York
+Spirit of &#8217;76,&#8221; the &#8220;Sunday News,&#8221; the &#8220;United States Gazette,&#8221; the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>
+&#8220;Philadelphia Inquirer,&#8221; and hosts of other papers came out with the
+most solemn acceptance and admiration of these &#8220;wonderful discoveries,&#8221;
+and were eclipsed in their approval only by the scientific journals
+abroad. The &#8220;Evening Post,&#8221; however, was decidedly skeptical, and took
+up the matter in this irreverent way:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;It is quite proper that the &#8220;Sun&#8221; should be the means of shedding
+so much light on the Moon. That there should be winged people in
+the moon does not strike us as more wonderful than the existence of
+such a race of beings on the earth; and that there does still exist
+such a race, rests on the evidence of that most veracious of
+voyagers and circumstantial of chroniclers, Peter Wilkins, whose
+celebrated work not only gives an account of the general appearance
+and habits of a most interesting tribe of flying Indians; but,
+also, of all those more delicate and engaging traits which the
+author was enabled to discover by reason of the conjugal relations
+he entered into with one of the females of the winged tribe.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>The moon-hoax had its day, and some of its glory still survives. Mr.
+Locke, its author, is now quietly residing in the beautiful little home
+of a friend on the Clove Road, Staten Island, and no doubt, as he gazes
+up at the evening luminary, often fancies that he sees a broad grin on
+the countenance of its only well-authenticated tenant, &#8220;the hoary
+solitary whom the criminal code of the nursery has banished thither for
+collecting fuel on the Sabbath-day.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE MISCEGENATION HOAX.&mdash;&#8203;A GREAT LITERARY SELL.&mdash;&#8203;POLITICAL
+HUMBUGGING.&mdash;&#8203;TRICKS OF THE WIRE-PULLERS.&mdash;&#8203;MACHINERY EMPLOYED TO RENDER
+THE PAMPHLET NOTORIOUS.&mdash;&#8203;WHO WERE SOLD AND HOW IT WAS DONE.</p>
+
+
+<p>Some persons say that &#8220;all is fair in politics.&#8221; Without agreeing with
+this doctrine, I nevertheless feel that the history of Ancient and
+Modern Humbugs would not be complete without a record of the last and
+one of the most successful of known literary hoaxes. This is the
+pamphlet entitled &#8220;Miscegenation,&#8221; which advocates the blending of the
+white and black races upon this continent, as a result not only
+inevitable from the freeing of the negro, but desirable as a means of
+creating a more perfect race of men than any now existing. This pamphlet
+is a clever political quiz; and was written by three young gentlemen of
+the &#8220;World&#8221; newspaper, namely. D. G. Croly, George Wakeman, and E. C.
+Howell.</p>
+
+<p>The design of &#8220;Miscegenation&#8221; was exceedingly ambitious, and the
+machinery employed was probably among the most ingenious and audacious
+ever put into operation to procure the indorsement of absurd theories,
+and give the subject the widest notoriety. The object was to so make use
+of the prevailing ideas of the extremists of the Anti-Slavery party, as
+to induce them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> to accept doctrines which would be obnoxious to the
+great mass of the community, and which would, of course, be used in the
+political canvass which was to ensue. It was equally important that the
+&#8220;Democrats&#8221; should be made to believe that the pamphlet in question
+emanated from a &#8220;Republican&#8221; source. The idea was suggested by a
+discourse delivered by Mr. Theodore Tilton, at the Cooper Institute,
+before the American Anti-Slavery Society, in May 1863, on the negro, in
+which that distinguished orator argued, that in some future time the
+blood of the negro would form one of the mingled bloods of the great
+regenerated American nation. The scheme once conceived, it began
+immediately to be put into execution. The first stumbling-block was the
+name &#8220;amalgamation,&#8221; by which this fraternizing of the races had been
+always known. It was evident that a book advocating amalgamation would
+fall still-born, and hence some new and novel word had to be discovered,
+with the same meaning, but not so objectionable. Such a word was coined
+by the combination of the Latin <i>miscere</i>, to mix, and <i>genus</i>, race:
+from these, miscegenation&mdash;a mingling of the races. The word is as
+euphonious as &#8220;amalgamation,&#8221; and much more correct in meaning. It has
+passed into the language, and no future dictionary will be complete
+without it. Next, it was necessary to give the book an erudite
+appearance, and arguments from ethnology must form no unimportant part
+of this matter. Neither of the authors being versed in this science,
+they were compelled to depend entirely on <a name="corr79" id="corr79"></a>encyclopedias and books of
+reference. This obstacle to a New York edit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>or or reporter was not so
+great as it might seem. The public are often favored in our journals
+with dissertations upon various abstruse matters by men who are entirely
+ignorant of what they are writing about. It was said of Cuvier that he
+could restore the skeleton of an extinct animal if he were only given
+one of its teeth, and so a competent editor or reporter of a city
+journal can get up an article of any length on any given subject, if he
+is only furnished one word or name to start with. There was but one
+writer on ethnology distinctly known to the authors, which was Prichard;
+but that being secured, all the rest came easily enough. The authors
+went to the Astor Library and secured a volume of Prichard&#8217;s works, the
+perusal of which of course gave them the names of many other
+authorities, which were also consulted; and thus a very respectable
+array of scientific arguments in favor of Miscegenation were soon
+compiled. The sentimental and argumentative portions were quickly
+suggested from the knowledge of the authors of current politics, of the
+vagaries of some of the more visionary reformers, and from their own
+native wit.</p>
+
+<p>The book was at first written in a most cursory manner the chapters got
+up without any order or reference to each other, and afterward arranged.
+As the impression sought to be conveyed was a serious one, it would
+clearly not do to commence with the extravagant and absurd theories to
+which it was intended that the reader should gradually be led. The
+scientific portion of the work was therefore given first, and was made
+as grave and terse and unobjectionable as possible; and merely urged,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>
+by arguments drawn from science and history, that the blending of the
+different races of men resulted in a better progeny. As the work
+progressed, they continued to &#8220;pile on the agony,&#8221; until, at the close,
+the very fact that the statue of the Goddess of Liberty on the Capitol,
+is of a bronze tint, is looked upon as an omen of the color of the
+future American!</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;When the traveler approaches the City of <a name="corr80" id="corr80"></a>Magnificent Distances,&#8221;
+it says, &#8220;the seat of what is destined to be the greatest and most
+beneficent power on earth, the first object that will strike his
+eye will be the figure of Liberty surmounting the Capitol; not
+white, symbolizing but one race, nor black, typifying another, but
+a statue representing the composite race, whose sway will extend
+from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, from the Equator to the
+North Pole&mdash;the Miscegens of the Future.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>The Book once written, plans were laid to obtain the indorsement of the
+people who were to be humbugged. It was not only necessary to humbug the
+members of the Reform and Progressive party, but to present&mdash;as I have
+before said&mdash;such serious arguments that Democrats should be led to
+believe it as a <i>bona fide</i> revelation of the &#8220;infernal&#8221; designs of
+their antagonists. In both respects there was complete success.
+Although, of course, the mass of the Republican leaders entirely ignored
+the book, yet a considerable number of Anti-Slavery men, with more
+transcendental ideas, were decidedly &#8220;sold.&#8221; The machinery employed was
+exceedingly ingenious. Before the book was published, proof-copies were
+furnished to every prominent abolitionist in the country, and also to
+prominent spiritual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> mediums, to ladies known to wear Bloomers, and to
+all that portion of our population who are supposed to be a little
+&#8220;soft&#8221; on the subject of reform. A circular was also enclosed,
+requesting them, before the publication of the book, to give the author
+the benefit of their opinions as to the value of the arguments
+presented, and the desirability of the immediate publication of the
+work; to be inclosed to the American News Company, 121 Nassau street,
+New York&mdash;the agents for the publishers. The bait took. Letters came
+pouring in from all sides, and among the names of prominent persons who
+gave their indorsements were Albert Brisbane, Parker Pillsbury, Lucretia
+Mott, Sarah M. Grimke, Angelina G. Weld, Dr. J. McCune Smith, Wm. Wells
+Brown. Mr. Pillsbury was quite excited over the book, saying; &#8220;Your work
+has cheered and gladdened a winter-morning, which I began in cloud and
+sorrow. You are on the right track. Pursue it, and the good God speed
+you.&#8221; Mr. Theodore Tilton, upon receiving the pamphlet, wrote a note
+promising to read it, and to write the author a long and candid letter
+as soon as he had time; and saying, that the subject was one to which he
+had given much thought. The promised letter, I believe, however, was
+never received; probably because, on a careful perusal of the book, Mr.
+Tilton &#8220;smelt a rat.&#8221; He might also have been influenced by an ironical
+paragraph relating to himself, and arguing that, as he was a &#8220;pure
+specimen of the blonde,&#8221; and &#8220;when a young man was noted for his angelic
+type of feature,&#8221; his sympathy for the colored race was accounted for by
+the natural love of opposites. Says the author with much gravity:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;The sympathy Mr. Greeley, Mr. Phillips and Mr. Tilton feel for the
+negro is the love which the blonde bears for the black; it is the
+love of race, a sympathy stronger to them than the love they bear
+to woman. It is founded upon natural law. We love our opposites. It
+is the nature of things that we should do so, and where Nature has
+free course, men like those we have indicated, whether Anti-Slavery
+or Pro-Slavery, Conservative or Radical, Democrat or Republican,
+will marry and be given in marriage to the most perfect specimens
+of the colored race.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>So far, things worked favorably; and, having thus bagged a goodly number
+of prominent reformers, the next effort was to get the ear of the
+public. Here, new machinery was brought into play. A statement was
+published in the &#8220;Philadelphia Inquirer&#8221; (a paper which, ever since the
+war commenced, has been notorious for its &#8220;sensation&#8221; news,) that a
+charming and accomplished young mulatto girl was about to publish a book
+on the subject of the blending of the races, in which she took the
+affirmative view. Of course, so piquant a paragraph was immediately
+copied by almost every paper in the country. Various other stories,
+equally ingenious and equally groundless, were set afloat, and public
+expectation was riveted on the forthcoming work.</p>
+
+<p>Some time in February last, the book was published. Copies, of course,
+were sent to all the leading journals. The &#8220;Anglo-African,&#8221; the organ of
+the colored population of New York, warmly, and at great length,
+indorsed the doctrine. The &#8220;Anti-Slavery Standard,&#8221; edited by Mr. Oliver
+Johnson, gave over a column of serious argument and endorsement to the
+work. Mr. Tilton, of the &#8220;Independent,&#8221; was not to be caught<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> napping.
+In that journal, under date of February 25, 1864, he devoted a
+two-column leader to the subject of Miscegenation and the little
+pamphlet in question. Mr. Tilton was the first to announce a belief that
+the book was a hoax. I quote from his article:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Remaining a while on our table unread, our attention was specially
+called to it by noticing how savagely certain newspapers were
+abusing it.&#8221;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="titlepage" style="letter-spacing: 2em; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em;">* * * * * *</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>&#8220;The authorship of the pamphlet is a well-kept secret; at least it
+is unknown to us. Nor, after a somewhat careful reading, are we
+convinced that the writer is in earnest. Our first impression was,
+and remains, that the work was meant as a piece of pleasantry&mdash;a
+burlesque upon what are popularly called the extreme and fanatical
+notions of certain radical men named therein. Certainly, the essay
+is not such a one as any of these gentlemen would have written on
+the subject, though some of their speeches are conspicuously quoted
+and commended in it.&#8221;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="titlepage" style="letter-spacing: 2em; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em;">* * * * * *</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>&#8220;If written in earnest, the work is not thorough enough to be
+satisfactory; if in jest, we prefer Sydney Smith&mdash;or McClellan&#8217;s
+Report. Still, to be frank, we agree with a large portion of these
+pages, but disagree heartily with another portion.&#8221;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="titlepage" style="letter-spacing: 2em; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em;">* * * * * *</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>&#8220;The idea of scientifically undertaking to intermingle existing
+populations according to a predetermined plan for reconstructing
+the human race&mdash;for flattening out its present varieties into one
+final unvarious dead-level of humanity&mdash;is so absurd, that we are
+more than ever convinced such a statement was not written in
+earnest!&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Tilton, however, hints that the colored race is finally in some
+degree to form a component part of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> the future American; and that, in
+time, &#8220;the negro of the South, growing paler with every generation, will
+at last completely hide his face under the snow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>One of the editorial writers for the &#8220;Tribune&#8221; was so impressed with the
+book that he wrote an article on the subject, arguing about it with
+apparent seriousness, and in a manner with some readers supposed to be
+rather favorable than otherwise to the doctrine. Mr. Greeley and the
+publishers, it is understood, were displeased at the publication of the
+article. The next morning nearly all the city journals had editorial
+articles upon the subject.</p>
+
+<p>The next point was, to get the miscegenation controversy into Congress.
+The book, with its indorsements, was brought to the notice of Mr. Cox,
+of Ohio (commonly called &#8220;Sunset Cox;&#8221;) and he made an earnest speech on
+the subject. Mr. Washburne replied wittily, reading and commenting on
+extracts from a work by Cox, in which the latter deplored the existence
+of the prejudice against the Africans. A few days after, Mr. Kelly, of
+<a name="corr81" id="corr81"></a>Pennsylvania, replied very elaborately to Mr. Cox, bringing all his
+learning and historical research to bear on the topic. It was the
+subject of a deal of talk in Washington afterward. Mr. Cox was charged
+by some of the more shrewd members of Congress with writing it. It was
+said that Mr. Sumner, on reading it, immediately pronounced it a hoax.</p>
+
+<p>Through the influence of the authors, a person visited James Gordon
+Bennett, of the &#8220;Herald,&#8221; and spoke to him about &#8220;Miscegenation.&#8221; Mr.
+Bennett thought the idea too monstrous and absurd to waste an article
+upon.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>&#8220;But,&#8221; said the gentleman, &#8220;the Democratic papers are all noticing it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Democratic editors are asses,&#8221; said Bennett.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Senator Cox has just made a speech in Congress on it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Cox is an ass,&#8221; responded Bennett.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Greeley had an article about it the other day.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Greeley&#8217;s a donkey.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The &#8216;Independent&#8217; yesterday had a leader of a column and a half about
+it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Beecher is no better,&#8221; said Bennett. &#8220;They&#8217;re all asses. But what
+did he say about it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, he rather indorsed it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I&#8217;ll read the article,&#8221; said Bennett. &#8220;And perhaps I&#8217;ll have an
+article written ridiculing <a name="corr82" id="corr82"></a>Beecher.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It will make a very good handle against the radicals,&#8221; said the other.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; said Bennett. &#8220;Let them marry together, if they want
+to, with all my heart.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>For some days, the &#8220;Herald&#8221; said nothing about it, but the occasion of
+the departure of a colored regiment from New York City having called
+forth a flattering address to them from the ladies of the &#8220;Loyal
+League,&#8221; the &#8220;Herald,&#8221; saw a chance to make a point against Mr. Charles
+King and others; and the next day it contained a terrific article,
+introducing miscegenation in the most violent and offensive manner, and
+saying that the ladies of the &#8220;Loyal League&#8221; had offered to marry the
+colored soldiers on their return! After that, the &#8220;Herald&#8221; kept up a
+regular <a name="corr83" id="corr83"></a>fusillade against the supposed miscegenic proclivities of the
+Republicans. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> thus, after all, Bennett swallowed the &#8220;critter&#8221;
+horns, hoofs, tail, and all.</p>
+
+<p>The authors even had the impudence to attempt to entrap Mr. Lincoln into
+an indorsement of the work, and asked permission to dedicate a new work,
+on a kindred subject, &#8220;Melaleukation,&#8221; to him. Honest Old Abe however,
+who can see a joke, was not to be taken in so easily.</p>
+
+<p>About the time the book was first published, Miss Anne E. Dickinson
+happened to lecture in New York. The authors here exhibited a great
+degree of acuteness and tact, as well as sublime impudence, in seizing
+the opportunity to have some small hand bills, with the endorsement of
+the book, printed and distributed by boys among the audience. Before
+Miss Dickinson appeared, therefore, the audience were gravely reading
+the miscegenation handbill; and the reporters, noticing it, coupled the
+facts in their reports. From this, it went forth, and was widely
+circulated, that Miss Dickinson was the author!</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Mackay, the correspondent of the &#8220;London Times,&#8221; in New York, was
+very decidedly sold, and hurled all manner of big words against the
+doctrine in his letters to &#8220;The Thunderer;&#8221; and thus &#8220;the leading paper
+of Europe&#8221; was, for the hundredth time during the American Rebellion,
+decidedly taken in and done for.</p>
+
+<p>The &#8220;Saturday Review&#8221;&mdash;perhaps the cleverest and certainly the sauciest
+of the English hebdomadals&mdash;also berated the book and its authors in the
+most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> pompous language at its command. Indeed, the &#8220;Westminster Review&#8221;
+seriously refers to the arguments of the book in connection with Dr.
+Broca&#8217;s pamphlet on Human Hybridity, a most profound work.
+&#8220;Miscegenation&#8221; was republished in England by Tr&uuml;bner &amp; Co.; and very
+extensive translations from it are still passing the rounds of the
+French and German papers.</p>
+
+<p>Thus passes into history one of the most impudent as well as ingenious
+literary hoaxes of the present day. There is probably not a newspaper in
+the country but has printed much about it; and enough of extracts might
+be collected from various journals upon the subject to fill my
+whale-tank.</p>
+
+<p>It is needless to say that the book passed through several editions. Of
+course, the mass of the intelligent American people rejected the
+doctrines of the work, and looked upon it either as a political dodge,
+or as the ravings of some crazy man; but the authors have the
+satisfaction of knowing that it achieved a notoriety which has hardly
+been equalled by any mere pamphlet ever published in this country.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="VII_GHOSTS_AND_WITCHCRAFTS" id="VII_GHOSTS_AND_WITCHCRAFTS"></a>VII. GHOSTS AND WITCHCRAFTS.</h2>
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER. XXXIV.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">HAUNTED HOUSES.&mdash;&#8203;A NIGHT SPENT ALONE WITH A GHOST.&mdash;&#8203;KIRBY, THE
+<a name="corr84" id="corr84"></a>ACTOR.&mdash;&#8203;COLT&#8217;S PISTOLS VERSUS HOBGOBLINS.&mdash;&#8203;THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED.</p>
+
+
+<p>A great many persons believe more or less in haunted houses. In almost
+every community there is some building that has had a mysterious
+history. This is true in all countries, and among all races and nations.
+Indeed it is to this very fact that the ingenious author of the
+&#8220;Twenty-seventh-street Ghost&#8221; may attribute his success in creating such
+an excitement. In fact, I will say, &#8220;under the rose,&#8221; he predicted his
+hopes of success entirely upon this weakness in human nature. Even in
+&#8220;this day and age of the world&#8221; there are hundreds of deserted buildings
+which are looked upon with awe, or terror, or superstitious interest.
+They have frightened their former inhabitants away, and left the
+buildings in the almost undisputed possession of real moles, bats, and
+owls, and imaginary goblins and sprites.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of my travels in both hemispheres I have been amazed at
+the great number of such cases that have come under my personal
+observation.</p>
+
+<p>But for the present, I will give a brief account of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> haunted house in
+Yorkshire, England, in which some twenty years ago, Kirby, the actor,
+who formerly played at the Chatham Theatre, passed a pretty strange
+night. I met Mr. Kirby in London in 1844, and I will give, in nearly his
+own language, a history of his lone night in this haunted house, as he
+gave it to me within a week after its occurrence. I will add, that I saw
+no reason to doubt Mr. Kirby&#8217;s veracity, and he assured me upon his
+honor that the statement was literally true to the letter. Having myself
+been through several similar places in the daytime, I felt a peculiar
+interest in the subject, and hence I have a vivid recollection of nearly
+the exact words in which he related his singular nocturnal adventure.
+One thing is certain: Kirby was not the man to be afraid of trying such
+an experiment.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I had heard wonderful stories about this house,&#8221; said Mr. Kirby to me,
+&#8220;and I was very glad to get a chance to enter it, although, I confess,
+the next morning I was about as glad to get out of it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It was an old country-seat&mdash;a solid stone mansion which had long borne
+the reputation of a haunted house. It was watched only by one man. He
+was the old gardener,&mdash;an ancient servant of the family that once lived
+there, and a person in whom the family reposed implicit confidence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Having had some inkling of this wonderful place, and having a few days
+to spare before going to London to fulfil an engagement at the Surry
+Theatre, I thought I would probe this haunted-house story to the bottom.
+I therefore called on the old gardener who had charge of the place, and
+introduced myself as an American<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> traveller desirous of spending a night
+with his ghosts. The old man seemed to be about seventy-five or eighty
+years of age. I met him at the gate of the estate, where he kept guard.
+He told me, when I applied, that it was a dangerous spot to enter, but I
+could pass it if I pleased. I should, however, have to return by the
+same door, if I ever came back again.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wishing to make sure of the job, I gave him a sovereign, and asked him
+to give me all the privileges of the establishment; and if his bill
+amounted to more, I would settle it when I returned. He looked at me
+with an expression of doubt and apprehension, as much as to say that he
+neither understood what I was going to do nor what was likely to happen.
+He merely remarked:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;You can go in.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Will you go with me, and show me the road?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;I will.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Go ahead.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We entered. The gate closed. I suddenly turned on my man, the old
+gardener and custodian of the place, and said to him:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Now, my patriarchal friend, I am going to sift this humbug to the
+bottom, even if I stay here forty nights in succession; and I am
+prepared to lay all &#8220;spirits&#8221; that present themselves; but if you will
+save me all trouble in the matter and frankly explain to me the whole
+affair, I will never mention it to your injury, and I will present you
+with ten golden <a name="corr85" id="corr85"></a>sovereigns.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The old fellow looked astonished; but he smirked, and whimpered, and
+trembled, and said:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>&#8220;&#8216;I am afraid to do that; but I will warn you against going too far.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;When we had crossed a courtyard, he rang a bell, and several strange
+noises were distinctly heard. I was introduced to the establishment
+through a well-constructed archway, which led to a large stairway, from
+which we proceeded to a great door, which opened into a very large room.
+It was a library. The old custodian had carried a torch (and I was
+prepared with a box of matches.) He was acting evidently &#8216;on the
+square,&#8217; and I sat myself down in the library, where he told me that I
+should soon see positive evidence that this was a haunted house.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not being a very firm believer in the doctrine of houses really
+haunted, I proposed to keep a pretty good hold of my match-box, and lest
+there should be any doubt about it, I had also provided myself with two
+sperm candles, which I kept in my pocket, so I should not be left too
+suddenly and too long in the dark.</p>
+
+<p><a name="corr86" id="corr86"></a>&#8220;&#8216;Now Sir,&#8217; said he, &#8216;I wish you to hold all your nerves steady and keep
+your courage up, because I intend to stand by you as well as I can, but
+I never come into this house <a name="corr87" id="corr87"></a>alone.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Well, what is the matter with the house?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Oh! everything, Sir!&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;What?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Well, when I was much younger than I am now, the master of this estate
+got frightened here by some mysterious appearances, noises, sounds,
+etc., and he preferred to leave the place.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Why?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;He had a tradition from his grandfather, and pretty well kept alive in
+the family, that it was a haunted house; and he let out the estate to
+the smaller farmers of the neighborhood, and quit the premises, and
+never returned again, except one night, and after that one night he
+left. We suppose he is dead. Now, Sir, if you wish to spend the night
+here as you have requested, what may happen to you I don&#8217;t know; but I
+tell you it is a haunted house, and I would not sleep here to-night for
+all the wealth of the Bank of England!&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This did not deter me in the least, and having the means of
+self-protection around me, and plenty of lucifer matches, etc., I
+thought I would explore this mystery and see whether a humbug which had
+terrified the proprietors of that magnificent house in the midst of a
+magnificent estate, for upward of sixty years, could not be explored and
+exploded. That it was a humbug, I had no doubt; that I would find it
+out, I was not so certain.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I sat down in the library, fully determined to spend the night in the
+establishment. A door was opened into an adjoining room where there was
+a dust-covered lounge, and every thing promised as much comfort as could
+be expected under the circumstances.</p>
+
+<p><a name="corr88" id="corr88"></a>&#8220;However, before the old keeper of the house left, I asked him to show
+me over the building, and let me explore for myself the different rooms
+and apartments. To all this he readily consented; and as he had some
+prospect before him of making a good job out of it, he displayed a great
+deal of alacrity, and moved along<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> very quick and smart for a man
+apparently eighty years of age.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I went from room to room and story to story. Everything seemed to be
+well arranged, but somewhat dusty and time-worn. I kept a pretty sharp
+lookout, but I could see no sort of machinery for producing a grand
+effect.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We finally descended to the library, when I closed the door, and
+bolting and locking it, took the key and put it in my pocket.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Now, Sir,&#8217; I said to the keeper, &#8216;where is the humbug?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;There is no humbug here,&#8217; he answered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Well, why don&#8217;t you show me some evidence of the haunted house?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;You wait,&#8217; said he, &#8216;till twelve o&#8217;clock to-night, and you will see
+&#8220;haunting&#8221; enough for you. I will not stay till then.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He left; I staid. Everything was quiet for some time. Not a mouse was
+heard, not a rat was visible, and I thought I would go to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I lay down for this purpose, but I soon heard certain extraordinary
+sounds that disturbed my repose. Chains were clanked, noises were made,
+and shrieks and groans were heard from various parts of the mansion. All
+of these I had expected. They did not frighten me much. A little while
+after, just as I was going to sleep again, a curious string of light
+burned around the room. It ran along on the walls in a zigzag line,
+about six feet high, entirely through the apartment. I did not smell
+anything bituminous or like sulphur.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> It flashed quicker than powder,
+and it did not smell like it. Thinks I: &#8216;This looks pretty well, we will
+have some amusement now.&#8217; Then the jangling of bells, and clanking of
+chains, and flashes of light; then thumpings and knockings of all sorts
+came along, interspersed with shrieks and groans. I sat very quiet. I
+had two of Colt&#8217;s best pistols in my pocket, and I thought I could shoot
+anything spiritual or material with these machines made in Connecticut.
+I took them out and laid them on the table. One of them suddenly
+disappeared! I did not like that, still my nerves were firm, for I knew
+it was all gammon. I took the other pistol in my hand and surveyed the
+room. Nobody was there; and, finally half suspicious that I had gone to
+sleep and had a dream, I woke up with a grasp on my hand which was
+holding the other pistol. This soon made me fully awake.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I tried to recover my balance, and at this moment the candle went out.
+I lit it with one of my lucifers. No person was visible, but the noises
+began again, and they were infernal. I then took one of my sperm candles
+out, and went to unlock the door. I attempted to take the key out of my
+pocket. It was not there! Suddenly the door opened, I saw a man or a
+somebody about the size of a man, standing straight in front of me. I
+pointed one of Colt&#8217;s revolvers at his head, for I thought I saw
+something human about him; and I told him that whether he was ghost or
+spirit, goblin or robber, he had better stand steady, or I would blow
+his brains out, if he had any. And to make sure that he should not
+escape I got hold of his arm, and told<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> him that if he was a ghost he
+would have a tolerably hard time of it, and that if he was a humbug I
+would let him off if he would tell me the whole story about the trick.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He saw that he was caught, and he earnestly begged me not to fire that
+American pistol at him. I did not; but I did not let go of him. I
+brought him into the library, and with pistol in hand I put him through
+a pretty close examination. He was clad in mailed armor, with
+breastplate and helmet, and a great sword, in the style of the
+Crusaders. He promised, on condition of saving his life, to give me an
+honest account of the facts.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In substance they were, that he, an old family-servant, and ultimately
+a gardener in charge of the place, had been employed by an enemy of the
+gentleman who owned the property, to render it so uncomfortable that the
+estate should be sold for much less than its value; and that he had got
+an ingenious machinist and chemist to assist him in arranging such
+contrivances as would make the house so intolerable that they could not
+live there. A galvanic battery with wires were provided, and every
+device of chemistry and mechanism was resorted to in order to effect
+this purpose.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;One by one, the family left; and they had remained away for nearly two
+generations under the terror of such forms, and appearances, and sights
+and sounds, as frightened them almost to death. And <a name="corr89" id="corr89"></a>furthermore, the old
+gardener added, that he expected his own grand-daughter would become the
+lady of that house, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> the property should have been neglected so
+long and the place became so fearful that no one in the neighborhood
+would undertake to purchase it, or to even pass one moment after dark in
+exploring its horrible mysteries.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He begged on his knees that I would spare him with his gray hairs,
+since he had so short a time to live. He declared that he had been
+actuated by no other motive than pride and ambition for his child.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I told the poor old fellow that his secret should be safe with me, and
+should not be made public so long as he lived. The old man grasped my
+hand eagerly and expressed his gratitude in the strongest terms. Thus,
+Mr. Barnum, I have given you the pure and honest facts in regard to my
+adventure in a so called haunted house. Don&#8217;t make it public until you
+are convinced that the old gardener has shuffled off this mortal coil.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>So much for Kirby&#8217;s story of the haunted house. No doubt, the old
+gardener has before this become in reality a disembodied spirit, but
+that his grand-daughter became legally possessed of the estate is not at
+all probable. Real estate does not change hands so easily in England. So
+powerful, however is the superstitious belief in haunted houses, that it
+is doubtful whether that property will for many years sustain half so
+great a cash value in the market as it would have done had it not been
+considered a &#8220;haunted house.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It is to be hoped that, as schools multiply and education increases, the
+follies and superstitions which underlie a belief in ghosts and
+hobgoblins will pass away.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">HAUNTED HOUSES.&mdash;&#8203;GHOSTS.&mdash;&#8203;GHOULS.&mdash;&#8203;PHANTOMS.&mdash;&#8203;VAMPIRES.&mdash;&#8203;CONJURORS.&mdash;&#8203;
+DIVINING.&mdash;&#8203;GOBLINS.&mdash;&#8203;FORTUNE-TELLING.&mdash;&#8203;MAGIC.&mdash;&#8203;WITCHES.&mdash;&#8203;SORCERY.&mdash;&#8203;
+OBI.&mdash;&#8203;DREAMS.&mdash;&#8203;SIGNS.&mdash;&#8203;SPIRITUAL MEDIUMS.&mdash;&#8203;FALSE PROPHETS.&mdash;&#8203;
+DEMONOLOGY.&mdash;&#8203;DEVILTRY GENERALLY.</p>
+
+
+<p>Whether superstition is the father of humbug, or humbug the mother of
+superstition (as well as its nurse,) I do not pretend to say; for the
+biggest fools and the greatest philosophers can be numbered among the
+believers in and victims of the worst humbugs that ever prevailed on the
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>As we grow up from childhood and begin to think we are free from all
+superstitions, absurdities, follies, a belief in dreams, signs, omens,
+and other similar stuff, we afterward learn that experience does not
+cure the complaint. Doubtless much depends upon our &#8220;bringing up.&#8221; If
+children are permitted to feast their ears night after night (as I was)
+with stories of ghosts, hobgoblins, ghouls, witches, apparitions,
+bugaboos, it is more difficult in after-life for them to rid their minds
+of impressions thus made.</p>
+
+<p>But whatever may have been our early education, I am convinced that
+there is an inherent love of the marvelous in every breast, and that
+everybody is more or less superstitious; and every superstition I
+denominate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> a humbug, for it lays the human mind open to any amount of
+belief, in any amount of deception that may be practised.</p>
+
+<p>One object of these chapters consists in showing how open everybody is
+to deception, that nearly everybody &#8220;hankers&#8221; after it, that solid and
+solemn realities are frequently set aside for silly impositions and
+delusions, and that people, as a too general thing, like to be led into
+the region of mystery. As Hudibras has it:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Doubtless the pleasure is as great<br />
+Of being cheated as to cheat;<br />
+As lookers-on feel most delight<br />
+That least perceive a juggler&#8217;s sleight;<br />
+And still the less they understand,<br />
+The more they admire his sleight of hand.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The amount or strength of man&#8217;s brains have little to do with the amount
+of their superstitions. The most learned and the greatest men have been
+the deepest believers in ingeniously-contrived machines for running
+human reason off the track. If any expositions I can make on this
+subject will serve to put people on their guard against impositions of
+all sorts, as well as foolish superstitions, I shall feel a pleasure in
+reflecting that I have not written in vain. The heading of this chapter
+enumerates the principal kinds of supernatural humbugs. These, it must
+be remembered, are quite different from religious impostures.</p>
+
+<p>It is astonishing to reflect how ancient is the date of this class of
+superstitions (as well as of most others, in fact,) and how universally
+they have prevailed. Nearly thirty-six hundred years ago, it was thought
+a matter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> of course that Joseph, the Hebrew Prime Minister of Pharaoh,
+should have a silver cup that he commonly used to do his divining with:
+so that the practice must already have been an established one.</p>
+
+<p>In Homer&#8217;s time, about twenty-eight hundred years ago, ghosts were
+believed to appear. The Witch of Endor pretended to raise the ghost of
+Samuel, at about the same time.</p>
+
+<p>To-day, here in the City of New York, dream books are sold by the
+edition; a dozen fortune-tellers regularly advertise in the papers; a
+haunted house can gather excited crowds for weeks; abundance of people
+are uneasy if they spill salt, dislike to see the new moon over the
+wrong shoulder, and are delighted if they can find an old horse-shoe to
+nail to their door-post.</p>
+
+<p>I have already told about one or two haunted houses, but must devote
+part of this chapter to that division of the subject. There are hundreds
+of such&mdash;that is, of those reputed to be such; and have been for
+hundreds of years. In almost every city, and in many towns and country
+places, they are to be found. I know of one, for instance, in New
+Jersey, one or two in New York, and have heard of several in
+Connecticut. There are great numbers in Europe; for as white men have
+lived there so much longer than in America, ghosts naturally
+accumulated. In this country there are houses and places haunted by
+ghosts of Hessians, and Yankee ghosts, not to mention the headless Dutch
+phantom of Tarrytown, that turned out to be Brom Bones; but who ever
+heard of the ghost of an Indian? And as for the ghost of a black man,
+evidently it would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> have to appear by daylight. You couldn&#8217;t see it in
+the dark!</p>
+
+<p>I have no room to even enumerate the cases of haunted houses. One in
+Aix-la-Chapelle, a fine large house, stood empty five years on account
+of the knockings in it, until it was sold for almost nothing, and the
+new owner (lucky man!) discovered that the ghost was a draft through a
+broken window that banged a loose door. An English gentleman once died,
+and his heir, in a day or two, heard of mysterious knockings which the
+frightened servants attributed to the defunct. He, however, investigated
+a little, and found that a rat in an old store room, was trying to get
+out of an old-fashioned box trap, and being able to lift the door only
+partly, it dropped again, constituting the ghost. Better pleased to find
+the rat than his father, the young man exterminated rat and phantom
+together.</p>
+
+<p>A very ancient and impressive specimen of a haunted house was the palace
+of Vauvert, belonging to King Louis IX, of France, who was so pious that
+he was called Saint Louis. This fine building was so situated as to
+become very desirable, in the year 1259, to some monks. So there was
+forthwith horrid shriekings at night-times, red and green lights shone
+through the windows, and, finally, a large green ghost, with a white
+beard and a serpent&#8217;s tail, came every midnight to a front window, and
+shook his fist, and howled at those who passed by. Everybody was
+frightened&mdash;King Louis, good simple soul! as well as the rest. Then the
+bold monks appearing at the nick of time, intimated that if the King
+would give them the palace, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> would do up the ghost in short order.
+He did it, and was very thankful to them besides. They moved in, and
+sure enough, the ghost appeared no more. Why should he?</p>
+
+<p>The ghosts of Woodstock are well known. How they tormented the Puritan
+Commissioners who came thither in 1649, to break up the place, and
+dispose of it for the benefit of the Commonwealth! The poor Puritans had
+a horrid time. A disembodied dog growled under their bed, and bit the
+bed-clothes; something invisible walked all about; the chairs and tables
+danced; something threw the dishes about (like the Davenport &#8220;spirits;&#8221;)
+put logs for the pillows; flung brickbats up and down, without regard to
+heads; smashed the windows; threw pebbles in at the frightened
+commissioners; stuck a lot of pewter platters into their beds; ran away
+with their breeches; threw dirty water over them in bed; banged them
+over the head&mdash;until, after several weeks, the poor fellows gave it up,
+and ran away back to London. Many years afterward, it came out that all
+this was done by their clerk, who was secretly a royalist, though they
+thought him a furious Puritan, and who knew all the numerous secret
+passages and contrivances in the old palace. Most people have read Sir
+Walter Scott&#8217;s capital novel of &#8220;Woodstock,&#8221; founded on this very story.</p>
+
+<p>The well known &#8220;Demon of Tedworth,&#8221; that drummed, and scratched, and
+pounded, and threw things about, in 1661, in Mr. Mompesson&#8217;s house
+turned out to be a gipsy drummer and confederates.</p>
+
+<p>The still more famous &#8220;Ghost in Cock Lane,&#8221; in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> London in 1762,
+consisted of a Mrs. Parsons and her daughter, a little girl, trained by
+Mr. Parsons to knock and scratch very much after the fashion of the
+alphabet talking of the &#8220;spirits&#8221; of to-day. Parsons got up the whole
+affair, to revenge himself on a Mr. Kent. The ghost pretended to be that
+of a deceased sister-in-law of Kent, and to have been poisoned by him.
+But Parsons and his assistants were found out, and had to smart for
+their fun, being heavily fined, imprisoned, etc.</p>
+
+<p>A very able ghost indeed, a Methodist ghost&mdash;the spectral property,
+consequently, of my good friends the Methodists&mdash;used to rattle, and
+clatter, and bang, and communicate, in the house of the Rev. Mr. Wesley,
+the father of John Wesley, at Epworth, in England. This ghost was very
+troublesome, and utterly useless. In fact, none of the ghosts that haunt
+houses are of the least possible use. They plague people, but do no
+good. They act like the spirits of departed monkeys.</p>
+
+<p>I must add two or three short anecdotes about ghosts, got up in the
+devil-manner. They are not new, but illustrate very handsomely the state
+of mind in which a ghost should be met. One is, that somebody undertook
+to scare Cuvier, the great naturalist, with a ghost <a name="corr90" id="corr90"></a>having an ox&#8217;s head.
+Cuvier woke, and found the fearful thing glaring and grinning at his
+bedside.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What do you want?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To devour you!&#8221; growled the ghost.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Devour me?&#8221; quoth the great Frenchman&mdash;&#8220;Hoofs, horns, <i>graminivorous</i>!
+You can&#8217;t do it&mdash;clear out!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And he did clear out.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>A pious maiden lady, in one of our New-England villages, was known to
+possess three peculiarities. First, she was a very religious, honest,
+matter-of-fact woman. Second, she supposed everybody else was equally
+honest; hence she was very credulous, always believing everything she
+heard. And third, having &#8220;a conscience void of offense,&#8221; she saw no
+reason to be afraid of anything; consequently, she feared nothing.</p>
+
+<p>On a dark night, some boys, knowing that she would be returning home
+alone from prayer-meeting, through an unfrequented street, determined to
+test two of her peculiarities, viz., her credulity and her courage. One
+of the boys was sewed up in a huge shaggy bear-skin, and as the old
+lady&#8217;s feet were heard pattering down the street, he threw himself
+directly in her path and commenced making a terrible noise.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mercy!&#8221; exclaimed the old lady. &#8220;Who are you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am the devil!&#8221; was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, you are a poor creature!&#8221; responded the antiquated virgin, as she
+stepped aside and passed by the strange animal, probably not for a
+moment doubting it was his Satanic Majesty, but certainly not dreaming
+of being afraid of him.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that a Yankee tin peddler, who had frequently cheated most of
+the people in the vicinity of a New England village through which he was
+passing, was induced by some of the acute ones to join them in a
+drinking bout. He finally became stone drunk; and in that condition
+these wags carried him to a dark rocky cave near the village, then,
+dressing themselves in raw-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>head-and-bloody-bones&#8217; style, awaited his
+return to consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>As he began rousing himself, they lighted some huge torches, and also
+set fire to some bundles of straw, and three or four rolls of brimstone,
+which they had placed in different parts of the cavern. The peddler
+rubbed his eyes, and seeing and smelling all these evidences of
+pandemonium, concluded he had died, and was now partaking of his final
+doom. But he took it very philosophically, for he complacently remarked
+to himself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In hell&mdash;just as I expected!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A story is told of a cool old sea captain, with a virago of a wife, who
+met one of these artificial devils in a lonely place. As the ghost
+obstructed his path, the old fellow remarked:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you are not the devil, get out! If you are, come along with me and
+get supper. I married your sister!&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">MAGICAL HUMBUGS.&mdash;&#8203;VIRGIL.&mdash;&#8203;A PICKLED SORCERER.&mdash;&#8203;CORNELIUS AGRIPPA.&mdash;&#8203;HIS
+STUDENTS AND HIS BLACK DOG.&mdash;&#8203;DOCTOR FAUSTUS.&mdash;&#8203;HUMBUGGING
+HORSE-JOCKEYS.&mdash;&#8203;ZIITO AND HIS LARGE SWALLOW.&mdash;&#8203;SALAMANCA.&mdash;&#8203;DEVIL TAKE THE
+HINDMOST.</p>
+
+
+<p>Magic, sorcery, witchcraft, enchantment, necromancy, conjuring,
+incantation, soothsaying, divining, the black art, are all one and the
+same humbug. They show how prone men are to believe in <i>some</i>
+supernatural power,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> in <i>some</i> beings wiser and stronger than
+themselves, but at the same time how they stop short, and find
+satisfaction in some debasing humbug, instead of looking above and
+beyond it all to God, the only being that it is really worth while for
+man to look up to or beseech.</p>
+
+<p>Magic and witchcraft are believed in by the vast majority of mankind,
+and by immense numbers even in Christian countries. They have always
+been believed in, so far as I know. In following up the thread of
+history, we always find conjuring or witch work of some kind, just as
+long as the narrative has space enough to include it. Already, in the
+early dawn of time, the business was a recognized and long established
+one. And its history is as unbroken from that day down to this, as the
+history of the race.</p>
+
+<p>In the narrow space at my command at present, I shall only gather as
+many of the more interesting stories about these humbugs, as I can make
+room for. Reasoning about the subject, or full details of it, are at
+present out of the question. A whole library of books exists about it.</p>
+
+<p>It is a curious fact that throughout the middle ages, the Roman poet
+Virgil was commonly believed to have been a great magician. Traditions
+were recorded by monastic chroniclers about him, that he made a brass
+fly and mounted it over one of the gates of Naples, having instilled
+into this metallic insect such potent magical qualities that as long as
+it kept guard over the gate, no musquitos, or flies, or cockroach, or
+other troublesome insects could exist in the city. What would have
+become of the celebrated Bug Powder man in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> those days? The story is
+told about Virgil as well as about Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, and
+other magicians, that he made a brazen head which could prophesy. He
+also made some statues of the gods of the various nations subject to
+Rome, so enchanted that if one of those nations was preparing to rebel,
+the statue of its god rung a bell and pointed a finger toward the
+nation. The same set of stories tells how poor Virgil came to an
+untimely end in consequence of trying to live forever. He had become an
+old man, it appears, and wishing to be young again, he used some
+appropriate incantations, and prepared a secret cavern. In this he
+caused a confidential disciple to cut him up like a hog and pack him
+away in a barrel of pickle, out of which he was to emerge in his new
+magic youth after a certain time. But by that special bad luck which
+seems to attend such cases, some malapropos traveller somehow made his
+way into the cavern, where he found the magic pork-barrel standing
+silently all alone in the middle of the place, and an ever-burning lamp
+illuminating the room, and slowly distilling a magic oil upon the salted
+sorcerer who was cooking below. The traveller rudely jarred the barrel,
+the light went out, as the torches flared upon it; and suddenly there
+appeared to the eyes of the astounded man, close at one side of the
+barrel, a little naked child, which ran thrice around the barrel,
+uttering deep curses upon him who had thus destroyed the charm, and
+vanished. The frightened traveller made off as fast as he could, and
+poor old Virgil, for what I know, is in pickle yet.</p>
+
+<p>Cornelius Agrippa was one of the most celebrated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> magicians of the
+middle ages. He lived from the year 1486 (six years before the discovery
+of America) until 1534, and was a native of Cologne, Agrippa is said to
+have had a magic glass in which he showed to his customers such dead or
+absent persons as they might wish to see. Thus he would call up the
+beautiful Helen of Troy, or Cicero in the midst of an oration; or to a
+pining lover, the figure of his absent lady, as she was employed at the
+moment&mdash;a dangerous exhibition! For who knows, whether the consolation
+sought by the fair one, will always be such as her lover will approve?
+Agrippa, they say, had an attendant devil in the form of a huge black
+dog, whom on his death-bed the magician dismissed with curses. The dog
+ran away, plunged into the river Saone and was seen no more. We are of
+course to suppose that his Satanic Majesty got possession of the
+conjuror&#8217;s soul however, as per agreement. There is a story about
+Agrippa, which shows conclusively how &#8220;a little learning&#8221; may be &#8220;a
+dangerous thing.&#8221; When Agrippa was absent on a short journey, his
+student in magic slipped into the study and began to read spells out of
+a great book. After a little there was a knock at the door, but the
+young man paid no attention to it. In another moment there was another
+louder one, which startled him, but still he read on. In a moment the
+door opened, and in came a fine large devil who angrily asked, &#8220;What do
+you call me for?&#8221; The frightened youth answered very much like those
+naughty boys who say &#8220;I didn&#8217;t do nothing!&#8221; But it will not do to fool
+with devils. The angry demon caught him by the throat and strangled him.
+Shortly, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> Agrippa returned, lo and behold, a strong squad of evil
+spirits were kicking up their heels and playing tag all over the house,
+and crowding his study particularly full. Like a schoolmaster among
+mischievous boys, the great enchanter sent all the little fellows home,
+catechised the big one, and finding the situation unpleasant, made him
+reanimate the corpse of the student and walk it about town all the
+afternoon. The malignant demon however, was free at sunset, and let the
+corpse drop dead in the middle of the market place. The people
+recognized it, found the claw-marks and traces of strangling, suspected
+the fact, and Agrippa had to abscond very suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>Another student of Agrippa&#8217;s came very near an equally bad end. The
+magician was in the habit of enchanting a broomstick into a servant to
+do his housework, and when it was done, turning it back to a broomstick
+again and putting it behind the door. This young student had overheard
+the charm which made the servant, and one day in his master&#8217;s absence,
+wanting a pail of water he said over the incantation and told the
+servant &#8220;Bring some water.&#8221; The evil spirit promptly obeyed; flew to the
+river, brought a pailful and emptied it, instantly brought a second,
+instantly a third; and the student, startled, cried out, &#8220;that&#8217;s
+enough!&#8221; But this was not the &#8220;return charm,&#8221; and the ill tempered
+demon, rejoicing in doing mischief within the letter of his obligation,
+now flew backward and forward like lightning, so that he even began to
+flood the room about the rash student&#8217;s feet. Desperate, he seized an
+axe and hewed this diabolical serving-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>man in two. <i>Two</i> serving-men
+jumped up, with two water-pails, grinning in devilish glee, and both
+went to work harder than ever. The poor student gave himself up for
+lost, when luckily the master came home, dismissed the over-officious
+water carrier with a word, and saved the student&#8217;s life.</p>
+
+<p>How thoroughly false all these absurd fictions are, and yet how
+ingeniously based on some fact, appears by the case of Agrippa&#8217;s black
+dog. Wierus, a writer of good authority, and a personal friend of
+Agrippa&#8217;s, reports that he knew very well all about the dog; that it was
+not a superhuman dog at all, but (if the term be <a name="corr91" id="corr91"></a>admissible) a mere
+human dog&mdash;an animal which he, Wierus, had often led about by a string,
+and only a domestic pet of Agrippa.</p>
+
+<p>Another eminent magician of those days was Doctor Faustus, about whom
+Goethe wrote &#8220;Faust,&#8221; Bailey wrote &#8220;Festus,&#8221; and whose story, mingled of
+human love and of the devilish tricks of Mephistopheles, is known so
+very widely. The truth about Faust seems to be, that he was simply a
+successful juggler of the sixteenth century. Yet the wonderful stories
+about him were very implicitly and extensively believed. It was the time
+of the Protestant Reformation, and even Melanchthon and Luther seem to
+have entirely believed that Faustus could make the forms of the dead
+appear, could carry people invisibly through the air, and play all the
+legendary tricks of the enchanters. So strong a hold does humbug often
+obtain even upon the noblest and clearest and wisest minds!</p>
+
+<p>Faustus, according to the traditions, had a pretty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> keen eye for a joke.
+He once sold a splendid horse to a horse-jockey at a fair. The fellow
+shortly rode his fine horse to water. When he got into the water, lo and
+behold, the horse vanished, and the humbugged jockey found himself
+sitting up to his neck in the river on a straw saddle. There is
+something quite satisfactory in the idea of playing such a trick on one
+of that sharp generation, and Faust felt so comfortable over it that he
+entered his hotel and went quietly to sleep&mdash;or pretended to. Shortly in
+came the angry jockey; he shouted and bawled, but could not awaken the
+doctor, and in his anger he seized his foot and gave it a good pull.
+Foot and leg came off in his hand. Faustus screamed out as if in
+horrible agony, and the terrified jockey ran away as fast as he could,
+and never troubled his very loose-jointed customer for the money.</p>
+
+<p>A magician named Ziito, resident at the court of Wenceslaus of Bohemia
+(A. D. 1368 to 1419,) appears to great advantage in the annals of these
+humbugs. He was a homely, crooked creature, with an immense mouth. He
+had a collision once in public on a question of skill with a brother
+conjuror, and becoming a little excited, opened his big mouth and
+swallowed the other magician, all to his shoes, which as he observed
+were dirty. Then he stepped into a closet, got his rival out of him
+somehow, and calmly led him back to the company. A story is told about
+Ziito and some hogs, just like that about Faust and the horse.</p>
+
+<p>In all these stories about magicians, their power is derived from the
+devil. It was long believed that the ancient university of Salamanca in
+Spain, founded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> A. D. 1240, was the chief school of magic, and had
+regular professors and classes in it. The devil was supposed to be the
+special patron of this department, and he had a curious fee for his
+trouble, which he collected every commencement day. The last exercise of
+the graduating class on that day was, to run across a certain cavern
+under the University. The devil was always on hand at this time, and had
+the privilege of grabbing at the last man of the crowd. If he caught
+him, as he commonly did, the soul of the unhappy student became the
+property of his captor. Hence arose the phrase &#8220;Devil take the
+hindmost.&#8221; Sometime it happened that some very brisk fellow was left
+last by some accident. If he were brisk enough to dodge the devil&#8217;s
+grab, that personage only caught his shadow. In this case it was well
+understood that this particular enchanter never had any shadow
+afterwards, and he always became very eminent in his art.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="corr92" id="corr92"></a><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">WITCHCRAFT.&mdash;&#8203;NEW YORK WITCHES.&mdash;&#8203;THE WITCH MANIA.&mdash;&#8203;HOW FAST THEY BURNED
+THEM.&mdash;&#8203;THE MODE OF TRIAL.&mdash;&#8203;WITCHES TO DAY IN EUROPE.</p>
+
+
+<p>Witchcraft is one of the most baseless, absurd, disgusting and silly of
+all the humbugs. And it is not a dead humbug either; it is alive, busily
+exercised by knaves and believed by fools all over the world. Witches
+and wizards operate and prosper among the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> Hottentots and negroes and
+barbarous Indians, among the Siberians and Kirgishes and Lapps, of
+course. Everybody knows <i>that</i>&mdash;they are poor ignorant creatures! Yes:
+but are the French and Germans and English and Americans poor ignorant
+creatures too? They are, if the belief and practice of witchcraft among
+them is any test; for in all those countries there are witches. I take
+up one of the New York City dailies of this very morning, and find in it
+the advertisements of seven Witches. In 1858, there were in full blast
+in New York and Brooklyn sixteen witches and two wizards. One of these
+wizards was a black man; a very proper style of person to deal with the
+black art.</p>
+
+<p>Witch means, a woman who practices sorcery under an agreement with the
+devil, who helps her. Before the Christian era, the Jewish witch was a
+mere diviner or at most a raiser of the dead, and the Gentile witch was
+a poisoner, a maker of philtres or love potions, and a vulgar sort of
+magician. The devil part of the business did not begin until a good
+while after Christ. During the last century or so, again, while
+witchcraft has been extensively believed in, the witch has degenerated
+into a very vulgar and poverty stricken sort of conjuring woman. Take
+our New York city witches, for instance. They live in cheap and dirty
+streets that smell bad; their houses are in the same style, infected
+with a strong odor of cabbage, onions, washing-day, old dinners, and
+other merely sublunary smells. Their rooms are very ill furnished, and
+often beset with wash-tubs, swill-pails, mops and soiled clothes; their
+personal appearance is commonly unclean, homely, vulgar,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span> coarse, and
+ignorant, and often rummy. Their fee is a quarter or half of a dollar.
+Sometimes a dollar. Their divination is worked by cutting and dealing
+cards or studying the palm of your hand. And the things which they tell
+you are the most silly and shallow babble in the world; a mess of
+phrases worn out over and over again. Here is a specimen, as gabbled to
+the customer over a pack of cards laid out on the table; anybody can do
+the like: &#8220;You face a misfortune. I think it will come upon you within
+three weeks, but it may not. A dark complexioned man faces your
+life-card. He is plotting against you, and you must beware of him. Your
+marriage-card faces two young women, one fair and the other dark. One
+you will have, and the other you will not. I think you will have the
+fair one. She favors the dark complexioned man, which means trouble. You
+face money, but you must earn it. There is a good deal, but you may not
+get much of it&#8221; etc., etc. These words are exactly the sort of stuff
+that is sold by the witches of to-day. But the greatest witch humbug of
+all the witchcraft of history, is that of Christendom for about three
+hundred years, beginning about the time of the discovery of America. To
+that period belonged the Salem witchcraft of New England, the
+witch-finding of Matthew Hopkins in Old England, the Scotch witch
+trials, and the Swedish and German and French witch mania.</p>
+
+<p>The peculiar traits of the witchcraft of this period are among the most
+mysterious of all humbugs. The most usual points in a case of witchcraft
+were, that the witch had sold herself to the devil for all eternity, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>
+order to get the power during a few years of earthly life, to inflict a
+few pains on the persons of those she disliked, or to cause them to lose
+part of their property. This was almost always the whole story, except
+the mere details of the witch baptism and witch sabbath, parodies on the
+ceremonies of the Christian religion. And the mystery is, how anybody
+could believe that to accomplish such very small results, seldom equal
+even to the death of an enemy, one would agree to accept eternal
+damnation in the next world, almost certain poverty, misery, persecution
+and torment in this, besides having for an amusement performances more
+dirty, obscene and vulgar than I can even hint at.</p>
+
+<p>But such a belief was universal, and hundreds of the witches themselves
+confessed as much as I have described, and more, with numerous details,
+and they were burnt alive for their trouble. The extent of wholesale
+murdering perpetrated under forms of law, on charges of witchcraft, is
+astonishing. A magistrate named Remigius, published a book in which he
+told how much he thought of himself for having condemned and burned nine
+hundred witches in sixteen years, in Lorraine. And the one thing that he
+blamed himself for was this: that out of regard for the wishes of a
+colleague, he had only caused certain children to be whipped naked three
+times round the market place where their parents had been burned,
+instead of burning them. At Bamberg, six hundred persons were burned in
+five years, at Wurzburg nine hundred in two years. Sprenger, a German
+inquisitor-general, and author of a celebrated book on detecting and
+punishing witchcraft, called<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> <i>Malleus Maleficarum</i>, or &#8220;The Mallet of
+Malefactors,&#8221; burned more than five hundred in one year. In Geneva, five
+hundred persons were burned during 1515 and 1516. In the district of
+Como in Italy, a thousand persons were burned as witches in the single
+year 1524, besides over a hundred a year for several years afterwards.
+<i>Seventeen thousand</i> persons were executed for witchcraft in Scotland
+during thirty-nine years, ending with 1603. <i>Forty thousand</i> were
+executed in England from 1600 to 1680. Bodinus, another of the witch
+killing judges, gravely announced that there were undoubtedly not less
+than three hundred thousand witches in France.</p>
+
+<p>The way in which the witch murderers reasoned, and their modes of
+conducting trials and procuring confessions, were truly infernal. The
+chief rule was that witchcraft being an &#8220;exceptional crime,&#8221; no regard
+need be had to the ordinary forms of justice. All manner of tortures
+were freely applied to force confessions. In Scotland &#8220;the boot&#8221; was
+used, being an iron case in which the legs are locked up to the knees,
+and an iron wedge then driven in until sometimes the bones were crushed
+and the marrow spouted out. Pin sticking, drowning, starving, the rack,
+were too common to need details. Sometimes the prisoner was hung up by
+the thumbs, and whipped by one person, while another held lighted
+candles to the feet and other parts of the body. At Arras, while the
+prisoners were being torn on the rack, the executioner stood by, sword
+in hand, promising to cut off at once the heads of those who did not
+confess. At Offenburg, when the prison<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>ers had been tortured until
+beyond the power of speaking aloud, they silently assented to abominable
+confessions read to them out of a book. Many were cheated into
+confession by the promise of pardon and release, and then burned. A poor
+woman in Germany was tricked by the hangman, who dressed himself up as a
+devil and went into her cell. Overpowered by pain, fear and
+superstition, she begged him to help her out; her beseeching was taken
+for confession, she was burned, and a ballad which treated the trick as
+a jolly and comical device, was long popular in the country. Several of
+the judges in witch cases tell us how victims, utterly weary of their
+tormented lives, confessed whatever was required, merely as the shortest
+way to death, and an escape out of their misery. All who dared to argue
+against the current of popular and judicial delusion were instantly
+refuted very effectively by being attacked for witchcraft themselves;
+and once accused, there was little hope of escape. The Jesuit Delrio, in
+a book published in 1599, states the witch killers&#8217; side of the
+discussion very neatly indeed; for in one and the same chapter he defies
+any opponents to disprove the existence of witchcraft, and then shows
+that a denial of witchcraft is the worst of all heresies, and must be
+punished with death. Quite a number of excellent and sensible people
+were actually burnt on just this principle.</p>
+
+<p>I do not undertake to give details of any witch trials; this sketch of
+the way in which they operated is all I can make room for, and
+sufficiently delineates this cruel and bloody humbug.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span>I have already referred to the fact that we have right here among us in
+this city a very fair supply of a vulgar, dowdy kind of witchcraft.
+Other countries are favored in like manner. I have not just now the most
+recent information, but in the year 1857 and 1858, for instance, mobbing
+and prosecutions growing out of a popular belief in witchcraft were
+quite plentiful enough in various parts of Europe. No less than eight
+cases of the kind in England alone were reported during those two years.
+Among them was the actual murder of a woman as a witch by a mob in
+Shropshire; and an attack by another mob in Essex, upon a perfectly
+inoffensive person, on suspicion of having &#8220;bewitched&#8221; a scolding
+ill-conditioned girl, from which attack the mob was diverted with much
+difficulty, and thinking itself very unjustly treated. Some others of
+those cases show a singular quantity of credulity among people of
+respectability.</p>
+
+<p>While therefore some of us may perhaps be justly thankful for safety
+from such horrible follies as these, still we can not properly feel very
+proud of the progress of humanity, since after not less than six
+thousand years of existence and eighteen hundred of revelation, so many
+believers in witchcraft still exist among the most civilized nations.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">CHARMS AND INCANTATIONS.&mdash;&#8203;HOW CATO CURED SPRAINS.&mdash;&#8203;THE SECRET NAME OF
+GOD.&mdash;&#8203;SECRET NAMES OF CITIES.&mdash;&#8203;ABRACADABRA.&mdash;&#8203;CURES FOR CRAMP.&mdash;&#8203;MR.
+WRIGHT&#8217;S SIGIL.&mdash;&#8203;WHISKERIFUSTICUS.&mdash;&#8203;WITCHES&#8217; HORSES.&mdash;&#8203;THEIR CURSES.&mdash;&#8203;HOW
+TO RAISE THE DEVIL.</p>
+
+
+<p>It is worth while to print in plain English for my readers a good
+selection of the very words which have been believed, or are still
+believed, to possess magic power. Then any who choose, may operate by
+themselves or may put some bold friend up in a corner, and blaze away at
+him or her until they are wholly satisfied about the power of magic.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman Cato, so famous for his grumness and virtue, believed that if
+he were ill, it would much help him, and that it would cure sprains in
+others, to say over these words: &#8220;Daries, dardaries, astaris, ista,
+pista, sista,&#8221; or, as another account has it, &#8220;motas, daries, dardaries,
+astaries;&#8221; or, as still another account says, &#8220;Huat, huat, huat; ista,
+pista, sista; domiabo, damnaustra.&#8221; And sure enough, nothing is truer,
+as any physician will tell you, that if the old censor only believed
+hard enough, it would almost certainly help him; not by the force of the
+words, but by the force of his own ancient Roman imagination. Here are
+some Greek words of no less virtue: &#8220;<i>Aski, Kataski, Te<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>trax.</i>&#8221; When the
+Greek priests let out of their doors those who had been completely
+initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, they said to them last of all the
+awful and powerful words, &#8220;<i>Konx, ompax</i>.&#8221; If you want to know what the
+usual result was, just say them to somebody, and you will see,
+instantly. The ancient Hebrews believed that there was a secret name of
+God, usually thought to be inexpressible, and only to be represented by
+a mystic figure kept in the Temple, and that if any one could learn it,
+and repeat it, he could rule the intelligent and unintelligent creation
+at his will. It is supposed by some, that Jehovah is the word which
+stands for this secret name; and some Hebraists think that the word
+&#8220;Yahveh&#8221; is much more nearly the right one. The Mohammedans, who have
+received many notions from the Jews, believe the same story about the
+secret name of God, and they think it was engraved on Solomon&#8217;s signet,
+as all readers of the Arabian Nights will very well remember. The Jews
+believed that if you pronounced the word &#8220;Satan&#8221; any evil spirit that
+happened to be by could in consequence instantly pop into you if he
+wished, and possess you, as the devils in the New Testament possessed
+people.</p>
+
+<p>Some ancient cities had a secret name, and it was believed that if their
+enemies could find this out, they could conjure with it so as to destroy
+such cities. Thus, the secret name of Rome was Valentia, and the word
+was very carefully kept, with the intention that none should know it
+except one or two of the chief pontiffs. Mr. Borrow, in one of his
+books, tells about a charm which a gipsy woman knew, and which she used
+to re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>peat to herself as a means of obtaining supernatural aid when she
+happened to want it. This was, &#8220;Saboca enrecar maria ereria.&#8221; He induced
+her after much effort to repeat the words to him, but she always wished
+she had not, with an evident conviction that some harm would result. He
+explained to her that they consisted of a very simple phrase, but it
+made no difference.</p>
+
+<p>An ancient physician named Serenus Sammonicus, used to be quite sure of
+curing fevers, by means of what he called Abracadabra, which was a sort
+of inscription to be written on something and worn on the patient&#8217;s
+person. It was as follows:</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">ABRACADABRA<br />
+BRACADABR<br />
+RACADAB<br />
+ACADA<br />
+CAD<br />
+A.</p>
+
+<p>Another gentleman of the same school used to cure sore eyes by hanging
+round the patient&#8217;s neck an inscription made up of only two letters, A
+and Z; but how he mixed them we unfortunately do not know.</p>
+
+<p>By the way, many of the German peasantry in the more ignorant districts
+still believe that to write Abracadabra on a slip of paper and keep it
+with you, will protect you from wounds, and that if your house is on
+fire, to throw this strip into it will put the fire out.</p>
+
+<p>Many charms or incantations call on God, Christ or some saints, just as
+the heathen ones call on a spirit. Here is one for epilepsy that seems
+to appeal to both<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span> religions, as if with a queer proviso against any
+possible mistake about either. Taking the epileptic by the hand, you
+whisper in his ear &#8220;I adjure thee by the sun and the moon and the gospel
+of to-day, that thou arise and no more fall to the ground; in the name
+of the Father, Son and <a name="corr93" id="corr93"></a>Holy Ghost.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A charm for the cramp found in vogue in some rustic regions is this:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;The devil is tying a knot in my leg,<br />
+Mark, Luke and John, unloose it, I beg,<br />
+Crosses three we make to ease us&mdash;<br />
+Two for the thieves, and one for Christ Jesus.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Here is another, often used in Ireland, which in the same spirit of
+superstition and ignorant irreverence uses the name of the Savior for a
+slight human occasion. It is to cure the toothache, and requires the
+repeating of the following string of words:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;St. Peter sitting on a marble stone, our Savior passing by, asked him
+what was the matter. &#8216;Oh Lord, a toothache!&#8217; Stand up, Peter, and follow
+me; and whoever keeps these words in memory of me, shall never be
+troubled with a toothache, Amen.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The English astrologer Lilly, after the death of his wife, formerly a
+Mrs. Wright, found in a scarlet bag which she wore under her arm a pure
+gold &#8220;sigil&#8221; or round plate worth about ten dollars in gold, which the
+former husband of the defunct had used to exorcise a spirit that plagued
+him. In case any of my readers can afford bullion enough, and would like
+to drive away any such visitor, let them get such a plate and have
+engraved round the edge of one side, &#8220;Vicit Leo de tri<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>bus Judae
+tetragrammaton <span style="font-size: 150%; vertical-align: middle;">+</span>.&#8221; Inside this engrave a &#8220;holy lamb.&#8221;
+Round the edge of the other side engrave &#8220;Annaphel&#8221; and three crosses,
+thus: <span style="font-size: 150%; vertical-align: middle;">+</span>&nbsp;<span style="font-size: 150%; vertical-align: middle;">+</span>&nbsp;<span style="font-size: 150%; vertical-align: middle;">+</span>; and in the
+middle, &#8220;Sanctus Petrus Alpha et Omega.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The witches have always had incantations, which they have used to make a
+broom-stick into a horse, to kill or to sicken animals and persons, etc.
+Most of these are sufficiently stupid, and not half so wonderful as one
+I know, which may be found in a certain mysterious volume called &#8220;The
+Girl&#8217;s Own Book,&#8221; and which, as I can depose, has often power to tickle
+children. It is this:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Bandy-legged Borachio Mustachio Whiskerifusticus, the bald and brave
+Bombardino of Bagdad, helped Abomilique Bluebeard Bashaw of Babelmandel
+beat down an abominable bumblebee at Balsora.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But to the other witches. Their charms were repeated sometimes in their
+own language and sometimes in gibberish. When the Scotch witches wanted
+to fly away to their &#8220;Witches&#8217; Sabbath,&#8221; they straddled a broom-handle,
+a corn stalk, a straw, or a rush, and cried out &#8220;Horse and hattock, in
+the Devil&#8217;s name!&#8221; and immediately away they flew, &#8220;forty times as high
+as the moon,&#8221; if they wished. Some English witches in Somersetshire used
+instead to say, &#8220;Thout, tout, throughout and about;&#8221; and when they
+wished to return from their meeting they said &#8220;Rentum, tormentum!&#8221; If
+this form of the charm does not manufacture a horse, not even a
+saw-horse, then I recommend another version of it, thus:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Horse and pattock, horse and go!<br />
+Horse and pellats, ho, <a name="corr94" id="corr94"></a>ho, ho!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span>German witches said (in High Dutch:)</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Up and away!<br />
+Hi! Up aloft, and nowhere stay!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Scotch witches had modes of working destruction to the persons or
+property of those to whom they meant evil, which were strikingly like
+the negro obeah or mandinga. One of these was, to make a hash of the
+flesh of an unbaptised child, with that of dogs and sheep, and to put
+this goodly dish in the house of the victim, reciting the following
+rhyme:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;We put this untill this hame<br />
+In our Lord the Devil&#8217;s name;<br />
+The first hands that handle thee.<br />
+Burned and scalded may they be!<br />
+We will destroy houses and hald,<br />
+With the sheep and nolt (<i>i. e.</i> cattle) into the fauld;<br />
+And little shall come to the fore (<i>i. e.</i> remain,)<br />
+Of all the rest of the little store.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Another, used to destroy the sons of a certain gentleman named Gordon
+was, to make images for the boys, of clay and paste, and put them in a
+fire, saying:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;We put this water among this meal<br />
+For long pining and ill heal,<br />
+We put it into the fire<br />
+To burn them up stock and stour (<i>i. e.</i> stack and band.)<br />
+That they be burned with our will,<br />
+Like any stikkle (stubble) in a kiln.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In case any lady reader finds herself changed into a hare, let her
+remember how the witch Isobel Gowdie changed herself from hare back to
+woman. It was by repeating:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Hare, hare, God send thee care!<br />
+I am in a hare&#8217;s likeness now;<br />
+But I shall be woman even now&mdash;<br />
+Hare, hare, God send thee care!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span>About the year 1600 there was both hanged and burned at Amsterdam a poor
+demented Dutch girl, who alleged that she could make cattle sterile, and
+bewitch pigs and poultry by saying to them &#8220;Turius und Shurius
+Inturius.&#8221; I recommend to say this first to an old hen, and if found
+useful it might then be tried on a pig.</p>
+
+<p>Not far from the same time a woman was executed as a witch at Bamberg,
+having, as was often the case, been forced by torture to make a
+confession. She said that the devil had given her power to send diseases
+upon those she hated, by saying complimentary things about them, as
+&#8220;What a strong man!&#8221; &#8220;what a beautiful woman!&#8221; &#8220;what a sweet child!&#8221; It
+is my own impression that this species of cursing may safely be tried
+where it does not include a falsehood.</p>
+
+<p>Here are two charms which the German witches used to repeat to raise the
+devil with in the form of a he goat:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Lalle, Bachea, Magotte, Baphia, Dajam,<br />
+Vagoth Heneche Ammi Nagaz, Adomator<br />
+Raphael Immanuel Christus, Tetragrammaton<br />
+Agra Jod Loi. Konig! Konig!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The two last words to be screamed out quickly. This second one, it must
+be remembered, is to be read backward except the two last words. It was
+supposed to be the strongest of all, and was used if the first one
+<a name="corr95" id="corr95"></a>failed:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Anion, Lalle, Sabolos, Sado, Poter, Aziel,<br />
+Adonai Sado Vagoth Agra, Jod,<br />
+Baphra! Komm! Komm!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In case the devil staid too long, he could be made to take himself off
+by addressing to him the following statement, repeated backward:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Zellianelle Heotti Bonus Vagotha<br />
+Plisos sother osech unicus Beelzebub<br />
+Dax! Komm! Komm!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Which would evidently make almost anybody go away.</p>
+
+<p>A German charm to improve one&#8217;s finances was perhaps no worse than
+gambling in gold. It ran thus:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;As God be welcomed, gentle moon&mdash;<br />
+Make thou my money more and soon!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>To get rid of a fever in the German manner, go and tie up a bough of a
+tree, saying, &#8220;Twig, I bind thee; fever, now leave me!&#8221; To give your
+ague to a willow tree, tie three knots in a branch of it early in the
+morning, and say, &#8220;Good morning, old one! I give thee the cold; good
+morning, old one!&#8221; and turn and run away as fast as you can without
+looking back.</p>
+
+<p>Enough of this nonsense. It is pure mummery. Yet it is worth while to
+know exactly what the means were which in ancient times were relied on
+for such purposes, and it is not useless to put this matter on record;
+for just such formulas are believed in now by many people. Even in this
+city there are &#8220;witches&#8221; who humbug the more foolish part of the
+community out of their money by means just as foolish as these.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="VIII_ADVENTURERS" id="VIII_ADVENTURERS"></a>VIII. ADVENTURERS.</h2>
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">THE PRINCESS CARIBOO; OR, THE QUEEN OF THE ISLES.</p>
+
+
+<p>Bristol was, in 1812, the second commercial city of Great Britain,
+having in particular an extensive East India trade. Among its
+inhabitants were merchants, reckoned remarkably shrewd, and many of them
+very wealthy; and quite a number of aristocratic families, who were
+looked up to with the abject toad-eating kind of civility that follows
+&#8220;the nobility.&#8221; On the whole, Bristol was a very fashionable, rich,
+cultivated, and intelligent place&mdash;considering.</p>
+
+<p>One fine evening in the winter of 1812-13, the White Lion hotel, a
+leading inn at Bristol, was thrown into a wonderful flutter by the
+announcement that a very beautiful and fabulously wealthy lady, the
+Princess Cariboo, had just arrived by ship from an oriental port. Her
+agent, a swarthy and <a name="corr96" id="corr96"></a>wizened little Asiatic, who spoke imperfect
+English, gave this information, and ordered the most sumptuous suite of
+rooms in the house. Of course, there was great activity in all manner of
+preparations; and the mysterious character of this lovely but high-born
+stranger caused a wonderful flutter of excitement, which grew and grew
+until the fair stranger at length deigned to arrive. She came at about
+ten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span> o&#8217;clock, in great state, and with two or three coaches packed with
+servants and luggage&mdash;the former of singularly dingy complexion and
+fantastic vestments, and the latter of the most curious forms and
+material imaginable. The eager anticipations of hosts and guests alike
+were not only fully justified but even exceeded by the rare beauty of
+the unknown, the oriental style and magnificence of her attire and that
+of her attendants, and the enormous bulk of her baggage&mdash;a circumstance
+that has no less weight at an English inn than any where else. The
+stranger, too, was most liberal with her fees to the servants, which
+were always in gold.</p>
+
+<p>It was quickly discovered that her ladyship spoke not one word of
+English, and even her agent&mdash;a dark, wild, queer little fellow,&mdash;got
+along with it but indifferently, preferring all his requests in very
+&#8220;broken China&#8221; indeed. The landlord thought it a splendid opportunity to
+create a long bill, and got up rooms and a dinner in flaring style, with
+wax candles, a mob of waiters, ringing of bells, and immense ceremony.
+But the lady, like a real princess, while well enough pleased and very
+gracious, took all this as a matter of course, and preferred her own
+cook, a flat-faced, pug-nosed, yellow-breeched and almond-eyed Oriental,
+with a pigtail dangling from his scalp, which was shaved clean,
+excepting at the back of the head. This gentleman ran about in the
+kitchen-yard with queer little brass utensils, wherein he concocted
+sundry diabolical preparations&mdash;as they seemed to the English servants
+to be,&mdash;of herbs, rice, curry powder, etc., etc., for the repast of his
+mistress. For the next three or four days, the White Lion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span> was in a
+state bordering upon frenzy, at the singular deportment of the
+&#8220;Princess&#8221; and her numerous attendants. The former arrayed herself in
+the most astonishing combinations of apparel that had ever been seen by
+the good gossips of Bristol, and the latter indulged in gymnastic antics
+and vocal chantings that almost deafened the neighborhood. There was a
+peculiar nasal ballad in which they were fond of indulging, that
+commenced about midnight and kept up until well nigh morning, that drove
+the neighbors almost beside themselves. It sounded like a concert by a
+committee of infuriated cats, and wound up with protracted whining
+notes, commencing in a whimper, and then with a sudden jerk, bursting
+into a loud, monotonous howl. Yet, withal, these attendants, who slept
+on mats, in the rooms adjacent to that of their mistress, and fed upon
+the preparations of her own cuisine, were, in the main, very civil and
+inoffensive, and seemed to look upon the Princess with the utmost awe.
+The &#8220;agent,&#8221; or &#8220;secretary,&#8221; or <a name="corr97" id="corr97"></a>&#8220;prime-minister,&#8221; or whatever he might
+be called, was very mysterious as to the objects, purposes, history, and
+antecedents of her Highness, and the quidnuncs were in despair until,
+one morning, the &#8220;Bristol Mirror,&#8221; then a leading paper, came out with a
+flaring announcement, expressing the pleasure it felt in acquainting the
+public with the fact, that a very eminent and interesting foreign
+personage had arrived from her home in the remotest East to proffer His
+Majesty, George III, the unobstructed commerce and friendship of her
+realm, which was as remarkable for its untold wealth as for its
+marvelous beauty. The lady was de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>scribed as a befitting representative
+of the loveliness and opulence of this new Golconda and Ophir in one,
+since her matchless wealth and munificence were approached only by her
+ravishing personal charms. The other papers took up the topic, and were
+even more extravagant. &#8220;Felix Farley&#8217;s Journal&#8221; gave a long narrative of
+her wanderings and extraordinary adventures in the uttermost East, as
+gleaned, of course, from her garrulous agent. The island of her chief
+residence was described as being of vast extent and fertility, immensely
+rich and populous, and possessing many rare and beautiful arts unknown
+to the nations of Europe. The princess had become desperately enamored
+of a certain young Englishman of high rank, who had been shipwrecked on
+her coast, but had afterward escaped, and as she learned, safely reached
+a port in China, and thence departed for Europe. The Princess had
+hereupon set out upon her journeyings over the world in search of him.
+In order to facilitate her enterprise, and softened by the deep
+affection she felt for the son of Albion, she had determined to break
+through the usages of her country, and form an alliance with that of her
+beloved.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the statements everywhere put in circulation; and when the
+Longbows of the place got full hold of it, Gulliver, Peter Wilkins, and
+Sinbad the Sailor were completely eclipsed. Diamonds as big as hen&#8217;s
+eggs, and pearls the size of hazelnuts, were said to be the commonest
+buttons and ornaments the Princess wore, and her silks and shawls were
+set beyond all price.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span>The announcement of this romantic and mysterious history, this boundless
+wealth, this interesting mission from majesty to majesty in person and
+the reality which every one could see of so much grace and beauty,
+supplied all that was wanting to set the upper-tendom of the place in a
+blaze. It was hardly etiquette for a royal visitor to receive much
+company before having been presented at Court; but as this princely lady
+came from a point so far outside of the pale of Christendom, and all its
+formalities, it was deemed not out of place, to show her befitting
+attentions; and the ice once broken, there was no arresting the flood.
+The aristocracy of Bristol vied with each other in seeing who should be
+first and most extravagant in their demonstrations. The street in front
+of the &#8220;White Lion&#8221; was day after day blocked up, with elegant
+equipages, and her reception-rooms thronged with &#8220;fair women and brave
+men.&#8221; Milliners and mantuamakers pressed upon the lovely and mysterious
+Princess Cariboo the most exquisite hats, dresses, and laces, just to
+acquaint her with the fashionable style and solicit her distinguished
+patronage; dry-goodsmen sent her rare patterns of their costliest and
+richest stuffs, perfumers their most exquisite toilet-cases, filled with
+odors sweet; jewellers, their most superb sets of gems; and florists and
+visitors nearly suffocated her with the scarcest and most delicate
+exotics. Pictures, sketches, and engravings, oil-paintings, and
+portraits on ivory of her rapturous admirers, poured in from all sides,
+and her own fine form and features were reproduced by a score of
+artists. Daily she was f&ecirc;ted, and nightly serenaded, until the Princess
+Cariboo became the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span> furore of the United Kingdom. Magnificent
+entertainments were given her in private mansions; and at length, to cap
+the climax, <a name="corr98" id="corr98"></a>Mr. Worrall, the Recorder of Bristol, managed, by his
+influence, to bring about for her a grand municipal reception in the
+town-hall, and people from far and near thronged to it in thousands.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime the papers were gravely trying to make out whether the
+Cariboo country meant some remote portion of Japan, or the Island of
+Borneo, or some comparatively unfamiliar archipelago in the remotest
+East, and the &#8220;Mirror&#8221; was publishing type expressly cut for the purpose
+of representing the characters of the language in which the Princess
+spoke and wrote. They were certainly very uncouth, and pretended sages,
+who knew very well that there was no one to contradict them, declared
+that they were &#8220;ancient Coptic!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Upon reading the sequel of the story, one is irresistibly reminded of
+the ancient Roman inscription discovered by one of Dickens&#8217; characters,
+which some irreverent rogue subsequently declared to be nothing more nor
+less than &#8220;Bil Stumps His Mark.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>All this went on for about a fortnight, until the whole town and a good
+deal of the surrounding country had made complete fools of themselves,
+and only the &#8220;naughty little boys&#8221; in the streets held out against the
+prevailing mania, probably because they were not admitted to the sport.
+Their salutations took the form of an inharmonious thoroughfare-ballad,
+the chorus of which terminated with:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8220;Boo! hoo! hoo!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And who&#8217;s the Princess Cariboo?&#8221;</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">yelled out at the top of their voices.</p>
+
+<p>At length one day, the luggage of her Highness was embarked upon a small
+vessel to be taken round by water to London, while she announced,
+through her &#8220;agent,&#8221; her intention to reach the capital by
+post-coaching.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, the most superb traveling-carriages and teams were placed at
+her disposal; but, courteously declining all these offers, she set out
+in the night-time with a hired establishment, attended by her retinue.</p>
+
+<p>Days and weeks rolled on, and yet no announcement came of the arrival of
+her Highness at London or at any of the intervening cities after the
+first two or three towns eastward of Bristol. Inquiry began to be made,
+and, after long and patient but unavailing search, it became apparent to
+divers and sundry dignitaries in the old town that somebody had been
+very particularly &#8220;sold.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The landlord at the &#8220;White Lion&#8221; who had accepted the agent&#8217;s order for
+&pound;1,000 on a Calcutta firm in London; poor Mr. Worrall, who had been
+Master of Ceremonies at the town hall affair, and had spent large sums
+of money; and the tradespeople and others who sent their finest goods,
+all felt that they had &#8220;heard something drop.&#8221; The Princess Cariboo had
+disappeared as mysteriously as she came.</p>
+
+<p>For years, the people of Bristol were unmercifully ridiculed throughout
+the entire Kingdom on account of this affair, and burlesque songs and
+plays immortalized its incidents for successive seasons.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>One of these insisted that the Princess was no other than an actress of
+more notoriety than note, humbly born in the immediate vicinity of the
+old city, where she practiced this gigantic hoax, and that she had been
+assisted in it by a set of dissolute young noblemen and actors, who
+furnished the money she had spent, got up the oriental dresses,
+published the fibs, and fomented the excitement. At all events, the net
+profit to her and her confederates in the affair must have been some
+&pound;10,000.</p>
+
+<p>Within a few months, and since the first publication of the above
+paragraphs, the English newspapers have recorded the death of the
+&#8220;Princess Cariboo,&#8221; who it appears afterward married in her own rank in
+life and spent a considerable number of years of usefulness in the leech
+trade&mdash;an occupation not without a metaphorical likeness to her early
+and more ambitious exploit.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">COUNT CAGLIOSTRO, ALIAS JOSEPH BALSAMO, KNOWN ALSO AS &#8220;CURSED JOE.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+<p>One of the most striking, amusing, and instructive pages in the history
+of humbug is the life of Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, whose real name
+was Joseph or Giuseppe Balsamo. He was born at Palermo, in 1743, and
+very early began to manifest his brilliant talents for roguery.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span>He ran away from his first boarding-school, at the age of eleven or
+twelve, getting up a masquerade of goblins, by the aid of some scampish
+schoolfellows, which frightened the monkish watchmen of the gates away
+from their posts, nearly dead with terror. He had gained little at this
+school, except the pleasant surname of Beppo Maldetto (or cursed Joe.)
+At the age of thirteen he was a second time expelled from the convent of
+Cartegirone, belonging to the order of Benfratelli, the good fathers
+having in vain endeavored to train him up in the way he should go.</p>
+
+<p>While in this convent, the boy was in charge of the apothecary, and
+probably picked up more or less of the smattering of chemistry and
+physics which he afterwards used. His final offence was a ridiculous and
+characteristic one. He was a greedy and thievish fellow, and was by way
+of penalty set to read aloud about the ancient martyrs, those dry though
+pious old gentlemen, while the monks ate dinner. Thus put to what he
+liked least, and deprived of what he liked best, he impudently
+extemporized, instead of the stories of holy agonies, all the indecorous
+scandal he could think of about the more notorious disreputable women of
+Palermo, putting their names instead of those of the martyrs.</p>
+
+<p>After this, Master Joe proceeded to distinguish himself by forging
+opera-tickets, and even documents of various kinds, indiscriminate
+pilfering and swindling, interpreting visions, conjuring, and finally,
+it is declared, a touch of genuine assassination.</p>
+
+<p>Pretty soon he made a foolish, greedy goldsmith, one Marano, believe
+that there was a treasure hidden in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span> sand on the sea-shore near
+Palermo, and induced the silly man to go one night to dig it up. Having
+reached the spot, the dupe was made to strip himself to his shirt and
+drawers, a magic circle was drawn round him with all sorts of raw-head
+and bloody-bones ceremonies, and Beppo, exhorting him not to leave the
+ring, lest the spirits should kill him, stepped out of sight to make the
+incantations to raise them. Almost instantly, six devils, horned,
+hoofed, tailed, and clawed, breathing fire and smoke, leaped from among
+the rocks and beat the wretched goldsmith senseless, and almost to
+death. They were of course Cursed Joe and some confederates; and taking
+Marano&#8217;s money and valuables, they left him. He got home in wretched
+plight, but had sense enough left to suspect Master Joe, whom he shortly
+promised, after the Sicilian manner, to assassinate. So Joe ran away
+from Palermo, and went to Messina. Here he said he fell in with a
+venerable humbug, named Athlotas, an &#8220;Armenian Sage,&#8221; who united his
+talents with Beppo&#8217;s own, in making a peculiar preparation of flax and
+hemp and passing it off upon the people of Alexandria, in Egypt, as a
+new kind of silk. This feat made not only a sensation but plenty of
+money; and the two swindlers now traversed Greece, Turkey, and Arabia,
+in various directions, stirring up the Oriental &#8220;old fogies&#8221; in amazing
+style. Harems and palaces, according to Cagliostro&#8217;s own apocryphal
+story, were thrown open to them everywhere, and while the Scherif of
+Mecuca took Balsao under his high protection, one of the Grand Muftis
+actually gave him splendid apartments in his own abode. It is only
+necessary to reflect upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span> the unbounded reverence felt by all good
+Mussulmen for these exalted dignitaries, to comprehend the height of
+distinction thus attained by the Palermo thimble-rigger. But, among the
+many obscure records that exist in the Italian, French, and German
+languages, touching this arch impostor, there is a hint of a night
+adventure in the harem of a high and mighty personage, at Mecca, whereby
+the latter was put out of doors, with his robes torn and his beard
+singed, by his own domestics, and left to wander in the streets, while
+Beppo, in disguise, received the salaams and sequins of the
+establishment, including the attentions of the fair ones therein caged,
+for an entire night. His escape to the seacoast after this adventure was
+almost miraculous; but escape he did, and shortly afterward turned up in
+Rome, with the title (conferred by himself) of Count Cagliostro, the
+reputation of enormous wealth, and genuine and enthusiastic letters of
+recommendation from Pinto, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. Pinto
+was an alchymist, and had been fooled to the top of his bent by the
+cunning Joseph.</p>
+
+<p>These letters introduced our humbug into the first families of Rome;
+who, like some other first families, were first also as fools. He also
+married a very beautiful, very shrewd, and very wicked Roman donzella,
+Lorenza Feliciani by name; and the worthy couple, combining their
+various talents, and regarding the world as their oyster, at once
+proceeded to open it in the most scientific style. I cannot follow this
+wonderful human chameleon in all his transformations under his various
+names of Fischio, Melissa, Fenice, Anna, Pellegrini,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span> Harat, and
+Belmonte, nor state the studies and processes by which he picked up
+sufficient knowledge of physic, chemistry, the hidden properties of
+numbers, astronomy, astrology, mesmerism, clairvoyance, and the genuine
+old-fashioned &#8220;black art;&#8221; but suffice it to say, that he travelled
+through every part of Europe, and set it in a blaze with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>There were always enough of silly coxcombs, young and old, of high
+degree, to be allured by the siren smiles of his &#8220;Countess;&#8221; and dupes
+of both sexes everywhere, to swallow his yarns and gape at his
+juggleries. In the course of his rambles, he paid a visit to his great
+brother humbug, the Count of St. Germain, in Westphalia, or Schleswig,
+and it was not long afterward that he began to publish to the world his
+grand discoveries in Alchemy, of the Philosopher&#8217;s Stone, and the Elixir
+of Life, or Waters of Perpetual Youth. These and many similar wonders
+were declared to be the result of his investigations under the Arch of
+Old Egyptian Masonry, which degree he claimed to have revived. This
+notion of Egyptian Masonry, Cagliostro is said to have found in some
+manuscripts left by one George Cofton, which fell into our quack&#8217;s
+hands. This degree was to give perfection to human beings, by means of
+moral and physical regeneration. Of these two the former was to be
+secured by means of a Pentagon, which removes original sin and renews
+pristine innocence. The physical kind of regeneration was to be brought
+about by using the &#8220;prime matter&#8221; or philosopher&#8217;s stone, and the
+&#8220;Acacia,&#8221; which two ingredients will give immortal youth. In this new
+structure, he assumed the title of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span> the &#8220;Grand Cophta&#8221; and actually
+claimed the worship of his followers; declaring that the institution had
+been established by Enoch and Elias, and that he had been summoned by
+&#8220;spiritual&#8221; agencies to restore it to its pristine glory. In fact, this
+pretension, which influenced thousands upon thousands of believers, was
+one of the most daring impostures that ever saw the light; and it is
+astounding to think that, so late as 1780, it should, for a long time,
+have been entirely successful. The preparatory course of exercises for
+admission to the mystic brotherhood has been described as a series of
+&#8220;purgation, starvation, and desperation,&#8221; lasting for forty days! and
+ending in &#8220;physical regeneration&#8221; and an immortality on earth. The
+celebrated Lavater, a mild and genial, but feeble man, became one of
+Cagliostro&#8217;s disciples, and was bamboozled to his heart&#8217;s content&mdash;in
+fact, made to believe that the Count could put the devil into him, or
+take him out, as the case might be.</p>
+
+<p>The wondrous &#8220;Water of Beauty,&#8221; that made old wrinkled faces look young,
+smooth, and blooming again, was the special merchandise of the Countess,
+and was, of course, in great request among the faded beaux and dowagers
+of the day, who were easily persuaded of their own restored loveliness.
+The transmutation of baser metals into gold usually terminated in the
+<a name="corr99" id="corr99"></a>transmigration of all the gold his victims had into the Count&#8217;s own
+purse.</p>
+
+<p>In 1776, the Count and Countess came to London. Here, funnily enough,
+they fell into the hands of a gambler, a shyster, and a female scamp,
+who together tormented them almost to death, because the Count<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span> would
+not pick them out lucky numbers to gamble by. They persecuted him fairly
+into jail, and plagued and outswindled him so awfully, that, after a
+time, the poor Count sneaked back to the Continent with only fifty
+pounds left out of three thousand which he had brought with him.</p>
+
+<p>One incident of Cagliostro&#8217;s English experience was the affair of the
+&#8220;Arsenical Pigs&#8221;&mdash;a notice of which may be found in the &#8220;Public
+Advertiser,&#8221; of London of September 3, 1786. A Frenchman named Morande,
+was at that time editing there a paper in his own language, entitled &#8220;Le
+Courrier de l&#8217;Europe,&#8221; and lost no opportunity to denounce the Count as
+a humbug. Cagliostro, at length, irritated by these repeated attacks,
+published in the &#8220;Advertiser&#8221; an open challenge, offering to forfeit
+five thousand guineas if Morande should not be found dead in his bed on
+the morning after partaking of the flesh of a pig, to be selected by
+himself from among a drove fattened by the Count&mdash;the cooking, etc., all
+to be done at Morande&#8217;s own house, and under his own eye. The time was
+fixed for this singular repast, but when it came round, the French
+Editor &#8220;backed down&#8221; completely, to the great delight of his opponent
+and his credulous followers.</p>
+
+<p>Cagliostro and his spouse now resumed their travels upon the Continent,
+and, by their usual arts and trades, in a great measure renewed their
+fallen fortunes. Among other new dodges, he now assumed so supernatural
+a piety that (he said) he could distinguish an unbeliever by the smell!
+which, of course, was just the opposite of the &#8220;odor of sanctity.&#8221; The
+Coun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span>t&#8217;s claim to have lived for hundreds of years was, by some,
+thoroughly believed. He ascribed his immortality to his own Elixir, and
+his comparatively youthful appearance to his &#8220;Water of Beauty,&#8221; his
+Countess readily assisting him by speaking of her son, a Colonel in the
+Dutch service, fifty years old, while she appeared scarcely more than
+twenty.</p>
+
+<p>At length, in Rome, he and the Countess fell into the clutches of the
+Holy Office; and both having been tried for their manifold offences
+against the Church, were found guilty, and, in spite of their contrition
+and eager confessions, immured for life; the Count within the walls of
+the Castle of Sante Leone, in the Duchy of Urbino, where, after eight
+years&#8217; imprisonment, he died in 1795, and the Countess in a suburban
+convent, where she died some time after.</p>
+
+<p>The portraits of Cagliostro, of which a number are extant, are pictures
+of a strong-built, bull-necked, fat, gross man, with a snub nose, a
+vulgar face, a look of sensuality and low hypocritical cunning.</p>
+
+<p>The celebrated story of &#8220;The Diamond Necklace,&#8221; in which Cagliostro,
+Marie Antoinette, the Cardinal de Rohan, and others were mixed in such a
+hodge-podge of rascality and folly, must form a narrative by itself.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.</p>
+
+
+<p>In my sketch of Joseph Balsamo, alias the Count Alessandro de
+Cagliostro, I referred to the affair of the diamond necklace, known in
+French history as the <i>Collier de la Reine</i>, or Queen&#8217;s necklace, from
+the manner in which the name and reputation of Marie Antoinette, the
+consort of Louis XVI, became entangled in it. I shall now give a brief
+account of this celebrated imposition&mdash;perhaps the boldest and shrewdest
+ever known, and almost wholly the work of a woman.</p>
+
+<p>On the Quai de la Ferraille, not far from the Pont Neuf, stood the
+establishment, part shop, part manufactory, of Messrs. Boehmer &amp;
+Bassange, the most celebrated jewelers of their day. After triumphs
+which had given them world-wide fame during the reign of Louis XV, and
+made them fabulously rich, they determined, with the advent of Louis
+XVI, to eclipse all their former efforts and crown the professional
+glory of their lives. Their correspondents in every chief jewel market
+of the world were summoned to aid their enterprise, and in the course of
+some two or three years they succeeded in collecting the finest and most
+remarkable diamonds that could be procured in the whole world of
+commerce.</p>
+
+<p>The next idea was to combine all these superb fragments in one grand
+ornament to grace the form of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span> beauty. A necklace was the article fixed
+upon, and the best experience and most delicate taste that Europe could
+boast were expended on the design. Each and every diamond was specially
+set and faced in such manner as to reveal its excellence to the utmost
+advantage, and all were arranged together in the style best calculated
+to harmonize their united effect. Form, shape, and the minutest shades
+of color were studied, and the result, after many attempts and many
+failures, and the anxious labor of many months, was the most exquisite
+triumph that the genius of the lapidary and the goldsmith could
+conceive.</p>
+
+<p>The whole necklace consisted of three triple rows of diamonds, or nine
+rows in all, containing eight hundred faultless gems. The triple rows
+fell away from each in the most graceful and flexible curves over each
+side of the breast and each shoulder of the wearer, the curves starting
+from the throat, whence a magnificent pendant, depending from a single
+knot of diamonds, each as large as a hazel-nut, hung down half way upon
+the bosom in the design of a cross and crown, surrounded by the lilies
+of the royal house&mdash;the lilies themselves dangling on stems which were
+strung with smaller jewels. Rich clusters and festoons spread from the
+loop over each shoulder, and the central loop on the back of the neck
+was joined in a pattern of emblematic magnificence corresponding with
+that in front.</p>
+
+<p>It was in 1782 that this grand work was finally completed, and the happy
+owners gloated with delight over a monument of skill as matchless in its
+way as the Pyramids themselves. But, alas! the necklace might as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span> well
+have been constructed of the common boulders piled in those same
+pyramids as of the finest jewels of the mine, for all the good it seemed
+destined to bring the poor jewelers, beyond the rapture of beholding it
+and calling it theirs.</p>
+
+<p>The necklace was worth 1,500,000 francs, equivalent to more than
+$300,000 in gold, as money then went, or nearly $500,000 in gold,
+now-a-days. Rather too large a sum to keep locked up in a casket, the
+reader will confess! And then it seems that Messrs. Boehmer &amp; Bassange
+had not entirely paid for it yet. They had ten creditors on the diamonds
+in different countries, and an immense capital still locked up in their
+other jewelry.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, then, after their first delight had subsided, they were most
+anxious to sell an article that had to be constantly and painfully
+watched, and that might so easily disappear. How many a nimble-fingered
+and stout-hearted rogue would not, in those days, have imperiled a dozen
+lives to clutch that blazing handful of dross, convertible into an
+<a name="corr100" id="corr100"></a>Elysium of pomp and pleasure! It would hardly have been a safe noonday
+plaything in moral Gotham, let alone the dissolute Paris of eighty years
+ago!</p>
+
+<p>The first thought, of course, that kindled in the breasts of Boehmer and
+Bassange was, that the only proper resting-place for their matchless
+bauble was the snowy neck of the Queen Marie <a name="corr101" id="corr101"></a>Antoinette, then the
+admired and beloved of all! Her peerless beauty alone could live in the
+glow of such supernal splendor, and the French throne was the only one
+in Christendom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span> that could sustain such glittering weight. Moreover, the
+Queen had already once been a good customer to the court jewelers, for
+in 1774 she bought four diamonds of them for $75,000.</p>
+
+<p>Louis XV would not have hesitated to fling it on the shoulders of the Du
+Barry, and Louis XVI, in spite of his odd notions upon economy and just
+administration, easily listened to the delicate insinuations of his
+court-jewelers; and, one fine morning, laid the necklace in its casket
+on the table of his Queen. Her Majesty, for a moment, yielded to the
+promptings of feminine weakness, and danced and laughed with the glee of
+an overjoyed child in the new sunshine of those burning, sparkling,
+dazzling gems. Once and once only she placed it on her neck and breast,
+and probably the world has never before or since seen such a countenance
+in such a setting. It was almost the head of an angel shining in the
+glory of the spheres. But a better thought prevailed, and quickly
+removing it, she, with a wave of her beautiful hand, declined the gift
+and besought the King to apply the sum to any other purpose that would
+be useful or honorable to France, whose finances were sadly straitened.
+&#8220;We want ships of war more than we do necklaces,&#8221; said she. The King was
+really delighted at this act of the Queen&#8217;s, and the incident soon
+becoming widely known, gave the latter immense popularity for at least
+twenty-four hours after it occurred. In fact, the amount was really
+applied to the construction of a grand line-of-battle ship called the
+Suffren, after the great Admiral of that name.</p>
+
+<p>Boehmer, who seems to have been the business man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span>ager of the jeweler
+firm, found his necklace as troublesome as the cobbler did the elephant
+he won in a raffle, and tried so perseveringly to induce the Queen to
+buy it, that he became a real torment. She seems to have thought him a
+little cracked on the subject; and one day, when he obtained a private
+audience, he besought her either to buy the necklace or to let him go
+and drown himself in the Seine. Out of all patience, the Queen intimated
+that he would have been wiser to secure a customer to begin with; that
+she would not buy; that if he chose to throw himself into the Seine it
+would be entirely on his own responsibility; and that as for the
+necklace, he had better pick it to pieces and sell it. The poor German
+(for Boehmer was a native of Saxony) departed in deep distress, but
+accepted neither his own suggestion nor the Queen&#8217;s.</p>
+
+<p>For some months after this, the court jewelers busied themselves in
+peddling their necklace about among the courts of Europe. But none of
+these concerns found it convenient just then to pay out three hundred
+and sixty thousand dollars for a concatenation of eight hundred
+diamonds; and still the sparkling elephant remained on the jewelers&#8217;
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>Time passed on. Madame Campan, one of the Queen&#8217;s confidential ladies,
+happened to meet Boehmer one day, and the necklace was alluded to.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is the state of affairs about the necklace,&#8221; asked the lady.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Highly satisfactory,&#8221; replied Boehmer, whose serenity of countenance
+Madame Campan had already <a name="corr102" id="corr102"></a>remarked. &#8220;I have sold it to the Sultan at
+<a name="corr103" id="corr103"></a>Constantinople, for his favorite Sultana.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span>This the lady thought rather curious, but she was glad the thing was
+disposed of, and said no more.</p>
+
+<p>Time passed on again. In the beginning of August 1785, Boehmer took the
+trouble to call on Madame Campan at her country-house, somewhat to her
+surprise.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Has the Queen given you no message for me?&#8221; he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No!&#8221; said the lady; <a name="corr104" id="corr104"></a>&#8220;What message should she give?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;An answer to my note,&#8221; said the jeweler.</p>
+
+<p>Madame remembered a note which the Queen had received from Boehmer a
+little while before, along with some ornaments sent by his hands to her
+as a present from the King. It congratulated her on having the finest
+diamonds in Europe, and hoped she would remember him. The Queen could
+make nothing of it, and destroyed it. Madame Campan therefore replied,</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There is no answer, the Queen burned the note. <a name="corr105" id="corr105"></a>She does not even
+understand what you meant by writing that note.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This statement very quickly elicited from the now startled German a
+story which astounded the lady. He said the Queen owed him the first
+instalment of the money for the diamond necklace; that she had bought it
+after all; that the story about the Sultana was a lie told by her
+directions to hide the fact; since the Queen meant to pay by
+instalments, and did not wish the purchase known. And Boehmer said, she
+had employed the Cardinal de Rohan to buy the necklace for her, and it
+had been delivered to him for her, and by him to her.</p>
+
+<p>Now the Queen, as Madame Campan knew very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span> well, had always strongly
+disliked this Cardinal; he had even been kept from attending at Court in
+consequence, and she had not so much as spoken to him for years. And so
+Madame Campan told Boehmer, and further she told him he had been imposed
+upon.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said the man of sparklers decisively, &#8220;It is you who are deceived.
+She is decidedly friendly to the cardinal. I have myself the documents
+with her own signature authorizing the transaction, for I have had to
+let the bankers see them in order to get a little time on my own
+payments.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Here was a monstrous mystification for the lady of honor, who told
+Boehmer to instantly go and see his official superior, the chief of the
+king&#8217;s household. She herself being very soon afterwards summoned to the
+Queen&#8217;s presence, the affair came up, and she told the Queen all she
+knew about it. Marie Antoinette was profoundly distressed by the evident
+existence of a great scandal and swindle, with which she was plainly to
+be mixed up through the forged signatures to the documents which Boehmer
+had been relying on.</p>
+
+<p>Now for the Cardinal.</p>
+
+<p>Louis de Rohan, a scion of the great house of Rohan, one of the proudest
+of France, was descended of the blood royal of Brittany; was a handsome,
+proud, dissolute, foolish, credulous, unprincipled noble, now almost
+fifty years old, a thorough rake, of large revenues, but deeply in debt.
+He was Peer of France, Archbishop of Strasburg, Grand Almoner of France,
+Commander of the Order of the Holy Ghost, Commendator of the benefice of
+St. Wast d&#8217;Arras, said to be the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span> wealthy in Europe, and a
+Cardinal. He had been ambassador at Vienna a little after Marie
+Antoinette was married to the Dauphin, and while there had taken
+advantage of his official station to do a tremendous quantity of
+smuggling. He had also further and most deeply offended the Empress
+Maria Theresa, by outrageous debaucheries, by gross irreligion, and
+above all by a rather flat but in effect stingingly satirical
+description of her conduct about the partition of Poland. This she never
+forgave him, neither did her daughter Marie Antoinette; and accordingly,
+when he presented himself at Paris soon after she became Queen, he
+received a curt repulse, and an intimation that he had better go
+to&mdash;Strasburg.</p>
+
+<p>Now in those days a sentence of exclusion from Court was to a French
+noble but just this side of a banishment to Tophet; and de Rohan was
+just silly enough to feel this infliction most intensely. He went
+however, and from that time onward, for year after year, lived the life
+of a persevering Adam thrust out of his paradise, hanging about the gate
+and trying all possible ways to sneak in again. Once, for instance, he
+had induced the porter at the palace of the Trianon to let him get
+inside the grounds during an illumination, and was recognized by the
+glow of his cardinal&#8217;s red stockings from under his cloak. But he was
+only laughed at for his pains; the porter was turned off, and the poor
+silly miserable cardinal remained &#8220;out in the cold,&#8221; breaking his heart
+over his exclusion from the most tedious mess of conventionalities that
+ever was contrived&mdash;except those of the court of Spain.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span>About 1783, this great fool fell in with an equally great knave, who
+must be spoken of here, where he begins to converge along with the rest,
+towards the explosion of the necklace swindle. This was Cagliostro, who
+at that time came to Strasburg and created a tremendous excitement with
+his fascinating Countess, his Egyptian masonry, his Spagiric Food (a
+kind of Brandreth&#8217;s pill of the period,) which he fed out to poor sick
+people, his elixir of life, and other humbugs.</p>
+
+<p>The Cardinal sent an intimation that he would like to see the quack. The
+quack, whose impudence was far greater than the Cardinal&#8217;s pride, sent
+back this sublime reply: &#8220;If he is sick let him come to me, and I will
+cure him. If he is well, he does not need to see me, nor I him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This piece of impudence made the fool of a cardinal more eager than
+ever. After some more affected shyness, Cagliostro allowed himself to be
+seen. He was just the man to captivate the Cardinal, and they were
+quickly intimate personal friends, practising transmutation, alchemy,
+masonry, and still more particularly conducting a great many experiments
+on the Cardinal&#8217;s remarkably fine stock of Tokay wine. Whatever poor de
+Rohan had to do, he consulted Cagliostro about it, and when the latter
+went to Switzerland, his dupe maintained a constant communication with
+him in cipher.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly is to be mentioned Jeanne de St. Remi, Countess de Lamotte de
+Valois de France, the chief scoundrel, if the term may be used of a
+woman&mdash;of the necklace affair. She seems to have been really a
+descendant of the royal house of Valois, to which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span> Francis I. belonged;
+through an illegitimate son of Henry II. created Count de St. Remi. The
+family had run down and become poor and rascally, one of Jeanne&#8217;s
+immediate ancestors having practiced counterfeiting for a living. She
+herself had been protected by a certain kind hearted Countess de
+Boulainvilliers; was receiving a small pension from <a name="corr106" id="corr106"></a>the Court of about
+$325 a year; had married a certain tall soldier named Lamotte; had come
+to Paris, and was living in poverty in a garret, hovering about as it
+were for a chance to better her circumstances. She was a quick-witted,
+bright-eyed, brazen-faced hussy, not beautiful, but with lively pretty
+ways, and indeed somewhat fascinating.</p>
+
+<p>Her protectress, the countess de Boulainvilliers, was now dead; while
+she was alive Jeanne had once visited her at de Rohan&#8217;s palace of
+Saverne, and had thus scraped a slight acquaintance with the gay
+Cardinal, which she resumed during her abode at Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody at Paris knew about the Diamond Necklace, and about de Rohan&#8217;s
+desire to get into court favor. This sharp-witted female swindler now
+came in among the elements I have thus far been describing, to frame
+necklace, jeweller, cardinal, queen, and swindler, all together into her
+plot, just as the key-stone drops into an arch and locks it up tight.</p>
+
+<p>No mortal knows where ideas come from. Suddenly a conception is in the
+mind, whence, or how, we do not know, any more than we know Life. The
+devil himself might have furnished that which now popped into the
+cunning, wicked mind of this adventuress. This is what she saw all at
+once:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span>Boehmer is crazy to sell his necklace. De Rohan is crazy after the
+Queen&#8217;s favor. I am crazy after money. Now if I can make De Rohan think
+that the Queen wants the necklace, and will become his friend in return
+for his helping her to it; if I can make him think I am her agent to
+him, then I can steal the diamonds in their transit.</p>
+
+<p>A wonderfully cunning and hardy scheme! And most wonderful was the cool,
+keen promptitude with which it was executed.</p>
+
+<p>The countess began to hint to the cardinal that she was fast getting
+into the Queen&#8217;s good graces, by virtue of being a capital gossip and
+story-teller; and that she had frequent private audiences. Soon she
+added intimations that the Queen was far from being really so displeased
+with the cardinal, as he supposed. At this the old fool bit instantly,
+and showed the keenest emotions of hope and delight. On a further
+suggestion, he presently drew up a letter or memoir humbly and
+plaintively stating his case, which the countess undertook to put into
+the Queen&#8217;s hands. It was the first of over <i>two hundred</i> notes from
+him, notes of abasement, beseeching argument, expostulation, and so on,
+all entrusted to Jeanne. She burnt them, I suppose.</p>
+
+<p>In order to make her dupe sure that she told the truth about her access
+to the Queen, Jeanne more than once made him go and watch her enter a
+side gate into the grounds of the Trianon palace, to which she had
+somehow obtained a key; and after waiting he saw her come out again,
+sometimes under the escort of a man, who was, she said one Desclos, a
+confidential<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span> valet of the Queen. This was Villette de R&eacute;taux, a &#8220;pal&#8221;
+of Jeanne&#8217;s and of her husband Lamotte, who had, by the way, become a
+low-class gambler and swindler by occupation.</p>
+
+<p>Next Jeanne talked about the Queen&#8217;s charities; and on one occasion,
+told how much the amiable Marie Antoinette longed to expend certain sums
+for benevolent purposes if she only had them&mdash;but she was out of funds,
+and the King was so close about money!</p>
+
+<p>The poor cardinal bit again&mdash;&#8220;If the Queen would only allow him the
+honor to furnish the little amount!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The countess evidently <a name="corr107" id="corr107"></a>hadn&#8217;t thought of that. She reflected&mdash;hesitated.
+The cardinal urged. She consented&mdash;it was not much&mdash;and was so kind as
+to carry the cash herself. At their next meeting she reported that the
+Queen was delighted, telling a very nice story about it. The cardinal
+would only be too happy to do so again. And sure enough he did, and
+quite a number of times too; contributing in all to the funds of the
+countess in this manner, about $25,000.</p>
+
+<p>Well: after a time the cardinal is at Strasburg, when he receives a note
+from the countess that brings him back again as quick as post-horses can
+carry him. It says that there is something very important, very secret,
+very delicate, that the queen wants his help about. He is overflowing
+with zeal. What is it? Only let him know&mdash;his life, his purse, his soul,
+are at the service of his liege lady.</p>
+
+<p>His purse is all that is needed. With infinite shyness and
+circumspection, the countess gradually, half<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span> unwillingly, lets him find
+out that it is the diamond necklace that the Queen wants. By diabolical
+ingenuities of talk she leads de Rohan to the full conviction that if he
+secures the Queen that necklace, he will thenceforward bask in all the
+sunshine of court favor that she can show or control.</p>
+
+<p>And at proper times sundry notes from the Queen are bestowed upon the
+enraptured noodle. These are written in imitation of the Queen&#8217;s
+handwriting, by that Villette de R&eacute;taux who personated the Queen&#8217;s
+valet, and who was an expert at counterfeiting.</p>
+
+<p>A last and sublime summit of impudent pretension is reached by a secret
+interview which the Queen, says the countess, desires to grant to her
+beloved servant the cardinal. This suggestion was rendered practicable
+by one of those mere coincidences which are found though rarely in
+history, and which are too improbable to put into a novel&mdash;the casual
+discovery of a young woman of loose character who looked much like the
+Queen. Whether her name was d&#8217;Essigny or Gay d&#8217;Oliva, is uncertain; she
+is usually called by the latter. She was hired and taught; and with
+immense precautions, this ostrich of a cardinal was one night introduced
+into the gardens of the Trianon, and shown a little nook among the
+thickets where a stately female in the similitude of the Queen received
+him with soft spoken words of kindly greeting, allowed him to kneel and
+kiss a fair and shapely hand, and showed no particular timidity of any
+kind. Yet the interview had scarcely more than begun before steps were
+heard. &#8220;Some one is coming,&#8221; exclaimed the lady, &#8220;it is Monsieur and
+Madame d&#8217;Artois&mdash;We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span> must part. There&#8221;&mdash;she gave him a red rose&mdash;&#8220;You
+know what that means! Farewell!&#8221; And away they went&mdash;Mademoiselle
+d&#8217;Oliva to report to her employers, and the cardinal, in a seventh
+heaven of ineffable tomfoolery, to his hotel.</p>
+
+<p>But the interview, and the lovely little notes that came sometimes,
+&#8220;fixed&#8221; the necklace business! And if further encouragement had been
+needed, Cagliostro gave it. For the cardinal now consulted him about the
+future of the affair, having indeed kept him fully informed about it for
+a long time, as he did of all matters of interest. So the quack set up
+his tabernacles of mummery in a parlor of the cardinal&#8217;s hotel, and
+conducted an Egyptian Invocation there all night long in solitude and
+pomp; and in the morning he decreed (in substance) &#8220;go ahead.&#8221; And the
+cardinal did so. Boehmer and Bassange were only too happy to bargain
+with the great and wealthy church and state dignitary. A memorandum of
+terms and time of payment was drawn up, and was submitted to the Queen.
+That is, swindling Jeanne carried it off, and brought it back, with an
+entry made by Villette de R&eacute;taux in the margin, thus: &#8220;<i>Bon,
+bon&mdash;Approuv&eacute;, Marie Antoinette de France</i>.&#8221; That is, &#8220;Good, good&mdash;I
+approve. Marie Antoinette de France.&#8221; The payment was to be by
+instalments, at six months, and quarterly afterwards; the Queen to
+furnish the money to the cardinal, while he remained ostensibly holden
+to the jewellers, she thus keeping out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>So the jewels were handed over to the cardinal de Rohan; he took them
+one evening in great state to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span> the lodgings of the countess, where with
+all imaginable formality there came a knock at the door, and when it was
+open a tall valet entered who said solemnly &#8220;On the part of the Queen!&#8221;
+De Rohan <i>knew</i> it was the Queen&#8217;s confidential valet, for he saw with
+his own eyes that it was the same man who had escorted the countess from
+the side gate at the Trianon! And so it was; to wit, Villette de R&eacute;taux,
+who, calmly receiving the fifteen hundred thousand franc treasure,
+marched but as solemnly as he had come in.</p>
+
+<p>As that counterfeiting rascal goes out of the door, the diamond necklace
+itself disappears from our knowledge. The swindle was consummated, but
+there is no whisper of the disposition of the spoils. Villette, and
+Jeanne&#8217;s husband Lamotte, went to London and Amsterdam, and had some
+money there; but seemingly no more than the previous pillages upon the
+cardinal might have supplied; nor did the countess&#8217; subsequent
+expenditures show that she had any of the proceeds.</p>
+
+<p>But that is not the last of the rest of the parties to the affair, by
+any means. Between this scene and the time when the anxious Boehmer,
+having a little bill to meet, beset Madame Campan about his letter and
+the money the Queen was to pay him, there intervened six months. During
+that time countess Jeanne was smoothing as well as she could, with
+endless lies and contrivances, the troubles of the perplexed cardinal,
+who <a name="corr108" id="corr108"></a>&#8220;couldn&#8217;t seem to see&#8221; that he was much better off in spite of his
+loyal performance of his part of the bargain.</p>
+
+<p>But this application by Boehmer, and the enormous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span> swindle which it was
+instantly evident had been perpetrated on somebody or other, of course
+waked up a commotion at once. The baron de Breteuil, a deadly enemy of
+de Rohan, got hold of it all, and in his overpowering eagerness to ruin
+his foe, quickly rendered the matter so public that it was out of the
+question to hush it up. It seems probable that Jeanne de Lamotte
+expected that the business would be kept quiet for the sake of the
+Queen, and that thus any very severe or public punishments would be
+avoided and perhaps no inquiries made. It is clear that this would have
+been the best plan, but de Breteuil&#8217;s officiousness prevented it, and
+there was nothing for it but legal measures. De Rohan was arrested and
+put in the Bastile, having barely been able to send a message in German
+to his hotel to a trusty secretary, who instantly destroyed all the
+papers relating to the affair. Jeanne was also imprisoned, and Miss Gay
+d&#8217;Oliva and Villette de R&eacute;taux, being caught at Brussels and Amsterdam,
+were in like manner secured. As for Cagliostro, he was also imprisoned,
+some accounts saying that he ostentatiously gave himself up for trial.</p>
+
+<p>This was a public trial before the Parliament of Paris, with much form.</p>
+
+<p>The result was that the cardinal, appearing to be only fool, not knave,
+was acquitted. Gay d&#8217;Oliva appeared to have known nothing except that
+she was to play a part, and she had been told that the Queen wanted her
+to do so, so she was let go. Villette was banished for life. Lamotte,
+the countess&#8217; husband, had escaped to England, and was condemned to the
+gal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span>leys in his absence, which didn&#8217;t hurt him much. Cagliostro was
+acquitted. But Jeanne was sentenced to be whipped, branded on the
+shoulder with the letter V for <i>Voleuse</i> (thief), and banished.</p>
+
+<p>This sentence was executed in full, but with great difficulty; for the
+woman turned perfectly furious on the public scaffold, flew at the
+hangman like a tiger, bit pieces out of his hands, shrieked, cursed,
+rolled on the floor, kicked, squirmed and jumped, until they held her by
+brute force, tore down her dress, and the red hot iron going aside as
+she struggled, plunged full into her snowy white breast, planting there
+indelibly the horrible black V, while she yelled like a fiend under the
+torment of the smoking brand. She fled away to England, lived there some
+time in dissolute courses, and is said to have died in consequence of
+falling out of a window when drunk, or as another account states, of
+being flung out by the companions of her orgy, whom she had stung to
+fury by her frightful scolding. Before her death she put forth one or
+two memoirs,&mdash;false, scandalous things.</p>
+
+<p>The unfortunate Queen never entirely escaped some shadow of disrepute
+from the necklace business. For to the very last, both on the trial and
+afterwards, Jeanne de Lamotte impudently stuck to it that at least the
+Queen had known about the trick played on the Cardinal at the Trianon,
+and had in fact been hidden close by and saw and laughed heartily at the
+whole interview. So sore and morbid was the condition of the public mind
+in France in those days, when symptoms of the coming Revolution were
+breaking out on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span> every side, that this odious story found many and
+willing believers.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="corr109" id="corr109"></a><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">THE COUNT DE ST. GERMAIN, SAGE, PROPHET, AND MAGICIAN.</p>
+
+
+<p>Superior to Cagliostro, even in accomplishments, and second to him in
+notoriety only, was that human nondescript, the so-called Count de St.
+Germain, whom Fredrick the Great called, &#8220;a man no one has ever been
+able to make out.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Marquis de Crequy declares that St. Germain was an Alsatian Jew,
+Simon Wolff by name, and born at Strasburg about the close of the
+seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century; others insist
+that he was a Spanish Jesuit named Aymar; and others again intimate that
+his true title was the Marquis de Betmar, and that he was a native of
+Portugal. The most plausible theory, however, makes him the natural son
+of an Italian princess, and fixes his birth at San Germano, in Savoy,
+about the year 1710; his ostensible father being one Rotondo, a
+tax-collector of that district.</p>
+
+<p>This supposition is borne out by the fact that he spoke all his many
+languages with an Italian accent. It was about the year 1750 that he
+first began to be heard of in Europe as the Count St. Germain, and put
+forth the astounding pretensions that soon gave him ce<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span>lebrity over the
+whole continent. The celebrated Marquis de Belleisle made his
+acquaintance about that time in Germany, and brought him to Paris, where
+he was introduced to Madame de Pompadour, whose favor he very quickly
+gained. The influence of that famous beauty was just then paramount with
+Louis XV, and the Count was soon one of the most eminent men at court.
+He was remarkably handsome&mdash;as an old portrait at Friersdorf, in Saxony,
+in the rooms he once occupied, sufficiently indicated; and his musical
+accomplishments, added to the ineffable charm of his manners and
+conversation, and the miracles he performed, rendered him an
+irresistible attraction, especially to the ladies, who appear to have
+almost idolized him. Endowed with an enchanting voice, he could also
+play every instrument then in vogue, but especially excelled upon the
+violin, which he could handle in such a manner as to give it the effect
+of a small orchestra. Cotemporary writers declare that, in his more
+ordinary performances, a connoisseur could distinctly hear the separate
+tones of a full quartet when the count was extemporizing on his favorite
+Cremona. His little work, entitled &#8220;La Musique <a name="corr110" id="corr110"></a>Raisonn&eacute;e,&#8221; published in
+England, for private circulation only, bears testimony to his musical
+genius, and to the wondrous eccentricity, as well as beauty, of his
+conceptions. But it was in alectromancy, or divination by signs and
+circles; hydromancy, or divination by water; cleidomancy, or divination
+by the key, and dactylomancy, or divination by the fingers, that the
+count chiefly excelled, although he, at the same time, professed
+alchemy, astrology, and prophecy in the higher branches.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span>The fortunes of the Count St. Germain rose so rapidly in France, that in
+1760 he was sent by Louis XV, to the Court of England, to assist in
+negotiations for a peace. M. de Choiseul, then Prime Minister of France,
+however, greatly feared and detested the Count; and secretly wrote to
+Pitt, begging the latter to have that personage arrested, as he was
+certainly a Russian spy. But St. Germain, through his attendant sprites,
+of course, received timely warning, and escaped to the Continent. In
+England, he was the inseparable friend of Prince Lobkowitz&mdash;a
+circumstance that gave some color to his alleged connection with the
+Russians. His sojourn there was equally distinguished by his devotion to
+the ladies, and his unwavering success at the gaming-table, where he won
+fabulous sums, which were afterward dispensed with imperial munificence.
+It was there, too, that he put forward his claims to the highest rank in
+Masonry; and, of course, added, thereby, immensely to the <i>&eacute;clat</i> of his
+position. He spoke English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian,
+German, Russian, Polish, the Scandinavian, and many of the Oriental
+tongues, with equal fluency; and pretended to have traveled over the
+whole earth, and even to have visited the most distant starry orbs
+frequently, in the course of a lifetime which, with continual
+transmigrations, he declared to have lasted for thousands of years. His
+birth, he said, had been in Chaldea, in the dawn of time; and that he
+was the sole inheritor of the lost sciences and mysteries of his own and
+the Egyptian race. He spoke of his personal intimacy with all the twelve
+Apostles&mdash;and even the august presence of the Savior;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span> and one of his
+pretensions would have been most singularly amusing, had it not bordered
+upon profanity. This was no less an assertion than that he had upon
+several occasions remonstrated with the Apostle Peter upon the
+irritability of his temperament! In regard to later periods of history,
+he spoke with the careless ease of an every-day looker on; and told
+anecdotes that the researches of scholars afterwards fully verified. His
+predictions were, indeed, most startling; and the cotemporaneous
+evidence is very strong and explicit, that he did foretell the time,
+place, and manner of the death of Louis XV, several years before it
+occurred. His gift of memory was perfectly amazing. Having once read a
+journal of the day, he could repeat its contents accurately, from
+beginning to end; and to this endowment he united the faculty of writing
+with both hands, in characters like copperplate. Thus, he could indite a
+love-letter with his right while he composed a verse with his left hand,
+and, apparently, with the utmost facility&mdash;a splendid acquisition for
+the Treasury Department or a literary newspaper! He would, however, have
+been ineligible for any faithful Post Office, since he read the contents
+of sealed letters at a glance; and, by his clairvoyant powers, detected
+crime, or, in fact, the movements of men and the phenomena of nature, at
+any distance. Like all the great Magi, and Brothers of the Rosy Cross,
+of whom he claimed to be a shining light, he most excelled in medicine;
+and along with remedies for &#8220;every ill that flesh is heir to,&#8221; boasted
+his &#8220;Aqua Benedetta&#8221; as the genuine elixir of life, capable of restoring
+youth to age, beauty and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span> strength to decay, and brilliant intellect to
+the exhausted brain; and, if properly applied, protracting human
+existence through countless centuries. As a proof of its virtues, he
+pointed to his own youthful appearance, and the testimony of old men who
+had seen him sixty or seventy years earlier, and who declared that time
+had made no impression on him. Strangely enough, the Margrave of
+Anspach, of whom I shall presently speak, purchased what purported to be
+the recipe of the &#8220;Aqua Benedetta,&#8221; from John Dyke, the English Consul
+at Leghorn, towards the close of the last century; and copies of it are
+still preserved with religious care and the utmost secrecy by certain
+noble families in Berlin and Vienna, where the preparation has been used
+(as they believe) with perfect success against a host of diseases.</p>
+
+<p>Still another peculiarity of the Count would be highly advantageous to
+any of us, particularly at this period of high prices and culinary
+scarcity. He never ate nor drank; or, at least, he was never seen to do
+so! It is said that boarding house <i>r&eacute;gime</i> in these days is rapidly
+accustoming a considerable class of our fellow-citizens to a similar
+condition, but I can scarcely believe it.</p>
+
+<p>Again, the Count would fall into cataleptic swoons, which continued
+often for hours, and even days; and, during these periods, he declared
+that he visited, in spirit, the most remote regions of the earth, and
+even the farthest stars, and would relate, with astonishing power, the
+scenes he there had witnessed!</p>
+
+<p>He, of course, laid claim to the transmutation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span> baser metals into
+gold, and stated that, in 1755, while on a visit to India, to consult
+the erudition of the Hindoo Brahmins, he solved, by their assistance,
+the problem of the artificial crystallization of pure carbon&mdash;or, in
+other words, the production of diamonds! One thing is certain, viz.:
+that upon a visit to the French ambassador to the Hague, in 1780, he, in
+the presence of that functionary, induced him to believe and testify
+that he broke to pieces, with a hammer, a superb diamond, of his own
+manufacture, the exact counterpart of another, of similar origin, which
+he had just sold for 5,500 louis d&#8217;or.</p>
+
+<p>His career and transformations on the Continent were multiform. In 1762,
+he was mixed up with the dynastic conspiracies and changes at St.
+Petersburg; and his importance there was indicated ten years later, by
+the reception given to him at Vienna by the Russian Count Orloff, who
+accosted him joyously as &#8220;caro padre&#8221; (dear father,) and gave him twenty
+thousand golden Venetian sequins.</p>
+
+<p>From Petersburg he went to Berlin, where he at once attracted the
+attention of Frederick the Great, who questioned Voltaire about him; the
+latter replying, as it is said, that he was a man who knew all things,
+and would live to the end of the world&mdash;a fair statement, in brief, of
+the position assumed by more than one of our ward politicians!</p>
+
+<p>In 1774, he took up his abode at Schwabach, in Germany, under the name
+of Count Tzarogy, which is a transposition of Ragotzy, a well-known
+noble name. The Margrave of Anspach met him at the house of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span>
+favorite Clairon, the actress, and became so fond of him, that he
+insisted upon his company to Italy. On his return, he went to Dresden,
+Leipzig, and Hamburg, and finally to Eckernfiorde, in Schleswig, where
+he took up his residence with the Landgrave Karl of Hesse; and at
+length, in 1783, tired, as he said, of life, and disdaining any longer
+immortality, he gave up the ghost.</p>
+
+<p>It was during St. Germain&#8217;s residence in Schleswig that he was visited
+by the renowned Cagliostro, who openly acknowledged him as master, and
+learned many of his most precious secrets from him&mdash;among others, the
+faculty of discriminating the character by the handwriting, and of
+fascinating birds, animals, and reptiles.</p>
+
+<p>To trace the wanderings of St. Germain is a difficult task, as he had
+innumerable aliases, and often totally disappeared for months together.
+In Venice, he was known as the Count de Bellamare; at Pisa, as the
+Chevalier de Schoening; at Milan, as the Chevalier Welldone; at Genoa,
+as the Count Soltikow, etc.</p>
+
+<p>In all these journeys, his own personal tastes were quiet and simple,
+and he manifested more attachment for a pocket-copy of Guarini&#8217;s &#8220;Pastor
+Fido&#8221;&mdash;his only library&mdash;than for any other object in his possession.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, the Count de St. Germain was a man of magnificent
+attainments, but the use he made of his talents proved him to be also a
+most magnificent humbug.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">RIZA BEY, THE PERSIAN ENVOY TO LOUIS XIV.</p>
+
+
+<p>The most gorgeous, and with one sole exception the most glorious reign
+that France has known, so far as military success is concerned, was that
+of Louis XIV, the Grand Monarque. His was the age of lavish expenditure,
+of magnificent structures, grand festivals, superb dress and equipage,
+aristocratic arrogance, brilliant campaigns, and great victories. It
+was, moreover, particularly distinguished for the number and high
+character of the various special embassies sent to the court of France
+by foreign powers. Among these, Spain, the Netherlands, Great Britain,
+and Venice rivaled each other in extravagant display and pomp. The
+singular and really tangible imposture I am about to describe, practiced
+at such a period and on such a man as Louis of France, was indeed a bold
+and dashing affair.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;L&#8217;Etat c&#8217;est moi&#8221;&mdash;&#8220;I am the State,&#8221; was Louis&#8217; celebrated and very
+significant motto; for in his own hands he had really concentrated all
+the powers of the realm, and woe to him who trifled with a majesty so
+real and so imperial!</p>
+
+<p>However, notwithstanding all this imposing strength, this mighty
+domineering will, and this keen intelligence, a man was found bold
+enough to brave them all in the arena of pure humbug. It was toward the
+close of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span> year 1667, when Louis, in the plenitude of military
+success, returned from his campaign in Flanders, where his invincible
+troops had proven too much for the broad breeched but gallant Dutchmen.
+In the short space of three months he had added whole provinces,
+including some forty or fifty cities and towns, to his dominions; and
+his fame was ringing throughout Christendom. It had even penetrated to
+the farthest East; and the King of Siam sent a costly embassy from his
+remote kingdom, to offer his congratulations and fraternal greeting to
+the most eminent potentate of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>Louis had already removed the pageantries of his royal household to his
+magnificent new palace of Versailles, on which the wealth of conquered
+kingdoms had been lavished, and there, in the Great Hall of Mirrors,
+received the homage of his own nobles and the ambassadors of foreign
+powers. The utmost splendor of which human life was susceptible seemed
+so common and familiar in those days, that the train was dazzling indeed
+that could excite any very particular attention. What would have seemed
+stupendous elsewhere was only in conformity with all the rest of the
+scene at Versailles. But, at length, there came something that made even
+the pampered courtiers of the new Babylon stare&mdash;a Persian embassy. Yes,
+a genuine, actual, living envoy from that wonderful Empire in the East,
+which in her time had ruled the whole Oriental world, and still retained
+almost fabulous wealth and splendor.</p>
+
+<p>It was announced formally, one morning, to Louis, that His Most Serene
+Excellency, Riza Bey, with an interminable tail of titles, hangers-on
+and equipages,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span> had reached the port of Marseilles, having journeyed by
+way of Trebizond and <a name="corr111" id="corr111"></a>Constantinople, to lay before the great &#8220;King of
+the Franks&#8221; brotherly congratulations and gorgeous presents from his own
+illustrious master, the Shah of Persia. This was something entirely to
+the taste of the vain French ruler, whom unlimited good fortune had
+inflated beyond all reasonable proportions. He firmly believed that he
+was by far the greatest man who had ever lived; and had an embassy from
+the moon or the planet Jupiter been announced to him, would have deemed
+it not only natural enough, but absolutely due to his pre&euml;minence above
+all other human beings. Nevertheless, he was, secretly, immensely
+pleased with the Persian demonstration, and gave orders that no expense
+should be spared in giving the strangers a reception worthy of himself
+and France.</p>
+
+<p>It would be needless for me to detail the events of the progress of Riza
+Bey from Marseilles to Paris, by way of Avignon and Lyons. It was
+certainly in keeping with the pretensions of the Ambassador. From town
+to town the progress was a continued ovation. Triumphal arches,
+bonfires, chimes of bells, and hurrahing crowds in their best bibs and
+tuckers, military parades and civic ceremonies, everywhere awaited the
+children of the farthest East, who were stared at, shouted at&mdash;and by
+some wretched cynics sneered and laughed at&mdash;to their hearts&#8217; content.
+All modern glory very largely consists in being nearly stunned with
+every species of noise, choked with dust, and dragged about through the
+streets, until you are well nigh dead. Witness the Japanese Embassy and
+their visit to this country, where,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span> in some cases, the poor creatures,
+after hours of unmitigated boring with all sorts of mummery, actually
+had their pigtails pulled by Young America in the rear, and&mdash;as at the
+windows of Willard&#8217;s Hotel in Washington&mdash;were stirred up with long
+canes, like the Polar Bear or the Learned Seal.</p>
+
+<p>Still Riza Bey and his dozen or two of dusky companions did not, by any
+means, cut so splendid a figure as had been expected. They had with them
+some camels, antelopes, bulbuls, and monkeys&mdash;like any travelling
+caravan, and were dressed in the most outrageous and outlandish attire.
+They jabbered, too, a gibberish utterly incomprehensible to the crowd,
+and did everything that had never been seen or done before. All this,
+however, delighted the populace. Had they been similarly transmogrified,
+or played such queer pranks themselves, it would only have been food for
+mockery; but the foreign air and fame of the thing made it all
+wonderful, and, as the chief rogue in the plot had foreseen, blinded the
+popular eye and made his &#8220;embassy&#8221; a complete success.</p>
+
+<p>At length, after some four weeks of slow progress, the &#8220;Persians&#8221;
+arrived at Paris, where they were received, as had been expected, with
+tremendous <i>&eacute;clat</i>. They entered by Barri&eacute;re du Tr&ocirc;ne, so styled because
+it was there that Louis Quatorze himself had been received upon a
+temporary throne, set up, with splendid decorations and triumphal
+arches, in the open air, when he returned from his Flanders campaign.
+Riza Bey was upon this occasion a little more splendid than he had been
+on his way from the sea-coast, and really loomed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span> up in startling style
+in his tall, black, rimless hat of wool, shaped precisely like an
+elongated flower-pot, and his silk robes dangling to his heels and
+covered with huge painted figures and bright metal decorations of every
+shape and size unknown, to European man-millinery. A circlet or collar,
+apparently of gold, set with precious stones (California diamonds!)
+surrounded his neck, and monstrous glittering rings covered all the
+fingers, and even the thumbs of both his hands. His train, consisting of
+sword, cup, and pipe bearers, doctors, chief cooks, and bottle-washers,
+cork extractors and chiropodists (literally so, for it seems that
+sharing the common lot of humanity, great men have corns even in
+Persia,) were similarly arrayed as to fashion, but less stupendously in
+jewelry.</p>
+
+<p>Well, after the throng had scampered, crowded, and shouted themselves
+hoarse, and had straggled to their homes, sufficiently tired and
+pocket-picked, the Ambassador and his suite were lodged in sumptuous
+apartments in the old royal residence of the Tuileries, under the care
+and charge of King Louis&#8217; own assistant Major-Domo and a guard of
+courtiers and regiments of Royal Swiss. Banqueting and music filled up
+the first evening; and upon the ensuing day His Majesty, who thus did
+his visitors especial honor, sent the Duc de Richelieu, the most
+polished courtier and diplomatist in France, to announce that he would
+graciously receive them on the third evening at Versailles.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the most extensive preparations were made for the grand
+audience thus accorded; and when the appointed occasion had arrived, the
+entire<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span> Gallery of Mirrors with all the adjacent spaces and corridors,
+were crowded with the beauty, the chivalry, the wit, taste, and
+intellect of France at that dazzling period. The gallery, which is three
+hundred and eighty feet in length by fifty in height, derives its name
+from the priceless mirrors which adorn its walls, reaching from floor to
+ceiling, opposite the long row of equally tall and richly mullioned
+windows that look into the great court and gardens. These windows, hung
+with the costliest silk curtains and adorned with superb historical
+statuary, give to the hall a light and a&euml;rial appearance indescribably
+enchanting; while the mirrors reflect in ten thousand variations the
+hall itself and its moving pageantry, rendering both apparently
+interminable. Huge marble vases filled with odorous exotics lined the
+stairways, and twelve thousand wax lights in gilded brackets, and
+chandeliers of the richest workmanship, shone upon three thousand titled
+heads.</p>
+
+<p>Louis the Great himself never appeared to finer advantage. His truly
+royal countenance was lighted up with pride and satisfaction as the
+Envoy of the haughty Oriental king approached the splendid throne on
+which he sat, and as he descended a step to meet him and stood there in
+his magnificent robes of state, the Persian envoy bent the knee, and
+with uncovered head presented the credentials of his mission. Of the
+crowd that immediately surrounded the throne, it is something to say
+that the Grand Colbert, the famous Minister, and the Admiral Duquesne
+were by no means the most eminent, nor the lovely Duchess of Orleans and
+her companion, the bewitching Mademoiselle de Kerouaille,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span> who afterward
+changed the policy of Charles II, of England, by no means the most
+beautiful personages in the galaxy.</p>
+
+<p>A grand ball and supper concluded this night of splendor, and Riza Bey
+was fairly launched at the French court; every member of which, to
+please the King, tried to outvie his compeers in the assiduity of his
+attentions, and the value of the books, pictures, gems, equipages, arms,
+<a name="corr112" id="corr112"></a>&amp;c., which they heaped upon the illustrious Persian. The latter
+gentleman very quietly smoked his pipe and lounged on his divan before
+company, and diligently packed up the goods when he and his &#8220;jolly
+companions&#8221; were left alone. The presents of the Shah had not yet
+arrived, but were daily expected via Marseilles, and from time to time
+the olive-colored suite was diminished by the departure of one of the
+number with his chest on a special mission (so stated) to England,
+Austria, Portugal, Spain, and other European powers.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, the Bey was feted in all directions, with every species
+of entertainment, and it was whispered that the fair ones of that
+dissolute court were, from the first, eager in the bestowal of their
+smiles. The King favored his Persian pet with numerous personal
+interviews, at which, in broken French, the Envoy unfolded the most
+imposing schemes of Oriental conquest and commerce that his master was
+cordially willing to share with his great brother of France. At one of
+these chatty t&ecirc;te-&aacute;-t&ecirc;tes, the munificent Riza Bey, upon whom the King
+had already conferred his own portrait set in diamonds, and other gifts
+worth sev<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span>eral millions of francs, placed in the Royal hand <a name="corr113" id="corr113"></a>several
+superb fragments of opal and turquoise said to have been found in a
+district of country bordering on the Caspian sea, which teemed with
+limitless treasures of the same kind, and which the Shah of Persia
+proposed to divide with France for the honor of her alliance. The king
+was enchanted; for these mere specimens, as they were deemed, must, if
+genuine, be worth in themselves a mint of money; and a province full of
+such&mdash;why, the thought was charming!</p>
+
+<p>Thus the great King-fish was fairly hooked, and Riza Bey could take his
+time. The golden tide that flowed in to him did not slacken, and his own
+expenses were all provided for at the Tuileries. The only thing
+remaining to be done was a grand foray on the tradesmen of Paris, and
+this was splendidly executed. The most exquisite wares of all
+descriptions were gathered in, without mention of payment; and one by
+one the Persian phalanx distributed itself through Europe until only two
+or three were left with the Ambassador.</p>
+
+<p>At length, word was sent to Versailles that the gifts from the Shah had
+come, and a day was appointed for their presentation. The day arrived,
+and the Hall of Audience was again thrown open. All was jubilee; the
+King and the court waited, but no Persian&mdash;no Riza <a name="corr114" id="corr114"></a>Bey&mdash;no presents from
+the Shah!</p>
+
+<p>That morning three men, without either caftans or robes, but very much
+resembling the blacklegs of the day in their attire and deportment, had
+left the Tuileries at daylight with a bag and a bundle, and returned no
+more. They were Riza Bey and his last body-guard;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span> the bag and the
+bundle were the smallest in bulk but the most precious in value of a
+month&#8217;s successful plunder. The turquoises and opals left with the King
+turned out, upon close inspection, to be a new and very ingenious
+variety of colored glass, now common enough, and then worth, if
+anything, about thirty cents in cash.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, a hue and cry was raised in all directions, but totally in
+vain. Riza Bey, the Persian Shah, and the gentlemen in flower-pots, had
+&#8220;gone glimmering through the dream of things that were.&#8221; L&#8217;etat c&#8217;est
+moi had been sold for thirty cents! It was afterward believed that a
+noted barber and suspected bandit at Leghorn, who had once really
+traveled in Persia, and there picked up the knowledge and the ready
+money that served his turn, was the perpetrator of this pretty joke and
+speculation, as he disappeared from his native city about the time of
+the embassy in France, and did not return.</p>
+
+<p>All Europe laughed heartily at the Grand Monarque and his fair
+court-dames, and &#8220;An Embassy from Persia&#8221; was for many years thereafter
+an expression similar to &#8220;Walker!&#8221; in English, or &#8220;Buncombe!&#8221; in
+American conversation, when the party using it seeks to intimate that
+the color of his optics is not a distinct pea-green!</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="IX_RELIGIOUS_HUMBUGS" id="IX_RELIGIOUS_HUMBUGS"></a>IX. RELIGIOUS HUMBUGS.</h2>
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND; OR, YANKEE SUPERSTITIONS.&mdash;&#8203;MATTHIAS THE
+IMPOSTOR.&mdash;&#8203;NEW YORK FOLLIES THIRTY YEARS AGO.</p>
+
+
+<p>There is a story that on a great and solemn public occasion of the
+Romish Church, a Pope and a Cardinal were, with long faces, performing
+some of the gyrations of the occasion, when, instead of a pious
+ejaculation and reply, which were down in the programme, one said to the
+other gravely, in Latin &#8220;<i>mundus vult decipi</i>;&#8221; and the other replied,
+with equal gravity and learning, &#8220;<i>decipiatur ergo</i>:&#8221; that is, &#8220;All the
+world chooses to be fooled.&#8221;&mdash;&#8220;Let it be fooled then.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This seems, perhaps, a reasonable way for priests to talk about ignorant
+Italians. It may seem inapplicable to cool, sharp, school-trained
+Protestant Yankees. It is not, however&mdash;at least, not entirely.
+Intelligent Northerners have, sometimes, superstition enough in them to
+make a first-class Popish saint. If it had not been so, I should not
+have such an absurd religious humbug to tell of as Robert Matthews,
+notorious in our goodly city some thirty years ago as &#8220;Matthias, the
+Impostor.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In the summer of 1832, there was often seen riding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span> in Broadway, in a
+handsome barouche, or promenading on the Battery (usually attended by a
+sort of friend or servant,) a tall man, of some forty years of age,
+quite thin, with sunken, sharp gray eyes, with long, coarse, brown and
+gray hair, parted in the middle and curling on his shoulders, and a long
+and coarse but well-tended beard and mustache. These Esau-like
+adornments attracted much attention in those close-shaving days. He was
+commonly dressed in a fine green frock-coat, lined with white or pink
+satin, black or green pantaloons, with polished Wellington boots drawn
+on outside, fine cambric ruffles and frill, and a crimson silk sash
+worked with gold and with twelve tassels, for the twelve tribes of
+Israel. On his head was a steeple-crowned patent-leather shining black
+cap with a shade.</p>
+
+<p>Thus bedizened, this fantastic-looking personage marched gravely up and
+down, or rode in pomp in the streets. Sometimes he lounged in a
+bookstore or other place of semi-public resort; and in such places he
+often preached or exhorted. His preachments were sufficiently horrible.
+He claimed to be God the Father; and his doctrine was, in substance,
+this:&mdash;&#8220;The true kingdom of God on earth began in Albany in June 1830,
+and will be completed in twenty-one years, or by 1851. During this time,
+wars are to stop, and I, Matthias, am to execute the divine judgments
+and destroy the wicked. The day of grace is to close on December 1,
+1836; and all who do not begin to reform by that time, I shall kill.&#8221;
+The discourses by which this blasphemous humbug supported his
+pretensions were a hodge-podge of impiety and utter nonsense, with
+rants, curses and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span> cries, and frightful threats against all objectors.
+Here is a passage from one;&mdash;&#8220;All who eat swine&#8217;s flesh are of the
+devil; and just as certain as he eats it he will tell a lie in less than
+half an hour. If you eat a piece of pork, it will go crooked through
+you, and the Holy Ghost will not stay in you; but one or the other must
+leave the house pretty soon. The pork will be as crooked in you as rams&#8217;
+horns.&#8221; Again, he made these pleasant points about the ladies: &#8220;They who
+teach women are of the wicked. All females who lecture their husbands
+their sentence is: &#8216;Depart, ye wicked, I know you not.&#8217; Everything that
+has the smell of woman will be destroyed. Woman is the cap-sheaf of the
+abomination of desolation, full of all deviltry.&#8221; There, ladies! Is
+anything further necessary to convince you what a peculiarly wicked and
+horrible humbug this fellow was?</p>
+
+<p>If we had followed this impostor home, we should have found him lodged,
+during most of his stay in New-York city, with one or the other of his
+three chief disciples. These were Pierson, who commonly attended him
+abroad, Folger, and&mdash;for a time only&mdash;Mills. All three of these men were
+wealthy merchants. In their handsome and luxuriously-furnished homes,
+this noxious humbug occupied the best rooms, and controlled the whole
+establishment, directing the marketing, meal times, and all other
+household-matters. Master, mistress (in Mr. Folger&#8217;s home,) and
+domestics were disciples, and obeyed the scamp with an implicitness and
+prostrate humility even more melancholy than absurd, both as to
+housekeeping and as to the ceremonies, washing of feet,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span> etc., which he
+enjoined. When he was angry with his female disciples, he frequently
+whipped them; but, being a monstrous coward, he never tried it on a man.
+The least opposition or contradiction threw him into a great rage, and
+set him screaming, and cursing, and gesticulating like any street drab.
+When he wished more clothes, which was pretty often, one of his dupes
+furnished the money. When he wanted cash for any purpose indeed, they
+gave it him.</p>
+
+<p>This half-crazy knave and abominable humbug was Robert Matthews, who
+called himself Matthias. He was of Scotch descent, and born about 1790,
+in Washington county, New York; and his blood was tainted with insanity,
+for a brother of his died a lunatic. He was a carpenter and joiner of
+uncommon skill, and up to nearly his fortieth year lived, on the whole,
+a useful and respectable life, being industrious, a professing Christian
+of good standing, and (having married in 1813) a steady family-man. In
+1828 and 1829, while living at Albany, he gradually became excited about
+religious subjects; his first morbid symptoms appearing after hearing
+some sermons by Rev. E. N. Kirk, and Mr. Finney the revivalist. He soon
+began to exhort his fellow-journeymen instead of minding his work, so
+uproariously that his employer turned him away.</p>
+
+<p>He discovered a text in the Bible that forbid Christians to shave. He
+let his hair and beard grow; began street-preaching in a noisy, brawling
+style; announced that he was going to set about converting the whole
+city of Albany&mdash;which needed it badly enough, if we may believe the
+political gentlemen. Finding however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span> that the Lobby, or the Regency,
+or something or other about the peculiar wickedness of Albany, was
+altogether too much for him, he began, like Jonah at Nineveh, to
+announce the destruction of the obstinate town; and at midnight, one
+night in June, 1826, he waked up his household, and saying that Albany
+was to be destroyed next day, took his three little boys&mdash;two, four, and
+six years old&mdash;his wife and oldest child (a daughter refusing to go,)
+and &#8220;fled to the mountains.&#8221; He actually walked the poor little fellows
+forty miles in twenty-four hours, to his sister&#8217;s in Washington county.
+Here he was reckoned raving crazy; was forcibly turned out of church for
+one of his brawling interruptions of service, and sent back to Albany,
+where he resumed his street-preaching more noisily than ever. He now
+began to call himself Matthias, and claimed to be a Jew. Then he went on
+a long journey to the Western and Southern States, preaching his
+doctrines, getting into jail, and sometimes fairly cursing his way out;
+and, returning to New York city, preached up and down the streets in his
+crazy, bawling fashion, sometimes on foot and sometimes on an old bony
+horse.</p>
+
+<p>His New York city dupes, Elijah Pierson and Benjamin H. Folger and their
+families, together with a Mr. Mills and a few more, figured prominently
+in the chief chapter of Matthews&#8217; career, during two years and a half,
+from May, 1832, to the fall of 1834.</p>
+
+<p>Pierson and Folger were the leaders in the folly. These men, merchants
+of wealth and successful in business, were of that sensitive and
+impressible religious nature which is peculiarly credulous and liable to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span><a name="corr115" id="corr115"></a>enthusiasms and delusions. They had been, with a number of other
+persons, eagerly engaged in some extravagant religious performances,
+including excessive fasts and <a name="corr116" id="corr116"></a>asceticisms, and a plan, formed by one of
+their lady friends, to convert all New York by a system of female
+visitations and preachings&mdash;a plan not so very foolish, I may just
+remark, if the she apostles are only pretty enough!</p>
+
+<p>Pierson, the craziest of the crew, besides other wretched delusions, had
+already fancied himself Elijah the Tishbite; and when his wife fell ill
+and died a little while before this time, had first tried to cure her,
+and then to raise her from the dead, by anointing with oil and by the
+prayer of faith, as mentioned in the Epistle of Saint James.</p>
+
+<p>Curiously enough, a sort of lair or nest, very soft and comfortable, was
+thus made ready for our religious humbug, just as he wanted it worst;
+for in these days he was but seedy. He heard something of Pierson, I
+don&#8217;t know how; and on the 5th of May, 1832, he called on him. Very
+quickly the poor fellow recognized the long-bearded prophetical humbug
+as all that he claimed to be&mdash;a possessor and teacher of all truth, and
+as God himself.</p>
+
+<p>Mills and Folger easily fell into the same pitiable foolery, on
+Pierson&#8217;s introduction. And the lucky humbug was very soon living in
+clover in Mills&#8217; house, which he chose first; had admitted the happy
+fools, Pierson and Folger, as the first two members of his true church;
+Pierson, believing that from Elijah the Tishbite he had become John the
+Baptist, devoted him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span>self as a kind of servant to his new Messiah; and
+the deluded men began to supply all the temporal wants of the impostor,
+believing their estates set apart as the beginning of the material
+Kingdom of God!</p>
+
+<p>After three months, some of Mills&#8217; friends, on charges of lunacy, caused
+Mills to be sent to Bloomingdale Asylum, and Matthias to be thrust into
+the insane poor&#8217;s ward at Bellevue, where his beard was forcibly cut
+off, to his extreme disgust. His brother, however, got him out by a
+habeas corpus, and he went to live with Folger. Mills now disappears
+from the story.</p>
+
+<p>Matthias remained in the full enjoyment of his luxurious establishment,
+until September, 1834, it is true, with a few uncomfortable
+interruptions. He was always both insolent and cowardly, and thus often
+irritated some strong-minded auditor, and got himself into some pickle
+where he had to sneak out, which he did with much ease. In his seedy
+days the landlord of a hotel in whose bar-room he used to preach and
+curse, put him down when he grew too abusive, by coolly and sternly
+telling him to go to bed. Mr. Folger himself had one or two brief
+intervals of sense, in one of which, angered at some insolence of
+Matthias, he seized him by the throat, shook him well, and flung him
+down upon a sofa. The humbug knowing that his living was in danger, took
+this very mildly, and readily accepted the renewed assurances of belief
+which poor Folger soon gave him. In the village of Sing Sing where
+Folger had a country-seat which he called Mount Zion, Matthias was
+exceedingly obnoxious. His daughter had married a Mr. Laisdell; and the
+humbug, who claimed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span> that all Christian marriages were void and wicked,
+by some means induced the young wife to come to Sing Sing, where he
+whipped her more than once quite cruelly. Her husband came and took her
+away after encountering all the difficulty which Matthias dared make;
+and, at a hearing in the matter before a magistrate, he was very near
+getting tarred and feathered, if not something worse, and the danger
+frightened him very much.</p>
+
+<p>He barely escaped being shaved by violence, and being thrown overboard
+to test his asserted miraculous powers, at the hands of a stout and
+incredulous farmer on the steamboat between Sing Sing and New York.
+While imprisoned at Bellevue before his trial, he was tossed in a
+blanket by the prisoners, to make him give them some money. The unlucky
+prophet dealt out damnation to them in great quantities; but they told
+him it wouldn&#8217;t work, and the poor humbug finally, instead of casting
+them into hell, paid them a quarter of a dollar apiece to let him off.
+When he was about to leave Folger&#8217;s house, some roguish young men of
+Sing Sing forged a warrant, and with a counterfeit officer seized the
+humbug, and a second time shaved him by force. He was one day terribly
+&#8220;set back&#8221; as the phrase is, by a sharpish answer. He gravely asserted
+to a certain man that he had been on the earth eighteen hundred years.
+His hearer, startled and irreverent, exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The devil you have! Do you tell me so?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do,&#8221; said the prophet.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then,&#8221; rejoined the other, &#8220;all I have to say is, you are a remarkably
+good-looking fellow for one of your age.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span>The confounded prophet grinned, scowled, and exclaimed indignantly:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are a devil, Sir!&#8221; and marched off.</p>
+
+<p>In the beginning of August, 1834, the unhappy Pierson died in Folger&#8217;s
+house, under circumstances amounting to strong circumstantial evidence
+that Matthias, with the help of the colored cook, an enthusiastic
+disciple, had poisoned him with arsenic. The rascal pretended that his
+own curse had slain Pierson. There was a post mortem, an indictment, and
+a trial, but the evidence was not strong enough for conviction. Being
+acquitted, he was at once tried again for an assault and battery on his
+daughter by the aforesaid whippings; and on this charge he was found
+guilty and sent to the county jail for three months, in April, 1835. The
+trial for murder was just before&mdash;the prophet having lain in prison
+since his apprehension for murder in the preceding autumn. Mr. Folger&#8217;s
+delusion had pretty much disappeared by the end of the summer of 1834.
+He had now become ruined, partly in consequence of foolish speculations
+jointly with Pierson, believed to be conducted under Divine guidance,
+and partly because his strange conduct destroyed his business reputation
+and standing. The death of Pierson, and some very queer matters about
+another apparent poisoning-trick, awakened the suspicions of the
+Folgers; and after a good deal of scolding and trouble with the
+impostor, who hung on to his comfortable home like a good fellow, Folger
+finally turned him out, and then had him taken up for swindling. He had
+been too foolish himself, however, to maintain this charge; but, shortly
+after, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span> others, for murder and assault, followed, with a little
+better success.</p>
+
+<p>This imprisonment seems to have put a sudden and final period to the
+prophetical and religious operations of Master Matthias, and to the
+follies of his victims, too. I know of no subsequent developments of
+either kind. Matthias disappears from public life, and died, it is said,
+in Arkansas; but when, or after what further career, I don&#8217;t know. He
+was a shallow knave, and undoubtedly also partly crazy and partly the
+dupe of his own nonsense. If he had not so opportunely found victims of
+good standing, he would not have been remembered at all, except as
+George Munday, the &#8220;hatless prophet,&#8221; and &#8220;Angel Gabriel Orr,&#8221; are
+remembered&mdash;as one more obscure, crazy street-preacher. And as soon as
+his accidental supports of other people&#8217;s money and enthusiasm failed
+him, he disappeared at once. Many of my readers will remember
+distinctly, as I do, the remarkable career of this man, and the
+humiliating position in which his victims were placed. In the face of
+such an exposition as this of the weakness and credulity of poor human
+nature in this enlightened country of common schools and colleges, in
+the boasted wide-awake nineteenth century, who shall deny that we can
+study with interest and profit the history of impositions which have
+been practiced upon mankind in every possible phase throughout every age
+of the world, including the age in which we live? There is literally no
+end to these humbugs; and the reader of these pages, weak as may be my
+attempts to do the subject justice, will learn that there is no country,
+no period, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span> no sphere in life which has not been impiously invaded
+by the genius of humbug, under more disguises and in more shapes than it
+has entered into the heart of man to conceive.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER XLV.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">A RELIGIOUS HUMBUG ON JOHN BULL.&mdash;&#8203;JOANNA SOUTHCOTT.&mdash;&#8203;THE SECOND SHILOH.</p>
+
+
+<p>Joanna Southcott was born at St. Mary&#8217;s Ottery in Devonshire, about the
+year 1750. She was a plain, stout-limbed, hard-fisted farmer lass, whose
+toils in the field&mdash;for her father was in but very moderate
+circumstances&mdash;had tawned her complexion and hardened her muscles, at an
+early age. As she grew toward woman&#8217;s estate, necessity compelled her to
+leave her home and seek service in the city of Exeter, where for many
+years, she plodded on very quietly in her obscure path, first, as a
+domestic hireling, and subsequently as a washer woman.</p>
+
+<p>I have an old and esteemed friend on Staten Island whose father, still
+living, recollects Joanna well, as she used to come regularly to his
+house of a Monday morning, to her task of cleansing the family linen. He
+was then but a little lad, yet he remembers her quite well, with her
+stout, robust frame, and buxom and rather attractive countenance, and
+her queer ways. Even then she was beginning to invite attention by her
+singular manners and discourse, which led many to believe her demented.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span>It was at Exeter that Joanna became religiously impressed, and joined
+the Wesleyan Methodists, as a strict and extreme believer in the
+doctrines of that sect. During her attendance upon the Wesleyan rites,
+she became intimate with one Sanderson, who, whether a designing rogue,
+or only a very fanatical believer, pretended that he had discovered in
+the good washerwoman a Bible prodigy; and it was not long before the
+poor creature began literally, to &#8220;see sights&#8221; and dream dreams of the
+most preternatural description, for which Sanderson always had ready
+some very telling <a name="corr117" id="corr117"></a>interpretation. Her visions were of the most
+thoroughly &#8220;mixed&#8221; character withal, sometimes transporting her to the
+courts of heaven, and sometimes to a very opposite region, celebrated
+for its latent and active caloric. When she ranged into the lower world,
+she had a very unpleasant habit of seeing sundry scoffers and
+unbelievers (in herself) belonging to the congregation, in very close
+but disadvantageous intercourse with the Evil One, who was represented
+as having a particular eye to others around her, even while they laid
+claim to special piety. Of course, such revelations as these could not
+be tolerated in any well regulated community, and when some most
+astounding religious gymnastics performed by Joanna in the midst of
+prayers and sermons, occurred to heap up the measure of her offences, it
+became full time to take the matter in hand, and the prophetess was
+expelled. Now, those whom she had not served up openly with brimstone,
+agreeing with her about those whom she had thus &#8220;cooked,&#8221; and delighted
+in their own exemption from that sort of dressing, seceded in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span>
+considerable numbers, and became Joanna&#8217;s followers. This gave her a
+nucleus to work upon, and between 1790 and 1800, she managed to make
+herself known throughout Britain, proclaiming that she was to be the
+destined Mother of the Second Messiah, and although originally quite
+illiterate, picking up enough general information and Bible lore, to
+facilitate her publication of several very curious, though sometimes
+incoherent works. One of the earliest and most startling of these was
+her &#8220;Warning to the whole World, from the Sealed Prophecies of Joanna
+Southcott, and other communications given since the writings were opened
+on the 12th of January, 1803.&#8221; This foretold the close approach of the
+great red dragon of the Revelations, &#8220;with seven heads and ten horns,
+and seven crowns upon his heads,&#8221; and the birth of the &#8220;man-child who
+was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In 1805, a shoemaker named Tozer built her a chapel in Exeter at his
+own expense, and it was, from the first, constantly filled on
+service-days with eager worshipers. Here she gave exhortations, and
+prophesied in a species of religious frenzy or convulsion, sometimes
+uttering very heavy prose, and sometimes the most fearful <a name="corr118" id="corr118"></a>doggerel
+rhyme resembling&mdash;well&mdash;perhaps our album effusions here at home!
+Indeed, I can think of nothing else equally fearful. In these
+paroxysms, Joanna raved like an ancient Pythoness whirling on her
+tripod, and to just about the same purpose. Yet, it was astonishing to
+see how the thing went down. Crowds of intelligent people came from all
+parts of the United Kingdom to listen, be converted, and to receive
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span> &#8220;seals&#8221; (as they were called) that secured their fortunate
+possessor unimpeded and immediate admission to heaven. Of course,
+tickets so precious could not be given away for nothing, and the seal
+trade in this new form proved very lucrative.</p>
+
+<p>The most remarkable of all these conversions was that of the celebrated
+engraver, William Sharp, who, notwithstanding his eminent position as an
+artist, by no means bore out his name in other things. He had previously
+become thoroughly imbued with the notions of Swedenborg, Mesmer, and the
+famous Richard Brothers, and was quite ripe for anything fantastic. Such
+a convert was a perfect godsend to Joanna, and she was easily persuaded
+to accompany him to London, where her congregations rapidly increased to
+enormous proportions, even rivaling those now summoned by the &#8220;drum
+ecclesiastical&#8221; and orthodox of the Rev. Mr. Spurgeon.</p>
+
+<p>The whole sect extended until, in 1813, it numbered no less than one
+hundred thousand members, signed and &#8220;sealed&#8221;&mdash;Mr. Sharp occupying a
+most conspicuous position at the very footstool of the Prophetess. Late
+in 1813, appeared the &#8220;Book of Wonders,&#8221; &#8220;in five parts,&#8221; and it was a
+clincher. Poor Sharp came in largely for the expenses, but valiantly
+stood his ground against it all. At length, in 1814, the great Joanna
+dazzled the eyes of her adherents and the world at large with her
+&#8220;Prophecies concerning the Prince of Peace.&#8221; This delectable manifesto
+flatly announced to mankind that the second Shiloh, so long expected,
+would be born of the Prophetess at midnight, on October 19, in that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span>
+same year, <i>i. e.</i> 1814. The inspired writer was then enceinte, although
+a virgin, as she expressly and solemnly declared, and in the
+sixty-fourth year of her age. Among the other preternatural concomitants
+of this anticipated eventful birth, was the fact that the period of her
+pregnancy had lasted for several years.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, this stupendous announcement threw the whole sect into
+ecstasies of religious exultation; while, on the other hand, it afforded
+a fruitful subject of ridicule for the utterly irreverent London
+pamphleteers. Poor Sharp, who had caused a magnificent cradle and
+baby-wardrobe to be got ready at his own expense, was most unmercifully
+scored. The infant was caricatured with a long gray beard and
+spectacles, with Sharp in a duster carefully rocking him to sleep, while
+Joanna the Prophetess treated the engraver to some &#8220;cuts&#8221; in her own
+style, with a bunch of twigs.</p>
+
+<p>On the appointed night, the street in which Joanna lived was thronged
+with the faithful, who, undeterred by sarcasm, fully credited her
+prediction. They bivouacked on the side-walks in motley crowds of men,
+women, and children; and as the hours wore on, and their interest
+increased, burst forth into spontaneous psalmody. The adjacent
+thoroughfares were as densely jammed with curious and incredulous
+spectators, and the mutton pie and ballad businesses flourished
+extensively. The interior of the house, with the exception of the sick
+chamber, was illuminated in all directions, and the dignitaries of the
+sect held the ante-rooms and corridors, &#8220;in full fig,&#8221; to receive the
+expected guest. But the evening passed, then midnight came, then
+morning, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span> alas! no Shiloh; and, little by little, the disappointed
+throngs dispersed! Poor Joanna, however, kept her bed, and finally,
+after many fresh paroxysms and prophecies, on the 27th of December,
+1814, gave up the ghost&mdash;the indefatigable Sharp still declaring that
+she had gone to heaven for a season, only to legitimatize the unborn
+infant, and would re-arise again from death, after four days, with the
+Shiloh in her arms. So firm was this faith in him and many other
+respectable persons, that the body of the Prophetess was retained in her
+house until the very last moment. When the dissection demanded by the
+majority of the sect could no longer be delayed, that operation was
+performed, and it was found that the subject had died of ovarian dropsy;
+but was&mdash;as she had always maintained herself to be&mdash;a virgin. Dr.
+Reece, who had been a devout believer, but was now undeceived, published
+a full account of this and all the other circumstances of her death, and
+another equally earnest disciple bore the expenses of her burial at St.
+John&#8217;s Wood, and placed over her a tombstone with appropriate
+inscriptions.</p>
+
+<p>As late as 1863, there were many families of believers still existing
+near Chatham, in Kent; and even in this country can here and there be
+found admirers of the creed of Joanna Southcott, who are firmly
+convinced that she will re-appear some fine morning, with Sanderson on
+one side of her and Sharp on the other.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI"></a>CHAPTER XLVI.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE FIRST HUMBUG IN THE WORLD.&mdash;&#8203;ADVANTAGES OF STUDYING THE IMPOSITIONS
+OF FORMER AGES.&mdash;&#8203;HEATHEN HUMBUGS.&mdash;&#8203;THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES.&mdash;&#8203;THE
+CABIRI.&mdash;&#8203;ELEUSIS.&mdash;&#8203;ISIS.</p>
+
+
+<p>The domain of humbug reaches back to the Garden of Eden, where the
+Father of lies practised it upon our poor, innocent first grandmother,
+Eve. This was the first and worst of all humbugs. But from that eventful
+day to the present moment, falsehood, hypocrisy, deception, imposition,
+cant, bigotry, false appearances and false pretences, superstitions, and
+all conceivable sorts of humbugs, have had a full swing, and he or she
+who watches these things most closely, and reflects most deeply upon
+these various peculiarities, bearings, and results, will be best
+qualified to detect and to avoid them. For this reason, I should look
+upon myself as somewhat of a public benefactor, in exposing the humbugs
+of the world, if I felt competent to do the subject full justice.</p>
+
+<p>Next to the fearful humbug practiced upon our first parents, came
+heathen humbugs generally. All heathenism and idolatry are one grand
+complex humbug to begin with. All the heathen religions always were, and
+are still, audacious, colossal, yet shallow and foolish, humbugs. The
+heathen humbugs were played off by the priests, the shrewdest men then
+alive. It is a curi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span>ous fact that the heathen humbugs were all solemn.
+This was because they were intended to maintain the existing religions,
+which, like all false religions, could not endure ridicule. They always
+appealed to the pious terrors of the public, as well as to its ignorance
+and appetite for marvels. They offered nothing pleasant, nothing to
+love, nothing to gladden the heart and lift it up in joyful gratitude,
+true adoration, and childlike confidence, prayer, and thanksgiving. On
+the contrary, awful noises, fearful sights, frightful threats, foaming
+at the mouth, dark sayings, secret processions, bloody sacrifices, grim
+priests, costly offerings, sleeps in darksome caverns to wait for a
+dream from the god&mdash;these were the machineries of the ancient heathen.
+They were as crude and as ferocious as those of the King of Dahomey, or
+of the barbarous negroes of the Guinea coast. But they often show a
+cunning as keen and effective as that of any quack, or Philadelphia
+lawyer, or Davenport Brother, or Jackson Davis of to-day.</p>
+
+<p>The most prominent of the heathen humbugs were the mysteries, the
+oracles, the sibyls (N. B., the word is often mis-spelled sybils,) and
+augury. Every respectable Pagan religion had some mysteries, just as
+every respectable Christian family has a bible&mdash;and, as an ill-natured
+proverb has it, a skeleton. It was considered a poor religion&mdash;a one
+horse religion, so to speak&mdash;that had no mysteries.</p>
+
+<p>The chief mysteries were those of the Cabiri, of Eleusis, and of Isis.
+These mysteries used exactly the same kind of machinery which proves so
+effective every day in modern mysteries, viz., shows, processions,
+voices,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span> lights, dark rooms, frightful sights, solemn mummeries,
+striking costumes, big talks and preachments, threats, gabbles of
+nonsense, etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>The mysteries of the Cabiri are the most ancient of which anything is
+known. These Cabiri were a sort of &#8220;Original old Dr. Jacob Townsends&#8221; of
+divinities. They were considered senior and superior to Jupiter,
+Neptune, Plato, and the gods of Olympus. They were Pelasgic, that is,
+they belonged to that unknown ancient people from whom both the Greek
+and the Latin nations are thought to have come. The Cabiri afterward
+figured as the &#8220;elder gods&#8221; of Greece, the inventors of religion, and of
+the human race in fact, and were kept so very dark that it is not even
+known, with any certainty, who they were. The ancient heathen gods, like
+modern thieves, very usually objected to pass by their real names. The
+Cabiri were particularly at home in Lemnos, and afterward in Samothrace.</p>
+
+<p>Their mysteries were of a somewhat unpleasant character, as far as we
+know them. The candidate had to pass a long time almost starved, and
+without any enjoyment whatever; was then let into a dark temple, crowned
+with olive, tied round with a purple girdle, and frightened almost to
+death with horrid noises, terrible sights of some kind, great flashes of
+light and deep darkness between, etc., etc. There was a ceremony of
+absolution from past sin, and a formal beginning of a new life. It is a
+curious fact, that this performance seems to have been a kind of pious
+marine insurance company; as the initiated, it was believed, could not
+be drowned. Perhaps they were put in a way to obtain a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span> drier
+strangulation. The reason why these ceremonies were kept so successfully
+secret, is plain. Each man, as he was let in, and found what nonsense it
+was, was sure to hold his tongue and help the next man in, as in the
+modern case of the celebrated &#8220;Sons of Malta.&#8221; It is to be admitted,
+however, to the credit of the Cabiri, that a doctrine of reformation, or
+of living a better practical life, seems to have been part of their
+religion. This is an interesting recognition, by heathen consciences, of
+one of the greatest moral truths which Christianity has enforced.
+Something of the same kind can be traced in other heathen mysteries. But
+these heathen attempts at virtue invariably rotted out into aggravations
+of vice. No religion except Christianity ever contained the principle of
+improvement in it. Bugaboos and hob-goblins may serve for a time to
+frighten the ignorant into obedience; but if they get a chance to cheat
+the devil, they will be sure to do it. Nothing but the great doctrine of
+Christian love and brotherhood, and of a kind and paternal Divine
+government, has ever proved to be permanently reformatory, and tending
+to lift the heart above the vices and passions to which poor human
+nature is prone.</p>
+
+<p>The mysteries of Eleusis were celebrated every year at Eleusis, near
+Athens, in honor of Ceres, and were a regular &#8220;May Anniversary,&#8221; so to
+speak, for the pious heathens of the period. It took just nine days to
+complete them; long enough for a puppy to get its eyes open. The
+candidates were very handsomely put through. On the first day, they got
+together; on the second, they took a wash in the sea; on the third,
+they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span> had some ceremonies about Proserpine; on the fourth, no mortal
+knows what they did; on the fifth, they marched round a temple, two and
+two, with torches, like a Wide-Awake procession; on the sixth, seventh,
+and eighth, there were more processions, and the initiation proper, said
+to have been something like that of Free-masonry; so that we may suppose
+the victims rode the goat and were broiled on the gridiron. On the ninth
+day, the ceremony, they say, consisted in overturning two vessels of
+wine. I fear by this means that they all got drunk; and the more so,
+because the coins of Eleusis have a hog on one side, as much as to say,
+We make hogs of ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>There was a set of mysteries at Athens, called Thesmophoria, and one at
+Rome, called the mysteries of the Bona Dea, which were celebrated by
+married women only. Various notions prevailed as to what they did. But
+can there be any reasonable doubt about it? They were, I fear,
+systematic conspirators&#8217; meetings, in which the more experienced matrons
+instructed the junior ones how to manage their husbands. If this was not
+their object, then it was to maintain the influence of the heathen
+clergy over the heathen ladies. Women have always been the constituents
+of priests where false religions prevailed, as they have, for better
+purposes, of the ministers of the Gospel among Christians.</p>
+
+<p>The mysteries of the goddess Isis, which originated in Egypt, were, in
+general, like those of Ceres at Eleusis. The Persian mysteries of
+Mithra, which were very popular during part of the latter days of the
+Roman empire, were of the same sort. So were those of Bacchus, Juno,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span>
+Jupiter, and various other heathen gods. All of them were celebrated
+with great solemnity and secrecy; all included much that was terrifying;
+and all of their secrets have been so faithfully kept that we have only
+guesses and general statements about the details of the performances.
+Their principal object seems to have been to secure the initiated
+against misfortunes, and to gain prosperity in the future. Some have
+imagined that very wonderful and glorious truths were revealed in the
+midst of these heathen humbugs. But I guess that the more we find out
+about them, the bigger humbugs they will appear, as happened to the
+travelers who held a <i>post mortem</i> on the great heathen god in the
+story. This was a certain very terrible and powerful divinity among some
+savage tribes, of whom dreadful stories were told&mdash;very authentic, of
+course! Some unbelieving scamps of travelers, by unlawful ways, managed
+to get into the innermost sacred place of the temple one night. They
+found the god to be done up in a very large and suspicious looking
+bundle. Having sacrilegiously cut the string, they unrolled one envelop
+of mats and cloths after another, until they had taken off more than a
+hundred wrappers. The god grew smaller, and smaller, and smaller; and
+the wonder of the travelers what he could be, larger and larger. At
+last, the very innermost of all the coverings fell off, and the great
+heathen god was revealed in all his native majesty. It was a cracked
+soda-water bottle! This indicates&mdash;what is beyond all question the
+fact&mdash;that the heathen mysteries had their foundation in gas. Indeed,
+the whole composition of these impositions was,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span> gammon, deception,
+hypocrisy&mdash;Humbug! Truly, the science of Humbug is entitled to some
+consideration, simply for its antiquity, if for nothing else.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII"></a>CHAPTER XLVII.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">HEATHEN HUMBUGS NO. <a name="corr119" id="corr119"></a>2.&mdash;&#8203;HEATHEN STATED
+SERVICES.&mdash;&#8203;ORACLES.&mdash;&#8203;SIBYLS.&mdash;&#8203;AUGURIES.</p>
+
+
+<p>Something must be said about the Oracles, the Sibyls, and the Auguries;
+which, besides the mysteries elsewhere spoken of, were the chief
+assistant humbugs or side shows used for keeping up the great humbug
+heathen religion.</p>
+
+<p>One word about the regular worship of heathenism; what maybe called
+their stated services. They had no weekly day of worship, indeed no
+week, and no preaching such as ours is; that is, no regular instruction
+by the ministers of religion, intended for all the people. They had
+singing and praying after their fashion; the singing being a sort of
+chant of praise to whatever idol was under treatment at the time, and
+the praying being in part vain repetitions of the name of their god, and
+for the rest a request that the god would do or give whatever was asked
+of him as a fair business transaction, in return for the agreeable smell
+of the fine beef they had just roasted under his nose, or for whatever
+else they had given him; as, a sum of money, a pair of pantaloons (or
+whatever they wore instead,) a handsome golden cup. This made the temple
+a regular shop,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span> where the priests traded off promised benefits for real
+beef; coining blessings into cash on the nail; a very thorough humbug.
+Such public religious ceremonies as the heathen had were mostly annual,
+sometimes monthly. There were also daily ones, which were, however, the
+daily business of the priests, and none of the business of the laymen.
+To return to the subject.</p>
+
+<p>All the heathen oracles, old and new (for abundance of them are still
+agoing,) sibyls, auguries and all, show how universally and naturally,
+and humbly and helplessly too, poor human nature longs to see into the
+future, and longs for help and guidance from some power, higher than
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>Thus considered, these shallow humbugs teach a useful lesson, for they
+constitute a strong proof of man&#8217;s inborn natural recognition of some
+God, of some obligation to a higher power, of some disembodied
+existence; and so they show a natural human want of exactly what the
+Christian revelation supplies, and constitute a powerful evidence for
+Christianity.</p>
+
+<p>All the heathen religions, I believe, had oracles of some kind. But the
+Greek and Latin ones tell the whole story. Of these there were over a
+hundred; more than twenty of Apollo, who was the god of soothsaying,
+divination, prophecy, and of the supernatural side of heathen humbug
+generally; thirty or forty collectively of Jupiter, Ceres, Mercury,
+Pluto, Juno, Ino (a very good name for a goddess that gave oracles,
+though she didn&#8217;t <a name="corr120" id="corr120"></a>know!), Faunus, Fortune, Mars, etc., and nearly as
+many of demi-gods, heroes, giants, etc., such as Amphiaraus,
+Amphilochus, Trophonius, Geryon, Ulysses,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span> Calchas, &AElig;sculapius,
+Hercules, Pasiphae, Phryxus, etc. The most celebrated and most
+patronized of them all was the great oracle of Apollo, at Delphi. The
+&#8220;little fee&#8221; appears to have been the only universal characteristic of
+the proceedings for obtaining an answer from the god. Whether you got
+your reply in words spoken by the rattling of an old pot, by observing
+an ox&#8217;s appetite, throwing dice, or sleeping for a dream, your own
+proceedings were essentially the same. &#8220;Terms invariably net cash in
+advance or its equivalent.&#8221; A fine ox or sheep sacrificed was cash; for
+after the god had had his smell (those ladies and gentlemen appear to
+have eaten as they say the Yankees talk&mdash;through their noses,) all the
+rest was put carefully away by the reverend clergy for dinner, and saved
+so much on the butcher&#8217;s bill. If your credit was good, you might
+receive your oracle and afterward send in any little acknowledgment in
+the form of a golden goblet, or statue, or vase, or even of a remittance
+in specie. Such gifts accumulated in the oracle at Delphi and to an
+immense amount, and to the great emolument of Brennus, a matter of fact
+Gaulish commander, who, at his invasion of Greece, coolly carried off
+all the bullion, without any regard to the screeches of the Pythoness,
+and with no more scruples than any burglar.</p>
+
+<p>The Delphian oracle worked through a woman, who, on certain days, went
+and sat on a three-legged stool over a hole in the ground in Apollo&#8217;s
+temple. This hole sent out gas; which, instead of being used like that
+afforded by holes in the ground at Fredonia, N. Y., to illuminate the
+village, was much more shrewdly em<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span>ployed by the clerical gentlemen to
+shine up the knowledge-boxes of their customers, and introduce the
+glitter of gold into their own pockets. I merely throw out the hint to
+any speculating Fredonian who owns a hole in the ground. Well, the
+Pythia, as this female was termed, warmed up her understanding over this
+hole, as you have seen ladies do over the register of a hot-air furnace,
+and becoming excited, she presently began to be drunk or crazy, and in
+her fit she gabbled forth some words or noises. These the priests took
+down, and then told the customer that the noises meant so-and-so! When
+business was brisk they worked two Pythias, turn and turn about (or, as
+they say at sea, watch and watch), and kept a third all cocked and
+primed in case of accident, besides; for this gas sometimes gave the
+priestess (literally) fits, which killed her in a few days.</p>
+
+<p>Other oracles gave answers in many various ways. The priest quietly
+wrote down whatever answer he chose; or inspected the insides of a
+slaughtered beast, and said that the bowels meant this and that. At
+Telmessus the inquirer peeped into a well, where he must see a picture
+in the water which was his answer; at any rate, if this wouldn&#8217;t do he
+got none. This plan was evidently based on the idea that &#8220;truth is at
+the bottom of a well.&#8221; At Dodona, they hung brass pots on the trees and
+translated the banging these made when the wind blew them together. At
+Pher&aelig;, you whispered your question in the ear of the image of Mercury,
+and then shutting your ears until you got out of the market-place, the
+first remark you heard from anybody was the answer, and you might make
+the best of it. At Plut<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span>o&#8217;s oracle at Char&aelig;, the priest took a dream,
+and in the morning told you what he chose. In the cave of Trophonius,
+after various terrifying performances, they pulled you through a hole
+the wrong way of the feathers, and then back again, and then stuck you
+upon a seat, and made you write down your own oracle, being what you had
+seen, which would, I imagine, usually be &#8220;the elephant.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And so-forth, and so on. Humbug <i>ad libitum!</i></p>
+
+<p>Like some of the more celebrated modern fortune-tellers, the managers of
+the oracles were frequently shrewd fellows, and could often pick up the
+materials of a very smart and judicious answer from the appearance of
+the customer and his question. Very often the answer was sheer nonsense.
+It was, in fact, believed by many that as a rule you couldn&#8217;t tell what
+the response meant until after it was fulfilled, when you were expected
+to see it. In many cases the answers were ingeniously arranged, so as to
+mean either a good or evil result, one of which was pretty likely.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, one of the oracles answered a general who asked after the fate of
+his campaign as follows: (the ancients, remember, using no punctuation
+marks) &#8220;Thou shalt go thou shalt return never in war shalt thou perish.&#8221;
+The point becomes visible when you first make a pause before &#8220;never,&#8221;
+and then after it.</p>
+
+<p>On a similar occasion, the Delphic oracle told Cr&#339;sus that if he
+crossed the River Halys he would overthrow a great empire. This empire
+he chose to understand as that of Cyrus, whom he was going to fight. It
+came out the other way, and it was his own empire<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span> that was overthrown.
+The immense wisdom of the oracle, however, was tremendously respected in
+consequence!</p>
+
+<p>Pyrrhus, of Epirus, on setting off against the Romans, received equal
+satisfaction, the Pythia telling him (in Latin) what amounted to this:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I say that you Pyrrhus the Romans are able to conquer!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Pyrrhus took it as he wished it, but found himself sadly thimble-rigged,
+the little joker being under the wrong cup. The Romans beat him, and
+most wofully too.</p>
+
+<p>Trajan was advised to consult the oracle at Heliopolis, about his
+intended expedition against the Parthians. The custom was to send your
+query in a letter; so Trajan sent a blank note in an envelope. The god
+(very naturally) sent back a blank note in reply, which was thought
+wonderfully smart; and so the imperial dupe sent again, a square
+question:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Shall I finish this war and get safe back to Rome?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Heliopolitan humbug replied by sending a piece of an old grape-vine
+cut into pieces, which meant either: &#8220;You will cut them up,&#8221; or &#8220;They
+will cut you up;&#8221; and Trajan, like the little boy at the peep-show who
+asked: &#8220;which is Lord Wellington and which is the Emperor Napoleon?&#8221; had
+paid his penny and might take his choice.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the oracles were quite jocular. A man asked one of them how to
+get rich? The oracle said: &#8220;Own all there is between Sicyon and
+Corinth.&#8221; Which places are some fifteen miles apart.</p>
+
+<p>Another fellow asked how he should cure his gout?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span> The oracle coolly
+said: &#8220;Drink nothing but cold water!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Delphic oracle, and some of the others, used for a long time to give
+their answers in verses. At last, however, irreverent critics of the
+period made so much fun of the peculiarly miserable style of this
+poetry, that the poor oracle gave it up and came down to plain prose.
+Every once in a while some energetic and cunning man, of skeptical
+character, insisted on having just such an answer as he wanted. It was
+well known that Philip of Macedon bought what responses he wished at
+Delphi. Anybody with plenty of money, who would quietly &#8220;see&#8221; the
+priests, could have such a response as he chose. Or, if he was a
+bull-headed, <a name="corr121" id="corr121"></a>hard-fisted, fighting-man, of irreligious but energetic
+mind, the priests gave him what he wished, out of fear. When
+Themistocles wanted to encourage the Greeks against the Persians, he
+&#8220;fixed&#8221; Delphi by bribes. When Alexander the Great came to consult the
+same oracle, the Pythia was disinclined to perform. But Alexander rather
+roughly gave her to understand that she must, and she did. The Greek and
+Roman oracles finally all gave out not far from the time of Christ&#8217;s
+coming, having gradually become more or less disreputable for many
+years.</p>
+
+<p>All the heathen nations, as I have said, had their oracles too. The
+heathen Scandinavians had a famous one at Upsal. The Getae, in Scythia,
+had one. The Druids had them; so did the Mexican priests. The Egyptian
+and Syrian divinities had them; in short, oracles were quite as
+necessary as mysteries, and con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span>tinue so in heathen religions. The only
+exception, I believe, is in Mohammedanism, whose votaries save
+themselves any trouble about the future by their thorough fatalism. They
+believe so fully and vividly that everything is immovably predestinated,
+being at the same time perfectly sure of heaven at last, that they
+quietly receive everything as it comes, and don&#8217;t take the least trouble
+to find out how it is coming.</p>
+
+<p>The Sibyls were women, supposed to be inspired by some divinity, who
+prophesied of the future. Some say there was but one; some two, three,
+four, or ten. All sorts of obscure stories are told about the time and
+place of their activity. There was the Persian or Chaldean, who is said
+to have foretold with many details the coming and career of Christ; the
+Lybian, the Delphic, the Cum&aelig;an, much honored by the Romans, and half a
+dozen more. Then there was Mantho, the daughter of Tiresias, who was
+sent from Thebes to Delphi in a bag, seven hundred and twenty years
+before the destruction of Troy. These ladies lived in caves, and among
+them are said to have composed the Sibylline books, which contained the
+mysteries of religion, were carefully kept out of sight at Rome, and
+finally came into the hands of the Emperor Constantine. They were
+burned, one story has it, about fifty years after his death. But there
+are some Sibylline books extant, which, however, are among the most
+transparent of humbugs, for they are full of all sorts of extracts and
+statements from the Old and New Testaments. I do not believe there ever
+were any Sibyls. If there were any, they were probably ill-natured and
+desperate old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span> maids, who turned so sour-tempered that their friends had
+to drive them off to live by themselves, and who, under these
+circumstances, went to work and wrote books.</p>
+
+<p>I must crowd in here a word or two about the Auguries and the Augurs.
+These gentlemen were a sort of Roman priests, who were accustomed to
+foretell future events, decide on coming good or bad fortune, whether it
+would do to go on with the elections, to begin any enterprise or not,
+etc., by means of various signs. These were thunder; the way any birds
+happened to fly; the way that the sacred chickens ate; the appearance of
+the entrails of beasts sacrificed, etc., etc. These augurs were, for a
+long time, much respected in Rome, but, at last, the more thoughtful
+people lost their belief in them, and they became so ridiculous that
+Cicero, who was himself one of them, said he could not see how one augur
+could look another in the face without laughing.</p>
+
+<p>It is humiliating to reflect how long and how extensively such barefaced
+and monstrous humbugs as these have maintained unquestioned authority
+over almost the whole race of man. Nor has humanity, by any means,
+escaped from such debasing slavery now; for millions and millions of men
+still believe and practice forms and ceremonies even more absurd, if
+possible, than the Mysteries, Oracles, and Auguries.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XLVIII" id="CHAPTER_XLVIII"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">MODERN HEATHEN HUMBUGS.&mdash;&#8203;FETISHISM.&mdash;&#8203;OBI.&mdash;&#8203;VAUDOUX.&mdash;&#8203;INDIAN
+POWWOWS.&mdash;&#8203;LAMAISM.&mdash;&#8203;REVOLVING PRAYERS.&mdash;&#8203;PRAYING TO DEATH.</p>
+
+
+<p>A scale of superstition and religious beliefs of to-day, arranged from
+the lowest to the highest, would show many curious coincidences with
+another scale, which should trace the history of superstitions and
+religious beliefs backward in time toward the origin of man. Thus, for
+instance, the heathen humbugs, whether revolting or ridiculous, which I
+am to speak of in this chapter, are in full blast to day; and they
+furnish perfect specimens of the beliefs which prevailed among the
+heathen of four thousand and of eighteen hundred years ago; of the
+Chaldee and Canaanite superstitions, and equally of those of the Romans
+under Augustus C&aelig;sar.</p>
+
+<p>The most dirty, vulgar, low, silly and absurd of all the superstitions
+in the world are, as is natural, those of the darkest minded of all the
+heathen, who have any superstition at all. For, as if for the
+humiliation of our proud human nature, there are really some human
+beings who seem to have too little intellect even to rise to the height
+of a superstition. Such are the Andaman Islanders, who crawl on all
+fours, wear nothing but a plaster of mud to keep the musquitos off, eat
+bugs, and grubs, and ants, and turn their children out to shift for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span>
+themselves as soon as the little wretches can learn to crawl and eat
+bugs.</p>
+
+<p>These lowest of superstitions are Fetishism and Obi, believed and
+practiced by negro tribes, and, remember this, even by their ignorant
+white mistresses in the West Indies and in the United States, to day.
+Yes, I know where Southern refugee secessionist women are living in and
+about New York city at this moment, who really believe in the negro
+witchcraft called Obi, practiced by the slaves.</p>
+
+<p>A Fetish is anything not a living being, worshiped because supposed to
+be inhabited by some god. In some parts of Africa the Fetishes are a
+sort of guardian divinity, and there is one for each district like a
+town constable; and sometimes one for each family. The Fetish is any
+stone picked up in the street&mdash;a tree, a chip, a rag. It may be some
+stone or wooden image&mdash;an old pot, a knife, a feather. Before this
+precious divinity the poor darkeys bow down and worship, and sometimes,
+sacrifice a sheep or a rooster. Each more important Fetish has a priest,
+and here is where the humbug comes in. This gentleman lives on the
+offerings made to the Fetish, and he &#8220;exploits&#8221; his god, as a Frenchman
+would say, with great profit.</p>
+
+<p>Obi or Obeah, is the name of the witchcraft of the negro tribes; and the
+practitioner is termed an Obi-man or Obi-woman. They practice it at home
+in Africa, and carry it with them to continue it when they are made
+slaves in other lands. Obi is now practiced, as I have already hinted,
+in Cuba and in the Southern States, and is believed in by the more
+ignorant and foolish white people, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span> much as by their barbarous
+slaves. Obi is used only to injure, and the way to perform it upon your
+enemy is, to hire the Obi man or woman to concoct a charm, and then to
+hide this, or cause it to be hidden, in some place about the person or
+abode of the victim where he will find it. He is expected thereupon to
+fall ill, to wither and waste away, and so to die.</p>
+
+<p>Absurd as it may seem, this cursing business operates with a good deal
+of certainty on the poor negroes, who fall sick instantly on finding the
+ball of Obi, two or three inches in diameter, hidden in their bed, or in
+the roof, or under the threshold, or in the earthen floor of their huts.
+The poor wretches become dejected, lose appetite, strength, and spirits,
+grow thin and ill, and really wither away and die. It is a curious fact,
+however, that if under these circumstances you can cause one of them to
+become converted to Christianity, or to become a Christian by
+profession, he becomes at once free from the witches&#8217; dominion and
+quickly recovers.</p>
+
+<p>The ball of Obi&mdash;or, as it is called among the Brazilian negroes,
+Mandinga&mdash;may be made of various materials, always, I believe, including
+some which are disgusting or horrible. Leaves of trees and scraps of rag
+may be used; ashes, usually from bones or flesh of some kind; pieces of
+cats&#8217; bones and skulls, feathers, hair, earth, or clay, which ought to
+be from a grave; teeth of men and of snakes, alligators or other <a name="corr122" id="corr122"></a>beasts;
+vegetable gum, or other sticky stuff; human blood, pieces of eggshell,
+etc., etc. This mixture is curiously like that in the witches&#8217; caldron
+in Macbeth, which,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span> among other equally toothsome matters, contained
+frogs&#8217; toes, bats&#8217; wool, lizards&#8217; legs, owlets&#8217; wings, wolfs&#8217; teeth,
+witches&#8217; mummy, Jew&#8217;s liver, tigers&#8217; bowels, and lastly, as a sort of
+thickening to the gravy, baboon&#8217;s blood.</p>
+
+<p>A creole lady, now at the North, recently told a friend of mine that
+&#8220;the negroes can put some pieces of paper, or powder, or something or
+other in your shoes, that will make you sick, or make you do anything
+they want!&#8221; The poor foolish woman told this with a face full of awe and
+eyes wide open. Another lady known to me, long resident at the South,
+tells me that the belief in this sort of devilism is often found among
+the white people.</p>
+
+<p>The practices called Vaudoux or Voudoux, are a sort of Obi; being, like
+that, an invoking of the aid of some god to do what the worshipers wish.
+The Vaudoux humbug is quite prevalent in Cuba, Hayti, and other West
+India islands, where there are wild negroes, or where they are still
+imported from Africa. There is also a good deal of this sort of humbug
+among the slaves in New Orleans, and cases arising from it have recently
+quite often appeared in the police reports in the newspapers of that
+city.</p>
+
+<p>The Vaudoux worshipers assemble secretly, with a kind of chief witch or
+mistress of ceremonies; there is a boiling caldron of hell-broth, <i>a la</i>
+Macbeth; the votaries dance naked around their soup; amulets and charms
+are made and distributed. During a quarter of a century last past, some
+hundreds of these orgies have been broken up by the New Orleans police,
+and probably as many more have come off as per programme.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span> The Vaudoux
+processes are most frequently appealed to for the purposes of some
+unsuccessful or jealous lover; and the Creole ladies believe in
+Vaudouxism as much as in Obi.</p>
+
+<p>In the West Indies, the Vaudoux orgies are more savage than in this
+country. It is but a little while since in Hayti, under the energetic
+and sensible administration of President Geffrard, eight Vaudoux
+worshipers were regularly tried and executed for having murdered a young
+girl, the niece of two of them, by way of human sacrifice to the god.
+They tied the poor child tight, put her in a box called a humfort, fed
+her with some kind of stuff for four days, and then deliberately
+strangled her, beheaded her, flayed her, cooked the head with yams, ate
+of the soup, and then performed a solemn dance and chant around an altar
+with the skull on it.</p>
+
+<p>The Caffres in Southern Africa have a kind of humbug somewhat like the
+Obi-men, who are known as rainmakers. These gentlemen furnish what
+blessing and cursing may be required for other purposes; but as that
+country is liable to tremendous droughts, their best business is to make
+rain. This they do by various prayers and ceremonies, of which the most
+important part is, receiving a large fee in advance from the customer.
+The rain-making business, though very lucrative, is not without its
+disadvantages; for whenever Moselekatse, or Dingaan, or any other chief
+sets his rainmaker at work, and the rain was not forthcoming as per
+application, the indignant ruler caused an assegai or two to be stuck
+through the wizard, for the encourage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span>ment of the other wizards. This
+was not so unreasonable as it may seem; for if the man could not make
+rain when it was wanted, what was he good for?</p>
+
+<p>The ceremonies of the pow-wows or medicine-men of the North American
+Indians, are less brutal than the African ones. These soothsayers, like
+the Obi-men, prepared charms for their customers, usually, however, not
+so much to destroy others as to protect the wearer. These charms consist
+of some trifling matters tied up in a small bag, the &#8220;medicine-bag,&#8221;
+which is to be worn round the neck, and will, it is supposed, insure the
+wearer the special help and protection of the Great Spirit. The pow-wows
+sometimes do a little in the cursing line.</p>
+
+<p>There is a funny story of a Puritan minister in the early times of New
+England, who coolly defied one of the most famous Indian magicians to
+play off his infernal artillery. A formal meeting was had, and the
+pow-wow rattled his traps, howled, danced, blew feathers, and
+vociferated jargon until he was perfectly exhausted, the old minister
+quietly looking at him all the time. The savage humbug was dumbfounded,
+but quickly recovering his presence of mind, saved his home-reputation
+by explaining to the red gentlemen in breech-cloths and nose-rings, that
+the Yankee ate so much salt that curses wouldn&#8217;t take hold on him at
+all.</p>
+
+<p>The Shamans (or Schamans) of Siberia, follow a very similar business,
+but are not so much priestly humbugs as mere conjurors. The Lamas, or
+Buddhist leaders of Central and Southern Asia are, however, regular
+priests, again, and may be said, with singular propriety, to &#8220;run their
+machine&#8221; on principles of thorough reli<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span>gious humbug, for they do really
+pray by a machine. They set up a little mill to go by water or wind,
+which turns a cylinder. On this cylinder is written a prayer, and every
+time the barrel goes round once, it counts, they say, for one prayer. It
+may be imagined how piety intensifies in a freshet, or in a heavy gale
+of wind! And there is a ludicrous notion of economy, as well as a
+pitiable folly in the conception of profiting by such windy
+supplications, and of saving all one&#8217;s time and thoughts for business,
+while the prayers rattle out by the hundred at home. Only imagine the
+pious fervor of one of these priests in a first-class Lowell mill, of
+say a hundred thousand spindles. Print a large edition of some good
+prayer and paste a copy on each spindle, and the place would seem to him
+the very gate of a Buddhist heaven. He would feel sure of taking heaven
+by storm, with a sustained fire of one hundred thousand prayers every
+second. His first requisite for a prosperous church would be a good
+water-power for prayer-mills. And yet, absurd as these prayer-mills of
+the heathen really are, it may not be safe to bring them under
+unqualified condemnation: for who among us has not sometimes heard windy
+prayers even in our Christian churches? Young clergymen are especially
+liable and, I might say, prone to this mockery. These, however, are but
+exceptions to the general Christian rule, viz.: that the Omniscient
+careth only for heart-service; and that, before Him, all mere
+lip-service or machine-service, is simply an abomination.</p>
+
+<p>A less innocent kind of praying is one of the religious humbugs of the
+bloody and cruel Sandwich Islands form<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span> of heathenism. Here a practice
+prevailed, and does yet, of paying money to a priest to pray your enemy
+to death. For cash in advance, this bargain could always be made, and so
+groveling was the spiritual cowardice of these poor savages, that, like
+the negro victim of Obi, the man prayed at seldom failed to sicken as
+soon as he found out what was going on, and to waste away and die.</p>
+
+<p>This bit of heathen humbug now in operation, from so many distant
+portions of the earth, shows how radically similar is all heathenism. It
+shows, too, how mean, vulgar, filthy, and altogether vile, is such
+religion as man, unassisted, contrives for himself. It shows, again, how
+sadly great is the proportion of the human race still remaining in this
+brutal darkness. And, by contrast, it affords us great reason for
+thankfulness that we live in a land of better culture, and happier hopes
+and practices.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_XLIX" id="CHAPTER_XLIX"></a>CHAPTER XLIX.</h3>
+
+<p class="hanging">ORDEALS.&mdash;&#8203;DUELS.&mdash;&#8203;WAGER OF BATTLE.&mdash;&#8203;ABRAHAM THORNTON.&mdash;&#8203;RED HOT
+IRON.&mdash;&#8203;BOILING WATER.&mdash;&#8203;SWIMMING.&mdash;&#8203;SWEARING.&mdash;&#8203;CORSNED.&mdash;&#8203;PAGAN ORDEALS.</p>
+
+
+<p>Ordeals belong to times and communities of rudeness, violence,
+materialism, ignorance, gross superstition and blind faith. The theory
+of ordeals is, that God will miraculously decide in the case of any
+accused person referred to Him. He will cause the accused to be
+vic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[409]</a></span>torious or defeated in a duel, will punish him on the spot for
+perjury, and if the innocent be exposed to certain physical dangers,
+will preserve him harmless.</p>
+
+<p>The duel, for instance, used to be called the &#8220;ordeal by battle,&#8221; and
+was simply the commitment of the decision of a cause to God. Duels were
+regularly prefaced by the solemn prayer &#8220;God show the right.&#8221; Now-a-days
+nobody believes that skill with a pistol is going to be specially
+bestowed by the Almighty, without diligent practice at a mark.
+Accordingly, the idea of a divine interposition has long ago dropped out
+of the question, and duelling is exclusively in the hands of the devil
+and his human votaries,&mdash;is a purely brutal absurdity. But in England,
+so long was this bloody, superstitious humbug kept up, that any hardened
+scoundrel who was a good hand at his weapon might, down to the year
+1819, absolutely have committed murder under the protection of English
+law. Two years before that date, a country &#8220;rough&#8221; named Abraham
+Thornton, murdered his sweetheart, Mary Ashford, but by deficiency of
+proof was acquitted on trial. There was however a moral conviction that
+Thornton had killed the girl, and her brother, a mere lad, caused an
+appeal to be entered according to the English statute, and Thornton was
+again arraigned before the King&#8217;s Bench. In the mean time his counsel
+had looked up the obsolete proceedings about &#8220;assize of battle,&#8221; and
+when Thornton was placed at the bar he threw down his glove upon the
+floor according to the ancient forms, and challenged his accuser to
+mortal combat. In reply, the appellant, Ashford, set forth facts so
+clearly showing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[410]</a></span> Thornton&#8217;s guilt as to constitute (as he alleged,)
+cause for exemption from the combat, and for condemnation of the
+prisoner. The court, taken by surprise, spent five months in studying on
+the matter. At last it decided that the fighting man had the law of
+England on his side, admitted his demand, and further, found that the
+matters alleged for exemption from combat were not sufficient. On this,
+poor William Ashford, who was but a boy, declined the combat by reason
+of his youth, and the prisoner was discharged, and walked in triumph out
+of court, the innocent blood still unavenged upon his hands. The old
+fogies of Parliament were startled at finding themselves actually
+permitting the practice of barbarisms abolished by the Greek emperor,
+Michael Palaeologus, in 1259, and by the good King Louis IX of France in
+1270; and two years afterwards, in 1819, the legal duel or &#8220;assize of
+battle&#8221; was by law abolished in England. It had been legal there for
+five centuries and a half, having been introduced by statute in 1261.</p>
+
+<p>Before that time, the ordeals by fire and by water were the regular
+legal ones in England. These were known even to the Anglo Saxon law,
+being mentioned in the code of Ina, A. D., about 700. It appears that
+fire was thought the most aristocratic element, for the ordeal by fire
+was used for nobles, and that by water for vulgarians and serfs. The
+operations were as follows: When one was accused of a crime, murder for
+instance, he had his choice whether to be tried &#8220;by God and his
+country,&#8221; or &#8220;by God.&#8221; If he chose the former he went before a jury. If
+the latter, he under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[411]</a></span>went the ordeal. Nine red hot ploughshares were
+laid on the ground in a row. The accused was blindfolded, and sent to
+walk over them. If he burnt himself he was guilty; if not, not.
+Sometimes, instead of this, the accused carried a piece of red hot iron
+of from one to three pounds&#8217; weight in his hand for a certain distance.</p>
+
+<p>The ordeal by water was, in one form at least, the same wise alternative
+in after years so often offered to witches. The accused was tied up in a
+heap, each arm to the other leg, and flung into water. If he floated he
+was guilty, and must be killed. If he sank and drowned, he was
+innocent&mdash;but killed. Trial was therefore synonymous with execution. The
+nature of such alternatives shows how important it was to have a
+character above suspicion! Another mode was, for the accused to plunge
+his bare arm into boiling water to the elbow. The arm was then instantly
+sealed up in bandages under charge of the clergy for three days. If it
+was then found perfectly well, the accused was acquitted; if not, he was
+found guilty.</p>
+
+<p>Another ordeal was expurgation or compurgation. It was a simple
+business&mdash;&#8220;as easy as swearing;&#8221; very much like a &#8220;custom house oath.&#8221;
+It was only this: the accused made solemn oath that he was not guilty,
+and all the respectable men he could muster came and made their solemn
+oath that they believed so too. This is much like the jurisprudence of
+the Dutch justice of the peace in the old story, before whom two men
+swore that they saw the prisoner steal chickens. The thief however,
+getting a little time to collect tes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[412]</a></span>timony, brought in twelve men who
+swore that they did not see him take the chickens. &#8220;Balance of evidence
+overwhelmingly in favor of the prisoner,&#8221; said the sapient justice (in
+Dutch I suppose,) and finding him innocent in a ratio of six to one, he
+discharged him at once.</p>
+
+<p>This ordeal by oath was reserved for people of eminence, whose word went
+for something, and who had a good many thorough-going friends.</p>
+
+<p>Another sort of ordeal was reserved for priests. It was called
+<i>corsned</i>. The priest who took the ordeal by <i>corsned</i> received a bit of
+bread or a bit of cheese which was loaded heavily, by way of sauce, with
+curses upon whomsoever should eat it falsely. This he ate, together with
+the bread of the Lord&#8217;s supper. Everybody knew that if he were guilty,
+the sacred mouthful would choke him to death on the spot. History
+records no instance of the choking of any priest in this ordeal, but
+there is a story that the Saxon Earl Godwin of Kent took the <i>corsned</i>
+to clear himself of a charge of murder, and (being a layman) was choked.
+I fully believe that Earl Godwin is dead, for he was born about the year
+1000. But I have not the least idea that <i>corsned</i> killed him.</p>
+
+<p>The priests had the management of ordeals, which, being appeals to God,
+were reckoned religious ceremonies. They of course much preferred the
+swearing and eating and hot iron and water ordeals, which could be kept
+under the regulation of clerical good sense. Not so with the ordeal by
+battle. No priests could do anything with the wrath of two great mad
+ugly brutes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[413]</a></span> hot to kill each other, and crazy to risk having their own
+throats cut or skulls cleft rather than not have the chance. In
+consequence, the whole influence of the Romish church went against the
+ordeal by battle, and in favor of the others. Thus the former soon lost
+its religious element and became the mere duel; a base indulgence of a
+beast&#8217;s passion for murder and revenge. The progress of enlightenment
+gradually pushed ordeals out of court. Mobs have however always tried
+the ordeal by water on witches.</p>
+
+<p>Almost all the heathen ordeals have depended on fire, water, or
+something to eat or drink. Even in the Bible we find an ordeal
+prescribed to the Jews (Numbers, chap v.,) for an unfaithful wife, who
+is there directed to drink some water with certain ceremonies, which
+drink God promises shall cause a fatal disease if she be guilty, and if
+not, not. It is worth noticing that Moses says not a word about any
+&#8220;water of jealousy,&#8221; or any other ordeal, for unfaithful husbands!</p>
+
+<p>This drinking or eating ordeal prevails quite extensively even now. In
+Hindostan, theft is often enquired into by causing the suspected party
+to chew some dry rice or rice flour, which has some very strong curses
+stirred into it, <i>corsned</i> fashion. After chewing, the accused spits out
+his mouthful, and if it is either dry or bloody, he is guilty. It is
+easy to see how a rascal, if as credulous as rascals often are, would be
+so frightened that his mouth would be dry, and would thus betray his own
+peccadillo. Another Hindoo mode was, to give a certain quantity of
+poison in butter, and if it did no harm, to acquit. Here, the man who
+mixes the dose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[414]</a></span> is evidently the important person. In Madagascar they
+give some <i>tangena</i> water. Now tangena is a fruit of which a little
+vomits the patient, and a good deal poisons or kills him; a quality
+which sufficiently explains how they manage that ordeal.</p>
+
+<p>Ordeals by fire and water are still practiced, with some variations, in
+Hindostan, China, Pegu, Siberia, Congo, Guinea, Senegambia and other
+pagan nations. Some of those still in use are odd enough. A Malabar one
+is to swim across a certain river, which is full of crocodiles. A Hindoo
+one is, for the two parties to an accusation to stand out doors, each
+with one bare leg in a hole, he to win who can longest endure the bites
+they are sure to get. This would be a famous method in some of the New
+Jersey and New York and Connecticut seashore lowlands I know of. The
+mosquitoes would decide cases both civil and criminal, at a speed that
+would make a Judge of the Supreme Court as dizzy as a humming-top.
+Another Hindoo plan was for the accused to hold his head under water
+while a man walked a certain distance. If the walker chose to be lazy
+about it, or the prisoner had diseased lungs, this would be a rather
+severe method. The Wanakas in Eastern Africa, draw a red hot needle
+through the culprit&#8217;s lips&mdash;a most judicious place to get hold of an
+African!&mdash;and if the wound bleeds, he is guilty. In Siam, accuser and
+accused are put into a pen and a tiger is let loose on them. He whom the
+tiger kills is guilty. If he kills both, both are guilty; if neither,
+they try another mode.</p>
+
+<p>Blackstone says that an ordeal might always be tried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[415]</a></span> by attorney. I
+should think this would give the legal profession a very lively time
+whenever the courts were chiefly using tigers, poison, drowning, fire
+and red hot iron, but not so much so when a little swearing or eating
+was the only thing required.</p>
+
+<p>This whole business of ordeals is a singular superstition, and the
+extent of its employment shows how ready the human race is to believe
+that God is constantly influencing even their ordinary private affairs.
+In other words, it is in principle like the doctrine of &#8220;special
+providence.&#8221; Looked at as a superstition however&mdash;considered as a
+humbug&mdash;the history of ordeals show how corrupt becomes the nuisance of
+religious ways of deciding secular business, and how proper is our great
+American principle of the separation of state and church.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3 class="chapterhead"><a name="CHAPTER_L" id="CHAPTER_L"></a>CHAPTER L.</h3>
+
+<p class="titlepage">APOLLONIUS OF TYANA.</p>
+
+
+<p>The annals of ancient history are peculiarly rich in narratives of
+pretension and imposition, and either owing to the greater ignorance and
+credulity of mankind, or the superior skill of gifted but unscrupulous
+men in those days, present a few examples that even surpass the most
+remarkable products of the modern science of humbug.</p>
+
+<p>One of their most surprising instances&mdash;in fact, perhaps, absolutely the
+leading impostor&mdash;was the sage or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[416]</a></span> charlatan (for it is difficult to
+determine which) known as Apollonius Tyan&aelig;us so called from Tyana, in
+Cappadocia, Asia Minor, his birthplace, where he first saw the light
+about four years earlier than Christ, and consequently more than
+eighteen and a half centuries ago. His arrival upon this planet was
+attended with some very amazing demonstrations. With his first cry, a
+flash of lightning darted from the heavens to the earth and back again,
+dogs howled, cats mewed, roosters crowed, and flocks of swans, so say
+the olden chroniclers&mdash;probably geese, every one of them&mdash;clapped their
+wings in the adjacent meadows with a supernatural clatter. Ushered into
+the world with such surprising omens as these, young Apollonius could
+not fail to make a noise himself, ere long. Sent by his doting father to
+Tarsus, in Cilicia, to be educated, he found the dissipations of the
+place too much for him, and soon removed to &AElig;g&aelig;, a smaller city, at no
+great distance from the other. There he adopted the doctrines of
+Pythagoras, and subjected himself to the regular discipline of that
+curious system whose first process was a sort of juvenile gag-law, the
+pupils being required to keep perfectly silent for a period of five
+years, during which time it was forbidden to utter a single word. Even
+in those days, few female scholars preferred this practice, and the boys
+had it all to themselves, nor were they by any means numerous. After
+this probation was over, they were enjoined to speak and argue with
+moderation.</p>
+
+<p>At &AElig;g&aelig; there stood a temple dedicated to &AElig;sculapius, who figured on
+earth as a great physician and compounder of simples, and after death
+was made a god. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[417]</a></span> edifice was much larger and more splendid than the
+Brandreth House on Broadway, although we have no record of &AElig;sculapius
+having bestowed upon the world any such benefaction as the universal
+pills. However, unlike our modern M. D.s, the latter was in the habit of
+re-appearing after death, in this temple, and there holding forth to the
+faithful on various topics of domestic medicine. Apollonius was allowed
+to take up his residence in the establishment, and, no doubt, the
+priests initiated him into all their dodges to impose upon the people.
+Another tenet of the Pythagorean faith was a total abstinence from
+beans, an arrangement which would be objectionable in New England and in
+Nassau street eating houses.</p>
+
+<p>Apollonius however, who knew nothing of Yankees or Nassau street,
+manfully completed his novitiate. Restored at length to the use of beans
+and of his talking apparatus, he set forth upon a lecturing tour through
+Pamphylia and Cilicia. His themes were temperance, economy, and good
+behavior, and for the very novelty of the thing, crowds of disciples
+soon gathered about him. At the town of Aspenda he made a great hit,
+when he &#8220;pitched into&#8221; the corn merchants who had bought up all the
+grain during a period of scarcity, and sold it to the people at
+exorbitant prices. Of course, such things are not permitted in our day!
+Apollonius moved by the sufferings of women and children, took his stand
+in the market place, and with his stylus wrote in large characters upon
+a tablet the following advice to the speculators in grain:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The earth, the common mother of all, is just.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[418]</a></span> But, ye being unjust,
+would make her a bountiful mother to yourselves alone. Leave off your
+dishonest traffic, or ye shall be no longer permitted to live.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The grain-merchants, upon beholding this appeal, relented, for there was
+conscience in those days; and, moreover, the populace had prepared
+torches, and proposed to fry a few of the offenders, like oysters in
+bread-crumbs. So they yielded at once, and great was the fame of the
+prophet. Thus elevated in his own opinion, Apollonius, still preaching
+virtue by the wayside, set out for Babylon, after visiting the cities of
+Antioch, Ephesus, etc., always attracting immense crowds. As he
+penetrated further toward the remote East, his troops of followers fell
+off, until he was left with only three companions, who went with him to
+the end. One of these was a certain Damis, who wrote a description of
+the journey, and, by the way, tells us that his master spoke all
+languages, even those of the animals. We have men in our own country who
+can talk &#8220;horse-talk&#8221; at the races, but probably none so perfectly as
+this great Tyanean. The author of &#8220;The Ruined Cities of Africa,&#8221; a
+recent publication, informs us that at Lamba, an African village, there
+is a leopard who can &#8220;speak.&#8221; This would go to show that the &#8220;animals,&#8221;
+are aspiring in a direction directly the opposite of the acquirements of
+Apollonius, and I shall secure that leopard, if possible, for exhibition
+in the Museum, and for a fair consideration send him to any public
+meeting where some one is needed who will come up to the scratch!</p>
+
+<p>But, to resume. On his way to Babylon, Apollonius<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[419]</a></span> saw by the roadside a
+lioness and eight whelps, where they had been killed by a party of
+hunters, and argued from the omen that he should remain in that city
+just one year and eight months, which of course turned out to be exactly
+the case. The Babylonish monarch was so delighted with the eloquence and
+skill of the noted stranger, that he promised him any twelve gifts that
+he might choose to ask for, but Apollonius declined accepting anything
+but food and raiment. However, the King gave him camels and escort to
+assist his journey over the northern mountains of Hindostan, which he
+crossed, and entered the ancient city of Taxilia. On the way, he had a
+high time in the gorges of the hills with a horrible hobgoblin of the
+species called empusa by the Greeks. This demon terrified his companions
+half out of their wits, but Apollonius bravely assailed him with all
+sorts of hard words, and, to literally translate the old Greek
+narrative, &#8220;blackguarded&#8221; him so effectually that the poor devil fled
+with his tail between his legs. At Taxilia, Phraortes, the King, a
+lineal descendant of the famous Porus&mdash;and truly a porous personage,
+since he was renowned for drinking&mdash;gave the philosopher a grand
+reception, and introduced him to the chief of the Brahmins, whose
+temples he explored. These Hindoo gentlemen opened the eyes of
+Apollonius wider than they had ever been before, and taught him a few
+things he had never dreamed of, but which served him admirably during
+his latter career. He returned to Europe by way of the Red Sea, passing
+through Ephesus, where he vehemently denounced the speculators in gold
+and other improper persons. As<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[420]</a></span> they did not heed him, he predicted the
+plague, and left for Smyrna. Sure enough, the pestilence broke out just
+after his departure, and the Ephesians telegraphed to Smyrna, by the
+only means in their power, for his immediate return; gold, in the
+meanwhile, falling at least ten per cent. Apollonius reappeared in the
+twinkling of an eye, suddenly, in the very midst of the wailing crowd,
+on the market place. Pointing to a beggar, he directed the people to
+stone that particular unfortunate, and they obeyed so effectually, that
+the hapless creature was in a few moments completely buried under a huge
+heap of brickbats. The next morning, the philosopher commanded the
+throng to remove the pile of stones, and as they did so, a dog was
+discovered instead of the beggar. The dog sprang up, wagged his tail,
+and made away at &#8220;two-forty&#8221; and with him the pestilence departed. For
+this feat, the Ephesians called Apollonius a god, and reared a statue to
+his honor. The appellation of divinity he willingly accepted, declaring
+that it was only justice to good men. In these degenerate days, we have
+accorded the term to only one person, &#8220;the divine Fanny Ellsler!&#8221; That,
+too, was a tribute to superior understanding!</p>
+
+<p>Our hero next visited Pergamus, the site of ancient Troy, where he shut
+himself up all night in the tomb of Achilles; and having raised the
+great departed, held conversation with him on a variety of military
+topics. Among other things, Achilles told him that the theory of his
+having been killed by a wound in the heel was all nonsense, as he had
+really died from being bitten by a puppy, in the back. If the reader
+does not believe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[421]</a></span> me, let him consult the original MS. of Damis. The
+same accident has disabled several great generals in modern times.</p>
+
+<p>Apollonius next made a tour through Greece, visiting Athens, Sparta,
+Olympia, and other cities, and exhorting the dissolute Greeks to mend
+their evil courses. The Spartans, particularly, came in for a severe
+lecture on the advantages of soap and water; and, it is said, that the
+first clean face ever seen in that republic was the result of the great
+Tyanean&#8217;s teachings. At Athens, he cured a man possessed of a demon; the
+latter bouncing out of his victim, at length, with such fury and
+velocity as to dash down a neighboring marble statue.</p>
+
+<p>The Isle of Crete was the next point on the journey, and an earthquake
+occurring at the time, Apollonius suddenly exclaimed in the streets:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The earth is bringing forth land.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Folks looked as he pointed toward the sea, and there beheld a new island
+in the direction of Therae.</p>
+
+<p>He arrived at Rome, whither his fame had preceded him, just as the
+Emperor Nero had issued an edict against all who dealt in magic; and,
+although he knew that he was included in the denunciation, he boldly
+went to the forum, where he restored to life the dead body of a
+beautiful lady, and predicted an eclipse of the sun, which shortly
+occurred. Nero caused him to be arrested, loaded with chains, and flung
+into an underground dungeon. When his jailers next made their rounds,
+they found the chains broken and the cell empty, but heard the chanting
+of invisible angels.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[422]</a></span> This story would not be believed by the head
+jailer at Sing Sing.</p>
+
+<p>Prolonging his trip as far as Spain, Apollonius there got up a sedition
+against the authority of Nero, and thence crossed over into Africa. This
+was the darkest period of his history. From Africa, he proceeded to the
+South of Italy and the island of Sicily, still discoursing as he went.
+About this time, he heard of Nero&#8217;s death, and returned to Egypt, where
+Vespasian was endeavoring to establish his authority. While in Egypt, he
+explored the supposed sources of the Nile, and learned all the lore of
+the Ethiopean necromancers, who could do any thing, even to making a
+black man white; thus greatly excelling the skill of after ages.</p>
+
+<p>Vespasian had immense faith in the Tyanean sage, and consulted him upon
+the most important matters of State. Titus, the successor of that
+monarch, manifested equal confidence, and regarded him absolutely as an
+oracle. Apollonius, who really seems to have been a most sensible
+politician, wrote the following brief but pithy note to Titus, when the
+latter modestly refused the crown of victory, after having destroyed
+Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Apollonius to Titus, Emperor of Rome, sendeth greeting. Since you have
+refused to be applauded for bloodshed and victory in war, I send you the
+crown of moderation. You know to what kind of merit crowns are due.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Yet Apollonius was by no means an ultra peace man, for he strongly
+advocated the shaving and clothing of the Ethiopians, and their thorough
+chastisement when they refused to be combed and purified.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[423]</a></span>When Domitian grasped at the imperial sceptre, the great Tyanean sided
+with his rival, Nerva, and having for this offence been seized and cast
+into prison, suddenly vanished from sight and reappeared on the instant
+at Puteoli, one hundred and fifty miles away. The distinguished Mr.
+Jewett, of Colorado, is the only instance of similar rapidity of
+locomotion known to us in this country and time.</p>
+
+<p>After taking breath at Puteoli, the sage resumed his travels and
+<a name="corr123" id="corr123"></a>revisited Greece, Asia Minor, etc. At Ephesus he established his
+celebrated school, and then, once more returning to Crete, happened to
+give his old friends, the Cretans, great offence, and was shut up in the
+temple Dictymna to be devoured by famished dogs; but the next morning
+was found perfectly unharmed in the midst of the docile animals, who had
+already made considerable progress in the Pythagorean philosophy, and
+were gathered around the philosopher, seated on their hind legs, with
+open mouths and lolling tongues, intently listening to him while he
+lectured them in the canine tongue. So devoted had they become to their
+eloquent instructor, and so enraged were they at the interruption when
+the Cretans re-opened the temple, that they rushed out upon the latter
+and made a breakfast of a few of the leading men.</p>
+
+<p>This is one of the last of the remarkable incidents that we find
+recorded of the mighty Apollonius. How he came to his end is quite
+uncertain, but some veracious chroniclers declare that he simply dried
+up and blew away. Others aver that he lived to the good old age of
+ninety-seven, and then quietly gave up the ghost at Tyana, where a
+temple was dedicated to his memory.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[424]</a></span>However that may be, he was subsequently worshiped with divine honors,
+and so highly esteemed by the greatest men of after days, that even
+Aurelian refused to sack Tyana, out of respect to the philosopher&#8217;s
+ashes.</p>
+
+<p>Dion Cassius, the historian, records one of the most remarkable
+instances of his clairvoyance or second sight. He states that
+Apollonius, in the midst of a discourse at Ephesus, suddenly paused, and
+then in a different voice, exclaimed, to the astonishment of all:&mdash;&#8220;Have
+courage, good Stephanus! Strike! strike! Kill the tyrant!&#8221; On that same
+day, the hated Domitian was assassinated at Rome by a man named
+Stephanus. The humdrum interpretation of this &#8220;miracle&#8221; is simply that
+Apollonius had a foreknowledge of the intended attempt upon the tyrant&#8217;s
+life.</p>
+
+<p>Long afterwards, Cagliostro claimed that he had been a fellow-traveler
+with Apollonius, and that his mysterious companion, the sage Athlotas,
+was the very same personage, who, consequently, at that time, must have
+reached the ripe age of some 1784 years&mdash;a lapse of time beyond the
+memory of even &#8220;the oldest inhabitant,&#8221; in these parts, at least!</p>
+
+
+<p class="titlepage">THE END.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 324px;">
+<img src="images/illus-ad-1.png" width="324" height="500" alt="A Catalogue of BOOKS ISSUED BY Carleton, Publisher, NEW YORK. 1866." title="A Catalogue of BOOKS ISSUED BY Carleton, Publisher, NEW YORK. 1866." />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/illus-ad-2.png" width="300" height="67" alt="decorative" title="decorative" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="titlepage">&#8220;<i>There is a kind of physiognomy in the titles<br />
+of books no less than in the faces of<br />
+men, by which a skilful observer<br />
+will know as well what to expect<br />
+from the one as the<br />
+other.</i>&#8221;&mdash;<span class="smcap">Butler.</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 50px;">
+<img src="images/illus-ad-3.png" width="50" height="36" alt="decorative" title="decorative" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="titlepage"><span style="font-size: 150%;">NEW BOOKS<br />
+
+And New Editions Recently Issued by<br />
+<b>CARLETON, PUBLISHER,</b></span><br />
+<b>NEW YORK.</b></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage"><i>418 BROADWAY, CORNER OF LISPENARD STREET.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="declong" />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><a name="corr124" id="corr124"></a>N.B.&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Publisher</span>, upon receipt of the price in advance, will
+send any of the following Books, by mail, <span class="smrom">POSTAGE FREE</span>, to any part
+of the <a name="corr125" id="corr125"></a>United States. This convenient and very safe mode may be
+adopted when the neighboring Booksellers are not supplied with the
+desired work. State name and address <a name="corr126" id="corr126"></a>in full.</p></div>
+
+<hr class="declong" />
+
+<p class="authors">Victor Hugo.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">LES MISERABLES.&mdash;<i>The best edition</i>, two elegant 8vo. vols.,
+beautifully bound in cloth, $5.50; half <span class="lastword">calf,</span> <span class="price">$10.00</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">LES MISERABLES.&mdash;<i>The popular edition</i>, one large octavo volume,
+paper covers, $2.00; cloth <span class="lastword">bound,</span> <span class="price">$2.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">JARGAL.&mdash;A very remarkable novel. With six illustrations.
+<span class="lastword"><i>In press.</i></span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">LES <a name="corr127" id="corr127"></a>MISERABLES.&mdash;In the Spanish language. Fine 8vo. edition,
+two vols., paper covers, $4.00; or cloth, <span class="lastword">bound,</span> <span class="price">$5.00</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE LIFE OF VICTOR HUGO.&mdash;By <span class="lastword">himself.</span> <span class="price">8vo. cloth, $1.75</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">By the Author of &#8220;Rutledge.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">RUTLEDGE.&mdash;A deeply interesting novel.&nbsp; <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE SUTHERLANDS.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 2em; padding-right: 2em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">FRANK WARRINGTON.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">LOUIE&#8217;S LAST TERM AT ST. <span class="lastword">MARY&#8217;S.&mdash;</span>  <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">ST. PHILIP&#8217;S.&mdash;<span class="lastword"><i>Just published</i>.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.75</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Hand-Books of Good Society.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE HABITS OF GOOD SOCIETY; with Thoughts, Hints, and
+Anecdotes, concerning nice points of taste, good manners
+and the art of making oneself agreeable. Reprinted from
+the London Edition. The best and most entertaining work
+of the kind ever published. <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE ART OF CONVERSATION.&mdash;With directions for <a name="corr128" id="corr128"></a>self-culture.
+A sensible and instructive work, that ought to be in the
+hands of every one who wishes to be either an agreeable
+talker or <span class="lastword">listener.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Miss Augusta J. Evans.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">BEULAH.&mdash;A novel of great <span class="lastword">power.</span>  <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">MACARIA.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span style="padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="authors">Mrs. Mary J. Holmes&#8217; Works.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT.&mdash;<span class="lastword"><i>Just published.</i></span> <span class="price">12mo. cl $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">&#8217;LENA RIVERS.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 7em; padding-right: 1em;">A Novel,</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">MARIAN <a name="corr129" id="corr129"></a>GREY.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 8em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">MEADOW BROOK.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 6.5em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">ENGLISH ORPHANS.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 5.7em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">DORA DEANE.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 8.5em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">COUSIN MAUDE.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 7.2em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">HOMESTEAD ON THE HILLSIDE.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">HUGH WORTHINGTON.&mdash;<span class="lastword"><i>Just published.</i></span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Artemus Ward.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">HIS BOOK.&mdash;An irresistibly funny volume of writings by the
+immortal American <span class="lastword">humorist.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">HIS TRAVELS.&mdash;A rich and racy new volume with Mormon adventures.
+Full of laughable <span class="lastword">illustrations.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cl., $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Miss Muloch.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">JOHN HALIFAX.&mdash;A novel.  With <span class="lastword">illust.</span>  <span class="price">12mo., cloth, $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">A LIFE FOR A LIFE.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.75</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Charlotte Bronte (Currer Bell).</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">JANE EYRE.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 2em; padding-right: 1em;">A novel. With illustration.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE PROFESSOR.&mdash;do. <span style="padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">SHIRLEY.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 3.7em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span style="padding-left: 2em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">VILLETTE.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 3.3em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span style="padding-left: 2em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.75</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Geo. W. Carleton.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">OUR ARTIST IN CUBA.&mdash;A humorous vol. of travels; with
+fifty comic illustrations by the <span class="lastword">author.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Robinson Crusoe.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">Complete unabridged edition. <span class="lastword">Illustrated.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">H. T. Sperry.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">COUNTRY LOVE.&mdash;Illustrated by <span class="lastword">Hoppin.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $2.00</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Joseph Rodman Drake.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE CULPRIT FAY.&mdash;A charming <span class="lastword">poem.</span> <span class="price">Cloth bound, $1.00</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Richard B. Kimball.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">WAS HE SUCCESSFUL.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 1em;">A novel.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">UNDERCURRENTS.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 5.5em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span>  <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">SAINT LEGER.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 7.7em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">ROMANCE OF STUDENT LIFE.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">IN THE TROPICS.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 6.5em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="authors">A. S. Roe&#8217;s Works.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">A LONG LOOK AHEAD.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 2em; padding-right: 1em;">A novel.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">TO LOVE AND TO BE LOVED.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">TIME AND TIDE.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 6.4em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">I&#8217;VE BEEN THINKING.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 3.7em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE STAR AND THE CLOUD.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 0.8em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging"><a name="corr130" id="corr130"></a>TRUE TO THE LAST.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 4.7em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging"><a name="corr131" id="corr131"></a>HOW COULD HE HELP IT.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 2.2em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">LIKE AND UNLIKE.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 5em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">LOOKING AROUND.&mdash;<span class="lastword"><i>Just published.</i></span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;"><a name="corr132" id="corr132"></a>do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Walter Barrett, Clerk.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">OLD MERCHANTS OF NEW YORK.&mdash;Being personal incidents,
+interesting sketches, bits of biography, and gossipy events
+in the life of nearly every leading merchant in New York
+City. Three <span class="lastword" style="padding-right: 12em;">series.</span> <span class="price" style="width: 12em;">12mo. cloth, each, $1.75</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">T. S. Arthur&#8217;s New Works.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">LIGHT ON SHADOWED PATHS.&mdash;A <span class="lastword">novel.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">OUT IN THE WORLD.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 5.3em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">NOTHING BUT MONEY.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 4em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">WHAT CAME AFTERWARDS.&mdash;<span class="lastword"><i>In press.</i></span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Orpheus C. Kerr.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">ORPHEUS C. KERR PAPERS.&mdash;Three <span class="lastword">series.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE PALACE BEAUTIFUL.&mdash;And other <span class="lastword">poems.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">M. Michelet&#8217;s Works.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">LOVE (L&#8217;AMOUR).&mdash;From the <span class="lastword">French.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">WOMAN (LA <a name="corr133" id="corr133"></a>FEMME).&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Edmund Kirke.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">AMONG THE PINES.&mdash;A Southern <span class="lastword">sketch.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">MY SOUTHERN FRIENDS.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">DOWN IN TENNESSEE.&mdash;Just <span class="lastword">published.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Cuthbert Bede.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">VERDANT GREEN.&mdash;A rollicking, humorous novel of English
+student life; with 200 comic <span class="lastword">illustrations.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">NEARER AND DEARER.&mdash;A novel, <span class="lastword">illustrated.</span> <span class="price">12mo. clo. $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Ernest Renan.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE LIFE OF JESUS.&mdash;Translated by C. E. Wilbour from the
+celebrated French <span class="lastword">work.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">RELIGIOUS HISTORY AND <span class="lastword">CRITICISM.&mdash;</span> <span class="price">8vo. cloth, $2.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Cuyler Pine.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">MARY BRANDEGEE.&mdash;An American <span class="lastword">novel.</span> <span class="price">$1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">A NEW NOVEL.&mdash;<span class="lastword"><i>In press.</i></span> <span class="price">$1.75</span></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="authors">Josh Billings.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">HIS BOOK.&mdash;Containing all the rich comic sayings of this celebrated
+writer. Illustrated. <span class="lastword"><i>In press.</i></span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Epes Sargent.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">PECULIAR.&mdash;One of the most remarkable and successful novels
+published in this <span class="lastword">country.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.75</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Mrs. Ritchie (Anna Cora Mowatt).</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">FAIRY FINGERS.&mdash;A new <span class="lastword">novel.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE MUTE SINGER.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> <span class="lastword"><i>In press.</i></span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.75</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Robert B. Roosevelt.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE GAME FISH OF THE NORTH.&mdash;<span class="lastword">Illustrated.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cl. $2.00</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">SUPERIOR FISHING.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 7em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $2.00</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE GAME BIRDS OF THE NORTH.&mdash;<span class="lastword"><i>In press.</i></span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $2.00</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">John Phoenix.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE SQUIBOB PAPERS.&mdash;A new humorous volume, filled with
+comic illustrations by the <span class="lastword">author.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">J. Sheridan Le Fanu.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">WYLDER&#8217;S HAND.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 1em;">A powerful new novel.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCHYARD.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.75</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">P. T. Barnum.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE HUMBUGS OF THE WORLD.&mdash;<span class="lastword"><i>In press.</i></span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.75</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Charles Reade.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH.&mdash;A magnificent new novel, by
+the author of &#8220;Hard Cash,&#8221; <span class="lastword">etc.</span> <span class="price">8vo. cloth, $2.00</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">The Opera.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">TALES FROM THE OPERAS.&mdash;A collection of clever stories, based
+upon the plots of all the famous <span class="lastword">operas.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cl., $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">J. C. Jeaffreson.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">A BOOK ABOUT DOCTORS.&mdash;An entertaining volume about
+famous physicians and <span class="lastword">surgeons.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.75</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">F. D. Guerrazzi.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">BEATRICE CENCI.&mdash;The great historical novel. Translated from
+the Italian; with a portrait of the Cenci, from Guido&#8217;s
+famous picture in <span class="lastword">Rome.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.75</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Private Miles O&#8217;Reilly.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">HIS BOOK.&mdash;Comic songs, speeches, <span class="lastword">etc.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">A NEW BOOK.&mdash;<span class="lastword"><i>In press.</i></span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Rev. John Cumming, D.D., of London.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE GREAT TRIBULATION.&mdash;Two <span class="lastword">series.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE GREAT PREPARATION.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE GREAT CONSUMMATION.&mdash;<span class="lastword">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="authors">Gomery of Montgomery.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">A striking new <span class="lastword">novel.</span> <span class="price" style="width: 12em;">One thick vol., 12mo. cloth, $2.00</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">M. A. Fisher.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">A SPINSTER&#8217;S STORY.&mdash;A novel. <span class="lastword"><i>In press.</i></span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.75</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Novels by Ruffini.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">DR. ANTONIO.&mdash;A love story of <span class="lastword">Italy.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">LAVINIA; OR, THE ITALIAN <span class="lastword">ARTIST.&mdash;</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">VINCENZO; OR, SUNKEN <span class="lastword">ROCKS.&mdash;</span> <span class="price">8vo. cloth, $1.75</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Mother Goose for Grown Folks.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">HUMOROUS RHYMES for grown people; based upon the famous
+&#8220;Mother Goose <span class="lastword">Melodies.&#8221;</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.00</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">The New York Central Park.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">A SUPERB GIFT BOOK.&mdash;The Central Park pleasantly described,
+and magnificently embellished with more than 50 exquisite
+photographs of the principal views and objects of interest.
+A large quarto volume, sumptuously bound in Turkey
+morocco. An elegant Presentation <span class="lastword">Book.</span> <span class="price">$30.00</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">M. T. Walworth.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">LULU.&mdash;A new <span class="lastword">novel.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">HOTSPUR.&mdash; do. <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Author of &#8220;Olie.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">NEPENTHE.&mdash;A new <span class="lastword">novel.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">TOGETHER.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">N. H. Chamberlain.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A NEW ENGLAND <span class="lastword">FARM-HOUSE.&mdash;</span> <span class="price">$1.75</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Amelia B. Edwards.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">BALLADS.&mdash;By author of &#8220;Barbara&#8217;s <span class="lastword">History.&#8221;</span> <span class="price">$1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">S. M. Johnson.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">FREE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND AND <span class="lastword">AMERICA.&mdash;</span> <span class="price">8vo. cl. $3.00</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Captain Semmes.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">CRUISE OF THE ALABAMA AND <span class="lastword">SUMTER.&mdash;</span> <span class="price">12mo. clo., $2.00</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Hewes Gordon.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">LOVERS AND THINKERS.&mdash;A new <span class="lastword">novel.</span> <span class="price">$1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Caroline May.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">POEMS.&mdash;Printed on tinted <span class="lastword">paper.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">James H. Hackett.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">NOTES AND COMMENTS ON <span class="lastword">SHAKSPEARE.&mdash;</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="authors">Stephen Massett.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">DRIFTING <a name="corr134" id="corr134"></a>ABOUT.&mdash;Comic book, <span class="lastword">illustrated,</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="authors">Miscellaneous Works.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging">VICTOIRE.&mdash;A new <span class="lastword">novel</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">QUEST.&mdash;<span style="padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">POEMS.&mdash;By Mrs. Sarah T. <span class="lastword">Bolton.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE MORGESONS.&mdash;A novel by Mrs. <span class="lastword">Stoddard.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE SUPPRESSED BOOK ABOUT <span class="lastword">SLAVERY.&mdash;</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $2.00</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">JOHN GUILDERSTRING&#8217;S SIN.&mdash;A <span class="lastword">novel.</span> <span class="price">12mo. cloth, $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">CENTEOLA.&mdash;By author &#8220;Green Mountain <span class="lastword">Boys.&#8221;</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">RED TAPE AND PIGEON-HOLE <span class="lastword">GENERALS.&mdash;</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE PARTISAN LEADER.&mdash;By Beverly <span class="lastword">Tucker.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">TREATISE ON DEAFNESS.&mdash;By Dr. E. B. <span class="lastword">Lighthill.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE PRISONER OF STATE.&mdash;By D. A. <span class="lastword">Mahoney.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">AROUND THE PYRAMIDS.&mdash;By Gen. Aaron <span class="lastword">Ward.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">CHINA AND THE CHINESE.&mdash;By W. L. G. <span class="lastword">Smith.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE WINTHROPS.&mdash;A novel by J. R. <span class="lastword">Beckwith.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">SPREES AND SPLASHES.&mdash;By Henry <span class="lastword">Morford.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">GARRET VAN HORN.&mdash;A novel by J. S. <span class="lastword">Sauzade.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">SCHOOL FOR THE SOLDIER.&mdash;By Capt. Van <span class="lastword">Ness.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.2em;">do.</span> 50 cts.</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE YACHTMAN&#8217;S PRIMER.&mdash;By T. R. <span class="lastword">Warren.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.2em;">do.</span> 50 cts.</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">EDGAR POE AND HIS CRITICS.&mdash;By Mrs. <span class="lastword">Whitman.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.00</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">ERIC; OR, LITTLE BY LITTLE.&mdash;By F. W. <span class="lastword">Farrar.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">SAINT WINIFRED&#8217;S.&mdash;By the author of <span class="lastword">&#8220;Eric.&#8221;</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">A WOMAN&#8217;S THOUGHTS ABOUT <a name="corr135" id="corr135"></a><span class="lastword">WOMEN.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">MARRIED OFF.&mdash;Illustrated satirical <span class="lastword">poem.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.2em;">do.</span> 50 cts.</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">SCHOOL-DAYS OF EMINENT MEN.&mdash;By <span class="lastword">Timbs.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">ROMANCE OF A POOR YOUNG <span class="lastword">MAN.&mdash;</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE FLYING DUTCHMAN.&mdash;J. G. Saxe, <span class="lastword">illustrated.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.2em;">do.</span> 75 cts.</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.&mdash;Life and <span class="lastword">travels.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">LIFE OF HUGH <a name="corr136" id="corr136"></a>MILLER.&mdash;The celebrated <span class="lastword">geologist.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">TACTICS; or, Cupid in <span class="lastword">Shoulder-Straps.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">DEBT AND GRACE.&mdash;By Rev. C. F. <span class="lastword">Hudson.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE RUSSIAN BALL.&mdash;Illustrated satirical <span class="lastword">poem.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.2em;">do.</span> 50 cts.</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE SNOBLACE BALL.&mdash;<span style="padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span style="padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span style="padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 1em;">do.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.2em;">do.</span> 50 cts.</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">TEACH US TO PRAY.&mdash;By Dr. <span class="lastword">Cumming.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">AN ANSWER TO HUGH MILLER.&mdash;By T. A. <span class="lastword">Davies.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $1.50</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">COSMOGONY.&mdash;By Thomas A. <span class="lastword">Davies.</span> <span class="price">8vo. cloth, $2.00</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">TWENTY YEARS around the World. J. Guy <span class="lastword">Vassar.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $3.75</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">THE SLAVE POWER.&mdash;By J. E. <span class="lastword">Cairnes.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $2.00</span></p>
+
+<p class="hanging">RURAL ARCHITECTURE.&mdash;By M. Field, <span class="lastword">illustrated.</span> <span class="price"><span style="padding-left: 1.5em; padding-right: 1.5em;">do.</span> $2.00</span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chapbreak" />
+<div class="tn">
+<p class="titlepage"><a name="trans_note" id="trans_note"></a><b>Transcriber&rsquo;s&nbsp;Note</b></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">The following typographical errors were corrected.</p>
+
+<table style="margin-left: 0%;" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="typos">
+<tr>
+  <td>Page</td>
+  <td>Error</td>
+  <td>Correction</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr1">viii</a></td>
+  <td>EXPOSE</td>
+  <td>EXPOS&Eacute;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr2">viii</a></td>
+  <td>BY JOHN BULL</td>
+  <td>BY JOHN BULL.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr3">viii</a></td>
+  <td>HOMEOPATHIC</td>
+  <td>HOM&#338;OPATHIC</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr4">ix</a></td>
+  <td>TWO-HUNDRED</td>
+  <td>TWO HUNDRED</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr5">ix</a></td>
+  <td>&#8220;ADVANTAGE CARDS.&#8221;</td>
+  <td>&#8220;ADVANTAGE-CARDS.&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr6">x</a></td>
+  <td>DIVINING GOBLINS.</td>
+  <td>DIVINING.&mdash;GOBLINS.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr7">x</a></td>
+  <td>SORCEROR.</td>
+  <td>SORCERER.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr8">x</a></td>
+  <td>ZUTE</td>
+  <td>ZIITO</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr9">x</a></td>
+  <td>MR. WRIGHT'S SIGEL</td>
+  <td>MR. WRIGHT'S SIGIL</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr10">x</a></td>
+  <td>WHISKERFUSTICUS.</td>
+  <td>WHISKERIFUSTICUS</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr11">x</a></td>
+  <td>RELIGOUS HUMBUGS</td>
+  <td>RELIGIOUS HUMBUGS</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr12">x</a></td>
+  <td>IMPOSTER</td>
+  <td>IMPOSTOR</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr13">x</a></td>
+  <td>A RELIGOUS HUMBUG</td>
+  <td>A RELIGIOUS HUMBUG</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr14">25</a></td>
+  <td>attractt he</td>
+  <td>attract the</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr15">32</a></td>
+  <td>Quixotte.</td>
+  <td>Quixote</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr16">32</a></td>
+  <td>Great Britian</td>
+  <td>Great Britain</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr17">37</a></td>
+  <td>million of frances</td>
+  <td>million of francs</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr18">39</a></td>
+  <td>&#8220;California Menagrie,&#8221;</td>
+  <td>&#8220;California Menagerie,&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr19">47</a></td>
+  <td>THE GOLDEN PIGEONS&mdash;GRIZZLY ADAMS&mdash;GERMAN CHEMIST&mdash;HAPPY
+FAMILY&mdash;FRENCH NATURALIST.</td>
+  <td>THE GOLDEN PIGEONS.&mdash;GRIZZLY ADAMS.&mdash;GERMAN CHEMIST.&mdash;HAPPY
+FAMILY.&mdash;FRENCH NATURALIST.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr20">56</a></td>
+  <td>&#8220;Golden Australian Pigeons,&#8221;</td>
+  <td>&#8216;Golden Australian
+Pigeons,&#8217;&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr21">57</a></td>
+  <td>PHELADELPHIA</td>
+  <td>PHILADELPHIA</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr22">58</a></td>
+  <td>package of Pease&#8217;s</td>
+  <td>package of &#8220;Pease&#8217;s</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr23">60</a></td>
+  <td>&#8216;pay,&#8217; havn&#8217;t</td>
+  <td>&#8216;pay,&#8217; haven&#8217;t</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr24">64</a></td>
+  <td>tragic scene.&#8217;</td>
+  <td>tragic scene.&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr25">65</a></td>
+  <td>is now published&#8217;</td>
+  <td>is now published.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr26">79</a></td>
+  <td>after the trying</td>
+  <td>after the tying</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr27">91</a></td>
+  <td>Britian</td>
+  <td>Britain</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr28">92</a></td>
+  <td>dextrously</td>
+  <td>dexterously</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr29">110</a></td>
+  <td>pretentions</td>
+  <td>pretensions</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr30">111</a></td>
+  <td>Presidental</td>
+  <td>Presidential</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr31">115</a></td>
+  <td>invocations, adressed</td>
+  <td>invocations, addressed</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr32">115</a></td>
+  <td>complete success</td>
+  <td>complete success.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr33">115</a></td>
+  <td>in ecstacy</td>
+  <td>in ecstasy</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr34">119</a></td>
+  <td>Spirtual Photography</td>
+  <td>Spiritual Photography</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr35">119</a></td>
+  <td>MRS. COANT&#8217;S</td>
+  <td>MRS. CONANT&#8217;S</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr36">119</a></td>
+  <td>called the trance.</td>
+  <td>called the trance.&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr37">122</a></td>
+  <td>occuping</td>
+  <td>occupying</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr38">127</a></td>
+  <td>professsed</td>
+  <td>professed</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr39">136</a></td>
+  <td>supervison</td>
+  <td>supervision</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr40">141</a></td>
+  <td>she was pregnant</td>
+  <td>she was pregnant.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr41">143</a></td>
+  <td>guage-faucet</td>
+  <td>gauge-faucet</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr42">147</a></td>
+  <td>by this expose,</td>
+  <td>by this expos&eacute;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr43">156</a></td>
+  <td>vermillion</td>
+  <td>vermilion</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr44">161</a></td>
+  <td>Cliquot</td>
+  <td>Clicquot</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr45">170</a></td>
+  <td>But you bid</td>
+  <td>&#8220;But you bid</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr46">173</a></td>
+  <td>persverance</td>
+  <td>perseverance</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr47">180</a></td>
+  <td>$200,</td>
+  <td>$200,&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr48">185</a></td>
+  <td>cant</td>
+  <td>can&#8217;t</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr49">189</a></td>
+  <td>SUBTERANEAN</td>
+  <td>SUBTERRANEAN</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr50">190</a></td>
+  <td>prospecters</td>
+  <td>prospectors</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr51">194</a></td>
+  <td>Napolean</td>
+  <td>Napoleon</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr52">195</a></td>
+  <td>reaity</td>
+  <td>reality</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr53">199</a></td>
+  <td>matter of form;&#8221;</td>
+  <td>matter of form;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr54">200</a></td>
+  <td>as follows:</td>
+  <td>as follows:&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr55">202</a></td>
+  <td>impudence then</td>
+  <td>impudence than</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr56">210</a></td>
+  <td>they prefered</td>
+  <td>they preferred</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr57">211</a></td>
+  <td>odorifous</td>
+  <td>odoriferous</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr58">211</a></td>
+  <td>apprized</td>
+  <td>apprised</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr59">213</a></td>
+  <td>etc. etc.,</td>
+  <td>etc., etc.,</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr60">213</a></td>
+  <td><i>Holland</i>!</td>
+  <td><i>Holland</i>!&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr61">216</a></td>
+  <td>April 21st.</td>
+  <td>April 21st,</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr62">221</a></td>
+  <td>merchandize</td>
+  <td>merchandise</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr63">225</a></td>
+  <td>Every body</td>
+  <td>Everybody</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr64">227</a></td>
+  <td>stock&mdash;The</td>
+  <td>stock&mdash;the</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr65">228</a></td>
+  <td>all winter</td>
+  <td>All winter</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr66">229</a></td>
+  <td>coin than than</td>
+  <td>coin than</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr67">232</a></td>
+  <td>CHAPTER XXVII.</td>
+  <td>CHAPTER XXVIII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr68">234</a></td>
+  <td>Popocatapetl</td>
+  <td>Popocatepetl</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr69">237</a></td>
+  <td>over to Williamsburgh</td>
+  <td>over to Williamsburg</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr70">242</a></td>
+  <td>FLORENCE</td>
+  <td>FLORENCE.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr71">245</a></td>
+  <td>gullability</td>
+  <td>gullibility?</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr72">246</a></td>
+  <td>maccaroni</td>
+  <td>macaroni</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr73">246</a></td>
+  <td>sold almost-</td>
+  <td>sold almost</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr74">252</a></td>
+  <td>domicil</td>
+  <td>domicile</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr75">265</a></td>
+  <td>&#8220;The suggestion,</td>
+  <td>The suggestion,</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr76">269</a></td>
+  <td>with faces of</td>
+  <td>&#8220;with faces of</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr77">271</a></td>
+  <td>The &#8220;Albany</td>
+  <td>the &#8220;Albany</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr78">271</a></td>
+  <td>&#8220;the New York</td>
+  <td>the &#8220;New York</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr79">274</a></td>
+  <td>enclyclopedias</td>
+  <td>encyclopedias</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr80">276</a></td>
+  <td>Magnficent</td>
+  <td>Magnificent</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr81">280</a></td>
+  <td>Pensylvania</td>
+  <td>Pennsylvania</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr82">281</a></td>
+  <td>ridiculing Beecher.</td>
+  <td>ridiculing Beecher."</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr83">281</a></td>
+  <td>fusilade</td>
+  <td>fusillade</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr84">284</a></td>
+  <td>THE ACTOR</td>
+  <td>THE ACTOR.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr85">286</a></td>
+  <td>sovereigns.&#8221;</td>
+  <td>sovereigns.&#8217;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr86">287</a></td>
+  <td>&#8220;Now Sir,&#8221; said he, &#8220;I wish</td>
+  <td>&#8220;&#8216;Now Sir,&#8217; said he, &#8216;I wish</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr87">287</a></td>
+  <td>this house alone.&#8221;</td>
+  <td>this house alone.&#8217;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr88">288</a></td>
+  <td>However, before</td>
+  <td>&#8220;However, before</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr89">291</a></td>
+  <td>futhermore</td>
+  <td>furthermore</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr90">298</a></td>
+  <td>ghost havin</td>
+  <td>ghost having</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr91">305</a></td>
+  <td>amissable</td>
+  <td>admissible</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr92">307</a></td>
+  <td>CHAPTER. XXX.</td>
+  <td>CHAPTER XXXVII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr93">317</a></td>
+  <td>Holy Ghost.</td>
+  <td>Holy Ghost.&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr94">318</a></td>
+  <td>ho, ho!</td>
+  <td>ho, ho!&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr95">320</a></td>
+  <td>failed;</td>
+  <td>failed:</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr96">322</a></td>
+  <td>swarthy and wizzened</td>
+  <td>swarthy and wizened</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr97">324</a></td>
+  <td>&#8220;prime-minister,</td>
+  <td>&#8220;prime-minister,&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr98">327</a></td>
+  <td>Mr Worrall</td>
+  <td>Mr. Worrall</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr99">334</a></td>
+  <td>transmigra-</td>
+  <td>transmigration</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr100">339</a></td>
+  <td>elysium</td>
+  <td>Elysium</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr101">339</a></td>
+  <td>Antionette</td>
+  <td>Antoinette</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr102">341</a></td>
+  <td>remarked.&#8221; I</td>
+  <td>remarked. &#8220;I</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr103">341</a></td>
+  <td>Constantiople</td>
+  <td>Constantinople</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr104">342</a></td>
+  <td>What message</td>
+  <td>&#8220;What message</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr105">342</a></td>
+  <td>&#8220;She does</td>
+  <td>She does</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr106">346</a></td>
+  <td>from the the Court</td>
+  <td>from the Court</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr107">348</a></td>
+  <td>evidently had&#8217;nt</td>
+  <td>evidently hadn&#8217;t</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr108">351</a></td>
+  <td>could&#8217;nt seem</td>
+  <td>couldn&#8217;t seem</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr109">354</a></td>
+  <td>CHAPTER LXII.</td>
+  <td>CHAPTER XLII.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr110">355</a></td>
+  <td>Raisonn&eacute;e,</td>
+  <td>Raisonn&eacute;e,&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr111">363</a></td>
+  <td>Constantiople</td>
+  <td>Constantinople</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr112">367</a></td>
+  <td>arms, &amp;c.,</td>
+  <td>arms, &amp;c.,</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr113">368</a></td>
+  <td>hand seveeral</td>
+  <td>hand several</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr114">368</a></td>
+  <td>no Riza Rey</td>
+  <td>no Riza Bey</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr115">375</a></td>
+  <td>enthusiams</td>
+  <td>enthusiasms</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr116">375</a></td>
+  <td>ascetisms</td>
+  <td>asceticisms</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr117">381</a></td>
+  <td>intepretation</td>
+  <td>interpretation</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr118">382</a></td>
+  <td>doggrel</td>
+  <td>doggerel</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr119">392</a></td>
+  <td>HUMBUGS NO. 2</td>
+  <td>HUMBUGS NO. 2.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr120">393</a></td>
+  <td>know!)</td>
+  <td>know!),</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr121">398</a></td>
+  <td>hard-fisted</td>
+  <td>hard-fisted,</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr122">403</a></td>
+  <td>other beasts:</td>
+  <td>other beasts;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr123">423</a></td>
+  <td>revisted</td>
+  <td>revisited</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr124">Ads&nbsp;3</a></td>
+  <td>N.B</td>
+  <td>N.B.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr125">Ads&nbsp;3</a></td>
+  <td>United States</td>
+  <td>United States.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr126">Ads&nbsp;3</a></td>
+  <td>in full</td>
+  <td>in full.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr127">Ads&nbsp;3</a></td>
+  <td>MISERABLES&mdash;In</td>
+  <td>MISERABLES.&mdash;In</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr128">Ads&nbsp;3</a></td>
+  <td>self-culture</td>
+  <td>self-culture.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr129">Ads&nbsp;4</a></td>
+  <td>MARIAN GREY&mdash;&nbsp; do</td>
+  <td>MARIAN GREY.&mdash;&nbsp; do.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr130">Ads&nbsp;5</a></td>
+  <td>RUE</td>
+  <td>TRUE</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr131">Ads&nbsp;5</a></td>
+  <td>OW</td>
+  <td>HOW</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr132">Ads&nbsp;5</a></td>
+  <td>do</td>
+  <td>do.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr133">Ads&nbsp;5</a></td>
+  <td>FEMME.)</td>
+  <td>FEMME).</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr134">Ads&nbsp;7</a></td>
+  <td>DRIFTING ABOUT,</td>
+  <td>DRIFTING ABOUT.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr135">Ads&nbsp;8</a></td>
+  <td>ABOUT WOMEN</td>
+  <td>ABOUT WOMEN.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr136">Ads&nbsp;8</a></td>
+  <td>HUGH MILLER</td>
+  <td>HUGH MILLER.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="noindent">The following words had inconsistent spelling and hyphenation:</p>
+
+<ul class="list">
+  <li>broom-stick / broomstick</li>
+  <li>CONJUROR / CONJURER</li>
+  <li>conjuror / conjurer</li>
+  <li>conjurors / conjurers</li>
+  <li>Christoforo / Cristoforo</li>
+  <li>death-bed / deathbed</li>
+  <li>etc. / &amp;c.</li>
+  <li>Ethiopean / Ethiopian</li>
+  <li>f&ecirc;ted / feted</li>
+  <li>ghost-like / ghostlike</li>
+  <li>hand-bill / handbill</li>
+  <li>hell-broth / hellbroth</li>
+  <li>hob-goblins / hobgoblins</li>
+  <li>hodge-podge / hodgepodge</li>
+  <li>lamp-black / lampblack</li>
+  <li>log-wood / logwood</li>
+  <li>M.D. / M. D.</li>
+  <li>meantime / mean time</li>
+  <li>mosquitoes / musquitos</li>
+  <li>New-York / New York</li>
+  <li>sea-coast / seacoast</li>
+  <li>sea-shore / seashore</li>
+  <li>stock-broker / stockbroker</li>
+  <li>to-day / to day</li>
+  <li>Twenty-seventh street / Twenty-seventh Street</li>
+  <li>Wall street / Wall Street</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Humbugs of the World, by P. T. Barnum
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Humbugs of the World, by P. T. Barnum
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Humbugs of the World
+       An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries,
+       Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages
+
+Author: P. T. Barnum
+
+Release Date: September 18, 2008 [EBook #26640]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HUMBUGS OF THE WORLD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Julia Miller and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A list of corrections
+is found at the end of the text. Inconsistencies in spelling and
+hyphenation have been maintained. A list of inconsistently spelled
+and hyphenated words is found at the end of the text. Oe ligatures
+have been expanded.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                THE
+
+                       HUMBUGS OF THE WORLD.
+
+          AN ACCOUNT OF HUMBUGS, DELUSIONS, IMPOSITIONS,
+                 QUACKERIES, DECEITS AND DECEIVERS
+                     GENERALLY, IN ALL AGES.
+
+                                BY
+
+                           P. T. BARNUM.
+
+
+  "Omne ignotum pro mirifico."--"Wonderful, because mysterious."
+
+
+                             NEW YORK:
+               _CARLETON. PUBLISHER. 413 BROADWAY._
+                               1866.
+
+
+
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by
+
+G. W. CARLETON,
+
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of
+New York.
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHER'S NOTE.
+
+
+One of Mr. Barnum's secrets of success is his unique methods of
+advertising, and we can readily understand how he can bear to be
+denounced as a "Humbug," because this popular designation though
+undeserved in the popular acceptation of it, "brought grist to his
+mill." He has constantly kept himself before the public--nay, we may say
+that he has _been_ kept before the public constantly, by the stereotyped
+word in question; and what right, or what desire, could he have to
+discard or complain of an epithet which was one of the prospering
+elements of his business as "a showman?" In a narrow sense of the word
+he is a "Humbug:" in the larger acceptation he is _not_.
+
+He has in several chapters of this book elaborated the distinction, and
+we will only say in this place, what, indeed, no one who knows him will
+doubt, that, aside from his qualities as a caterer to popular
+entertainment, he is one of the most remarkable men of the age. As a
+business man, of far-reaching vision and singular executive force, he
+has for years been the life of Bridgeport, near which city he has long
+resided, and last winter he achieved high rank in the Legislature of
+Connecticut, as both an effective speaker and a patriot, having "no axe
+to grind," and seeking only the public welfare. We, indeed, agree with
+the editor of _The New York Independent_, who, in an article drawn out
+by the burning of the American Museum, says: "Mr. Barnum's rare talent
+as a speaker has always been exercised in behalf of good morals, and for
+patriotic objects. No man has done better service in the temperance
+cause by public lectures during the past ten years, both in America and
+Great Britain, and during the war he was most efficient in stimulating
+the spirit which resulted in the preservation of the Union, and the
+destruction of Slavery."
+
+We cannot forbear quoting two or three additional paragraphs from that
+article, especially as they are so strongly expressive of the merits of
+the case:
+
+"Mr. Barnum's whole career has been a very transparent one. He has never
+befooled the public to its injury, and, though his name has come to be
+looked upon as a synonym for humbuggery, there never was a public man
+who was less of one.
+
+"The hearty good wishes of many good men, and the sympathies of the
+community in which he has lived, go with him, and the public he has so
+long amused, but never abused, will be ready to sustain him whenever he
+makes another appeal to them. Mr. Barnum is a very good sort of
+representative Yankee. When crowds of English traders and manufacturers
+in Liverpool, Manchester, and London, flocked to hear his lectures on
+the art of making money, they expected to hear from him some very smart
+recipes for knavery; but they were as much astonished as they were
+edified to learn that the only secret he had to tell them was to be
+honest, and not to expect something for nothing."
+
+We could fill many pages with quotations of corresponding tenor from the
+leading and most influential men and journals in the land, but we will
+close this publisher's note with the following from the _N. Y. Sun_.
+
+"One of the happiest impromptu oratorical efforts that we have heard for
+some time was that made by Barnum at the benefit performance given for
+his employes on Friday afternoon. If a stranger wanted to satisfy
+himself how the great showman had managed so to monopolize the ear and
+eye of the public during his long career he could not have had a better
+opportunity of doing so than by listening to this address. Every word,
+though delivered with apparent carelessness, struck a key-note in the
+hearts of his listeners. Simple, forcible, and touching, it showed how
+thoroughly this extraordinary man comprehends the character of his
+countrymen, and how easily he can play upon their feelings.
+
+"Those who look upon Barnum as a mere charlatan, have really no
+knowledge of him. It would be easy to demonstrate that the qualities
+that have placed him in his present position of notoriety and affluence
+would, in another pursuit, have raised him to far greater eminence. In
+his breadth of views, his profound knowledge of mankind, his courage
+under reverses, his indomitable perseverance, his ready eloquence, and
+his admirable business tact, we recognise the elements that are
+conducive to success in most other pursuits. More than almost any other
+living man, Barnum may be said to be a representative type of the
+American mind."
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+In the "Autobiography of P. T. Barnum," published in 1855, I partly
+promised to write a book which should expose some of the chief humbugs
+of the world. The invitation of my friends Messrs. Cauldwell and Whitney
+of the "Weekly Mercury" caused me to furnish for that paper a series of
+articles in which I very naturally took up the subject in question. This
+book is a revision and re-arrangement of a portion of those articles. If
+I should find that I have met a popular demand, I shall in due time put
+forth a second volume. There is not the least danger of a dearth of
+materials.
+
+I once travelled through the Southern States in company with a magician.
+The first day in each town, he astonished his auditors with his
+deceptions. He then announced that on the following day he would show
+how each trick was performed, and how every man might thus become his
+own magician. That _expose_ spoiled the legerdemain market on that
+particular route, for several years. So, if we could have a full
+exposure of "the tricks of trade" of all sorts, of humbugs and deceivers
+of past times, religious, political, financial, scientific, quackish and
+so forth, we might perhaps look for a somewhat wiser generation to
+follow us. I shall be well satisfied if I can do something towards so
+good a purpose.
+
+  P. T. BARNUM.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  I. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.
+
+  CHAPTER I.--GENERAL VIEW OF THE SUBJECT.--HUMBUG UNIVERSAL.--IN
+  RELIGION.--IN POLITICS.--IN BUSINESS.--IN SCIENCE.--IN
+  MEDICINE.--HOW IT IS TO CEASE.--THE GREATEST HUMBUG OF ALL.        11
+
+  CHAPTER II.--DEFINITION OF THE WORD HUMBUG.--WARREN OF LONDON.--GENIN
+  THE HATTER.--GOSLING'S BLACKING.                                   18
+
+  CHAPTER III.--MONSIEUR MANGIN, THE FRENCH HUMBUG.                  29
+
+  CHAPTER IV.--OLD GRIZZLY ADAMS.                                    37
+
+  CHAPTER V.--THE GOLDEN PIGEONS.--GRIZZLY ADAMS.--GERMAN
+  CHEMIST.--HAPPY FAMILY.--FRENCH NATURALIST.                        46
+
+  CHAPTER VI.--THE WHALE, THE ANGEL FISH, AND THE GOLDEN PIGEON.     53
+
+  CHAPTER VII.--PEASE'S HOARHOUND CANDY.--THE DORR REBELLION.--THE
+  PHILADELPHIA ALDERMAN.                                             57
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.--BRANDRETH'S PILLS.--MAGNIFICENT ADVERTISING.--POWER
+  OF IMAGINATION.                                                    65
+
+
+  II. THE SPIRITUALISTS.
+
+  CHAPTER IX.--THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS, THEIR RISE AND PROGRESS.--
+  SPIRITUAL ROPE-TYING.--MUSIC PLAYING.--CABINET SECRETS.--"THEY
+  CHOOSE DARKNESS RATHER THAN LIGHT," ETC.--THE SPIRITUAL HAND.--HOW
+  THE THING IS DONE.--DR. W. F. VAN VLECK.                           73
+
+  CHAPTER X.--THE SPIRIT-RAPPING AND MEDIUM HUMBUGS.--THEIR
+  ORIGIN.--HOW THE THING IS DONE.--$500 REWARD.                      82
+
+  CHAPTER XI.--THE "BALLOT TEST."--THE OLD GENTLEMAN AND HIS
+  "DISEASED" RELATIVES.--A "HUNGRY SPIRIT."--"PALMING" A
+  BALLOT.--REVELATIONS ON STRIPS OF PAPER.                           88
+
+  CHAPTER XII.--SPIRITUAL "LETTERS ON THE ARM."--HOW TO MAKE THEM
+  YOURSELF.--THE TAMBOURINE AND RING FEATS.--DEXTER'S DANCING
+  HATS.--PHOSPHORESCENT OIL.--SOME SPIRITUAL SLANG.                  96
+
+  CHAPTER XIII.--DEMONSTRATIONS BY "SAMPSON" UNDER A TABLE.--A
+  MEDIUM WHO IS HAPPY WITH HER FEET.--EXPOSE OF ANOTHER OPERATOR IN
+  DARK CIRCLES.                                                     102
+
+  CHAPTER 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 BROTHER WHO WAS YET ALIVE.--HOW IT WAS DONE.             109
+
+  CHAPTER XV.--BANNER OF LIGHT.--MESSAGES FROM THE DEAD.--SPIRITUAL
+  CIVILITIES.--SPIRIT "HOLLERING."--HANS VON VLEET, THE FEMALE
+  DUTCHMAN.--MRS. CONANT'S "CIRCLES."--PAINE'S TABLE-TIPPING HUMBUG
+  EXPOSED.                                                          119
+
+  CHAPTER XVI.--SPIRITUALIST HUMBUGS WAKING UP.--FOSTER HEARD
+  FROM.--S. B. BRITTAIN HEARD FROM.--THE BOSTON ARTISTS AND THEIR
+  SPIRITUAL PORTRAITS.--THE WASHINGTON MEDIUM AND HIS SPIRITUAL
+  HANDS.--THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS AND THE SEA-CAPTAIN'S
+  WHEAT-FLOUR.--THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS ROUGHLY SHOWN UP BY JOHN
+  BULL.--HOW A SHINGLE "STUMPED" THE SPIRITS.                       130
+
+  CHAPTER XVII.--THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS SHOWN UP ONCE MORE.--THE
+  SPIRITUALIST BOGUS BABY.--A LADY BRINGS FORTH A MOTIVE
+  FORCE.--"GUM" ARABIC.--SPIRITUALIST HEBREW.--THE ALLEN BOY.--DR.
+  RANDALL.--PORTLAND EVENING COURIER.--THE FOOLS NOT ALL DEAD YET.  145
+
+
+  III. TRADE AND BUSINESS IMPOSITIONS.
+
+  CHAPTER XVIII.--ADULTERATIONS OF FOOD.--ADULTERATIONS OF LIQUOR.--THE
+  COLONEL'S WHISKEY.--THE HUMBUGOMETER.                             152
+
+  CHAPTER XIX.--ADULTERATIONS IN DRINKS.--RIDING HOME ON YOUR
+  WINE-BARREL.--LIST OF THINGS TO MAKE RUM.--THINGS TO COLOR IT
+  WITH.--CANAL-BOAT HASH.--ENGLISH ADULTERATION LAW.--EFFECT OF DRUGS
+  USED.--HOW TO USE THEM.--BUYING LIQUORS UNDER THE CUSTOM-HOUSE
+  LOCK.--HOMOEOPATHIC DOSE.                                         160
+
+  CHAPTER XX.--THE PETER FUNKS AND THEIR FUNCTIONS.--THE RURAL DIVINE
+  AND THE WATCH.--RISE AND PROGRESS OF MOCK AUCTIONS.--THEIR DECLINE
+  AND FALL.                                                         167
+
+  CHAPTER XXI.--LOTTERY SHARKS.--BOULT AND HIS BROTHERS.--KENNETH,
+  KIMBALL & COMPANY.--A MORE CENTRAL LOCATION WANTED FOR
+  BUSINESS.--TWO SEVENTEENTHLIES.--STRANGE COINCIDENCE.             175
+
+  CHAPTER XXII.--ANOTHER LOTTERY HUMBUG.--TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY
+  RECIPES.--VILE BOOKS.--"ADVANTAGE-CARDS."--A PACKAGE FOR YOU;
+  PLEASE SEND THE MONEY.--PEDDLING IN WESTERN NEW YORK.             182
+
+  CHAPTER XXIII.--A CALIFORNIA COAL MINE.--A HARTFORD COAL
+  MINE.--MYSTERIOUS SUBTERRANEAN CANAL ON THE ISTHMUS.              189
+
+
+  IV. MONEY MANIAS.
+
+  CHAPTER XXIV.--THE PETROLEUM HUMBUG.--THE NEW YORK AND RANGOON
+  PETROLEUM COMPANY.                                                195
+
+  CHAPTER XXV.--THE TULIPOMANIA.                                    204
+
+  CHAPTER XXVI.--JOHN BULL'S GREAT MONEY HUMBUG.--THE SOUTH SEA
+  BUBBLE IN 1720.                                                   213
+
+  CHAPTER XXVII.--BUSINESS HUMBUGS.--JOHN LAW.--THE MISSISSIPPI
+  SCHEME.--JOHNNY CRAPAUD AS GREEDY AS JOHNNY BULL.                 221
+
+
+  V. MEDICINE AND QUACKS.
+
+  CHAPTER XXVIII.--DOCTORS AND IMAGINATION.--FIRING A JOKE OUT OF A
+  CANNON.--THE PARIS EYE WATER.--MAJENDIE ON MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE.--OLD
+  SANDS OF LIFE.                                                    232
+
+  CHAPTER XXIX.--THE CONSUMPTIVE REMEDY.--E. ANDREWS, M. D.--BORN
+  WITHOUT BIRTHRIGHTS.--HASHEESH CANDY.--ROBACK THE GREAT.--A CONJUROR
+  OPPOSED TO LYING.                                                 237
+
+  CHAPTER XXX.--MONSIGNORE CRISTOFORO RISCHIO; OR IL CRESO, THE
+  NOSTRUM-VENDER OF FLORENCE.--A MODEL FOR OUR QUACK DOCTORS.       242
+
+
+  VI. HOAXES.
+
+  CHAPTER XXXI.--THE TWENTY-SEVENTH STREET GHOST.--SPIRITS ON THE
+  RAMPAGE.                                                          251
+
+  CHAPTER XXXII.--THE MOON HOAX.                                    259
+
+  CHAPTER XXXIII.--THE MISCEGENATION HOAX.--A GREAT LITERARY
+  SELL.--POLITICAL HUMBUGGING.--TRICKS OF THE WIRE-PULLERS.--MACHINERY
+  EMPLOYED TO RENDER THE PAMPHLET NOTORIOUS.--WHO WERE SOLD AND HOW
+  IT WAS DONE.                                                      273
+
+
+  VII. GHOSTS AND WITCHCRAFTS.
+
+  CHAPTER XXXIV.--HAUNTED HOUSES.--A NIGHT SPENT ALONE WITH A
+  GHOST.--KIRBY THE ACTOR.--COLT'S PISTOLS VERSUS HOBGOBLINS.--THE
+  MYSTERY EXPLAINED.                                                284
+
+  CHAPTER XXXV.--HAUNTED HOUSES.--GHOSTS.--GHOULS.--PHANTOMS.--
+  VAMPIRES.--CONJURORS.--DIVINING--GOBLINS.--FORTUNE-TELLING.--
+  MAGIC.--WITCHES.--SORCERY.--OBI.--DREAMS.--SIGNS.--SPIRITUAL
+  MEDIUMS.--FALSE PROPHETS.--DEMONOLOGY.--DEVILTRY GENERALLY.       293
+
+  CHAPTER XXXVI.--MAGICAL HUMBUGS.--VIRGIL.--A PICKLED SORCERER.--
+  CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, HIS STUDENTS AND HIS BLACK DOG.--DOCTOR
+  FAUSTUS.--HUMBUGGING HORSE-JOCKEYS.--ZIITO AND HIS LARGE
+  SWALLOW.--DEVIL TAKE THE HINDERMOST.                              300
+
+  CHAPTER XXXVII.--WITCHCRAFT.--NEW YORK WITCHES.--THE WITCH
+  MANIA.--HOW FAST THEY BURNED THEM.--THE MODE OF TRIAL.--WITCHES
+  TO-DAY IN EUROPE.                                                 308
+
+  CHAPTER XXXVIII.--CHARMS AND INCANTATIONS.--HOW CATO CURED
+  SPRAINS.--THE SECRET NAME OF GOD.--SECRET NAMES OF CITIES.--ABRACADABRA
+  CURES FOR CRAMP.--MR. WRIGHT'S SIGIL.--WHISKERIFUSTICUS.--WITCHES'
+  HORSES.--THEIR CURSES.--HOW TO RAISE THE DEVIL.                   314
+
+
+  VIII. ADVENTURERS.
+
+  CHAPTER XXXIX.--THE PRINCESS CARIBOO.                             323
+
+  CHAPTER XL.--COUNT CAGLIOSTRO, ALIAS JOSEPH BALSAMO, KNOWN ALSO
+  AS "CURSED JOE."                                                  330
+
+  CHAPTER XLI.--THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.                               338
+
+  CHAPTER XLII.--THE COUNT DE ST. GERMAIN, SAGE, PROPHET, AND
+  MAGICIAN.                                                         354
+
+  CHAPTER XLIII.--RIZA BEY, THE PERSIAN ENVOY TO LOUIS XIV.         361
+
+
+  IX. RELIGIOUS HUMBUGS.
+
+  CHAPTER XLIV.--DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND.--MATTHIAS THE IMPOSTOR.--NEW
+  YORK FOLLIES THIRTY YEARS AGO.                                    370
+
+  CHAPTER XLV.--A RELIGIOUS HUMBUG ON JOHN BULL.--JOANNA
+  SOUTHCOTT.--THE SECOND SHILOH.                                    380
+
+  CHAPTER XLVI.--THE FIRST HUMBUG IN THE WORLD.--ADVANTAGES OF
+  STUDYING THE IMPOSITIONS OF FORMER AGES.--HEATHEN HUMBUGS.--THE
+  ANCIENT MYSTERIES.--THE CABIRI.--ELEUSIS.--ISIS.                  386
+
+  CHAPTER XLVII.--HEATHEN HUMBUGS NO. 2.--HEATHEN STATED
+  SERVICES.--ORACLES.--SIBYLS.--AUGURIES.                           392
+
+  CHAPTER XLVIII.--MODERN HEATHEN HUMBUGS.                          401
+
+  CHAPTER XLIX.--ORDEALS.                                           408
+
+  CHAPTER L.--APOLLONIUS OF TYANA.                                  415
+
+
+
+
+HUMBUGS OF THE WORLD.
+
+
+
+
+I. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+GENERAL VIEW OF THE SUBJECT.--HUMBUG UNIVERSAL.--IN RELIGION.--IN
+POLITICS.--IN BUSINESS.--IN SCIENCE.--IN MEDICINE.--HOW IS IT TO
+CEASE.--THE GREATEST HUMBUG OF ALL.
+
+
+A little reflection will show that humbug is an astonishingly
+wide-spread phenomenon--in fact almost universal. And this is true,
+although we exclude crimes and arrant swindles from the definition of
+it, according to the somewhat careful explanation which is given in the
+beginning of the chapter succeeding this one.
+
+I apprehend that there is no sort of object which men seek to attain,
+whether secular, moral or religious, in which humbug is not very often
+an instrumentality. Religion is and has ever been a chief chapter of
+human life. False religions are the only ones known to two thirds of the
+human race, even now, after nineteen centuries of Christianity; and
+false religions are perhaps the most monstrous, complicated and
+thorough-going specimens of humbug that can be found. And even within
+the pale of Christianity, how unbroken has been the succession of
+impostors, hypocrites and pretenders, male and female, of every
+possible variety of age, sex, doctrine and discipline!
+
+Politics and government are certainly among the most important of
+practical human interests. Now it was a diplomatist--that is, a
+practical manager of one kind of government matters--who invented that
+wonderful phrase--a whole world full of humbug in half-a-dozen
+words--that "Language was given to us to conceal our thoughts." It was
+another diplomatist, who said "An ambassador is a gentleman sent to
+_lie_ abroad for the good of his country." But need I explain to my own
+beloved countrymen that there is humbug in politics? Does anybody go
+into a political campaign without it? are no exaggerations of _our_
+candidate's merits to be allowed? no depreciations of the _other_
+candidate? Shall we no longer prove that the success of the party
+opposed to us will overwhelm the land in ruin? Let me see. Leaving out
+the two elections of General Washington, eighteen times that very fact
+has been proved by the party that was beaten, and immediately we have
+_not_ been ruined, notwithstanding that the dreadful fatal fellows on
+the other side got their hands on the offices and their fingers into the
+treasury.
+
+Business is the ordinary means of living for nearly all of us. And in
+what business is there not humbug? "There's cheating in all trades but
+ours," is the prompt reply from the boot-maker with his brown paper
+soles, the grocer with his floury sugar and chicoried coffee, the
+butcher with his mysterious sausages and queer veal, the dry goods man
+with his "damaged goods wet at the great fire" and his "selling at a
+ruinous loss," the stock-broker with his brazen assurance that your
+company is bankrupt and your stock not worth a cent (if he wants to buy
+it,) the horse jockey with his black arts and spavined brutes, the
+milkman with his tin aquaria, the land agent with his nice new maps and
+beautiful descriptions of distant scenery, the newspaper man with his
+"immense circulation," the publisher with his "Great American Novel,"
+the city auctioneer with his "Pictures by the Old Masters"--all and
+every one protest each his own innocence, and warn you against the
+deceits of the rest. My inexperienced friend, take it for granted that
+they all tell the truth--about each other! and then transact your
+business to the best of your ability on your own judgment. Never fear
+but that you will get experience enough, and that you will pay well for
+it too; and towards the time when you shall no longer need earthly
+goods, you will begin to know how to buy.
+
+Literature is one of the most interesting and significant expressions of
+humanity. Yet books are thickly peppered with humbug. "Travellers'
+stories" have been the scoff of ages, from the "True Story" of witty old
+Lucian the Syrian down to the gorillarities--if I may coin a word--of
+the Frenchman Du Chaillu. Ireland's counterfeited Shakspeare plays,
+Chatterton's forged manuscripts, George Psalmanazar's forged Formosan
+language, Jo Smith's Mormon Bible, (it should be noted that this and the
+Koran sounded two strings of humbug together--the literary and the
+religious,) the more recent counterfeits of the notorious Greek
+Simonides--such literary humbugs as these are equal in presumption and
+in ingenuity too, to any of a merely business kind, though usually
+destitute of that sort of impiety which makes the great religious
+humbugs horrible as well as impudent.
+
+Science is another important field of human effort. Science is the
+pursuit of pure truth, and the systematizing of it. In such an
+employment as that, one might reasonably hope to find all things done in
+honesty and sincerity. Not at all, my ardent and inquiring friends,
+there is a scientific humbug just as large as any other. We have all
+heard of the Moon Hoax. Do none of you remember the Hydrarchos
+Sillimannii, that awful Alabama snake? It was only a little while ago
+that a grave account appeared in a newspaper of a whole new business of
+compressing ice. Perpetual motion has been the dream of scientific
+visionaries, and a pretended but cheating realization of it has been
+exhibited by scamp after scamp. I understand that one is at this moment
+being invented over in Jersey City. I have purchased more than one
+"perpetual motion" myself. Many persons will remember Mr. Paine--"The
+Great Shot-at" as he was called, from his story that people were
+constantly trying to kill him--and his water-gas. There have been other
+water gases too, which were each going to show us how to set the North
+River on fire, but something or other has always broken down just at the
+wrong moment. Nobody seems to reflect, when these water gases come up,
+that if water could really be made to burn, the right conditions would
+surely have happened at some one of the thousands of city fires, and
+that the very stuff with which our stout firemen were extinguishing the
+flames, would have itself caught and exterminated the whole brave wet
+crowd!
+
+Medicine is the means by which we poor feeble creatures try to keep from
+dying or aching. In a world so full of pain it would seem as if people
+could not be so foolish, or practitioners so knavish, as to sport with
+men's and women's and children's lives by their professional humbugs.
+Yet there are many grave M. D.'s who, if there is nobody to hear, and if
+they speak their minds, will tell you plainly that the whole practice of
+medicine is in one sense a humbug. One of its features is certainly a
+humbug, though so innocent and even useful that it seems difficult to
+think of any objection to it. This is the practice of giving a
+_placebo_; that is, a bread pill or a dose of colored water, to keep the
+patient's mind easy while imagination helps nature to perfect a cure. As
+for the quacks, patent medicines and universal remedies, I need only
+mention their names. Prince Hohenlohe, Valentine Greatrakes, John St.
+John Long, Doctor Graham and his wonderful bed, Mesmer and his tub,
+Perkins' metallic tractors--these are half a dozen. Modern history knows
+of hundreds of such.
+
+It would almost seem as if human delusions became more unreasoning and
+abject in proportion as their subject is of greater importance. A
+machine, a story, an animal skeleton, are not so very important. But the
+humbugs which have prevailed about that wondrous machine, the human
+body, its ailments and its cures, about the unspeakable mystery of human
+life, and still more about the far greater and more awful mysteries of
+the life beyond the grave, and the endless happiness and misery believed
+to exist there, the humbugs about these have been infinitely more
+absurd, more shocking, more unreasonable, more inhuman, more
+destructive.
+
+I can only allude to whole sciences (falsely so called) which are
+unmingled humbugs from beginning to end. Such was Alchemy, such was
+Magic, such was and still is Astrology, and above all, Fortune-telling.
+
+But there is a more thorough humbug than any of these enterprises or
+systems. The greatest humbug of all is the man who believes--or pretends
+to believe--that everything and everybody are humbugs. We sometimes meet
+a person who professes that there is no virtue; that every man has his
+price, and every woman hers; that any statement from anybody is just as
+likely to be false as true, and that the only way to decide which, is to
+consider whether truth or a lie was likely to have paid best in that
+particular case. Religion he thinks one of the smartest business dodges
+extant, a firstrate investment, and by all odds the most respectable
+disguise that a lying or swindling business man can wear. Honor he
+thinks is a sham. Honesty he considers a plausible word to flourish in
+the eyes of the greener portion of our race, as you would hold out a
+cabbage leaf to coax a donkey. What people want, he thinks, or says he
+thinks, is something good to eat, something good to drink, fine clothes,
+luxury, laziness, wealth. If you can imagine a hog's mind in a man's
+body--sensual, greedy, selfish, cruel, cunning, sly, coarse, yet
+stupid, short-sighted, unreasoning, unable to comprehend anything except
+what concerns the flesh, you have your man. He thinks himself
+philosophic and practical, a man of the world; he thinks to show
+knowledge and wisdom, penetration, deep acquaintance with men and
+things. Poor fellow! he has exposed his own nakedness. Instead of
+showing that others are rotten inside, he has proved that he is. He
+claims that it is not safe to believe others--it is perfectly safe to
+disbelieve him. He claims that every man will get the better of you if
+possible--let him alone! Selfishness, he says, is the universal
+rule--leave nothing to depend on his generosity or honor; trust him just
+as far as you can sling an elephant by the tail. A bad world, he sneers,
+full of deceit and nastiness--it is his own foul breath that he smells;
+only a thoroughly corrupt heart could suggest such vile thoughts. He
+sees only what suits him, as a turkey-buzzard spies only carrion, though
+amid the loveliest landscape. I pronounce him who thus virtually
+slanders his father and dishonors his mother and defiles the sanctities
+of home and the glory of patriotism and the merchant's honor and the
+martyr's grave and the saint's crown--who does not even know that every
+sham shows that there is a reality, and that hypocrisy is the homage
+that vice pays to virtue--I pronounce him--no, I do not pronounce him a
+humbug, the word does not apply to him. He is a fool.
+
+Looked at on one side, the history of humbug is truly humiliating to
+intellectual pride, yet the long silly story is less absurd during the
+later ages of history, and grows less and less so in proportion to the
+spread of real Christianity. This religion promotes good sense, actual
+knowledge, contentment with what we cannot help, and the exclusive use
+of intelligent means for increasing human happiness and decreasing human
+sorrow. And whenever the time shall come when men are kind and just and
+honest; when they only want what is fair and right, judge only on real
+and true evidence, and take nothing for granted, then there will be no
+place left for any humbugs, either harmless or hurtful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+DEFINITION OF THE WORD HUMBUG.--WARREN OF LONDON.--GENIN, THE
+HATTER.--GOSLING'S BLACKING.
+
+
+Upon a careful consideration of my undertaking to give an account of the
+"Humbugs of the World," I find myself somewhat puzzled in regard to the
+true definition of that word. To be sure, Webster says that humbug, as a
+noun, is an "imposition under fair pretences;" and as a verb, it is "to
+deceive; to impose on." With all due deference to Doctor Webster, I
+submit that, according to present usage, this is not the only, nor even
+the generally accepted definition of that term.
+
+We will suppose, for instance, that a man with "fair pretences" applies
+to a wholesale merchant for credit on a large bill of goods. His "fair
+pretences" comprehend an assertion that he is a moral and religious
+man, a member of the church, a man of wealth, etc., etc. It turns out
+that he is not worth a dollar, but is a base, lying wretch, an impostor
+and a cheat. He is arrested and imprisoned "for obtaining property under
+false pretences" or, as Webster says, "fair pretences." He is punished
+for his villainy. The public do not call him a "humbug;" they very
+properly term him a swindler.
+
+A man, bearing the appearance of a gentleman in dress and manners,
+purchases property from you, and with "fair pretences" obtains your
+confidence. You find, when he has left, that he paid you with
+counterfeit bank-notes, or a forged draft. This man is justly called a
+"forger," or "counterfeiter;" and if arrested, he is punished as such;
+but nobody thinks of calling him a "humbug."
+
+A respectable-looking man sits by your side in an omnibus or rail-car.
+He converses fluently, and is evidently a man of intelligence and
+reading. He attracts your attention by his "fair pretences." Arriving at
+your journey's end, you miss your watch and your pocket-book. Your
+fellow passenger proves to be the thief. Everybody calls him a
+"pickpocket," and not withstanding his "fair pretences," not a person in
+the community calls him a "humbug."
+
+Two actors appear as stars at two rival theatres. They are equally
+talented, equally pleasing. One advertises himself simply as a
+tragedian, under his proper name--the other boasts that he is a prince,
+and wears decorations presented by all the potentates of the world,
+including the "King of the Cannibal Islands." He is correctly set down
+as a "humbug," while this term is never applied to the other actor. But
+if the man who boasts of having received a foreign title is a miserable
+actor, and he gets up gift-enterprises and bogus entertainments, or
+pretends to devote the proceeds of his tragic efforts to some charitable
+object, without, in fact, doing so--he is then a humbug in Dr. Webster's
+sense of that word, for he is an "impostor under fair pretences."
+
+Two physicians reside in one of our fashionable avenues. They were both
+educated in the best medical colleges; each has passed an examination,
+received his diploma, and been dubbed an M. D. They are equally skilled
+in the healing art. One rides quietly about the city in his gig or
+brougham, visiting his patients without noise or clamor--the other
+sallies out in his coach and four, preceded by a band of music, and his
+carriage and horses are covered with handbills and placards, announcing
+his "wonderful cures." This man is properly called a quack and a humbug.
+Why? Not because he cheats or imposes upon the public, for he does not,
+but because, as generally understood, "humbug" consists in putting on
+glittering appearances--outside show--novel expedients, by which to
+suddenly arrest public attention, and attract the public eye and ear.
+
+Clergymen, lawyers, or physicians, who should resort to such methods of
+attracting the public, would not, for obvious reasons, be apt to
+succeed. Bankers, insurance-agents, and others, who aspire to become
+the custodians of the money of their fellow-men, would require a
+different species of advertising from this; but there are various trades
+and occupations which need only notoriety to insure success, always
+provided that when customers are once attracted, they never fail to get
+their money's worth. An honest man who thus arrests public attention
+will be called a "humbug," but he is not a swindler or an impostor. If,
+however, after attracting crowds of customers by his unique displays, a
+man foolishly fails to give them a full equivalent for their money, they
+never patronize him a second time, but they very properly denounce him
+as a swindler, a cheat, an impostor; they do not, however, call him a
+"humbug." He fails, not because he advertises his wares in an _outre_
+manner, but because, after attracting crowds of patrons, he stupidly and
+wickedly cheats them.
+
+When the great blacking-maker of London dispatched his agent to Egypt to
+write on the pyramids of Ghiza, in huge letters, "Buy Warren's Blacking,
+30 Strand, London," he was not "cheating" travelers upon the Nile. His
+blacking was really a superior article, and well worth the price charged
+for it, but he was "humbugging" the public by this queer way of
+arresting attention. It turned out just as he anticipated, that English
+travelers in that part of Egypt were indignant at this desecration, and
+they wrote back to the London Times (every Englishman writes or
+threatens to "write to the Times," if anything goes wrong,) denouncing
+the "Goth" who had thus disfigured these ancient pyramids by writing on
+them in monstrous letters: "Buy Warren's Blacking, 30 Strand, London."
+The Times published these letters, and backed them up by several of
+those awful, grand and dictatorial editorials peculiar to the great
+"Thunderer," in which the blacking-maker, "Warren, 30 Strand," was
+stigmatized as a man who had no respect for the ancient patriarchs, and
+it was hinted that he would probably not hesitate to sell his blacking
+on the sarcophagus of Pharaoh, "or any other"--mummy, if he could only
+make money by it. In fact, to cap the climax, Warren was denounced as a
+"humbug." These indignant articles were copied into all the Provincial
+journals, and very soon, in this manner, the columns of every newspaper
+in Great Britain were teeming with this advice: "Try Warren's Blacking,
+30 Strand, London." The curiosity of the public was thus aroused, and
+they did "try" it, and finding it a superior article, they continued to
+purchase it and recommend it to their friends, and Warren made a fortune
+by it. He always attributed his success to his having "humbugged" the
+public by this unique method of advertising his blacking in Egypt! But
+Warren did not cheat his customers, nor practice "an imposition under
+fair pretences." He was a humbug, but he was an honest upright man, and
+no one called him an impostor or a cheat.
+
+When the tickets for Jenny Lind's first concert in America were sold at
+auction, several business-men, aspiring to notoriety, "bid high" for the
+first ticket. It was finally knocked down to "Genin, the hatter," for
+$225. The journals in Portland (Maine) and Houston (Texas,) and all
+other journals throughout the United States, between these two cities,
+which were connected with the telegraph, announced the fact in their
+columns the next morning. Probably two millions of readers read the
+announcement, and asked, "Who is Genin, the hatter?" Genin became famous
+in a day. Every man involuntarily examined his hat, to see if it was
+made by Genin; and an Iowa editor declared that one of his neighbors
+discovered the name of Genin in his old hat and immediately announced
+the fact to his neighbors in front of the Post Office. It was suggested
+that the old hat should be sold at auction. It was done then and there,
+and the Genin hat sold for fourteen dollars! Gentlemen from city and
+country rushed to Genin's store to buy their hats, many of them willing
+to pay even an extra dollar, if necessary, provided they could get a
+glimpse of Genin himself. This singular freak put thousands of dollars
+into the pocket of "Genin, the hatter," and yet I never heard it charged
+that he made poor hats, or that he would be guilty of an "imposition
+under fair pretences." On the contrary, he is a gentleman of probity,
+and of the first respectability.
+
+When the laying of the Atlantic Telegraph was nearly completed, I was in
+Liverpool. I offered the company one thousand pounds sterling ($5,000)
+for the privilege of sending the first twenty words over the cable to my
+Museum in New York--not that there was any intrinsic merit in the words,
+but that I fancied there was more than $5,000 worth of notoriety in the
+operation. But Queen Victoria and "Old Buck" were ahead of me. Their
+messages had the preference, and I was compelled to "take a back seat."
+
+By thus illustrating what I believe the public will concede to be the
+sense in which the word "humbug" is generally used and understood at the
+present time, in this country as well as in England, I do not propose
+that my letters on this subject shall be narrowed down to that
+definition of the word. On the contrary, I expect to treat of various
+fallacies, delusions, and deceptions in ancient and modern times, which,
+according to Webster's definition, may be called "humbugs," inasmuch as
+they were "impositions under fair pretences."
+
+In writing of modern humbugs, however, I shall sometimes have occasion
+to give the names of honest and respectable parties now living, and I
+felt it but just that the public should fully comprehend my doctrine,
+that a man may, by common usage, be termed a "humbug," without by any
+means impeaching his integrity.
+
+Speaking of "blacking-makers," reminds me that one of the first
+sensationists in advertising whom I remember to have seen, was Mr.
+Leonard Gosling, known as "Monsieur Gosling, the great French
+blacking-maker." He appeared in New York in 1830. He flashed like a
+meteor across the horizon; and before he had been in the city three
+months, nearly everybody had heard of "Gosling's Blacking." I well
+remember his magnificent "four in hand." A splendid team of blood bays,
+with long black tails, was managed with such dexterity by Gosling
+himself, who was a great "whip," that they almost seemed to fly. The
+carriage was emblazoned with the words "Gosling's Blacking," in large
+gold letters, and the whole turnout was so elaborately ornamented and
+bedizened that everybody stopped and gazed with wondering admiration. A
+bugle-player or a band of music always accompanied the great Gosling,
+and, of course, helped to attract the public attention to his
+establishment. At the turning of every street-corner your eyes rested
+upon "Gosling's Blacking." From every show-window gilded placards
+discoursed eloquently of the merits of "Gosling's Blacking." The
+newspapers teemed with poems written in its praise, and showers of
+pictorial handbills, illustrated almanacs, and tinseled souvenirs, all
+lauding the virtues of "Gosling's Blacking," smothered you at every
+point.
+
+The celebrated originator of delineations, "Jim Crow Rice," made his
+first appearance at Hamblin's Bowery Theatre at about this time. The
+crowds which thronged there were so great that hundreds from the
+audience were frequently admitted upon the stage. In one of his scenes,
+Rice introduced a negro boot-blacking establishment. Gosling was too
+"wide awake" to let such an opportunity pass unimproved, and Rice was
+paid for singing an original black Gosling ditty, while a score of
+placards bearing the inscription, "Use Gosling's Blacking," were
+suspended at different points in this negro boot polishing hall.
+Everybody tried "Gosling's Blacking;" and as it was a really good
+article, his sales in city and country soon became immense; Gosling made
+a fortune in seven years, and retired but, as with thousands before him,
+it was "easy come easy go." He engaged in a lead-mining speculation, and
+it was generally understood that his fortune was, in a great measure,
+lost as rapidly as it was made.
+
+Here let me digress, in order to observe that one of the most difficult
+things in life is for men to bear discreetly sudden prosperity. Unless
+considerable time and labor are devoted to earning money, it is not
+appreciated by its possessor; and, having no practical knowledge of the
+value of money, he generally gets rid of it with the same ease that
+marked its accumulation. Mr. Astor gave the experience of thousands when
+he said that he found more difficulty in earning and saving his first
+thousand dollars than in accumulating all the subsequent millions which
+finally made up his fortune. The very economy, perseverance, and
+discipline which he was obliged to practice, as he gained his money
+dollar by dollar, gave him a just appreciation of its value, and thus
+led him into those habits of industry, prudence, temperance, and
+untiring diligence so conducive and necessary to his future success.
+
+Mr. Gosling, however, was not a man to be put down by a single financial
+reverse. He opened a store in Canajoharie, N. Y., which was burned, and
+on which there was no insurance. He came again to New York in 1839, and
+established a restaurant, where, by devoting the services of himself and
+several members of his family assiduously to the business, he soon
+reveled in his former prosperity, and snapped his fingers in glee at
+what unreflecting persons term "the freaks of Dame Fortune." He is still
+living in New York, hale and hearty at the age of seventy. Although
+called a "French" blacking-maker, Mr. Gosling is in reality a Dutchman,
+having been born in the city of Amsterdam, Holland. He is the father of
+twenty-four children, twelve of whom are still living, to cheer him in
+his declining years, and to repay him in grateful attentions for the
+valuable lessons of prudence, integrity, and industry through the
+adoption of which they are honored as respectable and worthy members of
+society.
+
+I cannot however permit this chapter to close without recording a
+protest in principle against that method of advertising of which
+Warren's on the Pyramid is an instance. Not that it is a crime or even
+an immorality in the usual sense of the words; but it is a violent
+offence against good taste, and a selfish and inexcusable destruction of
+other people's enjoyments. No man ought to advertise in the midst of
+landscapes or scenery, in such a way as to destroy or injure their
+beauty by introducing totally incongruous and relatively vulgar
+associations. Too many transactions of the sort have been perpetrated in
+our own country. The principle on which the thing is done is, to seek
+out the most attractive spot possible--the wildest, the most lovely, and
+there, in the most staring and brazen manner to paint up advertisements
+of quack medicines, rum, or as the case may be, in letters of monstrous
+size, in the most obtrusive colors, in such a prominent place, and in
+such a lasting way as to destroy the beauty of the scene both thoroughly
+and permanently.
+
+Any man with a beautiful wife or daughter would probably feel
+disagreeably, if he should find branded indelibly across her smooth
+white forehead, or on her snowy shoulder in blue and red letters such a
+phrase as this: "Try the Jigamaree Bitters!" Very much like this is the
+sort of advertising I am speaking of. It is not likely that I shall be
+charged with squeamishness on this question. I can readily enough see
+the selfishness and vulgarity of this particular sort of advertising,
+however.
+
+It is outrageously selfish to destroy the pleasure of thousands, for the
+sake of a chance of additional gain. And it is an atrocious piece of
+vulgarity to flaunt the names of quack nostrums, and of the coarse
+stimulants of sots, among the beautiful scenes of nature. The pleasure
+of such places depends upon their freedom from the associations of every
+day concerns and troubles and weaknesses. A lovely nook of forest
+scenery, or a grand rock, like a beautiful woman, depends for much of
+its attractiveness upon the attendant sense of freedom from whatever is
+low; upon a sense of purity and of romance. And it is about as nauseous
+to find "Bitters" or "Worm Syrup" daubed upon the landscape, as it would
+be upon the lady's brow.
+
+Since writing this I observe that two legislatures--those of New
+Hampshire and New York--have passed laws to prevent this dirty
+misdemeanor. It is greatly to their credit, and it is in good season.
+For it is matter of wonder that some more colossal vulgarian has not
+stuck up a sign a mile long on the Palisades. But it is matter of
+thankfulness too. At the White Mountains, many grand and beautiful views
+have been spoiled by these nostrum and bedbug souled fellows.
+
+It is worth noticing that the chief haunts of the city of New York, the
+Central Park, has thus far remained unviolated by the dirty hands of
+these vulgar advertisers. Without knowing anything about it, I have no
+doubt whatever that the commissioners have been approached often by
+parties desiring the privilege of advertising within its limits. Among
+the advertising fraternity it would be thought a gigantic opportunity to
+be able to flaunt the name of some bug-poison, fly-killer,
+bowel-rectifier, or disguised rum, along the walls of the Reservoir;
+upon the delicate stone-work of the Terrace, or the graceful lines of
+the Bow Bridge; to nail up a tin sign on every other tree, to stick one
+up right in front of every seat; to keep a gang of young wretches
+thrusting pamphlet or handbill into every person's palm that enters the
+gate, to paint a vulgar sign across every gray rock; to cut quack words
+in ditch-work in the smooth green turf of the mall or ball-ground. I
+have no doubt that it is the peremptory decision and clear good taste of
+the Commissioners alone, which have kept this last retreat of nature
+within our crowded city from being long ago plastered and daubed with
+placards, handbills, sign-boards and paint, from side to side and from
+end to end, over turf, tree, rock, wall, bridge, archway, building and
+all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+MONSIEUR MANGIN, THE FRENCH HUMBUG.
+
+
+One of the most original, unique, and successful humbugs of the present
+day was the late Monsieur Mangin, the blacklead pencil maker of Paris.
+Few persons who have visited the French capital within the last ten or
+twelve years can have failed to have seen him, and once seen he was not
+to be forgotten. While passing through the public streets, there was
+nothing in his personal appearance to distinguish him from any ordinary
+gentlemen. He drove a pair of bay horses, attached to an open carriage
+with two seats, the back one always occupied by his valet. Sometimes he
+would take up his stand in the Champs Elysees; at other times, near the
+column in the Place Vendome; but usually he was seen in the afternoon in
+the Place de la Bastille, or the Place de la Madeleine. On Sundays, his
+favorite locality was the Place de la Bourse. Mangin was a well-formed,
+stately-looking individual, with a most self-satisfied countenance,
+which seemed to say: "I am master here; and all that my auditors have to
+do is, to listen and obey." Arriving at his destined stopping-place, his
+carriage halted. His servant handed him a case from which he took
+several large portraits of himself, which he hung prominently upon the
+sides of his carriage, and also placed in front of him a vase filled
+with medals bearing his likeness on one side and a description of his
+pencils on the other. He then leisurely commenced a change of costume.
+His round hat was displaced by a magnificent burnished helmet, mounted
+with rich plumes of various brilliant colors. His overcoat was laid
+aside, and he donned in its stead a costly velvet tunic with gold
+fringes. He then drew a pair of polished steel gauntlets upon his hands,
+covered his breast with a brilliant cuirass, and placed a richly-mounted
+sword at his side. His servant watched him closely, and upon receiving a
+sign from his master, he too put on his official costume, which
+consisted of a velvet robe and a helmet. The servant then struck up a
+tune on the richly-toned organ which always formed a part of Mangin's
+outfit. The grotesque appearance of these individuals, and the music,
+soon drew together an admiring crowd.
+
+Then the great charlatan stood upon his feet. His manner was calm,
+dignified, imposing, indeed almost solemn, for his face was as serious
+as that of the chief mourner at a funeral. His sharp, intelligent eye
+scrutinized the throng which was pressing around his carriage, until it
+rested apparently upon some particular individual, when he gave a start;
+then, with a dark, angry expression, as if the sight was repulsive, he
+abruptly dropped the visor of his helmet and thus covered his face from
+the gaze of the anxious crowd. This bit of coquetry produced the desired
+effect in whetting the appetite of the multitude, who were impatiently
+waiting to hear him speak. When he had carried this kind of by-play as
+far as he thought the audience would bear it, he raised his hand, and
+his servant understanding the sign, stopped the organ. Mangin then rang
+a small bell, stepped forward to the front of the carriage, gave a
+slight cough indicative of a preparation to speak, opened his mouth, but
+instantly giving a more fearful start and assuming a more sudden frown
+than before, he took his seat as if quite overcome by some unpleasant
+object which his eyes had rested upon. Thus far he had not spoken a
+word. At last the prelude ended, and the comedy commenced. Stepping
+forward again to the front of his carriage where all the gaping crowd
+could catch every word, he exclaimed:
+
+"Gentlemen, you look astonished! You seem to wonder and ask yourselves
+who is this modern Quixote. What mean this costume of by-gone
+centuries--this golden chariot--these richly caparisoned steeds? What is
+the name and purpose of this curious knight-errant? Gentlemen, I will
+condescend to answer your queries. I am Monsieur Mangin, the great
+charlatan of France! Yes, gentlemen, I am a charlatan--a mountebank; it
+is my profession, not from choice, but from necessity. You, gentlemen,
+created that necessity! You would not patronize true, unpretending,
+honest merit, but you are attracted by my glittering casque, my sweeping
+crest, my waving plumes. You are captivated by din and glitter, and
+therein lies my strength. Years ago, I hired a modest shop in the Rue
+Rivoli, but I could not sell pencils enough to pay my rent, whereas, by
+assuming this disguise--it is nothing else--I have succeeded in
+attracting general attention, and in selling literally millions of my
+pencils; and I assure you there is at this moment scarcely an artist in
+France or in Great Britain who don't know that I manufacture by far the
+best blacklead pencils ever seen."
+
+And this assertion was indeed true. His pencils were everywhere
+acknowledged to be superior to any other.
+
+While he was thus addressing his audience, he would take a blank card,
+and with one of his pencils would pretend to be drawing the portrait of
+some man standing near him; then showing his picture to the crowd, it
+proved to be the head of a donkey, which, of course, produced roars of
+laughter.
+
+"There, do you see what wonderful pencils these are? Did you ever behold
+a more striking likeness?"
+
+A hearty laugh would be sure to follow, and then he would exclaim: "Now
+who will have the first pencil--only five sous." One would buy, and then
+another; a third and a fourth would follow; and with the delivery of
+each pencil he would rattle off a string of witticisms which kept his
+patrons in capital good-humor; and frequently he would sell from two
+hundred to five hundred pencils in immediate succession. Then he would
+drop down in his carriage for a few minutes and wipe the perspiration
+from his face, while his servant played another overture on the organ.
+This gave his purchasers a chance to withdraw, and afforded a good
+opportunity for a fresh audience to congregate. Then would follow a
+repetition of his previous sales, and in this way he would continue for
+hours. To those disposed to have a _souvenir_ of the great humbug he
+would sell six pencils, a medal and a photograph of himself for a franc
+(twenty cents.) After taking a rest he would commence a new speech.
+
+"When I was modestly dressed, like any of my hearers, I was half
+starved. Punch and his bells would attract crowds, but my good pencils
+attracted nobody. I imitated Punch and his bells, and now I have two
+hundred depots in Paris. I dine at the best cafes, drink the best wine,
+live on the best of everything, while my defamers get poor and lank, as
+they deserve to be. Who are my defamers? Envious swindlers! Men who try
+to ape me, but are too stupid and too dishonest to succeed. They
+endeavor to attract notice as mountebanks, and then foist upon the
+public worthless trash, and hope thus to succeed. Ah! defamers of mine,
+you are fools as well as knaves. Fools, to think that any man can
+succeed by systematically and persistently cheating the public. Knaves,
+for desiring the public's money without giving them an equivalent. I am
+an honest man. I have no bad habits; and I now declare, if any trader,
+inventor, manufacturer, or philanthropist will show me better pencils
+than mine, I will give him 1,000f.--no, not to him, for I abhor
+betting--but to the poor of the Thirty-first Arrondissement, where I
+live."
+
+Mangin's harangues were always accompanied by a peculiar play of feature
+and of voice, and with unique and original gestures, which seemed to
+excite and captivate his audience.
+
+About seven years ago, I met him in one of the principal restaurants in
+the Palais Royale. A mutual friend introduced me.
+
+"Ah!" said he, "Monsieur Barnum, I am delighted to see you. I have read
+your book with infinite satisfaction. It has been published here in
+numerous editions. I see you have the right idea of things. Your motto
+is a good one--'we study to please.' I have much wanted to visit
+America; but I cannot speak English, so I must remain in my dear belle
+France."
+
+I remarked that I had often seen him in public, and bought his pencils.
+
+"Aha! you never saw better pencils. You know I could never maintain my
+reputation if I sold poor pencils. But _sacre bleu_, my miserable
+would-be imitators do not know our grand secret. First, attract the
+public by din and tinsel, by brilliant sky-rockets and Bengola lights,
+then give them as much as possible for their money."
+
+"You are very happy," I replied, "in your manner of attracting the
+public. Your costume is elegant, your chariot is superb, and your valet
+and music are sure to draw."
+
+"Thank you for your compliment, Mr. B., but I have not forgotten your
+Buffalo-hunt, your Mermaid, nor your Woolly Horse. They were a good
+offset to my rich helmet and sword, my burnished gauntlets and gaudy
+cuirass. Both are intended as advertisements of something genuine, and
+both answer the purpose."
+
+After comparing notes in this way for an hour, we parted, and his last
+words were:
+
+"Mr. B., I have got a grand humbug in my head, which I shall put in
+practice within a year, and it shall double the sale of my pencils.
+Don't ask me what it is, but within one year you shall see it for
+yourself, and you shall acknowledge Monsieur Mangin knows something of
+human nature. My idea is magnifique, but it is one grand secret."
+
+I confess my curiosity was somewhat excited, and I hoped that Monsieur
+Mangin would "add another wrinkle to my horns." But, poor fellow! within
+four months after I bade him adieu, the Paris newspapers announced his
+sudden death. They added that he had left two hundred thousand francs,
+which he had given in his will to charitable objects. The announcement
+was copied into nearly all the papers on the Continent and in Great
+Britain, for almost everybody had seen or heard of the eccentric pencil
+maker.
+
+His death caused many an honest sigh, and his absence seemed to cast a
+gloom over several of his favorite halting-places. The Parisians really
+loved him, and were proud of his genius.
+
+"Well," people in Paris would remark, "Mangin was a clever fellow. He
+was shrewd, and possessed a thorough knowledge of the world. He was a
+gentleman and a man of intelligence, extremely agreeable and witty. His
+habits were good; he was charitable. He never cheated anybody. He always
+sold a good article, and no person who purchased from him had cause to
+complain."
+
+I confess I felt somewhat chagrined that the Monsieur had thus suddenly
+taken "French leave" without imparting to me the "grand secret" by which
+he was to double the sales of his pencils. But I had not long to mourn
+on that account; for after Monsieur Mangin had been for six months--as
+they say of John Brown--"mouldering in his grave" judge of the
+astonishment and delight of all Paris at his reappearance in his native
+city in precisely the same costume and carriage as formerly, and
+heralded by the same servant and organ that had always attended him. It
+now turned out that Monsieur Mangin had lived in the most rigid
+seclusion for half a year, and that the extensively-circulated
+announcements of his sudden death had been made by himself, merely as
+an "advertising dodge" to bring him still more into notice, and give the
+public something to talk about. I met Mangin in Paris soon after this
+event.
+
+"Aha, Monsieur Barnum!" he exclaimed, "did I not tell you I had a new
+humbug that would double the sales of my pencils? I assure you my sales
+are more than quadrupled, and it is sometimes impossible to have them
+manufactured fast enough to supply the demand. You Yankees are very
+clever, but by gar, none of you have discovered you should live all the
+better if you would die for six months. It took Mangin to teach you
+that."
+
+The patronizing air with which he made this speech, slapping me at the
+same time familiarly upon the back, showed him in his true character of
+egotist. Although good-natured and social to a degree, he was really one
+of the most self-conceited men I ever met.
+
+Monsieur Mangin died the present year, and it is said that his heirs
+received more than half a million of francs as the fruit of his
+eccentric labors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+OLD GRIZZLY ADAMS.[37-*]
+
+
+James C. Adams, or "Grizzly Adams," as he was generally termed, from the
+fact of his having captured so many grizzly bears, and encountered such
+fearful perils by his unexampled daring, was an extraordinary character.
+For many years a hunter and trapper in the Rocky and Sierra Nevada
+Mountains, he acquired a recklessness which, added to his natural
+invincible courage, rendered him truly one of the most striking men of
+the age. He was emphatically what the English call a man of "pluck." In
+1860, he arrived in New York with his famous collection of California
+animals, captured by himself, consisting of twenty or thirty immense
+grizzly bears, at the head of which stood "Old Sampson"--now in the
+American Museum--wolves, half a dozen other species of bear, California
+lions, tigers, buffalo, elk, etc., and Old Neptune, the great sea-lion,
+from the Pacific.
+
+Old Adams had trained all these monsters so that with him they were as
+docile as kittens, while many of the most ferocious among them would
+attack a stranger without hesitation, if he came within their grasp. In
+fact, the training of these animals was no fool's play, as Old Adams
+learned to his cost; for the terrific blows which he received from time
+to time, while teaching them "docility," finally cost him his life.
+
+When Adams and his other wild beasts (for he was nearly as wild as any
+of them) arrived in New York, he called immediately at the Museum. He
+was dressed in his hunter's suit of buckskin, trimmed with the skins and
+bordered with the hanging tails of small Rocky Mountain animals; his cap
+consisting of the skin of a wolf's head and shoulders, from which
+depended several tails as natural as life, and under which appeared his
+stiff bushy gray hair and his long white grizzly beard. In fact, Old
+Adams was quite as much of a show as his bears. They had come around
+Cape Horn on the clipper-ship Golden Fleece, and a sea-voyage of three
+and a half months had probably not added much to the beauty or neat
+appearance of the old bear-hunter.
+
+During our conversation, Grizzly Adams took off his cap, and showed me
+the top of his head. His skull was literally broken in. It had on
+various occasions been struck by the fearful paws of his grizzly
+students; and the last blow, from the bear called "General Fremont," had
+laid open his brain, so that its workings were plainly visible. I
+remarked that I thought that was a dangerous wound, and might possibly
+prove fatal.
+
+"Yes," replied Adams, "that will fix me out. It had nearly healed; but
+old Fremont opened it for me, for the third or fourth time, before I
+left California, and he did his business so thoroughly, I'm a used-up
+man. However, I reckon I may live six months or a year yet."
+
+This was spoken as coolly as if he had been talking about the life of a
+dog.
+
+The immediate object of "Old Adams" in calling upon me was this. I had
+purchased one-half interest in his California menagerie from a man who
+had come by way of the Isthmus from California, and who claimed to own
+an equal interest with Adams in the show. Adams declared that the man
+had only advanced him some money, and did not possess the right to sell
+half of the concern. However, the man held a bill of sale for one-half
+of the "California Menagerie," and Old Adams finally consented to
+accept me as an equal partner in the speculation, saying that he guessed
+I could do the managing part, and he would show up the animals. I
+obtained a canvas tent, and erecting it on the present site of Wallack's
+Theatre, Adams there opened his novel California Menagerie. On the
+morning of opening, a band of music preceded a procession of
+animal-cages, down Broadway and up the Bowery; Old Adams dressed in his
+hunting costume, heading the line, with a platform-wagon on which were
+placed three immense grizzly bears, two of which he held by chains,
+while he was mounted on the back of the largest grizzly, which stood in
+the centre, and was not secured in any manner whatever. This was the
+bear known as "General Fremont;" and so docile had he become that Adams
+said he had used him as a packbear to carry his cooking and hunting
+apparatus through the mountains for six months, and had ridden him
+hundreds of miles. But apparently docile as were many of these animals,
+there was not one among them that would not occasionally give even Adams
+a sly blow or a sly bite when a good chance offered; hence Old Adams was
+but a wreck of his former self, and expressed pretty nearly the truth
+when he said:
+
+"Mr. Barnum, I am not the man I was five years ago. Then I felt able to
+stand the hug of any grizzly living, and was always glad to encounter,
+single-handed, any sort of an animal that dared present himself. But I
+have been beaten to a jelly, torn almost limb from limb, and nearly
+chawed up and spit out by these treacherous grizzly bears. However, I am
+good for a few months yet, and by that time I hope we shall gain enough
+to make my old woman comfortable, for I have been absent from her some
+years."
+
+His wife came from Massachusetts to New York, and nursed him. Dr. Johns
+dressed his wounds every day, and not only told Adams he could never
+recover, but assured his friends that probably a very few weeks would
+lay him in his grave.
+
+But Adams was as firm as adamant and as resolute as a lion. Among the
+thousands who saw him dressed in his grotesque hunter's suit, and
+witnessed the apparent vigor with which he "performed" the savage
+monsters, beating and whipping them into apparently the most perfect
+docility, probably not one suspected that this rough, fierce-looking,
+powerful demi-savage, as he appeared to be, was suffering intense pain
+from his broken skull and fevered system, and that nothing kept him from
+stretching himself on his deathbed but that most indomitable and
+extraordinary will of his.
+
+After the exhibition had been open six weeks, the Doctor insisted that
+Adams should sell out his share in the animals and settle up all his
+worldly affairs; for he assured him that he was growing weaker every
+day, and his earthly existence must soon terminate.
+
+"I shall live a good deal longer than you doctors think for," replied
+Adams, doggedly; and then, seeming after all to realize the truth of the
+Doctor's assertion, he turned to me and said: "Well, Mr. B., you must
+buy me out." He named his price for his half of the "show," and I
+accepted his offer. We had arranged to exhibit the bears in Connecticut
+and Massachusetts during the summer, in connection with a circus, and
+Adams insisted that I should hire him to travel for the summer, and
+exhibit the bears in their curious performances. He offered to go for
+$60 per week and traveling expenses of himself and wife.
+
+I replied that I would gladly engage him as long as he could stand it,
+but I advised him to give up business and go to his home in
+Massachusetts; "for," I remarked, "you are growing weaker every day, and
+at best cannot stand it more than a fortnight."
+
+"What will you give me extra if I will travel and exhibit the bears
+every day for ten weeks?" asked old Adams, eagerly.
+
+"Five hundred dollars," I replied, with a laugh.
+
+"Done!" exclaimed Adams. "I will do it; so draw up an agreement to that
+effect at once. But mind you, draw it payable to my wife, for I may be
+too weak to attend to business after the ten weeks are up, and if I
+perform my part of the contract, I want her to get the $500 without any
+trouble."
+
+I drew up a contract to pay him $60 per week for his services, and if he
+continued to exhibit the bears for ten consecutive weeks I was then to
+hand him, or his wife $500 extra.
+
+"You have lost your $500!" exclaimed Adams on taking the contract; "for
+I am bound to live and earn it."
+
+"I hope you may, with all my heart, and a hundred years more if you
+desire it," I replied.
+
+"Call me a fool if I don't earn the $500!" exclaimed Adams, with a
+triumphant laugh.
+
+The "show" started off in a few days, and at the end of a fortnight I
+met it at Hartford, Connecticut.
+
+"Well," says I, "Adams, you seem to stand it pretty well. I hope you and
+your wife are comfortable?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, with a laugh; "and you may as well try to be
+comfortable too, for your $500 is a goner."
+
+"All right," I replied; "I hope you will grow better every day."
+
+But I saw by his pale face, and other indications, that he was rapidly
+failing.
+
+In three weeks more, I met him again at New Bedford, Mass. It seemed to
+me, then, that he could not live a week, for his eyes were glassy and
+his hands trembled, but his pluck was great as ever.
+
+"This hot weather is pretty bad for me," he said, "but my ten weeks are
+half expired, and I am good for your $500, and, probably, a month or two
+longer."
+
+This was said with as much bravado as if he was offering to bet upon a
+horse-race. I offered to pay him half of the $500 if he would give up
+and go home; but he peremptorily declined making any compromise
+whatever.
+
+I met him the ninth week in Boston. He had failed considerably since I
+last saw him, but he still continued to exhibit the bears and chuckled
+over his almost certain triumph. I laughed in return, and sincerely
+congratulated him on his nerve and probable success. I remained with him
+until the tenth week was finished, and handed him his $500. He took it
+with a leer of satisfaction, and remarked, that he was sorry I was a
+teetotaller, for he would like to stand treat!
+
+Just before the menagerie left New York, I had paid $150 for a new
+hunting-suit, made of beaver-skins similar to the one which Adams had
+worn. This I intended for Herr Driesbach, the animal-tamer, who was
+engaged by me to take the place of Adams whenever he should be compelled
+to give up.
+
+Adams, on starting from New York, asked me to loan this new dress to him
+to perform in once in a while in a fair day when we had a large
+audience, for his own costume was considerably soiled. I did so, and now
+when I handed him his $500 he remarked:
+
+"Mr. B., I suppose you are going to give me this new hunting-dress."
+
+"Oh no," I replied. "I got that for your successor, who will exhibit the
+bears to-morrow; besides, you have no possible use for it."
+
+"Now, don't be mean, but _lend_ me the dress, if you won't _give_ it to
+me, for I want to wear it home to my native village."
+
+I could not refuse the poor old man anything, and I therefore replied:
+
+"Well, Adams, I will lend you the dress; but you will send it back to
+me."
+
+"Yes, when I have done with it," he replied, with an evident chuckle of
+triumph.
+
+I thought to myself, he will soon be done with it, and replied:
+
+"That's all right."
+
+A new idea evidently seized him, for, with a brightening look of
+satisfaction, he said:
+
+"Now, Barnum, you have made a good thing out of the California
+menagerie, and so have I; but you will make a heap more. So, if you
+won't give me this new hunter's dress, just draw a little writing, and
+sign it, saying that I may wear it until I have done with it."
+
+Of course, I knew that in a few days at longest he would be "done" with
+this world altogether, and, to gratify him, I cheerfully drew and signed
+the paper.
+
+"Come, old Yankee, I've got you this time--see if I hain't!" exclaimed
+Adams, with a broad grin, as he took the paper.
+
+I smiled, and said:
+
+"All right, my dear fellow; the longer you live, the better I shall like
+it."
+
+We parted, and he went to Neponset, a small town near Boston, where his
+wife and daughter lived. He took at once to his bed, and never rose from
+it again. The excitement had passed away, and his vital energies could
+accomplish no more.
+
+The fifth day after arriving home, the physician told him he could not
+live until the next morning. He received the announcement in perfect
+calmness, and with the most apparent indifference; then, turning to his
+wife, with a smile, he requested her to have him buried in the new
+hunting suit.
+
+"For," said he, "Barnum agreed to let me have it until I have done with
+it, and I was determined to fix his flint this time. He shall never see
+that dress again."
+
+His wife assured him that his request should be complied with. He then
+sent for the clergyman, and they spent several hours in communing
+together.
+
+Adams told the clergyman he had told some pretty big stories about his
+bears, but he had always endeavored to do the straight thing between man
+and man. "I have attended preaching every day, Sundays and all," said
+he, "for the last six years. Sometimes an old grizzly gave me the
+sermon, sometimes it was a panther; often it was the thunder and
+lightning, the tempest, or the hurricane on the peaks of the Sierra
+Nevada, or in the gorges of the Rocky Mountains; but whatever preached
+to me, it always taught me the majesty of the Creator, and revealed to
+me the undying and unchanging love of our kind Father in heaven.
+Although I am a pretty rough customer," continued the dying man, "I
+fancy my heart is in about the right place, and look with confidence to
+the blessed Saviour for that rest which I so much need, and which I have
+never enjoyed upon earth." He then desired the clergyman to pray with
+him, after which he grasped him by the hand, thanked him for his
+kindness, and bade him farewell.
+
+In another hour his spirit had taken its flight; and it was said by
+those present that his face lighted up into a smile as the last breath
+escaped him, and that smile he carried into his grave. Almost his last
+words were: "Won't Barnum open his eyes when he finds I have humbugged
+him by being buried in his new hunting-dress?" That dress was indeed the
+shroud in which he was entombed.
+
+And that was the last on earth of "Old Grizzly Adams."
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[37-*] Although the subject of the following sketch can hardly be
+classed under the head of "Humbugs," he was an original genius, and a
+knowledge of some of his prominent traits seems appropriate in
+connection with one or two other passages of this book.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE GOLDEN PIGEONS.--GRIZZLY ADAMS.--GERMAN CHEMIST.--HAPPY
+FAMILY.--FRENCH NATURALIST.
+
+
+"Old Grizzly Adams" was quite candid when, in his last hours, he
+confessed to the clergyman that he had "told some pretty large stories
+about his bears." In fact, these "large stories" were Adam's "besetting
+sin." To hear him talk, one would suppose that he had seen and handled
+everything ever read or heard of. In fact, according to his story,
+California contained specimens of all things, animate and inanimate, to
+be found in any part of the globe. He talked glibly about California
+lions, California tigers, California leopards, California hyenas,
+California camels, and California hippopotami. He furthermore declared
+he had, on one occasion, seen a California elephant, "at a great
+distance," but it was "very shy," and he would not permit himself to
+doubt that California giraffes existed somewhere in the neighborhood of
+the "tall trees."
+
+I was anxious to get a chance of exposing to Adams his weak point, and
+of showing him the absurdity of telling such ridiculous stories. A fit
+occasion soon presented itself. One day, while engaged in my office at
+the Museum, a man with marked Teutonic features and accent approached
+the door and asked if I would like to buy a pair of living golden
+pigeons.
+
+"Yes," I replied, "I would like a _flock_ of 'golden pigeons,' if I
+could buy them for their weight in _silver_; for there are no '_golden_'
+pigeons in existence, unless they are made from the pure metal."
+
+"You shall see some golden pigeons alive," he replied, at the same time
+entering my office and closing the door after him. He then removed the
+lid from a small basket which he carried in his hand, and sure enough
+there were snugly ensconced a pair of beautiful living ruff-necked
+pigeons, as yellow as saffron and as bright as a double eagle fresh from
+the mint.
+
+I confess I was somewhat staggered at this sight, and quickly asked the
+man where those birds came from.
+
+A dull, lazy smile crawled over the sober face of my German visitor, as
+he replied in a slow, guttural tone of voice:
+
+"What you think yourself?"
+
+Catching his meaning, I quickly answered:
+
+"I think it is a humbug?"
+
+"Of course, I know you will say so; because you 'forstha' such things
+better as any man living, so I shall not try to humbug you. I have color
+them myself."
+
+On further inquiry, I learned that this German was a chemist, and that
+he possessed the art of coloring birds any hue desired, and yet retain a
+natural gloss on the feathers, which gave every shade the appearance of
+reality.
+
+"I can paint a green pigeon or a blue pigeon, a gray pigeon or a black
+pigeon, a brown pigeon or a pigeon half blue and half green," said the
+German; "and if you prefer it, I can paint them pink or purple, or give
+you a little of each color, and make you a rainbow pigeon."
+
+The "rainbow pigeon" did not strike me as particularly desirable; but,
+thinking here was a good chance to catch "Grizzly Adams," I bought the
+pair of golden pigeons for ten dollars, and sent them up to the "Happy
+Family," marked "Golden Pigeons from California." Mr. Taylor the great
+pacificator, who has charge of the Happy Family, soon came down in a
+state of perspiration.
+
+"Really, Mr. Barnum," said he, "I could not think of putting those
+elegant golden pigeons into the Happy Family--they are too valuable a
+bird--they might get injured--they are by far the most beautiful pigeons
+I ever saw; and as they are so rare, I would not jeopardize their lives
+for anything."
+
+"Well," I replied, "you may put them in a separate cage, properly
+labeled."
+
+Monsieur Guillaudeu, the naturalist and taxidermist of the Museum, has
+been attached to that establishment since the year it was founded, 1810.
+He is a Frenchman, and has read everything upon Natural History that was
+ever published in his own or in the English language. He is now
+seventy-five years old, but is lively as a cricket, and takes as much
+interest in Natural History as he ever did. When he saw the "golden
+pigeons from California," he was considerably astonished! He examined
+them with great delight for half an hour, expatiating upon their
+beautiful color, and the near resemblance which every feature bore to
+the American ruff-neck pigeon. He soon came to my office and said:
+
+"Mr. B., these golden pigeons are superb, but they cannot be from
+California. Audubon mentions no such bird in his work upon American
+Ornithology."
+
+I told him he had better take Audubon home with him that night, and
+perhaps by studying him attentively he would see occasion to change his
+mind.
+
+The next day, the old naturalist called at my office and remarked:
+
+"Mr. B., those pigeons are a more rare bird than you imagine. They are
+not mentioned by Linnaeus, Cuvier, Goldsmith, or any other writer on
+Natural History, so far as I have been able to discover. I expect they
+must have come from some unexplored portion of Australia."
+
+"Never mind," I replied, "we may get more light on the subject, perhaps,
+before long. We will continue to label them 'California Pigeons' until
+we can fix their nativity elsewhere."
+
+The next, morning, "Old Grizzly Adams," whose exhibition of bears was
+then open in Fourteenth street, happened to be passing through the
+Museum, when his eyes fell on the "Golden California Pigeons." He looked
+a moment and doubtless admired. He soon after came to my office.
+
+"Mr. B," said he, "you must let me have those California pigeons."
+
+"I can't spare them," I replied.
+
+"But you _must_ spare them. All the birds and animals from California
+ought to be together. You own half of my California menagerie, and you
+must lend me those pigeons."
+
+"Mr. Adams, they are too rare and valuable a bird to be hawked about in
+that manner; besides, I expect they will attract considerable attention
+here."
+
+"Oh, don't be a fool," replied Adams. "Rare bird, indeed! Why, they are
+just as common in California as any other pigeon! I could have brought a
+hundred of them from San Francisco, if I had thought of it."
+
+"But why did you not think of it?" I asked, with a suppressed smile.
+
+"Because they are _so common_ there," said Adams. "I did not think they
+would be any curiosity here. I have eaten them in pigeon-pies hundreds
+of times, and shot them by the thousand!"
+
+I was ready to burst with laughter to see how readily Adams swallowed
+the bait, but maintaining the most rigid gravity, I replied:
+
+"Oh well, Mr. Adams, if they are really so common in California, you had
+probably better take them, and you may write over and have half a dozen
+pairs sent to me for the Museum."
+
+"All right," said Adams; "I will send over to a friend in San Francisco,
+and you shall have them here in a couple of months."
+
+I told Adams that, for certain reasons, I would prefer to change the
+label so as to have it read: "Golden Pigeons from Australia."
+
+"Well, call them what you like," replied Adams; "I suppose they are
+probably about as plenty in Australia as they are in California."
+
+I fancied I could discover a sly smile lurking in the eye of the old
+bear-hunter as he made this reply.
+
+The pigeons were labeled as I suggested, and this is how it happened
+that the Bridgeport non-believing lady, mentioned in the next chapter,
+was so much attracted as to solicit some of their eggs in order to
+perpetuate the species in old Connecticut.
+
+Six or eight weeks after this incident, I was in the California
+Menagerie, and noticed that the "Golden Pigeons" had assumed a
+frightfully mottled appearance. Their feathers had grown out, and they
+were half white. Adams had been so busy with his bears that he had not
+noticed the change. I called him up to the pigeon cage, and remarked:
+
+"Mr. Adams, I fear you will lose your Golden Pigeons; they must be very
+sick; I observe they are turning quite pale!"
+
+Adams looked at them a moment with astonishment; then turning to me, and
+seeing that I could not suppress a smile, he indignantly exclaimed:
+
+"Blast the Golden Pigeons! You had better take them back to the Museum.
+You can't humbug me with your painted pigeons!"
+
+This was too much, and "I laughed till I cried" to witness the mixed
+look of astonishment and vexation which marked the "grizzly" features of
+old Adams.
+
+"These Golden Pigeons," I remarked, "are very common in California, I
+think I heard you say? When do you expect my half-dozen pairs will
+arrive?"
+
+"You go to thunder, you old humbug!" replied Adams, as he marched off
+indignantly, and soon disappeared behind the cages of his grizzly
+bears.
+
+From that time, Adams seemed to be more careful about telling his large
+stories. Perhaps he was not cured altogether of his habit, but he took
+particular pains when making marvelous statements to have them of such a
+nature that they could not be disproved so easily as was that regarding
+the "Golden California Pigeons."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE WHALE, THE ANGEL FISH, AND THE GOLDEN PIGEON.
+
+
+If the fact could be definitely determined, I think it would be
+discovered that in this "wide awake" country there are more persons
+humbugged by believing too little than too much. Many persons have such
+a horror of being taken in, or such an elevated opinion of their own
+acuteness, that they believe everything to be a sham, and in this way
+are continually humbugging themselves.
+
+Several years since, I purchased a living white whale, captured near
+Labrador, and succeeded in placing it, "in good condition," in a large
+tank, fifty feet long, and supplied with salt water, in the basement of
+the American Museum. I was obliged to light the basement with gas, and
+that frightened the sea-monster to such an extent that he kept at the
+bottom of the tank, except when he was compelled to stick his nose above
+the surface in order to breathe or "blow," and then down he would go
+again as quick as possible. Visitors would sometimes stand for half an
+hour, watching in vain to get a look at the whale; for, although he
+could remain under water only about two minutes at a time, he would
+happen to appear in some unlooked for quarter of the huge tank, and
+before they could all get a chance to see him, he would be out of sight
+again. Some impatient and incredulous persons after waiting ten minutes,
+which seemed to them an hour, would sometimes exclaim:
+
+"Oh, humbug! I don't believe there is a whale here at all!"
+
+This incredulity often put me out of patience, and I would say:
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, there is a living whale in the tank. He is
+frightened by the gaslight and by visitors; but he is obliged to come to
+the surface every two minutes, and if you will watch sharply, you will
+see him. I am sorry we can't make him dance a hornpipe and do all sorts
+of wonderful things at the word of command; but if you will exercise
+your patience a few minutes longer, I assure you the whale will be seen
+at considerably less trouble than it would be to go to Labrador
+expressly for that purpose."
+
+This would usually put my patrons in good humor; but I was myself often
+vexed at the persistent stubbornness of the whale in not calmly floating
+on the surface for the gratification of my visitors.
+
+One day, a sharp Yankee lady and her daughter, from Connecticut, called
+at the Museum. I knew them well; and in answer to their inquiry for the
+locality of the whale, I directed them to the basement. Half an hour
+afterward, they called at my office, and the acute mother, in a
+half-confidential, serio-comic whisper, said:
+
+"Mr. B., it's astonishing to what a number of purposes the ingenuity of
+us Yankees has applied india-rubber."
+
+I asked her meaning, and was soon informed that she was perfectly
+convinced that it was an india-rubber whale, worked by steam and
+machinery, by means of which he was made to rise to the surface at short
+intervals, and puff with the regularity of a pair of bellows. From her
+earnest, confident manner, I saw it would be useless to attempt to
+disabuse her mind on the subject. I therefore very candidly acknowledged
+that she was quite too sharp for me, and I must plead guilty to the
+imposition; but I begged her not to expose me, for I assured her that
+she was the only person who had discovered the trick.
+
+It was worth more than a dollar to see with what a smile of satisfaction
+she received the assurance that nobody else was as shrewd as herself;
+and the patronizing manner in which she bade me be perfectly tranquil,
+for the secret should be considered by her as "strictly confidential,"
+was decidedly rich. She evidently received double her money's worth in
+the happy reflection that she could not be humbugged, and that I was
+terribly humiliated in being detected through her marvelous powers of
+discrimination! I occasionally meet the good lady, and always try to
+look a little sheepish, but she invariably assures me that she has never
+divulged my secret and never will!
+
+On another occasion, a lady equally shrewd, who lives neighbor to me in
+Connecticut, after regarding for a few minutes the "Golden Angel Fish"
+swimming in one of the Aquaria, abruptly addressed me with:
+
+"You can't humbug me, Mr. Barnum; that fish is painted!"
+
+"Nonsense!" said I, with a laugh; "the thing is impossible!"
+
+"I don't care, I know it is painted; it is as plain as can be."
+
+"But, my dear Mrs. H., paint would not adhere to a fish while in the
+water; and if it would, it would kill him. Besides," I added, with an
+extra serious air, "we never allow humbugging here!"
+
+"Oh, here is just the place to look for such things," she replied with a
+smile; "and I must say I more than half believe that Angel Fish is
+painted."
+
+She was finally nearly convinced of her error, and left. In the
+afternoon of the same day, I met her in Old Adams' California Menagerie.
+She knew that I was part-proprietor of that establishment, and seeing me
+in conversation with "Grizzly Adams," she came up to me in some haste,
+and with her eyes glistening with excitement, she said:
+
+"O, Mr. B., I never saw anything so beautiful as those elegant 'Golden
+Pigeons' from Australia. I want you to secure some of their eggs for me,
+and let my pigeons hatch them at home. I should prize them beyond all
+measure."
+
+"Oh, you don't want 'Golden Australian Pigeons,'" I replied; "they are
+painted."
+
+"No, they are not painted," said she, with a laugh, "but I half think
+the Angel Fish is."
+
+I could not control myself at the curious coincidence, and I roared with
+laughter while I replied:
+
+"Now, Mrs. H., I never let a good joke be spoiled, even if it serves to
+expose my own secrets. I assure you, upon honor, that the Golden
+Australian Pigeons, as they are labeled, are really painted; and that in
+their natural state they are nothing more nor less than the common
+ruff-necked white American pigeons!"
+
+And it was a fact. How they happened to be exhibited under that
+auriferous disguise was owing to an amusing circumstance, explained in
+another chapter.
+
+Suffice it at present to say, that Mrs. H. to this day "blushes to her
+eyebrows" whenever an allusion is made to "Angel Fish" or "Golden
+Pigeons."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+PEASE'S HOARHOUND CANDY.--THE DORR REBELLION.--THE PHILADELPHIA
+ALDERMEN.
+
+
+In the year 1842, a new style of advertising appeared in the newspapers
+and in handbills which arrested public attention at once on account of
+its novelty. The thing advertised was an article called "Pease's
+Hoarhound Candy;" a very good specific for coughs and colds. It was put
+up in twenty-five cent packages, and was eventually sold wholesale and
+retail in enormous quantities. Mr. Pease's system of advertising was
+one which, I believe, originated with him in this country, although
+many have practiced it since, but of course, with less success--for
+imitations seldom succeed. Mr. Pease's plan was to seize upon the most
+prominent topic of interest and general conversation, and discourse
+eloquently upon that topic in fifty to a hundred lines of a
+newspaper-column, then glide off gradually into a panegyric of "Pease's
+Hoarhound Candy." The consequence was, every reader was misled by the
+caption and commencement of his article, and thousands of persons had
+"Pease's Hoarhound Candy" in their mouths long before they had seen it!
+In fact, it was next to impossible to take up a newspaper and attempt to
+read the legitimate news of the day without stumbling upon a package of
+"Pease's Hoarhound Candy." The reader would often feel vexed to find
+that, after reading a quarter of a column of interesting news upon the
+subject uppermost in his mind, he was trapped into the perusal of one of
+Pease's hoarhound candy advertisements. Although inclined sometimes to
+throw down the newspaper in disgust, he would generally laugh at the
+talent displayed by Mr. Pease in thus captivating and capturing the
+reader. The result of all this would generally be, a trial of the candy
+on the first premonitory symptoms of a cough or influenza. The degree to
+which this system of advertising has since been carried has rendered it
+a bore and a nuisance. The usual result of almost any great and original
+achievement is, the production of a shoal of brainless imitators, who
+are "neither useful nor ornamental."
+
+In the same year that Pease's hoarhound candy appeared upon the
+commercial and newspaper horizon, the "Governor Dorr Rebellion" occurred
+in Rhode Island. As many will remember, this rebellion caused a great
+excitement throughout the country. Citizens of Rhode Island took up arms
+against each other, and it was feared by some that a bloody civil war
+would ensue.
+
+At about this time a municipal election was to come off in the city of
+Philadelphia. The two political parties were pretty equally divided
+there, and there were some special causes why this was regarded as an
+unusually important election. Its near approach caused more excitement
+in the "Quaker City" than had been witnessed there since the preceding
+Presidential election. The party-leaders began to lay their plans early,
+and the wire-pullers on both sides were unusually busy in their
+vocation. At the head of the rabble upon which one of the parties
+depended for many votes, was a drunken and profane fellow, whom we will
+call Tom Simmons. Tom was great at electioneering and stump-spouting in
+bar-rooms and rum-caucuses, and his party always looked to him, at each
+election, to stir up the subterraneans "with a long pole"--and a
+whiskey-jug at the end of it.
+
+The exciting election which was now to come off for Mayor and Aldermen
+of the good city of Brotherly Love soon brought several of the "ring" to
+Tom.
+
+"Now, Tom," said the head wire-puller, "this is going to be a close
+election, and we want you to spare neither talent nor liquor in arousing
+up and bringing to the polls every voter within your influence."
+
+"Well, Squire," replied Tom carelessly, "I've concluded I won't bother
+myself with this 'lection--it don't pay!"
+
+"Don't pay!" exclaimed the frightened politician. "Why, Tom, are you not
+a true friend to your party? Haven't you always been on hand at the
+primary meetings, knocked down interlopers, and squelched every man who
+talked about conscience, or who refused to support regular nominations,
+and vote the entire clean ticket straight through? And as for 'pay,'
+haven't you always been supplied with money enough to treat all doubtful
+voters, and in fact to float them up to the polls in an ocean of
+whiskey? I confess Tom, I am almost petrified with astonishment at
+witnessing your present indifference to the alarming crisis in which our
+country and our party are involved, and which nothing on earth can
+avert, except our success at the coming election."
+
+"Oh, tell that to the marines," said Tom. "We never yet had an election
+that there wasn't a 'crisis,' and yet, whichever party gained, we
+somehow managed to live through it, crisis or no crisis. In fact, my
+curiosity has got a little excited, and I would like to see this
+'crisis' that is such a bugaboo at every election; so trot out your
+crisis--let us see how it looks. Besides, talking of pay, I acknowledge
+the whiskey, and that is all. While I and my companions lifted you and
+your companions into fat offices that enabled you to roll in your
+carriages, and live on the fat of the land, we got nothing--or, at
+least, next to nothing--all we got was--well--we got drunk! Now, Squire,
+I will go for the other party this 'lection if you don't give me an
+office."
+
+"Give you an office!" exclaimed the "Squire," raising his hands and
+rolling his eyes in utter amazement; "why, Tom, what office do you
+want?"
+
+"I want to be Alderman!" replied Tom, "and I can control votes enough to
+turn the 'lection either way; and if our party don't gratefully remember
+my past services and give me my reward, t'other party will be glad to
+run me on their ticket, and over I go."
+
+The gentleman of the "ring" saw by Tom's firmness and clenched teeth
+that he was immovable; that his principles, like those of too many
+others, consisted of "loaves and fishes;" they therefore consented to
+put Tom's name on the municipal ticket; and the worst part of the story
+is, he was elected.
+
+In a very short time, Tom was duly installed into the Aldermanic chair,
+and, opening his office on a prominent corner, he was soon doing a
+thriving business. He was generally occupied throughout the day in
+sitting as a judge in cases of book debt and promissory notes which were
+brought before him, for various small sums ranging from two to five,
+six, eight, and ten dollars. He would frequently dispose of thirty or
+forty of these cases in a day, and as imprisonment for debt was
+permitted at that time, the poor defendants would "shin" around and make
+any sacrifice almost, rather than go to jail. The enormous "costs" went
+into the capacious pocket of the Alderman; and this dignitary, as a
+natural sequence, "waxed fat" and saucy, exemplifying the truth of the
+adage "Put a beggar on horseback," etc.
+
+As the Alderman grew rich, he became overbearing, headstrong, and
+dictatorial. He began to fancy that he monopolized the concentrated
+wisdom of his party, and that his word should be law. Not a party-caucus
+or a political meeting could be held without witnessing the vulgar and
+profane harangues of the self-conceited Alderman, Tom Simmons. As he was
+one of the "ring," his fingers were in all the "pickings and stealings;"
+he kept his family-coach, and in his general swagger exhibited all the
+peculiarities of "high life below stairs."
+
+But after Tom had disgraced his office for two years, a State election
+took place and the other party were successful. Among the first laws
+which they passed after the convening of the Legislature, was one
+declaring that from that date imprisonment for debt should not be
+permitted in the State of Pennsylvania for any sum less than ten
+dollars.
+
+This enactment, of course, knocked away the chief prop which sustained
+the Alderman, and when the news of its passage reached Philadelphia, Tom
+was the most indignant man that had been seen there for some years.
+
+Standing in front of his office the next morning, surrounded by several
+of his political chums, Tom exclaimed:
+
+"Do you see what them infernal tories have done down there at
+Harrisburg? They have been and passed an outrageous, oppressive,
+barbarous, and unconstitutional law! A pretty idea, indeed, if a man
+can't put a debtor in jail for a less sum than ten dollars! How am I
+going to support my family, I should like to know, if this law is
+allowed to stand? I tell you, gentlemen, this law is unconstitutional,
+and you will see blood running in our streets, if them tory scoundrels
+try to carry it out!"
+
+His friends laughed, for they saw that Tom was reasoning from his pocket
+instead of his head; and, as he almost foamed at the mouth in his
+impotent wrath they could not suppress a smile.
+
+"Oh, you may laugh, gentlemen--you may laugh; but you will see it. Our
+party will never disgrace itself a permitting the tories to rob them of
+their rights by passing unconstitutional laws; and I say, the sooner we
+come to blood, the better!"
+
+At this moment, a gentleman stepped up, and addressing the Alderman,
+said:
+
+"Alderman, I want to bring a case of book debt before you this morning."
+
+"How much is your claim?" asked Tom.
+
+"Four dollars," replied the rumseller--for such he proved to be--and his
+debt was for drinks chalked up against one of his "customers."
+
+"You can't have your four dollars, Sir," replied the excited Alderman.
+"You are robbed of your four dollars, Sir. Them legislative tories at
+Harrisburg, Sir, have cheated you out of your four dollars, Sir. I
+undertake to say, Sir, that fifty thousand honest men in Philadelphia
+have been robbed of their four dollars by these bloody tories and their
+cursed unconstitutional law! Ah, gentlemen, you will see blood running
+in our streets before you are a month older. (A laugh.) Oh, you may
+laugh; but you will see it--see if you don't!"
+
+A newsboy was just passing by.
+
+"Here, boy, give me the Morning Ledger," said the Alderman, at the same
+time taking the paper and handing the boy a penny. "Let us see what them
+blasted cowboys are doing down at Harrisburg now. Ah!--what is this?"
+(Reading:) "'Blood, blood, blood!' Aha! laugh, will you, gentlemen? Here
+it is." Reads:
+
+     "'Blood, blood, blood! The Dorrites have got possession of
+     Providence. The military are called out. Father is arrayed against
+     father, and son against son. Blood is already running in our
+     streets.'
+
+"Now laugh, will you, gentlemen? Blood is running in the streets of
+Providence; blood will be running in the streets of Philadelphia before
+you are a fortnight older! The tories of Providence and the tories of
+Harrisburg must answer for this blood, for they and their
+unconstitutional proceedings are the cause of its flowing! Let us see
+the rest of this tragic scene." Reads:
+
+     "'Is there any remedy for this dreadful state of things?'"
+
+ALDERMAN.--"Of course not, except to hang every rascal of them for
+trampling on our g-l-orious Constitution." Reads:
+
+     "'Is there any remedy for this dreadful state of things? Yes, there
+     is.'"
+
+ALDERMAN.--"Oh, there is, is there? What is it? Let me see." Reads:
+
+     "'Buy two packages of Pease's hoarhound candy.'"
+
+"Blast the infernal Ledger!" exclaimed the now doubly incensed and
+indignant Alderman, throwing the paper upon the pavement with the most
+ineffable disgust, amid the shouts and hurrahs of a score of men who by
+this time had gathered around the excited Alderman Tom Simmons.
+
+As I before remarked, the "candy" was a very good article for the
+purposes for which it was made; and as Pease was an indefatigable man,
+as well as a good advertiser, he soon acquired a fortune. Mr. Pease,
+Junior, is now living in affluence in Brooklyn, and is bringing up a
+"happy family" to enjoy the fruits of his industry, probity, good
+habits, and genius.
+
+The "humbug" in this transaction, of course consisted solely in the
+manner of advertising. There was no humbug or deception about the
+article manufactured.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+BRANDRETH'S PILLS.--MAGNIFICENT ADVERTISING.--POWER OF IMAGINATION.
+
+
+In the year 1834, Dr. Benjamin Brandreth commenced advertising in the
+city of New York, "Brandreth's Pills specially recommended to purify the
+blood." His office consisted of a room about ten feet square, located in
+what was then known as the Sun building, an edifice ten by forty feet,
+situated at the corner of Spruce and Nassau streets, where the Tribune
+is now published. His "factory" was at his residence in Hudson street.
+He put up a large gilt sign over the Sun office, five or six feet wide
+by the length of the building, which attracted much attention, as at
+that time it was probably the largest sign in New York. Dr. Brandreth
+had great faith in his pills, and I believe not without reason; for
+multitudes of persons soon became convinced of the truth of his
+assertions, that "all diseases arise from impurity or imperfect
+circulation of the blood, and by purgation with Brandreth's Pills all
+disease may be cured."
+
+But great and reasonable as might have been the faith of Dr. Brandreth
+in the efficacy of his pills, his faith in the potency of advertising
+them was equally strong. Hence he commenced advertising largely in the
+Sun newspaper--paying at least $5,000 to that paper alone, for his
+first year's advertisements. That may not seem a large sum in these
+days, when parties have been known to pay more than five thousand
+dollar for a single day's advertising in the leading journals; but, at
+the time Brandreth started, his was considered the most liberal
+newspaper-advertising of the day.
+
+Advertising is to a genuine article what manure is to land,--it largely
+increases the product. Thousands of persons may be reading your
+advertisement while you are eating, or sleeping, or attending to your
+business; hence public attention is attracted, new customers come to
+you, and, if you render them a satisfactory equivalent for their money,
+they continue to patronize you and recommend you to their friends.
+
+At the commencement of his career, Dr. Brandreth was indebted to Mr.
+Moses Y. Beach, proprietor of the New York Sun, for encouragement and
+means of advertising. But this very advertising soon caused his receipts
+to be enormous. Although the pills were but twenty-five cents per box,
+they were soon sold to such a great extent, that tons of huge cases
+filled with the "purely vegetable pill" were sent from the new and
+extensive manufactory every week. As his business increased, so in the
+same ratio did he extend his advertising. The doctor engaged at one time
+a literary gentleman to attend, under the supervision of himself, solely
+to the advertising department. Column upon column of advertisements
+appeared in the newspapers, in the shape of learned and scientific
+pathological dissertations, the very reading of which would tempt a poor
+mortal to rush for a box of Brandreth's Pills; so evident was it
+(according to the advertisement) that nobody ever had or ever would have
+"pure blood," until from one to a dozen boxes of the pills had been
+taken as "purifiers." The ingenuity displayed in concocting these
+advertisements was superb, and was probably hardly equaled by that
+required to concoct the pills.
+
+No pain, ache, twinge, or other sensation, good, bad, or indifferent,
+ever experienced by a member of the human family, but was a most
+irrefragable evidence of the impurity of the blood; and it would have
+been blasphemy to have denied the "self-evident" theory, that "all
+diseases arise from impurity or imperfect circulation of the blood, and
+that by purgation with Brandreth's Pills all disease may be cured."
+
+The doctor claims that his grandfather first manufactured the pills in
+1751. I suppose this may be true; at all events, no _living_ man will be
+apt to testify to the contrary. Here is an extract from one of Dr.
+Brandreth's early advertisements, which will give an idea of his style:
+
+     "'What has been longest known has been most considered, and what
+     has been most considered is best understood.
+
+     "'The life of the flesh is in the blood.'--Lev. xxii, 2.
+
+     "Bleeding reduces the vital powers; Brandreth's Pills increase
+     them. So in sickness never be bled, especially in Dizziness and
+     Apoplexy, but always use Brandreth's Pills.
+
+     "The laws of life are written upon the face of Nature. The Tempest,
+     Whirlwind, and Thunder-storm bring health from the Solitudes of
+     God. The Tides are the daily agitators and purifiers of the Mighty
+     World of Waters.
+
+     "What these Providential means are as purifiers of the Atmosphere
+     or Air, Brandreth's Pills are to man."
+
+This splendid system of advertising, and the almost reckless outlay
+which was required to keep it up, challenged the admiration of the
+business community. In the course of a few years, his office was
+enlarged; and still being too small, he took the store 241 Broadway, and
+also opened a branch at 187 Hudson street. The doctor continued to let
+his advertising keep pace with his patronage; and he was finally, in the
+year 1836, compelled to remove his manufactory to Sing Sing, where such
+perfectly incredible quantities of Brandreth's Pills have been
+manufactured and sold that it would hardly be safe to give the
+statistics. Suffice it to say, that the only "humbug" which I suspect in
+connection with the pills was, the very harmless and unobjectionable yet
+novel method of advertising them; and as the doctor amassed a great
+fortune by their manufacture, this very fact is _prima facie_ evidence
+that the pill was a valuable purgative.
+
+A funny incident occurred to me in connection with this great pill. In
+the year 1836, while I was travelling through the States of Alabama,
+Mississippi, and Louisiana, I became convinced by reading Doctor
+Brandreth's advertisements that I needed his pills. Indeed, I there read
+the proof that every symptom that I experienced, either in imagination
+or in reality, rendered their extensive consumption absolutely necessary
+to preserve my life. I purchased a box of Brandreth's Pills in Columbus,
+Miss. The effect was miraculous! Of course, it was just what the
+advertisement told me it would be. In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, I purchased
+half a dozen boxes. They were all used up before my perambulating show
+reached Vicksburg, Miss., and I was a confirmed disciple of the blood
+theory. There I laid in a dozen boxes. In Natchez, I made a similar
+purchase. In New Orleans, where I remained several months, I was a
+profitable customer, and had become thoroughly convinced that the only
+real "greenhorns" in the world were those who preferred meat or bread to
+Brandreth's Pills. I took them morning, noon, and night. In fact, the
+advertisements announced that one could not take too many; for if one
+box was sufficient to purify the blood, eleven extra boxes would have no
+injurious effect.
+
+I arrived in New York in June 1838, and by that time I had become such a
+firm believer in the efficacy of Brandreth's Pills, that I hardly
+stopped long enough to speak with my family, before I hastened to the
+"principal office" of Doctor Brandreth to congratulate him on being the
+greatest public benefactor of the age.
+
+I found the doctor "at home," and introduced myself without ceremony. I
+told him my experiences. He was delighted. I next heartily indorsed
+every word stated in his advertisements. He was not surprised, for he
+knew the effects of his pills were such as I described. Still he was
+elated in having another witness whose extensive experiments with his
+pills were so eminently satisfactory. The doctor and myself were both
+happy--he in being able to do so much good to mankind; I in being the
+recipient of such untold benefits through his valuable discovery.
+
+At last, the doctor chanced to say that he wondered how I happened to
+get his pills in Natchez, "for," said he, "I have no agent there as
+yet."
+
+"Oh!" I replied, "I always bought my pills at the drug stores."
+
+"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the doctor, "then they are were all
+counterfeits! vile impositions! poisonous compounds! I never sell a pill
+to a druggist--I never permit an apothecary to handle one of my pills.
+But they counterfeit them by the bushel; the unprincipled, heartless,
+murderous impostors!"
+
+I need not say I was surprised. Was it possible, then, that my
+imagination had done all this business, and that I had been cured by
+poisons which I supposed were Brandreth's Pill? I confess I laughed
+heartily; and told the doctor that, after all, it seemed the
+counterfeits were as good as the real pills, provided the patient had
+sufficient faith.
+
+The doctor was puzzled as well as vexed, but an idea struck him that
+soon enabled him to recover his usual equanimity.
+
+"I'll tell you what it is," said he, "those Southern druggists have
+undoubtedly obtained the pills from me under false pretences. They have
+pretended to be planters, and have purchased pills from me in large
+quantities for use on the plantations, and then they have retailed the
+pills from their drug-shops."
+
+I laughed at this shrewd suggestion, and remarked: "This may be so, but
+I guess my imagination did the business!"
+
+The doctor was uneasy, but he asked me as a favor to bring him one of
+the empty pill boxes which I had brought from the South. The next day, I
+complied with his request, and I will do the doctor justice to say that,
+on comparison, it proved as he had suspected; the pills were genuine,
+and although he had advertised that no druggist should sell them, they
+were so popular that druggists found it necessary to get them "by hook
+or by crook;" and the consequence was, I had the pleasure of a glorious
+laugh, and Doctor Brandreth experienced "a great scare."
+
+The doctor "made his pile" long ago, although he still devotes his
+personal attention to the "entirely vegetable and innocent pills, whose
+life-giving power no pen can describe."
+
+In 1849, the doctor was elected President of the Village of Sing Sing,
+N. Y. (where he still resides,) and was re-elected to the same office
+for seven consecutive years. In the same year, he was elected to the New
+York State Senate, and in 1859 was again elected.
+
+Dr. Brandreth is a liberal man and a pleasant, entertaining, and
+edifying companion. He deserves all the success he has ever received.
+"Long may he wave!"
+
+
+
+
+II. THE SPIRITUALISTS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS, THEIR RISE AND PROGRESS.--SPIRITUAL
+ROPE-TYING.--MUSIC PLAYING.--CABINET SECRETS.--"THEY CHOOSE DARKNESS
+RATHER THAN LIGHT," ETC.--THE SPIRITUAL HAND.--HOW THE THING IS
+DONE.--DR. W. F. VAN VLECK.
+
+
+The Davenport Brothers are natives of Buffalo, N. Y., and in that city
+commenced their career as "mediums" about twelve years ago. They were
+then mere lads. For some time, their operations were confined to their
+own place, where, having obtained considerable notoriety through the
+press, they were visited by people from all parts of the country. But,
+in 1855, they were induced by John F. Coles, a very worthy spiritualist
+of New York City, to visit that metropolis, and there exhibit their
+powers. Under the management of Mr. Coles, they held "circles" afternoon
+and evening, for several days, in a small hall at 195 Bowery. The
+audience were seated next the walls, the principal space being required
+for the use of "the spirits." The "manifestations" mostly consisted in
+the thrumming and seemingly rapid movement about the hall of several
+stringed instruments, the room having been made entirely dark, while the
+boys were supposed or asserted to be quietly seated at the table in the
+centre. Two guitars, with sometimes a banjo, were the instruments used,
+and the noise made by "the spirits" was about equal to the united
+honking of a large flock of wild geese. The manifestations were stunning
+as well as astonishing; for not only was the sense of hearing smitten by
+the dreadful sounds, but, sometimes, a member of the circle would get a
+"striking demonstration" over his head!
+
+At the request of the "controlling spirit," made through a horn, the
+hall was lighted at intervals during the entertainment, at which times
+the mediums could be seen seated at the table, looking very innocent and
+demure, as if they had never once thought of deceiving anybody. On one
+of these occasions, however, a policeman suddenly lighted the hall by
+means of a dark lantern, without having been specially called upon to do
+so; and the boys were clearly seen with instruments in their hands. They
+dropped them as soon as they could, and resumed their seats at the
+table. Satisfied that the thing was a humbug, the audience left in
+disgust; and the policeman was about to march the boys to the
+station-house on the charge of swindling, when he was prevailed upon to
+remain and farther test the matter. Left alone with them, and the three
+seated together at the table on which the instruments had been placed,
+he laid, at their request, a hand on each medium's head; they then
+clasped both his arms with their hands. While they remained thus
+situated (as he supposed,) the room being dark, one of the instruments,
+with an infernal twanging of its strings, rose from the table and hit
+the policeman several times on the head; then a strange voice through
+the trumpet advised him not to interfere with the work of the spirits by
+persecuting the mediums! Considerably astonished, if not positively
+scared, he took his hat and left, fully persuaded that there was
+"something in it!"
+
+The boys produced the manifestations by grasping the neck of the
+instrument, swinging it around, and thrusting it into different parts of
+the open space of the room, at the same time vibrating the strings with
+the fore-finger. The faster the finger passed over the strings, the more
+rapidly the instrument seemed to move. Two hands could thus use as many
+instruments.
+
+When sitting with a person at the table, as they did with the policeman,
+one hand could be taken off the investigator's arm without his knowing
+it, by gently increasing, at the same time, the pressure of the other
+hand. It was an easy matter then to raise and thrum the instrument or
+talk through the horn.
+
+About a dozen gentlemen--several of whom were members of the press--had
+a private seance with the boys one afternoon, on which occasion "the
+spirits" ventured upon an extra "manifestation." All took seats at one
+side of a long, high table--the position of the mediums being midway of
+the row. This time, a little, dim, ghostly gaslight was allowed in the
+room. What seemed to be a hand soon appeared, partly above the edge of
+the vacant side of the table, and opposite the "mediums." One excited
+spiritualist present said he could see the finger-nails.
+
+John F. Coles--who had for several days, suspected the innocence of the
+boys--sprang from his seat, turned up the gaslight, and pounced on the
+elder boy, who was found to have a nicely stuffed glove drawn partly on
+to the toe of his boot. That, then, was the spirit-hand! The nails that
+the imaginative spiritualist thought he saw were not on the fingers. The
+boy alleged that the spirits made him attempt the deception.
+
+The father of these boys, who had accompanied them to New York, took
+them home immediately after that exposure. In Buffalo, they continued to
+hold "circles," hoping to retrieve their lost reputation as good
+mediums--by being, not more honest, but more cautious. To prevent any
+one getting hold of them while operating, they hit upon the plan of
+passing a rope through a button-hole of each gentleman's coat, the ends
+to be held by a trusty person--assigning, as a reason for that
+arrangement, that it would then be known no one in the circle could
+assist in producing the manifestations. The plan did not always work
+well, however; for a skeptic would sometimes cut the rope, and then
+pounce upon "the spirit"--that is, if he didn't happen to miss that
+individual, on account of the darkness and while trying to avoid a
+collision with the instruments.
+
+To secure greater immunity from detection, and to enable them to exhibit
+in large halls which could not easily be darkened, the boys finally
+fixed upon a "cabinet" as the best thing in which to work. They had,
+some time before, made the "rope-test" a feature of their exhibitions;
+and in their cabinet-show they depended for success in deceiving
+entirely upon the presumption of the audience that their hands were so
+secured with ropes as to prevent their playing upon the musical
+instruments, or doing whatever else the spirits were assumed to do.
+
+Their cabinet is about six feet high, six feet long, and two and a half
+feet deep, the front consisting of three doors, opening outward. In each
+end is a seat, with holes through which the ropes can be passed in
+securing the mediums. In the upper part of the middle door is a
+lozenge-shaped aperture, curtained on the inside with black muslin or
+oilcloth. The bolts are on the inside of the doors.
+
+The mediums are generally first tied by a committee of two gentlemen
+appointed from the audience. The doors of the cabinet are then closed,
+those at the ends first, and then the middle one, the bolt of which is
+reached by the manager through the aperture.
+
+By the time the end doors are closed and bolted, the Davenports, in many
+instances, have succeeded in loosening the knots next their wrists, and
+in slipping their hands out, the latter being then exhibited at the
+aperture. Lest the hands should be recognized as belonging to the
+mediums, they are kept in a constant shaking motion while in view; and
+to make the hands look large or small, they spread or press together the
+fingers. With that peculiar rapid motion imparted to them, four hands in
+the aperture will appear to be half-a-dozen. A lady's flesh colored kid
+glove, nicely stuffed with cotton, is sometimes exhibited as a female
+hand--a critical observation of it never being allowed. It does not
+take the medium long to draw the knots close to their wrists again. They
+are then ready to be inspected by the Committee, who report them tied as
+they were left. Supposing them to have been securely bound all the
+while, those who witness the show are very naturally astonished.
+
+Sometimes, after being tied by a committee, the mediums cannot readily
+extricate their hands and get them back as they were; in which case they
+release themselves entirely from the ropes before the doors are again
+opened, concluding to wait till after "the spirits" have bound them,
+before showing hands or making music.
+
+It is a common thing for these impostors to give the rope between their
+hands a twist while those limbs are being bound; and that movement, if
+dexterously made, while the attention of the committee-men is
+momentarily diverted, is not likely to be detected. Reversing that
+movement will let the hand out.
+
+The great point with the Davenports in tying themselves is, to have a
+knot next their wrists that looks solid, "fair and square," at the same
+time that they can slip it and get their hands out in a moment. There
+are several ways of forming such a knot, one of which I will attempt to
+describe. In the middle of a rope a square knot is tied, loosely at
+first, so that the ends of the rope can be tucked through, in opposite
+directions, below the knot, and the latter is then drawn tight. There
+are then two loops--which should be made small--through which the hands
+are to pass after the rest of the tying is done. Just sufficient slack
+is left to admit of the hands passing through the loops, which, lastly,
+are drawn close to the wrists, the knot coming between the latter. No
+one, from the appearance of such a knot, would suspect it could be
+slipped. The mediums thus tied can, immediately after the committee have
+inspected the knots, and closed the doors, show hands or play upon
+musical instruments, and in a few seconds be, to all appearance, firmly
+tied again.
+
+If flour has been placed in their hands, it makes no difference as to
+their getting those members out of or into the ropes; but, to show hands
+at the aperture, or to make a noise on the musical instruments, it is
+necessary that they should get the flour out of one hand into the other.
+The moisture of the hand and squeezing, packs the flour into a lump,
+which can be laid into the other hand and returned without losing any.
+The little flour that adheres to the empty hand can be wiped off in the
+pantaloons pocket. The mediums seldom if ever take flour in their hands
+while they are in the bonds put upon them by the committee. The
+principal part of the show is after the tying has been done in their own
+way. Wm. Fay, who accompanies the Davenports, is thus fixed when the
+hypothetical spirits take the coat off his back.
+
+As I before remarked, there are several ways in which the mediums tie
+themselves. They always do it, however, in such a manner that, though
+the tying looks secure, they can immediately get one or both hands out.
+Let committees insist upon untying the knots of the spirits, whether the
+mediums are willing or not. A little critical observation will enable
+them to learn the trick.
+
+To make this subject of tying clearer, I will repeat that the Davenports
+always untie themselves by using their hands; as they are able in
+ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, however impossible it may seem, to
+release their hands by loosening the knots next their wrists. Sometimes
+they do this by twisting the rope between their wrists; sometimes it is
+by keeping their muscles as tense as possible during the tying, so that
+when relaxed there shall be some slack. Most "committees" know so little
+about tying, that anybody, by a little pulling, slipping, and wriggling,
+could slip his hands out of their knots.
+
+A violin, bell, and tambourine, with perhaps a guitar and drum, are the
+instruments used by the Davenports in the cabinet. The one who plays the
+violin holds the bell in his hand with the bow. The other chap beats the
+tambourine on his knee, and has a hand for something else.
+
+The "mediums" frequently allow a person to remain with them, providing
+he will let his hands be tied to their knees, the operators having
+previously been tied by "the spirits." The party who ventures upon that
+experiment is apt to be considerably "mussed up," as "the spirits" are
+not very gentle in their manipulations.
+
+To expose all the tricks of these impostors would require more space
+than I can afford at present. They have exhibited throughout the
+Northern States and the Canadas; but never succeeded very well
+pecuniarily until about two years ago, when they employed an agent, who
+advertised them in such a way as to attract public attention. In
+September last, they went to England, where they have since created
+considerable excitement.
+
+If the hands of these boys were tied close against the side of their
+cabinet, the ropes passing through holes and fastened on the outside, I
+think "the spirits" would always fail to work.
+
+Dr. W. F. Van Vleck, of Ohio, to whom I am indebted for some of the
+facts contained in this chapter, can beat the Davenport brothers at
+their own game. In order that he might the better learn the various
+methods pursued by the professed "mediums" in deceiving the public, Dr.
+Van Vleck entered into the medium-business himself, and by establishing
+confidential relations with those of the profession whose acquaintance
+he made, he became duly qualified to expose them.
+
+He was accepted and indorsed by leading spiritualists in different parts
+of the country, as a good medium, who performed the most remarkable
+spiritual wonders. As the worthy doctor practiced this innocent
+deception on the professed mediums solely in order that he might thus be
+able to expose their blasphemous impositions, the public will scarcely
+dispute that in this case the end justified the means. I suppose it is
+not possible for any professed medium to puzzle or deceive the doctor.
+He is up to all their "dodges," because he has learned in their school.
+Mediums always insist upon certain conditions, and those conditions are
+just such as will best enable them to deceive the senses and pervert the
+judgment.
+
+Anderson "the Wizard of the North," and other conjurers in England,
+gave the Davenports battle, but the "prestidigitators" did not reap many
+laurels. Conjurers are no more likely to understand the tricks of the
+mediums than any other person is. Before a trick can be exposed it must
+be learned. Dr. Van Vleck, having learned "the ropes," is competent to
+expose them; and he is doing it in many interesting public lectures and
+illustrations.
+
+If the Davenports were exhibiting simply as jugglers, I might admire
+their dexterity, and have nothing to say against them; but when they
+presumptuously pretend to deal in "things spiritual," I consider it my
+duty, while treating of humbugs, to do this much at least in exposing
+them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE SPIRIT-RAPPING AND MEDIUM HUMBUGS.--THEIR ORIGIN.--HOW THE THING IS
+DONE.--$500 REWARD.
+
+
+The "spirit-rapping" humbug was started in Hydesville, New York, about
+seventeen years ago, by several daughters of a Mr. Fox, living in that
+place. These girls discovered that certain exercises of their anatomy
+would produce mysterious sounds--mysterious to those who heard them,
+simply because the means of their production were not apparent. Reports
+of this wonder soon went abroad, and the Fox family were daily visited
+by people from different sections of the country--all having a greed for
+the marvelous. Not long after the strange sounds were first heard, some
+one suggested that they were, perhaps, produced by spirits; and a
+request was made for a certain number of raps, if that suggestion was
+correct. The specified number were immediately heard. A plan was then
+proposed by means of which communications might be received from "the
+spirits." An investigator would repeat the alphabet, writing down
+whatever letters were designated by the "raps." Sentences were thus
+formed--the orthography, however, being decidedly bad.
+
+What purported to be the spirit of a murdered peddler, gave an account
+of his "taking off." He said that his body was buried beneath that very
+house, in a corner of the cellar; that he had been killed by a former
+occupant of the premises. A peddler really had disappeared, somewhat
+mysteriously, from that part of the country some time before; and ready
+credence was given the statements thus spelled out through the "raps."
+Digging to the depth of eight feet in the cellar did not disclose any
+"dead corpus," or even the remains of one. Soon after that, the missing
+peddler reappeared in Hydesville, still "clothed with mortality," and
+having a new assortment of wares to sell.
+
+That the "raps" were produced by disembodied spirits many firmly
+believed. False communications were attributed to evil spirits. The
+answers to questions were as often wrong as right; and only right when
+the answer could be easily guessed, or inferred from the nature of the
+question itself.
+
+The Fox family moved to Rochester, New York, soon after the
+rapping-humbug was started; and it was there that their first public
+effort was made. A committee was appointed to investigate the matter,
+most of whom reported adversely to the claims of the "mediums;" though
+all of them were puzzled to know how the thing was done. In Buffalo,
+where the Foxes subsequently let their spirits flow, a committee of
+doctors reported that these loosely-constructed girls produced the
+"raps" by snapping their toe and knee joints. That theory, though very
+much ridiculed by the spiritualists then and since, was correct, as
+further developments proved.
+
+Mrs. Culver, a relative of the Fox girls, made a solemn deposition
+before a magistrate, to the effect that one of the girls had instructed
+her how to produce the "raps," on condition that she (Mrs. C.) should
+not communicate a knowledge of the matter to any one. Mrs. Culver was a
+good Christian woman, and she felt it her duty--as the deception had
+been carried so far--to expose the matter. She actually produced the
+"raps," in presence of the magistrate, and explained the manner of
+making them.
+
+Doctor Von Vleck--to whom I referred in connection with my exposition of
+the Davenport imposture--produces very loud "raps" before his audiences,
+and so modulates them that they will seem to be at any desired point in
+his vicinity; yet not a movement of his body betrays the fact that the
+sounds are caused by him.
+
+The Fox family found that the rapping business would be made to pay; and
+so they continued it, with varying success, for a number of years,
+making New York city their place of residence and principal field of
+operation. I believe that none of them are now in the "spiritual line."
+Margaret Fox, the youngest of the rappers, has for some time been a
+member of the Roman Catholic Church.
+
+From the very commencement of spiritualism, there has been a constantly
+increasing demand for "spiritual" wonders, to meet which numerous
+"mediums" have been "developed."
+
+Many, who otherwise would not be in the least distinguished, have become
+"mediums" in order to obtain notoriety, if nothing more.
+
+Communicating by "raps" was a slow process; so some of the mediums took
+to writing spasmodically; others talked in a "trance"--all under the
+influence of spirits!
+
+Mediumship has come to be a profession steadily pursued by quite a
+number of persons, who get their living by it.
+
+There are various classes of "mediums," the operations of each class
+being confined to a particular department of "spiritual" humbuggery.
+
+Some call themselves "test mediums;" and, by insisting upon certain
+formulas, they succeed in astonishing, if they don't convince most of
+them who visit them. It is by this class that the public is most likely
+to be deceived.
+
+There is a person by the name of J. V. Mansfield, who has been called by
+spiritualists the "Great Spirit Postmaster," his specialty being the
+answering of sealed letters addressed to spirits. The letters are
+returned--some of them at least--to the writers without appearing to
+have been opened, accompanied by answers purporting to be written
+through Mansfield by the spirits addressed. Such of these letters as are
+sealed with gum-arabic merely, can be steamed open, and the envelopes
+resealed and reglazed as they were before. If sealing-wax has been used,
+a sharp, thin blade will enable the medium to nicely cut off the seal by
+splitting the paper under it; and then, after a knowledge of the
+contents of the letter is arrived at, the seal can be replaced in its
+original position, and made fast with gum-arabic. Not more than one out
+of a hundred would be likely to observe that the seal had ever been
+tampered with. The investigator opens the envelope, when returned to
+him, at the end, preserving the sealed part intact, in order to show his
+friends that the letter was answered without being opened!
+
+Another method of the medium is, to slit open the envelope at the end
+with a sharp knife, and afterward stick it together again with gum,
+rubbing the edge slightly as soon as the gum is dry. If the job is
+nicely done, a close observer would hardly perceive it.
+
+Mr. Mansfield does not engage to answer all letters; those unanswered
+being too securely sealed for him to open without detection. To secure
+the services of the "Great Spirit-Postmaster," a fee of five dollars
+must accompany your letter to the spirits; and the money is retained
+whether an answer is returned or not.
+
+Rather high postage that!
+
+Several years since, a gentleman living in Buffalo, N. Y., addressed
+some questions to one of his spirit-friends, and inclosed them, together
+with a single hair and a grain of sand, in an envelope, which he sealed
+so closely that no part of the contents could escape while being
+transmitted by mail. The questions were sent to Mr. Mansfield and
+answers requested through his "mediumship." The envelope containing the
+questions was soon returned, with answers to the letter. The former did
+not appear to have been opened. Spreading a large sheet of blank paper
+on a table before him, the gentleman opened the envelope and placed its
+contents on the table. The hair and grain of sand were not there.
+
+Time and again has Mansfield been convicted of imposture, yet he still
+prosecutes his nefarious business.
+
+The "Spirit-Postmaster" fails to get answers to such questions as these:
+
+"Where did you die?"
+
+"When?"
+
+"Who attended you in your last illness?"
+
+"What were your last words?"
+
+"How many were present at your death?"
+
+But if the questions are of such a nature as the following, answers are
+generally obtained:
+
+"Are you happy?"
+
+"Are you often near me?"
+
+"And can you influence me?"
+
+"Have you changed your religious notions since entering the
+spirit-world?"
+
+It is to be observed that the questions which the "Spirit-Postmaster"
+can answer _require no knowledge of facts about the applicant_, while
+those which he cannot answer, do require it.
+
+Address, for instance, your spirit-father without mentioning his name,
+and the name will not be given in connection with the reply purporting
+to come from him--unless the medium knows your family.
+
+I will write a series of questions addressed to one of my
+spirit-friends, inclose them in an envelope, and if Mr. Mansfield or any
+other professed medium will answer those questions pertinently in my
+presence, and without touching the envelope, I will give to such party
+five hundred dollars, and think I have got the worth of my money.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE "BALLOT-TEST."--THE OLD GENTLEMAN AND HIS "DISEASED" RELATIVES.--A
+"HUNGRY SPIRIT."--"PALMING" A BALLOT.--REVELATIONS ON STRIPS OF PAPER.
+
+
+An aptitude for deception is all the capital that a person requires in
+order to become a "spirit-medium;" or, at least, to gain the reputation
+of being one. Backing up the pretence to mediumship with a show of
+something mysterious, is all-sufficient to enlist attention, and insure
+the making of converts.
+
+One of the most noted of the mediumistic fraternity--whose name I do not
+choose to give at present--steadily pursued his business, for several
+years, in a room in Broadway, in this city, and succeeded not only in
+humbugging a good many people, but in what was more important to
+him--acquiring quite an amount of money. His mode of operating was "the
+ballot-test," and was as follows:
+
+Medium and investigator being seated opposite each other at a table, the
+latter was handed several slips of blank paper, with the request that he
+write the first (or Christian) names--one on each paper--of several of
+his deceased relatives, which being done, he was desired to touch the
+folded papers, one after the other, till one should be designated, by
+three tips of the table, as containing the name of the spirit who would
+communicate. The selected paper was laid aside, and the others thrown
+upon the floor, the investigator being further requested to write on as
+many different pieces of paper as contained the names, and the relation
+(to himself) of the spirits bearing them. Supposing the names written
+were Mary, Joseph, and Samuel, being, respectively, the investigator's
+mother, father, and brother. The last-named class would be secondly
+written, and one of them designated by three tips of the table, as in
+the first instance. The respective ages of the deceased parties, at the
+time of their decease, would also be written, and one of them selected.
+The first "test" consisted in having the selected name, relationship,
+and age correspond--that is, refer to the same party; to ascertain which
+the investigator was desired to look at them, and state if it was the
+case. If the correspondence was affirmed, a communication was soon
+given, with the selected name, relationship, and age appended.
+Questions, written in the presence of the medium, were answered
+relevantly, if not pertinently. Investigators generally did their part
+of the writing in a guarded manner, interposing their left hand between
+the paper on which they wrote and the medium's eyes; and they were very
+much astonished when they received a communication, couched in
+affectionate terms, with the names of their spirit-friends attached.
+
+By long practice, the medium was enabled to determine what the
+investigator wrote, by the motion of his hand in writing. Nine out of
+ten wrote the relationship first that corresponded with the first name
+they had written. Therefore, if the medium selected the first that was
+written of each class, they in most cases referred to the same spirit.
+He waited till the investigator had affirmed the coincidence, before
+proceeding; for he did not like to write a communication, appending to
+it, for instance, "Your Uncle John," when it ought to be "Your Father
+John." The reason he did not desire inquirers to write the surnames of
+their spirit-friends, was this: almost all Christian names are common,
+and he was familiar with the motions which the hand must make in writing
+them; but there are comparatively few people who have the same surnames,
+and to determine them would have been more difficult. No fact was
+communicated that had not been surreptitiously gleaned from the
+investigator.
+
+An old gentleman, apparently from the country, one day entered the room
+of this medium and expressed a desire for a "sperit communication."
+
+He was told to take a seat at the table, and to write the names of his
+deceased relatives. The medium, like many others, incorrectly pronounced
+the term "deceased," the same as "diseased"--sounding the s like z.
+
+The old gentleman carefully adjusted his "specs" and did what was
+required of him. A name and relationship having been selected from those
+written, the investigator was desired to examine and state if they
+referred to one party.
+
+"Wal, I declare they do!" said he. "But I say Mister, what has them
+papers to do with a sperit communication?"
+
+"You will see, directly," replied the medium.
+
+Whereupon the latter spasmodically wrote a "communication," which read
+somewhat as follows:
+
+     "MY DEAR HUSBAND:--I am very glad to be able to address you through
+     this channel. Keep on investigating, and you will soon be convinced
+     of the great fact of spirit-intercourse. I am happy in my
+     spirit-home; patiently awaiting the time when you will join me
+     here, etc. Your loving wife, BETSEY."
+
+"Good gracious! But my old woman can't be dead," said the investigator,
+"for I left her tu hum!"
+
+"Not dead!" exclaimed the medium. "Did I not tell you to write the names
+of deceazed relatives?"
+
+"Diseased!" returned the old man; "Wal, she ain't anything else, for
+she's had the rumatiz orfully for six months!"
+
+Saying which, he took his hat and left, concluding that it was not worth
+while to "keep on investigating" any longer at that time.
+
+This same medium, not long since, visited Great Britain for the purpose
+of practicing his profession there.
+
+In one of the cities of Scotland, some shrewd investigator divined that
+he was able to nearly guess from the motion of the hand what questions
+were written.
+
+"Are you happy?" being a question commonly asked the "spirits," one of
+these gentlemen varied it by asking:
+
+"Are you hungry?"
+
+The reply was, an emphatic affirmative.
+
+They tricked the trickster in other ways; one of which was to write the
+names of mortals instead of spirits. It made no difference, however, as
+to getting a "communication."
+
+To tip the table without apparent muscular exertion, this impostor
+placed his hands on it in such a way that the "pisiform bone" (which may
+be felt projecting at the lower corner of the palm, opposite the thumb)
+pressed against the edge. By pushing, the table tipped from him, it
+being prevented from sliding by little spikes in the legs of the side
+opposite the operator.
+
+There are other "ballot-test mediums," as they are called, who have a
+somewhat different method of cheating. They, too, require investigators
+to write the names--in full, however--of their spirit-friends; the slips
+of paper containing the names, to be folded and placed on a table. The
+medium then seizes one of the "ballots," and asks:
+
+"Is the spirit present whose name is on this?"
+
+Dropping that and taking another:
+
+"On this?"
+
+So he handles all the papers without getting a response. During this
+time, however, he has dexterously "palmed" one of the ballots,
+which--while telling the investigator to be patient, as the spirits
+would doubtless soon come--he opens with his left hand, on his knee,
+under the edge of the table.
+
+A mere glance enables him to read the name. Refolding the paper, and
+retaining it in his hand, he remarks:
+
+"I will touch the ballots again, and perhaps one of them will be
+designated this time."
+
+Dropping among the rest the one he had "palmed," he soon picks it up
+again, whereat three loud "raps" are heard.
+
+"That paper," says he to the investigator, "probably contains the name
+of the spirit who rapped; please hold it in your hand."
+
+Then seizing a pencil, he writes a name, which the investigator finds to
+be the one contained in the selected paper.
+
+If the ballots are few in number, a blank is put with the pile, when the
+medium "palms" one, else the latter might be missed.
+
+It seems the spirits can never give their names without being reminded
+of them by the investigator, and then they are so doubtful of their own
+identity that they have but little to say for themselves.
+
+One medium to whom I have already alluded, after a sojourn of several
+years in California--whither he went from Boston, seeking whom he might
+humbug--has now returned to the East, and is operating in this city.
+Besides answering sealed letters, he furnishes written "communications"
+to parties visiting him at his rooms--a "sitting," however, being
+granted to but one person at a time. His terms are only five dollars an
+hour.
+
+Seated at a table in a part of the room where is the most light, he
+hands the investigator a strip of blank, white paper, rather thin and
+light of texture, about a yard long and six inches wide, requesting him
+to write across one end of it a single question, addressed to a
+spirit-friend, then to sign his own name, and fold the paper once or
+twice over what he has written. For instance:
+
+     "BROTHER SAMUEL:--Will you communicate with me through this medium?
+     WILLIAM FRANKLIN."
+
+To learn what has been written, the medium lays the paper down on the
+table, and repeatedly rubs the fingers of his right hand over the folds
+made by the inquirer. If that does not render the writing visible
+through the one thickness of paper that covers it, he slightly raises
+the edge of the folds with his left hand while he continues to rub with
+his right; and that admits of the light shining through, so that the
+writing can be read. The other party is so situated that the writing is
+not visible to him through the paper, and he is not likely to presume
+that it is visible to the medium; the latter having assigned as a reason
+for his manipulations that spirits were able to read the questions only
+by means of the odylic, magnetic, or some other emanation from the ends
+of his fingers!
+
+Having learned the question, of course the medium can reply to it,
+giving the name of the spirit addressed; but before doing so, he
+doubles the two folds made by the inquirer, and, for a show of
+consistency, again rubs his fingers over the paper. Then more folds and
+more rubbing--all the folding, additional to the inquirer's, being done
+to keep the latter from observing, when he comes to read the answer,
+that it was possible for the medium to read the question through the two
+folds of paper. The answer is written upon the same strip of paper that
+accompanies the question.
+
+The medium requires the investigator to write his questions each on a
+different strip of paper; and before answering, he every time
+manipulates the paper in the way I have described. When rubbing his
+fingers over the question, he often shuts the eye which is toward the
+inquirer--which prevents suspicion; but the other eye is open wide
+enough to enable him to read the question through the paper.
+
+Should a person write a test-question, the medium could not answer it
+correctly even if he did see it. In his "communications" he uses many
+terms of endearment, and if possible flatters the recipient out of his
+common-sense, and into the belief that "after all there may be something
+in it!"
+
+Should the inquirer "smell a rat," and take measures to prevent the
+medium from learning, in the way I have stated, what question is
+written, he (the medium) gets nervous and discontinues the "sitting,"
+alleging that conditions are unfavorable for spirit-communication.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+SPIRITUAL "LETTERS ON THE ARM."--HOW TO MAKE THEM YOURSELF.--THE
+TAMBOURINE AND RING FEATS.--DEXTER'S DANCING HATS.--PHOSPHORESCENT
+OIL.--SOME SPIRITUAL SLANG.
+
+
+The mediums produce "blood-red letters on the arm" in a very simple way.
+It is done with a pencil, or some blunt-pointed instrument, it being
+necessary to bear on hard while the movement of writing is being
+executed. The pressure, though not sufficient to abrade the skin, forces
+the blood from the capillary vessels over which the pencil passes, and
+where, when the reaction takes place, an unusual quantity of blood
+gathers and becomes plainly visible through the cuticle. Gradually, as
+an equilibrium of the circulation is restored, the letters pass away.
+
+This "manipulation" is generally produced by the medium in connection
+with the ballot-test. Having learned the name of an investigator's
+spirit-friend, in the manner stated in a previous article, the
+investigator is set to writing some other names. While he is thus
+occupied, the medium quickly slips up his sleeve under the table, and
+writes on his arm the name he has learned.
+
+Try the experiment yourself, reader. Hold out your left arm; clench the
+fist so as to harden the muscle a little, and write your name on the
+skin with a blunt pencil or any similar point, in letters say
+three-quarters of an inch long, pressing firmly enough to feel a little
+pain. Rub the place briskly a dozen times; this brings out the letters
+quickly, in tolerably-distinct red lines.
+
+On thick, tough skins it is difficult to produce letters in this way.
+They might also be outlined more deeply by sharply pricking in dots
+along the lines of the desired letters.
+
+Among others who seek to gain money and notoriety by the exercise of
+their talents for "spiritual" humbuggery, is a certain woman, whom I
+will not further designate, but whose name is at the service of any
+proper person, and who exhibited not long since in Brooklyn and New
+York. This woman is accompanied by her husband, who is a confederate in
+the playing of her "little game."
+
+She seats herself at a table, which has been placed against the wall of
+the room. The audience is so seated as to form a semicircle, at one end
+of which, and near enough to the medium to be able to shake hands with
+her, or nearly so, sits her husband, with perhaps an accommodating
+spiritualist next to him. Then the medium, in an assumed voice, engages
+in a miscellaneous talk, ending with a request that some one sit by her
+and hold her hand.
+
+A skeptic is permitted to do that. When thus placed, skeptic is directly
+between the medium and her husband, and with his back to the latter. The
+husband plays spirit, and with his right hand--which is free, the other
+only being held by the accommodating spiritualist--pats the investigator
+on the head, thumps him with a guitar and other instruments, and may be
+pulls his hair.
+
+The medium assumes all this to be done by a spirit, because her hands
+are held and she could not do it! Profound reasoning! If any one
+suggests that the husband had better sit somewhere else, the medium will
+not hear to it--"he is a part of the battery," and the necessary
+conditions must not be interfered with. Sure enough! Accommodating
+spiritualist also says he holds husband fast.
+
+A tambourine-frame, without the head, and an iron ring, large enough to
+pass over one's arm, are exhibited to the audience. Medium says the
+spirits have such power over matter as to be able to put one or both
+those things on to her arm while some one holds her hands.
+
+The party who is privileged to hold her hands on such occasion, has to
+grope his way to her in the dark. Having reached her, she seizes his
+hands, and passes one of them down her neck and along her arm, saying:
+
+"Now you know there is no ring already there!"
+
+Soon after he feels the tambourine-frame or ring slide over his hand and
+on to his arm. A light is produced in order that he may see it is there.
+
+When he took her hands he felt the frame or ring--or at any rate, a
+frame or ring--under his elbow on the table, from which place it was
+pulled by some power just before it went on to his arm. Such is his
+report to the audience. But in fact, the medium has two frames, or else
+a tambourine, and a tambourine-frame. She allows the investigator to
+feel one of these.
+
+She has, however, previous to his taking her hands, put one arm and head
+through the frame she uses; so that of course he does not feel it when
+she passes his hand down one side of her neck and over one of her arms,
+as it is under that arm. Her husband pulls the tambourine from under the
+investigator's elbow; then the medium gets her head back through the
+frame, leaving it on her arm, or sliding it on to his, and the work is
+done!
+
+She has also two iron rings. One of them she puts over her arm and the
+point of her shoulder, where it snugly remains, covered with a cape
+which she persists in wearing on these occasions, till the investigator
+takes her hands (in the dark) and feels the other ring under his elbows;
+then the husband disposes of the ring on the table, and the medium works
+the other one down on to her arm. The audience saw but one ring, and the
+person sitting with the medium thought he had that under his elbow till
+it was pulled away and put on the arm!
+
+Some years ago, a man by the name of Dexter, who kept an oyster and
+liquor saloon on Bleecker street, devised a somewhat novel exhibition
+for the purpose of attracting custom. A number of hats, placed on the
+floor of his saloon, danced (or bobbed up and down) in time to music.
+His place was visited by a number of the leading spiritualists of New
+York, several of whom were heard to express a belief that the hats were
+moved by spirits! Dexter, however, did not claim to be a medium, though
+he talked vaguely of "the power of electricity," when questioned with
+regard to his exhibition. Besides making the hats dance, he would
+(apparently) cause a violin placed in a box on the floor to sound, by
+waving his hands over it.
+
+The hats were moved by a somewhat complicated arrangement of wires,
+worked by a confederate, out of sight. These wires were attached to
+levers, and finally came up through the floor, through small holes
+hidden from observation by the sawdust strewn there, as is common in
+such places.
+
+The violin in the box did not sound at all. It was another violin, under
+the floor, that was heard. It is not easy for a person to exactly locate
+a sound when the cause is not apparent. In short, Mr. Dexter's
+operations may be described as only consisting of a little well-managed
+Dexterity!
+
+A young man "out West," claiming to be influenced by spirits, astonished
+people by reading names, telling time by watches, etc., in a dark room.
+He sat at a centre-table, which was covered with a cloth, in the middle
+of the room. Investigators sat next the walls. The name of a spirit, for
+instance, would be written and laid on a table, when in a short time he
+pronounced it. To tell the time by a watch, he required it to be placed
+on the table, or in his hand. With the tablecloth over his head, a
+bottle of phosphorated oil enabled him to see, when not the least
+glimmer of light was visible to others in the room.
+
+If any of the "spiritualist" philosophers were to be asked what is the
+philosophy of these proceedings, he would probably reply with a mess of
+balderdash pretty much like the following:
+
+"There is an infinitesimal influence of sympathy between mind and
+matter, which permeates all beings, and pervades all the delicate niches
+and interstices of human intelligence. This sympathetic influence
+working upon the affined intelligence of an affinity, coagulates itself
+into a corporiety, approximating closely to the adumbration of mortality
+in its highest admensuration, at last accuminating in an accumination."
+
+On these great philosophic principles it will not be difficult to
+comprehend the following actual quotation from the Spiritual Telegraph:
+
+"In the twelfth hour, the holy procedure shall crown the Triune Creator
+with the most perfect disclosive illumination. Then shall the creation
+in the effulgence above the divine seraphemal, arise into the dome of
+the disclosure in one comprehensive revolving galaxy of supreme created
+beatitudes."
+
+That those not surcharged with the divine afflatus may be able to get at
+the meaning of the above paragraph, it is translated thus:
+
+"Then shall all the blockheads in the nincompoopdome of disclosive
+procedure above the all-fired leather-fungus of Peter Nephninnygo, the
+gooseberry grinder, rise into the dome of the disclosure until coequaled
+and coexistensive and conglomerate lumuxes in one comprehensive mux
+shall assimilate into nothing, and revolve like a bob-tailed pussy cat
+after the space where the tail was."
+
+What power there is in spiritualism!
+
+I shall be glad to receive, for publication, authentic information, from
+all parts of the world in regard to the doings of pretended
+spiritualists, especially those who perform for money. It is high time
+that the credulous portion of our community should be saved from the
+deceptions, delusions, and swindles of these blasphemous mountebanks and
+impostors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+DEMONSTRATIONS BY "SAMPSON" UNDER A TABLE.--A MEDIUM WHO IS HANDY WITH
+HER FEET.--EXPOSE OF ANOTHER OPERATOR IN DARK CIRCLES.
+
+
+Considerable excitement has been created in various parts of the West by
+a young woman, whose name need not here be given, who pretends to be a
+"medium for physical manifestations." She is rather tall and quite
+muscular, her general manner and expression indicating innocence and
+simplicity.
+
+The "manifestations" exhibited by her purport to be produced by Samson,
+the Hebrew champion and anti-philistine.
+
+In preparing for her exhibition, she has a table placed sideways against
+the wall of the room, and covered with a thick blanket that reaches to
+the floor. A large tin dishpan, with handles (or ears,) a German
+accordeon, and a tea-bell are placed under the table, at the end of
+which she seats herself in such a way that her body is against the top,
+and her lower limbs underneath, her skirts being so adjusted as to fill
+the space between the end legs of the table, and at the same time allow
+free play for her pedal extremities. The blanket, at the end where she
+sits, comes to her waist and hangs down to the floor on each side of her
+chair. The space under the table is thus made dark--a necessary
+condition, it is claimed--and all therein concealed from view. The
+"medium" then folds her arms, looks careless, and the "manifestations"
+commence. The accordeon is sounded, no music being executed upon it, and
+the bell rung at the same time. Then the dishpan receives such treatment
+that it makes a terrible noise. Some one is requested to go to the end
+of the table opposite the "medium," put his hand under the blanket, take
+hold of the dishpan, and pull. He does so, and finds that some power is
+opposing him, holding the dishpan to one place. Not being rude, he
+forbears to jerk with all his force, but retires to his seat. The table
+rises several inches and comes down "kerslap," then it tips forward a
+number of times; then one end jumps up and down in time to music, if
+there is any one present to play; loud raps are heard upon it, and the
+hypothetical Samson has quite a lively time generally. Some of the
+mortals present, one at a time, put their fingers, by request, against
+the blankets, through which those members are gingerly squeezed by what
+might be a hand, if there was one under the table. A person being told
+to take hold of the top of the table at the ends, he does so, and finds
+it so heavy that he can barely lift it. Setting it down, he is told to
+raise it again several inches; and at the second lifting it is no
+heavier than one would naturally judge such a piece of furniture to be.
+Another person is asked to lift the end furthest from the medium;
+having done so, it suddenly becomes quite weighty, and, relaxing his
+hold, it comes down with much force upon the floor. Thus, by the
+power--exercised beneath the table--of an assumed spirit, that piece of
+cabinet-ware becomes heavy or light, and is moved in various ways, the
+medium not appearing to do it.
+
+In addition to her other "fixins," this medium has a spirit-dial, so
+called, on which are letters of the alphabet, the numerals, and such
+words as "Yes," "No," and "Don't know." The whole thing is so arranged
+that the pulling of a string makes an index hand go the circuit of the
+dial-face, and it can be made to stop at any of the characters or words
+thereon. This "spirit-dial" is placed on the table, near the end
+furthest from the medium, the string passing through a hole and hanging
+beneath. In the end of the string there is a knot. While the medium
+remains in the same position in which she sat when the other
+"manifestations" were produced, communications are spelled out through
+the dial, the index being moved by some power under the table that pulls
+the string. A coil-spring makes the index fly back to the
+starting-point, when the power is relaxed at each indication of a
+character or word. The orthography of these "spirits" is "bad if not
+worse."
+
+Now for an explanation of the various "manifestations" that I have
+enumerated.
+
+The medium is simply handy with her feet. To sound the accordeon and
+ring the bell at the same time, she has to take off one of her shoes or
+slippers, the latter being generally worn by her on these occasions.
+That done, she gets the handle of the tea-bell between the toes of her
+right foot, through a hole in the stocking, then putting the heel of the
+same foot on the keys of the accordeon, and the other foot into the
+strap on the bellows part of that instrument, she easily sounds it, the
+motion necessary to do this also causing the bell to ring. She can
+readily pass her heels over the keys to produce different notes. She is
+thus able to make sounds on the accordeon that approximate to the very
+simple tune of "Bounding Billows," and that is the extent of her musical
+ability when only using her "pedals."
+
+To get a congress-gaiter off the foot without using the hands is quite
+easy; but how to get one on again, those members not being employed to
+do it, would puzzle most people. It is not difficult to do, however, if
+a cord has been attached to the strap of the gaiter and tied to the leg
+above the calf. The cord should be slack, and that will admit of the
+gaiter coming off. To get it on, the toe has to be worked into the top
+of it, and then pulling on the cord with the toe of the other foot will
+accomplish the rest.
+
+The racket with the dishpan is made by putting the toe of the foot into
+one of the handles or ears, and beating the pan about. By keeping the
+toe in this handle and putting the other foot into the pan, the operator
+can "stand a pull" from an investigator, who reaches under the blanket
+and takes hold of the other handle.
+
+To raise the table, the "medium" puts her knees under and against the
+frame of it, then lifts her heels, pressing the toes against the floor,
+at the same time bearing with her arms on the end. To make the table tip
+forward, one knee only is pressed against the frame at the back side.
+The raps are made with the toe of the medium's shoe against the leg,
+frame, or top of the table.
+
+What feels like a hand pressing the investigator's fingers when he puts
+them against the blanket, is nothing more than the medium's feet, the
+big toe of one foot doing duty for a thumb, and all the toes of the
+other foot being used to imitate fingers. The pressure of these, through
+a thick blanket, cannot well be distinguished from that of a hand. When
+this experiment is to be made, the medium wears slippers that she can
+readily get off her feet.
+
+To make the table heavy, the operator presses her knees outwardly
+against the legs of the table, and then presses down in opposition to
+the party who is lifting, or she presses her knees against that surface
+of the legs of the table that is toward her, while her feet are hooked
+around the lower part of the legs; that gives her a leverage, by means
+of which she can make the whole table or the end furthest from her seem
+quite heavy, and if the person lifting it suddenly relaxes his hold, it
+will come down with a forcible bang to the floor.
+
+To work the "spirit-dial," the medium has only to press the string with
+the toe of her foot against the top of the table, and slide it (the
+string) along till the index points at the letter or word she wishes to
+indicate. The frame of the dial is beveled, the face declining toward
+the medium, so that she has no difficulty in observing where the index
+points.
+
+After concluding her performances under the table, this medium sometimes
+moves her chair about two feet back and sits with her side toward the
+end of the table, with one leg of which, however, the skirt of her dress
+comes in contact. Under cover of the skirt she then hooks her foot
+around the leg of the table and draws it toward her. This is done
+without apparent muscular exertion, while she is engaged in
+conversation; and parties present are humbugged into the belief that the
+table was moved without "mortal contact"--so they report to outsiders.
+
+This medium has a "manager," and he does his best in managing the
+matter, to prevent "Samson being caught" in the act of cheating. The
+medium, too, is vigilant, notwithstanding her appearance of carelessness
+and innocent simplicity. A sudden rising of the blanket once exposed to
+view her pedal extremities in active operation.
+
+Another of the "Dark Circle" mediums gets a good deal of sympathy on
+account of her "delicate health." Her health is not so delicate,
+however, as to prevent her from laboring hard to humbug people with
+"physical demonstrations." She operates only in private, in presence of
+a limited number of people.
+
+A circle being formed, the hands of all the members are joined except at
+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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 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 BROTHER 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 mean
+time, I think I can reasonably account for and explain all pretended
+spiritual gymnastic performances--throwings of hair-brushes--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 dish-water. 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 had locked myself in my gallery, and no other
+person was in the room. It appeared instantly, as you see it there; and
+I have long wished to obtain the opinion of some man, like yourself, who
+has investigated these mysteries."
+
+The spiritualist listened attentively, looked upon the picture, heard
+other explanations, examined other pictures, and sagely gave it as his
+opinion that the inhabitants of the unknown sphere had taken this mode
+of re-appearing to the view of mortal eyes, that this operator must be a
+"medium" of especial power. The New York Herald of Progress, a
+spiritualist paper, printed the first article upon this man's spiritual
+photograph.
+
+The acquaintance thus begun was continued, and the photographer found it
+very profitable to oblige his spiritual friend, by the reproduction of
+ghost-like pictures, ad infinitum, at the rate of five dollars each.
+Mothers came to the room of the artist, and gratefully retired with
+ghostly representations of departed little ones. Widows came to purchase
+the shades of their departed husbands. Husbands visited the photographer
+and procured the spectral pictures of their dead wives. Parents wanted
+the phantom-portraits of their deceased children. Friends wished to
+look upon what they believed to be the lineaments of those who had long
+since gone to the spirit-land. All who sought to look on those pictures
+were satisfied with what had been shown them, and, by conversation on
+the subject, increased the number of visitors. In short, every person
+who heard about this mystery determined to verify the wonderful tales
+related, by looking upon the ghostly lineaments of some person, who,
+they believed, inhabited another sphere. And here I may as well mention
+that one of the faithful obtained a "spirit" picture of a deceased
+brother who had been dead more than five years, and said that he
+recognized also the very pattern of his cravat as the same that he wore
+in life. Can human credulity go further than to suppose that the
+departed still appear in the old clo' of their earthly wardrobe? and the
+fact that the appearance of "the shade" of a young lady in one of the
+fashionable cut Zouave jackets of the hour did not disturb the faith of
+the believers, fills us indeed with wonder.
+
+The fame of the photographer spread throughout the "spiritual circles,"
+and pilgrims to this spiritual Mecca came from remote parts of the land,
+and before many months, caused no little excitement among some persons,
+inclined to believe that the demonstrations were entirely produced by
+human agency.
+
+The demand for "spirit" pictures consequently increased, until the
+operator was forced to raise his price to ten dollars, whenever
+successful in obtaining a true "spirit-picture," or to be overwhelmed
+with business that now interfered with his regular labors.
+
+About this time the famous "Peace Conference" had been concluded by the
+issue of Mr. Lincoln's celebrated letter, "To whom it may concern," and
+William Cornell Jewett (with his head full of projects for restoring
+peace to a suffering country) heard about the mysterious photographer,
+and visited the operator.
+
+"Sir," said he, "I must consult with the spirits of distinguished
+statesmen. We need their counsel. This cruel war must stop. Brethren
+slaying brethren, it is horrible, Sir. Can you show me John Adams? Can
+you show me Daniel Webster? Let me look upon the features of Andrew
+Jackson. I must see that noble, glorious, wise old statesman, Henry
+Clay, whom I knew. Could you reproduce Stephen A. Douglas, with whom to
+counsel at this crisis in our national affairs! I should like to meet
+the great Napoleon. Such, here obtained, would increase my influence in
+the political work that I have in hand."
+
+In his own nervous, impetuous, excited way, Colorado Jewett continued to
+urge upon the photographer the great importance of receiving such
+communications, or some evidence that the spirits of our deceased
+statesmen were watching over and counseling those who desire to re-unite
+the two opposing forces, fighting against each other on the soil of a
+common country.
+
+With much caution, the photographer answered the questions presented.
+Arranging the camera, he produced some indistinct figures, and then
+concluded that the "conditions" were not sufficiently favorable to
+attempt anything more before the next day. On the following morning,
+Jewett appeared--nervous, garrulous, and excited at the prospect of
+being in the presence of those great men, whose spirits he desired to
+invoke. The apparatus was prepared; utter silence imposed, and for some
+time the heart of the peace-seeker could almost be heard thumping within
+the breast of him who sought supernatural aid, in his efforts to end our
+cruel civil war. Then, overcome by his own thoughts, Jewett disturbed
+the "conditions" by changing his position, and muttering short
+invocations, addressed to the shades of those he wished to behold. The
+operator finally declared he could not proceed, and postponed his
+performance for that day. So, excuses were made, until the mental
+condition of Mr. Jewett had reached that state which permitted the
+photographer to expect the most complete success. Everything being
+prepared, Jewett breathlessly awaited the expected presence. Quietly the
+operator produced the spectral representation of the elder Adams. Jewett
+scrutinized the plate, and expressed a silent wonder, accompanied, no
+doubt, with some mental appeals addressed to the ancient statesman.
+Then, writing the name of Webster upon a slip of paper, he passed it
+over to the photographer, who gravely placed the scrap of writing upon
+the camera, and presently drew therefrom the "ghost-like" but well
+remembered features of the "Sage of Marshfield." Colorado Jewett was now
+thoroughly impressed with the spiritual power producing these images;
+and in ecstasy breathed a prayer that Andrew Jackson might appear to
+lend his countenance to the conference he wished to hold with the mighty
+dead. Jackson's well known features came out upon call, after due
+manipulation of the proper instrument. "Glorious trio of departed
+statesmen!" thought Jewett, "help us by your counsels in this the day of
+our nation's great distress." Next Henry Clay's outline was faintly
+shown from the tomb, and here the sitter remarked that he expected him.
+After him came Stephen A. Douglas, and the whole affair was so entirely
+satisfactory to Jewett, that, after paying fifty dollars for what he had
+witnessed, he, the next day, implored the presence of George Washington,
+offering fifty dollars more for a "spiritual" sight of the "Father of
+our Country." This request smote upon the ear of the photographer like
+an invitation to commit sacrilege. His reverence for the memory of
+Washington was not to be disturbed by the tempting offer of so many
+greenbacks. He could not allow the features of that great man to be used
+in connection with an imposture perpetrated upon so deluded a fanatic as
+Colorado Jewett. In short, the "conditions" were unfavorable for the
+apparition of "General Washington;" and his visitor must remain
+satisfied with the council of great men that had been called from the
+spirit world to instill wisdom into the noddle of a foolish man on this
+terrestrial planet. Having failed to obtain, by the agency of the
+operator, a glimpse of Washington, Jewett clasped his hands together,
+and sinking upon his knees, said, looking toward Heaven: "O spirit of
+the immortal Washington! look down upon the warring elements that
+convulse our country, and kindly let thy form appear, to lend its
+influence toward re-uniting a nation convulsed with civil war!"
+
+It is needless to say that this prayer was not answered. The spirit
+would not come forth; and, although quieted by the explanations and half
+promises of the photographer, the peace-messenger departed, convinced
+that he had been in the presence of five great statesmen, and saddened
+by the reflection that the shade of the immortal Washington had turned
+away its face from those who had refused to follow the counsels he gave
+while living.
+
+Soon after this, Jewett ordered duplicates of these photographs to the
+value of $20 more. I now have on exhibition in my Museum several of the
+veritable portraits taken at this time, in which the well-known form and
+face of Mr. Jewett are plainly depicted, and on one of which appears the
+shade of Henry Clay, on another that of Napoleon the First, and on
+others ladies supposed to represent deceased feminines of great
+celebrity. It is said that Jewett sent one of the Napoleonic pictures to
+the Emperor Louis Napoleon.
+
+Not long after Colorado Jewett had beheld these wonderful pictures, and
+worked himself up into the belief that he was surrounded by the great
+and good statesmen of a former generation, a lady, without making
+herself known, called upon the photographer. I am informed that she is
+the wife of a distinguished official. She had heard of the success of
+others, and came to verify their experience under her own bereavement.
+Completely satisfied by the apparition exhibited, she asked for and
+obtained a spectral photograph resembling her son, who, some months
+previously, had gone to the spirit-land. It is said that the same lady
+asked for and obtained a spiritual photograph of her brother, whom she
+had recently heard was slain in battle; and when she returned home she
+found him alive, and as well as could be expected under the
+circumstances. But this did not shake her faith in the least. She simply
+remarked that some evil spirit had assumed her brother's form in order
+to deceive her. This is a very common method of spiritualists "digging
+out" when the impositions of the "money-operators" are detected. This
+same lady has recently given her personal influence in favor of the
+"medium" Colchester, in Washington. One of these impressions bearing the
+likeness of this distinguished lady was accidentally recognized by a
+visitor. This capped the climax of the imposture and satisfied the
+photographer that he was committing a grave injury upon society by
+continuing to produce "spiritual pictures," and subsequently he refused
+to lend himself to any more "manifestations" of this kind. He had
+exhausted the fun.
+
+I need only explain the modus operandi of effecting this illusion, to
+make apparent to the most ignorant that no supernatural agency was
+required to produce photographs bearing a resemblance to the persons
+whose "apparition" was desired. The photographer always took the
+precaution of inquiring about the deceased, his appearance and ordinary
+mode of wearing the hair. Then, selecting from countless old "negatives"
+the nearest resemblance, it was produced for the visitor, in dim,
+ghostlike outline differing so much from anything of the kind ever
+produced, that his customers seldom failed to recognize some lineament
+the dead person possessed when living, especially if such relative had
+deceased long since. The spectral illusions of Adams, Webster, Jackson,
+Clay, and Douglas were readily obtained from excellent portraits of the
+deceased statesmen, from which the scientific operator had prepared his
+illusions for Colorado Jewett.
+
+In placing before my readers this incident of "Spiritual Photography," I
+can assure them that the facts are substantially as related; and I am
+now in correspondence with gentlemen of wealth and position who have
+signified their willingness to support this statement by affidavits and
+other documents prepared for the purpose of opening the eyes of the
+people to the delusions daily practised upon the ignorant and
+superstitious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+BANNER OF LIGHT.--MESSAGES FROM THE DEAD.--SPIRITUAL CIVILITIES.--SPIRIT
+"HOLLERING."--HANS VON VLEET, THE FEMALE DUTCHMAN.--MRS. CONANT'S
+"CIRCLES."--PAINE'S TABLE-TIPPING HUMBUG EXPOSED.
+
+
+"The Banner of Light," a weekly journal of romance, literature, and
+general intelligence, published in Boston, is the principal organ of
+spiritualism in this country. Its "general intelligence" is rather
+questionable, though there is no doubt about its being a "journal of
+romance," strongly tinctured with humbug and imposture. It has a
+"Message Department," the proprietors of the paper claiming that "each
+message in this department of the "Banner" was spoken by the spirit
+whose name it bears, through the instrumentality of Mrs. J. H. Conant,
+while in an abnormal condition called the trance."
+
+I give a few specimens of these "messages." Thus, for instance,
+discourseth the Ghost of Lolley:
+
+     "How do? Don't know me, do you? Know George Lolley? [Yes. How do
+     you do?] I'm first rate. I'm dead; ain't you afraid of me? You know
+     I was familiar with those sort of things, so I wasn't frightened to
+     go.
+
+     "Well, won't you say to the folks that I'm all right, and happy?
+     that I didn't suffer a great deal, had a pretty severe wound, got
+     over that all right; went out from Petersburg. I was in the battle
+     before Petersburg; got my discharge from there. Remember me kindly
+     to Mr. Lord.
+
+     "Well, tell 'em as soon as I get the wheels a little greased up and
+     in running order I'll come back with the good things, as I said I
+     would, George W. Lolley. Good-bye."
+
+Immediately after a "message" from the spirit of John Morgan, the
+guerrilla, came one from Charles Talbot, who began as follows with a
+curious apostrophe to his predecessor:
+
+     "Hi-yah! old grisly. It's lucky for you I didn't get in ahead of
+     you.
+
+     "I am Charlie Talbot, of Chambersburg, Pa. Was wounded in action,
+     captured by the Rebels, and 'died on their hands' as they say of
+     the horse."
+
+It seems a little rude for one "spirit" to term another "Old Grisly;"
+but such may be the style of compliment prevailing in the spirit-world.
+
+Here is what Brother Klink said:
+
+     "John Klink, of the Twenty-fifth South Carolina. I want to open
+     communication with Thomas Lefar, Charleston, S. C. I am deucedly
+     ignorant about this coming back--dead railroad--business. It's new
+     business to me, as I suppose it will be to some of you when you
+     travel this way. Say I will do the best I can to communicate with
+     my friends, if they will give me an opportunity. I desire Mr. Lefar
+     to send my letter to my family when he receives it--he knows where
+     they are--and then report to this office.
+
+     "Good night, afternoon or morning, I don't know which. I walked out
+     at Petersburg."
+
+Here is a message from George W. Gage, with some of the questions which
+he answered:
+
+     "[How do you like your new home?] First rate. I likes--heigho!--I
+     likes to come here, for they clears all the truck away before you
+     get round, and fix up so you can talk right off. [Wasn't you a
+     medium?] No, Sir; I wasn't afraid, though; nor my mother ain't,
+     either. Oh, I knew about it; I knew before I come to die, about it.
+     My mother told me about it. I knew I'd be a woman when I come here,
+     too. [Did you?] Yes, sir; my mother told me, and said I musn't be
+     afraid. Oh, I don't likes that, but I likes to come.
+
+     "I forgot, Sir; my mother's deaf, and always had to holler. That
+     gentleman says folks ain't deaf here."
+
+The observable points are first that he seems to have excused his
+"hollering" by the habits consequent upon his mother's deafness. The
+"hollering" consisted of unusually heavy thumping, I suppose. But the
+second point is of far greater interest. George intimates that he has
+changed his "sect," and become a woman! For this important alteration
+his good mother had prepared his mind. This style of thing will not seem
+so strange if we consider that some men become old women before they
+die!
+
+Here is another case of feminification and restitution combined. Hans
+Von Vleet has become a vrow--what you may call a female Dutchman! It has
+always been claimed that women are purer and better than men; and
+accordingly we see that as soon as Hans became a woman he insisted on
+his widow's returning to a Jew two thousand dollars that naughty Hans
+had "Christianed" the poor Hebrew out of. But let Hans tell his own
+story:
+
+     "I was Hans Von Vleet ven I vas here. I vas Von Vleet here; I is
+     one vrow now. I is one vrow ven I comes back; I vas no vrow ven I
+     vas here (alluding to the fact that he was temporarily occupying
+     the form of our medium.) I wish you to know that I first live in
+     Harlem, State of New York. Ven I vos here, I take something I had
+     no right to take, something that no belongs to me. I takes
+     something; I takes two thousand dollars that was no my own; that's
+     what I come back to say about. I first have some dealings with one
+     Jew; that's what you call him. He likes to Jew me, and I likes to
+     Christian him. I belongs to the Dutch Reform Church. (Do you think
+     you were a good member?) Vell, I vas. I believes in the creed; I
+     takes the sacrament; I lives up to it outside. I no lives up to it
+     inside, I suppose. (How do you find yourself now, Hans?) Vell, I
+     finds myself--vell, I don't know; I not feel very happy. Ven I
+     comes to the spirit-land, I first meet that Jew's brother, and he
+     tells me, 'Hans, you mus go back and makes some right with my
+     brother.' So I comes here.
+
+     "I vants my vrow, what I left in Harlem, to takes that two tousand
+     dollars and gives it back to that Jew's vrow. That's what I came
+     for to-day, Sir. (Has your vrow got it?) Vell, my vrow has got it
+     in a tin box. Ven I first go, I takes the money, I gives it to my
+     vrow, and she takes care of it. Now I vants my vrow to give that
+     two tousand dollars to that Jew's vrow.
+
+     "(How do you spell your name?) The vrow knows how to spell. (Hans
+     Von Vleet.) There's a something you cross in it. The vrow spells
+     the rest. Ah, that's wrong; you makes a blunder. Its V. not F.
+     That's like all vrows. (Do all vrows make blunders?) Vell, I don't
+     know; all do sometimes, I suppose. (Didn't you like vrows here?)
+     Oh, vell, I likes 'em sometimes. I likes mine own vrow. I not likes
+     to be a vrow myself. (Don't the clothes fit?) Ah, vell, I suppose
+     they fits, but I not likes to wear what not becomes me."
+
+It is scarcely necessary to make comments on such horrible nonsense as
+this. I may recur to the subject in future, should it appear expedient.
+At present I must drop the subject of female men.
+
+At the head of the "Message Department" is a standing advertisement,
+which reads as follows:
+
+     "Our free circles are held at No. 158 Washington street, Room No. 4
+     (up stairs,) on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. The
+     circle-room will be open for visitors at two o'clock; services
+     commence at precisely three o'clock, after which time no one will
+     be admitted. Donations solicited."
+
+On the days and at the hour mentioned in the above advertisement, quite
+an audience assembles to hear the messages Mrs. C. may have to deliver.
+If a stranger present should request a message from one of his
+spirit-friends, he would be told that a large number of spirits were
+seeking to communicate through that "instrument," and each must await
+his turn! Having read obituary notices in the files of old newspapers,
+and the published list of those recently killed in battle, the medium
+has data for any number of "messages." She talks in the style that she
+imagines the person whom she attempts to personate would use, being one
+of the doctrines of spiritualism that a person's character and feelings
+are not changed by death. To make the humbug more complete, she narrates
+imaginary incidents, asserting them to have occurred in the
+earth-experience of the spirit who purports to have possession of her at
+the same time she is speaking. Mediums in various parts of the country
+furnish her with the names of and facts relative to different deceased
+people of their acquaintance, and those names and facts are used by her
+in supplying the "Message Department" of the "Banner of Light."
+
+If the assumed "mediumship" of this woman was not an imposture, some of
+the many people who have visited her for the purpose of getting
+communications from their spirit-friends would have been gratified. In
+most of the "messages" published in the Banner, the spirits purporting
+to give them, express a great desire to have their mortal friends
+receive them; but those mortals who seek to obtain through Mrs. Conant
+satisfactory messages from their spirit-friends, are not gratified--the
+medium not being posted. The mediums are as much opposed to "new tests"
+as a non-committal politician.
+
+Time and again have leading spiritualists, in various parts of the
+country, indorsed as "spiritual manifestations," what was subsequently
+proved to be an imposture.
+
+Several years ago, a man by the name of Paine created a great sensation
+in Worcester, Mass., by causing a table to move "without contact," he
+claiming that it was done by spirits through his "mediumship." He
+subsequently came to New York, and exhibited the "manifestation" at the
+house of a spiritualist--where he boarded--in the upper part of the
+city. A great many spiritualists and not a few "skeptics" went to see
+his performance. Paine was a very soft-spoken, "good sort of a fellow,"
+and appeared to be quite sincere in his claims to "mediumship." He
+received no fee from those who witnessed his exhibition; and that fact,
+in connection with others, tended to disarm people of suspicion. His
+seances were held in the evening, and each visitor was received by him
+at the door, and immediately conducted to a seat next the wall of the
+room.
+
+The visitors all in and seated, Mr. Paine took a seat with the rest in
+the "circle." In the middle of the room a small table had previously
+been placed, and the gas had been turned partly off, leaving just enough
+light to make objects look ghostly.
+
+In order to get "harmonized," singing was indulged in for a short time
+by members of the "circle." Soon a number of raps would be heard in the
+direction of the table, and one side of that piece of furniture would be
+seen to rise about an inch from the floor. Some very naturally wanted to
+rush to the table and investigate the matter more closely, but Paine
+forbade that--the necessary "conditions" must be observed, he said, or
+there would be no further manifestation of spirit-power. As there was no
+one nearer to the table than six or eight feet, the fact of its moving,
+very naturally astonished the skeptics present. Several "seeing mediums"
+who attended Mr. Paine's seances, were able to see the spirits--so they
+declared--who moved the table. One was described as a "big Injun," who
+cut various capers, and appeared to be much delighted with the turn of
+affairs. Believers were wonderfully well-pleased to know that at last a
+medium was "developed" through whom the inhabitants of another world
+could manifest their presence to mortals in such a way that no one could
+gainsay the fact. The "invisibles" freely responded, by raps on the
+table, to various questions asked by those in the "circle." They thumped
+time to lively tunes, and seemed to have a decidedly good time of it in
+their particular way. When the seance was concluded, Mr. Paine freely
+permitted an examination of his table.
+
+In the Sunday Spiritual Conferences, then held in Clinton Hall, leading
+spiritualists gave an account of the "manifestations of the spirits"
+through Mr. Paine, and, as believers, congratulated themselves upon the
+existence of such "indubitable facts." The spiritualist in whose house
+this exhibition of table-moving "without contact" took place, was well
+known as a man of strict honesty; and it was reasonably presumed that no
+mechanical contrivance could be used without his cognizance, in thus
+moving a piece of his furniture--for the table belonged to him--and that
+he would countenance a deception was out of the question.
+
+There were in the city three gentlemen who had, for some time, been
+known as spiritualists; but they were, at the period of Paine's debut as
+a medium in New York, very skeptical with regard to "physical
+manifestations." They had, a short time before, detected the Davenports
+and other professed mediums in the practice of imposture; and they
+determined not to accept, as true, Paine's pretence to mediumship, till
+after a thorough investigation of his "manifestations," they should fail
+to find a material cause for them. After attending several of his
+seances, these gentlemen concluded that Paine moved the table by means
+of a mechanical contrivance fixed under the floor. One of this trio of
+investigators was a mechanic, and he had conceived a way--and it seemed
+to him the only way--in which the "manifestation" could be produced
+under the circumstances that apparently attended it. Paine was a
+mechanic, and these parties were aware of that fact. They made an
+appointment with him for a private seance. The evening fixed upon,
+having arrived, they met with him at his room. The table was raised and
+raps were made upon it, as had been done on previous occasions. One of
+the three investigators stepped to the door of the room, locked it, put
+the key in his pocket, took off his coat, and told Mr. Paine that he was
+determined to search his (Paine's) person, and that if he did not find
+about him a small short iron rod, by means of which, through a hole in
+the floor, a lever underneath was worked in moving the table, he (the
+speaker) would beg his (Mr. Paine's) pardon, and be forever after a firm
+believer in the power of disembodied spirits to move ponderable bodies.
+This impressive little speech had a decided and instant effect upon the
+"medium." "Gentlemen," said the latter, "I might as well own up. Please
+to be quietly seated, and I will tell you all about it." And he did tell
+them all about it; subsequently repeating his confession before quite a
+number of disgusted and cheaply sold spiritualists at the "New York
+Spiritual Lyceum." The theory formed by one of the three investigators
+referred to, as to Paine's method of moving the table, was singularly
+correct.
+
+Whilst the family with whom Paine boarded was away, one day, in
+attendance at a funeral, he took up several of the floor boards of the
+back parlor, and on the under side of them affixed a lever, with a
+cross-piece at one end of it; and, in the ends of the cross-piece, bits
+of wire were inserted, the wire being just as far apart as the legs of
+the table to be moved. Small holes were made in the floor-boards for the
+wire to come through to reach the table-legs. The other end of the lever
+came within an inch or two of the wall. When all the arrangements were
+completed, and the table being properly placed in order to move it, Mr.
+Paine had only to insert one end of a short iron rod in a hole in the
+heel of his boot, put the other end of the rod through a hole in the
+floor, just under the edge of the carpet near the wall, and then press
+the rod down upon the end of the lever.
+
+The movements necessary in fixing the iron rod to its place were
+executed while he was picking up his handkerchief, that he had purposely
+dropped.
+
+The middle of the lever was attached to the floor, and the end with the
+cross-piece, being the heavier, brought the other end close up against
+the floor, the wires in the cross-piece having their points just within
+the bottom of the holes in the floor. The room was carpeted, and there
+were little marks on the carpet, known only to Paine, that enabled him
+to know just where to place the table. Pressing down the end of the
+lever nearest the wall, an inch would bring the wires in the cross-piece
+on the other end of the lever against the legs of the table, and
+slightly raise the latter. One of the wires would strike the table-leg a
+very little before the other did, and that enabled the "medium" to very
+nicely rap time to the tunes that were sung or played. Of course, no
+holes that any one could observe would be made in the carpet by the
+passage of the wires through it.
+
+For appearance' sake, Paine, before his detection, visited, by
+invitation, the houses of several different spiritualists, for the
+purpose of holding seances; but he never got a table to move "without
+contact" in any other than the place where he had properly prepared the
+conditions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+SPIRITUALIST HUMBUGS WAKING UP.--FOSTER HEARD FROM.--S. B. BRITTAN HEARD
+FROM.--THE BOSTON ARTISTS AND THEIR SPIRITUAL PORTRAITS.--THE WASHINGTON
+MEDIUM AND HIS SPIRITUAL HANDS.--THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS AND THE
+SEA-CAPTAIN'S WHEAT-FLOUR.--THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS ROUGHLY SHOWN UP BY
+JOHN BULL.--HOW A SHINGLE "STUMPED" THE SPIRITS.
+
+
+I hear from spiritualists sometimes. These gentry are much exercised in
+their minds by my letters about them, and some of them fly out at me
+very much as bumble-bees do at one who stirs up their nest. For
+instance, I received, not long ago, from my good friends, Messrs.
+Cauldwell & Whitney, an anonymous letter to them, dated at Washington,
+and suggesting that if I would attend what the latter calls "a seance of
+that celebrated humbug, Foster," I should see something that I could not
+explain. Now, this anonymous letter, as I know by a spiritual
+communication, (or otherwise,) is in a handwriting very wonderfully like
+that of Mr. Foster himself. And as for the substance of it, it is very
+likely that Foster has now gotten up some new tricks. He needs them. The
+exhibiting mediums must, of course, contrive new tricks as fast as Dr.
+Von Vleck and men like him show up their old ones. It is the universal
+method of all sorts of impostors to adopt new means of fooling people
+when their old ones are exposed. And Mr. Foster shall have all the
+attention he wants if I ever find the leisure to bestow on him, though
+my time is fully occupied with worthier objects.
+
+I have also been complimented with a buzz and an attempt to sting from
+my old friend S. B. Brittan, the ex-Universalist minister--the very
+surprisingly efficient "man Friday" of Andrew Jackson Davis, in the
+production of the "Revelations" of the said Davis, and also
+ghost-fancier in general; who has gently aired part of his vocabulary in
+a communication to the "Banner of Light," with the heading "Exposed for
+Two Shillings." I can afford very well to expose friend Brittan and his
+spiritualist humbugs for two shillings. The honester the cheaper. It
+evidently vexes the spiritualists to have their ghosts put with the
+monkeys in the Museum. They can't help it, though; and it is my
+deliberate opinion that the monkeys are much the most respectable. I
+have no wish to displease any honest person; but the more the
+spiritualists squirm, and snarl, and scold, and call names, the more
+they show that I am hurting them. Or--does my friend Brittan himself
+want an engagement at the Museum? Will he produce some "manifestations"
+there, and get that $500?--the money is ready!
+
+A valued friend of mine has furnished me a pleasant and true narrative
+of a fine "spiritual" humbug which took place in a respectable
+Massachusetts village not very long ago. I give the story in his own
+graphic words:
+
+"Two artists of Boston, tired of the atmosphere of their studios,
+resolved themselves, in joint session, into spiritual mediums, as a
+means of raising the wind--or the devil--and of getting a little fresh
+air in the rural districts. One of them had learned Mansfield's trick of
+answering communications and that of writing on the arms. They had large
+handbills printed, announcing that "Mr. W. Howard, the celebrated
+test-medium, would visit the town of ----, and would remain at the ----
+Hotel during three days." One of the artists preceded the other by a few
+hours, engaged rooms, and attended to sundry preliminaries. "Mr. Howard"
+donned a white choker, put his hair behind his ears, and mounted a pair
+of plain glass spectacles; and such was his profoundly spiritual
+appearance on entering his apartments at the hotel, that he had to lock
+the door and give his partner opportunity to explode, and absolutely
+roll about on the floor with laughter.
+
+"Well, they rigged a clothes-horse for a screen; and to heighten the
+effect, the assistant, who was expert in portraiture, covered this
+screen, and, indeed, the walls of the room, with scraggy outlines of the
+human countenance upon large sheets of paper. These, they said, were
+executed by the draftsman, whose right hand, when under spiritual
+influence, uncontrollably jerked off these likenesses. They added, that
+the spirits had given information that, before the mediums left town,
+the people would recognize these pictures as likenesses of persons there
+deceased within twenty years or so. Price, two dollars each! They
+absolutely sold quite a large number of these portraits, as they were
+from time to time recognized by surviving friends! The operation of
+drawing portraits was also illustrated at certain hours, admission,
+fifty cents; if not satisfactory, the money returned.
+
+"Other tricks of various kinds were performed with pleasure to all
+parties and profit to the performers. The artists stood it as long as
+they could, and then departed. But there was every indication that the
+towns-people would have stood it until this day."
+
+Thus far my friend's curious and truthful account.
+
+A little while ago, there was exhibiting, at Washington, a "test-medium"
+whose name I would print, were it not that I do not want to advertise
+him. One of his most impressive feats was, to cause spiritual hands and
+other parts of the human frame to appear in the air a la Davenport
+Brothers. A gentleman, whose name I also know very well indeed, but have
+particular reasons for not mentioning, went one day to see this
+"test-medium," along with a friend, and asked to see a hand.
+"Certainly," the medium said; and the room was darkened, and the
+"circle" made round the table in the usual manner. After about five
+minutes, my friend, who had contrived to place himself pretty near the
+medium, saw, sure enough, a dim glimmering blue light in the air, a foot
+or so before and above the head of the medium. In a minute, he could
+see, dimly outlined in this blue light, the form of a hand, back toward
+him, fingers together, and no thumb.
+
+"Why is no thumb visible?" asked my friend of the medium in a solemn
+manner.
+
+"The reason is," said the medium, still more solemnly, "that the spirits
+have not power enough to produce a whole hand and so they exhibit as
+much as they can."
+
+"And do they always show hands without thumbs?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Here my friend, with a sudden jump, grabbed for the place where the
+wrist of the mysterious hand ought to be. Strange to relate, he caught
+it, and held it stoutly, to. A light was quickly had, when, still
+stranger, the spirit-hand was clearly seen to be the fleshy paw of the
+medium--and a fat paw it was too. Mr. Medium took the matter with the
+coolness of a thorough rascal, and, lighting a cigar, merely observed:
+
+"Well gentlemen, you needn't trouble yourselves to come here any more!"
+
+He also insisted on his usual fee of five dollars, until threatened with
+a prosecution for swindling.
+
+The secret of this worthy gentleman is simple and soon told. Holding one
+hand up in the air, he held up with the other, between the thumb and
+finger, a little pinch of phosphorus and bi-sulphide of carbon, which
+gave the blue light. If inconvenient to hold up the other hand, he had a
+reserve pinch of blue-light under that invisible thumb. It is a curious
+instance of the thorough credulity of genuine spiritualists that a
+believer in this wretched rogue, on being circumstantially told this
+whole story, not only steadily and firmly refused to credit it, and
+continued his faith in the fellow, but absolutely would not go to see
+the application of any other test. That's the sort of follower that is
+worth having!
+
+Another case was witnessed as follows, by the very same person on whose
+authority I give the spirit-hand story. He was present--also, this time
+in Washington, as it happened, at an exhibition by a certain pair of
+spiritual brothers, since well known as the "Davenport Brothers."
+
+These chaps, after the fashion of their kind, caused themselves to be
+tied up in a rope, an old sea-captain tying them. This done, their
+"shop" or cabinet, was shut upon them as usual, and the bangs, throwing
+of sticks, etc., through a window, and the like, took place. Well, this
+sly and inconvenient old sea-captain now slipped out of the hall a few
+minutes, and came back with some wheat flour. Having tied up the
+"brothers" again, he remarked:
+
+"Now, gentlemen, please to take, each, your two hands full of wheat
+flour."
+
+The "brothers" got mad and flatly refused. Then they cooled down and
+argued, saying it wouldn't make any difference, and was of no use.
+
+"Well," said the ancient mariner, "if it won't make any difference you
+can just as well do it, can't you?"
+
+The audience, seeing the point, were so evidently pleased with the old
+sailor, that the grumbling "brothers" though with a very bad grace, took
+their fists full of flour, and were shut up.
+
+There was not the least sign of a "manifestation"--no more than if the
+wheat-flour had shot the "brothers" dead in their tracks. The audience
+were immensely delighted. The "brothers," since that time, have learned
+to perform some tricks with flour in their fists, but only when tied by
+their own friends.
+
+Since these facts came to my knowledge, the Davenport Brothers have
+suffered an unpleasant exposure in Liverpool, in England, the details of
+which have been kindly forwarded to me by attentive friends there. The
+circumstances in question occurred on the evenings of Tuesday and
+Wednesday, February 14 and 15, 1865. On the first of these evenings, a
+gentleman named Cummins, selected by the audience as one of the Tying
+Committee, tied one of the Brothers, and a Mr. Hulley, the other
+committee-man, the other. But the Brothers saw instantly that they could
+not wriggle out of these knots. They, therefore, refused to let the
+tying be finished, saying that it was "brutal" although a surgeon
+present said it was not; one tied brother was untied by Ferguson, the
+agent; and then the Brothers went to work and performed their various
+tricks without the supervision of any committee, but amid a constant
+fire of derision, laughter, groans, shouts, and epithets from the
+audience. On the next evening, the audience insisted on having the same
+committee; the Brothers were very reluctant to allow it, but had to do
+so after a long time. Ira Davenport refused again, however, instantly to
+be tied, as soon as he saw what knot Mr. Cummins was going to use.
+Cummins, however, though Ira squirmed most industriously, got him tied
+fast, and then Ira called to Ferguson to cut the knot! Ferguson did so,
+and cut Ira's hand. Ira now shewed the blood to the audience, and the
+Brothers, with an immense pretense of indignation, went off the stage.
+Cummins at once explained; the audience became disgusted, and, enraged
+at the impudence of the imposture, broke over the foot-lights, knocked
+Ferguson backward into the "cabinet;" and when the discomfited agent had
+scrambled out and run away, smashed the thing fairly into
+kindling-wood, and carried it off, all distributed into splinters and
+chips. Early next morning, the terrified Davenports ran away out of
+Liverpool; and a number of the audience were, at last accounts,
+intending to go to law to get back the money paid for an exhibition
+which they did not see.
+
+The very thorough exposure of the Davenports thus made is an additional
+proof--if such were needed--of the truth of what I have alleged about
+the impostures perpetrated by them and their "mysterious" brethren of
+the exhibiting sort.
+
+Once the "spirits" were "stumped" with a shingle--a very proper yankee
+jaw-bone of an ass to route such disembodied Philistines. One day a
+certain person was present where some tables were rambling about, and
+other revolutions taking place in the furniture-business, when he
+stepped boldly forth like a herald bearing defiance, and cast down a
+common white pine shingle upon the floor. "There," said he, coolly, "if
+you can trot those tables about in that style, do it with that shingle.
+Make it go about the room. Make it move an inch!" And lo, and behold!
+the shingle lay perfectly still.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS SHOWN UP ONCE MORE.--DR. NEWTON AT CHICAGO.--THE
+SPIRITUALIST BOGUS BABY.--A LADY BRINGS FORTH A MOTIVE FORCE.--"GUM"
+ARABIC.--SPIRITUALIST HEBREW.--THE ALLEN BOY.--DR. RANDALL.--PORTLAND
+EVENING COURIER.--THE FOOLS NOT ALL DEAD YET.
+
+
+Other "spiritual" facts have come to my hand, some of them furnishing
+additional details about persons to whom I have already alluded, and
+others being important to illustrate some general tendencies of
+spiritualism.
+
+And first, about the Davenport Brothers; they have met with another
+"awful exposure," at the hands of a merciless Mr. Addison. This
+gentleman is a London stockbroker, and his cool, sharp business habits
+seem to have stood him in good stead in taking some fun out of the fools
+who follow the Davenports. Mr. Addison, it seems, went to work, and,
+just to amuse his friends, executed all the Davenport tricks. Upon this
+the spiritualist newspapers in England, which, like the Boston Herald of
+Progress, claim to believe in the "Brothers," came out and said that
+Addison was a very wonderful medium indeed. On this the cold-blooded
+Addison at once printed a letter, in which he not only said he had done
+all their tricks without spiritual aid, but he moreover explained
+exactly how he caught the Davenports in their impositions. He and a
+long-legged friend went to one of the "dark seances" of the Davenports,
+during which musical instruments were to fly about over the heads of the
+audience, bang their pates, thrum, twang, etc. Addison and his friend
+took a front seat; as soon as the lights were put out they put out their
+legs too; stretching as far as possible; and, to use the unfeeling
+language of Mr. Addison, they "soon had the satisfaction of feeling some
+one falling over them." They then caught hold of an arm, from which a
+guitar was forthwith let drop on the floor. In order to be certain who
+the guitar-carrier was, they waited until the next time the lights were
+put out, took each a mouthful of dry flour, and blew it out right among
+the "manifestations." When the lamps were lighted, lo and behold! there
+was Fay, the agent and manager of the Davenports, with his back all
+powdered with flour. Addison showed this to an acquaintance, who said,
+"Yes, he saw the flour; but he could not understand what made Addison
+and his friend laugh so excessively at it."
+
+The spiritualist newspapers don't think Addison is so great a medium as
+they did!
+
+Great accounts have recently come eastward from Chicago, of a certain
+Doctor Newton, who is said to be working miracles by the hundred in the
+way of healing diseases. This man operates with exactly the weapons all
+the miracle-workers, quacks, and impostors, ancient and modern use. All
+of them have appealed to the imaginations of their patients, and no
+person acquainted with mental philosophy is ignorant that many a sick
+man has been cured either by medicine and imagination together, or by
+imagination alone. Therefore, even if this Newton should really be the
+cause of the recovery of some persons from their ailments, it would be
+no more a miracle than if Dr. Mott should do it; nor would Newton be any
+the less a quack and a humbug.
+
+Newton has operated at the East already. He had a career at New Haven
+and Hartford, and in other places, before he steered westward in the
+wake of the "Star of Empire." What he does is simply to ask what is the
+matter, and where it hurts. Then he sticks his thumb into the seat of
+the difficulty, or he pokes or strokes or pats it, as the case may be.
+Then he says, "There--you're cured! God bless you!--Take yourself off!"
+
+Chicago must be a credulous place, for we are informed of immense crowds
+besieging this man, and undergoing his manipulations. One of the Chicago
+papers, having little faith and a good deal of fun--which in such cases
+is much better--published some burlesque stories and certificates about
+"Doctor" Newton, some of them humorous enough. There is a certificate
+from a woman with fourteen children, all having the measles at once. She
+says that no sooner had Doctor Newton received one lock of hair of one
+of them, than the measles left them all, and she now has said measles
+corked up in a bottle! Another case was that of a merchant who had lost
+his strength, but went and was stroked by Newton, and the very next day
+was able to lift a note in bank, which had before been altogether too
+heavy for him. There was also an old lady, whose story I fear was
+imitated from Hood's funny conceit of the deaf woman who bought an
+ear-trumpet, which was so effective that
+
+                    ----"The very next day
+  She heard from her husband in Botany Bay!"
+
+The Chicago old lady in like manner, after having had Doctor Newton's
+thumbs "jobbed" into her ears, certifies that she heard next morning
+from her son in California.
+
+One would think that this ridicule would put the learned Dr. Newton to
+flight; but it will not until he is through with the fools.
+
+I have already given an account of some of the messages from the other
+world in the "Banner of Light," in which some of the spirits explain
+that they have turned into women since they died. This is by no means
+the first remarkable trick that the spirits have performed upon the
+human organization. Here is what they did at High Rock, in
+Massachusetts, a number of years ago. It beats Joanna Southcott in funny
+absurdity, if not in blasphemy.
+
+At High Rock, in the year 1854 or thereabouts, certain spiritualist
+people were building some mysterious machinery. While this was in
+process of erection, a female medium, of considerable eminence in those
+parts, was informed by certain spirits, with great solemnity and pomp,
+that "she would become the Mary of a new dispensation;" that is, she was
+going to be a mother. Well, this was all proper, no doubt, and the lady
+herself--so say the spiritualist accounts--had for some time experienced
+indications that she was pregnant. These indications continued, and
+became increasingly obvious, and also, it was observed, a little queer
+in some particulars.
+
+After a while, one Spear--a "Reverend Mr. Spear"--who was mixed up, it
+appears, with the machinery-part of the business, and who was a medium
+himself, transmitted to the lady a request from the spirits that she
+would visit said Spear at High Rock on a certain day. She did so, of
+course; and while there was unexpectedly taken with the pains of
+childbirth, which the spiritualist authorities say, were
+"internal"--where should they be, pray?--and "of the spirit rather than
+of the physical nature; but were, nevertheless, quite as uncontrollable
+as those of the latter, and not less severe." The labor proceeded. It
+lasted two hours. As it went on, lo and behold! one part and another
+part of the machinery began to move! And when, at the end of the two
+hours, the parturition was safely over, all the machinery was going!
+
+The lady had given birth to a Motive Force. Does anybody suppose I am
+manufacturing this story? Not a bit of it. It is all told at length in a
+book published by a spiritualist; and probably a good many of my readers
+will remember about it.
+
+Well, the baby had to be nursed--fact! This superhumanly silly female
+actually went through the motions of nursing the motive force for some
+weeks. Though how the thing sucked--Excuse me, ladies; I would not
+discuss such delicate subjects did not the interests of truth require
+it.
+
+If I had been the physician, at any rate, I think I should have
+recommended to hire a healthy female steam-engine for a wet nurse to
+this young motive force; say a locomotive, for instance. I feel sure the
+thing would have lived if it could have had a gauge-faucet or something
+of that sort to draw on. But the medical folks in charge chose to permit
+the mother to nurse the child, and she not being able to supply proper
+nutriment, the poor little innocent faded--if that word be appropriate
+for what couldn't be seen,--and finally "gin eout;" and the machinery,
+after some abortive joggles and turns, stood hopelessly still.
+
+This story is true--that is, it is true that the story was told, the
+pretences were gone through, and the birth was actually believed by a
+good many people. Some of them were prodigiously enthusiastic about it,
+and called the invisible brat the New Motive Power, the Physical Savior,
+Heaven's Last Best Gift to Man, the New Creation, the Great Spiritual
+Revelation of the Age, the Philosopher's Stone, the Act of all Acts, and
+so on, and so forth.
+
+The great question of all was, Who was the daddy? I don't know of
+anybody's asking this question, but its importance is extreme and
+obvious. For if things like this are going to happen, the ladies will be
+afraid to sleep alone in the house if so much as a sewing-machine or
+apple-corer be about, and will not dare take solitary walks along any
+stream where there is a water power.
+
+A couple of miscellaneous anecdotes may not inappropriately be appended
+to this story of monstrous delusion.
+
+Once a "writing medium" was producing sentences in various foreign
+languages. One of these was Arabic. An enthusiastic youth, a
+half-believer, after inspecting the wondrous scroll, handed it to his
+seat-mate, a professor (as it happened) in one of our oldest colleges,
+and a man of real learning. The professor scrutinized the document. What
+was the youth's delight to hear him at last observe gravely, "It is a
+kind of Arabic, sure enough!"
+
+"What kind?" asked the young man with intense interest.
+
+"Gum-arabic," said the professor.
+
+The spirit of the prophet Daniel came one night into the apartment of a
+medium named Fowler, and right before his eyes, he said, wrote down some
+marks on a piece of paper. These were shown to the Reverend George Bush,
+Professor of Hebrew in the New-York University, who said that they were
+"a few verses from the last chapter of Daniel" and were learnedly
+written. Bush was a spiritualist as well as a professor of Hebrew, and
+he ought to have known better than to indorse spirit-Hebrew; for shortly
+there came others, who, to use a rustic phrase, "took the rag off the
+Bush." These inconvenient personages were three or four persons of
+learning: one a Jew, who proved that the document was an attempt to copy
+the verses in question, by some one so ignorant of Hebrew as not to know
+that it is written backward, that is, from right to left.
+
+During the last few months, a "boy medium," by the name of Henry B.
+Allen, thirteen years of age, has been astonishing people in various
+parts of the country by "Physical Manifestations in the Light." The
+exhibitions of this precocious youngster have been "managed" by a Dr.
+Randall, who also lectures upon Spiritualism, expounding its "beautiful
+philosophy." For a number of weeks this couple held forth in Boston,
+sometimes giving several seances during the day, not more than thirty
+being allowed to attend at one time, each of whom were required to pay
+an admission fee of one dollar.
+
+"The Banner of Light" fully indorsed this Allen boy, and gave lengthy
+accounts of his manifestations. The arrangements for his exhibition were
+very simple. A dulcimer, guitar, bell, and small drum being placed on a
+sofa or several chairs set against the wall, a clothes-horse was set in
+front of them and covered with a blanket, which came to the floor. To
+obtain "manifestations," a person was required to take off his coat and
+sit with his back to the clothes-horse. The medium then took a seat
+close to, and facing the investigator's left side, and grasped the left
+arm of the latter on the under side, above the elbow, with his (the
+medium's) right hand and near the wrist with the other hand. The
+"manager" then covered with a coat, the arms and left shoulder of the
+medium including the left arm of the investigator. The medium soon
+commenced to wriggle and twist--the "manager" said he was always nervous
+under "influence"--and worked the coat away from the position in which
+it had been placed. Taking his right hand from the investigator's arm,
+he readjusted the coat, and availed himself of that opportunity to get
+the investigator's wrist between his (the medium's) left arm and knee.
+That brought his left hand in such a position that with it he could
+grasp the investigator's arm where he had previously grasped it with his
+right hand. With the latter he could then reach around the edge of the
+clothes-horse and make a noise on the instruments. With the drumsticks
+he thumped on the dulcimer. Taking the guitar by the neck, he could
+vibrate the strings and show the body of the instrument above the
+clothes-horse, without any one seeing his hand! All persons present were
+so seated that they could not see behind the clothes-horse, or have a
+view of the medium's right shoulder. When asked why people were not
+allowed to occupy such a position, that they could have a fair view of
+the instruments when sounded, the "manager" replied that he did not
+exactly know, but presumed it was because the magnetic emanations from
+the eyes of the beholders would prevent the spirits being able to move
+the instruments at all! What was claimed to be a spirit-hand was often
+shown above the clothes-horse, where it flickered for an instant and was
+withdrawn; but it was invariably a right hand with the wrist toward the
+medium. When the person sitting with the medium was asked if the hands
+of the latter had constantly hold of his arm, he replied in the
+affirmative. Of course, he felt what he supposed to be both the medium's
+hands; but as I before explained, the pressure on his wrist was from the
+medium's left arm--the left hand of whom, by means of a very
+accommodating crook in the elbow, was grasping the investigator's arm
+where the medium's right hand was supposed to be.
+
+From Boston the Allen boy went to Portland, Maine, where he succeeded
+"astonishingly," till some gentleman applied the lampblack test to his
+assumed mediumship, whereupon he "came to grief."
+
+The following is copied from the "Portland Daily Press," of March 21.
+
+     "EXPOSED.--The 'wonderful' spiritual manifestations of the
+     'boy-medium,' Master Henry B. Allen, in charge of Doctor J. H.
+     Randall, of Boston, were brought to a sad end last evening by the
+     impertinent curiosity and wicked doings of some of the gentlemen
+     present at the seance at Congress Hall.
+
+     "As usual, one of the company present was selected to sit at the
+     side of the boy, and allowed his hand and arm to be held by both
+     hands of the boy while the manifestations were going on. The boy
+     seized hold of the gentleman's wrist with his left hand, and his
+     shoulder, or near it, with the right hand. The manifestations then
+     began, and among them was one trick of pulling the gentleman's
+     hair.
+
+     "Immediately after this trick was performed, the hand of the boy
+     was discovered to be very black--from lamp-black, of the best
+     quality, with which the gentleman had dressed his head on purpose
+     to detect whose was the 'spirit-hand' that pulled his hair. His
+     shirt-sleeve, upon which the boy immediately replaced his hand
+     after pulling his hair, was also black where the hand had been
+     placed. The gentleman stated the facts to the company present, and
+     the seance broke up. Dr. Randall refunded the fifty cents admission
+     fee to those present."
+
+The spiritualists of the city were somewhat staggered by this expose,
+but soon rallied as one of their number announced a new discovery in
+spiritual science. Here it is, as stated by himself:
+
+"Whatever the electrical or 'spirit-hand' touches, will inevitably be
+transferred to the hand of the medium in every instance, unless
+something occurs to prevent the full operation of the law by which this
+result is produced. The spirit-hand being composed in part of the
+magnetic elements drawn from the medium, when it is dissolved again, and
+the magnetic fluid returns whence it came, it must of necessity carry
+with it whatever material substance it has touched, and leave it
+deposited upon the surface or material hand of the medium. This is a
+scientific question. How many innocent mediums have been wronged? and
+the invisible have permitted it, until we should discover that it was
+the natural result of a natural law."
+
+What a great discovery! and how lucidly it is set forth! The author
+(who, by the way, is editor of the "Portland Evening Courier") of this
+new discovery, was not so modest but that he hastened to announce and
+claim full credit for it in the columns of the "Banner of Light"--the
+editor of which journal congratulates him on having done so much for the
+cause of spiritualism! Those skeptics who were present when the
+lamp-black was "transferred" from the gentleman's hair to the medium's
+hand, rashly concluded that the boy was an impostor. It remained for Mr.
+Hall--that is the philosopher's name--to make the "electro-magnetic
+transfer" discovery. The Allen boy ought ever to hold him in grateful
+remembrance for coming to his rescue at such a critical period, when the
+spirits would not vouchsafe an explanation that would exculpate him from
+the grievous charge of imposture. Mr. Hall deserves a leather medal now,
+and a soapstone monument when he is dead.
+
+A person, whose initials are the same as the gentleman's named above,
+once lived in Aroostook, Maine, and was in the habit of attending
+"spiritual circles," in which he was sometimes influenced as a
+"personating medium," and to represent the symptoms of the disease which
+caused the controlling spirit's translation to another sphere. It having
+been reported in Aroostook that a certain well-known individual, living
+further east, had died of cholera, a desire was expressed at the next
+"circle" to have him "manifest" himself. The medium above referred to
+got "under influence," and personated, with an exhibition of all the
+symptoms of cholera, the gentleman who was reported to have died of that
+disease. So faithful to the supposed facts was the representation, that
+the medium had to be cared for as if he was himself a veritable
+cholera-patient. Several days after, the man who was "personated"
+appeared in Aroostook, alive and well, never having been attacked with
+the cholera. The local papers gave a graphic account of the
+"manifestation" soon after it occurred.
+
+But to return to the Allen boy. After his exposure by means of the
+lamp-black test, and Mr. Hall, of the "Portland Evening Courier," had
+announced his new discovery in spiritual science, several of the
+Portland spiritualists had a private "sitting" with the boy. While he
+sat with his hands upon the arm of one of their number, they tied a rope
+to his wrists, and around the person's arm, covering his hands in the
+way I have before described. After some wriggling and twisting (the
+usual amount of "nervousness,") the bell was heard to ring behind the
+clothes-horse. The boy's right hand was then examined, and it was found
+to be stained with some colored matter that had previously been put upon
+the handle of the bell. As the boy's wrists were still tied, and the
+rope remained upon the man's arm, the "transfer" theory was considered
+to be established as a fact, and the previous exposure shown to be not
+only no exposure at all, but a "stepping-stone to a grand truth in
+spiritual science." Again and again did these persistent and infatuated
+spiritualists try what they call the "transfer test," varying with each
+experiment the coloring-material used, and every time the bell was rung
+the medium's right hand was found out to be stained with what had been
+put upon the bell-handle. By having a little slack-rope between his
+wrist and the man's arm, it was not a difficult matter for the medium,
+while his "nervousness" was being manifested, to get hold of the bell
+and ring it, and to make sounds upon the strings of the dulcimer or
+guitar, with a drumstick that the "manager" had placed at a convenient
+distance from his (the boy's) hand.
+
+The "Portland Daily Press," in noticing a lecture against Spiritualism,
+recently delivered by Dr. Von Vleck, in that city, says:--"He (Dr. V.
+V.) performed the principal feats of the Allen boy, with his hands tied
+to the arm of the person with whom he was in communication."
+
+Horace Greeley says that if a man will be a consummate jackass and fool,
+he is not aware of anything in the Constitution to prevent it. I believe
+Mr. Greeley is right; and I think no one can reasonably be expected to
+exercise common sense unless he is known to possess it. It is quite
+natural, therefore, that many of the spiritualists, lacking common
+sense, should pretend to have something better.
+
+
+
+
+III. TRADE AND BUSINESS IMPOSITIONS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+ADULTERATIONS OF FOOD.--ADULTERATIONS OF LIQUOR.--THE COLONEL'S
+WHISKEY.--THE HUMBUGOMETER.
+
+
+It was about eight hundred and fifty years before Christ when the young
+prophet cried out to his master, Elisha, over the pottage of wild
+gourds, "There is death in the pot!" It was two thousand six hundred and
+seventy years afterward, in 1820, that Accum, the chemist cried out over
+again, "There is death in the pot!" in the title page of a book so
+named, which gave almost everybody a pain in the stomach, with its
+horrid stories of the unhealthful humbugs sold for food and drink. This
+excitement has been stirred up more than once since Mr. Accum's time,
+with some success; yet nothing is more certain than that a very large
+proportion of the food we eat, of the liquid we drink--always excepting
+good well-filtered water--and the medicines we take, not to say a word
+about the clothes we wear and the miscellaneous merchandise we use, is
+more or less adulterated with cheaper materials. Sometimes these are
+merely harmless; as flour, starch, annatto, lard, etc.; sometimes they
+are vigorous, destructive poisons--as red lead, arsenic, strychnine, oil
+of vitriol, potash, etc.
+
+It is not agreeable to find ourselves so thickly beset by humbugs; to
+find that we are not merely called on to see them, to hear them, to
+believe them, to invest capital in them, but to eat and drink them. Yet
+so it is; and, if my short discussion of this kind of humbug shall make
+people a little more careful, and help them to preserve their health, I
+shall think myself fortunate.
+
+To begin with bread. Alum is very commonly put into it by the bakers, to
+make it white. Flour of inferior quality, "runny" flour, and even that
+from wormy wheat--ground-up worms, bugs, and all--is often mixed in as
+much as the case will bear. Potato flour has been known to be mixed with
+wheat; and so, thirty years ago, were plaster-of-Paris, bone-dust, white
+clay, etc. But these are little used now, if at all; and the worst thing
+in bread, aside from bad flour, which is bad enough, is usually the
+alum. It is often put in ready mixed with salt, and it accomplishes two
+things, viz., to make the bread white, and to suck up a good deal of
+water, and make the bread weigh well. It has been sometimes found that
+the alum was put in at the mill instead of the bakery.
+
+Milk is most commonly adulterated with cold water; and many are the
+jokes on the milkmen about their best cow being choked etc., by a turnip
+in the pump-spout--their "cow with the wooden tail" (_i. e._, the
+pump-handle,) and so on. Awful stories are told about the London
+milkmen, who are said to manufacture a fearful kind of medicine to be
+sold as milk, the cream being made of a quantity of calf's brain beaten
+to a slime. Stories are told around New York, too, of a mysterious
+powder sold by druggists, which with water makes milk; but it is milk
+that must be used quickly, or it turns into a curious mess. But the
+worst adulteration of milk is to adulterate the old cow herself; as is
+done in the swill-milk establishments which received such an exposure a
+few years ago in a city paper. This milk is still furnished; and many a
+poor little baby is daily suffering convulsions from its effects. So
+difficult is it to find real milk for babies in the city, that
+physicians often prescribe the use of what is called "condensed" milk
+instead; which, though very different from milk not evaporated, is at
+least made of the genuine article. A series of careful experiments to
+develop the milk-humbug was made by a competent physician in Boston
+within a few years, but he found the milk there (aside from swill-milk)
+adulterated with nothing worse than water, salt, and burnt sugar.
+
+Tea is bejuggled first by John Chinaman, who is a very cunning rascal;
+and second, by the seller here. Green and black tea are made from the
+same plant, but by different processes--the green being most expensive.
+To meet the increased demand for green tea, Master John takes immense
+quantities of black tea and "paints" it, by stirring into it over a fire
+a fine powder of plaster Paris and Prussian-blue, at the rate of half a
+pound to each hundred pounds of tea. John also sometimes takes a very
+cheap kind, and puts on a nice gloss by stirring it in gum-water, with
+some stove-polish in it. We may imagine ourselves, after drinking this
+kind of tea, with a beautiful black gloss on our insides. John moreover,
+manufactures vast quantities of what he plainly calls "Lie-tea." This
+is dust and refuse of tea-leaves and other leaves, made up with dust and
+starch or gum into little lumps, and used to adulterate better tea.
+Seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds of this nice stuff were imported
+into England in one period of eighteen months. It seems to be used in
+New-York only for green tea.
+
+Coffee is adulterated with chicory-root (which costs only about
+one-third as much)--dandelion-root, peas, beans, mangold-wurzel, wheat,
+rye, acorns, carrots, parsnips, horse-chestnuts, and sometimes with
+livers of horses and cattle! All these things are roasted or baked to
+the proper color and consistency, and then mixed in. No great sympathy
+need be expended on those who suffer from this particular humbug,
+however; for when it is so easy to buy the real berry, and roast or at
+least grind it one's self, it is our own fault if our laziness leaves us
+to eat all those sorts of stuff.
+
+Cocoa is "extended" with sugar, starch, flour, iron-rust, Venetian-red,
+grease, and various earths. But it is believed by pretty good authority
+that the American-made preparations of cocoa are nearly or quite pure.
+Even if they are not the whole bean can be used instead.
+
+Butter and lard have one tenth, and sometimes even one-quarter, of water
+mixed up in them. It is easy to find this out by melting a sample before
+the fire and putting it away to cool, when the humbug appears by the
+grease going up, and the water, perhaps turbid with whey, settling
+below.
+
+Honey is humbugged with sugar or molasses. Sugar is not often sanded as
+the old stories have it. Fine white sugar is sometimes floured pretty
+well; and brown sugar is sometimes made of a portion of good sugar with
+a cheaper kind mixed in. Inferior brown sugars are often full of a
+certain crab-like animalcule or minute bug, often visible without a
+microscope, in water where the sugar is dissolved. It is believed that
+this pleasing insect sometimes gets into the skin, and produces a kind
+of itch. I do not believe there is much danger of adulteration in good
+loaf or crushed white sugar, or good granulated or brown sugar.
+
+Pepper is mixed with fine dust, dirt, linseed-meal, ground rice, or
+mustard and wheat-flour; ginger, with wheat flour colored by turmeric
+and reinforced by cayenne. Cinnamon is sometimes not present at all in
+what is so called--the stuff being the inferior and cheaper cassia bark;
+sometimes it is only part cassia; sometimes the humbug part of it is
+flour and ochre. Cayenne-pepper is mixed with corn-meal and salt,
+Venetian-red, mustard, brickdust, fine sawdust, and red-lead. Mustard
+with flour and turmeric. Confectionery is often poisoned with
+Prussian-blue, Antwerp-blue, gamboge, ultramarine, chrome yellow,
+red-lead, white-lead, vermilion, Brunswick-green, and Scheele's green,
+or arsenite of copper! Never buy any confectionery that is colored or
+painted. Vinegar is made of whisky, or of oil of vitriol. Pickles have
+verdigris in them to make them a pretty green. "Pretty green" he must be
+who will eat bought pickles! Preserved fruits often have verdigris in
+them, too.
+
+An awful list! Imagine a meal of such bewitched food, where the actual
+articles are named. "Take some of the alum bread." "Have a cup of
+pea-soup and chicory-coffee?" "I'll trouble you for the oil-of-vitriol,
+if you please." "Have some sawdust on your meat, or do you prefer this
+flour and turmeric mustard?" "A piece of this verdigris-preserve
+gooseberry pie, Madam?" "Won't you put a few more sugar-bugs in your
+ash-leaf tea?" "Do you prefer black tea, or Prussian-blue tea?" "Do you
+like your tea with swill-milk, or without?"
+
+I have not left myself space to speak of the tricks played by the
+druggists and the liquor-dealers; but I propose to devote another
+chapter exclusively to the adulteration of liquors in this country. It
+is a subject so fearful and so important that nothing less than a
+chapter can do it justice. I must now end with a story or two and a
+suggestion or two.
+
+Old Colonel P. sold much whisky; and his manner was to sell by sample
+out of a pure barrel over night, at a marvelous cheap rate, and then to
+"rectify" before morning, under pretence of coopering and marking.
+Certain persons having a grudge against the Colonel, once made an
+arrangement with a carman, who executed their plan, thus:--He went to
+the Colonel, and asked to see whisky. The jolly old fellow took him down
+stairs and showed him a great cellar full. Carman samples a barrel.
+"Fust rate, Colonel, how d'ye sell it?" Colonel names his price on the
+rectified basis. "Well, Colonel, how much yer got?" "So many
+barrels--two or three hundred." "Colonel, here's your money. I'll take
+the lot." "All right," says Colonel P.; "there's some coopering to be
+done on it; some of the hoops and heads are a very little loose. You
+shall have it all in the morning." "No, colonel, we'll roll it right out
+this minnit! My trucks are up there, all ready." And, sure enough, he
+had a string of a dozen or more brigaded in the street. The Colonel was
+sadly dumbfounded; he turned several colors--red mostly--stammered, made
+excuses. It was no go, the whisky was the customer's, and the game was
+up. The humbugged old humbug finally "came down," and bought his man off
+by paying him several hundred dollars.
+
+There is a much older and better known story about a grocer who was a
+deacon, and who was heard to call down stairs before breakfast, to his
+clerk: "John, have you watered the rum?" "Yes, Sir." "And sanded the
+sugar?" "Yes, Sir." "And dusted the pepper?" "Yes, Sir." "And chicoried
+the coffee?" "Yes, Sir." "Then come up to prayers." Let us hope that the
+grocers of the present day, while they adulterate less, do not pray
+less.
+
+Between 1851 and 1854, Mr. Wakley of the "London Lancet" gave an awful
+roasting to the adulteration-interest in London. He employed an able
+analyzer, who began by going about without telling what he was at; and
+buying a great number of samples of all kinds of food, drugs, etc., at a
+great number of shops. Then he analyzed them; and when he found humbug
+in any sample, he published the facts, and the seller's name and place
+of business. It may be imagined what a terrible row this kicked up. Very
+numerous and violent threats were made; but the "Lancet," was never once
+sued by any of the aggrieved, for it had told the truth.
+
+Perhaps some discouraged reader may ask, What can I eat? Well, I don't
+pretend to direct people's diet. Ask your doctor, if you can't find out.
+But I will suggest that there are a few things that can't be
+adulterated. You can't adulterate an egg, nor an oyster, nor an apple,
+nor a potato, nor a salt codfish; and if they are spoiled they will
+notify you themselves! and when good, they are all good healthy food. In
+short, one good safeguard is, to use, as far as you can, things with
+their life in them when you buy them, whether vegetable or animal. The
+next best rule against these adulteration-humbugs is, to buy goods crude
+instead of manufactured; coffee, and pepper, and spices, etc., whole
+instead of ground, for instance. Thus, though you give more work, you
+buy purity with it. And lastly, there are various chemical processes,
+and the microscope, to detect adulterations; and milk, in particular,
+may always be tested by a lactometer,--a simple little instrument which
+the milkmen use, which costs a few shillings, and which tells the story
+in an instant. It is a glass bulb, with a stem above and a scale on it,
+and a weight below. In good average milk, at sixty degrees of heat, the
+lactometer floats at twenty on its scale; and in poorer milk, at from
+that figure down. If it floats at fifteen, the milk is one-fourth water;
+if at ten, one half.
+
+It would be a wonderful thing for mankind if some philosophic Yankee
+would contrive some kind of "ometer" that would measure the infusion of
+humbug in anything. A "Humbugometer" he might call it. I would warrant
+him a good sale.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+ADULTERATIONS IN DRINKS.--RIDING HOME ON YOUR WINE-BARREL.--LIST OF
+THINGS TO MAKE RUM.--THINGS TO COLOR IT WITH.--CANAL-BOAT HASH.--ENGLISH
+ADULTERATION LAW.--EFFECTS OF DRUGS USED.--HOW TO USE THEM.--BUYING
+LIQUORS UNDER THE CUSTOM-HOUSE LOCK.--A HOMOEOPATHIC DOSE.
+
+
+As long as the people of the United States tipple down rum and other
+liquors at the rate of a good deal more than one hundred million gallons
+a year, besides what is imported and what is called imported--as long as
+they pay for their tippling a good deal more than fifty millions, and
+probably over a hundred millions of dollars a year--so long it will be a
+great object to manufacture false liquors, and sell them at the price of
+true ones. When liquor of good quality costs from four to fifteen
+dollars a gallon, and an imitation can be had that tastes just as good,
+and has just as much "jizm" in it,--and probably a good deal more,--for
+from twenty-five cents to one dollar a gallon, somebody will surely make
+and sell that imitation.
+
+Adulterating and imitating liquors is a very large business; and I don't
+know of anybody who will deny that this particular humbug is very
+extensively cultivated. There are a great many people, however, who will
+talk about it as they do in Western towns about fever and ague: "We
+don't do anything of the kind here, but those other people over there
+do!"
+
+There is very little pure liquor, either malt or spirituous, to be
+obtained in any way. The more you pay for it, as a rule, the more the
+publican gains, but what you drink is none the purer. Importing don't
+help you. Port is--or used to be, for very little is now made,
+comparatively--imitated in immense quantities at Oporto; and in the
+log-wood trade, the European wine-makers competed with the dyers. It is
+a London proverb, that if you want genuine port-wine, you have got to go
+to Oporto and make your own wine, and then ride on the barrel all the
+way home. It is perhaps possible to get pure wine in France by buying it
+at the vineyard; but if any dealer has had it, give up the idea!
+
+As for what is done this side of the water, now for it. I do not rely
+upon the old work of Mr. "Death-in-the-pot Accum," printed some thirty
+years ago, in England. My statements come mostly from a New York book
+put forth within a few years by a New York man, whose name is now in the
+Directory, and whose business is said to consist to a great extent in
+furnishing one kind or another of the queer stuff he talks about, to
+brewers, or distillers, or wine and brandy merchants.
+
+This gentleman, in a sweet alphabetical miscellany of drugs, herbs,
+minerals, and groceries commonly used in manufacturing our best Old
+Bourbon whisky, Swan gin, Madeira wine, pale ale, London brown stout,
+Heidsieck, Clicquot, Lafitte, and other nice drinks; names the chief of
+such ingredients as follows:
+
+Aloes, alum, calamus (flag-root) capsicum, cocculus indicus, copperas,
+coriander-seed, gentian-root, ginger, grains-of-paradise, honey,
+liquorice, logwood, molasses, onions, opium, orange-peel, quassia, salt,
+stramonium-seed (deadly nightshade), sugar of lead, sulphite of soda,
+sulphuric acid, tobacco, turpentine, vitriol, yarrow. I have left
+strychnine out of the list, as some persons have doubts about this
+poison ever being used in adulterating liquors. A wholesale
+liquor-dealer in New York city, however, assures me that more than
+one-half the so-called whisky is poisoned with it.
+
+Besides these twenty-seven kinds of rum, here come twenty-three more
+articles, used to put the right color to it when it is made; by making a
+soup of one or another, and stirring it in at the right time. I alphabet
+these, too: alkanet-root, annatto, barwood, blackberry, blue-vitriol,
+brazil-wood, burnt sugar, cochineal, elderberry, garancine (an extract
+of madder), indigo, Nicaragua-wood, orchil, pokeberry, potash,
+quercitron, red beet, red cabbage, red carrots, saffron, sanders-wood,
+turmeric, whortleberry.
+
+In all, in both lists, just fifty. There are more, however. But that's
+enough. Now then, my friend, what did you drink this morning? You called
+it Bourbon, or Cognac, or Old Otard, very likely, but what was it? The
+"glorious uncertainty" of drinking liquor under these circumstances is
+enough to make a man's head swim without his getting drunk at all. There
+might, perhaps, be found a consolation like that of the Western
+traveller about the hash. "When I travel in a canal-boat or steam-boat,"
+quoth this brave and stout-stomached man, "I always eat the hash,
+because then I know what I've got!"
+
+It was a good many years ago that the Parliament of England found it
+necessary to make a law to prevent sophisticating malt liquors. Here is
+the list of things they forbid to put into beer: "molasses, honey,
+liquorice, vitriol, quassia, cocculus indicus, grains-of-paradise,
+Guinea-pepper, opium." The penalty was one thousand dollars fine on the
+brewer, and two thousand five hundred dollars on the druggist who
+supplied him.
+
+I know of no such law in this country. The theory of our government
+leaves people to take care of themselves as much as possible. But now
+let us see what some of these fifty ingredients will do. Beets and
+carrots, honey and liquorice, orange-peel and molasses, will not do much
+harm; though I should think tipplers would prefer them as the customer
+at the eating-house preferred his flies, "on a separate plate." But the
+case is different with cocculus indicus, and stramonium, and sulphuric
+acid, and sugar of lead, and the like. I take the following accounts, so
+far as they are medical, from a standard work by Dr. Dunglison:--Aloes
+is a cathartic. Cocculus indicus contains picrotoxin, which is an "acrid
+narcotic poison;" from five to ten grains will kill a strong dog. The
+boys often call it "cockle-cinders;" they pound it and mix it in dough,
+and throw it into the water to catch fish. The poor fish eat it, soon
+become delirious, whirling and dancing furiously about on the top of the
+water, and then die. Copperas tends to produce nausea, vomiting,
+griping, and purging. Grains-of-paradise, a large kind of cardamom, is
+"strongly heating and carminative" (_i. e._, anti-flatulent and
+anti-spasmodic.) Opium is known well enough. Stramonium-seed would seem
+to have been made on purpose for the liquor business. In moderate doses
+it is a powerful narcotic, producing vertigo, headache, dimness or
+perversion of vision (_i. e._, seeing double) and confusion of thought.
+(N. B. What else does liquor do?) In larger doses (still like liquor,)
+you obtain these symptoms aggravated; and then a delirium, sometimes
+whimsical (snakes in your boots) and sometimes furious, a stupor,
+convulsions, and death. A fine drink this stramonium? Sugar of lead is
+what is called a cumulative poison; having the quality of remaining in
+the system when taken in small quantities, and piling itself up, as it
+were, until there is enough to accomplish something, when it causes
+debility, paralysis, and other things. Sulphuric acid is strongly
+corrosive,--a powerful caustic, attacking the teeth, even when very
+dilute; eating up flesh and bones alike when strong enough; and, if
+taken in a large enough dose, an awfully tearing and agonizing fatal
+poison.
+
+The way to use these delectable nutriments is in part as follows:--Stir
+a little sulphuric acid into your beer. This will give you a fine "old
+ale" in about a quarter of a minute. Take a mixture of alum, salt, and
+copperas, ground fine, and stir into your beer, and this will make it
+froth handsomely. Cocculus indicus, tobacco-leaves, and stramonium,
+cooked in the beer, etc., give it force. Potash is sometimes stirred
+into wine to correct acidity. Sulphite of soda is now very commonly
+stirred into cider, to keep it from fermenting further. Sugar of lead is
+stirred into wines to make them clear, and to keep them sweet. And so
+on, through the whole long list.
+
+It is a curious instance of people's quiet acknowledgment of their own
+foolishness, that a popular form of the invitation to take a drink is,
+"Come and h'ist in some pizen!"
+
+I know of no plan by which anybody can be sure of obtaining pure liquor
+of any description. Some persons always purchase their wines and liquors
+while they are under the custom-house lock and consequently before they
+have reached the hands of the importer. Yet there are scores of men in
+New York and Philadelphia who have made large fortunes by sending whisky
+to France, there refining, coloring, flavoring, and doctoring it, then
+re-shipping it to New York as French brandy, paying the duty, and
+selling it before it has left the custom-house! There is a locality in
+France where a certain brand of wine is made. It is adulterated with
+red-lead, and every year more or less of the inhabitants of that
+locality are attacked with "lead-colic," caused by drinking this
+poisoned wine right at the fountain-head where it is made. There is more
+bogus champagne drank in any one year, in the city of Paris alone, than
+there is genuine champagne made in any one year in the world. America
+ordinarily consumes more so-called champagne annually than is made in
+the world, and yet nearly all the genuine champagne in the world is
+taken by the courts of Europe. The genuine Hock wine made at
+Johannisberg on the Rhine is worth three dollars per bottle by the large
+quantity, and nearly all of it is shipped to Russia; yet, at any of the
+hotels in the village of Johannisberg, within half a mile from the
+wine-presses of the pure article, you can be supplied for a dollar per
+bottle with what purports to be the genuine Hock wine. Since chemistry
+has enabled liquor dealers to manufacture any description of wine or
+liquor for twenty-five cents to a dollar a gallon, there are annually
+made and sold thousands of gallons of wine and brandy that never smelt a
+grape.
+
+Suppose a wholesale liquor-merchant imports genuine brandy. He usually
+"rectifies" and adulterates it by adding eighty-five gallons of pure
+spirits (refined whisky,) to fifteen gallons of brandy, to give it a
+flavor; then colors and "doctors" it, and it is ready for sale. Suppose
+an Albany wholesale-dealer purchases, for pure brandy, ten pipes of this
+adulterated brandy from a New York importer. The Albany man immediately
+doubles his stock by adding an equal quantity of pure spirits. There are
+then seven and a half gallons of brandy in a hundred. A Buffalo
+liquor-dealer buys from the Albany man, and he in turn adds one-half
+pure spirits. The Chicago dealer buys from the Buffalo dealer, and as
+nearly all spirit-dealers keep large quantities of pure spirits on hand,
+and know how to use it, he again doubles the quantity of his brandy by
+adding pure spirits; and the Milwaukee liquor-dealer does the same,
+after purchasing from the Chicago man. So, in the ordinary course of
+liquor transactions, by the time a hundred gallon pipe of pure brandy
+reaches Wisconsin, at a cost of five or perhaps ten dollars per gallon,
+ninety-nine gallons and one pint of it is the identical whisky that was
+shipped from Wisconsin the same year at fifty cents per gallon. Truly a
+homoeopathic dose of genuine brandy! And even that whisky when it left
+Wisconsin was only half whisky; for there are men in the whisky-making
+States who make it a business to take whisky direct from the distillery,
+add to it an equal quantity of water, and then bring it up to a bead and
+the power of intoxication, by mixing in a variety of the villainous
+drugs and deadly poisons enumerated in this chapter. The annual loss of
+strength, health, and life caused by the adulteration of liquor is truly
+appalling. Those who have not examined the subject can form no just
+estimate of the atrocious and extensive effects of this murderous
+humbug.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE PETER FUNKS AND THEIR FUNCTIONS.--THE RURAL DIVINE AND THE
+WATCH.--RISE AND PROGRESS OF MOCK AUCTIONS.--THEIR DECLINE AND FALL.
+
+
+Not many years ago, a dignified and reverend man, whose name is well
+known to me, was walking sedately down Broadway. He was dressed in
+clerical garb of black garments and white neckcloth. He was a man of
+great learning, profound thought, long experience, unaffected piety, and
+pure and high reputation.
+
+All at once, a kind of chattering shout smote him fair in the left ear:
+
+"Narfnarfnarf! Three shall I have? Narfnarfnarfnarfnarf! Going at two
+and a half! Gone!!"
+
+And the grave divine, pausing, beheld a doorway, over which waved a
+little red flag. Within, a company of eager bidders thronged around an
+auctioneer's stand; and the auctioneer himself, a well-dressed man with
+a highly respectable look, was just handing over to the delighted
+purchaser a gold watch.
+
+"It would be cheap at one hundred dollars," said he, in a despondent
+tone. "It's mere robbery to sell it for that price. I'd buy it myself if
+'twas legal."
+
+And while the others, with exclamations of surprise and congratulation,
+crowded to see this famous purchase, and the buyer exhibited it with a
+joyful countenance close by the door, the divine, just out of curiosity,
+stepped in. He owned no watch; he was a country clergyman, and poor in
+this world's goods; so poor that, to use a familiar phrase, "if
+steamboats were selling at a dime a piece, he would hardly be able to
+buy a gang-plank." But what if he could, by good luck, buy a good gold
+watch for two dollars and a half in this wonderful city!
+
+Somehow, that watch was snapped open and closed again right under his
+ministerial nose about six times. The auctioneer held up another of
+exactly the same kind, and began to chatter again.
+
+"Now gentlemen, what 'moffered f'this first-class M. I. Tobias gold
+English lever watch--full jeweled, compensation-balance,
+anchor-escapement, hunting case? One, did I hear? Say two cents, wont
+yer? Two and a half! narfnarfnarfnarfnarf and a half! Two and a half,
+and three quarters. Thank you, Sir," to a sailor-like man in the corner.
+
+"Three," said a tall and well-dressed young gentleman with short hair,
+near the clergyman, adding, in an undertone, "I can sell it for fifty
+this afternoon."
+
+"Three I am offered," says Mr. Auctioneer, and chattered on as before:
+"And a half, did you say, Sir? Thank you, Sir. And a halfnarfnarf!"
+
+The reverend divine had said, "And a half." The Peter Funks had got him!
+But he didn't find it out quite yet. The bidding was run up to four
+dollars; the clergyman took the watch, opened and examined it; was
+convinced, handed it back, ventured another half, and the watch was
+knocked down to him. The auctioneer fumbled in some papers, and, in a
+moment, handed him his bargain neatly done up.
+
+"This way to the clerk's office if you please, Sir," he added, with a
+civil bow. The clergyman passed a little further in; and while the sales
+proceeded behind him, the clerk made out a bill and proffered it.
+
+"Fifty-four dollars and a half!" read the country divine, astounded.
+"Four and a half is what I bid!"
+
+"Four and a half!" exclaimed the clerk, with sarcastic indignation;
+"Four dollars and a half! A pretty story! A minister to have the face to
+say he could buy an M. I. Tobias gold watch, full jeweled, for four
+dollars and a half! Ill thank you for the money, Sir. Fifty-four, fifty,
+if you please."
+
+The auctioneer, as if interrupted by the loud tones of the indignant
+clerk, stopped the sale to see what was the matter. On hearing the
+statement of the two parties, he cast a glance of angry contempt upon
+the poor clergyman, who, by this time, was uneasy enough at their
+scowling faces. Then, as if relenting, he said half-sneeringly:
+
+"I don't think you look very well in this business, Sir. But you are
+evidently a clergyman, and we wish everybody to have fair treatment in
+this office. We won't be imposed upon, Sir, by any man!" (Here his face
+darkened, and his fists could be seen to clench with much meaning.) "Pay
+that money, Sir! This establishment is not to be humbugged. But you
+needn't be afraid of losing anything. You may let me take the watch and
+sell it for you again on the spot. Very likely you can get more for it.
+You can't lose. The clergyman hesitated. The tall and well-dressed young
+man with short hair pushed up and said:
+
+"Don't want it? Put her up again. G--! I'd like another chance myself!"
+
+A heavily-built fellow with one eye, observed over the auctioneer's
+shoulder, with an evil look at the divine, "D--d if I don't believe that
+cuss is a gambler, come in here to fool us country-folks. They allus
+wears white neckcloths. I say, search him and boot him out of the shop!"
+
+"Hold your tongue!" answered the auctioneer, with dignity. "I will see
+you safe, Sir," to the clergyman. "But you bid that money, and you must
+pay it. We can't do this business on any other principles."
+
+"You will sell it for me again at once?" asked the poor minister.
+
+"Certainly," said the mollified auctioneer. And the humbugged divine,
+with an indistinct sense of something wrong, but not able to tell what,
+took out forty dollars from his lean wallet and handed it to the clerk.
+
+"It's all I have to get home with," he said, simply.
+
+"Never fear, old gentleman," said the clerk, affably; "You'll be all
+right in two minutes."
+
+The watch was put up again. The clergyman, scarce able to believe his
+ears, heard it rapidly run up to sixty dollars and knocked down at that
+price. The cash was handed to the clerk, and another bill made out; ten
+per cent., deducted, commission on sales. "Usual terms, Sir," observed
+the clerk, handing over the notes just received for the watch. And the
+divine, very thankful to get off for half a dollar, hurried off as fast
+as he could.
+
+I need not say that his fifty-four dollars was all counterfeit money.
+When he went next morning, after endeavoring in vain to part with his
+new funds, to find the place where he had been humbugged, it was close
+shut, and he could hardly identify even the doorway. He went to the
+police, and the shrewd captain told him that it was a difficult
+business; but sent an officer with him to look up the rascals. Officer
+found one; demanded redress; clergyman did the same. Rascal asked
+clergyman's name; got it; told him he could prosecute if he liked.
+Clergyman looked at officer; officer, with indifference, observed:
+
+"Means to stick your name in the papers."
+
+Clergyman said he would take further advice; did take it; thought he
+wouldn't be shown up as a "greeny" in the police reports; borrowed money
+enough to get home with, and if he has a gold watch now--which I really
+hope he has--got it either for its real value, or as a "testimonial."
+
+There, that (with many variations) is the whole story of Peter Funk.
+These "mock auctioneers," sometimes, as in the case I have mentioned,
+take advantage of the respectability of their victims, sometimes of
+their haste to leave the city on business. When they could not possibly
+avoid it, they disgorged their prey. No instance is known to me of any
+legal penalty being inflicted on them by a magistrate; but they were
+always, until 1862, treated by police, by magistrate, and by mayor, just
+as thieves would be who should always be let off on returning their
+stealings; so that they could not lose by thieving, and might gain.
+
+These rascally mock-auctioneers, thus protected by the authorities, used
+to fleece the public out of not less than sixty thousand dollars a year.
+One of them cleared twelve thousand dollars during the year 1861 alone.
+And this totally shameless and brazen-faced humbug flourished in New
+York for twenty-five years!
+
+About the first day of June, 1862, the Peter Funks had eleven dens, or
+traps, in operation in New York; five in Broadway below Fulton street,
+and the others in Park row, and Courtlandt, Greenwich, and Chatham
+streets.
+
+The name, Peter Funk, is said to have been that of the founder of their
+system; but I know nothing more of his career. At this date, in 1862,
+the system was in a high state of organization and success, and included
+the following constituents:
+
+1. Eight chief Funks, or capitalists, and managers, whose names are well
+enough known. I have them on record.
+
+2. About as many more salesmen, who took turns with the chiefs in
+selling and clerking.
+
+3. Seventy or eighty, rank and file, or ropers-in. These acted the part
+of buyers, like the purchaser whose delight over his watch helped to
+deceive the minister and the other bidders on that occasion. These
+fellows dressed up as countrymen, sailors, and persons of miscellaneous
+respectability. They bid and talked when that was sufficient, or helped
+the managers thrash any troublesome person, if necessary. Once in a long
+time they met their match; as, for instance, when the mate of a ship
+brought up a squad of his crew, burst into one of their dens, and beat
+and battered up the whole gang within an inch of their lives. But, in
+most cases, the reckless infamy of these dregs of city vice gave them an
+immense advantage over a decent citizen; for they could not be defiled
+nor made ridiculous, and he could.
+
+4. Two or three traders in cheap jewelry and fancy-goods supplied the
+Funks with their wares. One of these fellows used to sell them fifty or
+a hundred dollars' worth of this trash a day; and he lamented as much
+over their untimely end as the Ephesian silversmiths did over the loss
+of their trade in shrines.
+
+5. A lawyer received a regular salary of $1,200 a year to defend all the
+Funk cases.
+
+6. The city politicians, in office and out of it, who were wont to
+receive the aid of the Funks (a very energetic cohort) at elections, and
+who in return unscrupulously used both power and influence to keep them
+from punishment.
+
+All this cunning machinery was brought to naught and New York relieved
+of a shame and a pest by the courage, energy, perseverance, and good
+sense of one Yankee officer--Russell Wells, a policeman. Mr. Wells took
+about six months to finish up his work. He began it of his own accord,
+finding that the spirit of the police regulations required it;
+prosecuted the undertaking without fear or favor, finding not very much
+support from the judicial authorities, and sometimes actual and direct
+discouragement. His method was to mount guard over one auction shop at a
+time, and warn all whom he saw going in, and to follow up all complaints
+to the utmost until that shop was closed, when he laid siege to another.
+Various offers of money, direct and indirect, were made him. One fellow
+offered him $500 to walk on the other side of the street. Another
+offered him $1,000 to drop the undertaking. Another hinted at a regular
+salary of hush-money, saying "he had now got these fellows where he
+could make as much out of them as he wanted to, right along."
+
+Sometimes they threatened him with "murder and sudden death." Several
+times they got out an injunction upon him, and several times sued him
+for slander. One of their complaints charged, with ludicrous hypocrisy,
+that the defendant, "with malicious intent, stood round the door
+uttering slanderous charges against the good name, fame, and credit of
+the defendant," just as foolish old lawyers used to argue that "the
+greater the truth the greater the libel." Sometimes they argued and
+indignantly denounced. One of them told him, "he was a thief and a
+murderer, driving men out of employment whose wives and children
+depended on their business for support."
+
+Another contended that their business was just as fair as that of the
+stock-operators in Wall street. I fear that wasn't making out much of a
+case.
+
+But their threats were idle; their suits, and prosecutions, and
+injunctions, never came to a head; their bribes did not operate. The
+officer, imperturbably good-natured, but horribly diligent, watched, and
+warned, and hunted, and complained, and squeezed back their money at the
+rate of $500 or $1,000 every month, until they were perfectly sickened.
+One by one they shut up shop. One went to his farm, another to his
+merchandise, another to emigrant running, another (known by the elegant
+surname of Blur-eye Thompson) to raising recruits, several into the
+bounty jumping business.
+
+Such was the life and death of an outrageous humbug and nuisance, whose
+like was not to be found in any other city on earth; and would not have
+been endured in any except this careless, money-getting, misgoverned one
+of New York.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+LOTTERY SHARKS.--BOULT AND HIS BROTHERS.--KENNETH, KIMBALL AND
+COMPANY.--A MORE CENTRAL LOCATION WANTED FOR BUSINESS.--TWO
+SEVENTEENTHLIES.--STRANGE COINCIDENCE.
+
+
+I have before me a mass of letters, printed and lithographed circulars,
+and the like, which illustrate well two or three of the most foolish and
+vicious swindles [it is wrong to call them humbugs] now extant. They
+also prove that there are a good many more fools alive in our Great
+Republic than some of us would like to admit.
+
+These letters and papers are signed, respectively, by the following
+names: Alexander Van Dusen; Thomas Boult & Co.; E. F. Mayo; Geo. P.
+Harper; Browne, Sherman & Co.; Hammett & Co.; Charles A. Herbert; Geo.
+C. Kenneth; T. Seymour & Co.; C. W. White, Purchasing Agency; C. J.
+Darlington; B. H. Robb & Co.; James Conway; S. B. Goodrich; Egerton
+Brothers; C. F. Miner; E. J. Kimball; E. A. Wilson; and J. T. Small.
+
+All these productions, with one or two exceptions, are dated during the
+last three months of 1864, and January 1865. They are mailed from a good
+many different places, and addressed to respectable people in all
+directions.
+
+In particular, should be noticed, however, two lots of them.
+
+The first lot are signed either by Thomas Boult & Co., Hammett & Co.,
+Egerton Brothers, or T. Seymour & Co. When these four documents are
+placed together, each with its inclosure, a story is told that seems
+clear enough to explain itself to the greenest fool in the world.
+
+These fellows--Boult and the rest of them, I mean--are lottery sharks.
+Now, those who buy lottery tickets are very silly and credulous, or very
+lazy, or both. They want to get money without earning it. This foolish
+and vicious wish, however, betrays them into the hands of these lottery
+sharks. I wish that each of these poor foolish, greedy creatures could
+study on this set of letters awhile. Look at them. You see that the
+lithographed handwriting in all four is in the same hand. You observe
+that each of them incloses a printed hand-bill with "scheme," all
+looking as like as so many peas. They refer, you see, to the same
+"Havana scheme," the same "Shelby College Lottery," the same "managers,"
+and the same place of drawing. Now, see what they say. Each knave tells
+his fool his only object is to put said fool in possession of a handsome
+prize, so that fool may run round and show the money, and rope in more
+fools. What an ingenious way to make the fool think he will return value
+for the prize! Each knave further says to his fool (I copy the words of
+the knave from his lithograph letter:) "We are so certain that we know
+how to select a lucky certificate, that if the one we select for you
+does not, at the very least, draw a $5,000 prize, we will"--what? Pay
+the money ourselves? Oh no. Knave does not offer to pay half of it.
+"Will send you another package in one of our extra lotteries for
+nothing!"
+
+Observe how particularly every knave is to tell his fool to "give us the
+name of the nearest bank," so that the draft for the prize-money can be
+forwarded instantly.
+
+And in return for all this kindness, what do Messrs. Boult and-so-forth
+want? Why, almost nothing. "The ridiculously small sum," as Mr. Montague
+Tigg observed to Mr. Pecksniff, of $10. You observe that Hammett & Co.,
+in one circular, demand $20, for the same $5,000 prize. But the amount,
+they would say, is too trifling to be so particular about!
+
+I will suggest a form for answering these gentlemen. Let every one of
+my readers who receives one of their circulars just copy and date and
+sign, and send them the following:
+
+     "GENTLEMEN:--I thank you for your great kindness in wishing to make
+     me the possessor of a $5,000 prize in your truly rich and splendid
+     Royal Havana Lottery. I fully believe that you know, as you say,
+     all about how to get these prizes, and that you can make it a big
+     thing. But I cannot think of taking all that money from such kind
+     of people as you. I must insist upon your having half of it, and I
+     will not hear of any refusal, I therefore hereby authorize you to
+     invest for me the trifle of $10, which you mention; and when the
+     prize is drawn, to put half of it, and $10 over, right into your
+     own benevolent pantaloons-pocket, and to remit the other half to
+     me, addressed as follows: (Here give the name of the "nearest
+     bank.")
+
+     "I have not the least fear that you will cheat me out of my half;
+     and, as you see, I thus place myself confidently in your hands.
+     With many thanks for your great and undeserved kindness, I remain
+     your obliged and obedient servant. ETC., ETC."
+
+My readers will observe that this mode of replying affords full swing to
+the expansive charities of Boult and his brethren, and is a sure method
+of saving the expenditure of $10, although Boult is to get that amount
+back when the prize is drawn.
+
+I charge nothing for these suggestions; but will not be so discourteous
+as to refuse a moderate percentage on all amounts received in pursuance
+of them from Brother Boult & Co.
+
+Here is the second special lot of letters I spoke of. I lay them out on
+my desk as before: There are six letters signed respectively by Kimball,
+Goodrich, Darlington, Kenneth, Harper, and Herbert. Now notice, first
+the form, and next the substance.
+
+As to form--they are all written, not, lithographed; they are on paper
+of the same make and size, and out of the same lot, as you observe by
+the manufacturer's stamp--a representation of the Capitol in the upper
+corner. They are in the same hand, an easy legible business-hand, though
+three of them are written with a backward slope. Those who sent them
+have not sent me the envelopes with them, except in one case, so that I
+cannot tell where they were mailed. Neither is any one of them dated
+inside at any town or post-office. But, by a wonderful coincidence,
+every one of them is dated at "No. 17 Merchants' Exchange." A busy mart
+that No. 17 must be! And it is a still more curious coincidence that
+every one of these six industrious chaps has been unable to find a
+sufficiently central location for transacting his business. Every letter
+you see, contains a printed slip advising of a removal, as follows:
+
+"REMOVAL.--Desiring a more central location for transacting my business,
+I have removed my office to No. 17 Merchants Exchange." Where? One says
+to West Troy, New York; another to Patterson, New Jersey; another to
+Bronxville, New York; another, to Salem, New-York, and so on! It is a
+new thing to find how central all those places are. Undeveloped
+metropolises seem to exist in every corner. Well, the slip ends with a
+notice that in future letters must be directed to the new place.
+
+Next, as to substance. The six letters all tell the same story. They
+are each the second letter; the first one having been sent to the same
+person, and having contained a lottery-ticket, as a gift of love or free
+charity. This second letter is the one which is expected to "fetch." It
+says in substance: "Your ticket has drawn a prize of $200,"--the letters
+all name the same amount--"but you didn't pay for it; and therefore are
+not entitled to it. Now send me $10 and I will cheat the lottery-man by
+altering the post-mark of your letter so that the money shall seem to
+have been sent before the lottery was drawn. This forgery will enable me
+to get the $200, which I will send you."
+
+How cunning that is! It is exactly calculated to hit the notions of a
+vulgar, ignorant, lazy, greedy, and unprincipled bumpkin. Such a fellow
+would see just far enough into the millstone to be tickled at the idea
+of cheating those lottery fellows. And the knave ends his letter with
+one more touch most delicately adapted to make Master Bumpkin feel
+certain that his cash is coming. He says, "Be sure to show your prize to
+all your friends, so as to make them buy tickets at my office."
+
+Moreover, these letters inclose each a "report of the seventeenth
+monthly drawing of the Cosmopolitan Art Union Association." You may
+observe that one of these "seventeenth drawings" took place November 7
+1864, and another December 5, 1864; so that seventeenthly came twice.
+What is a far more remarkable coincidence is this; that in each of these
+"reports" is a list of a hundred and thirty or forty numbers that drew
+prizes, and it is exactly the same list each time, and the same prize
+to each number! There is a third coincidence; that one of these two
+drawings is said to have been at London, New York, and the other at
+London, New Jersey. And lastly, there is a fourth coincidence, viz.,
+that neither of these places exists.
+
+Now, what a transparent swindle this is! how plain, how impudent, how
+rascally! And all done entirely by the use of the Post Office privileges
+of the United States. Try to catch this fellow. You can find where he
+mailed his circular; but he probably stopped there over night to do so,
+and nobody knew it. In each circular, he wrote to his dupes to address
+him at that new "more central location" that he struggles after so hard;
+and how is the pursuer to find it? Would anybody naturally go and watch
+the Post Office at Bronxville, New York, for instance, as a particularly
+central location for business?
+
+Besides, no one person is cheated out of enough to make him follow up
+the affair, and probably nobody who sends the cash wants to say much
+about it afterward. He wants to wait and show the prize!
+
+These dirty sharking traps will always be set, and will always catch
+silly people, as long as there are any to catch. The only means of
+stopping such trickery is to diffuse the conviction that the best way to
+get a living is, to go to work like a man and earn it honestly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+ANOTHER LOTTERY HUMBUG.--TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY RECIPES.--VILE
+BOOKS.--"ADVANTAGE-CARDS."--A PACKAGE FOR YOU; PLEASE SEND THE
+MONEY.--PEDDLING IN WESTERN NEW YORK.
+
+
+The readiness with which people will send off their money to a swindler
+is perfectly astounding. It does really seem as if an independent
+fortune could be made simply by putting forth circulars and
+advertisements, requesting the receiver to send five dollars to the
+advertiser, and saying that "it will be all right."
+
+I have already given an account of the way in which lottery dealers
+operate. From among the same pile of documents which I used then, I have
+selected a few others, as instances in part, of a class of humbugs
+sometimes of a kind even far more noxious, and which show that their
+devisers and patrons are not only sharpers or fools, but often also very
+cold-blooded villains or very nasty ones. Some of them are managed by
+printed circulars and written letters, such as those before me; some of
+them by newspaper advertisements. Some are only to cheat you out of
+money, and others offer in return for money some base gratification. But
+whatever means are used, and whatever purpose is sought, they are all
+alike in one thing--they depend entirely on the monstrous number of
+simpletons who will send money to people they know nothing about.
+
+Of the nasty ones, I can give no details. Vile books, pictures, etc.,
+are from time to time advertised, sold, and forwarded, by circular, and
+through the mails, and for large prices.
+
+There have been some cases where a funny sort of swindle has been
+effected by these peddlers of pruriency, by selling some dirty-minded
+dupe a cheap good book, at the extravagant price of a dear bad one. More
+than one foolish youth has received, instead of the vile thing that he
+sent five dollars for, a nice little New Testament. It is obvious that
+no very loud complaints are likely to be made about such cheating as
+that. It is, perhaps, one of the safest swindles ever contrived.
+
+The first document which I take from my pile is the announcement of a
+fellow who operates lottery-wise. His scheme appeals at once to
+benevolence and to greediness. He says: "The profits of the distribution
+are to be given to the Sanitary Commission;" and secondly, "Every ticket
+brings a prize of at least its full value, and some of them $5,000."
+
+If, therefore you won't buy tickets for filthy lucre's sake, buy for the
+sake of our soldiers.
+
+"But," somebody says, "how can you afford this arrangement, which is a
+direct loss of the whole cost of working your lottery, and moreover of
+the whole value of all prizes costing more than a ticket?"
+
+"Oh," replies our benevolent friend, "a number of manufacturers in New
+England have asked me to do this, and the prizes are given by them as
+friends of the soldier."
+
+One observation will sufficiently show what an impudent mess of lies
+this story is, namely;--If the manufacturers of New England wanted to
+give money to the Sanitary Commission, they would give money; if goods,
+they would give goods. They certainly would not put their gifts through
+the additional roundabout, useless nonsense of a lottery, which is to
+turn over only the same amount of funds to the Commission.
+
+The next document is a circular sent from a Western town by a fellow who
+claims also to be a master of arts, doctor of medicines, and doctor of
+laws, but whose handwriting and language are those of a stable-boy. This
+chap sends round a list of two hundred and fifty recipes at various
+prices, from twenty-five cents to a dollar each. Send him the money for
+any you wish, and he promises to return you the directions for making
+the stuff. You are then to go about and peddle it, and swiftly become
+independently rich. You can begin with a dollar, he says; in two days
+make fifty dollars, and then sweep on in a grand career of affluence,
+making from $75 to $200 a day, "if you are industrious." What is
+petroleum to this? It is a mercy that we don't all turn to and peddle to
+each other; we should all get too rich to speak!
+
+The fellow, out of pure kindness and desire for your good, recommends
+you to buy all his recipes, as then you will be sure to sell something
+to everybody. Most of these recipes are for sufficiently harmless
+purposes--shaving-soap, cement, inks--"five gallons of good ink for
+fifteen cents"--tooth-powders, etc. Some of them are arrant nonsense;
+such as "tea--better than the Chinese," which is as if he promised
+something wetter than water; "to make thieves' vinegar;" "prismatic
+diamond crystals for windows;" "to make yellow butter"--is the butter
+blue where the man lives? Others are of a sort calculated to attract
+foolish rustic rascals who would like to gain an easy living by
+cheating, if they were only smart enough. Thus, there is "Rothschild's
+great secret; or how to make common gold." My readers shall have a
+better recipe than this swindler's--work hard, think hard, be honest,
+and spend little--this will "make common gold," and this is all the
+secret Rothschild ever had. A number of these recipes are barefaced
+quackeries; such as cures for consumption, cancer, rheumatism, and
+sundry other diseases; to make whiskers and mustaches grow--ah, boys,
+you can't hurry up those things. Greasing your cheeks is just as good as
+trying to whistle the hair out, but not a bit better. Don't hurry; you
+will be old quite soon enough! But this fellow is ready for old fools as
+well young ones, for he has recipes for curing baldness and removing
+wrinkles. And last, but not least, quietly inserted among all these
+fooleries and harmless humbugs, are two or three recipes which promise
+the safe gratification of the basest vices. Those are what he really
+hoped to get money for.
+
+I have carefully refrained from giving any names or information which
+would enable anybody to address any of these folks. I do not propose to
+cooperate with them, if I know it.
+
+The next is a circular only to be very briefly alluded to: it promises
+to furnish, on receipt of the price, and "by mail or express, with
+perfect safety, so as to defy detection," any of twenty-two wholly
+infamous books, and various other cards and commodities, well suited to
+the public of Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. The most honest and decent things
+advertised in this unclean list are "advantage-cards" which enable the
+player to swindle his adversary by reading off his hand by the backs of
+the cards.
+
+The next paper I can copy verbatim, except some names, etc., is a letter
+as follows:
+
+"Dear Sir--There is a Package in My care for a Mrs. preston New Griswold
+wich thare is 48 cts. fratage. Pleas forward the same. I shall send it
+Per Express Your recpt."
+
+It is some little comfort to know that this gentleman, who is so much
+opposed to the present prevailing methods of spelling, lost the three
+cents which he invested in seeking "fratage." But a good many sensible
+people have carelessly sent away the small amounts demanded by letters
+like the above, and have wondered why their prepaid parcels never came.
+
+Next, is an account by a half amused and half indignant eye-witness, of
+what happened in a well known town in Western New York, on Friday,
+January 6, 1865. A personage described as "dressed in Yankee style,"
+drove into the principal street of the place with a horse and buggy, and
+began to sell what is called in some parts of New England "Attleboro,"
+that is, imitation jewelry, but promising to return the customers their
+money, if required, and doing so. After a number of transactions of this
+kind, he bawls out, like the sorcerer in Aladdin, who went around
+crying new lamps for old, "Who will give me four dollars for this
+five-dollar greenback?"
+
+He found a customer; sold a one-dollar greenback for ninety cents; then
+sold some half-dollar bills for twenty-five cents each; then flung out
+among the crowd what a fisherman would call ground bait, in the shape of
+a handful of "currency."
+
+Everybody scrambled for the money. This liberal trader now drove slowly
+a little way along, and the crowd pressed after him.
+
+He now began, without any further promises, to sell a lot of bogus
+lockets at five dollars each, and in a few minutes had disposed of about
+forty. Having, therefore, about two hundred dollars in his pocket, and
+trade slackening, he coolly observes, with a terseness and clearness of
+oratory that would not discredit General Sherman:
+
+"Gentlemen--I have sold you those goods at my price. I am a licensed
+peddler. If I give you your money back you will think me a lunatic. I
+wish you all success in your ordinary vocations! Good morning!"
+
+And sure enough, he drove off. That same cunning chap has actually made
+a small fortune in this way. He really is licensed as a peddler, and
+though arrested more than once, has consequently not been found legally
+punishable.
+
+I will specify only one more of my collection, of yet another kind. This
+is a printed circular appealing to a class of fools, if possible, even
+shallower, sillier, and more credulous than any I have named yet. It is
+headed "The Gypsies' Seven Secret Charms." These charms consist of a
+kind of hellbroth or decoction. You are to wet the hands and the
+forehead with them, and this is to render you able to tell what any
+person is thinking of; upon taking any one by the hand, you will be able
+to entirely control the mind and will of such person (it is unnecessary
+to specify the purpose intended to be believed possible). These charms
+are also to enable you to buy lucky lottery-tickets, discover things
+lost or hid, dream correctly of the future, increase the intellectual
+faculties, secure the affections of the other sex, etc. These precious
+conceits are set forth in a ridiculous hodge-podge of statements. The
+"charms," it says, were used by the "Anted_e_luvians;" were the secret
+of the Egyptian enchanters and of Moses, too; of the Pythoness and the
+heathen conjurors and humbugs generally; and (which will be news to the
+geographers of to-day) "are used by the Psyli (the swindler mis-spells
+again) of South America to charm Beasts, Birds, and Serpents." The way
+to control the mind, he says, was discovered by a French traveler named
+Tunear. This Frenchman is perhaps a relative of the equally celebrated
+Russian traveller, Toofaroff.
+
+But here is the point, after all. You send the money, we will say, for
+one of these charms--for they are for sale separately. You receive in
+return a second circular, saying that they work a great deal better all
+together, and so the man will send you all of them when you send the
+rest of the money. Send it, if you choose!
+
+Now, how is it possible for people to be living among us here, who are
+fooled by such wretched balderdash as this? There are such, however, and
+a great many of them. I do not imagine that there are many of these
+addlepates among my readers; but there is no harm in giving once more a
+very plain and easy direction which may possibly save somebody some
+money and some mortification. Be content with what you can honestly
+earn. Know whom you deal with. Do not try to get money without giving
+fair value for it. And pay out no money on strangers' promises, whether
+by word of mouth, written letters, advertisements, or printed circulars.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+A CALIFORNIA COAL MINE.--A HARTFORD COAL MINE.--MYSTERIOUS SUBTERRANEAN
+CANAL ON THE ISTHMUS.
+
+
+Some twelve years ago or so, in the early days of Californian
+immigration, a curious little business humbug came off about six miles
+from Monterey. A United States officer, about the year 1850, was on his
+way into the interior on a surveying expedition, with a party of men, a
+portable forge, a load of coal, and sundry other articles. At the place
+in question, six miles inland, the Lieutenant's coal wagon "stalled" in
+a "tule" swamp. With true military decision the greater part of the coal
+was thrown out to extricate the team, and not picked up again. The
+expedition went on and so did time, and the latter, in his progress, had
+some years afterward dried up the tule swamp. Some enterprising
+prospectors, with eyes wide open to the nature of things, now espied one
+fine morning the lumps of coal, sticking their black noses up out of the
+mud. It was a clear case--there was a coal mine there! The happy
+discoverers rushed into town. A company was at once organized under the
+mining laws of the state of California. The corporators at first kept
+the whole matter totally secret except from a few particular friends who
+were as a very great favor allowed to buy stock for cash. A "compromise"
+was made with the owner of the land, largely to his advantage. When
+things had thus been set properly at work, specimens of coal were
+publicly exhibited at Monterey. There was a gigantic excitement; shares
+went up almost out of sight. Twelve hundred dollars in coin for one
+share (par $100) was laughed at. About this time a quiet honest Dutchman
+of the vicinity passing along by the "mine" one evening with his cart,
+innocently and unconsciously picked up the whole at one single load and
+carried it home. Prompt was the discovery of the "sell" by the
+stockholders, and voluble and intense, it is said, their profane
+expressions of dissatisfaction. But the original discoverers of the mine
+vigorously protested that they were "sold" themselves, and that it was
+only a case of common misfortune. It is however reported that a number
+of persons in Monterey, _after_ the explosion of the speculation,
+remembered all about the coal-wagon part of the business, which they
+said, the excitement of the "company" had put entirely out of their
+heads.
+
+An equally unfounded but not quite so barefaced humbug came off a good
+many years ago in the good old city of Hartford, in Connecticut,
+according to the account given me by an old gentleman now deceased, who
+was one of the parties interested. This was a coal mine in the State
+House yard. It sounds like talking about getting sunbeams out of
+cucumbers--but something of the sort certainly took place.
+
+Coal is found among rocks of certain kinds, and not elsewhere. Among
+strata of granite or basalt for instance, nobody expects to find coal.
+But along with a certain kind of sandstone it may reasonably be
+expected. Now the Hartford wiseacres found that tremendously far down
+under their city, there was _a_ sort of sandstone, and they were sure
+that it was _the_ sort. So they gathered together some money,--there is
+a vast deal of _that_ in Hartford, coal or no coal--organized a company,
+employed a Mining Superintendent, set up a boring apparatus, and down
+went their hole into the ground--an orifice some four or six inches
+across. Through the surface stratum of earth it went, and bang it came
+against the sandstone. They pounded away, with good courage, and got
+some fifties or hundreds of feet further. Indefinable sensations were
+aroused in their minds at one time by the coming up among the products
+of boring, of some chips of wood. Now wood, shortly coal, they thought.
+They might, I imagine, have brought up some pieces of boiled potato or
+even of fresh shad, provided it had fallen down first. They dug on
+until they got tired, and then they stopped. If they had gone down ten
+thousand feet they would have found no coal. Coal is found in the new
+red sandstone; but theirs was the old red sandstone, which is a very
+fine old stone itself, but in which no coal was ever found, except what
+might have been put there on purpose, or possibly some faint
+indications. The hole they made, however, as my informant gravely
+observed, was left sticking in the ground, and if he is right is to this
+day a sort of appendix or tail to the well north-west corner of the
+State House Square. So, I suppose, any one who chooses can go and poke
+down there after it and satisfy himself about the accuracy of this
+account. Such an inquirer ought to find satisfaction, for "truth lies in
+the bottom of a well" says the proverb. Yet some ill natured skeptics
+have construed this to mean that all will tell lies sometimes, for--as
+they accent it, even "Truth _lies_, at the bottom of a well!"
+
+Still a different sort of business humbug, again, was a wonderful story
+which went the rounds about fifteen years ago, and which was cooked up
+to help some one or other of the various enterprises for new routes by
+Central America to California. This story started, I believe, in the
+"New Orleans Courier." It was, that a French Doctor of Vera Paz in
+Guatemala, while making a canal from his estate to the sea, discovered,
+away up at the very furthest extremity of the Gulf of Honduras, a vast
+ancient canal, two hundred and forty feet wide, seventy feet deep, and
+walled in on both sides with gigantic masses of rough cut stone. The
+Doctor at once gave up his own trifling modern excavation, and plunged
+into an explanation of this vast ancient one, as zealously as if he were
+probing after some uncertain bullet in a poor fellow's leg. The
+monstrous canal carried him in a straight line up the country, to the
+south-westward. Some twenty miles or so inland it plunged under a
+_volcano!_
+
+But see what a French doctor is made of!
+
+Cutting down the great, old trees that obstructed the entrance, and
+procuring a canoe with a crew of Indians, in he went. The canal became a
+prodigious tunnel, of the same width and depth of water, and vaulted
+three hundred and thirty five feet high in the living rock. Nothing is
+said about the bowels of the volcano, so that we must conclude either
+that such affairs are not planted so deep as is supposed, or that the
+fire-pot of the concern was shoved one side or bridged over by the
+canallers, or that the Frenchman had some remarkably good style of Fire
+Annihilator, or else that there is some mistake!
+
+Eighteen hours of incessant travel brought our intrepid M.D. safe
+through to the Pacific Ocean; during which time, if the maps of that
+country are of any authority, he passed under quite a number of
+mountains and rivers. The trip was not dark at all, as shafts were sunk
+every little way, which lighted up the interior quite well, and then the
+volcano gave--or ought to have given--some light inside. Indeed, if the
+doctor had only thought of it, I presume he would have noticed double
+rows of street gas lamps on each side of the canal! The exclusive right
+to use this excellent transit route has not, to my knowledge, been
+secured to anybody yet. It will be observed that ships as large as the
+Great Eastern could easily pass each other in this canal, which renders
+it a sure thing for any other vessel unless that shrewd and grasping
+fellow the Emperor Louis Napoleon, has got hold of this canal and is
+keeping it dark for some still darker purposes of his own--as for
+instance to run his puppet Maximilian into for refuge, when he is run
+out of Mexico--it is therefore still in the market. And my publication
+of the facts effectually disposes of the Emperor's plan of secrecy, of
+course.
+
+
+
+
+IV. MONEY MANIAS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE PETROLEUM HUMBUG.--THE NEW YORK AND RANGOON PETROLEUM COMPANY.
+
+
+Every sham, as has often been said, proves some reality. Petroleum
+exists, no doubt, and is an important addition to our national wealth.
+But the Petroleum humbug or mania or superstition, or whatever you
+choose to call it, is a humbug, just as truly, and a big one, whether we
+use the word in its milder or its bitterer sense.
+
+There are more than six hundred petroleum companies. The capital they
+call for, is certainly not less than five hundred million dollars. The
+money invested in the notorious South Sea Bubble was less than
+two-fifths as much--only about $190,000,000.
+
+Now, this petroleum business--very much of it--is just as thorough a
+gambling business as any faro bank ever set up in Broadway, or any other
+stock speculation ever conjured up in Wall Street--as much so, for
+instance, as the well known Parker Vein coal company.
+
+I shall here tell exactly how those well known and enterprising
+financiers, Messrs. Peter Rolleum and Diddle Digwell proceeded in
+organizing the New-York and Rangoon Petroleum Company, of which all my
+readers have seen the advertisements everywhere, and of which the former
+is the Vice President and managing officer, and the latter Secretary. In
+June 1864, neither of these worthy gentleman was worth a cent. Rolleum
+shinned up and down in some commission agency or other, and Digwell had
+a small salary as clerk in some insurance or money concern. They barely
+earned a living. Now, Rolleum says he is worth $200,000; and Mr.
+Secretary Digwell, besides about $10,000 worth of stock in the New York
+and Rangoon, has his comfortable salary and his highly respectable
+"posish"--to use a little bit of business slang.
+
+Mr. Rolleum was the originator of the scheme, and let Digwell into it;
+and together they went to work. They had a few hundred dollars in cash,
+no particular credit, an entirely unlimited fund of lies, a good deal of
+industry, plausibility, talk, and cheek, considerable acquaintance with
+business, and an instinctive appreciation of some of the more selfish
+motives commonly influential among men.
+
+First of all, Rolleum made a trip into the oil country. Here, while
+picking up some of his ordinary agency business, he looked around among
+the wells and oil lands, talking, and examining and inquiring of
+everybody about everything, with a busy, solemn face, and the air of one
+who does _not wish_ it to be supposed that he has important interests in
+his care. Then he talked with some men at (we will say) Titusville and
+thereabouts; told all about his valuable business connections in New
+York City: and after getting a little acquainted, he laid before each
+of half-a-dozen or so of them, this proposition:
+
+"You can have a good many shares of a first class new oil company about
+to be formed just for permitting your name to be used in its interest,
+and for being a trustee." A thousand shares apiece, he said; to be
+valued at five dollars each, the par value however, being ten dollars.
+Five thousand dollars each man, and to be made ten thousand, as soon as
+the proposed puffing should enable them to sell out. After a little
+hesitation, a sufficient number consented. There was nothing to pay,
+something handsome to get, and all they were asked for it was, to let a
+man talk about them. What if he did lie? That was his business.
+
+This fixed four out of the nine intended trustees.
+
+Rolleum also obtained memoranda or printed circulars showing the amounts
+for which a number of oil land owners would sell their holes in the
+ground or the room for making others, and describing the premises. He
+now flew back to New York, and went to sundry persons of some means and
+some position but of no great nobility, and thus he said:
+
+"Here are these wealthy and distinguished oil men right there on the
+ground who are going to be trustees of my new company.
+
+"You serve too, won't you? One thousand shares for your trouble--five
+thousand dollars. No money to pay--I will see to all that. Here are the
+lands we can buy,"--and he showed his lists. The bribe, and the names of
+those already bribed, influenced them, and this secured three more
+trustees. Two more were needed, namely the President and Vice
+President. Rolleum himself was to be the latter; his next move was to
+secure the former.
+
+This, the most critical part of the scheme, was cunningly delayed until
+this time. Rolleum went to the Honorable A. Bee, a gentleman of a good
+deal of ability, pretty widely known, not very rich, believed (perhaps
+for that reason) to be honest, no longer young, and of a reverend yet
+agreeable presence. Him the plausible Rolleum told all about the new
+Company; what a respectable board of trustees there was going to be--and
+he showed the names; all either experienced and substantial men of the
+oil country, or reputable business men of New York City. And they have
+agreed to serve, in part because they know what a very honest company
+this is, and still more because they hope that the Honorable A. Bee will
+become President.
+
+"My dear Sir," urged Rolleum, sweetly, "this legitimate business
+enterprise _must_ succeed, and _must_ secure wealth, reputation, and
+influence to all connected with it. We know that you are above pecuniary
+considerations, and that you do not need our influence, or anybody's. We
+need yours. And you need not do any work. I will do that. We only need
+your name. And merely as a matter of form, because the officers are
+expected to be interested in their own company, I have set apart two
+thousand shares, being at half par or $5 a share, $10,000 of stock, to
+stand in your name. See how respectable all these Trustees are!" And he
+showed the list and preached upon the items of it.
+
+"This man is worth so many millions, that man is such an influential
+editor. Could I have obtained such names if this were not a perfectly
+square thing?"
+
+Ten thousand dollars will go some ways towards squaring almost anything,
+with many people, even if it is a mere matter of form; and so the old
+gentleman consented. This fixed the whole official "slate."
+
+Now to set up the machine.
+
+In a few days of sharp running and talking, Rolleum and Digwell
+accomplished this, as follows:
+
+_First_, they hired and furnished handsomely, paying cash whenever they
+couldn't help it, a couple of pleasant first floor rooms close to Wall
+Street. No dingy desk-room up in some dark corner or attic, for them.
+Respectability is the thing for Rolleum.
+
+_Second_, they hired a lawyer to draft the proper papers, and had the
+New York and Rangoon Petroleum Company "Duly incorporated under the
+mining and statute laws of the State of New York," with charter,
+by-laws, seal, officers' names, and everything fine, new, grand,
+magnificent, impressive, formal, respectable and business-like.
+
+_Third_, they now had every requisite of a powerful, enterprising and
+highly successful corporation, except the small trifles of money, land
+and oil. But what are these, to such geniuses as Rolleum and Digwell?
+Singular if having invented and set the trap, they could not catch the
+birds!
+
+They _bought_ about three pints of oil, for one dollar; and that settled
+one part of the question. They bought it ready sorted and vialled and
+labelled; some crude and green, some yellowish, some limpid as water,
+half a dozen or so of different specimens. These, in their tall vials of
+most respectable appearance, they placed casually on the mantel-piece of
+the outer office. They were specimens of the oils which the company's
+wells are confidently expected to yield--when they get 'em!
+
+Last of all--land and money. Subscriptions to capital stock are to
+furnish money, money will buy land. And _saying we've got land_ will
+procure subscriptions.
+
+"It's not much of a lie, after all," said Rolleum, confidentially, to
+brother Digwell. "When we've _said_ we've got it for awhile, we _shall_
+get it. It's not a lie at all. It's only discounting the truth at sixty
+days!"
+
+So he and Digwell went to work and made a splendid prospectus and
+advertisement, the latter an abridged edition of the former. This
+prospectus was a great triumph of business lying mixed with plums and
+spices of truth, and all set forth with taking "display lines."
+
+It began with a stately row of names: New York and Rangoon Petroleum
+Company; Honorable Abraham Bee, President; Peter Rolleum, Esq., Vice
+President; Diddle Digwell, Esq., Secretary; and so on. With cool
+impudence it then gave a list headed "Lands and Property"--not saying
+"of the Company" for fear of a prosecution for swindling. But the list
+below began with the words "the oil lands _to be conveyed_ to the
+Company are as follows:" "that's exactly it" quoth Rolleum--"no lie
+there, at any rate. They _are_ to 'to be conveyed' to us--if we
+choose--just as soon as we can pay for them." And then the list went on
+from "No. 1" to "No. 43," giving in a row all those memoranda which
+Rolleum had obtained in Venango County and the region round about, of
+the descriptions of the real estate which the landsharks up there would
+be glad to sell for what they asked for it.
+
+The Prospectus said the capital of the company was one million dollars,
+in one hundred thousand shares at ten dollars each. But _in order to
+obtain a_ WORKING CAPITAL, twenty thousand shares are offered for a
+_limited period_ at five dollars each, not subject to further
+assessment.
+
+And it added, though with more phrases, something to the following
+effect: Hurry! Pay quick! Or you will lose your chance! In conclusion
+the whole was wound up with many wise and moral observations about
+legitimate business, interests of stockholders, heavy capitalists,
+economical management, and other such things; and it bestowed some
+rather fat compliments upon the honorable Abraham Bee and the Trustees.
+
+Having concocted this choice morsel of bait, they set it in the great
+stream of newspapers, there to catch fish. In plain terms, with some
+cash and some credit--for their means would not even reach to pay in
+advance the whole of their first advertising bill--they managed to have
+their advertisement published during several weeks in a carefully chosen
+group of about thirty of the principal newspapers of the United States.
+
+The whole web was now woven; and Rolleum and Digwell, like two hungry
+spiders, squatted in their den, every nerve thrilling to feel the first
+buzz of the first fly. It was natural that the scamps should feel a
+good deal excited: it was life or death with them. If a confiding
+public, in answer to their impassioned appeal, should generously remit,
+they were made men for life. If not, instead of being rich and respected
+gentlemen, they were ridiculous, detected swindlers.
+
+Well--they succeeded. So truthful is our Great American Nation--so
+confiding, so sure of the truth of what is said in print, even if only
+in the advertising columns of a newspaper--so certain of the good faith
+of people who have their names printed in large capitals and with a
+handle at one end--that actually these fellows had a hundred thousand
+dollars in bank within ten weeks--before they owned one foot of land, or
+one inch of well, or one drop of oil, except those three pints in the
+vials on the office shelf!
+
+And remember this is no imaginary case. I am giving point by point the
+exact transactions of a real Petroleum Company.
+
+Everything I have told was done, only if possible with a more false and
+baseless impudence than I have described. And scores and scores of other
+Petroleum Companies have been organized in ways exactly as unprincipled.
+Some of them may perhaps have proceeded as real business concerns. Some
+have stopped and disappeared as soon as the managers could get a
+handsome sum of money into their pockets for stock.
+
+What the result will be, in the present case, I don't know. The New York
+and Rangoon Petroleum Company, when I last knew about it, "still lived."
+They had--or said they had--bought some land. I have not heard of their
+receiving any oil raised from their own wells. They have sent off a
+monstrous quantity of circulars, prospectuses and advertisements. They
+caused a portrait and biography of the Honorable A. Bee to be printed in
+a very respectable periodical, and paid five hundred dollars for it.
+They had themselves systematically puffed up to the seventh heaven in a
+long series of articles in another periodical, and paid the owner of it
+$2,000 or so _in stock_. They talk very big about a dividend. But
+although they have received a great deal of money, and paid out a great
+deal, I do not know of their paying their stockholders any yet. If they
+should, it would not prove much. For it is sometimes considered "a good
+dodge" to declare and pay a large dividend before any real profits have
+been earned; as this is calculated to enhance the price of shares, and
+to make them "go off like hot cakes."
+
+I shall not make any "moral" about this story. It teaches its own. It is
+a very mild statement of what was done to establish an actual
+specimen,--and far from being of the worst description--of a great part
+of the Petroleum Company enterprises of the day.
+
+It is whispered that somehow or other the trustees and officers of the
+New York and Rangoon do not own so much stock of their company as they
+did, having managed to have their stock sold to subscribers as if it
+were company stock. If this is so, those gentlemen have made their
+reward sure; and Mr. Peter Rolleum, having the cash in hand for that
+very liberal allotment of stock which he gave himself for his trouble in
+getting up the New York and Rangoon Petroleum Company, is very likely
+half or a quarter as rich as he says.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE TULIPOMANIA.
+
+
+Alboni, the singer, had an exquisitely sweet voice, but was a very big
+fat woman. Somebody accordingly remarked that she was an elephant that
+had swallowed a nightingale. About as incongruous is the idea of a
+nation of damp, foggy, fat, full-figured, broad-sterned, gin-drinking,
+tobacco-smoking Dutchmen in Holland, going crazy over a flower. But they
+did so, for three or four years together. Their craze is known in
+history as the Tulipomania, because it was a mania about tulips.
+
+Just a word about the Dutchmen first.
+
+These stout old fellows were not only hardy navigators, keen
+discoverers, ingenious engineers, laborious workmen, able financiers,
+shrewd and rich merchants, enthusiastic patriots and tremendous
+fighters, but they were eminently distinguished (as they still are to a
+considerable extent) by a love of elegant literature, poetry, painting,
+music and other fine arts, including horticulture. It was a Fleming that
+invented painting in oils. Before him, white of egg was used, or
+gum-water, or some such imperfect material, for spreading the color.
+Erasmus, one of the most learned, ready-minded, acute, graceful and
+witty scholars that ever lived, was a Dutchman. All Holland and
+Flanders, in days when they were richer, and stronger compared with the
+rest of the world than they are now, were full of singing societies and
+musical societies and poetry making societies. The universities of
+Leyden and Utrecht and Louvain are of highly an ancient European fame.
+And as for flowers, and bulbs in particular, Holland is a principal home
+and market of them now, more than two hundred years after the time I am
+going to tell of.
+
+Tulips grow wild in Southern Russia, the Crimea and Asia Minor, as
+potatoes do in Peru. The first tulip in Christian Europe was raised in
+Augsburg, in the garden of a flower-loving lawyer, one Counsellor
+Herwart, in the year 1559, thirteen years after Luther died. This tulip
+bulb was sent to Herwart from Constantinople. For about eighty years
+after this the flower continually increased in repute and became more
+and more known and cultivated, until the fantastic eagerness of the
+demand for fine ones and the great prices that they brought, resulted in
+a real mania like that about the morus multicaulis, or the petroleum
+mania of to-day, but much more intense. It began in the year 1635, and
+went out with an explosion in the year 1837.
+
+This tulip business is, I believe, the only speculative excitement in
+history whose subject-matter did not even claim to have any real value.
+Petroleum is worth some shillings a gallon for actual use for many
+purposes. Stocks always claim to represent some real trade or business.
+The morus multicaulis was to be as permanent a source of wealth as corn,
+and was expected to produce the well known mercantile substance of silk.
+But nobody ever pretended that tulips could be eaten, or manufactured,
+or consumed in any way of practical usefulness. They have not one single
+quality of the kind termed useful. They have nothing desirable except
+the beauty of a peculiarly short-lived blossom. You can do absolutely
+nothing with them except to look at them. A speculation in them is
+exactly as reasonable as one in butterflies would be.
+
+In the course of about one year, 1634-5, the tulip frenzy, after having
+increased for fifteen or twenty years with considerable speed, came to a
+climax, and poisoned the whole Dutch nation. Prices had at the end of
+this short period risen from high to extravagant, and from extravagant
+to insane. High and low, counts, burgomasters, merchants, shop-keepers,
+servants, shoe-blacks, all were buying and selling tulips like mad. In
+order to make the commodity of the day accessible to all, a new weight
+was invented, called a perit, so small that there were about eight
+thousand of them in one pound avoirdupois, and a single tulip root
+weighing from half an ounce to an ounce, would contain from 200 to 400
+of these perits. Thus, anybody unable to buy a whole tulip, could buy a
+perit or two, and have what the lawyers call an "undivided interest" in
+a root. This way of owning shows how utterly unreal was the pretended
+value. For imagine a small owner attempting to take his own perits and
+put them in his pocket. He would make a little hole in the tulip-root,
+would probably kill it, and would certainly obtain a little bit of
+utterly worthless pulp for himself, and no value at all. There was a
+whole code of business regulations made to meet the peculiar needs of
+the tulip business, besides, and in every town were to be found
+"tulip-notaries," to conduct the legal part of the business, take
+acknowledgments of deeds, note protests, &c.
+
+To say that the tulips were worth their weight in gold would be a very
+small story. It would not be a very great exaggeration to say that they
+were worth their size in diamonds. The most valuable species of all was
+named "Semper Augustus," and a bulb of it which weighed 200 perits, or
+less than half an ounce avoirdupois, was thought cheap at 5,500 florins.
+A florin may be called about 40 cents; so that the little brown root was
+worth $2,200, or 220 gold eagles, which would weigh, by a rough
+estimate, eight pounds four ounces, or 132 ounces avoirdupois. Thus this
+half ounce Semper Augustus was worth--I mean he would bring--two hundred
+and sixty-four times his weight in gold!
+
+There were many cases where people invested whole fortunes equal to
+$40,000 or $50,000 in collections of forty or fifty tulip roots. Once
+there happened to be only two Semper Augustuses in all Holland, one in
+Haarlem and one in Amsterdam. The Haarlem one was sold for twelve acres
+of building lots, and the Amsterdam one for a sum equal to $1,840,00,
+together with a new carriage, span of grey horses and double harness,
+complete.
+
+Here is the list of merchandise and estimated prices given for one root
+of the Viceroy tulip. It is interesting as showing what real merchandise
+was worth in those days by a cash standard, aside from its exhibition of
+tremendous speculative bedlamism:
+
+  160 bushels wheat            $179,20
+  320 bushels rye               223,20
+  Four fat oxen                 192,00
+  Eight fat hogs                 96,00
+  Twelve fat sheep               48,00
+  Two hogsheads wine             28,00
+  Four tuns beer                 12,80
+  Two tuns butter                76,80
+  1000 lbs. cheese               48,00
+  A bed all complete             40,00
+  One suit clothes               32,00
+  A silver drinking cup          24,00
+                             ---------
+  Total exactly              $1,000,00
+
+In 1636, regular tulip exchanges were established in the nine Dutch
+towns where the largest tulip business was done, and while the gambling
+was at its intensest, the matter was managed exactly as stock gambling
+is managed in Wall street to-day. You went out into "the street" without
+owning a tulip or a perit of a tulip in the world, and met another
+fellow with just as many tulips as yourself. You talk and "banter" with
+him, and finally (we will suppose) you "sell short" ten Semper
+Augustuses, "seller three," for $2,000 each, in all $20,000. This means
+in ordinary English, that without having any tulips (i. e., short,) you
+promise to deliver the ten roots as above in three days from date. Now
+when the three days are up, if Semper Augustuses are worth in the market
+only $1,500, you could, if this were a real transaction, buy ten of them
+for $15,000, and deliver them to the other gambler for $20,000, thus
+winning from him the difference of $5,000. But if the roots have risen
+and are worth $2,500 each, then if the transactions were real you would
+have to pay $25,000 for the ten roots and could only get $20,000 from
+the other gambler, and he, turning round and selling them at the market
+price, would win from you this difference of $5,000. But in fact the
+transaction was not real, it was a stock gambling one; neither party
+owned tulips or meant to, or expected the other to; and the whole was a
+pure game of chance or skill, to see which should win and which should
+lose that $5,000 at the end of three days. When the time came, the
+affair was settled, still without any tulips, by the loser paying the
+difference to the winner, exactly as one loses what the other wins at a
+game of poker or faro. Of course if you can set afloat a smart lie after
+making your bargain, such as will send prices up or down as your profit
+requires, you make money by it, just as stock gamblers do every day in
+New York, London, Paris, and other Christian commercial cities.
+
+While this monstrous Dutch gambling fury lasted, money was plenty,
+everybody felt rich and Holland was in a whiz of windy delight. After
+about three years of fool's paradise, people began to reflect that the
+shuttlecock could not be knocked about in the air forever, and that when
+it came down somebody would be hurt. So first one and then another began
+quietly to sell out and quit the game, without buying in again. This
+cautious infection quickly spread like a pestilence, as it always does
+in such cases, and became a perfect panic or fright. All at once, as it
+were, rich people all over Holland found themselves with nothing in the
+world except a pocket full or a garden-bed full of flower roots that
+nobody would buy and that were not good to eat, and would not have made
+more than one tureen of soup if they were.
+
+Of course this state of things caused innumerable bankruptcies,
+quarrels, and refusals to complete bargains, everywhere. The government
+and the courts were appealed to, but with Dutch good sense they refused
+to enforce gambling transactions, and though the cure was very severe
+because very sudden, they preferred to let "the bottom drop out" of the
+whole affair at once. So it did. Almost everybody was either ruined or
+impoverished. The very few who had kept any or all of their gains by
+selling out in season, remained so far rich. And the vast actual
+business interests of Holland received a damaging check, from which it
+took many years to recover.
+
+There were some curious incidents in the course of the tulipomania. They
+have been told before, but they are worth telling again, as the poet
+says, "To point the moral or adorn the tale."
+
+A sailor brought to a rich Dutch merchant news of the safe arrival of a
+very valuable cargo from the Levant. The old hunks rewarded the mariner
+for his good tidings with one red herring for breakfast. Now Ben Bolt
+(if that was his name--perhaps as he was a Dutchman it was something
+like Benje Boltje) was very fond of onions, and spying one on the
+counter as he went out of the store, he slipped it into his pocket, and
+strolling back to the wharf, sat down to an odoriferous breakfast of
+onions and herring. He munched away without finding anything unusual in
+the flavor, until just as he was through, down came Mr. Merchant,
+tearing along like a madman at the head of an excited procession of
+clerks, and flying upon the luckless son of Neptune, demanded what he
+had carried off besides his herring?
+
+"An onion that I found on the counter."
+
+"Where is it? Give it back instantly!"
+
+"Just ate it up with my herring, mynheer."
+
+Wretched merchant! In a fury of useless grief he apprised the sailor
+that his sacrilegious back teeth had demolished a Semper Augustus
+valuable enough, explained the unhappy old fellow, to have feasted the
+Prince of Orange and the Stadtholder's whole court. "Thieves!" he cried
+out--"Seize the rascal!" So they did seize him, and he was actually
+tried, condemned and imprisoned for some months, all of which however
+did not bring back the tulip root. It is a question after all in my
+mind, whether that sailor was really as green as he pretended, and
+whether he did not know very well what he was taking. It would have been
+just like a reckless seaman's trick to eat up the old miser's twelve
+hundred dollar root, to teach him not to give such stingy gifts next
+time.
+
+An English traveller, very fond of botany, was one day in the
+conservatory of a rich Dutchman, when he saw a strange bulb lying on a
+shelf. With that extreme coolness and selfishness which too many
+travellers have exercised, what does he do but take out his penknife
+and carefully dissect it, peeling off the outer coats, and quartering
+the innermost part, making all the time a great many wise observations
+on the phenomena of the strange new root. In came the Dutchman all at
+once, and seeing what was going on, he asked the Englishman, with rage
+in his eyes, but with a low bow and that sort of restrained formal
+civility which sometimes covers the most furious anger, if he knew what
+he was about?
+
+"Peeling a very curious onion," answered Mr. Traveller, as calmly as if
+one had a perfect right to destroy other people's property to gratify
+his own curiosity.
+
+"One hundred thousand devils!" burst out the Dutchman, expressing the
+extent of his anger by the number of evil spirits he invoked--"It is an
+Admiral van der Eyck!"
+
+"Indeed?" remarked the scientific traveller, "thank you. Are there a
+good many of these admirals in your country?" and he drew forth his note
+book to write down the little fact.
+
+"Death and the devil!" swore the enraged Dutchman again--"come before
+the Syndic and you shall find out all about it!" So he collared the
+astounded onion-peeler, and despite all he could say, dragged him
+straightway before the magistrate, where his scientific zeal suffered a
+dreadful quencher in the shape of an affidavit that the "onion" was
+worth four thousand florins--about $1600--and in the immediate judgment
+of the Court, which "considered" that the prisoner be forthwith clapt
+into jail until he should give security for the amount. He had to do so
+accordingly, and doubtless all his life retained a distaste for
+Dutchmen and Dutch onions.
+
+These stories about such monstrous valuations of flower roots recall to
+my mind another anecdote which I shall tell, not because it has anything
+to do with tulips, but because it is about a Dutchman, and shows in
+striking contrast an equally low valuation of human life. It is this.
+Once, in time of peace, an English and a Dutch Admiral met at sea, each
+in his flag ship, and for some reason or other exchanged complimentary
+salutes. By accident, one of the Englishman's guns was shotted and
+misdirected, and killed one of the Dutch crew. On hearing the fact the
+Englishman at once manned a boat and went to apologize, to inquire about
+the poor fellow's family and to send them some money, provide for the
+funeral, etc., etc., as a kind hearted man would naturally do. But the
+Dutch commander, on meeting him at the quarter-deck, and learning his
+errand, at once put all his kindly intentions completely one side,
+saying in imperfect English:
+
+"It'sh no matter, it'sh no matter--_dere's blaanty more Tutchmen in
+Holland_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+JOHN BULL'S GREAT MONEY HUMBUG.--THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE IN 1720.
+
+
+The "South Sea Bubble" is one of the most startling lessons which
+history gives us of the ease with which the most monstrous, and absurd,
+and wicked humbugs can be crammed down the throat of poor human nature.
+It ought also to be a useful warning of the folly of mere "speculation,"
+as compared with real "business undertakings." The history of the South
+Sea Bubble has been told, before, but it is too prominent a case to be
+entirely passed over. It occupied a period of about eight months, from
+February 1, 1720, to the end of the following September. It was an
+unreasonable expansion of the value of the stock of the "South Sea
+Company." This Company was formed in 1711; its stock was at first about
+$30,000,000, subscribed by the public and handed over by the corporators
+to Government to meet certain troublesome public debts. In return,
+Government guaranteed the stockholders a dividend of six per cent., and
+gave the Company sundry permanent important duties and a monopoly of all
+trade to the South Pacific, or "South Sea." This matter went on with
+fair success as a money enterprise, until the birth of the "Bubble,"
+which was as follows:--In the end of January, 1720, probably in
+consequence of catching infection from "Law's Mississippi Scheme" in
+France, the South Sea Company and the Bank of England made competing
+propositions to the English Government, to repeat the original South Sea
+Company financiering plan on a larger scale. The proposition of the
+Company, which was accepted by Government, was: to assume as before the
+whole public debt, now amounting to over one hundred and fifty millions
+of dollars; and to be guaranteed at first a five per cent. dividend, and
+afterward a four per cent. one, to the stockholders by Government. For
+this privilege, the Company agreed to pay outright a bonus of more than
+seventeen million dollars. This plan is said to have been originated and
+principally carried through by Sir John Blunt, one of the Company's
+directors. Parliament adopted it after two months' discussion--the
+Bubble having, however, been swelling monstrously all the time.
+
+It must be remembered that the wonderful profits expected from the
+Company were to come from their monopoly of the South Sea trade.
+Tremendous stories were told by Blunt and his friends, who can hardly
+have believed more than one half of their own talk, about a free trade
+with all the Spanish Pacific colonies, the importation of silver and
+gold from Peru and Mexico in return for dry goods, etc., etc.; all which
+fine things were going to produce two or three times the amount of the
+Company's stock every year. When the bill authorizing the arrangement
+passed, South Sea stock had already reached a price of four hundred per
+cent. The bill was stoutly opposed in Parliament by Mr.--afterwards
+Sir--Robert Walpole, and a few others but in vain. Under the operation
+of the beautiful stories of the speculative Blunt and his friends, South
+Sea stock, after a short lull in April, began to rise again, and the
+bubble swelled and swelled to a size so monstrous, and with colors so
+gay, that it filled the whole horizon of poor foolish John
+Bull:--perfectly turned his bull-headed brain, and made him for the time
+absolutely crazy. The directors opened books on April 12th for
+L5,000,000 new stock, charging, however, L300 for each share of L100,
+or three hundred per cent. to begin with. Double the amount was
+subscribed in a few days; that is, John Bull subscribed thirty million
+dollars for ten millions of stock, where only five millions were to be
+had. In a few days more, these subscribers were selling at double what
+they paid. April 21st, a ten per cent. dividend was voted for midsummer.
+In a day or two, another five million subscription was opened at four
+hundred per cent. to begin with. The whole, and half as much more, was
+taken in a few hours. In the end of May, South Sea stock was worth five
+hundred to one. On the 28th, it was five hundred and fifty. In four days
+more, for some reason or other, it jumped up to eight hundred and
+ninety. The speculating Blunt kept all this time blowing and blowing at
+his bubble. All summer, he and his friends blew and blew; and all summer
+the bubble swelled and floated, and shone; and high and low, men and
+women, lords and ladies, clergymen, princesses and duchesses, merchants,
+gamblers, tradesmen, dressmakers, footmen, bought and sold. In the
+beginning of August, South Sea stock stood at one thousand per cent! It
+was really worth about twenty-five per cent. The crowding in Exchange
+Alley, the Wall street of the day, was tremendous. So noisy, and
+unmanageable and excited was this mob of greedy fools, that the very
+same stock was sometimes selling ten per cent. higher at one end of the
+Alley than at the other.
+
+The growth of this monstrous, noxious bubble hatched out a multitude of
+young cockatrices. Not only was the stock of the India Company, the Bank
+of England, and other sound concerns, much increased in price by
+sympathy with this fury of speculation, but a great number of utterly
+ridiculous schemes and barefaced swindles were advertised and
+successfully imposed on the public. Any piece of paper purporting to be
+stock could be sold for money. Not the least thought of investigating
+the solvency of advertisers seems to have occurred to anybody. Nor was
+any rank free from the poison. Almost a hundred projects were before the
+public at once, some of them incredibly brazen humbugs. There were
+schemes for a wheel for perpetual motion--capital, $5,000,000; for
+trading in hair (for wigs), in those days "a big thing;" for furnishing
+funerals to any part of Britain; for "improving the art of making soap;"
+for importing walnut-trees from Virginia--capital, $10,000,000; for
+insuring against losses by servants--capital, $15,000,000; for making
+quicksilver malleable; "Puckle's Machine Company," for discharging
+cannon-balls and bullets, both round and square, and so on. One colossal
+genius in humbugging actually advertised in these words: "A company for
+carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what
+it is." The capital he called for was $2,500,000, in shares of $500
+each; deposit on subscribing, $10 per share. Each subscriber was
+promised $500 per share per annum, and full particulars were to be given
+in a month, when the rest of the subscription was to be paid. This great
+financier, having put forth his prospectus, opened his office in
+Cornhill next morning at nine o'clock. Crowds pressed upon him. At three
+P. M., John Bull had paid this immense humbug $10,000, being deposits
+on a thousand shares subscribed for. That night, the financier--a shrewd
+man!--modestly retired to an unknown place upon the Continent, and was
+never heard of again. Another humbug almost as preposterous, was that of
+the "Globe Permits." These were square pieces of playing-cards with a
+seal on them, having the picture of the Globe Tavern, and with the
+words, "Sailcloth Permits." What they "permitted" was a subscription at
+some future period to a sailcloth-factory, projected by a certain
+capitalist. These "permits" sold at one time for $300 each.
+
+But the more sensible members of Government soon exerted their influence
+against these lesser and more palpable humbugs. Some accounts say that
+the South Sea Company itself grew jealous, for it was reckoned that
+these "side-shows" called for a total amount of $1,500,000,000, and
+itself took legal means against them. At any rate, an "order in council"
+was published, peremptorily dismissing and dissolving them all.
+
+During August, it leaked out that Sir John Blunt and some other
+"insiders" had sold out their South Sea stock. There was also some
+charges of unfairness in managing subscriptions. After so long and so
+intense an excitement, the time for reaction and collapse was come. The
+price of stock began to fall in spite of all that the directors could
+do. September 2, it was down to 700.
+
+A general meeting of the company was held to try to whitewash matters,
+but in vain. The stock fell, fell, fell. The great humbug had received
+its death-blow. Thousands of families saw beggary staring them in the
+face, grasping them with its iron hand. The consternation was
+inexpressible. Out of it a great popular rage began to flame up, just as
+fires often break out among the prostrate houses of a city ruined by an
+earthquake. Efforts were meanwhile vainly made to stay the ruin by help
+from the Bank of England. Bankers and goldsmiths (then often doing a
+banking business) absconded daily. Business corporations failed. Credit
+was almost paralyzed. In the end of September, the stock fell to 175,
+150, 135.
+
+Meanwhile violent riots were feared. South Sea directors could not be
+seen in the streets without being insulted. The King, then in Hanover,
+was imperatively sent for home, and had to come. So extensive was the
+misfortune and the wrath of the people, so numerous the public meetings
+and petitions from all over the kingdom, that Parliament found it
+necessary to grant the public demand, and to initiate a formal inquiry
+into the whole enterprise. This was done; and the foolish, swindled,
+disappointed, angry nation, through this proceeding, vented all the
+wrath it could upon the persons and estates of the managers and officers
+of the South Sea Company. They were forbidden to leave the kingdom,
+their property was sequestrated, they were placed in custody and
+examined. Those of them in Parliament were insulted there to their
+faces, several of them expelled, the most violent charges made against
+them all. A secret investigating committee was set to rip up the whole
+affair. Knight, the treasurer, who possessed all the dangerous secrets
+of the concern, ran away to Calais and the Continent, and so escaped.
+
+The books were found to have been either destroyed, secreted, or
+mutilated and garbled. Stock bribes of $250,000, $150,000, $50,000 had
+been paid to the Earl of Sunderland, the Duchess of Kendal (the King's
+favorite,) Mr. Craggs (one of the Secretaries of State,) and others. Mr.
+Aislabie, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had accumulated $4,250,000
+and more out of the business. Many other noblemen, gentlemen, and
+reputable merchants were disgracefully involved.
+
+The trials that were had resulted in the imprisonment, expulsion or
+degradation of Aislabie, Craggs, Sir George Caswell (a banker and member
+of the House,) and others. Blunt, a Mr. Stanhope, and a number more of
+the chief criminals were stripped of their wealth, amounting to from
+$135,000 to $1,200,000 each, and the proceeds used for the partial
+relief of the ruined, except amounts left to the culprits to begin the
+world anew. Blunt, the chief of all the swindlers, was stripped of about
+$925,000, and allowed only $5,000. By this means and by the use of such
+actual property as the Company did possess, about one-third of the money
+lost by its means was ultimately paid to the losers. It was a long time,
+however, before the tone of public credit was thoroughly restored.
+
+The history of the South Sea bubble should always stand as a beacon to
+warn us that reckless speculation is the bane of commerce, and that the
+only sure method of gaining a fortune, and certainly of enjoying it, is
+to diligently prosecute some legitimate calling, which, like the quality
+of mercy, is "twice blessed." Every man's occupation should be
+beneficial to his fellow-man as well as profitable to himself. All else
+is vanity and folly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+BUSINESS HUMBUGS.--JOHN LAW.--THE MISSISSIPPI SCHEME.--JOHNNY CRAPAUD AS
+GREEDY AS JOHNNY BULL.
+
+
+In the "good old times," people were just as eager after money as they
+are now; and a great deal more vulgar, unscrupulous, and foolish in
+their endeavors to get it. During about two hundred years after the
+discovery of America, that continent was a constant source of great and
+little money humbugs. The Spaniards and Portuguese and French and
+English all insisted upon thinking that America was chiefly made of
+gold; perhaps believing, as the man said about Colorado, that the
+hardship of the place was, that you have to dig through three or four
+feet of solid silver before the gold could be reached. This curious
+delusion is shown by the fact that the early charters of lands in
+America so uniformly reserved to the King his proportion of all gold and
+silver that should be found. And if gold were not to be had, these lazy
+Europeans were equally crazy about the rich merchandise which they made
+sure of finding in the vast and solitary American mountains and forests.
+
+In a previous letter, I have shown how one of those delusions, about the
+unbounded wealth to be obtained from the countries on the South Sea,
+caused the English South Sea bubble.
+
+A similar belief, at the same time, in the neighboring country of
+France, formed the airy basis of a similar business humbug, even more
+gigantic, noxious, and destructive. This was John Law's Mississippi
+scheme, of which I shall give an account in this chapter. It was, I
+think, the greatest business humbug of history.
+
+Law was a Scotchman, shrewd and able, a really good financier for those
+days, but vicious, a gambler, unprincipled, and liable to wild schemes.
+He had possessed a good deal of property, had traveled and gambled all
+over Europe, was witty, entertaining, and capital company, and had
+become a favorite with the Duke of Orleans and other French nobles. When
+the Duke became Regent of France at the death of Louis XIV, in 1715,
+that country was horribly in debt, and its people in much misery, owing
+to the costly wars and flaying taxations of the late King. When,
+therefore, Law came to Paris with a promising scheme of finance in his
+hand, the Regent was particularly glad to see him, both as financier and
+as friend.
+
+The Regent quickly fell in with Law's plans; and in the spring of 1716,
+the first step--not, however, so intended at the time--toward the
+Mississippi Scheme was taken. This was, the establishment by royal
+authority of the banking firm of Law & Co., consisting of Law and his
+brother. This bank, by a judicious organization and issue of paper
+money, quickly began to help the distressed finances of the kingdom, and
+to invigorate trade and commerce. This success, which seems to have been
+an entirely sound and legitimate business success, made one sadly
+mistaken but very deep impression upon the ignorant and shallow mind of
+the Regent of France, which was the foundation of all the subsequent
+trouble. The Regent became firmly convinced, that if a certain quantity
+of bank bills could do so much good, a hundred thousand times as many
+bills would surely do a hundred thousand times as much. That is, he
+thought printing and issuing the bills was creating money. He paid no
+regard to the need of providing specie for them on demand, but thought
+he had an unlimited money factory in the city of Paris.
+
+So far, so good. Next, Law planned, and, with the ever ready consent of
+the Regent, effected, an enlargement of the business of his bank, based
+on that delusion I spoke of about America. This enlargement was the
+formation of the Mississippi Company, and this was the contrivance which
+swelled into so tremendous a humbug. The company was closely connected
+with the banks, and received (to begin with) the monopoly of all trade
+to the Mississippi River, and all the country west of it. It was
+expected to obtain vast quantities of gold and silver from that region,
+and thus to make immense dividends on its stock. At home, it was to have
+the sole charge of collecting all the taxes and coining all the money.
+Stock was issued to the amount of one hundred thousand shares, at $200
+(five hundred livres) each. And Law's help to the Government funds was
+continued by permitting this stock to be paid for in those funds, at
+their par value, though worth in market only about a third of it.
+Subscriptions came in rapidly--for the French community was far more
+ignorant about commercial affairs, finances, and the real resources of
+distant regions, than we can easily conceive of now-a-days; and not only
+the Regent, but every man, woman, and child in France, except a very few
+tough and hard-headed old skeptics, believed every word Law said, and
+would have believed him if he had told stories a hundred times as
+incredible.
+
+Well, pretty soon the Regent gave the associates--the bank and the
+company--two other monopolies: that of tobacco, always monstrously
+profitable, and that of refining gold and silver. Pretty soon, again, he
+created the bank a state institution, by the magnificent name of The
+Royal Bank of France. Having done this, the Regent could control the
+bank in spite of Law (or order either); for, in those days, the kings of
+France were almost perfectly despotic, and the Regent was acting king. I
+have mentioned the Regent's terrible delusion about paper-money. No
+sooner had he the bank in his power, than he added to the reasonable and
+useful total of $12,000,000 of notes already out, a monstrous issue of
+$200,000,000 worth in one vast batch, with the firm conviction that he
+was thus adding so much to the par currency of France.
+
+The Parliament of France, a body mostly of lawyers, originating in the
+Middle Ages, a steady, conservative, wise, and brave assembly, was
+always hostile to Law and his schemes. When this great expansion of
+paper-currency began, the Parliament made a resolute fight against it,
+petitioning, ordaining, threatening to hang Law, and frightening him
+well, too; for the thorough enmity of an assembly of old lawyers may
+well frighten anybody. At last, the Regent, by the use of the despotic
+power of which the Kings of France had so much, reduced these old
+fellows to silence by sticking a few of them in jail.
+
+The cross-grained Parliament thus disposed of, everything was quickly
+made to "look lovely." In the beginning of 1719, more grants were made
+to Law's associated concerns. The Mississippi Company was granted the
+monopoly of all trade to the East Indies, China, the South Seas, and all
+the territories of the French India Company, and of the Senegal Company.
+It took a new and imposing name: "The Company of the Indies." They had
+already, by the way, also obtained the monopoly of the Canada
+beaver-trade. Of this colossal corporation, monopolizing the whole
+foreign commerce of France with two-thirds or more of the world, its
+whole home finances, and other important interests besides, fifty
+thousand new shares were issued, as before, at $100 each. These might be
+bought as before, with Government securities at par. Law was so bold as
+to promise annual dividends of $20 per share, which, as the Government
+funds stood, was one hundred and twenty per cent. per annum.! Everybody
+believed him. More than three hundred thousand applications were made
+for the new shares. Law was besieged in his house by more than twice as
+many people as General Grant had to help him take Richmond. The Great
+Humbug was at last in full buzz. The street where the wonderful
+Scotchman lived was busy, filled, crowded, jammed, choked. Dangerous
+accidents happened in it every day, from the excessive pressure. From
+the princes of the blood down to cobblers and lackeys, all men and all
+women crowded and crowded to subscribe their money, and to pay their
+money, and to know how many shares they had gotten. Law moved to a
+roomier street, and the crazy mob crowded harder than ever; so that the
+Chancellor, who held his court of law hard by, could not hear his
+lawyers.
+
+A tremendous uproar surely, that could drown the voices of those
+gentlemen! And so he moved again, to the great Hotel de Soissons, a vast
+palace, with a garden of some acres. Fantastic circumstances variegated
+the wild rush of speculation. The haughtiest of the nobility rented mean
+rooms near Law's abode, to be able to get at him. Rents in his
+neighborhood rose to twelve and sixteen times their usual amount. A
+cobbler, whose lines had fallen in those pleasant places, made $40 a day
+by letting his stall and furnishing writing materials to speculators.
+Thieves and disreputable characters of all sorts flocked to this
+concourse. There were riots and quarrels all the time. They often had to
+send a troop of cavalry to clear the street at night. Gamblers posted
+themselves with their implements among the speculators, who gambled
+harder than the gamblers, and took an occasional turn at roulette by way
+of slackening the excitement; as people go to sleep, or go into the
+country. A hunchback fellow made a good deal of money by letting people
+write on his back. When Law had moved into the Hotel de Soissons, the
+former owner, the Prince de Carignan, reserved the gardens, procured an
+edict confining all stock-dealings to that place; put up five hundred
+tents there, leased them at five hundred livres a month each, and thus
+made money at the rate of $50,000 a month. There were just two of the
+aristocracy who were sensible and resolute enough not to speculate in
+the stock--the Duke de St. Simon and the old Marshal Villars.
+
+Law became infinitely the most important person in the kingdom. Great
+and small, male and female, high and low, haunted his offices and
+ante-chambers, hunted him down, plagued his very life out, to get a
+moment's speech with him, and get him to enter their names as buyers of
+stock. The highest nobles would wait half a day for the chance. His
+servants received great sums to announce some visitor's name. Ladies of
+the highest rank gave him anything he would ask of them for leave to buy
+stock. One of them made her coachmen upset her out of her carriage as
+Law came by, to get a word with him. He helped her up; she got the word,
+and bought some stock. Another lady ran into the house where he was at
+dinner, and raised a cry of fire. The rest ran out, but she ran further
+in to reach Law, who saw what she was at, and like a pecuniary Joseph,
+ran away as fast as he could.
+
+As the frenzy rose toward its height, and the Regent took advantage of
+it to issue stock enough to pay the whole national debt, namely, three
+hundred thousand new shares, at $1,000 each, or a thousand per cent. in
+the par value. They were instantly taken. Three times as many would have
+been instantly taken. So violent were the changes of the market, that
+shares rose or fell twenty per cent. within a few hours. A servant was
+sent to sell two hundred and fifty shares of stock; found on reaching
+the gardens of the Hotel de Soissons, that since he left his master's
+house the price had risen from $1,600 (par value $100 remember) to
+$2,000. The servant sold, gave his master the proceeds at $1,600 a
+share, put the remaining $100,000 in his own pocket, and left France
+that evening. Law's coachman became so rich that he left service, and
+set up his own coach; and when his master asked him to find a successor,
+he brought two candidates, and told Law to choose, and he would take the
+other himself. There were many absurd cases of vulgarians made rich.
+There were also many robberies and murders. That committed by the Count
+de Horn, one of the higher nobility and two accomplices, is a famous
+case. The Count, a dissipated rascal, poniarded a broker in a tavern for
+the money the broker carried with him. But he was taken, and, in spite
+of the utmost and most determined exertions of the nobility, the Regent
+had him broken on the wheel in public, like any other murderer.
+
+The stock of the Company of the Indies, though it dashed up and down ten
+and twenty per cent. from day to day, was from the first immensely
+inflated. In August 1719, it sold at 610 per cent.; in a few weeks more
+it arose to 1,200 per cent. All winter it still went up until, in April
+1720, it stood at 2,050 per cent. That is, one one-hundred dollar share
+would sell for two thousand and fifty dollars.
+
+At this extreme point of inflation, the bubble stood a little, shining
+splendidly as bubbles do when they are nearest bursting, and then it
+received two or three quiet pricks. The Prince de Conti, enraged because
+Law would not send him some shares on his own terms, sent three
+wagon-loads of bills to Law's bank, demanding specie. Law paid it, and
+complained to the Regent, who made him put two-thirds of it back again.
+A shrewd stock-gambler drew specie by small sums until he had about
+$200,000 in coin, and lest he should be forced to return it, he packed
+it in a cart, covered it with manure, put on a peasant's disguise, and
+carted his fortune over the frontiers into Belgium. Some others quietly
+realized their means in like manner by driblets and funded them abroad.
+
+By such means coin gradually grew very scarce, and signs of a panic
+appeared. The Regent tried to adjust matters by a decree that coin
+should be five per cent. less than paper; as much as to say, It is
+hereby enacted that there is a great deal more coin than there is!
+This did not serve, and the Regent decreed again, that coin should be
+worth ten per cent. less than paper. Then he decreed that the bank must
+not pay more than $22 at once in specie; and, finally, by a bold stretch
+of his authority, he issued an edict that no person should have over
+$100 in coin, on pain of fine and confiscation. These odious laws made a
+great deal of trouble, spying, and distress, and rapidly aggravated the
+difficulty they were meant to cure. The price of shares in the great
+company began to fall steadily and rapidly. Law and the Regent began to
+be universally hated, cursed, and threatened. Various foolish and vain
+attempts were made to stay the coming ruin, by renewing the stories
+about Louisiana sending out a lot of conscripted laborers, ordering that
+all payments must be made in paper, and printing a new batch of notes,
+to the amount of another $300,000,000. Law's two corporations were also
+doctored in several ways. The distress and fright grew worse. An edict
+was issued that Law's notes and shares should depreciate gradually by
+law for a year, and then be worth but half their face. This made such a
+tumult and outcry that the Regent had to retract it in seven days. On
+this seventh day, Law's bank stopped paying specie. Law was turned out
+of his public employments, but still well treated by the Regent in
+private. He was, however, mobbed and stoned in his coach in the street,
+had to have a company of Swiss Guards in his house, and at last had to
+flee to the Regent's own palace.
+
+I have not space to describe in detail the ruin, misery, tumults, loss
+and confusion which attended the speedy descent of Law's paper and
+shares to entire worthlessness. Thousands of families were made paupers,
+and trade and commerce destroyed by the painful process. Law himself
+escaped out of France poor; and, after another obscure and disreputable
+career of gambling, died in poverty at Venice, in 1729.
+
+Thus this enormous business-humbug first raised a whole nation into a
+fool's paradise of imaginary wealth, and then exploded, leaving its
+projector and many thousands of victims ruined, the country disturbed
+and distressed, long-enduring consequences, in vicious and lawless and
+unsteady habits, contracted while the delusion lasted, and no single
+benefit except one more most dearly-bought lesson of the wicked folly of
+mere speculation without a real business basis and a real business
+method. Let not this lesson be lost on the rampant and half-crazed
+speculators of the present day. Those who buy gold or flour, leather,
+butter, dry goods, groceries, hardware, or anything else on speculation,
+when prices are inflated far beyond the ordinary standard, are taking
+upon themselves great risks, for the bubble must eventually be pricked;
+and whoever is the "holder" when that time comes, must necessarily be
+the loser.
+
+
+
+
+V. MEDICINE AND QUACKS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+DOCTORS AND IMAGINATION.--FIRING A JOKE OUT OF A CANNON.--THE PARIS EYE
+WATER.--MAJENDIE ON MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE.--OLD SANDS OF LIFE.
+
+
+Medical humbugs constitute a very critical subject indeed, because I
+shall be almost certain to offend some of three parties concerned,
+namely; physicians, quacks, and patients. But it will never do to
+neglect so important a division of my whole theme as this.
+
+To begin with, it is necessary to suggest, in the most delicate manner
+in the world, that there is a small infusion of humbug among the very
+best of the regular practitioners. These gentlemen, for whose learning,
+kind-heartedness, self-devotion, and skill I entertain a profound
+respect, make use of what I may call the gaseous element of their
+practice, not for the lucre of gain, but in order to enlist the
+imaginations of their patients in aid of nature and great remedies.
+
+The stories are infinite in number, which illustrate the force of
+imagination, ranging through all the grades of mental action, from the
+lofty visions of good men who dream of seeing heaven opened to them, and
+all its ineffable glories and delights, down to the low comedy conceit
+of the fellow who put a smoked herring into the tail of his coat and
+imagined himself a mermaid.
+
+Probably, however, imagination displays its real power more wonderfully
+in the operations of the mind on the body that holds it, than anywhere
+else. It is true that there are some people even so utterly without
+imagination that they cannot take a joke; such as that grave man of
+Scotland who was at last plainly told by a funny friend quite out of
+patience, "Why, you wouldn't take a joke if it were fired at you out of
+a cannon!"
+
+"Sir," replied the Scot, with sound reasoning and grave thought, "Sir,
+you are absurd. You cannot fire a joke out of a cannon!"
+
+But to return: It is certainly the case that frequently "the doctor"
+takes great care not to let the patient know what is the matter, and
+even not to let him know what he is swallowing. This is because a good
+many people, if at a critical point of disease, may be made to turn
+toward health if made to believe that they are doing so, but would be
+frightened, in the literal sense of the words, to death, if told what a
+dangerous state they are in.
+
+One sort of regular practice humbug is rendered necessary by the demands
+of the patients. This is giving good big doses of something with a
+horrid smell and taste. There are plenty of people who don't believe the
+doctor does anything to earn his money, if he does not pour down some
+dirty brown or black stuff very nasty in flavor. Some, still more
+exacting, wish for that sort of testimony which depends on internal
+convulsions, and will not be satisfied unless they suffer torments and
+expel stuff enough to quiet the inside of Mount Vesuvius or
+Popocatepetl.
+
+"He's a good doctor," was the verdict of one of this class of
+leather-boweled fellows--"he'll work your innards for you!"
+
+It is a milder form of this same method to give what the learned faculty
+term a placebo. This is a thing in the outward form of medicine, but
+quite harmless in itself. Such is a bread-pill, for instance; or a
+draught of colored water, with a little disagreeable taste in it. These
+will often keep the patient's imagination headed in the right direction,
+while good old Dame Nature is quietly mending up the damages in "the
+soul's dark cottage."
+
+One might almost fancy that, in proportion as the physician is more
+skillful, by so much he gives less medicine, and relies more on
+imagination, nature, and, above all, regimen and nursing. Here is a
+story in point. There was an old gentleman in Paris, who sold a famous
+eye-water, and made much gain thereby. He died, however, one fine day,
+and unfortunately forgot to leave the recipe on record. "His
+disconsolate widow continued the business at the old stand," however--to
+quote another characteristic French anecdote--and being a woman of ready
+and decisive mind, she very quietly filled the vials with water from the
+river Seine, and lived respectably on the proceeds, finding, to her
+great relief, that the eye-water was just as good as ever. At last
+however, she found herself about to die, and under the stings of an
+accusing conscience she confessed her trick to her physician, an eminent
+member of the profession. "Be entirely easy, Madam," said the wise man;
+"don't be troubled at all. You are the most innocent physician in the
+world; you have done nobody any harm."
+
+It is an old and illiberal joke to compare medicine to war, on the
+ground that the votaries of both seek to destroy life. It is, however,
+not far from the truth to say that they are alike in this; that they are
+both preeminently liable to mistakes, and that in both he is most
+successful who makes the fewest.
+
+How can it be otherwise, until we know more than we do at present, of
+the great mysteries of life and death? It seems risky enough to permit
+the wisest and most experienced physician to touch those springs of life
+which God only understands. And it is enough to make the most stupid
+stare, to see how people will let the most disgusting quack jangle their
+very heartstrings with his poisonous messes, about as soon as if he were
+the best doctor in the world. A true physician, indeed, does not hasten
+to drug. The great French surgeon, Majendie, is even said to have
+commenced his official course of lectures on one occasion by coolly
+saying to his students: "Gentlemen, the curing of disease is a subject
+that physicians know nothing about." This was doubtless an extreme way
+of putting the case. Yet it was in a certain sense exactly true. There
+is one of the geysers in Iceland, into which visitors throw pebbles or
+turfs, with the invariable result of causing the disgusted geyser in a
+few minutes to vomit the dose out again, along with a great quantity of
+hot water, steam, and stuff. Now the doctor does know that some of his
+doses are pretty sure to work, as the traveler knows that his dose will
+work on the geyser. It is only the exact how and why that is not
+understood.
+
+But however mysterious is nature, however ignorant the doctor, however
+imperfect the present state of physical science, the patronage and the
+success of quacks and quackeries are infinitely more wonderful than
+those of honest and laborious men of science and their careful
+experiments.
+
+I have come about to the end of my tether for this time; and quackery is
+something too monstrous in dimensions as well as character to be dealt
+with in a paragraph. But I may with propriety put one quack at the tail
+of this letter; it is but just that he should let decent people go
+before him. I mean "Old Sands of Life." Everybody has seen his
+advertisement, beginning "A retired Physician whose sands of life have
+nearly run out," etc. And everybody--almost--knows how kind the fellow
+is in sending gratis his recipe. All that is necessary is (as you find
+out when you get the recipe) to buy at a high price from him one
+ingredient which (he says) you can get nowhere else. This swindling
+scamp is in fact a smart brisk fellow of about thirty-five years of age,
+notwithstanding the length of time during which--to use a funny phrase
+which somebody got up for him--he has been "afflicted with a loose
+tail-board to his mortal sand-cart." Some benevolent friend was so much
+distressed about the feebleness of "Old Sands of Life" as to send him
+one day a large parcel by express, marked "C. O. D.," and costing quite
+a figure. "Old Sands" paid, and opening the parcel, found half a bushel
+of excellent sand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE CONSUMPTIVE REMEDY.--E. ANDREWS, M. D.--BORN WITHOUT
+BIRTHRIGHTS.--HASHEESH CANDY.--ROBACK THE GREAT.--A CONJURER OPPOSED TO
+LYING.
+
+
+There is a fellow in Williamsburg who calls himself a clergyman, and
+sells a "consumptive remedy," by which I suppose he means a remedy for
+consumption. It is a mere slop corked in a vial; but there are a good
+many people who are silly enough to buy it of him. A certain gentleman,
+during last November, earnestly sought an interview with this reverend
+brother in the interests of humanity, but he was as inaccessible as a
+chipmunk in a stone fence. The gentleman wrote a polite note to the
+knave asking about prices, and received a printed circular in return,
+stating in an affecting manner the good man's grief at having to raise
+his price in consequence of the cost of gold "with which I am obliged to
+buy my medicines" saith he, "in Paris." This was both sad and
+unsatisfactory; and the gentleman went over to Williamsburg to seek an
+interview and find out all about the prices. He reached the abode of the
+man of piety, but, strange to relate, he wasn't at home.
+
+Gentleman waited.
+
+Reverend brother kept on not being at home. When gentleman had waited to
+his entire satisfaction he came back.
+
+It is understood it is practically out of the question to see the
+reverend brother. Perhaps he is so modest and shy that he will not
+encounter the clamorous gratitude which would obstruct his progress
+through the streets, from the millions saved by his consumptive remedy.
+It is a pity that the reverend man cannot enjoy the still more complete
+seclusion by which the state of New York testifies its appreciation of
+unobtrusive and retiring virtues like his, in the salubrious and quiet
+town of Sing Sing.
+
+A quack in an inland city, who calls himself E. Andrews, M. D., prints a
+"semi-occasional" document in the form of a periodical, of which a copy
+is lying before me. It is an awful hodgepodge of perfect nonsense and
+vulgar rascality. He calls it "The Good Samaritan and Domestic
+Physician," and this number is called "volume twenty." Only think what a
+great man we have among us--unless the Doctor himself is mistaken. He
+says: "I will here state that I have been favored by nature and
+Providence in gaining access to stores of information that has _fell_ to
+the lot of but very few persons heretofore, during the past history of
+mankind." Evidently these "stores" were so vast that the great doctor's
+brain was stuffed too full to have room left for English Grammar.
+Shortly, the Doctor thus bursts forth again with some views having their
+own merits, but not such as concern the healing art very directly: "The
+automaton powers of machinery"--there's a new style of machinery, you
+observe--"must be made to WORK FOR, _instead_ of _as now_, against
+mankind; the Land of _all nations_ must be made FREE to Actual Settlers
+in LIMITED quantities. No one must be born without _his birthright_
+being born with him." The italics, etc., are the Doctor's. What an awful
+thought is this of being born without any birthright, or, as the Doctor
+leaves us to suppose possible, having one's birthright born first, and
+dodging about the world like a stray canary-bird, while the unhappy and
+belated owner tries in vain to put salt on its tail and catch it!
+
+Well, this wiseacre, after his portentous introduction, fills the rest
+of his sixteen loosely printed double-columned octavo pages with a
+farrago of the most indescribable character, made up of brags, lies,
+promises, forged recommendations and letters, boasts of systematic
+charity, funny scraps of stuff in the form of little disquisitions,
+advertisements of remedies, hair-oils, cosmetics, liquors, groceries,
+thistle-killers, anti-bug mixtures, recipes for soap, ink, honey, and
+the Old Harry only knows what. The fellow gives a list of seventy-one
+specific diseases for which his Hasheesh Candy is a sure cure, and he
+adds that it is also a sure cure for all diseases of the liver, brain,
+throat, stomach, ear, and other internal disorders; also for "all long
+standing diseases"--whatever that means!--and for insanity! In this
+monstrous list are jumbled together the most incongruous troubles.
+"Bleeding at the nose, and abortions;" "worms, fits, poisons and
+cramps." And the impudent liar quotes General Grant, General Mitchell,
+the Rebel General Lee, General McClellan, and Doctor Mott of this city,
+all shouting in chorus the praises of the Hasheesh Candy! Next comes the
+"Secret of Beauty," a "preparation of Turkish Roses;" then a lot of
+forged references, and an assertion that the Doctor gives to the poor
+five thousand pounds of bread every winter; then some fearful
+denunciations of the regular doctors.
+
+But--as the auctioneers say--"I can't dwell." I will only add that the
+real villainy of this fellow only appears here and there, where he
+advertises the means of ruining innocence, or of indulging with impunity
+in the foulest vices. He will sell for $3.30, the "Mystic Weird Ring."
+In a chapter of infamous blatherumskite about this ring he says: "The
+wearer can drive from, or draw to him, any one, and for any purpose
+whatever." I need not explain what this scoundrel means. He also will
+sell the professed means of robbery and swindling; saying that he is
+prepared to show how to remove papers, wills, titles, notes, etc., from
+one place to another "by invisible means." It is a wonder that the Bank
+of Commerce can keep any securities in its vaults--of course!
+
+But enough of this degraded panderer to crime and folly. He is beneath
+notice, so far as he himself concerned; I devote the space to him,
+because it is well worth while to understand how base an imposture can
+draw a steady revenue from a nation boasting so much culture and
+intelligence as ours. It is also worth considering whether the
+authorities must not be remiss, who permit such odious deceptions to be
+constantly perpetrated upon the public.
+
+I ought here to give a paragraph to the great C. W. Roback, one of whose
+Astrological Almanacs is before me. This erudite production is
+embellished in front with a picture of the doctor and his six
+brothers--for he is the seventh son of a seventh son. The six elder
+brethren--nice enough boys--stand submissively around their gigantic and
+bearded junior, reaching only to his waist, and gazing up at him with
+reverence, as the sheaves of Joseph's brethren worshipped his sheaf in
+his dream. At the end is a picture of Magnus Roback, the grandfather of
+C. W., a bull-headed, ugly old Dutchman, with a globe and compasses.
+This picture, by the way, is in fact a cheap likeness of the old
+discoverers or geographers. Within the book we find Gustavus Roback, the
+father of C. W., for whom is used a cut of Jupiter--or some other
+heathen god--half-naked, a-straddle of an eagle, with a hook in one hand
+and a quadrant in the other; which is very much like the picture by one
+of the "Old Masters" of Abraham about to offer up Isaac, and taking a
+long aim at the poor boy with a flint-lock horse-pistol. Doctor Roback
+is good enough to tell us where his brothers are: "One, a high officer
+in the Empire of China, another a Catholic Bishop in the city of Rome,"
+and so on. There is also a cut of his sister, whom he cured of
+consumption. She is represented "talking to her bird, after the fashion
+of her country, when a maiden is unexpectedly rescued from the jaws of
+death!"
+
+Roback cures all sorts of diseases, discovers stolen property, insures
+children a marriage, and so on, all by means of "conjurations." He also
+casts nativities and foretells future events; and he shows in full how
+Bernadotte, Louis Philippe, and Napoleon Bonaparte either did well or
+would have done well by following his advice. The chief peculiarity of
+this impostor is, that he really avoids direct pandering to vice and
+crime, and even makes it a specialty to cure drunkenness and--of all
+things in the world--lying! On this point Roback gives in full the
+certificate of Mrs. Abigail Morgan, whose daughter Amanda "was sorely
+given to fibbing, in so much that she would rather lie than speak the
+truth." And the delighted mother certifies that our friend and wizard
+"so changed the nature of the girl that, to the best of our knowledge
+and belief, she has never spoken anything but the truth since."
+
+There is a conjurer "as is a conjurer."
+
+What an uproar the incantation of the great Roback would make, if set
+fairly to work among the politicians, for instance! But after all, on
+second thoughts, what a horrible mass of abominations would they lay
+bare in telling the truth about each other all round! No, no--it won't
+do to have the truth coming out, in politics at any rate! Away with
+Roback! I will not give him another word--not a single chance--not even
+to explain his great power over what he calls "Fits! Fits! Fits! Fits!
+Fits!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+MONSIGNORE CRISTOFORO RISCHIO; OR, IL CRESO, THE NOSTRUM-VENDER OF
+FLORENCE.--A MODEL FOR OUR QUACK DOCTORS.
+
+
+Every visitor to Florence during the last twenty years must have noticed
+on the grand piazza before the Ducal Palace, the strange genius known
+as Monsignore Creso, or, in plain English, Mr. Croesus. He is so called
+because of his reputed great wealth; but his real name is Christoforo
+Rischio, which I may again translate, as Christopher Risk. Mrs. Browning
+refers to him in one of her poems--the "Casa Guidi Windows," I
+think--and he has also been the staple of a tale by one of the Trollope
+brothers.
+
+Twice every week, he comes into the city in a strange vehicle, drawn by
+two fine Lombardy ponies, and unharnesses them in the very centre of the
+square. His assistant, a capital vocalist, begins to sing immediately,
+and a crowd soon collects around the wagon. Then Monsignore takes from
+the box beneath his seat a splendidly jointed human skeleton, which he
+suspends from a tall rod and hook, and also a number of human skulls.
+The latter are carefully arranged on an adjustable shelf, and Creso
+takes his place behind them, while in his rear a perfect chemist's shop
+of flasks, bottles, and pillboxes is disclosed. Very soon his singer
+ceases, and in the purest Tuscan dialect--the very utterance of which is
+music--the Florentine quack-doctor proceeds to address the assemblage.
+Not being conversant with the Italian, I am only able to give the
+substance of his harangue, and pronounce indifferently upon the merit of
+his elocution. I am assured, however, that not only the common people,
+who are his chief patrons, but numbers of the most intelligent citizens,
+are always entertained by what he has to say; and certainly his gestures
+and style of expressions seem to betray great excellence of oratory.
+Having turned the skeleton round and round on its pivot, and minutely
+explained the various anatomical parts, in order to show his proficiency
+in the basis of medical science, he next lifts the skulls, one by one,
+and descants upon their relative perfection, throwing in a shrewd
+anecdote now and then, as to the life of the original owner of each
+cranium.
+
+One skull, for example, he asserts to have belonged to a lunatic, who
+wandered for half a lifetime in the Val d'Ema, subsisting precariously
+upon entirely vegetable food--roots, herbs, and the like; another is the
+superior part of a convict, hung in Arezzo for numerous offences; a
+third is that of a very old man who lived a celibate from his youth up,
+and by his abstinence and goodness exercised an almost priestly
+influence upon the borghesa. When, by this miscellaneous lecture, he has
+both amused and edified his hearers, he ingeniously turns the discourse
+upon his own life, and finally introduces the subject of the marvellous
+cures he has effected. The story of his medical preparations alone,
+their components and method of distillation, is a fine piece of
+popularized art, and he gives a practical exemplification of his skill
+and their virtues by calling from the crowd successively, a number of
+invalid people, whom he examines and prescribes for on the spot. Whether
+these subjects are provided by himself or not, I am unable to decide;
+but it is very possible that by long experience, Christoforo--who has no
+regular diploma--has mastered the simpler elements of Materia Medica,
+and does in reality effect cures. I class him among what are popularly
+known as humbugs, however, for he is a pretender to more wisdom than he
+possesses. It was to me a strange and suggestive scene--the bald,
+beak-nosed, coal-eyed charlatan, standing in the market-place, so
+celebrated in history, peering through his gold spectacles at the
+upturned faces below him, while the bony skeleton at his side swayed in
+the wind, and the grinning skulls below, made grotesque faces, as if
+laughing at the gullibility of the people. Behind him loomed up the
+massive Palazzo Vecchio, with its high tower, sharply cut, and set with
+deep machicolations; to the left, the splendid Loggia of Orgagna, filled
+with rare marbles, and the long picture-gallery of the Uffizi, heaped
+with the rarest art-treasures of the world; to his right, the Giant
+Fountain of Ammanato, throwing jets of pure water--one drop of which
+outvalues all the nostrums in the world; and in front, the Post Office,
+built centuries before, by Pisan captives. If any of these things moved
+the imperturbable Creso, he showed no feeling of the sort; but for three
+long hours, two days in the week, held his hideous clinic in the open
+daylight.
+
+Seeing the man so often, and interested always in his manner--as much
+so, indeed, as the peasants or contadini, who bought his vials and
+pillboxes without stint--I became interested to know the main features
+of his life; and, by the aid of a friend, got some clues which I think
+reliable enough to publish. I do so the more willingly, because his
+career is illustrative, after an odd fashion, of contemporary Italian
+life.
+
+He was the son of a small farmer, not far from Sienna, and grew up in
+daily contact with vine-dressers and olive-gatherers, living upon the
+hard Tuscan fare of macaroni and maroon-nuts, with a cutlet of lean
+mutton once a day, and a pint of sour Tuscan wine. Being tolerably well
+educated for a peasant-boy, he imbibed a desire for the profession of an
+actor, and studied Alfieri closely.
+
+Some little notoriety that he gained by recitations led him, in an evil
+hour, to venture an appearance _en grand role_, in Florence, at a
+third-rate theatre. His father had meanwhile deceased and left him the
+property; but to make the debut referred to, he sold almost his entire
+inheritance. As may be supposed, his failure was signal. However easy he
+had found it to amuse the rough, untutored peasantry of his
+neighborhood, the test of a large and polished city was beyond his
+merit.
+
+So, poor and abashed, he sank to the lower walks of dramatic art,
+singing in choruses at the opera, playing minor parts in show-pieces,
+and all the while feeling the sting of disappointed ambition and
+half-deserved penury.
+
+One day found him, at the beginning of winter, without work, and without
+a soldo in his pocket. Passing a druggist's shop, he saw a placard
+asking for men to sell a certain new preparation. The druggist advanced
+him a small sum for travelling expenses, and he took to peripatetic
+lectures at once, going into the country and haranguing at all the
+villages.
+
+Here he found his dramatic education available. Though not good enough
+for an actor, he was sufficiently clever for a nomadic eulogizer of a
+patent-medicine. His vocal abilities were also of service to him in
+gathering the people together. The great secret of success in anything
+is to get a hearing. Half the object is gained when the audience is
+assembled.
+
+Well! poor, vagabond, peddling Christopher Risk, selling so much for
+another party, conceived the idea of becoming his own capitalist. He
+resolved to prepare a medicine of his own; and, profiting by the
+assistance of a young medical student, obtained bona fide prescriptions
+for the commonest maladies. These he had made up in gross, originated
+labels for them, and concealing the real essences thereof by certain
+harmless adulterations, began to advertise himself as the discoverer of
+a panacea.
+
+To gain no ill-will among the priests, whose influence is paramount with
+the peasantry, he dexterously threw in a reverent word for them in his
+nomadic harangues, and now and then made a sounding present to the
+Church.
+
+He profited also by the superstitions abroad, and to the skill of
+Hippocrates added the roguery of Simon Magus. By report, he was both a
+magician and physician, and a knack that he had of slight-of-hand was
+not the least influential of his virtues.
+
+His bodily prowess was as great as his suppleness. One day, at Fiesole,
+a foreign doctor presumed to challenge Monsignore to a debate, and the
+offer was accepted. While the two stood together in Cristoforo's wagon,
+and the intruder was haranguing the people, the quack, without a
+movement of his face or a twitch of his body, jerked his foot against
+his rival's leg and threw him to the ground. He had the effrontery to
+proclaim the feat as magnetic entirely, accomplished without bodily
+means, and by virtue of his black-art acquirements.
+
+An awe fell upon the listeners, and they refused to hear the checkmated
+disputant further.
+
+As soon as Cristoforo began to thrive, he indulged his dramatic taste by
+purchasing a superb wagon, team, and equipments, and hired a servant.
+Such a turnout had never been seen in Tuscany since the Medician days.
+It gained for him the name of Creso straightway, and, enabling him to
+travel more rapidly, enlarged his business sphere, and so vastly
+increased his profits.
+
+He arranged regular days and hours for each place in Tuscany, and soon
+became as widely known as the Grand Duke himself. When it was known that
+he had bought an old castle at Pontassieve on the banks of the Arno, his
+reputation still further increased. He was now so prosperous that he set
+the faculty at defiance. He proclaimed that they were jealous of his
+profounder learning, and threatened to expose the banefulness of their
+systems.
+
+At the same time, his talk to the common people began to savor of
+patronage, and this also enhanced his reputation. It is much better, as
+a rule, to call attention up to you rather than charity down to you. The
+shrewd impostor became also more absolute now. It was known that the
+Grand Duke had once asked him to dine, and that Monsignore had the
+hardihood to refuse. Indeed, he sympathized too greatly with the aroused
+Italian spirit of unity and progress to compromise himself with the
+house of Austria. When at last the revolution came, Cristoforo was one
+of its best champions in Tuscany. His cantante sang only the march of
+Garibaldi and the victories of Savoy. His own speeches teemed with the
+gospel of Italy regenerated; and for a whole month he wasted no time in
+the sale of his bottighias and pillolas, but threw all his vehement,
+persuasive, and dramatic eloquence into the popular cause.
+
+The end we know. Tuscany is a dukedom no longer, but a component part of
+a great peninsular kingdom with "Florence the Beautiful" for its
+capital.
+
+And still before the ducal palace, where the deputies of Italy are to
+assemble, poor, vain Cristoforo Rischio makes his harangue every Tuesday
+and Saturday. He is now--or was four years ago--upward of sixty years of
+age, but spirited and athletic as ever, and so rich that it would be
+superfluous for him to continue his peripatetic career.
+
+His life is to me noteworthy, as showing what may be gained by
+concentrating even humble energies upon a paltry thing. Had Creso
+persevered as well upon the stage, I do not doubt that he would have
+made a splendid actor. If he did so well with a mere nostrum, why should
+he not have gained riches and a less grotesque fame by the sale of a
+better article? He understood human nature, its credulities and
+incredulities, its superstitions, tastes, changefulness, and love of
+display and excitement. He has done no harm, and given as much amusement
+as he has been paid for. Indeed, I consider him more an ornamental and
+useful character than otherwise. He has brightened many a traveler's
+recollections, relieved the tedium of many a weary hour in a foreign
+city, and, with all his deception, has never severed himself from the
+popular faith, nor sold out the popular cause. I dare say his death,
+when it occurs, will cause more sensation and evoke more tears, than
+that of any better physician in Tuscany.
+
+
+
+
+VI. HOAXES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE TWENTY-SEVENTH STREET GHOST.--SPIRITS ON THE RAMPAGE.
+
+
+In classing the ghost excitement that agitated our good people to such
+an extent some two years ago among the "humbugs" of the age, I must, at
+the outset, remind my readers that there was no little accumulation of
+what is termed "respectable" testimony, as to the reality of his
+ghostship in Twenty-seventh street.
+
+One fine Sunday morning, in the early part of 1863, my friends of the
+"Sunday Mercury" astonished their many thousands of patrons with an
+account that had been brought to them of a fearful spectre that had made
+its appearance in one of the best houses in Twenty-seventh Street. The
+narrative was detailed with circumstantial accuracy, and yet with an
+apparent discreet reserve, that gave the finishing touch of delightful
+mystery to the story.
+
+The circumstances, as set forth in the opening letter (for many others
+followed) were briefly these:--A highly respectable family residing on
+Twenty-seventh Street, one of our handsome up-town thoroughfares, became
+aware, toward the close of the year 1862, that something extraordinary
+was taking place in their house, then one of the best in the
+neighborhood. Sundry mutterings and whisperings began to be heard among
+the servants employed about the domicile, and, after a little while it
+became almost impossible to induce them to remain there for love or
+money. The visitors of the family soon began to notice that their calls,
+which formerly were so welcome, particularly among the young people of
+the establishment, seemed to give embarrassment, and that the smiles
+that greeted them, as early as seven in the evening gradually gave place
+to uneasy gestures, and, finally to positive hints at the lateness of
+the hour, or the fatigue of their host by nine o'clock.
+
+The head of the family was a plain, matter-of-fact old gentleman, by no
+means likely to give way to any superstitious terrors--one of your
+hard-headed business men who pooh-poohed demons, hobgoblins, and all
+other kinds of spirits, except the purest Santa Cruz and genuine old
+Otard; and he fell into a great rage, when upon his repeated gruff
+demands for an explanation, he was delicately informed that his parlor
+was "haunted." He vowed that somebody wanted to drive him from the
+house; that there was a conspiracy afoot among the women to get him
+still higher up town, and into a bigger brown-stone front, and refused
+to believe one word of the ghost-story. At length, one day, while
+sitting in his "growlery," as the ladies called it, in the lower story,
+his attention was aroused by a clatter on the stairs, and looking out
+into the entry he saw a party of carpenters and painters who had been
+employed upon the parlor-floor, beating a precipitate retreat toward the
+front door.
+
+"Stop!--stop! you infernal fools! What's all this hullabaloo about?"
+shouted the old gentleman.
+
+No reply--no halt upon the part of the mechanics, but away they went
+down the steps and along the street, as though Satan himself, or Moseby
+the guerrilla, was at their heels. They were pursued and ordered back,
+but absolutely refused to come, swearing that they had seen the Evil
+One, in _propria persona_; and threats, persuasions, and bribes alike
+proved vain to induce them to return. This made the matter look serious,
+and a family-council was held forthwith. It wouldn't do to let matters
+go on in this way, and something must be thought of as a remedy. It was
+in this half-solemn and half-tragic conclave that the pater-familias was
+at last put in possession of the mysterious occurrences that had been
+disturbing the peace of his domestic hearth.
+
+A ghost had been repeatedly seen in his best drawing-room!--a genuine,
+undeniable, unmitigated ghost!
+
+The spectre was described by the female members of the family as making
+his appearance at all hours, chiefly, however in the evening, of course.
+Now the good old orthodox idea of a ghost is, of a very long,
+cadaverous, ghastly personage, of either sex, appearing in white
+draperies, with uplifted finger, and attended or preceded by sepulchral
+sounds--whist! hush! and sometimes the rattling of casements and the
+jingling of chains. A bluish glare and a strong smell of brimstone
+seldom failed to enhance the horror of the scene. This ghost, however,
+came it seems, in more ordinary guise, but none the less terrible for
+his natural style of approach and costume. He was usually seen in the
+front parlor, which was on the second story and faced the street. There
+he would be found seated in a chair near the fire place, his attire the
+garb of a carman or "carter" and hence the name "Carter's Ghost"
+afterward frequently applied to him. There he would sit entirely unmoved
+by the approach of living denizens of the house, who, at first, would
+suppose that he was some drunken or insane intruder, and only discover
+their mistake as they drew near, and saw the fire-light shining through
+him, and notice the glare of his frightful eyes, which threatened all
+comers in a most unearthly way. Such was the purport of the first sketch
+that appeared in the "Sunday Mercury," stated so distinctly and
+impressively that the effect could not fail to be tremendous among our
+sensational public. To help the matter, another brief notice, to the
+same effect, appeared in the Sunday issue of a leading journal on the
+same morning. The news dealers and street-carriers caught up the novelty
+instanter, and before noon not a copy of the "Sunday Mercury" could be
+bought in any direction. The country issue of the "Sunday Mercury" had
+still a larger sale.
+
+On Sunday morning, every sheet in town made some allusion to the Ghost,
+and many even went so far as to give the very (supposed) number of the
+house favored with his visitations. The result of this enterprising
+guess was ludicrous enough, bordering a little, too, upon the serious.
+Indignant house-holders rushed down to the "Sunday Mercury" office with
+the most amusing wrath, threatening and denouncing the astonished
+publishers with all sorts of legal action for their presumed trespass,
+when in reality, their paper had designated no place or person at all.
+But the grandest demonstration of popular excitement was revealed in
+Twenty-seventh street itself. Before noon a considerable portion of the
+thoroughfare below Sixth Avenue was blocked up with a dense mass of
+people of all ages, sizes, sexes, and nationalities, who had come "to
+see the Ghost." A liquor store or two, near by, drove a splendid
+"spiritual" business; and by evening "the fun" grew so "fast and
+furious" that a whole squad of police had to be employed to keep the
+side-walks and even the carriage-way clear. The "Ghost" was shouted for
+to make a speech, like any other new celebrity, and old ladies and
+gentlemen peering out of upper-story windows were saluted with playful
+tokens of regard, such as turnips, eggs of ancient date, and other
+things too numerous to mention, from the crowd. Nor was the throng
+composed entirely of Gothamites. The surrounding country sent in its
+contingent. They came on foot, on horseback, in wagons, and arrayed in
+all the costumes known about these parts, since the days of Rip Van
+Winkle. Cruikshanks would have made a fortune from his easy sketches of
+only a few figures in the scene. And thus the concourse continued for
+days together, arriving at early morn and staying there in the street
+until "dewy eve."
+
+As a matter of course, there were various explanations of the story
+propounded by various people--all wondrously wise in their own conceit.
+Some would have it that "the Ghost" was got up by some of the neighbors,
+who wished, in this manner, to drive away disreputable occupants; others
+insisted that it was the revenge of an ousted tenant, etc., etc.
+Everybody offered his own theory, and, as is usual, in such cases,
+nobody was exactly right.
+
+Meanwhile, the "Sunday Mercury" continued its publications of the
+further progress of the "mystery," from week to week, for a space of
+nearly two months, until the whole country seemed to have gone
+ghost-mad. Apparitions and goblins dire were seen in Washington,
+Rochester, Albany, Montreal, and other cities.
+
+The spiritualists took it up and began to discuss "the Carter Ghost"
+with the utmost zeal. One startling individual--a physician and a
+philosopher--emerged from his professional shell into full-fledged
+glory, as the greatest canard of all, and published revelations of his
+own intermediate intercourse with the terrific "Carter." In every nook
+and corner of the land, tremendous posters, in white and yellow, broke
+out upon the walls and windows of news-depots, with capitals a foot
+long, and exclamation-points like drumsticks, announcing fresh
+installments of the "Ghost" story, and it was a regular fight between
+go-ahead vendors who should get the next batch of horrors in advance of
+his rivals.
+
+Nor was the effect abroad the least feature of this stupendous "sell."
+The English, French, and German press translated some of the articles in
+epitome, and wrote grave commentaries thereon. The stage soon caught the
+blaze; and Professor Pepper, at the Royal Polytechnic Institute, in
+London, invented a most ingenious device for producing ghosts which
+should walk about upon the stage in such a perfectly-astounding manner
+as to throw poor Hamlet's father and the evil genius of Brutus quite
+into the "shade." "Pepper's Ghost" soon crossed the Atlantic, and all
+our theatres were speedily alive with nocturnal apparitions. The only
+real ghosts, however--four in number--came out at the Museum, in an
+appropriate drama, which had an immense run--"all for twenty-five
+cents," or only six and a quarter cents per ghost!
+
+But I must not forget to say that, really, the details given in the
+"Sunday Mercury" were well calculated to lead captive a large class of
+minds prone to luxuriate in the marvelous when well mixed with plausible
+reasoning. The most circumstantial accounts were given of sundry "gifted
+young ladies," "grave and learned professors," "reliable
+gentlemen"--where are those not found?--"lonely watchers," and others,
+who had sought interviews with the "ghost," to their own great
+enlightenment, indeed, but, likewise, complete discomfiture. Pistols
+were fired at him, pianos played and songs sung for him, and, finally,
+his daguerreotype taken on prepared metallic plates set upright in the
+haunted room. One shrewd artist brought out an "exact photographic
+likeness" of the distinguished stranger on cartes de visite, and made
+immense sales. The apparitions, too, multiplied. An old man, a woman,
+and a child made their appearance in the house of wonders, and, at last,
+a gory head with distended eyeballs, swimming in a sea of blood, upon a
+platter--like that of Holofernes--capped the climax.
+
+Certain wiseacres here began to see political allusions in the Ghost,
+and many actually took the whole affair to be a cunningly devised
+political satire upon this or that party, according as their sympathies
+swayed them.
+
+It would have been a remarkable portion of "this strange, eventful
+history," of course, if "Barnum" could have escaped the accusation of
+being its progenitor.
+
+I was continually beset, and frequently, when more than usually busy,
+thoroughly annoyed by the innuendoes of my visitors, that I was the
+father of "the Ghost."
+
+"Come, now, Mr. Barnum--this is going a little too far!" some good old
+dame or grandfather would say to me. "You oughtn't to scare people in
+this way. These ghosts are ugly customers!"
+
+"My dear Sir," or "Madam," I would say, as the case might be, "I do
+assure you I know nothing whatever about the Ghost"--and as for
+"spirits," you know I never touch them, and have been preaching against
+them nearly all my life."
+
+"Well! well! you will have the last turn," they'd retort, as they edged
+away; "but you needn't tell us. We guess we've found the ghost."
+
+Now, all I can add about this strange hallucination is, that those who
+came to me to see the original "Carter," really saw the "Elephant."
+
+The wonderful apparition disappeared, at length, as suddenly as he had
+come. The "Bull's-Eye Brigade," as the squad of police put on duty to
+watch the neighborhood, for various reasons, was termed, hung to their
+work, and flashed the light of their lanterns into the faces of lonely
+couples, for some time afterward; but quiet, at length, settled down
+over all: and it has been it seems, reserved for my pen to record
+briefly the history of "The Twenty-seventh street Ghost."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE MOON-HOAX.
+
+
+The most stupendous scientific imposition upon the public that the
+generation with which we are numbered has known, was the so-called
+"Moon-Hoax," published in the columns of the "New York Sun," in the
+months of August and September, 1835. The sensation created by this
+immense imposture, not only throughout the United States, but in every
+part of the civilized world, and the consummate ability with which it
+was written, will render it interesting so long as our language shall
+endure; and, indeed, astronomical science has actually been indebted to
+it for many most valuable hints--a circumstance that gives the
+production a still higher claim to immortality.
+
+At the period when the wonderful "yarn" to which I allude first
+appeared, the science of astronomy was engaging particular attention,
+and all works on the subject were eagerly bought up and studied by
+immense masses of people. The real discoveries of the younger Herschel,
+whose fame seemed destined to eclipse that of the elder sage of the same
+name, and the eloquent startling works of Dr. Dick, which the Harpers
+were republishing, in popular form, from the English edition, did much
+to increase and keep up this peculiar mania of the time, until the whole
+community at last were literally occupied with but little else than
+"star-gazing." Dick's works on "The Sidereal Heavens," "Celestial
+Scenery," "The improvement of Society," etc., were read with the utmost
+avidity by rich and poor, old and young, in season and out of season.
+They were quoted in the parlor, at the table, on the promenade, at
+church, and even in the bedroom, until it absolutely seemed as though
+the whole community had "Dick" upon the brain. To the highly educated
+and imaginative portion of our good Gothamite population, the Doctor's
+glowing periods, full of the grandest speculations as to the starry
+worlds around us, their wondrous magnificence and ever-varying aspects
+of beauty and happiness were inexpressibly fascinating. The author's
+well-reasoned conjectures as to the majesty and beauty of their
+landscapes, the fertility and diversity of their soil, and the exalted
+intelligence and comeliness of their inhabitants, found hosts of
+believers; and nothing else formed the staple of conversation, until the
+beaux and belles, and dealers in small talk generally, began to grumble,
+and openly express their wishes that the Dickens had Doctor Dick and all
+his works.
+
+It was at the very height of the furor above mentioned, that one morning
+the readers of the "Sun"--at that time only twenty-five hundred in
+number--were thrilled with the announcement in its columns of certain
+"Great Astronomical Discoveries Lately Made by Sir John Herschel, LL.D.,
+F.R.S. etc., at the Cape of Good Hope," purporting to be a republication
+from a Supplement to the Edinburgh Journal of Science. The heading of
+the article was striking enough, yet was far from conveying any adequate
+idea of its contents. When the latter became known, the excitement went
+beyond all bounds, and grew until the "Sun" office was positively
+besieged with crowds of people of the very first class, vehemently
+applying for copies of the issue containing the wonderful details.
+
+As the pamphlet form in which the narrative was subsequently published
+is now out of print, and a copy can hardly be had in the country, I will
+recall a few passages from a rare edition, for the gratification of my
+friends who have never seen the original. Indeed, the whole story is
+altogether too good to be lost; and it is a great pity that we can not
+have a handsome reprint of it given to the world from time to time. It
+is constantly in demand; and, during the year 1859, a single copy of
+sixty pages, sold at the auction of Mr. Haswell's library, brought the
+sum of $3,75. In that same year, a correspondent, in Wisconsin, writing
+to the "Sunday Times" of this city, inquired where the book could be
+procured, and was answered that he could find it at the old bookstore,
+No. 85 Centre Street, if anywhere. Thus, after a search of many weeks,
+the Western bibliopole succeeded in obtaining a well-thumbed specimen of
+the precious work. Acting upon this chance suggestion, Mr. William
+Gowans, of this city, during the same year, brought out a very neat
+edition, in paper covers, illustrated with a view of the moon, as seen
+through Lord Rosse's grand telescope, in 1856. But this, too, has all
+been sold; and the most indefatigable book-collector might find it
+difficult to purchase a single copy at the present time. I, therefore,
+render the inquiring reader no slight service in culling for him some
+of the flowers from this curious astronomical garden.
+
+The opening of the narrative was in the highest Review style; and the
+majestic, yet subdued, dignity of its periods, at once claimed
+respectful attention; while its perfect candor, and its wealth of
+accurate scientific detail exacted the homage of belief from all but
+cross-grained and inexorable skeptics.
+
+It commences thus:
+
+     "In this unusual addition to our Journal, we have the happiness to
+     make known to the British public, and thence to the whole civilized
+     world, recent discoveries in Astronomy, which will build an
+     imperishable monument to the age in which we live, and confer upon
+     the present generation of the human race a proud distinction
+     through all future time. It has been poetically said, that the
+     stars of heaven are the hereditary regalia of man, as the
+     intellectual sovereign of the animal creation. He may now fold the
+     Zodiac around him with a loftier consciousness of his mental
+     superiority," etc., etc.
+
+The writer then eloquently descanted upon the sublime achievement by
+which man pierced the bounds that hemmed him in, and with sensations of
+awe approached the revelations of his own genius in the far-off heavens,
+and with intense dramatic effect described the younger Herschel
+surpassing all that his father had ever attained; and by some stupendous
+apparatus about to unvail the remotest mysteries of the sidereal space,
+pausing for many hours ere the excess of his emotions would allow him to
+lift the vail from his own overwhelming success.
+
+I must quote a line or two of this passage, for it capped the climax of
+public curiosity:
+
+     "Well might he pause! He was about to become the sole depository of
+     wondrous secrets which had been hid from the eyes of all men that
+     had lived since the birth of time. He was about to crown himself
+     with a diadem of knowledge which would give him a conscious
+     preeminence above every individual of his species who then lived or
+     who had lived in the generations that are passed away. He paused
+     ere he broke the seal of the casket that contained it."
+
+Was not this introduction enough to stimulate the wonder bump of all the
+star-gazers, until
+
+  "Each particular hair did stand on end,
+  Like quills upon the fretful porcupine?"
+
+At all events, such was the effect, and it was impossible at first to
+supply the frantic demand, even of the city, not to mention the country
+readers.
+
+I may very briefly sum up the outline of the discoveries alleged to have
+been made, in a few paragraphs, so as not to protract the suspense of my
+readers too long.
+
+It was claimed that the "Edinburgh Journal" was indebted for its
+information to Doctor Andrew Grant--a savant of celebrity, who had, for
+very many years, been the scientific companion, first of the elder and
+subsequently of the younger Herschel, and had gone with the latter in
+September, 1834, to the Cape of Good Hope, whither he had been sent by
+the British Government, acting in conjunction with the Governments of
+France and Austria, to observe the transit of Mercury over the disc of
+the sun--an astronomical point of great importance to the lunar
+observations of longitude, and consequently to the navigation of the
+world. This transit was not calculated to occur before the 7th of
+November, 1835 (the year in which the hoax was printed;) but Sir John
+Herschel set out nearly a year in advance, for the purpose of thoroughly
+testing a new and stupendous telescope devised by himself under this
+peculiar inspiration, and infinitely surpassing anything of the kind
+ever before attempted by mortal man. It has been discovered by previous
+astronomers and among others, by Herschel's illustrious father, that the
+sidereal object becomes dim in proportion as it is magnified, and that,
+beyond a certain limit, the magnifying power is consequently rendered
+almost useless. Thus, an impassable barrier seemed to lie in the way of
+future close observation, unless some means could be devised to
+illuminate the object to the eye. By intense research and the
+application of all recent improvements in optics, Sir John had succeeded
+in securing a beautiful and perfectly lighted image of the moon with a
+magnifying power that increased its apparent size in the heavens six
+thousand times. Dividing the distance of the moon from the earth, viz.:
+240,000 miles, by six thousand, we we have forty miles as the distance
+at which she would then seem to be seen; and as the elder Herschel, with
+a magnifying power, only one thousand, had calculated that he could
+distinguish an object on the moon's surface not more than 122 yards in
+diameter, it was clear that his son, with six times the power, could see
+an object there only twenty-two yards in diameter. But, for any further
+advance in power and light, the way seemed insuperably closed until a
+profound conversation with the great savant and optician, Sir David
+Brewster, led Herschel to suggest to the latter the idea of the
+readoption of the old fashioned telescopes, without tubes, which threw
+their images upon reflectors in a dark apartment, and then the
+illumination of these images by the intense hydro-oxygen light used in
+the ordinary illuminated microscope. At this suggestion, Brewster is
+represented by the veracious chronicler as leaping with enthusiasm from
+his chair, exclaiming in rapture to Herschel:
+
+"Thou art the man!"
+
+The suggestion, thus happily approved, was immediately acted upon, and a
+subscription, headed by that liberal patron of science, the Duke of
+Sussex, with L10,000, was backed by the reigning King of England with
+his royal word for any sum that might be needed to make up L70,000, the
+amount required. No time was lost; and, after one or two failures, in
+January 1833, the house of Hartley & Grant, at Dumbarton, succeeded in
+casting the huge object-glass of the new apparatus, measuring
+twenty-four feet (or six times that of the elder Herschel's glass) in
+diameter; weighing 14,826 pounds, or nearly seven tons, after being
+polished, and possessing a magnifying power of 42,000 times!--a
+perfectly pure, spotless, achromatic lens, without a material bubble or
+flaw!
+
+Of course, after so elaborate a description of so astounding a result as
+this, the "Edinburg Scientific Journal" (_i. e._, the writer in the "New
+York Sun") could not avoid being equally precise in reference to
+subsequent details, and he proceeded to explain that Sir John Herschel
+and his amazing apparatus having been selected by the Board of Longitude
+to observe the transit of Mercury, the Cape of Good Hope was chosen
+because, upon the former expedition to Peru, acting in conjunction with
+one to Lapland, which was sent out for the same purpose in the
+eighteenth century, it had been noticed that the attraction of the
+mountainous regions deflected the plumb-line of the large instruments
+seven or eight seconds from the perpendicular, and, consequently,
+greatly impaired the enterprise. At the Cape, on the contrary, there was
+a magnificent table-land of vast expanse, where this difficulty could
+not occur. Accordingly, on the 4th of September, 1834, with a design to
+become perfectly familiar with the working of his new gigantic
+apparatus, and with the Southern Constellations, before the period of
+his observations of Mercury, Sir John Herschel sailed from London,
+accompanied by Doctor Grant (the supposed informant,) Lieutenant
+Drummond, of the Royal Engineers, F.R.A.S., and a large party of the
+best English workmen. On their arrival at the Cape, the apparatus was
+conveyed, in four days' time, to the great elevated plain, thirty-five
+miles to the N.E. of Cape Town, on trains drawn by two relief-teams of
+oxen, eighteen to a team, the ascent aided by gangs of Dutch boors. For
+the details of the huge fabric in which the lens and its reflectors were
+set up, I must refer the curious reader to the pamphlet itself--not that
+the presence of the "Dutch boors" alarms me at all, since we have plenty
+of boors at home, and one gets used to them in the course of time, but
+because the elaborate scientific description of the structure would
+make most readers see "stars" in broad daylight before they get through.
+
+I shall only go on to say that, by the 10th of January, everything was
+complete, even to the two pillars "one hundred and fifty feet high!"
+that sustained the lens. Operations then commenced forthwith, and so,
+too, did the "special wonder" of the readers. It is a matter of
+congratulation to mankind that the writer of the hoax, with an apology
+(Heaven save the mark!) spared us Herschel's notes of "the Moon's
+tropical, sidereal, and synodic revolutions," and the "phenomena of the
+syzygies," and proceeded at once to the pith of the subject. Here came
+in his grand stroke, informing the world of complete success in
+obtaining a distinct view of objects in the moon "fully equal to that
+which the unaided eye commands of terrestrial objects at the distance of
+a hundred yards, affirmatively settling the question whether the
+satellite be inhabited, and by what order of beings," "firmly
+establishing a new theory of cometary phenomena," etc., etc. This
+announcement alone was enough to take one's breath away, but when the
+green marble shores of the Mare Nubium; the mountains shaped like
+pyramids, and of the purest and most dazzling crystalized, wine-colored
+amethyst, dotting green valleys skirted by "round-breasted hills;"
+summits of the purest vermilion fringed with arching cascades and
+buttresses of white marble glistening in the sun--when these began to be
+revealed, the delight of our Luna-tics knew no bounds--and the whole
+town went moon-mad! But even these immense pictures were surpassed by
+the "lunatic" animals discovered. First came the "herds of brown
+quadrupeds" very like a--no! not a whale, but a bison, and "with a tail
+resembling that of the bos grunniens"--the reader probably understands
+what kind of a "bos" that is, if he's apprenticed to a theatre in
+midsummer with musicians on a strike; then a creature, which the
+hoax-man naively declared "would be classed on earth as a monster"--I
+rather think it would!--"of a bluish lead color, about the size of a
+goat, with a head and a beard like him, and a single horn, slightly
+inclined forward from, the perpendicular"--it is clear that if this goat
+was cut down to a single horn, other people were not! I could not but
+fully appreciate the exquisite distinction accorded by the writer to the
+female of this lunar animal--for she, while deprived of horn and beard,
+he explicitly tells us, "had a much larger tail!" When the astronomers
+put their fingers on the beard of this "beautiful" little creature (on
+the reflector, mind you!) it would skip away in high dudgeon, which,
+considering that 240,000 miles intervened, was something to show its
+delicacy of feeling.
+
+Next in the procession of discovery, among other animals of less note,
+was presented "a quadruped with an amazingly long neck, head like a
+sheep, bearing two long spiral horns, white as polished ivory, and
+standing in perpendiculars parallel to each other. Its body was like
+that of a deer, but its forelegs were most disproportionately long, and
+its tail, which was very bushy and of a snowy whiteness, curled high
+over its rump and hung two or three feet by its side. Its colors were
+bright bay and white, brindled in patches, but of no regular form."
+This is probably the animal known to us on earth, and particularly along
+the Mississippi River, as the "guyascutus," to which I may particularly
+refer in a future article.
+
+But all these beings faded into insignificance compared with the first
+sight of the genuine Lunatics, or men in the moon, "four feet high,
+covered, except in the face, with short, glossy, copper-colored hair,"
+and "with wings composed of a thin membrane, without hair, lying snugly
+upon their backs from the top of their shoulders to the calves of their
+legs," "with faces of a yellowish flesh-color--a slight improvement on
+the large ourang-outang." Complimentary for the Lunatics! But, says the
+chronicler, Lieutenant Drummond declared that "but for their long wings,
+they would look as well on a parade-ground as some of the cockney
+militia!" A little rough, my friend the reader will exclaim, for the
+aforesaid militia.
+
+Of course, it is impossible, in a sketch like the present, to do more
+than give a glimpse of this rare combination of astronomical realities
+and the vagaries of mere fancy, and I must omit the Golden-fringed
+Mountains, the Vale of the Triads, with their splendid triangular
+temples, etc., but I positively cannot pass by the glowing mention of
+the inhabitants of this wonderful valley--a superior race of Lunatics,
+as beautiful and as happy as angels, "spread like eagles" on the grass,
+eating yellow gourds and red cucumbers, and played with by snow-white
+stags, with jet-black horns! The description here is positively
+delightful, and I even now remember my poignant sigh of regret when, at
+the conclusion, I read that these innocent and happy beings, although
+evidently "creatures of order and subordination," and "very polite,"
+were seen indulging in amusements which would not be deemed "within the
+bounds of strict propriety" on this degenerate ball. The story wound up
+rather abruptly by referring the reader to an extended work on the
+subject by Herschel, which has not yet appeared.
+
+One can laugh very heartily, now, at all this; but nearly everybody, the
+gravest and the wisest, too, was completely taken in at the time: and
+the "Sun," then established at the corner of Spruce street, where the
+"Tribune" office now stands, reaped an increase of more than fifty
+thousand to its circulation--in fact, there gained the foundation of its
+subsequent prolonged success. Its proprietors sold no less than $25,000
+worth of the "Moon Hoax" over the counter, even exhausting an edition of
+sixty thousand in pamphlet form. And who was the author? A literary
+gentleman, who has devoted very many years of his life to mathematical
+and astronomical studies, and was at the time connected as an editor
+with the "Sun"--one whose name has since been widely known in literature
+and politics--Richard Adams Locke, Esq., then in his youth, and now in
+the decline of years. Mr. Locke, who still survives, is a native of the
+British Isles, and, at the time of his first connection with the New
+York press, was the only short-hand reporter in this city, where he laid
+the basis of a competency he now enjoys. Mr. Locke declares that his
+original object in writing the Moon story was to satirize some of the
+extravagances of Doctor Dick, and to make some astronomical suggestions
+which he felt diffident about offering seriously.
+
+Whatever may have been his object, his hit was unrivaled; and for months
+the press of Christendom, but far more in Europe than here, teemed with
+it, until Sir John Herschel was actually compelled to come out with a
+denial over his own signature. In the meantime, it was printed and
+published in many languages, with superb illustrations. Mr. Endicott,
+the celebrated lithographer, some years ago had in his possession a
+splendid series of engravings, of extra folio size, got up in Italy, in
+the highest style of art, and illustrating the "Moon Hoax."
+
+Here, in New York, the public were, for a long time, divided on the
+subject, the vast majority believing, and a few grumpy customers
+rejecting the story. One day, Mr. Locke was introduced by a mutual
+friend at the door of the "Sun" office to a very grave old orthodox
+Quaker, who, in the calmest manner, went on to tell him all about the
+embarkation of Herschel's apparatus at London, where he had seen it with
+his own eyes. Of course, Locke's optics expanded somewhat while he
+listened to this remarkable statement, but he wisely kept his own
+counsel.
+
+The discussions of the press were very rich; the "Sun," of course,
+defending the affair as genuine, and others doubting it. The "Mercantile
+Advertiser," the "Albany Daily Advertiser," the "New York Commercial
+Advertiser," the "New York Times," the "New Yorker," the "New York
+Spirit of '76," the "Sunday News," the "United States Gazette," the
+"Philadelphia Inquirer," and hosts of other papers came out with the
+most solemn acceptance and admiration of these "wonderful discoveries,"
+and were eclipsed in their approval only by the scientific journals
+abroad. The "Evening Post," however, was decidedly skeptical, and took
+up the matter in this irreverent way:
+
+     "It is quite proper that the "Sun" should be the means of shedding
+     so much light on the Moon. That there should be winged people in
+     the moon does not strike us as more wonderful than the existence of
+     such a race of beings on the earth; and that there does still exist
+     such a race, rests on the evidence of that most veracious of
+     voyagers and circumstantial of chroniclers, Peter Wilkins, whose
+     celebrated work not only gives an account of the general appearance
+     and habits of a most interesting tribe of flying Indians; but,
+     also, of all those more delicate and engaging traits which the
+     author was enabled to discover by reason of the conjugal relations
+     he entered into with one of the females of the winged tribe."
+
+The moon-hoax had its day, and some of its glory still survives. Mr.
+Locke, its author, is now quietly residing in the beautiful little home
+of a friend on the Clove Road, Staten Island, and no doubt, as he gazes
+up at the evening luminary, often fancies that he sees a broad grin on
+the countenance of its only well-authenticated tenant, "the hoary
+solitary whom the criminal code of the nursery has banished thither for
+collecting fuel on the Sabbath-day."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE MISCEGENATION HOAX.--A GREAT LITERARY SELL.--POLITICAL
+HUMBUGGING.--TRICKS OF THE WIRE-PULLERS.--MACHINERY EMPLOYED TO RENDER
+THE PAMPHLET NOTORIOUS.--WHO WERE SOLD AND HOW IT WAS DONE.
+
+
+Some persons say that "all is fair in politics." Without agreeing with
+this doctrine, I nevertheless feel that the history of Ancient and
+Modern Humbugs would not be complete without a record of the last and
+one of the most successful of known literary hoaxes. This is the
+pamphlet entitled "Miscegenation," which advocates the blending of the
+white and black races upon this continent, as a result not only
+inevitable from the freeing of the negro, but desirable as a means of
+creating a more perfect race of men than any now existing. This pamphlet
+is a clever political quiz; and was written by three young gentlemen of
+the "World" newspaper, namely. D. G. Croly, George Wakeman, and E. C.
+Howell.
+
+The design of "Miscegenation" was exceedingly ambitious, and the
+machinery employed was probably among the most ingenious and audacious
+ever put into operation to procure the indorsement of absurd theories,
+and give the subject the widest notoriety. The object was to so make use
+of the prevailing ideas of the extremists of the Anti-Slavery party, as
+to induce them to accept doctrines which would be obnoxious to the
+great mass of the community, and which would, of course, be used in the
+political canvass which was to ensue. It was equally important that the
+"Democrats" should be made to believe that the pamphlet in question
+emanated from a "Republican" source. The idea was suggested by a
+discourse delivered by Mr. Theodore Tilton, at the Cooper Institute,
+before the American Anti-Slavery Society, in May 1863, on the negro, in
+which that distinguished orator argued, that in some future time the
+blood of the negro would form one of the mingled bloods of the great
+regenerated American nation. The scheme once conceived, it began
+immediately to be put into execution. The first stumbling-block was the
+name "amalgamation," by which this fraternizing of the races had been
+always known. It was evident that a book advocating amalgamation would
+fall still-born, and hence some new and novel word had to be discovered,
+with the same meaning, but not so objectionable. Such a word was coined
+by the combination of the Latin _miscere_, to mix, and _genus_, race:
+from these, miscegenation--a mingling of the races. The word is as
+euphonious as "amalgamation," and much more correct in meaning. It has
+passed into the language, and no future dictionary will be complete
+without it. Next, it was necessary to give the book an erudite
+appearance, and arguments from ethnology must form no unimportant part
+of this matter. Neither of the authors being versed in this science,
+they were compelled to depend entirely on encyclopedias and books of
+reference. This obstacle to a New York editor or reporter was not so
+great as it might seem. The public are often favored in our journals
+with dissertations upon various abstruse matters by men who are entirely
+ignorant of what they are writing about. It was said of Cuvier that he
+could restore the skeleton of an extinct animal if he were only given
+one of its teeth, and so a competent editor or reporter of a city
+journal can get up an article of any length on any given subject, if he
+is only furnished one word or name to start with. There was but one
+writer on ethnology distinctly known to the authors, which was Prichard;
+but that being secured, all the rest came easily enough. The authors
+went to the Astor Library and secured a volume of Prichard's works, the
+perusal of which of course gave them the names of many other
+authorities, which were also consulted; and thus a very respectable
+array of scientific arguments in favor of Miscegenation were soon
+compiled. The sentimental and argumentative portions were quickly
+suggested from the knowledge of the authors of current politics, of the
+vagaries of some of the more visionary reformers, and from their own
+native wit.
+
+The book was at first written in a most cursory manner the chapters got
+up without any order or reference to each other, and afterward arranged.
+As the impression sought to be conveyed was a serious one, it would
+clearly not do to commence with the extravagant and absurd theories to
+which it was intended that the reader should gradually be led. The
+scientific portion of the work was therefore given first, and was made
+as grave and terse and unobjectionable as possible; and merely urged,
+by arguments drawn from science and history, that the blending of the
+different races of men resulted in a better progeny. As the work
+progressed, they continued to "pile on the agony," until, at the close,
+the very fact that the statue of the Goddess of Liberty on the Capitol,
+is of a bronze tint, is looked upon as an omen of the color of the
+future American!
+
+     "When the traveler approaches the City of Magnificent Distances,"
+     it says, "the seat of what is destined to be the greatest and most
+     beneficent power on earth, the first object that will strike his
+     eye will be the figure of Liberty surmounting the Capitol; not
+     white, symbolizing but one race, nor black, typifying another, but
+     a statue representing the composite race, whose sway will extend
+     from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, from the Equator to the
+     North Pole--the Miscegens of the Future."
+
+The Book once written, plans were laid to obtain the indorsement of the
+people who were to be humbugged. It was not only necessary to humbug the
+members of the Reform and Progressive party, but to present--as I have
+before said--such serious arguments that Democrats should be led to
+believe it as a _bona fide_ revelation of the "infernal" designs of
+their antagonists. In both respects there was complete success.
+Although, of course, the mass of the Republican leaders entirely ignored
+the book, yet a considerable number of Anti-Slavery men, with more
+transcendental ideas, were decidedly "sold." The machinery employed was
+exceedingly ingenious. Before the book was published, proof-copies were
+furnished to every prominent abolitionist in the country, and also to
+prominent spiritual mediums, to ladies known to wear Bloomers, and to
+all that portion of our population who are supposed to be a little
+"soft" on the subject of reform. A circular was also enclosed,
+requesting them, before the publication of the book, to give the author
+the benefit of their opinions as to the value of the arguments
+presented, and the desirability of the immediate publication of the
+work; to be inclosed to the American News Company, 121 Nassau street,
+New York--the agents for the publishers. The bait took. Letters came
+pouring in from all sides, and among the names of prominent persons who
+gave their indorsements were Albert Brisbane, Parker Pillsbury, Lucretia
+Mott, Sarah M. Grimke, Angelina G. Weld, Dr. J. McCune Smith, Wm. Wells
+Brown. Mr. Pillsbury was quite excited over the book, saying; "Your work
+has cheered and gladdened a winter-morning, which I began in cloud and
+sorrow. You are on the right track. Pursue it, and the good God speed
+you." Mr. Theodore Tilton, upon receiving the pamphlet, wrote a note
+promising to read it, and to write the author a long and candid letter
+as soon as he had time; and saying, that the subject was one to which he
+had given much thought. The promised letter, I believe, however, was
+never received; probably because, on a careful perusal of the book, Mr.
+Tilton "smelt a rat." He might also have been influenced by an ironical
+paragraph relating to himself, and arguing that, as he was a "pure
+specimen of the blonde," and "when a young man was noted for his angelic
+type of feature," his sympathy for the colored race was accounted for by
+the natural love of opposites. Says the author with much gravity:
+
+     "The sympathy Mr. Greeley, Mr. Phillips and Mr. Tilton feel for the
+     negro is the love which the blonde bears for the black; it is the
+     love of race, a sympathy stronger to them than the love they bear
+     to woman. It is founded upon natural law. We love our opposites. It
+     is the nature of things that we should do so, and where Nature has
+     free course, men like those we have indicated, whether Anti-Slavery
+     or Pro-Slavery, Conservative or Radical, Democrat or Republican,
+     will marry and be given in marriage to the most perfect specimens
+     of the colored race."
+
+So far, things worked favorably; and, having thus bagged a goodly number
+of prominent reformers, the next effort was to get the ear of the
+public. Here, new machinery was brought into play. A statement was
+published in the "Philadelphia Inquirer" (a paper which, ever since the
+war commenced, has been notorious for its "sensation" news,) that a
+charming and accomplished young mulatto girl was about to publish a book
+on the subject of the blending of the races, in which she took the
+affirmative view. Of course, so piquant a paragraph was immediately
+copied by almost every paper in the country. Various other stories,
+equally ingenious and equally groundless, were set afloat, and public
+expectation was riveted on the forthcoming work.
+
+Some time in February last, the book was published. Copies, of course,
+were sent to all the leading journals. The "Anglo-African," the organ of
+the colored population of New York, warmly, and at great length,
+indorsed the doctrine. The "Anti-Slavery Standard," edited by Mr. Oliver
+Johnson, gave over a column of serious argument and endorsement to the
+work. Mr. Tilton, of the "Independent," was not to be caught napping.
+In that journal, under date of February 25, 1864, he devoted a
+two-column leader to the subject of Miscegenation and the little
+pamphlet in question. Mr. Tilton was the first to announce a belief that
+the book was a hoax. I quote from his article:
+
+     "Remaining a while on our table unread, our attention was specially
+     called to it by noticing how savagely certain newspapers were
+     abusing it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "The authorship of the pamphlet is a well-kept secret; at least it
+     is unknown to us. Nor, after a somewhat careful reading, are we
+     convinced that the writer is in earnest. Our first impression was,
+     and remains, that the work was meant as a piece of pleasantry--a
+     burlesque upon what are popularly called the extreme and fanatical
+     notions of certain radical men named therein. Certainly, the essay
+     is not such a one as any of these gentlemen would have written on
+     the subject, though some of their speeches are conspicuously quoted
+     and commended in it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "If written in earnest, the work is not thorough enough to be
+     satisfactory; if in jest, we prefer Sydney Smith--or McClellan's
+     Report. Still, to be frank, we agree with a large portion of these
+     pages, but disagree heartily with another portion."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     "The idea of scientifically undertaking to intermingle existing
+     populations according to a predetermined plan for reconstructing
+     the human race--for flattening out its present varieties into one
+     final unvarious dead-level of humanity--is so absurd, that we are
+     more than ever convinced such a statement was not written in
+     earnest!"
+
+Mr. Tilton, however, hints that the colored race is finally in some
+degree to form a component part of the future American; and that, in
+time, "the negro of the South, growing paler with every generation, will
+at last completely hide his face under the snow."
+
+One of the editorial writers for the "Tribune" was so impressed with the
+book that he wrote an article on the subject, arguing about it with
+apparent seriousness, and in a manner with some readers supposed to be
+rather favorable than otherwise to the doctrine. Mr. Greeley and the
+publishers, it is understood, were displeased at the publication of the
+article. The next morning nearly all the city journals had editorial
+articles upon the subject.
+
+The next point was, to get the miscegenation controversy into Congress.
+The book, with its indorsements, was brought to the notice of Mr. Cox,
+of Ohio (commonly called "Sunset Cox;") and he made an earnest speech on
+the subject. Mr. Washburne replied wittily, reading and commenting on
+extracts from a work by Cox, in which the latter deplored the existence
+of the prejudice against the Africans. A few days after, Mr. Kelly, of
+Pennsylvania, replied very elaborately to Mr. Cox, bringing all his
+learning and historical research to bear on the topic. It was the
+subject of a deal of talk in Washington afterward. Mr. Cox was charged
+by some of the more shrewd members of Congress with writing it. It was
+said that Mr. Sumner, on reading it, immediately pronounced it a hoax.
+
+Through the influence of the authors, a person visited James Gordon
+Bennett, of the "Herald," and spoke to him about "Miscegenation." Mr.
+Bennett thought the idea too monstrous and absurd to waste an article
+upon.
+
+"But," said the gentleman, "the Democratic papers are all noticing it."
+
+"The Democratic editors are asses," said Bennett.
+
+"Senator Cox has just made a speech in Congress on it."
+
+"Cox is an ass," responded Bennett.
+
+"Greeley had an article about it the other day."
+
+"Well, Greeley's a donkey."
+
+"The 'Independent' yesterday had a leader of a column and a half about
+it."
+
+"Well, Beecher is no better," said Bennett. "They're all asses. But what
+did he say about it?"
+
+"Oh, he rather indorsed it."
+
+"Well, I'll read the article," said Bennett. "And perhaps I'll have an
+article written ridiculing Beecher."
+
+"It will make a very good handle against the radicals," said the other.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," said Bennett. "Let them marry together, if they want
+to, with all my heart."
+
+For some days, the "Herald" said nothing about it, but the occasion of
+the departure of a colored regiment from New York City having called
+forth a flattering address to them from the ladies of the "Loyal
+League," the "Herald," saw a chance to make a point against Mr. Charles
+King and others; and the next day it contained a terrific article,
+introducing miscegenation in the most violent and offensive manner, and
+saying that the ladies of the "Loyal League" had offered to marry the
+colored soldiers on their return! After that, the "Herald" kept up a
+regular fusillade against the supposed miscegenic proclivities of the
+Republicans. And thus, after all, Bennett swallowed the "critter"
+horns, hoofs, tail, and all.
+
+The authors even had the impudence to attempt to entrap Mr. Lincoln into
+an indorsement of the work, and asked permission to dedicate a new work,
+on a kindred subject, "Melaleukation," to him. Honest Old Abe however,
+who can see a joke, was not to be taken in so easily.
+
+About the time the book was first published, Miss Anne E. Dickinson
+happened to lecture in New York. The authors here exhibited a great
+degree of acuteness and tact, as well as sublime impudence, in seizing
+the opportunity to have some small hand bills, with the endorsement of
+the book, printed and distributed by boys among the audience. Before
+Miss Dickinson appeared, therefore, the audience were gravely reading
+the miscegenation handbill; and the reporters, noticing it, coupled the
+facts in their reports. From this, it went forth, and was widely
+circulated, that Miss Dickinson was the author!
+
+Dr. Mackay, the correspondent of the "London Times," in New York, was
+very decidedly sold, and hurled all manner of big words against the
+doctrine in his letters to "The Thunderer;" and thus "the leading paper
+of Europe" was, for the hundredth time during the American Rebellion,
+decidedly taken in and done for.
+
+The "Saturday Review"--perhaps the cleverest and certainly the sauciest
+of the English hebdomadals--also berated the book and its authors in the
+most pompous language at its command. Indeed, the "Westminster Review"
+seriously refers to the arguments of the book in connection with Dr.
+Broca's pamphlet on Human Hybridity, a most profound work.
+"Miscegenation" was republished in England by Truebner & Co.; and very
+extensive translations from it are still passing the rounds of the
+French and German papers.
+
+Thus passes into history one of the most impudent as well as ingenious
+literary hoaxes of the present day. There is probably not a newspaper in
+the country but has printed much about it; and enough of extracts might
+be collected from various journals upon the subject to fill my
+whale-tank.
+
+It is needless to say that the book passed through several editions. Of
+course, the mass of the intelligent American people rejected the
+doctrines of the work, and looked upon it either as a political dodge,
+or as the ravings of some crazy man; but the authors have the
+satisfaction of knowing that it achieved a notoriety which has hardly
+been equalled by any mere pamphlet ever published in this country.
+
+
+
+
+VII. GHOSTS AND WITCHCRAFTS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER. XXXIV.
+
+HAUNTED HOUSES.--A NIGHT SPENT ALONE WITH A GHOST.--KIRBY, THE
+ACTOR.--COLT'S PISTOLS VERSUS HOBGOBLINS.--THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED.
+
+
+A great many persons believe more or less in haunted houses. In almost
+every community there is some building that has had a mysterious
+history. This is true in all countries, and among all races and nations.
+Indeed it is to this very fact that the ingenious author of the
+"Twenty-seventh-street Ghost" may attribute his success in creating such
+an excitement. In fact, I will say, "under the rose," he predicted his
+hopes of success entirely upon this weakness in human nature. Even in
+"this day and age of the world" there are hundreds of deserted buildings
+which are looked upon with awe, or terror, or superstitious interest.
+They have frightened their former inhabitants away, and left the
+buildings in the almost undisputed possession of real moles, bats, and
+owls, and imaginary goblins and sprites.
+
+In the course of my travels in both hemispheres I have been amazed at
+the great number of such cases that have come under my personal
+observation.
+
+But for the present, I will give a brief account of a haunted house in
+Yorkshire, England, in which some twenty years ago, Kirby, the actor,
+who formerly played at the Chatham Theatre, passed a pretty strange
+night. I met Mr. Kirby in London in 1844, and I will give, in nearly his
+own language, a history of his lone night in this haunted house, as he
+gave it to me within a week after its occurrence. I will add, that I saw
+no reason to doubt Mr. Kirby's veracity, and he assured me upon his
+honor that the statement was literally true to the letter. Having myself
+been through several similar places in the daytime, I felt a peculiar
+interest in the subject, and hence I have a vivid recollection of nearly
+the exact words in which he related his singular nocturnal adventure.
+One thing is certain: Kirby was not the man to be afraid of trying such
+an experiment.
+
+"I had heard wonderful stories about this house," said Mr. Kirby to me,
+"and I was very glad to get a chance to enter it, although, I confess,
+the next morning I was about as glad to get out of it."
+
+"It was an old country-seat--a solid stone mansion which had long borne
+the reputation of a haunted house. It was watched only by one man. He
+was the old gardener,--an ancient servant of the family that once lived
+there, and a person in whom the family reposed implicit confidence.
+
+"Having had some inkling of this wonderful place, and having a few days
+to spare before going to London to fulfil an engagement at the Surry
+Theatre, I thought I would probe this haunted-house story to the bottom.
+I therefore called on the old gardener who had charge of the place, and
+introduced myself as an American traveller desirous of spending a night
+with his ghosts. The old man seemed to be about seventy-five or eighty
+years of age. I met him at the gate of the estate, where he kept guard.
+He told me, when I applied, that it was a dangerous spot to enter, but I
+could pass it if I pleased. I should, however, have to return by the
+same door, if I ever came back again.
+
+"Wishing to make sure of the job, I gave him a sovereign, and asked him
+to give me all the privileges of the establishment; and if his bill
+amounted to more, I would settle it when I returned. He looked at me
+with an expression of doubt and apprehension, as much as to say that he
+neither understood what I was going to do nor what was likely to happen.
+He merely remarked:
+
+"'You can go in.'
+
+"'Will you go with me, and show me the road?'
+
+"'I will.'
+
+"'Go ahead.'
+
+"We entered. The gate closed. I suddenly turned on my man, the old
+gardener and custodian of the place, and said to him:
+
+"'Now, my patriarchal friend, I am going to sift this humbug to the
+bottom, even if I stay here forty nights in succession; and I am
+prepared to lay all "spirits" that present themselves; but if you will
+save me all trouble in the matter and frankly explain to me the whole
+affair, I will never mention it to your injury, and I will present you
+with ten golden sovereigns.'
+
+"The old fellow looked astonished; but he smirked, and whimpered, and
+trembled, and said:
+
+"'I am afraid to do that; but I will warn you against going too far.'
+
+"When we had crossed a courtyard, he rang a bell, and several strange
+noises were distinctly heard. I was introduced to the establishment
+through a well-constructed archway, which led to a large stairway, from
+which we proceeded to a great door, which opened into a very large room.
+It was a library. The old custodian had carried a torch (and I was
+prepared with a box of matches.) He was acting evidently 'on the
+square,' and I sat myself down in the library, where he told me that I
+should soon see positive evidence that this was a haunted house.
+
+"Not being a very firm believer in the doctrine of houses really
+haunted, I proposed to keep a pretty good hold of my match-box, and lest
+there should be any doubt about it, I had also provided myself with two
+sperm candles, which I kept in my pocket, so I should not be left too
+suddenly and too long in the dark.
+
+"'Now Sir,' said he, 'I wish you to hold all your nerves steady and keep
+your courage up, because I intend to stand by you as well as I can, but
+I never come into this house alone.'
+
+"'Well, what is the matter with the house?'
+
+"'Oh! everything, Sir!'
+
+"'What?'
+
+"'Well, when I was much younger than I am now, the master of this estate
+got frightened here by some mysterious appearances, noises, sounds,
+etc., and he preferred to leave the place.'
+
+"'Why?'
+
+"'He had a tradition from his grandfather, and pretty well kept alive in
+the family, that it was a haunted house; and he let out the estate to
+the smaller farmers of the neighborhood, and quit the premises, and
+never returned again, except one night, and after that one night he
+left. We suppose he is dead. Now, Sir, if you wish to spend the night
+here as you have requested, what may happen to you I don't know; but I
+tell you it is a haunted house, and I would not sleep here to-night for
+all the wealth of the Bank of England!'
+
+"This did not deter me in the least, and having the means of
+self-protection around me, and plenty of lucifer matches, etc., I
+thought I would explore this mystery and see whether a humbug which had
+terrified the proprietors of that magnificent house in the midst of a
+magnificent estate, for upward of sixty years, could not be explored and
+exploded. That it was a humbug, I had no doubt; that I would find it
+out, I was not so certain.
+
+"I sat down in the library, fully determined to spend the night in the
+establishment. A door was opened into an adjoining room where there was
+a dust-covered lounge, and every thing promised as much comfort as could
+be expected under the circumstances.
+
+"However, before the old keeper of the house left, I asked him to show
+me over the building, and let me explore for myself the different rooms
+and apartments. To all this he readily consented; and as he had some
+prospect before him of making a good job out of it, he displayed a great
+deal of alacrity, and moved along very quick and smart for a man
+apparently eighty years of age.
+
+"I went from room to room and story to story. Everything seemed to be
+well arranged, but somewhat dusty and time-worn. I kept a pretty sharp
+lookout, but I could see no sort of machinery for producing a grand
+effect.
+
+"We finally descended to the library, when I closed the door, and
+bolting and locking it, took the key and put it in my pocket.
+
+"'Now, Sir,' I said to the keeper, 'where is the humbug?'
+
+"'There is no humbug here,' he answered.
+
+"'Well, why don't you show me some evidence of the haunted house?'
+
+"'You wait,' said he, 'till twelve o'clock to-night, and you will see
+"haunting" enough for you. I will not stay till then.'
+
+"He left; I staid. Everything was quiet for some time. Not a mouse was
+heard, not a rat was visible, and I thought I would go to sleep.
+
+"I lay down for this purpose, but I soon heard certain extraordinary
+sounds that disturbed my repose. Chains were clanked, noises were made,
+and shrieks and groans were heard from various parts of the mansion. All
+of these I had expected. They did not frighten me much. A little while
+after, just as I was going to sleep again, a curious string of light
+burned around the room. It ran along on the walls in a zigzag line,
+about six feet high, entirely through the apartment. I did not smell
+anything bituminous or like sulphur. It flashed quicker than powder,
+and it did not smell like it. Thinks I: 'This looks pretty well, we will
+have some amusement now.' Then the jangling of bells, and clanking of
+chains, and flashes of light; then thumpings and knockings of all sorts
+came along, interspersed with shrieks and groans. I sat very quiet. I
+had two of Colt's best pistols in my pocket, and I thought I could shoot
+anything spiritual or material with these machines made in Connecticut.
+I took them out and laid them on the table. One of them suddenly
+disappeared! I did not like that, still my nerves were firm, for I knew
+it was all gammon. I took the other pistol in my hand and surveyed the
+room. Nobody was there; and, finally half suspicious that I had gone to
+sleep and had a dream, I woke up with a grasp on my hand which was
+holding the other pistol. This soon made me fully awake.
+
+"I tried to recover my balance, and at this moment the candle went out.
+I lit it with one of my lucifers. No person was visible, but the noises
+began again, and they were infernal. I then took one of my sperm candles
+out, and went to unlock the door. I attempted to take the key out of my
+pocket. It was not there! Suddenly the door opened, I saw a man or a
+somebody about the size of a man, standing straight in front of me. I
+pointed one of Colt's revolvers at his head, for I thought I saw
+something human about him; and I told him that whether he was ghost or
+spirit, goblin or robber, he had better stand steady, or I would blow
+his brains out, if he had any. And to make sure that he should not
+escape I got hold of his arm, and told him that if he was a ghost he
+would have a tolerably hard time of it, and that if he was a humbug I
+would let him off if he would tell me the whole story about the trick.
+
+"He saw that he was caught, and he earnestly begged me not to fire that
+American pistol at him. I did not; but I did not let go of him. I
+brought him into the library, and with pistol in hand I put him through
+a pretty close examination. He was clad in mailed armor, with
+breastplate and helmet, and a great sword, in the style of the
+Crusaders. He promised, on condition of saving his life, to give me an
+honest account of the facts.
+
+"In substance they were, that he, an old family-servant, and ultimately
+a gardener in charge of the place, had been employed by an enemy of the
+gentleman who owned the property, to render it so uncomfortable that the
+estate should be sold for much less than its value; and that he had got
+an ingenious machinist and chemist to assist him in arranging such
+contrivances as would make the house so intolerable that they could not
+live there. A galvanic battery with wires were provided, and every
+device of chemistry and mechanism was resorted to in order to effect
+this purpose.
+
+"One by one, the family left; and they had remained away for nearly two
+generations under the terror of such forms, and appearances, and sights
+and sounds, as frightened them almost to death. And furthermore, the old
+gardener added, that he expected his own grand-daughter would become the
+lady of that house, when the property should have been neglected so
+long and the place became so fearful that no one in the neighborhood
+would undertake to purchase it, or to even pass one moment after dark in
+exploring its horrible mysteries.
+
+"He begged on his knees that I would spare him with his gray hairs,
+since he had so short a time to live. He declared that he had been
+actuated by no other motive than pride and ambition for his child.
+
+"I told the poor old fellow that his secret should be safe with me, and
+should not be made public so long as he lived. The old man grasped my
+hand eagerly and expressed his gratitude in the strongest terms. Thus,
+Mr. Barnum, I have given you the pure and honest facts in regard to my
+adventure in a so called haunted house. Don't make it public until you
+are convinced that the old gardener has shuffled off this mortal coil."
+
+So much for Kirby's story of the haunted house. No doubt, the old
+gardener has before this become in reality a disembodied spirit, but
+that his grand-daughter became legally possessed of the estate is not at
+all probable. Real estate does not change hands so easily in England. So
+powerful, however is the superstitious belief in haunted houses, that it
+is doubtful whether that property will for many years sustain half so
+great a cash value in the market as it would have done had it not been
+considered a "haunted house."
+
+It is to be hoped that, as schools multiply and education increases, the
+follies and superstitions which underlie a belief in ghosts and
+hobgoblins will pass away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+HAUNTED HOUSES.--GHOSTS.--GHOULS.--PHANTOMS.--VAMPIRES.--CONJURORS.--
+DIVINING.--GOBLINS.--FORTUNE-TELLING.--MAGIC.--WITCHES.--SORCERY.--
+OBI.--DREAMS.--SIGNS.--SPIRITUAL MEDIUMS.--FALSE PROPHETS.--
+DEMONOLOGY.--DEVILTRY GENERALLY.
+
+
+Whether superstition is the father of humbug, or humbug the mother of
+superstition (as well as its nurse,) I do not pretend to say; for the
+biggest fools and the greatest philosophers can be numbered among the
+believers in and victims of the worst humbugs that ever prevailed on the
+earth.
+
+As we grow up from childhood and begin to think we are free from all
+superstitions, absurdities, follies, a belief in dreams, signs, omens,
+and other similar stuff, we afterward learn that experience does not
+cure the complaint. Doubtless much depends upon our "bringing up." If
+children are permitted to feast their ears night after night (as I was)
+with stories of ghosts, hobgoblins, ghouls, witches, apparitions,
+bugaboos, it is more difficult in after-life for them to rid their minds
+of impressions thus made.
+
+But whatever may have been our early education, I am convinced that
+there is an inherent love of the marvelous in every breast, and that
+everybody is more or less superstitious; and every superstition I
+denominate a humbug, for it lays the human mind open to any amount of
+belief, in any amount of deception that may be practised.
+
+One object of these chapters consists in showing how open everybody is
+to deception, that nearly everybody "hankers" after it, that solid and
+solemn realities are frequently set aside for silly impositions and
+delusions, and that people, as a too general thing, like to be led into
+the region of mystery. As Hudibras has it:
+
+  "Doubtless the pleasure is as great
+  Of being cheated as to cheat;
+  As lookers-on feel most delight
+  That least perceive a juggler's sleight;
+  And still the less they understand,
+  The more they admire his sleight of hand."
+
+The amount or strength of man's brains have little to do with the amount
+of their superstitions. The most learned and the greatest men have been
+the deepest believers in ingeniously-contrived machines for running
+human reason off the track. If any expositions I can make on this
+subject will serve to put people on their guard against impositions of
+all sorts, as well as foolish superstitions, I shall feel a pleasure in
+reflecting that I have not written in vain. The heading of this chapter
+enumerates the principal kinds of supernatural humbugs. These, it must
+be remembered, are quite different from religious impostures.
+
+It is astonishing to reflect how ancient is the date of this class of
+superstitions (as well as of most others, in fact,) and how universally
+they have prevailed. Nearly thirty-six hundred years ago, it was thought
+a matter of course that Joseph, the Hebrew Prime Minister of Pharaoh,
+should have a silver cup that he commonly used to do his divining with:
+so that the practice must already have been an established one.
+
+In Homer's time, about twenty-eight hundred years ago, ghosts were
+believed to appear. The Witch of Endor pretended to raise the ghost of
+Samuel, at about the same time.
+
+To-day, here in the City of New York, dream books are sold by the
+edition; a dozen fortune-tellers regularly advertise in the papers; a
+haunted house can gather excited crowds for weeks; abundance of people
+are uneasy if they spill salt, dislike to see the new moon over the
+wrong shoulder, and are delighted if they can find an old horse-shoe to
+nail to their door-post.
+
+I have already told about one or two haunted houses, but must devote
+part of this chapter to that division of the subject. There are hundreds
+of such--that is, of those reputed to be such; and have been for
+hundreds of years. In almost every city, and in many towns and country
+places, they are to be found. I know of one, for instance, in New
+Jersey, one or two in New York, and have heard of several in
+Connecticut. There are great numbers in Europe; for as white men have
+lived there so much longer than in America, ghosts naturally
+accumulated. In this country there are houses and places haunted by
+ghosts of Hessians, and Yankee ghosts, not to mention the headless Dutch
+phantom of Tarrytown, that turned out to be Brom Bones; but who ever
+heard of the ghost of an Indian? And as for the ghost of a black man,
+evidently it would have to appear by daylight. You couldn't see it in
+the dark!
+
+I have no room to even enumerate the cases of haunted houses. One in
+Aix-la-Chapelle, a fine large house, stood empty five years on account
+of the knockings in it, until it was sold for almost nothing, and the
+new owner (lucky man!) discovered that the ghost was a draft through a
+broken window that banged a loose door. An English gentleman once died,
+and his heir, in a day or two, heard of mysterious knockings which the
+frightened servants attributed to the defunct. He, however, investigated
+a little, and found that a rat in an old store room, was trying to get
+out of an old-fashioned box trap, and being able to lift the door only
+partly, it dropped again, constituting the ghost. Better pleased to find
+the rat than his father, the young man exterminated rat and phantom
+together.
+
+A very ancient and impressive specimen of a haunted house was the palace
+of Vauvert, belonging to King Louis IX, of France, who was so pious that
+he was called Saint Louis. This fine building was so situated as to
+become very desirable, in the year 1259, to some monks. So there was
+forthwith horrid shriekings at night-times, red and green lights shone
+through the windows, and, finally, a large green ghost, with a white
+beard and a serpent's tail, came every midnight to a front window, and
+shook his fist, and howled at those who passed by. Everybody was
+frightened--King Louis, good simple soul! as well as the rest. Then the
+bold monks appearing at the nick of time, intimated that if the King
+would give them the palace, they would do up the ghost in short order.
+He did it, and was very thankful to them besides. They moved in, and
+sure enough, the ghost appeared no more. Why should he?
+
+The ghosts of Woodstock are well known. How they tormented the Puritan
+Commissioners who came thither in 1649, to break up the place, and
+dispose of it for the benefit of the Commonwealth! The poor Puritans had
+a horrid time. A disembodied dog growled under their bed, and bit the
+bed-clothes; something invisible walked all about; the chairs and tables
+danced; something threw the dishes about (like the Davenport "spirits;")
+put logs for the pillows; flung brickbats up and down, without regard to
+heads; smashed the windows; threw pebbles in at the frightened
+commissioners; stuck a lot of pewter platters into their beds; ran away
+with their breeches; threw dirty water over them in bed; banged them
+over the head--until, after several weeks, the poor fellows gave it up,
+and ran away back to London. Many years afterward, it came out that all
+this was done by their clerk, who was secretly a royalist, though they
+thought him a furious Puritan, and who knew all the numerous secret
+passages and contrivances in the old palace. Most people have read Sir
+Walter Scott's capital novel of "Woodstock," founded on this very story.
+
+The well known "Demon of Tedworth," that drummed, and scratched, and
+pounded, and threw things about, in 1661, in Mr. Mompesson's house
+turned out to be a gipsy drummer and confederates.
+
+The still more famous "Ghost in Cock Lane," in London in 1762,
+consisted of a Mrs. Parsons and her daughter, a little girl, trained by
+Mr. Parsons to knock and scratch very much after the fashion of the
+alphabet talking of the "spirits" of to-day. Parsons got up the whole
+affair, to revenge himself on a Mr. Kent. The ghost pretended to be that
+of a deceased sister-in-law of Kent, and to have been poisoned by him.
+But Parsons and his assistants were found out, and had to smart for
+their fun, being heavily fined, imprisoned, etc.
+
+A very able ghost indeed, a Methodist ghost--the spectral property,
+consequently, of my good friends the Methodists--used to rattle, and
+clatter, and bang, and communicate, in the house of the Rev. Mr. Wesley,
+the father of John Wesley, at Epworth, in England. This ghost was very
+troublesome, and utterly useless. In fact, none of the ghosts that haunt
+houses are of the least possible use. They plague people, but do no
+good. They act like the spirits of departed monkeys.
+
+I must add two or three short anecdotes about ghosts, got up in the
+devil-manner. They are not new, but illustrate very handsomely the state
+of mind in which a ghost should be met. One is, that somebody undertook
+to scare Cuvier, the great naturalist, with a ghost having an ox's head.
+Cuvier woke, and found the fearful thing glaring and grinning at his
+bedside.
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"To devour you!" growled the ghost.
+
+"Devour me?" quoth the great Frenchman--"Hoofs, horns, _graminivorous_!
+You can't do it--clear out!"
+
+And he did clear out.
+
+A pious maiden lady, in one of our New-England villages, was known to
+possess three peculiarities. First, she was a very religious, honest,
+matter-of-fact woman. Second, she supposed everybody else was equally
+honest; hence she was very credulous, always believing everything she
+heard. And third, having "a conscience void of offense," she saw no
+reason to be afraid of anything; consequently, she feared nothing.
+
+On a dark night, some boys, knowing that she would be returning home
+alone from prayer-meeting, through an unfrequented street, determined to
+test two of her peculiarities, viz., her credulity and her courage. One
+of the boys was sewed up in a huge shaggy bear-skin, and as the old
+lady's feet were heard pattering down the street, he threw himself
+directly in her path and commenced making a terrible noise.
+
+"Mercy!" exclaimed the old lady. "Who are you?"
+
+"I am the devil!" was the reply.
+
+"Well, you are a poor creature!" responded the antiquated virgin, as she
+stepped aside and passed by the strange animal, probably not for a
+moment doubting it was his Satanic Majesty, but certainly not dreaming
+of being afraid of him.
+
+It is said that a Yankee tin peddler, who had frequently cheated most of
+the people in the vicinity of a New England village through which he was
+passing, was induced by some of the acute ones to join them in a
+drinking bout. He finally became stone drunk; and in that condition
+these wags carried him to a dark rocky cave near the village, then,
+dressing themselves in raw-head-and-bloody-bones' style, awaited his
+return to consciousness.
+
+As he began rousing himself, they lighted some huge torches, and also
+set fire to some bundles of straw, and three or four rolls of brimstone,
+which they had placed in different parts of the cavern. The peddler
+rubbed his eyes, and seeing and smelling all these evidences of
+pandemonium, concluded he had died, and was now partaking of his final
+doom. But he took it very philosophically, for he complacently remarked
+to himself.
+
+"In hell--just as I expected!"
+
+A story is told of a cool old sea captain, with a virago of a wife, who
+met one of these artificial devils in a lonely place. As the ghost
+obstructed his path, the old fellow remarked:
+
+"If you are not the devil, get out! If you are, come along with me and
+get supper. I married your sister!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+MAGICAL HUMBUGS.--VIRGIL.--A PICKLED SORCERER.--CORNELIUS AGRIPPA.--HIS
+STUDENTS AND HIS BLACK DOG.--DOCTOR FAUSTUS.--HUMBUGGING
+HORSE-JOCKEYS.--ZIITO AND HIS LARGE SWALLOW.--SALAMANCA.--DEVIL TAKE THE
+HINDMOST.
+
+
+Magic, sorcery, witchcraft, enchantment, necromancy, conjuring,
+incantation, soothsaying, divining, the black art, are all one and the
+same humbug. They show how prone men are to believe in _some_
+supernatural power, in _some_ beings wiser and stronger than
+themselves, but at the same time how they stop short, and find
+satisfaction in some debasing humbug, instead of looking above and
+beyond it all to God, the only being that it is really worth while for
+man to look up to or beseech.
+
+Magic and witchcraft are believed in by the vast majority of mankind,
+and by immense numbers even in Christian countries. They have always
+been believed in, so far as I know. In following up the thread of
+history, we always find conjuring or witch work of some kind, just as
+long as the narrative has space enough to include it. Already, in the
+early dawn of time, the business was a recognized and long established
+one. And its history is as unbroken from that day down to this, as the
+history of the race.
+
+In the narrow space at my command at present, I shall only gather as
+many of the more interesting stories about these humbugs, as I can make
+room for. Reasoning about the subject, or full details of it, are at
+present out of the question. A whole library of books exists about it.
+
+It is a curious fact that throughout the middle ages, the Roman poet
+Virgil was commonly believed to have been a great magician. Traditions
+were recorded by monastic chroniclers about him, that he made a brass
+fly and mounted it over one of the gates of Naples, having instilled
+into this metallic insect such potent magical qualities that as long as
+it kept guard over the gate, no musquitos, or flies, or cockroach, or
+other troublesome insects could exist in the city. What would have
+become of the celebrated Bug Powder man in those days? The story is
+told about Virgil as well as about Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, and
+other magicians, that he made a brazen head which could prophesy. He
+also made some statues of the gods of the various nations subject to
+Rome, so enchanted that if one of those nations was preparing to rebel,
+the statue of its god rung a bell and pointed a finger toward the
+nation. The same set of stories tells how poor Virgil came to an
+untimely end in consequence of trying to live forever. He had become an
+old man, it appears, and wishing to be young again, he used some
+appropriate incantations, and prepared a secret cavern. In this he
+caused a confidential disciple to cut him up like a hog and pack him
+away in a barrel of pickle, out of which he was to emerge in his new
+magic youth after a certain time. But by that special bad luck which
+seems to attend such cases, some malapropos traveller somehow made his
+way into the cavern, where he found the magic pork-barrel standing
+silently all alone in the middle of the place, and an ever-burning lamp
+illuminating the room, and slowly distilling a magic oil upon the salted
+sorcerer who was cooking below. The traveller rudely jarred the barrel,
+the light went out, as the torches flared upon it; and suddenly there
+appeared to the eyes of the astounded man, close at one side of the
+barrel, a little naked child, which ran thrice around the barrel,
+uttering deep curses upon him who had thus destroyed the charm, and
+vanished. The frightened traveller made off as fast as he could, and
+poor old Virgil, for what I know, is in pickle yet.
+
+Cornelius Agrippa was one of the most celebrated magicians of the
+middle ages. He lived from the year 1486 (six years before the discovery
+of America) until 1534, and was a native of Cologne, Agrippa is said to
+have had a magic glass in which he showed to his customers such dead or
+absent persons as they might wish to see. Thus he would call up the
+beautiful Helen of Troy, or Cicero in the midst of an oration; or to a
+pining lover, the figure of his absent lady, as she was employed at the
+moment--a dangerous exhibition! For who knows, whether the consolation
+sought by the fair one, will always be such as her lover will approve?
+Agrippa, they say, had an attendant devil in the form of a huge black
+dog, whom on his death-bed the magician dismissed with curses. The dog
+ran away, plunged into the river Saone and was seen no more. We are of
+course to suppose that his Satanic Majesty got possession of the
+conjuror's soul however, as per agreement. There is a story about
+Agrippa, which shows conclusively how "a little learning" may be "a
+dangerous thing." When Agrippa was absent on a short journey, his
+student in magic slipped into the study and began to read spells out of
+a great book. After a little there was a knock at the door, but the
+young man paid no attention to it. In another moment there was another
+louder one, which startled him, but still he read on. In a moment the
+door opened, and in came a fine large devil who angrily asked, "What do
+you call me for?" The frightened youth answered very much like those
+naughty boys who say "I didn't do nothing!" But it will not do to fool
+with devils. The angry demon caught him by the throat and strangled him.
+Shortly, when Agrippa returned, lo and behold, a strong squad of evil
+spirits were kicking up their heels and playing tag all over the house,
+and crowding his study particularly full. Like a schoolmaster among
+mischievous boys, the great enchanter sent all the little fellows home,
+catechised the big one, and finding the situation unpleasant, made him
+reanimate the corpse of the student and walk it about town all the
+afternoon. The malignant demon however, was free at sunset, and let the
+corpse drop dead in the middle of the market place. The people
+recognized it, found the claw-marks and traces of strangling, suspected
+the fact, and Agrippa had to abscond very suddenly.
+
+Another student of Agrippa's came very near an equally bad end. The
+magician was in the habit of enchanting a broomstick into a servant to
+do his housework, and when it was done, turning it back to a broomstick
+again and putting it behind the door. This young student had overheard
+the charm which made the servant, and one day in his master's absence,
+wanting a pail of water he said over the incantation and told the
+servant "Bring some water." The evil spirit promptly obeyed; flew to the
+river, brought a pailful and emptied it, instantly brought a second,
+instantly a third; and the student, startled, cried out, "that's
+enough!" But this was not the "return charm," and the ill tempered
+demon, rejoicing in doing mischief within the letter of his obligation,
+now flew backward and forward like lightning, so that he even began to
+flood the room about the rash student's feet. Desperate, he seized an
+axe and hewed this diabolical serving-man in two. _Two_ serving-men
+jumped up, with two water-pails, grinning in devilish glee, and both
+went to work harder than ever. The poor student gave himself up for
+lost, when luckily the master came home, dismissed the over-officious
+water carrier with a word, and saved the student's life.
+
+How thoroughly false all these absurd fictions are, and yet how
+ingeniously based on some fact, appears by the case of Agrippa's black
+dog. Wierus, a writer of good authority, and a personal friend of
+Agrippa's, reports that he knew very well all about the dog; that it was
+not a superhuman dog at all, but (if the term be admissible) a mere
+human dog--an animal which he, Wierus, had often led about by a string,
+and only a domestic pet of Agrippa.
+
+Another eminent magician of those days was Doctor Faustus, about whom
+Goethe wrote "Faust," Bailey wrote "Festus," and whose story, mingled of
+human love and of the devilish tricks of Mephistopheles, is known so
+very widely. The truth about Faust seems to be, that he was simply a
+successful juggler of the sixteenth century. Yet the wonderful stories
+about him were very implicitly and extensively believed. It was the time
+of the Protestant Reformation, and even Melanchthon and Luther seem to
+have entirely believed that Faustus could make the forms of the dead
+appear, could carry people invisibly through the air, and play all the
+legendary tricks of the enchanters. So strong a hold does humbug often
+obtain even upon the noblest and clearest and wisest minds!
+
+Faustus, according to the traditions, had a pretty keen eye for a joke.
+He once sold a splendid horse to a horse-jockey at a fair. The fellow
+shortly rode his fine horse to water. When he got into the water, lo and
+behold, the horse vanished, and the humbugged jockey found himself
+sitting up to his neck in the river on a straw saddle. There is
+something quite satisfactory in the idea of playing such a trick on one
+of that sharp generation, and Faust felt so comfortable over it that he
+entered his hotel and went quietly to sleep--or pretended to. Shortly in
+came the angry jockey; he shouted and bawled, but could not awaken the
+doctor, and in his anger he seized his foot and gave it a good pull.
+Foot and leg came off in his hand. Faustus screamed out as if in
+horrible agony, and the terrified jockey ran away as fast as he could,
+and never troubled his very loose-jointed customer for the money.
+
+A magician named Ziito, resident at the court of Wenceslaus of Bohemia
+(A. D. 1368 to 1419,) appears to great advantage in the annals of these
+humbugs. He was a homely, crooked creature, with an immense mouth. He
+had a collision once in public on a question of skill with a brother
+conjuror, and becoming a little excited, opened his big mouth and
+swallowed the other magician, all to his shoes, which as he observed
+were dirty. Then he stepped into a closet, got his rival out of him
+somehow, and calmly led him back to the company. A story is told about
+Ziito and some hogs, just like that about Faust and the horse.
+
+In all these stories about magicians, their power is derived from the
+devil. It was long believed that the ancient university of Salamanca in
+Spain, founded A. D. 1240, was the chief school of magic, and had
+regular professors and classes in it. The devil was supposed to be the
+special patron of this department, and he had a curious fee for his
+trouble, which he collected every commencement day. The last exercise of
+the graduating class on that day was, to run across a certain cavern
+under the University. The devil was always on hand at this time, and had
+the privilege of grabbing at the last man of the crowd. If he caught
+him, as he commonly did, the soul of the unhappy student became the
+property of his captor. Hence arose the phrase "Devil take the
+hindmost." Sometime it happened that some very brisk fellow was left
+last by some accident. If he were brisk enough to dodge the devil's
+grab, that personage only caught his shadow. In this case it was well
+understood that this particular enchanter never had any shadow
+afterwards, and he always became very eminent in his art.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER. XXXVII.
+
+WITCHCRAFT.--NEW YORK WITCHES.--THE WITCH MANIA.--HOW FAST THEY BURNED
+THEM.--THE MODE OF TRIAL.--WITCHES TO DAY IN EUROPE.
+
+
+Witchcraft is one of the most baseless, absurd, disgusting and silly of
+all the humbugs. And it is not a dead humbug either; it is alive, busily
+exercised by knaves and believed by fools all over the world. Witches
+and wizards operate and prosper among the Hottentots and negroes and
+barbarous Indians, among the Siberians and Kirgishes and Lapps, of
+course. Everybody knows _that_--they are poor ignorant creatures! Yes:
+but are the French and Germans and English and Americans poor ignorant
+creatures too? They are, if the belief and practice of witchcraft among
+them is any test; for in all those countries there are witches. I take
+up one of the New York City dailies of this very morning, and find in it
+the advertisements of seven Witches. In 1858, there were in full blast
+in New York and Brooklyn sixteen witches and two wizards. One of these
+wizards was a black man; a very proper style of person to deal with the
+black art.
+
+Witch means, a woman who practices sorcery under an agreement with the
+devil, who helps her. Before the Christian era, the Jewish witch was a
+mere diviner or at most a raiser of the dead, and the Gentile witch was
+a poisoner, a maker of philtres or love potions, and a vulgar sort of
+magician. The devil part of the business did not begin until a good
+while after Christ. During the last century or so, again, while
+witchcraft has been extensively believed in, the witch has degenerated
+into a very vulgar and poverty stricken sort of conjuring woman. Take
+our New York city witches, for instance. They live in cheap and dirty
+streets that smell bad; their houses are in the same style, infected
+with a strong odor of cabbage, onions, washing-day, old dinners, and
+other merely sublunary smells. Their rooms are very ill furnished, and
+often beset with wash-tubs, swill-pails, mops and soiled clothes; their
+personal appearance is commonly unclean, homely, vulgar, coarse, and
+ignorant, and often rummy. Their fee is a quarter or half of a dollar.
+Sometimes a dollar. Their divination is worked by cutting and dealing
+cards or studying the palm of your hand. And the things which they tell
+you are the most silly and shallow babble in the world; a mess of
+phrases worn out over and over again. Here is a specimen, as gabbled to
+the customer over a pack of cards laid out on the table; anybody can do
+the like: "You face a misfortune. I think it will come upon you within
+three weeks, but it may not. A dark complexioned man faces your
+life-card. He is plotting against you, and you must beware of him. Your
+marriage-card faces two young women, one fair and the other dark. One
+you will have, and the other you will not. I think you will have the
+fair one. She favors the dark complexioned man, which means trouble. You
+face money, but you must earn it. There is a good deal, but you may not
+get much of it" etc., etc. These words are exactly the sort of stuff
+that is sold by the witches of to-day. But the greatest witch humbug of
+all the witchcraft of history, is that of Christendom for about three
+hundred years, beginning about the time of the discovery of America. To
+that period belonged the Salem witchcraft of New England, the
+witch-finding of Matthew Hopkins in Old England, the Scotch witch
+trials, and the Swedish and German and French witch mania.
+
+The peculiar traits of the witchcraft of this period are among the most
+mysterious of all humbugs. The most usual points in a case of witchcraft
+were, that the witch had sold herself to the devil for all eternity, in
+order to get the power during a few years of earthly life, to inflict a
+few pains on the persons of those she disliked, or to cause them to lose
+part of their property. This was almost always the whole story, except
+the mere details of the witch baptism and witch sabbath, parodies on the
+ceremonies of the Christian religion. And the mystery is, how anybody
+could believe that to accomplish such very small results, seldom equal
+even to the death of an enemy, one would agree to accept eternal
+damnation in the next world, almost certain poverty, misery, persecution
+and torment in this, besides having for an amusement performances more
+dirty, obscene and vulgar than I can even hint at.
+
+But such a belief was universal, and hundreds of the witches themselves
+confessed as much as I have described, and more, with numerous details,
+and they were burnt alive for their trouble. The extent of wholesale
+murdering perpetrated under forms of law, on charges of witchcraft, is
+astonishing. A magistrate named Remigius, published a book in which he
+told how much he thought of himself for having condemned and burned nine
+hundred witches in sixteen years, in Lorraine. And the one thing that he
+blamed himself for was this: that out of regard for the wishes of a
+colleague, he had only caused certain children to be whipped naked three
+times round the market place where their parents had been burned,
+instead of burning them. At Bamberg, six hundred persons were burned in
+five years, at Wurzburg nine hundred in two years. Sprenger, a German
+inquisitor-general, and author of a celebrated book on detecting and
+punishing witchcraft, called _Malleus Maleficarum_, or "The Mallet of
+Malefactors," burned more than five hundred in one year. In Geneva, five
+hundred persons were burned during 1515 and 1516. In the district of
+Como in Italy, a thousand persons were burned as witches in the single
+year 1524, besides over a hundred a year for several years afterwards.
+_Seventeen thousand_ persons were executed for witchcraft in Scotland
+during thirty-nine years, ending with 1603. _Forty thousand_ were
+executed in England from 1600 to 1680. Bodinus, another of the witch
+killing judges, gravely announced that there were undoubtedly not less
+than three hundred thousand witches in France.
+
+The way in which the witch murderers reasoned, and their modes of
+conducting trials and procuring confessions, were truly infernal. The
+chief rule was that witchcraft being an "exceptional crime," no regard
+need be had to the ordinary forms of justice. All manner of tortures
+were freely applied to force confessions. In Scotland "the boot" was
+used, being an iron case in which the legs are locked up to the knees,
+and an iron wedge then driven in until sometimes the bones were crushed
+and the marrow spouted out. Pin sticking, drowning, starving, the rack,
+were too common to need details. Sometimes the prisoner was hung up by
+the thumbs, and whipped by one person, while another held lighted
+candles to the feet and other parts of the body. At Arras, while the
+prisoners were being torn on the rack, the executioner stood by, sword
+in hand, promising to cut off at once the heads of those who did not
+confess. At Offenburg, when the prisoners had been tortured until
+beyond the power of speaking aloud, they silently assented to abominable
+confessions read to them out of a book. Many were cheated into
+confession by the promise of pardon and release, and then burned. A poor
+woman in Germany was tricked by the hangman, who dressed himself up as a
+devil and went into her cell. Overpowered by pain, fear and
+superstition, she begged him to help her out; her beseeching was taken
+for confession, she was burned, and a ballad which treated the trick as
+a jolly and comical device, was long popular in the country. Several of
+the judges in witch cases tell us how victims, utterly weary of their
+tormented lives, confessed whatever was required, merely as the shortest
+way to death, and an escape out of their misery. All who dared to argue
+against the current of popular and judicial delusion were instantly
+refuted very effectively by being attacked for witchcraft themselves;
+and once accused, there was little hope of escape. The Jesuit Delrio, in
+a book published in 1599, states the witch killers' side of the
+discussion very neatly indeed; for in one and the same chapter he defies
+any opponents to disprove the existence of witchcraft, and then shows
+that a denial of witchcraft is the worst of all heresies, and must be
+punished with death. Quite a number of excellent and sensible people
+were actually burnt on just this principle.
+
+I do not undertake to give details of any witch trials; this sketch of
+the way in which they operated is all I can make room for, and
+sufficiently delineates this cruel and bloody humbug.
+
+I have already referred to the fact that we have right here among us in
+this city a very fair supply of a vulgar, dowdy kind of witchcraft.
+Other countries are favored in like manner. I have not just now the most
+recent information, but in the year 1857 and 1858, for instance, mobbing
+and prosecutions growing out of a popular belief in witchcraft were
+quite plentiful enough in various parts of Europe. No less than eight
+cases of the kind in England alone were reported during those two years.
+Among them was the actual murder of a woman as a witch by a mob in
+Shropshire; and an attack by another mob in Essex, upon a perfectly
+inoffensive person, on suspicion of having "bewitched" a scolding
+ill-conditioned girl, from which attack the mob was diverted with much
+difficulty, and thinking itself very unjustly treated. Some others of
+those cases show a singular quantity of credulity among people of
+respectability.
+
+While therefore some of us may perhaps be justly thankful for safety
+from such horrible follies as these, still we can not properly feel very
+proud of the progress of humanity, since after not less than six
+thousand years of existence and eighteen hundred of revelation, so many
+believers in witchcraft still exist among the most civilized nations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+CHARMS AND INCANTATIONS.--HOW CATO CURED SPRAINS.--THE SECRET NAME OF
+GOD.--SECRET NAMES OF CITIES.--ABRACADABRA.--CURES FOR CRAMP.--MR.
+WRIGHT'S SIGIL.--WHISKERIFUSTICUS.--WITCHES' HORSES.--THEIR CURSES.--HOW
+TO RAISE THE DEVIL.
+
+
+It is worth while to print in plain English for my readers a good
+selection of the very words which have been believed, or are still
+believed, to possess magic power. Then any who choose, may operate by
+themselves or may put some bold friend up in a corner, and blaze away at
+him or her until they are wholly satisfied about the power of magic.
+
+The Roman Cato, so famous for his grumness and virtue, believed that if
+he were ill, it would much help him, and that it would cure sprains in
+others, to say over these words: "Daries, dardaries, astaris, ista,
+pista, sista," or, as another account has it, "motas, daries, dardaries,
+astaries;" or, as still another account says, "Huat, huat, huat; ista,
+pista, sista; domiabo, damnaustra." And sure enough, nothing is truer,
+as any physician will tell you, that if the old censor only believed
+hard enough, it would almost certainly help him; not by the force of the
+words, but by the force of his own ancient Roman imagination. Here are
+some Greek words of no less virtue: "_Aski, Kataski, Tetrax._" When the
+Greek priests let out of their doors those who had been completely
+initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, they said to them last of all the
+awful and powerful words, "_Konx, ompax_." If you want to know what the
+usual result was, just say them to somebody, and you will see,
+instantly. The ancient Hebrews believed that there was a secret name of
+God, usually thought to be inexpressible, and only to be represented by
+a mystic figure kept in the Temple, and that if any one could learn it,
+and repeat it, he could rule the intelligent and unintelligent creation
+at his will. It is supposed by some, that Jehovah is the word which
+stands for this secret name; and some Hebraists think that the word
+"Yahveh" is much more nearly the right one. The Mohammedans, who have
+received many notions from the Jews, believe the same story about the
+secret name of God, and they think it was engraved on Solomon's signet,
+as all readers of the Arabian Nights will very well remember. The Jews
+believed that if you pronounced the word "Satan" any evil spirit that
+happened to be by could in consequence instantly pop into you if he
+wished, and possess you, as the devils in the New Testament possessed
+people.
+
+Some ancient cities had a secret name, and it was believed that if their
+enemies could find this out, they could conjure with it so as to destroy
+such cities. Thus, the secret name of Rome was Valentia, and the word
+was very carefully kept, with the intention that none should know it
+except one or two of the chief pontiffs. Mr. Borrow, in one of his
+books, tells about a charm which a gipsy woman knew, and which she used
+to repeat to herself as a means of obtaining supernatural aid when she
+happened to want it. This was, "Saboca enrecar maria ereria." He induced
+her after much effort to repeat the words to him, but she always wished
+she had not, with an evident conviction that some harm would result. He
+explained to her that they consisted of a very simple phrase, but it
+made no difference.
+
+An ancient physician named Serenus Sammonicus, used to be quite sure of
+curing fevers, by means of what he called Abracadabra, which was a sort
+of inscription to be written on something and worn on the patient's
+person. It was as follows:
+
+  ABRACADABRA
+   BRACADABR
+    RACADAB
+     ACADA
+      CAD
+       A.
+
+Another gentleman of the same school used to cure sore eyes by hanging
+round the patient's neck an inscription made up of only two letters, A
+and Z; but how he mixed them we unfortunately do not know.
+
+By the way, many of the German peasantry in the more ignorant districts
+still believe that to write Abracadabra on a slip of paper and keep it
+with you, will protect you from wounds, and that if your house is on
+fire, to throw this strip into it will put the fire out.
+
+Many charms or incantations call on God, Christ or some saints, just as
+the heathen ones call on a spirit. Here is one for epilepsy that seems
+to appeal to both religions, as if with a queer proviso against any
+possible mistake about either. Taking the epileptic by the hand, you
+whisper in his ear "I adjure thee by the sun and the moon and the gospel
+of to-day, that thou arise and no more fall to the ground; in the name
+of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost."
+
+A charm for the cramp found in vogue in some rustic regions is this:
+
+  "The devil is tying a knot in my leg,
+  Mark, Luke and John, unloose it, I beg,
+  Crosses three we make to ease us--
+  Two for the thieves, and one for Christ Jesus."
+
+Here is another, often used in Ireland, which in the same spirit of
+superstition and ignorant irreverence uses the name of the Savior for a
+slight human occasion. It is to cure the toothache, and requires the
+repeating of the following string of words:
+
+"St. Peter sitting on a marble stone, our Savior passing by, asked him
+what was the matter. 'Oh Lord, a toothache!' Stand up, Peter, and follow
+me; and whoever keeps these words in memory of me, shall never be
+troubled with a toothache, Amen."
+
+The English astrologer Lilly, after the death of his wife, formerly
+a Mrs. Wright, found in a scarlet bag which she wore under her arm a
+pure gold "sigil" or round plate worth about ten dollars in gold,
+which the former husband of the defunct had used to exorcise a
+spirit that plagued him. In case any of my readers can afford
+bullion enough, and would like to drive away any such visitor, let
+them get such a plate and have engraved round the edge of one side,
+"Vicit Leo de tribus Judae tetragrammaton [cross]." Inside this
+engrave a "holy lamb." Round the edge of the other side engrave
+"Annaphel" and three crosses, thus: [cross] [cross] [cross]; and in
+the middle, "Sanctus Petrus Alpha et Omega."
+
+The witches have always had incantations, which they have used to make a
+broom-stick into a horse, to kill or to sicken animals and persons, etc.
+Most of these are sufficiently stupid, and not half so wonderful as one
+I know, which may be found in a certain mysterious volume called "The
+Girl's Own Book," and which, as I can depose, has often power to tickle
+children. It is this:
+
+"Bandy-legged Borachio Mustachio Whiskerifusticus, the bald and brave
+Bombardino of Bagdad, helped Abomilique Bluebeard Bashaw of Babelmandel
+beat down an abominable bumblebee at Balsora."
+
+But to the other witches. Their charms were repeated sometimes in their
+own language and sometimes in gibberish. When the Scotch witches wanted
+to fly away to their "Witches' Sabbath," they straddled a broom-handle,
+a corn stalk, a straw, or a rush, and cried out "Horse and hattock, in
+the Devil's name!" and immediately away they flew, "forty times as high
+as the moon," if they wished. Some English witches in Somersetshire used
+instead to say, "Thout, tout, throughout and about;" and when they
+wished to return from their meeting they said "Rentum, tormentum!" If
+this form of the charm does not manufacture a horse, not even a
+saw-horse, then I recommend another version of it, thus:
+
+  "Horse and pattock, horse and go!
+  Horse and pellats, ho, ho, ho!"
+
+German witches said (in High Dutch:)
+
+  "Up and away!
+  Hi! Up aloft, and nowhere stay!"
+
+Scotch witches had modes of working destruction to the persons or
+property of those to whom they meant evil, which were strikingly like
+the negro obeah or mandinga. One of these was, to make a hash of the
+flesh of an unbaptised child, with that of dogs and sheep, and to put
+this goodly dish in the house of the victim, reciting the following
+rhyme:
+
+  "We put this untill this hame
+  In our Lord the Devil's name;
+  The first hands that handle thee.
+  Burned and scalded may they be!
+  We will destroy houses and hald,
+  With the sheep and nolt (_i. e._ cattle) into the fauld;
+  And little shall come to the fore (_i. e._ remain,)
+  Of all the rest of the little store."
+
+Another, used to destroy the sons of a certain gentleman named Gordon
+was, to make images for the boys, of clay and paste, and put them in a
+fire, saying:
+
+  "We put this water among this meal
+  For long pining and ill heal,
+  We put it into the fire
+  To burn them up stock and stour (_i. e._ stack and band.)
+  That they be burned with our will,
+  Like any stikkle (stubble) in a kiln."
+
+In case any lady reader finds herself changed into a hare, let her
+remember how the witch Isobel Gowdie changed herself from hare back to
+woman. It was by repeating:
+
+  "Hare, hare, God send thee care!
+  I am in a hare's likeness now;
+  But I shall be woman even now--
+  Hare, hare, God send thee care!"
+
+About the year 1600 there was both hanged and burned at Amsterdam a poor
+demented Dutch girl, who alleged that she could make cattle sterile, and
+bewitch pigs and poultry by saying to them "Turius und Shurius
+Inturius." I recommend to say this first to an old hen, and if found
+useful it might then be tried on a pig.
+
+Not far from the same time a woman was executed as a witch at Bamberg,
+having, as was often the case, been forced by torture to make a
+confession. She said that the devil had given her power to send diseases
+upon those she hated, by saying complimentary things about them, as
+"What a strong man!" "what a beautiful woman!" "what a sweet child!" It
+is my own impression that this species of cursing may safely be tried
+where it does not include a falsehood.
+
+Here are two charms which the German witches used to repeat to raise the
+devil with in the form of a he goat:
+
+  "Lalle, Bachea, Magotte, Baphia, Dajam,
+  Vagoth Heneche Ammi Nagaz, Adomator
+  Raphael Immanuel Christus, Tetragrammaton
+  Agra Jod Loi. Konig! Konig!"
+
+The two last words to be screamed out quickly. This second one, it must
+be remembered, is to be read backward except the two last words. It was
+supposed to be the strongest of all, and was used if the first one
+failed:
+
+  "Anion, Lalle, Sabolos, Sado, Poter, Aziel,
+  Adonai Sado Vagoth Agra, Jod,
+  Baphra! Komm! Komm!"
+
+In case the devil staid too long, he could be made to take himself off
+by addressing to him the following statement, repeated backward:
+
+  "Zellianelle Heotti Bonus Vagotha
+  Plisos sother osech unicus Beelzebub
+  Dax! Komm! Komm!"
+
+Which would evidently make almost anybody go away.
+
+A German charm to improve one's finances was perhaps no worse than
+gambling in gold. It ran thus:
+
+  "As God be welcomed, gentle moon--
+  Make thou my money more and soon!"
+
+To get rid of a fever in the German manner, go and tie up a bough of a
+tree, saying, "Twig, I bind thee; fever, now leave me!" To give your
+ague to a willow tree, tie three knots in a branch of it early in the
+morning, and say, "Good morning, old one! I give thee the cold; good
+morning, old one!" and turn and run away as fast as you can without
+looking back.
+
+Enough of this nonsense. It is pure mummery. Yet it is worth while to
+know exactly what the means were which in ancient times were relied on
+for such purposes, and it is not useless to put this matter on record;
+for just such formulas are believed in now by many people. Even in this
+city there are "witches" who humbug the more foolish part of the
+community out of their money by means just as foolish as these.
+
+
+
+
+VIII. ADVENTURERS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+THE PRINCESS CARIBOO; OR, THE QUEEN OF THE ISLES.
+
+
+Bristol was, in 1812, the second commercial city of Great Britain,
+having in particular an extensive East India trade. Among its
+inhabitants were merchants, reckoned remarkably shrewd, and many of them
+very wealthy; and quite a number of aristocratic families, who were
+looked up to with the abject toad-eating kind of civility that follows
+"the nobility." On the whole, Bristol was a very fashionable, rich,
+cultivated, and intelligent place--considering.
+
+One fine evening in the winter of 1812-13, the White Lion hotel, a
+leading inn at Bristol, was thrown into a wonderful flutter by the
+announcement that a very beautiful and fabulously wealthy lady, the
+Princess Cariboo, had just arrived by ship from an oriental port. Her
+agent, a swarthy and wizened little Asiatic, who spoke imperfect
+English, gave this information, and ordered the most sumptuous suite of
+rooms in the house. Of course, there was great activity in all manner of
+preparations; and the mysterious character of this lovely but high-born
+stranger caused a wonderful flutter of excitement, which grew and grew
+until the fair stranger at length deigned to arrive. She came at about
+ten o'clock, in great state, and with two or three coaches packed with
+servants and luggage--the former of singularly dingy complexion and
+fantastic vestments, and the latter of the most curious forms and
+material imaginable. The eager anticipations of hosts and guests alike
+were not only fully justified but even exceeded by the rare beauty of
+the unknown, the oriental style and magnificence of her attire and that
+of her attendants, and the enormous bulk of her baggage--a circumstance
+that has no less weight at an English inn than any where else. The
+stranger, too, was most liberal with her fees to the servants, which
+were always in gold.
+
+It was quickly discovered that her ladyship spoke not one word of
+English, and even her agent--a dark, wild, queer little fellow,--got
+along with it but indifferently, preferring all his requests in very
+"broken China" indeed. The landlord thought it a splendid opportunity to
+create a long bill, and got up rooms and a dinner in flaring style, with
+wax candles, a mob of waiters, ringing of bells, and immense ceremony.
+But the lady, like a real princess, while well enough pleased and very
+gracious, took all this as a matter of course, and preferred her own
+cook, a flat-faced, pug-nosed, yellow-breeched and almond-eyed Oriental,
+with a pigtail dangling from his scalp, which was shaved clean,
+excepting at the back of the head. This gentleman ran about in the
+kitchen-yard with queer little brass utensils, wherein he concocted
+sundry diabolical preparations--as they seemed to the English servants
+to be,--of herbs, rice, curry powder, etc., etc., for the repast of his
+mistress. For the next three or four days, the White Lion was in a
+state bordering upon frenzy, at the singular deportment of the
+"Princess" and her numerous attendants. The former arrayed herself in
+the most astonishing combinations of apparel that had ever been seen by
+the good gossips of Bristol, and the latter indulged in gymnastic antics
+and vocal chantings that almost deafened the neighborhood. There was a
+peculiar nasal ballad in which they were fond of indulging, that
+commenced about midnight and kept up until well nigh morning, that drove
+the neighbors almost beside themselves. It sounded like a concert by a
+committee of infuriated cats, and wound up with protracted whining
+notes, commencing in a whimper, and then with a sudden jerk, bursting
+into a loud, monotonous howl. Yet, withal, these attendants, who slept
+on mats, in the rooms adjacent to that of their mistress, and fed upon
+the preparations of her own cuisine, were, in the main, very civil and
+inoffensive, and seemed to look upon the Princess with the utmost awe.
+The "agent," or "secretary," or "prime-minister," or whatever he might
+be called, was very mysterious as to the objects, purposes, history, and
+antecedents of her Highness, and the quidnuncs were in despair until,
+one morning, the "Bristol Mirror," then a leading paper, came out with a
+flaring announcement, expressing the pleasure it felt in acquainting the
+public with the fact, that a very eminent and interesting foreign
+personage had arrived from her home in the remotest East to proffer His
+Majesty, George III, the unobstructed commerce and friendship of her
+realm, which was as remarkable for its untold wealth as for its
+marvelous beauty. The lady was described as a befitting representative
+of the loveliness and opulence of this new Golconda and Ophir in one,
+since her matchless wealth and munificence were approached only by her
+ravishing personal charms. The other papers took up the topic, and were
+even more extravagant. "Felix Farley's Journal" gave a long narrative of
+her wanderings and extraordinary adventures in the uttermost East, as
+gleaned, of course, from her garrulous agent. The island of her chief
+residence was described as being of vast extent and fertility, immensely
+rich and populous, and possessing many rare and beautiful arts unknown
+to the nations of Europe. The princess had become desperately enamored
+of a certain young Englishman of high rank, who had been shipwrecked on
+her coast, but had afterward escaped, and as she learned, safely reached
+a port in China, and thence departed for Europe. The Princess had
+hereupon set out upon her journeyings over the world in search of him.
+In order to facilitate her enterprise, and softened by the deep
+affection she felt for the son of Albion, she had determined to break
+through the usages of her country, and form an alliance with that of her
+beloved.
+
+Such were the statements everywhere put in circulation; and when the
+Longbows of the place got full hold of it, Gulliver, Peter Wilkins, and
+Sinbad the Sailor were completely eclipsed. Diamonds as big as hen's
+eggs, and pearls the size of hazelnuts, were said to be the commonest
+buttons and ornaments the Princess wore, and her silks and shawls were
+set beyond all price.
+
+The announcement of this romantic and mysterious history, this boundless
+wealth, this interesting mission from majesty to majesty in person and
+the reality which every one could see of so much grace and beauty,
+supplied all that was wanting to set the upper-tendom of the place in a
+blaze. It was hardly etiquette for a royal visitor to receive much
+company before having been presented at Court; but as this princely lady
+came from a point so far outside of the pale of Christendom, and all its
+formalities, it was deemed not out of place, to show her befitting
+attentions; and the ice once broken, there was no arresting the flood.
+The aristocracy of Bristol vied with each other in seeing who should be
+first and most extravagant in their demonstrations. The street in front
+of the "White Lion" was day after day blocked up, with elegant
+equipages, and her reception-rooms thronged with "fair women and brave
+men." Milliners and mantuamakers pressed upon the lovely and mysterious
+Princess Cariboo the most exquisite hats, dresses, and laces, just to
+acquaint her with the fashionable style and solicit her distinguished
+patronage; dry-goodsmen sent her rare patterns of their costliest and
+richest stuffs, perfumers their most exquisite toilet-cases, filled with
+odors sweet; jewellers, their most superb sets of gems; and florists and
+visitors nearly suffocated her with the scarcest and most delicate
+exotics. Pictures, sketches, and engravings, oil-paintings, and
+portraits on ivory of her rapturous admirers, poured in from all sides,
+and her own fine form and features were reproduced by a score of
+artists. Daily she was feted, and nightly serenaded, until the Princess
+Cariboo became the furore of the United Kingdom. Magnificent
+entertainments were given her in private mansions; and at length, to cap
+the climax, Mr. Worrall, the Recorder of Bristol, managed, by his
+influence, to bring about for her a grand municipal reception in the
+town-hall, and people from far and near thronged to it in thousands.
+
+In the meantime the papers were gravely trying to make out whether the
+Cariboo country meant some remote portion of Japan, or the Island of
+Borneo, or some comparatively unfamiliar archipelago in the remotest
+East, and the "Mirror" was publishing type expressly cut for the purpose
+of representing the characters of the language in which the Princess
+spoke and wrote. They were certainly very uncouth, and pretended sages,
+who knew very well that there was no one to contradict them, declared
+that they were "ancient Coptic!"
+
+Upon reading the sequel of the story, one is irresistibly reminded of
+the ancient Roman inscription discovered by one of Dickens' characters,
+which some irreverent rogue subsequently declared to be nothing more nor
+less than "Bil Stumps His Mark."
+
+All this went on for about a fortnight, until the whole town and a good
+deal of the surrounding country had made complete fools of themselves,
+and only the "naughty little boys" in the streets held out against the
+prevailing mania, probably because they were not admitted to the sport.
+Their salutations took the form of an inharmonious thoroughfare-ballad,
+the chorus of which terminated with:
+
+  "Boo! hoo! hoo!
+  And who's the Princess Cariboo?"
+
+yelled out at the top of their voices.
+
+At length one day, the luggage of her Highness was embarked upon a small
+vessel to be taken round by water to London, while she announced,
+through her "agent," her intention to reach the capital by
+post-coaching.
+
+Of course, the most superb traveling-carriages and teams were placed at
+her disposal; but, courteously declining all these offers, she set out
+in the night-time with a hired establishment, attended by her retinue.
+
+Days and weeks rolled on, and yet no announcement came of the arrival of
+her Highness at London or at any of the intervening cities after the
+first two or three towns eastward of Bristol. Inquiry began to be made,
+and, after long and patient but unavailing search, it became apparent to
+divers and sundry dignitaries in the old town that somebody had been
+very particularly "sold."
+
+The landlord at the "White Lion" who had accepted the agent's order for
+L1,000 on a Calcutta firm in London; poor Mr. Worrall, who had been
+Master of Ceremonies at the town hall affair, and had spent large sums
+of money; and the tradespeople and others who sent their finest goods,
+all felt that they had "heard something drop." The Princess Cariboo had
+disappeared as mysteriously as she came.
+
+For years, the people of Bristol were unmercifully ridiculed throughout
+the entire Kingdom on account of this affair, and burlesque songs and
+plays immortalized its incidents for successive seasons.
+
+One of these insisted that the Princess was no other than an actress of
+more notoriety than note, humbly born in the immediate vicinity of the
+old city, where she practiced this gigantic hoax, and that she had been
+assisted in it by a set of dissolute young noblemen and actors, who
+furnished the money she had spent, got up the oriental dresses,
+published the fibs, and fomented the excitement. At all events, the net
+profit to her and her confederates in the affair must have been some
+L10,000.
+
+Within a few months, and since the first publication of the above
+paragraphs, the English newspapers have recorded the death of the
+"Princess Cariboo," who it appears afterward married in her own rank in
+life and spent a considerable number of years of usefulness in the leech
+trade--an occupation not without a metaphorical likeness to her early
+and more ambitious exploit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+COUNT CAGLIOSTRO, ALIAS JOSEPH BALSAMO, KNOWN ALSO AS "CURSED JOE."
+
+
+One of the most striking, amusing, and instructive pages in the history
+of humbug is the life of Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, whose real name
+was Joseph or Giuseppe Balsamo. He was born at Palermo, in 1743, and
+very early began to manifest his brilliant talents for roguery.
+
+He ran away from his first boarding-school, at the age of eleven or
+twelve, getting up a masquerade of goblins, by the aid of some scampish
+schoolfellows, which frightened the monkish watchmen of the gates away
+from their posts, nearly dead with terror. He had gained little at this
+school, except the pleasant surname of Beppo Maldetto (or cursed Joe.)
+At the age of thirteen he was a second time expelled from the convent of
+Cartegirone, belonging to the order of Benfratelli, the good fathers
+having in vain endeavored to train him up in the way he should go.
+
+While in this convent, the boy was in charge of the apothecary, and
+probably picked up more or less of the smattering of chemistry and
+physics which he afterwards used. His final offence was a ridiculous and
+characteristic one. He was a greedy and thievish fellow, and was by way
+of penalty set to read aloud about the ancient martyrs, those dry though
+pious old gentlemen, while the monks ate dinner. Thus put to what he
+liked least, and deprived of what he liked best, he impudently
+extemporized, instead of the stories of holy agonies, all the indecorous
+scandal he could think of about the more notorious disreputable women of
+Palermo, putting their names instead of those of the martyrs.
+
+After this, Master Joe proceeded to distinguish himself by forging
+opera-tickets, and even documents of various kinds, indiscriminate
+pilfering and swindling, interpreting visions, conjuring, and finally,
+it is declared, a touch of genuine assassination.
+
+Pretty soon he made a foolish, greedy goldsmith, one Marano, believe
+that there was a treasure hidden in the sand on the sea-shore near
+Palermo, and induced the silly man to go one night to dig it up. Having
+reached the spot, the dupe was made to strip himself to his shirt and
+drawers, a magic circle was drawn round him with all sorts of raw-head
+and bloody-bones ceremonies, and Beppo, exhorting him not to leave the
+ring, lest the spirits should kill him, stepped out of sight to make the
+incantations to raise them. Almost instantly, six devils, horned,
+hoofed, tailed, and clawed, breathing fire and smoke, leaped from among
+the rocks and beat the wretched goldsmith senseless, and almost to
+death. They were of course Cursed Joe and some confederates; and taking
+Marano's money and valuables, they left him. He got home in wretched
+plight, but had sense enough left to suspect Master Joe, whom he shortly
+promised, after the Sicilian manner, to assassinate. So Joe ran away
+from Palermo, and went to Messina. Here he said he fell in with a
+venerable humbug, named Athlotas, an "Armenian Sage," who united his
+talents with Beppo's own, in making a peculiar preparation of flax and
+hemp and passing it off upon the people of Alexandria, in Egypt, as a
+new kind of silk. This feat made not only a sensation but plenty of
+money; and the two swindlers now traversed Greece, Turkey, and Arabia,
+in various directions, stirring up the Oriental "old fogies" in amazing
+style. Harems and palaces, according to Cagliostro's own apocryphal
+story, were thrown open to them everywhere, and while the Scherif of
+Mecuca took Balsao under his high protection, one of the Grand Muftis
+actually gave him splendid apartments in his own abode. It is only
+necessary to reflect upon the unbounded reverence felt by all good
+Mussulmen for these exalted dignitaries, to comprehend the height of
+distinction thus attained by the Palermo thimble-rigger. But, among the
+many obscure records that exist in the Italian, French, and German
+languages, touching this arch impostor, there is a hint of a night
+adventure in the harem of a high and mighty personage, at Mecca, whereby
+the latter was put out of doors, with his robes torn and his beard
+singed, by his own domestics, and left to wander in the streets, while
+Beppo, in disguise, received the salaams and sequins of the
+establishment, including the attentions of the fair ones therein caged,
+for an entire night. His escape to the seacoast after this adventure was
+almost miraculous; but escape he did, and shortly afterward turned up in
+Rome, with the title (conferred by himself) of Count Cagliostro, the
+reputation of enormous wealth, and genuine and enthusiastic letters of
+recommendation from Pinto, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta. Pinto
+was an alchymist, and had been fooled to the top of his bent by the
+cunning Joseph.
+
+These letters introduced our humbug into the first families of Rome;
+who, like some other first families, were first also as fools. He also
+married a very beautiful, very shrewd, and very wicked Roman donzella,
+Lorenza Feliciani by name; and the worthy couple, combining their
+various talents, and regarding the world as their oyster, at once
+proceeded to open it in the most scientific style. I cannot follow this
+wonderful human chameleon in all his transformations under his various
+names of Fischio, Melissa, Fenice, Anna, Pellegrini, Harat, and
+Belmonte, nor state the studies and processes by which he picked up
+sufficient knowledge of physic, chemistry, the hidden properties of
+numbers, astronomy, astrology, mesmerism, clairvoyance, and the genuine
+old-fashioned "black art;" but suffice it to say, that he travelled
+through every part of Europe, and set it in a blaze with excitement.
+
+There were always enough of silly coxcombs, young and old, of high
+degree, to be allured by the siren smiles of his "Countess;" and dupes
+of both sexes everywhere, to swallow his yarns and gape at his
+juggleries. In the course of his rambles, he paid a visit to his great
+brother humbug, the Count of St. Germain, in Westphalia, or Schleswig,
+and it was not long afterward that he began to publish to the world his
+grand discoveries in Alchemy, of the Philosopher's Stone, and the Elixir
+of Life, or Waters of Perpetual Youth. These and many similar wonders
+were declared to be the result of his investigations under the Arch of
+Old Egyptian Masonry, which degree he claimed to have revived. This
+notion of Egyptian Masonry, Cagliostro is said to have found in some
+manuscripts left by one George Cofton, which fell into our quack's
+hands. This degree was to give perfection to human beings, by means of
+moral and physical regeneration. Of these two the former was to be
+secured by means of a Pentagon, which removes original sin and renews
+pristine innocence. The physical kind of regeneration was to be brought
+about by using the "prime matter" or philosopher's stone, and the
+"Acacia," which two ingredients will give immortal youth. In this new
+structure, he assumed the title of the "Grand Cophta" and actually
+claimed the worship of his followers; declaring that the institution had
+been established by Enoch and Elias, and that he had been summoned by
+"spiritual" agencies to restore it to its pristine glory. In fact, this
+pretension, which influenced thousands upon thousands of believers, was
+one of the most daring impostures that ever saw the light; and it is
+astounding to think that, so late as 1780, it should, for a long time,
+have been entirely successful. The preparatory course of exercises for
+admission to the mystic brotherhood has been described as a series of
+"purgation, starvation, and desperation," lasting for forty days! and
+ending in "physical regeneration" and an immortality on earth. The
+celebrated Lavater, a mild and genial, but feeble man, became one of
+Cagliostro's disciples, and was bamboozled to his heart's content--in
+fact, made to believe that the Count could put the devil into him, or
+take him out, as the case might be.
+
+The wondrous "Water of Beauty," that made old wrinkled faces look young,
+smooth, and blooming again, was the special merchandise of the Countess,
+and was, of course, in great request among the faded beaux and dowagers
+of the day, who were easily persuaded of their own restored loveliness.
+The transmutation of baser metals into gold usually terminated in the
+transmigration of all the gold his victims had into the Count's own
+purse.
+
+In 1776, the Count and Countess came to London. Here, funnily enough,
+they fell into the hands of a gambler, a shyster, and a female scamp,
+who together tormented them almost to death, because the Count would
+not pick them out lucky numbers to gamble by. They persecuted him fairly
+into jail, and plagued and outswindled him so awfully, that, after a
+time, the poor Count sneaked back to the Continent with only fifty
+pounds left out of three thousand which he had brought with him.
+
+One incident of Cagliostro's English experience was the affair of the
+"Arsenical Pigs"--a notice of which may be found in the "Public
+Advertiser," of London of September 3, 1786. A Frenchman named Morande,
+was at that time editing there a paper in his own language, entitled "Le
+Courrier de l'Europe," and lost no opportunity to denounce the Count as
+a humbug. Cagliostro, at length, irritated by these repeated attacks,
+published in the "Advertiser" an open challenge, offering to forfeit
+five thousand guineas if Morande should not be found dead in his bed on
+the morning after partaking of the flesh of a pig, to be selected by
+himself from among a drove fattened by the Count--the cooking, etc., all
+to be done at Morande's own house, and under his own eye. The time was
+fixed for this singular repast, but when it came round, the French
+Editor "backed down" completely, to the great delight of his opponent
+and his credulous followers.
+
+Cagliostro and his spouse now resumed their travels upon the Continent,
+and, by their usual arts and trades, in a great measure renewed their
+fallen fortunes. Among other new dodges, he now assumed so supernatural
+a piety that (he said) he could distinguish an unbeliever by the smell!
+which, of course, was just the opposite of the "odor of sanctity." The
+Count's claim to have lived for hundreds of years was, by some,
+thoroughly believed. He ascribed his immortality to his own Elixir, and
+his comparatively youthful appearance to his "Water of Beauty," his
+Countess readily assisting him by speaking of her son, a Colonel in the
+Dutch service, fifty years old, while she appeared scarcely more than
+twenty.
+
+At length, in Rome, he and the Countess fell into the clutches of the
+Holy Office; and both having been tried for their manifold offences
+against the Church, were found guilty, and, in spite of their contrition
+and eager confessions, immured for life; the Count within the walls of
+the Castle of Sante Leone, in the Duchy of Urbino, where, after eight
+years' imprisonment, he died in 1795, and the Countess in a suburban
+convent, where she died some time after.
+
+The portraits of Cagliostro, of which a number are extant, are pictures
+of a strong-built, bull-necked, fat, gross man, with a snub nose, a
+vulgar face, a look of sensuality and low hypocritical cunning.
+
+The celebrated story of "The Diamond Necklace," in which Cagliostro,
+Marie Antoinette, the Cardinal de Rohan, and others were mixed in such a
+hodge-podge of rascality and folly, must form a narrative by itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.
+
+
+In my sketch of Joseph Balsamo, alias the Count Alessandro de
+Cagliostro, I referred to the affair of the diamond necklace, known in
+French history as the _Collier de la Reine_, or Queen's necklace, from
+the manner in which the name and reputation of Marie Antoinette, the
+consort of Louis XVI, became entangled in it. I shall now give a brief
+account of this celebrated imposition--perhaps the boldest and shrewdest
+ever known, and almost wholly the work of a woman.
+
+On the Quai de la Ferraille, not far from the Pont Neuf, stood the
+establishment, part shop, part manufactory, of Messrs. Boehmer &
+Bassange, the most celebrated jewelers of their day. After triumphs
+which had given them world-wide fame during the reign of Louis XV, and
+made them fabulously rich, they determined, with the advent of Louis
+XVI, to eclipse all their former efforts and crown the professional
+glory of their lives. Their correspondents in every chief jewel market
+of the world were summoned to aid their enterprise, and in the course of
+some two or three years they succeeded in collecting the finest and most
+remarkable diamonds that could be procured in the whole world of
+commerce.
+
+The next idea was to combine all these superb fragments in one grand
+ornament to grace the form of beauty. A necklace was the article fixed
+upon, and the best experience and most delicate taste that Europe could
+boast were expended on the design. Each and every diamond was specially
+set and faced in such manner as to reveal its excellence to the utmost
+advantage, and all were arranged together in the style best calculated
+to harmonize their united effect. Form, shape, and the minutest shades
+of color were studied, and the result, after many attempts and many
+failures, and the anxious labor of many months, was the most exquisite
+triumph that the genius of the lapidary and the goldsmith could
+conceive.
+
+The whole necklace consisted of three triple rows of diamonds, or nine
+rows in all, containing eight hundred faultless gems. The triple rows
+fell away from each in the most graceful and flexible curves over each
+side of the breast and each shoulder of the wearer, the curves starting
+from the throat, whence a magnificent pendant, depending from a single
+knot of diamonds, each as large as a hazel-nut, hung down half way upon
+the bosom in the design of a cross and crown, surrounded by the lilies
+of the royal house--the lilies themselves dangling on stems which were
+strung with smaller jewels. Rich clusters and festoons spread from the
+loop over each shoulder, and the central loop on the back of the neck
+was joined in a pattern of emblematic magnificence corresponding with
+that in front.
+
+It was in 1782 that this grand work was finally completed, and the happy
+owners gloated with delight over a monument of skill as matchless in its
+way as the Pyramids themselves. But, alas! the necklace might as well
+have been constructed of the common boulders piled in those same
+pyramids as of the finest jewels of the mine, for all the good it seemed
+destined to bring the poor jewelers, beyond the rapture of beholding it
+and calling it theirs.
+
+The necklace was worth 1,500,000 francs, equivalent to more than
+$300,000 in gold, as money then went, or nearly $500,000 in gold,
+now-a-days. Rather too large a sum to keep locked up in a casket, the
+reader will confess! And then it seems that Messrs. Boehmer & Bassange
+had not entirely paid for it yet. They had ten creditors on the diamonds
+in different countries, and an immense capital still locked up in their
+other jewelry.
+
+Of course, then, after their first delight had subsided, they were most
+anxious to sell an article that had to be constantly and painfully
+watched, and that might so easily disappear. How many a nimble-fingered
+and stout-hearted rogue would not, in those days, have imperiled a dozen
+lives to clutch that blazing handful of dross, convertible into an
+Elysium of pomp and pleasure! It would hardly have been a safe noonday
+plaything in moral Gotham, let alone the dissolute Paris of eighty years
+ago!
+
+The first thought, of course, that kindled in the breasts of Boehmer and
+Bassange was, that the only proper resting-place for their matchless
+bauble was the snowy neck of the Queen Marie Antoinette, then the
+admired and beloved of all! Her peerless beauty alone could live in the
+glow of such supernal splendor, and the French throne was the only one
+in Christendom that could sustain such glittering weight. Moreover, the
+Queen had already once been a good customer to the court jewelers, for
+in 1774 she bought four diamonds of them for $75,000.
+
+Louis XV would not have hesitated to fling it on the shoulders of the Du
+Barry, and Louis XVI, in spite of his odd notions upon economy and just
+administration, easily listened to the delicate insinuations of his
+court-jewelers; and, one fine morning, laid the necklace in its casket
+on the table of his Queen. Her Majesty, for a moment, yielded to the
+promptings of feminine weakness, and danced and laughed with the glee of
+an overjoyed child in the new sunshine of those burning, sparkling,
+dazzling gems. Once and once only she placed it on her neck and breast,
+and probably the world has never before or since seen such a countenance
+in such a setting. It was almost the head of an angel shining in the
+glory of the spheres. But a better thought prevailed, and quickly
+removing it, she, with a wave of her beautiful hand, declined the gift
+and besought the King to apply the sum to any other purpose that would
+be useful or honorable to France, whose finances were sadly straitened.
+"We want ships of war more than we do necklaces," said she. The King was
+really delighted at this act of the Queen's, and the incident soon
+becoming widely known, gave the latter immense popularity for at least
+twenty-four hours after it occurred. In fact, the amount was really
+applied to the construction of a grand line-of-battle ship called the
+Suffren, after the great Admiral of that name.
+
+Boehmer, who seems to have been the business manager of the jeweler
+firm, found his necklace as troublesome as the cobbler did the elephant
+he won in a raffle, and tried so perseveringly to induce the Queen to
+buy it, that he became a real torment. She seems to have thought him a
+little cracked on the subject; and one day, when he obtained a private
+audience, he besought her either to buy the necklace or to let him go
+and drown himself in the Seine. Out of all patience, the Queen intimated
+that he would have been wiser to secure a customer to begin with; that
+she would not buy; that if he chose to throw himself into the Seine it
+would be entirely on his own responsibility; and that as for the
+necklace, he had better pick it to pieces and sell it. The poor German
+(for Boehmer was a native of Saxony) departed in deep distress, but
+accepted neither his own suggestion nor the Queen's.
+
+For some months after this, the court jewelers busied themselves in
+peddling their necklace about among the courts of Europe. But none of
+these concerns found it convenient just then to pay out three hundred
+and sixty thousand dollars for a concatenation of eight hundred
+diamonds; and still the sparkling elephant remained on the jewelers'
+hands.
+
+Time passed on. Madame Campan, one of the Queen's confidential ladies,
+happened to meet Boehmer one day, and the necklace was alluded to.
+
+"What is the state of affairs about the necklace," asked the lady.
+
+"Highly satisfactory," replied Boehmer, whose serenity of countenance
+Madame Campan had already remarked. "I have sold it to the Sultan at
+Constantinople, for his favorite Sultana."
+
+This the lady thought rather curious, but she was glad the thing was
+disposed of, and said no more.
+
+Time passed on again. In the beginning of August 1785, Boehmer took the
+trouble to call on Madame Campan at her country-house, somewhat to her
+surprise.
+
+"Has the Queen given you no message for me?" he inquired.
+
+"No!" said the lady; "What message should she give?"
+
+"An answer to my note," said the jeweler.
+
+Madame remembered a note which the Queen had received from Boehmer a
+little while before, along with some ornaments sent by his hands to her
+as a present from the King. It congratulated her on having the finest
+diamonds in Europe, and hoped she would remember him. The Queen could
+make nothing of it, and destroyed it. Madame Campan therefore replied,
+
+"There is no answer, the Queen burned the note. She does not even
+understand what you meant by writing that note."
+
+This statement very quickly elicited from the now startled German a
+story which astounded the lady. He said the Queen owed him the first
+instalment of the money for the diamond necklace; that she had bought it
+after all; that the story about the Sultana was a lie told by her
+directions to hide the fact; since the Queen meant to pay by
+instalments, and did not wish the purchase known. And Boehmer said, she
+had employed the Cardinal de Rohan to buy the necklace for her, and it
+had been delivered to him for her, and by him to her.
+
+Now the Queen, as Madame Campan knew very well, had always strongly
+disliked this Cardinal; he had even been kept from attending at Court in
+consequence, and she had not so much as spoken to him for years. And so
+Madame Campan told Boehmer, and further she told him he had been imposed
+upon.
+
+"No," said the man of sparklers decisively, "It is you who are deceived.
+She is decidedly friendly to the cardinal. I have myself the documents
+with her own signature authorizing the transaction, for I have had to
+let the bankers see them in order to get a little time on my own
+payments."
+
+Here was a monstrous mystification for the lady of honor, who told
+Boehmer to instantly go and see his official superior, the chief of the
+king's household. She herself being very soon afterwards summoned to the
+Queen's presence, the affair came up, and she told the Queen all she
+knew about it. Marie Antoinette was profoundly distressed by the evident
+existence of a great scandal and swindle, with which she was plainly to
+be mixed up through the forged signatures to the documents which Boehmer
+had been relying on.
+
+Now for the Cardinal.
+
+Louis de Rohan, a scion of the great house of Rohan, one of the proudest
+of France, was descended of the blood royal of Brittany; was a handsome,
+proud, dissolute, foolish, credulous, unprincipled noble, now almost
+fifty years old, a thorough rake, of large revenues, but deeply in debt.
+He was Peer of France, Archbishop of Strasburg, Grand Almoner of France,
+Commander of the Order of the Holy Ghost, Commendator of the benefice of
+St. Wast d'Arras, said to be the most wealthy in Europe, and a
+Cardinal. He had been ambassador at Vienna a little after Marie
+Antoinette was married to the Dauphin, and while there had taken
+advantage of his official station to do a tremendous quantity of
+smuggling. He had also further and most deeply offended the Empress
+Maria Theresa, by outrageous debaucheries, by gross irreligion, and
+above all by a rather flat but in effect stingingly satirical
+description of her conduct about the partition of Poland. This she never
+forgave him, neither did her daughter Marie Antoinette; and accordingly,
+when he presented himself at Paris soon after she became Queen, he
+received a curt repulse, and an intimation that he had better go
+to--Strasburg.
+
+Now in those days a sentence of exclusion from Court was to a French
+noble but just this side of a banishment to Tophet; and de Rohan was
+just silly enough to feel this infliction most intensely. He went
+however, and from that time onward, for year after year, lived the life
+of a persevering Adam thrust out of his paradise, hanging about the gate
+and trying all possible ways to sneak in again. Once, for instance, he
+had induced the porter at the palace of the Trianon to let him get
+inside the grounds during an illumination, and was recognized by the
+glow of his cardinal's red stockings from under his cloak. But he was
+only laughed at for his pains; the porter was turned off, and the poor
+silly miserable cardinal remained "out in the cold," breaking his heart
+over his exclusion from the most tedious mess of conventionalities that
+ever was contrived--except those of the court of Spain.
+
+About 1783, this great fool fell in with an equally great knave, who
+must be spoken of here, where he begins to converge along with the rest,
+towards the explosion of the necklace swindle. This was Cagliostro, who
+at that time came to Strasburg and created a tremendous excitement with
+his fascinating Countess, his Egyptian masonry, his Spagiric Food (a
+kind of Brandreth's pill of the period,) which he fed out to poor sick
+people, his elixir of life, and other humbugs.
+
+The Cardinal sent an intimation that he would like to see the quack. The
+quack, whose impudence was far greater than the Cardinal's pride, sent
+back this sublime reply: "If he is sick let him come to me, and I will
+cure him. If he is well, he does not need to see me, nor I him."
+
+This piece of impudence made the fool of a cardinal more eager than
+ever. After some more affected shyness, Cagliostro allowed himself to be
+seen. He was just the man to captivate the Cardinal, and they were
+quickly intimate personal friends, practising transmutation, alchemy,
+masonry, and still more particularly conducting a great many experiments
+on the Cardinal's remarkably fine stock of Tokay wine. Whatever poor de
+Rohan had to do, he consulted Cagliostro about it, and when the latter
+went to Switzerland, his dupe maintained a constant communication with
+him in cipher.
+
+Lastly is to be mentioned Jeanne de St. Remi, Countess de Lamotte de
+Valois de France, the chief scoundrel, if the term may be used of a
+woman--of the necklace affair. She seems to have been really a
+descendant of the royal house of Valois, to which Francis I. belonged;
+through an illegitimate son of Henry II. created Count de St. Remi. The
+family had run down and become poor and rascally, one of Jeanne's
+immediate ancestors having practiced counterfeiting for a living. She
+herself had been protected by a certain kind hearted Countess de
+Boulainvilliers; was receiving a small pension from the Court of about
+$325 a year; had married a certain tall soldier named Lamotte; had come
+to Paris, and was living in poverty in a garret, hovering about as it
+were for a chance to better her circumstances. She was a quick-witted,
+bright-eyed, brazen-faced hussy, not beautiful, but with lively pretty
+ways, and indeed somewhat fascinating.
+
+Her protectress, the countess de Boulainvilliers, was now dead; while
+she was alive Jeanne had once visited her at de Rohan's palace of
+Saverne, and had thus scraped a slight acquaintance with the gay
+Cardinal, which she resumed during her abode at Paris.
+
+Everybody at Paris knew about the Diamond Necklace, and about de Rohan's
+desire to get into court favor. This sharp-witted female swindler now
+came in among the elements I have thus far been describing, to frame
+necklace, jeweller, cardinal, queen, and swindler, all together into her
+plot, just as the key-stone drops into an arch and locks it up tight.
+
+No mortal knows where ideas come from. Suddenly a conception is in the
+mind, whence, or how, we do not know, any more than we know Life. The
+devil himself might have furnished that which now popped into the
+cunning, wicked mind of this adventuress. This is what she saw all at
+once:
+
+Boehmer is crazy to sell his necklace. De Rohan is crazy after the
+Queen's favor. I am crazy after money. Now if I can make De Rohan think
+that the Queen wants the necklace, and will become his friend in return
+for his helping her to it; if I can make him think I am her agent to
+him, then I can steal the diamonds in their transit.
+
+A wonderfully cunning and hardy scheme! And most wonderful was the cool,
+keen promptitude with which it was executed.
+
+The countess began to hint to the cardinal that she was fast getting
+into the Queen's good graces, by virtue of being a capital gossip and
+story-teller; and that she had frequent private audiences. Soon she
+added intimations that the Queen was far from being really so displeased
+with the cardinal, as he supposed. At this the old fool bit instantly,
+and showed the keenest emotions of hope and delight. On a further
+suggestion, he presently drew up a letter or memoir humbly and
+plaintively stating his case, which the countess undertook to put into
+the Queen's hands. It was the first of over _two hundred_ notes from
+him, notes of abasement, beseeching argument, expostulation, and so on,
+all entrusted to Jeanne. She burnt them, I suppose.
+
+In order to make her dupe sure that she told the truth about her access
+to the Queen, Jeanne more than once made him go and watch her enter a
+side gate into the grounds of the Trianon palace, to which she had
+somehow obtained a key; and after waiting he saw her come out again,
+sometimes under the escort of a man, who was, she said one Desclos, a
+confidential valet of the Queen. This was Villette de Retaux, a "pal"
+of Jeanne's and of her husband Lamotte, who had, by the way, become a
+low-class gambler and swindler by occupation.
+
+Next Jeanne talked about the Queen's charities; and on one occasion,
+told how much the amiable Marie Antoinette longed to expend certain sums
+for benevolent purposes if she only had them--but she was out of funds,
+and the King was so close about money!
+
+The poor cardinal bit again--"If the Queen would only allow him the
+honor to furnish the little amount!"
+
+The countess evidently hadn't thought of that. She reflected--hesitated.
+The cardinal urged. She consented--it was not much--and was so kind as
+to carry the cash herself. At their next meeting she reported that the
+Queen was delighted, telling a very nice story about it. The cardinal
+would only be too happy to do so again. And sure enough he did, and
+quite a number of times too; contributing in all to the funds of the
+countess in this manner, about $25,000.
+
+Well: after a time the cardinal is at Strasburg, when he receives a note
+from the countess that brings him back again as quick as post-horses can
+carry him. It says that there is something very important, very secret,
+very delicate, that the queen wants his help about. He is overflowing
+with zeal. What is it? Only let him know--his life, his purse, his soul,
+are at the service of his liege lady.
+
+His purse is all that is needed. With infinite shyness and
+circumspection, the countess gradually, half unwillingly, lets him find
+out that it is the diamond necklace that the Queen wants. By diabolical
+ingenuities of talk she leads de Rohan to the full conviction that if he
+secures the Queen that necklace, he will thenceforward bask in all the
+sunshine of court favor that she can show or control.
+
+And at proper times sundry notes from the Queen are bestowed upon the
+enraptured noodle. These are written in imitation of the Queen's
+handwriting, by that Villette de Retaux who personated the Queen's
+valet, and who was an expert at counterfeiting.
+
+A last and sublime summit of impudent pretension is reached by a secret
+interview which the Queen, says the countess, desires to grant to her
+beloved servant the cardinal. This suggestion was rendered practicable
+by one of those mere coincidences which are found though rarely in
+history, and which are too improbable to put into a novel--the casual
+discovery of a young woman of loose character who looked much like the
+Queen. Whether her name was d'Essigny or Gay d'Oliva, is uncertain; she
+is usually called by the latter. She was hired and taught; and with
+immense precautions, this ostrich of a cardinal was one night introduced
+into the gardens of the Trianon, and shown a little nook among the
+thickets where a stately female in the similitude of the Queen received
+him with soft spoken words of kindly greeting, allowed him to kneel and
+kiss a fair and shapely hand, and showed no particular timidity of any
+kind. Yet the interview had scarcely more than begun before steps were
+heard. "Some one is coming," exclaimed the lady, "it is Monsieur and
+Madame d'Artois--We must part. There"--she gave him a red rose--"You
+know what that means! Farewell!" And away they went--Mademoiselle
+d'Oliva to report to her employers, and the cardinal, in a seventh
+heaven of ineffable tomfoolery, to his hotel.
+
+But the interview, and the lovely little notes that came sometimes,
+"fixed" the necklace business! And if further encouragement had been
+needed, Cagliostro gave it. For the cardinal now consulted him about the
+future of the affair, having indeed kept him fully informed about it for
+a long time, as he did of all matters of interest. So the quack set up
+his tabernacles of mummery in a parlor of the cardinal's hotel, and
+conducted an Egyptian Invocation there all night long in solitude and
+pomp; and in the morning he decreed (in substance) "go ahead." And the
+cardinal did so. Boehmer and Bassange were only too happy to bargain
+with the great and wealthy church and state dignitary. A memorandum of
+terms and time of payment was drawn up, and was submitted to the Queen.
+That is, swindling Jeanne carried it off, and brought it back, with an
+entry made by Villette de Retaux in the margin, thus: "_Bon,
+bon--Approuve, Marie Antoinette de France_." That is, "Good, good--I
+approve. Marie Antoinette de France." The payment was to be by
+instalments, at six months, and quarterly afterwards; the Queen to
+furnish the money to the cardinal, while he remained ostensibly holden
+to the jewellers, she thus keeping out of sight.
+
+So the jewels were handed over to the cardinal de Rohan; he took them
+one evening in great state to the lodgings of the countess, where with
+all imaginable formality there came a knock at the door, and when it was
+open a tall valet entered who said solemnly "On the part of the Queen!"
+De Rohan _knew_ it was the Queen's confidential valet, for he saw with
+his own eyes that it was the same man who had escorted the countess from
+the side gate at the Trianon! And so it was; to wit, Villette de Retaux,
+who, calmly receiving the fifteen hundred thousand franc treasure,
+marched but as solemnly as he had come in.
+
+As that counterfeiting rascal goes out of the door, the diamond necklace
+itself disappears from our knowledge. The swindle was consummated, but
+there is no whisper of the disposition of the spoils. Villette, and
+Jeanne's husband Lamotte, went to London and Amsterdam, and had some
+money there; but seemingly no more than the previous pillages upon the
+cardinal might have supplied; nor did the countess' subsequent
+expenditures show that she had any of the proceeds.
+
+But that is not the last of the rest of the parties to the affair, by
+any means. Between this scene and the time when the anxious Boehmer,
+having a little bill to meet, beset Madame Campan about his letter and
+the money the Queen was to pay him, there intervened six months. During
+that time countess Jeanne was smoothing as well as she could, with
+endless lies and contrivances, the troubles of the perplexed cardinal,
+who "couldn't seem to see" that he was much better off in spite of his
+loyal performance of his part of the bargain.
+
+But this application by Boehmer, and the enormous swindle which it was
+instantly evident had been perpetrated on somebody or other, of course
+waked up a commotion at once. The baron de Breteuil, a deadly enemy of
+de Rohan, got hold of it all, and in his overpowering eagerness to ruin
+his foe, quickly rendered the matter so public that it was out of the
+question to hush it up. It seems probable that Jeanne de Lamotte
+expected that the business would be kept quiet for the sake of the
+Queen, and that thus any very severe or public punishments would be
+avoided and perhaps no inquiries made. It is clear that this would have
+been the best plan, but de Breteuil's officiousness prevented it, and
+there was nothing for it but legal measures. De Rohan was arrested and
+put in the Bastile, having barely been able to send a message in German
+to his hotel to a trusty secretary, who instantly destroyed all the
+papers relating to the affair. Jeanne was also imprisoned, and Miss Gay
+d'Oliva and Villette de Retaux, being caught at Brussels and Amsterdam,
+were in like manner secured. As for Cagliostro, he was also imprisoned,
+some accounts saying that he ostentatiously gave himself up for trial.
+
+This was a public trial before the Parliament of Paris, with much form.
+
+The result was that the cardinal, appearing to be only fool, not knave,
+was acquitted. Gay d'Oliva appeared to have known nothing except that
+she was to play a part, and she had been told that the Queen wanted her
+to do so, so she was let go. Villette was banished for life. Lamotte,
+the countess' husband, had escaped to England, and was condemned to the
+galleys in his absence, which didn't hurt him much. Cagliostro was
+acquitted. But Jeanne was sentenced to be whipped, branded on the
+shoulder with the letter V for _Voleuse_ (thief), and banished.
+
+This sentence was executed in full, but with great difficulty; for the
+woman turned perfectly furious on the public scaffold, flew at the
+hangman like a tiger, bit pieces out of his hands, shrieked, cursed,
+rolled on the floor, kicked, squirmed and jumped, until they held her by
+brute force, tore down her dress, and the red hot iron going aside as
+she struggled, plunged full into her snowy white breast, planting there
+indelibly the horrible black V, while she yelled like a fiend under the
+torment of the smoking brand. She fled away to England, lived there some
+time in dissolute courses, and is said to have died in consequence of
+falling out of a window when drunk, or as another account states, of
+being flung out by the companions of her orgy, whom she had stung to
+fury by her frightful scolding. Before her death she put forth one or
+two memoirs,--false, scandalous things.
+
+The unfortunate Queen never entirely escaped some shadow of disrepute
+from the necklace business. For to the very last, both on the trial and
+afterwards, Jeanne de Lamotte impudently stuck to it that at least the
+Queen had known about the trick played on the Cardinal at the Trianon,
+and had in fact been hidden close by and saw and laughed heartily at the
+whole interview. So sore and morbid was the condition of the public mind
+in France in those days, when symptoms of the coming Revolution were
+breaking out on every side, that this odious story found many and
+willing believers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII.
+
+THE COUNT DE ST. GERMAIN, SAGE, PROPHET, AND MAGICIAN.
+
+
+Superior to Cagliostro, even in accomplishments, and second to him in
+notoriety only, was that human nondescript, the so-called Count de St.
+Germain, whom Fredrick the Great called, "a man no one has ever been
+able to make out."
+
+The Marquis de Crequy declares that St. Germain was an Alsatian Jew,
+Simon Wolff by name, and born at Strasburg about the close of the
+seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century; others insist
+that he was a Spanish Jesuit named Aymar; and others again intimate that
+his true title was the Marquis de Betmar, and that he was a native of
+Portugal. The most plausible theory, however, makes him the natural son
+of an Italian princess, and fixes his birth at San Germano, in Savoy,
+about the year 1710; his ostensible father being one Rotondo, a
+tax-collector of that district.
+
+This supposition is borne out by the fact that he spoke all his many
+languages with an Italian accent. It was about the year 1750 that he
+first began to be heard of in Europe as the Count St. Germain, and put
+forth the astounding pretensions that soon gave him celebrity over the
+whole continent. The celebrated Marquis de Belleisle made his
+acquaintance about that time in Germany, and brought him to Paris, where
+he was introduced to Madame de Pompadour, whose favor he very quickly
+gained. The influence of that famous beauty was just then paramount with
+Louis XV, and the Count was soon one of the most eminent men at court.
+He was remarkably handsome--as an old portrait at Friersdorf, in Saxony,
+in the rooms he once occupied, sufficiently indicated; and his musical
+accomplishments, added to the ineffable charm of his manners and
+conversation, and the miracles he performed, rendered him an
+irresistible attraction, especially to the ladies, who appear to have
+almost idolized him. Endowed with an enchanting voice, he could also
+play every instrument then in vogue, but especially excelled upon the
+violin, which he could handle in such a manner as to give it the effect
+of a small orchestra. Cotemporary writers declare that, in his more
+ordinary performances, a connoisseur could distinctly hear the separate
+tones of a full quartet when the count was extemporizing on his favorite
+Cremona. His little work, entitled "La Musique Raisonnee," published in
+England, for private circulation only, bears testimony to his musical
+genius, and to the wondrous eccentricity, as well as beauty, of his
+conceptions. But it was in alectromancy, or divination by signs and
+circles; hydromancy, or divination by water; cleidomancy, or divination
+by the key, and dactylomancy, or divination by the fingers, that the
+count chiefly excelled, although he, at the same time, professed
+alchemy, astrology, and prophecy in the higher branches.
+
+The fortunes of the Count St. Germain rose so rapidly in France, that in
+1760 he was sent by Louis XV, to the Court of England, to assist in
+negotiations for a peace. M. de Choiseul, then Prime Minister of France,
+however, greatly feared and detested the Count; and secretly wrote to
+Pitt, begging the latter to have that personage arrested, as he was
+certainly a Russian spy. But St. Germain, through his attendant sprites,
+of course, received timely warning, and escaped to the Continent. In
+England, he was the inseparable friend of Prince Lobkowitz--a
+circumstance that gave some color to his alleged connection with the
+Russians. His sojourn there was equally distinguished by his devotion to
+the ladies, and his unwavering success at the gaming-table, where he won
+fabulous sums, which were afterward dispensed with imperial munificence.
+It was there, too, that he put forward his claims to the highest rank in
+Masonry; and, of course, added, thereby, immensely to the _eclat_ of his
+position. He spoke English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian,
+German, Russian, Polish, the Scandinavian, and many of the Oriental
+tongues, with equal fluency; and pretended to have traveled over the
+whole earth, and even to have visited the most distant starry orbs
+frequently, in the course of a lifetime which, with continual
+transmigrations, he declared to have lasted for thousands of years. His
+birth, he said, had been in Chaldea, in the dawn of time; and that he
+was the sole inheritor of the lost sciences and mysteries of his own and
+the Egyptian race. He spoke of his personal intimacy with all the twelve
+Apostles--and even the august presence of the Savior; and one of his
+pretensions would have been most singularly amusing, had it not bordered
+upon profanity. This was no less an assertion than that he had upon
+several occasions remonstrated with the Apostle Peter upon the
+irritability of his temperament! In regard to later periods of history,
+he spoke with the careless ease of an every-day looker on; and told
+anecdotes that the researches of scholars afterwards fully verified. His
+predictions were, indeed, most startling; and the cotemporaneous
+evidence is very strong and explicit, that he did foretell the time,
+place, and manner of the death of Louis XV, several years before it
+occurred. His gift of memory was perfectly amazing. Having once read a
+journal of the day, he could repeat its contents accurately, from
+beginning to end; and to this endowment he united the faculty of writing
+with both hands, in characters like copperplate. Thus, he could indite a
+love-letter with his right while he composed a verse with his left hand,
+and, apparently, with the utmost facility--a splendid acquisition for
+the Treasury Department or a literary newspaper! He would, however, have
+been ineligible for any faithful Post Office, since he read the contents
+of sealed letters at a glance; and, by his clairvoyant powers, detected
+crime, or, in fact, the movements of men and the phenomena of nature, at
+any distance. Like all the great Magi, and Brothers of the Rosy Cross,
+of whom he claimed to be a shining light, he most excelled in medicine;
+and along with remedies for "every ill that flesh is heir to," boasted
+his "Aqua Benedetta" as the genuine elixir of life, capable of restoring
+youth to age, beauty and strength to decay, and brilliant intellect to
+the exhausted brain; and, if properly applied, protracting human
+existence through countless centuries. As a proof of its virtues, he
+pointed to his own youthful appearance, and the testimony of old men who
+had seen him sixty or seventy years earlier, and who declared that time
+had made no impression on him. Strangely enough, the Margrave of
+Anspach, of whom I shall presently speak, purchased what purported to be
+the recipe of the "Aqua Benedetta," from John Dyke, the English Consul
+at Leghorn, towards the close of the last century; and copies of it are
+still preserved with religious care and the utmost secrecy by certain
+noble families in Berlin and Vienna, where the preparation has been used
+(as they believe) with perfect success against a host of diseases.
+
+Still another peculiarity of the Count would be highly advantageous to
+any of us, particularly at this period of high prices and culinary
+scarcity. He never ate nor drank; or, at least, he was never seen to do
+so! It is said that boarding house _regime_ in these days is rapidly
+accustoming a considerable class of our fellow-citizens to a similar
+condition, but I can scarcely believe it.
+
+Again, the Count would fall into cataleptic swoons, which continued
+often for hours, and even days; and, during these periods, he declared
+that he visited, in spirit, the most remote regions of the earth, and
+even the farthest stars, and would relate, with astonishing power, the
+scenes he there had witnessed!
+
+He, of course, laid claim to the transmutation of baser metals into
+gold, and stated that, in 1755, while on a visit to India, to consult
+the erudition of the Hindoo Brahmins, he solved, by their assistance,
+the problem of the artificial crystallization of pure carbon--or, in
+other words, the production of diamonds! One thing is certain, viz.:
+that upon a visit to the French ambassador to the Hague, in 1780, he, in
+the presence of that functionary, induced him to believe and testify
+that he broke to pieces, with a hammer, a superb diamond, of his own
+manufacture, the exact counterpart of another, of similar origin, which
+he had just sold for 5,500 louis d'or.
+
+His career and transformations on the Continent were multiform. In 1762,
+he was mixed up with the dynastic conspiracies and changes at St.
+Petersburg; and his importance there was indicated ten years later, by
+the reception given to him at Vienna by the Russian Count Orloff, who
+accosted him joyously as "caro padre" (dear father,) and gave him twenty
+thousand golden Venetian sequins.
+
+From Petersburg he went to Berlin, where he at once attracted the
+attention of Frederick the Great, who questioned Voltaire about him; the
+latter replying, as it is said, that he was a man who knew all things,
+and would live to the end of the world--a fair statement, in brief, of
+the position assumed by more than one of our ward politicians!
+
+In 1774, he took up his abode at Schwabach, in Germany, under the name
+of Count Tzarogy, which is a transposition of Ragotzy, a well-known
+noble name. The Margrave of Anspach met him at the house of his
+favorite Clairon, the actress, and became so fond of him, that he
+insisted upon his company to Italy. On his return, he went to Dresden,
+Leipzig, and Hamburg, and finally to Eckernfiorde, in Schleswig, where
+he took up his residence with the Landgrave Karl of Hesse; and at
+length, in 1783, tired, as he said, of life, and disdaining any longer
+immortality, he gave up the ghost.
+
+It was during St. Germain's residence in Schleswig that he was visited
+by the renowned Cagliostro, who openly acknowledged him as master, and
+learned many of his most precious secrets from him--among others, the
+faculty of discriminating the character by the handwriting, and of
+fascinating birds, animals, and reptiles.
+
+To trace the wanderings of St. Germain is a difficult task, as he had
+innumerable aliases, and often totally disappeared for months together.
+In Venice, he was known as the Count de Bellamare; at Pisa, as the
+Chevalier de Schoening; at Milan, as the Chevalier Welldone; at Genoa,
+as the Count Soltikow, etc.
+
+In all these journeys, his own personal tastes were quiet and simple,
+and he manifested more attachment for a pocket-copy of Guarini's "Pastor
+Fido"--his only library--than for any other object in his possession.
+
+On the whole, the Count de St. Germain was a man of magnificent
+attainments, but the use he made of his talents proved him to be also a
+most magnificent humbug.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+RIZA BEY, THE PERSIAN ENVOY TO LOUIS XIV.
+
+
+The most gorgeous, and with one sole exception the most glorious reign
+that France has known, so far as military success is concerned, was that
+of Louis XIV, the Grand Monarque. His was the age of lavish expenditure,
+of magnificent structures, grand festivals, superb dress and equipage,
+aristocratic arrogance, brilliant campaigns, and great victories. It
+was, moreover, particularly distinguished for the number and high
+character of the various special embassies sent to the court of France
+by foreign powers. Among these, Spain, the Netherlands, Great Britain,
+and Venice rivaled each other in extravagant display and pomp. The
+singular and really tangible imposture I am about to describe, practiced
+at such a period and on such a man as Louis of France, was indeed a bold
+and dashing affair.
+
+"L'Etat c'est moi"--"I am the State," was Louis' celebrated and very
+significant motto; for in his own hands he had really concentrated all
+the powers of the realm, and woe to him who trifled with a majesty so
+real and so imperial!
+
+However, notwithstanding all this imposing strength, this mighty
+domineering will, and this keen intelligence, a man was found bold
+enough to brave them all in the arena of pure humbug. It was toward the
+close of the year 1667, when Louis, in the plenitude of military
+success, returned from his campaign in Flanders, where his invincible
+troops had proven too much for the broad breeched but gallant Dutchmen.
+In the short space of three months he had added whole provinces,
+including some forty or fifty cities and towns, to his dominions; and
+his fame was ringing throughout Christendom. It had even penetrated to
+the farthest East; and the King of Siam sent a costly embassy from his
+remote kingdom, to offer his congratulations and fraternal greeting to
+the most eminent potentate of Europe.
+
+Louis had already removed the pageantries of his royal household to his
+magnificent new palace of Versailles, on which the wealth of conquered
+kingdoms had been lavished, and there, in the Great Hall of Mirrors,
+received the homage of his own nobles and the ambassadors of foreign
+powers. The utmost splendor of which human life was susceptible seemed
+so common and familiar in those days, that the train was dazzling indeed
+that could excite any very particular attention. What would have seemed
+stupendous elsewhere was only in conformity with all the rest of the
+scene at Versailles. But, at length, there came something that made even
+the pampered courtiers of the new Babylon stare--a Persian embassy. Yes,
+a genuine, actual, living envoy from that wonderful Empire in the East,
+which in her time had ruled the whole Oriental world, and still retained
+almost fabulous wealth and splendor.
+
+It was announced formally, one morning, to Louis, that His Most Serene
+Excellency, Riza Bey, with an interminable tail of titles, hangers-on
+and equipages, had reached the port of Marseilles, having journeyed by
+way of Trebizond and Constantinople, to lay before the great "King of
+the Franks" brotherly congratulations and gorgeous presents from his own
+illustrious master, the Shah of Persia. This was something entirely to
+the taste of the vain French ruler, whom unlimited good fortune had
+inflated beyond all reasonable proportions. He firmly believed that he
+was by far the greatest man who had ever lived; and had an embassy from
+the moon or the planet Jupiter been announced to him, would have deemed
+it not only natural enough, but absolutely due to his preeminence above
+all other human beings. Nevertheless, he was, secretly, immensely
+pleased with the Persian demonstration, and gave orders that no expense
+should be spared in giving the strangers a reception worthy of himself
+and France.
+
+It would be needless for me to detail the events of the progress of Riza
+Bey from Marseilles to Paris, by way of Avignon and Lyons. It was
+certainly in keeping with the pretensions of the Ambassador. From town
+to town the progress was a continued ovation. Triumphal arches,
+bonfires, chimes of bells, and hurrahing crowds in their best bibs and
+tuckers, military parades and civic ceremonies, everywhere awaited the
+children of the farthest East, who were stared at, shouted at--and by
+some wretched cynics sneered and laughed at--to their hearts' content.
+All modern glory very largely consists in being nearly stunned with
+every species of noise, choked with dust, and dragged about through the
+streets, until you are well nigh dead. Witness the Japanese Embassy and
+their visit to this country, where, in some cases, the poor creatures,
+after hours of unmitigated boring with all sorts of mummery, actually
+had their pigtails pulled by Young America in the rear, and--as at the
+windows of Willard's Hotel in Washington--were stirred up with long
+canes, like the Polar Bear or the Learned Seal.
+
+Still Riza Bey and his dozen or two of dusky companions did not, by any
+means, cut so splendid a figure as had been expected. They had with them
+some camels, antelopes, bulbuls, and monkeys--like any travelling
+caravan, and were dressed in the most outrageous and outlandish attire.
+They jabbered, too, a gibberish utterly incomprehensible to the crowd,
+and did everything that had never been seen or done before. All this,
+however, delighted the populace. Had they been similarly transmogrified,
+or played such queer pranks themselves, it would only have been food for
+mockery; but the foreign air and fame of the thing made it all
+wonderful, and, as the chief rogue in the plot had foreseen, blinded the
+popular eye and made his "embassy" a complete success.
+
+At length, after some four weeks of slow progress, the "Persians"
+arrived at Paris, where they were received, as had been expected, with
+tremendous _eclat_. They entered by Barriere du Trone, so styled because
+it was there that Louis Quatorze himself had been received upon a
+temporary throne, set up, with splendid decorations and triumphal
+arches, in the open air, when he returned from his Flanders campaign.
+Riza Bey was upon this occasion a little more splendid than he had been
+on his way from the sea-coast, and really loomed up in startling style
+in his tall, black, rimless hat of wool, shaped precisely like an
+elongated flower-pot, and his silk robes dangling to his heels and
+covered with huge painted figures and bright metal decorations of every
+shape and size unknown, to European man-millinery. A circlet or collar,
+apparently of gold, set with precious stones (California diamonds!)
+surrounded his neck, and monstrous glittering rings covered all the
+fingers, and even the thumbs of both his hands. His train, consisting of
+sword, cup, and pipe bearers, doctors, chief cooks, and bottle-washers,
+cork extractors and chiropodists (literally so, for it seems that
+sharing the common lot of humanity, great men have corns even in
+Persia,) were similarly arrayed as to fashion, but less stupendously in
+jewelry.
+
+Well, after the throng had scampered, crowded, and shouted themselves
+hoarse, and had straggled to their homes, sufficiently tired and
+pocket-picked, the Ambassador and his suite were lodged in sumptuous
+apartments in the old royal residence of the Tuileries, under the care
+and charge of King Louis' own assistant Major-Domo and a guard of
+courtiers and regiments of Royal Swiss. Banqueting and music filled up
+the first evening; and upon the ensuing day His Majesty, who thus did
+his visitors especial honor, sent the Duc de Richelieu, the most
+polished courtier and diplomatist in France, to announce that he would
+graciously receive them on the third evening at Versailles.
+
+Meanwhile the most extensive preparations were made for the grand
+audience thus accorded; and when the appointed occasion had arrived, the
+entire Gallery of Mirrors with all the adjacent spaces and corridors,
+were crowded with the beauty, the chivalry, the wit, taste, and
+intellect of France at that dazzling period. The gallery, which is three
+hundred and eighty feet in length by fifty in height, derives its name
+from the priceless mirrors which adorn its walls, reaching from floor to
+ceiling, opposite the long row of equally tall and richly mullioned
+windows that look into the great court and gardens. These windows, hung
+with the costliest silk curtains and adorned with superb historical
+statuary, give to the hall a light and aerial appearance indescribably
+enchanting; while the mirrors reflect in ten thousand variations the
+hall itself and its moving pageantry, rendering both apparently
+interminable. Huge marble vases filled with odorous exotics lined the
+stairways, and twelve thousand wax lights in gilded brackets, and
+chandeliers of the richest workmanship, shone upon three thousand titled
+heads.
+
+Louis the Great himself never appeared to finer advantage. His truly
+royal countenance was lighted up with pride and satisfaction as the
+Envoy of the haughty Oriental king approached the splendid throne on
+which he sat, and as he descended a step to meet him and stood there in
+his magnificent robes of state, the Persian envoy bent the knee, and
+with uncovered head presented the credentials of his mission. Of the
+crowd that immediately surrounded the throne, it is something to say
+that the Grand Colbert, the famous Minister, and the Admiral Duquesne
+were by no means the most eminent, nor the lovely Duchess of Orleans and
+her companion, the bewitching Mademoiselle de Kerouaille, who afterward
+changed the policy of Charles II, of England, by no means the most
+beautiful personages in the galaxy.
+
+A grand ball and supper concluded this night of splendor, and Riza Bey
+was fairly launched at the French court; every member of which, to
+please the King, tried to outvie his compeers in the assiduity of his
+attentions, and the value of the books, pictures, gems, equipages, arms,
+&c., which they heaped upon the illustrious Persian. The latter
+gentleman very quietly smoked his pipe and lounged on his divan before
+company, and diligently packed up the goods when he and his "jolly
+companions" were left alone. The presents of the Shah had not yet
+arrived, but were daily expected via Marseilles, and from time to time
+the olive-colored suite was diminished by the departure of one of the
+number with his chest on a special mission (so stated) to England,
+Austria, Portugal, Spain, and other European powers.
+
+In the meantime, the Bey was feted in all directions, with every species
+of entertainment, and it was whispered that the fair ones of that
+dissolute court were, from the first, eager in the bestowal of their
+smiles. The King favored his Persian pet with numerous personal
+interviews, at which, in broken French, the Envoy unfolded the most
+imposing schemes of Oriental conquest and commerce that his master was
+cordially willing to share with his great brother of France. At one of
+these chatty tete-a-tetes, the munificent Riza Bey, upon whom the King
+had already conferred his own portrait set in diamonds, and other gifts
+worth several millions of francs, placed in the Royal hand several
+superb fragments of opal and turquoise said to have been found in a
+district of country bordering on the Caspian sea, which teemed with
+limitless treasures of the same kind, and which the Shah of Persia
+proposed to divide with France for the honor of her alliance. The king
+was enchanted; for these mere specimens, as they were deemed, must, if
+genuine, be worth in themselves a mint of money; and a province full of
+such--why, the thought was charming!
+
+Thus the great King-fish was fairly hooked, and Riza Bey could take his
+time. The golden tide that flowed in to him did not slacken, and his own
+expenses were all provided for at the Tuileries. The only thing
+remaining to be done was a grand foray on the tradesmen of Paris, and
+this was splendidly executed. The most exquisite wares of all
+descriptions were gathered in, without mention of payment; and one by
+one the Persian phalanx distributed itself through Europe until only two
+or three were left with the Ambassador.
+
+At length, word was sent to Versailles that the gifts from the Shah had
+come, and a day was appointed for their presentation. The day arrived,
+and the Hall of Audience was again thrown open. All was jubilee; the
+King and the court waited, but no Persian--no Riza Bey--no presents from
+the Shah!
+
+That morning three men, without either caftans or robes, but very much
+resembling the blacklegs of the day in their attire and deportment, had
+left the Tuileries at daylight with a bag and a bundle, and returned no
+more. They were Riza Bey and his last body-guard; the bag and the
+bundle were the smallest in bulk but the most precious in value of a
+month's successful plunder. The turquoises and opals left with the King
+turned out, upon close inspection, to be a new and very ingenious
+variety of colored glass, now common enough, and then worth, if
+anything, about thirty cents in cash.
+
+Of course, a hue and cry was raised in all directions, but totally in
+vain. Riza Bey, the Persian Shah, and the gentlemen in flower-pots, had
+"gone glimmering through the dream of things that were." L'etat c'est
+moi had been sold for thirty cents! It was afterward believed that a
+noted barber and suspected bandit at Leghorn, who had once really
+traveled in Persia, and there picked up the knowledge and the ready
+money that served his turn, was the perpetrator of this pretty joke and
+speculation, as he disappeared from his native city about the time of
+the embassy in France, and did not return.
+
+All Europe laughed heartily at the Grand Monarque and his fair
+court-dames, and "An Embassy from Persia" was for many years thereafter
+an expression similar to "Walker!" in English, or "Buncombe!" in
+American conversation, when the party using it seeks to intimate that
+the color of his optics is not a distinct pea-green!
+
+
+
+
+IX. RELIGIOUS HUMBUGS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND; OR, YANKEE SUPERSTITIONS.--MATTHIAS THE
+IMPOSTOR.--NEW YORK FOLLIES THIRTY YEARS AGO.
+
+
+There is a story that on a great and solemn public occasion of the
+Romish Church, a Pope and a Cardinal were, with long faces, performing
+some of the gyrations of the occasion, when, instead of a pious
+ejaculation and reply, which were down in the programme, one said to the
+other gravely, in Latin "_mundus vult decipi_;" and the other replied,
+with equal gravity and learning, "_decipiatur ergo_:" that is, "All the
+world chooses to be fooled."--"Let it be fooled then."
+
+This seems, perhaps, a reasonable way for priests to talk about ignorant
+Italians. It may seem inapplicable to cool, sharp, school-trained
+Protestant Yankees. It is not, however--at least, not entirely.
+Intelligent Northerners have, sometimes, superstition enough in them to
+make a first-class Popish saint. If it had not been so, I should not
+have such an absurd religious humbug to tell of as Robert Matthews,
+notorious in our goodly city some thirty years ago as "Matthias, the
+Impostor."
+
+In the summer of 1832, there was often seen riding in Broadway, in a
+handsome barouche, or promenading on the Battery (usually attended by a
+sort of friend or servant,) a tall man, of some forty years of age,
+quite thin, with sunken, sharp gray eyes, with long, coarse, brown and
+gray hair, parted in the middle and curling on his shoulders, and a long
+and coarse but well-tended beard and mustache. These Esau-like
+adornments attracted much attention in those close-shaving days. He was
+commonly dressed in a fine green frock-coat, lined with white or pink
+satin, black or green pantaloons, with polished Wellington boots drawn
+on outside, fine cambric ruffles and frill, and a crimson silk sash
+worked with gold and with twelve tassels, for the twelve tribes of
+Israel. On his head was a steeple-crowned patent-leather shining black
+cap with a shade.
+
+Thus bedizened, this fantastic-looking personage marched gravely up and
+down, or rode in pomp in the streets. Sometimes he lounged in a
+bookstore or other place of semi-public resort; and in such places he
+often preached or exhorted. His preachments were sufficiently horrible.
+He claimed to be God the Father; and his doctrine was, in substance,
+this:--"The true kingdom of God on earth began in Albany in June 1830,
+and will be completed in twenty-one years, or by 1851. During this time,
+wars are to stop, and I, Matthias, am to execute the divine judgments
+and destroy the wicked. The day of grace is to close on December 1,
+1836; and all who do not begin to reform by that time, I shall kill."
+The discourses by which this blasphemous humbug supported his
+pretensions were a hodge-podge of impiety and utter nonsense, with
+rants, curses and cries, and frightful threats against all objectors.
+Here is a passage from one;--"All who eat swine's flesh are of the
+devil; and just as certain as he eats it he will tell a lie in less than
+half an hour. If you eat a piece of pork, it will go crooked through
+you, and the Holy Ghost will not stay in you; but one or the other must
+leave the house pretty soon. The pork will be as crooked in you as rams'
+horns." Again, he made these pleasant points about the ladies: "They who
+teach women are of the wicked. All females who lecture their husbands
+their sentence is: 'Depart, ye wicked, I know you not.' Everything that
+has the smell of woman will be destroyed. Woman is the cap-sheaf of the
+abomination of desolation, full of all deviltry." There, ladies! Is
+anything further necessary to convince you what a peculiarly wicked and
+horrible humbug this fellow was?
+
+If we had followed this impostor home, we should have found him lodged,
+during most of his stay in New-York city, with one or the other of his
+three chief disciples. These were Pierson, who commonly attended him
+abroad, Folger, and--for a time only--Mills. All three of these men were
+wealthy merchants. In their handsome and luxuriously-furnished homes,
+this noxious humbug occupied the best rooms, and controlled the whole
+establishment, directing the marketing, meal times, and all other
+household-matters. Master, mistress (in Mr. Folger's home,) and
+domestics were disciples, and obeyed the scamp with an implicitness and
+prostrate humility even more melancholy than absurd, both as to
+housekeeping and as to the ceremonies, washing of feet, etc., which he
+enjoined. When he was angry with his female disciples, he frequently
+whipped them; but, being a monstrous coward, he never tried it on a man.
+The least opposition or contradiction threw him into a great rage, and
+set him screaming, and cursing, and gesticulating like any street drab.
+When he wished more clothes, which was pretty often, one of his dupes
+furnished the money. When he wanted cash for any purpose indeed, they
+gave it him.
+
+This half-crazy knave and abominable humbug was Robert Matthews, who
+called himself Matthias. He was of Scotch descent, and born about 1790,
+in Washington county, New York; and his blood was tainted with insanity,
+for a brother of his died a lunatic. He was a carpenter and joiner of
+uncommon skill, and up to nearly his fortieth year lived, on the whole,
+a useful and respectable life, being industrious, a professing Christian
+of good standing, and (having married in 1813) a steady family-man. In
+1828 and 1829, while living at Albany, he gradually became excited about
+religious subjects; his first morbid symptoms appearing after hearing
+some sermons by Rev. E. N. Kirk, and Mr. Finney the revivalist. He soon
+began to exhort his fellow-journeymen instead of minding his work, so
+uproariously that his employer turned him away.
+
+He discovered a text in the Bible that forbid Christians to shave. He
+let his hair and beard grow; began street-preaching in a noisy, brawling
+style; announced that he was going to set about converting the whole
+city of Albany--which needed it badly enough, if we may believe the
+political gentlemen. Finding however, that the Lobby, or the Regency,
+or something or other about the peculiar wickedness of Albany, was
+altogether too much for him, he began, like Jonah at Nineveh, to
+announce the destruction of the obstinate town; and at midnight, one
+night in June, 1826, he waked up his household, and saying that Albany
+was to be destroyed next day, took his three little boys--two, four, and
+six years old--his wife and oldest child (a daughter refusing to go,)
+and "fled to the mountains." He actually walked the poor little fellows
+forty miles in twenty-four hours, to his sister's in Washington county.
+Here he was reckoned raving crazy; was forcibly turned out of church for
+one of his brawling interruptions of service, and sent back to Albany,
+where he resumed his street-preaching more noisily than ever. He now
+began to call himself Matthias, and claimed to be a Jew. Then he went on
+a long journey to the Western and Southern States, preaching his
+doctrines, getting into jail, and sometimes fairly cursing his way out;
+and, returning to New York city, preached up and down the streets in his
+crazy, bawling fashion, sometimes on foot and sometimes on an old bony
+horse.
+
+His New York city dupes, Elijah Pierson and Benjamin H. Folger and their
+families, together with a Mr. Mills and a few more, figured prominently
+in the chief chapter of Matthews' career, during two years and a half,
+from May, 1832, to the fall of 1834.
+
+Pierson and Folger were the leaders in the folly. These men, merchants
+of wealth and successful in business, were of that sensitive and
+impressible religious nature which is peculiarly credulous and liable to
+enthusiasms and delusions. They had been, with a number of other
+persons, eagerly engaged in some extravagant religious performances,
+including excessive fasts and asceticisms, and a plan, formed by one of
+their lady friends, to convert all New York by a system of female
+visitations and preachings--a plan not so very foolish, I may just
+remark, if the she apostles are only pretty enough!
+
+Pierson, the craziest of the crew, besides other wretched delusions, had
+already fancied himself Elijah the Tishbite; and when his wife fell ill
+and died a little while before this time, had first tried to cure her,
+and then to raise her from the dead, by anointing with oil and by the
+prayer of faith, as mentioned in the Epistle of Saint James.
+
+Curiously enough, a sort of lair or nest, very soft and comfortable, was
+thus made ready for our religious humbug, just as he wanted it worst;
+for in these days he was but seedy. He heard something of Pierson, I
+don't know how; and on the 5th of May, 1832, he called on him. Very
+quickly the poor fellow recognized the long-bearded prophetical humbug
+as all that he claimed to be--a possessor and teacher of all truth, and
+as God himself.
+
+Mills and Folger easily fell into the same pitiable foolery, on
+Pierson's introduction. And the lucky humbug was very soon living in
+clover in Mills' house, which he chose first; had admitted the happy
+fools, Pierson and Folger, as the first two members of his true church;
+Pierson, believing that from Elijah the Tishbite he had become John the
+Baptist, devoted himself as a kind of servant to his new Messiah; and
+the deluded men began to supply all the temporal wants of the impostor,
+believing their estates set apart as the beginning of the material
+Kingdom of God!
+
+After three months, some of Mills' friends, on charges of lunacy, caused
+Mills to be sent to Bloomingdale Asylum, and Matthias to be thrust into
+the insane poor's ward at Bellevue, where his beard was forcibly cut
+off, to his extreme disgust. His brother, however, got him out by a
+habeas corpus, and he went to live with Folger. Mills now disappears
+from the story.
+
+Matthias remained in the full enjoyment of his luxurious establishment,
+until September, 1834, it is true, with a few uncomfortable
+interruptions. He was always both insolent and cowardly, and thus often
+irritated some strong-minded auditor, and got himself into some pickle
+where he had to sneak out, which he did with much ease. In his seedy
+days the landlord of a hotel in whose bar-room he used to preach and
+curse, put him down when he grew too abusive, by coolly and sternly
+telling him to go to bed. Mr. Folger himself had one or two brief
+intervals of sense, in one of which, angered at some insolence of
+Matthias, he seized him by the throat, shook him well, and flung him
+down upon a sofa. The humbug knowing that his living was in danger, took
+this very mildly, and readily accepted the renewed assurances of belief
+which poor Folger soon gave him. In the village of Sing Sing where
+Folger had a country-seat which he called Mount Zion, Matthias was
+exceedingly obnoxious. His daughter had married a Mr. Laisdell; and the
+humbug, who claimed that all Christian marriages were void and wicked,
+by some means induced the young wife to come to Sing Sing, where he
+whipped her more than once quite cruelly. Her husband came and took her
+away after encountering all the difficulty which Matthias dared make;
+and, at a hearing in the matter before a magistrate, he was very near
+getting tarred and feathered, if not something worse, and the danger
+frightened him very much.
+
+He barely escaped being shaved by violence, and being thrown overboard
+to test his asserted miraculous powers, at the hands of a stout and
+incredulous farmer on the steamboat between Sing Sing and New York.
+While imprisoned at Bellevue before his trial, he was tossed in a
+blanket by the prisoners, to make him give them some money. The unlucky
+prophet dealt out damnation to them in great quantities; but they told
+him it wouldn't work, and the poor humbug finally, instead of casting
+them into hell, paid them a quarter of a dollar apiece to let him off.
+When he was about to leave Folger's house, some roguish young men of
+Sing Sing forged a warrant, and with a counterfeit officer seized the
+humbug, and a second time shaved him by force. He was one day terribly
+"set back" as the phrase is, by a sharpish answer. He gravely asserted
+to a certain man that he had been on the earth eighteen hundred years.
+His hearer, startled and irreverent, exclaimed:
+
+"The devil you have! Do you tell me so?"
+
+"I do," said the prophet.
+
+"Then," rejoined the other, "all I have to say is, you are a remarkably
+good-looking fellow for one of your age."
+
+The confounded prophet grinned, scowled, and exclaimed indignantly:
+
+"You are a devil, Sir!" and marched off.
+
+In the beginning of August, 1834, the unhappy Pierson died in Folger's
+house, under circumstances amounting to strong circumstantial evidence
+that Matthias, with the help of the colored cook, an enthusiastic
+disciple, had poisoned him with arsenic. The rascal pretended that his
+own curse had slain Pierson. There was a post mortem, an indictment, and
+a trial, but the evidence was not strong enough for conviction. Being
+acquitted, he was at once tried again for an assault and battery on his
+daughter by the aforesaid whippings; and on this charge he was found
+guilty and sent to the county jail for three months, in April, 1835. The
+trial for murder was just before--the prophet having lain in prison
+since his apprehension for murder in the preceding autumn. Mr. Folger's
+delusion had pretty much disappeared by the end of the summer of 1834.
+He had now become ruined, partly in consequence of foolish speculations
+jointly with Pierson, believed to be conducted under Divine guidance,
+and partly because his strange conduct destroyed his business reputation
+and standing. The death of Pierson, and some very queer matters about
+another apparent poisoning-trick, awakened the suspicions of the
+Folgers; and after a good deal of scolding and trouble with the
+impostor, who hung on to his comfortable home like a good fellow, Folger
+finally turned him out, and then had him taken up for swindling. He had
+been too foolish himself, however, to maintain this charge; but, shortly
+after, the others, for murder and assault, followed, with a little
+better success.
+
+This imprisonment seems to have put a sudden and final period to the
+prophetical and religious operations of Master Matthias, and to the
+follies of his victims, too. I know of no subsequent developments of
+either kind. Matthias disappears from public life, and died, it is said,
+in Arkansas; but when, or after what further career, I don't know. He
+was a shallow knave, and undoubtedly also partly crazy and partly the
+dupe of his own nonsense. If he had not so opportunely found victims of
+good standing, he would not have been remembered at all, except as
+George Munday, the "hatless prophet," and "Angel Gabriel Orr," are
+remembered--as one more obscure, crazy street-preacher. And as soon as
+his accidental supports of other people's money and enthusiasm failed
+him, he disappeared at once. Many of my readers will remember
+distinctly, as I do, the remarkable career of this man, and the
+humiliating position in which his victims were placed. In the face of
+such an exposition as this of the weakness and credulity of poor human
+nature in this enlightened country of common schools and colleges, in
+the boasted wide-awake nineteenth century, who shall deny that we can
+study with interest and profit the history of impositions which have
+been practiced upon mankind in every possible phase throughout every age
+of the world, including the age in which we live? There is literally no
+end to these humbugs; and the reader of these pages, weak as may be my
+attempts to do the subject justice, will learn that there is no country,
+no period, and no sphere in life which has not been impiously invaded
+by the genius of humbug, under more disguises and in more shapes than it
+has entered into the heart of man to conceive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+A RELIGIOUS HUMBUG ON JOHN BULL.--JOANNA SOUTHCOTT.--THE SECOND SHILOH.
+
+
+Joanna Southcott was born at St. Mary's Ottery in Devonshire, about the
+year 1750. She was a plain, stout-limbed, hard-fisted farmer lass, whose
+toils in the field--for her father was in but very moderate
+circumstances--had tawned her complexion and hardened her muscles, at an
+early age. As she grew toward woman's estate, necessity compelled her to
+leave her home and seek service in the city of Exeter, where for many
+years, she plodded on very quietly in her obscure path, first, as a
+domestic hireling, and subsequently as a washer woman.
+
+I have an old and esteemed friend on Staten Island whose father, still
+living, recollects Joanna well, as she used to come regularly to his
+house of a Monday morning, to her task of cleansing the family linen. He
+was then but a little lad, yet he remembers her quite well, with her
+stout, robust frame, and buxom and rather attractive countenance, and
+her queer ways. Even then she was beginning to invite attention by her
+singular manners and discourse, which led many to believe her demented.
+
+It was at Exeter that Joanna became religiously impressed, and joined
+the Wesleyan Methodists, as a strict and extreme believer in the
+doctrines of that sect. During her attendance upon the Wesleyan rites,
+she became intimate with one Sanderson, who, whether a designing rogue,
+or only a very fanatical believer, pretended that he had discovered in
+the good washerwoman a Bible prodigy; and it was not long before the
+poor creature began literally, to "see sights" and dream dreams of the
+most preternatural description, for which Sanderson always had ready
+some very telling interpretation. Her visions were of the most
+thoroughly "mixed" character withal, sometimes transporting her to the
+courts of heaven, and sometimes to a very opposite region, celebrated
+for its latent and active caloric. When she ranged into the lower world,
+she had a very unpleasant habit of seeing sundry scoffers and
+unbelievers (in herself) belonging to the congregation, in very close
+but disadvantageous intercourse with the Evil One, who was represented
+as having a particular eye to others around her, even while they laid
+claim to special piety. Of course, such revelations as these could not
+be tolerated in any well regulated community, and when some most
+astounding religious gymnastics performed by Joanna in the midst of
+prayers and sermons, occurred to heap up the measure of her offences, it
+became full time to take the matter in hand, and the prophetess was
+expelled. Now, those whom she had not served up openly with brimstone,
+agreeing with her about those whom she had thus "cooked," and delighted
+in their own exemption from that sort of dressing, seceded in
+considerable numbers, and became Joanna's followers. This gave her a
+nucleus to work upon, and between 1790 and 1800, she managed to make
+herself known throughout Britain, proclaiming that she was to be the
+destined Mother of the Second Messiah, and although originally quite
+illiterate, picking up enough general information and Bible lore, to
+facilitate her publication of several very curious, though sometimes
+incoherent works. One of the earliest and most startling of these was
+her "Warning to the whole World, from the Sealed Prophecies of Joanna
+Southcott, and other communications given since the writings were opened
+on the 12th of January, 1803." This foretold the close approach of the
+great red dragon of the Revelations, "with seven heads and ten horns,
+and seven crowns upon his heads," and the birth of the "man-child who
+was to rule all nations with a rod of iron."
+
+In 1805, a shoemaker named Tozer built her a chapel in Exeter at his
+own expense, and it was, from the first, constantly filled on
+service-days with eager worshipers. Here she gave exhortations, and
+prophesied in a species of religious frenzy or convulsion, sometimes
+uttering very heavy prose, and sometimes the most fearful doggerel
+rhyme resembling--well--perhaps our album effusions here at home!
+Indeed, I can think of nothing else equally fearful. In these
+paroxysms, Joanna raved like an ancient Pythoness whirling on her
+tripod, and to just about the same purpose. Yet, it was astonishing to
+see how the thing went down. Crowds of intelligent people came from all
+parts of the United Kingdom to listen, be converted, and to receive
+the "seals" (as they were called) that secured their fortunate
+possessor unimpeded and immediate admission to heaven. Of course,
+tickets so precious could not be given away for nothing, and the seal
+trade in this new form proved very lucrative.
+
+The most remarkable of all these conversions was that of the celebrated
+engraver, William Sharp, who, notwithstanding his eminent position as an
+artist, by no means bore out his name in other things. He had previously
+become thoroughly imbued with the notions of Swedenborg, Mesmer, and the
+famous Richard Brothers, and was quite ripe for anything fantastic. Such
+a convert was a perfect godsend to Joanna, and she was easily persuaded
+to accompany him to London, where her congregations rapidly increased to
+enormous proportions, even rivaling those now summoned by the "drum
+ecclesiastical" and orthodox of the Rev. Mr. Spurgeon.
+
+The whole sect extended until, in 1813, it numbered no less than one
+hundred thousand members, signed and "sealed"--Mr. Sharp occupying a
+most conspicuous position at the very footstool of the Prophetess. Late
+in 1813, appeared the "Book of Wonders," "in five parts," and it was a
+clincher. Poor Sharp came in largely for the expenses, but valiantly
+stood his ground against it all. At length, in 1814, the great Joanna
+dazzled the eyes of her adherents and the world at large with her
+"Prophecies concerning the Prince of Peace." This delectable manifesto
+flatly announced to mankind that the second Shiloh, so long expected,
+would be born of the Prophetess at midnight, on October 19, in that
+same year, _i. e._ 1814. The inspired writer was then enceinte, although
+a virgin, as she expressly and solemnly declared, and in the
+sixty-fourth year of her age. Among the other preternatural concomitants
+of this anticipated eventful birth, was the fact that the period of her
+pregnancy had lasted for several years.
+
+Of course, this stupendous announcement threw the whole sect into
+ecstasies of religious exultation; while, on the other hand, it afforded
+a fruitful subject of ridicule for the utterly irreverent London
+pamphleteers. Poor Sharp, who had caused a magnificent cradle and
+baby-wardrobe to be got ready at his own expense, was most unmercifully
+scored. The infant was caricatured with a long gray beard and
+spectacles, with Sharp in a duster carefully rocking him to sleep, while
+Joanna the Prophetess treated the engraver to some "cuts" in her own
+style, with a bunch of twigs.
+
+On the appointed night, the street in which Joanna lived was thronged
+with the faithful, who, undeterred by sarcasm, fully credited her
+prediction. They bivouacked on the side-walks in motley crowds of men,
+women, and children; and as the hours wore on, and their interest
+increased, burst forth into spontaneous psalmody. The adjacent
+thoroughfares were as densely jammed with curious and incredulous
+spectators, and the mutton pie and ballad businesses flourished
+extensively. The interior of the house, with the exception of the sick
+chamber, was illuminated in all directions, and the dignitaries of the
+sect held the ante-rooms and corridors, "in full fig," to receive the
+expected guest. But the evening passed, then midnight came, then
+morning, but alas! no Shiloh; and, little by little, the disappointed
+throngs dispersed! Poor Joanna, however, kept her bed, and finally,
+after many fresh paroxysms and prophecies, on the 27th of December,
+1814, gave up the ghost--the indefatigable Sharp still declaring that
+she had gone to heaven for a season, only to legitimatize the unborn
+infant, and would re-arise again from death, after four days, with the
+Shiloh in her arms. So firm was this faith in him and many other
+respectable persons, that the body of the Prophetess was retained in her
+house until the very last moment. When the dissection demanded by the
+majority of the sect could no longer be delayed, that operation was
+performed, and it was found that the subject had died of ovarian dropsy;
+but was--as she had always maintained herself to be--a virgin. Dr.
+Reece, who had been a devout believer, but was now undeceived, published
+a full account of this and all the other circumstances of her death, and
+another equally earnest disciple bore the expenses of her burial at St.
+John's Wood, and placed over her a tombstone with appropriate
+inscriptions.
+
+As late as 1863, there were many families of believers still existing
+near Chatham, in Kent; and even in this country can here and there be
+found admirers of the creed of Joanna Southcott, who are firmly
+convinced that she will re-appear some fine morning, with Sanderson on
+one side of her and Sharp on the other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+THE FIRST HUMBUG IN THE WORLD.--ADVANTAGES OF STUDYING THE IMPOSITIONS
+OF FORMER AGES.--HEATHEN HUMBUGS.--THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES.--THE
+CABIRI.--ELEUSIS.--ISIS.
+
+
+The domain of humbug reaches back to the Garden of Eden, where the
+Father of lies practised it upon our poor, innocent first grandmother,
+Eve. This was the first and worst of all humbugs. But from that eventful
+day to the present moment, falsehood, hypocrisy, deception, imposition,
+cant, bigotry, false appearances and false pretences, superstitions, and
+all conceivable sorts of humbugs, have had a full swing, and he or she
+who watches these things most closely, and reflects most deeply upon
+these various peculiarities, bearings, and results, will be best
+qualified to detect and to avoid them. For this reason, I should look
+upon myself as somewhat of a public benefactor, in exposing the humbugs
+of the world, if I felt competent to do the subject full justice.
+
+Next to the fearful humbug practiced upon our first parents, came
+heathen humbugs generally. All heathenism and idolatry are one grand
+complex humbug to begin with. All the heathen religions always were, and
+are still, audacious, colossal, yet shallow and foolish, humbugs. The
+heathen humbugs were played off by the priests, the shrewdest men then
+alive. It is a curious fact that the heathen humbugs were all solemn.
+This was because they were intended to maintain the existing religions,
+which, like all false religions, could not endure ridicule. They always
+appealed to the pious terrors of the public, as well as to its ignorance
+and appetite for marvels. They offered nothing pleasant, nothing to
+love, nothing to gladden the heart and lift it up in joyful gratitude,
+true adoration, and childlike confidence, prayer, and thanksgiving. On
+the contrary, awful noises, fearful sights, frightful threats, foaming
+at the mouth, dark sayings, secret processions, bloody sacrifices, grim
+priests, costly offerings, sleeps in darksome caverns to wait for a
+dream from the god--these were the machineries of the ancient heathen.
+They were as crude and as ferocious as those of the King of Dahomey, or
+of the barbarous negroes of the Guinea coast. But they often show a
+cunning as keen and effective as that of any quack, or Philadelphia
+lawyer, or Davenport Brother, or Jackson Davis of to-day.
+
+The most prominent of the heathen humbugs were the mysteries, the
+oracles, the sibyls (N. B., the word is often mis-spelled sybils,) and
+augury. Every respectable Pagan religion had some mysteries, just as
+every respectable Christian family has a bible--and, as an ill-natured
+proverb has it, a skeleton. It was considered a poor religion--a one
+horse religion, so to speak--that had no mysteries.
+
+The chief mysteries were those of the Cabiri, of Eleusis, and of Isis.
+These mysteries used exactly the same kind of machinery which proves so
+effective every day in modern mysteries, viz., shows, processions,
+voices, lights, dark rooms, frightful sights, solemn mummeries,
+striking costumes, big talks and preachments, threats, gabbles of
+nonsense, etc., etc.
+
+The mysteries of the Cabiri are the most ancient of which anything is
+known. These Cabiri were a sort of "Original old Dr. Jacob Townsends" of
+divinities. They were considered senior and superior to Jupiter,
+Neptune, Plato, and the gods of Olympus. They were Pelasgic, that is,
+they belonged to that unknown ancient people from whom both the Greek
+and the Latin nations are thought to have come. The Cabiri afterward
+figured as the "elder gods" of Greece, the inventors of religion, and of
+the human race in fact, and were kept so very dark that it is not even
+known, with any certainty, who they were. The ancient heathen gods, like
+modern thieves, very usually objected to pass by their real names. The
+Cabiri were particularly at home in Lemnos, and afterward in Samothrace.
+
+Their mysteries were of a somewhat unpleasant character, as far as we
+know them. The candidate had to pass a long time almost starved, and
+without any enjoyment whatever; was then let into a dark temple, crowned
+with olive, tied round with a purple girdle, and frightened almost to
+death with horrid noises, terrible sights of some kind, great flashes of
+light and deep darkness between, etc., etc. There was a ceremony of
+absolution from past sin, and a formal beginning of a new life. It is a
+curious fact, that this performance seems to have been a kind of pious
+marine insurance company; as the initiated, it was believed, could not
+be drowned. Perhaps they were put in a way to obtain a drier
+strangulation. The reason why these ceremonies were kept so successfully
+secret, is plain. Each man, as he was let in, and found what nonsense it
+was, was sure to hold his tongue and help the next man in, as in the
+modern case of the celebrated "Sons of Malta." It is to be admitted,
+however, to the credit of the Cabiri, that a doctrine of reformation, or
+of living a better practical life, seems to have been part of their
+religion. This is an interesting recognition, by heathen consciences, of
+one of the greatest moral truths which Christianity has enforced.
+Something of the same kind can be traced in other heathen mysteries. But
+these heathen attempts at virtue invariably rotted out into aggravations
+of vice. No religion except Christianity ever contained the principle of
+improvement in it. Bugaboos and hob-goblins may serve for a time to
+frighten the ignorant into obedience; but if they get a chance to cheat
+the devil, they will be sure to do it. Nothing but the great doctrine of
+Christian love and brotherhood, and of a kind and paternal Divine
+government, has ever proved to be permanently reformatory, and tending
+to lift the heart above the vices and passions to which poor human
+nature is prone.
+
+The mysteries of Eleusis were celebrated every year at Eleusis, near
+Athens, in honor of Ceres, and were a regular "May Anniversary," so to
+speak, for the pious heathens of the period. It took just nine days to
+complete them; long enough for a puppy to get its eyes open. The
+candidates were very handsomely put through. On the first day, they got
+together; on the second, they took a wash in the sea; on the third,
+they had some ceremonies about Proserpine; on the fourth, no mortal
+knows what they did; on the fifth, they marched round a temple, two and
+two, with torches, like a Wide-Awake procession; on the sixth, seventh,
+and eighth, there were more processions, and the initiation proper, said
+to have been something like that of Free-masonry; so that we may suppose
+the victims rode the goat and were broiled on the gridiron. On the ninth
+day, the ceremony, they say, consisted in overturning two vessels of
+wine. I fear by this means that they all got drunk; and the more so,
+because the coins of Eleusis have a hog on one side, as much as to say,
+We make hogs of ourselves.
+
+There was a set of mysteries at Athens, called Thesmophoria, and one at
+Rome, called the mysteries of the Bona Dea, which were celebrated by
+married women only. Various notions prevailed as to what they did. But
+can there be any reasonable doubt about it? They were, I fear,
+systematic conspirators' meetings, in which the more experienced matrons
+instructed the junior ones how to manage their husbands. If this was not
+their object, then it was to maintain the influence of the heathen
+clergy over the heathen ladies. Women have always been the constituents
+of priests where false religions prevailed, as they have, for better
+purposes, of the ministers of the Gospel among Christians.
+
+The mysteries of the goddess Isis, which originated in Egypt, were, in
+general, like those of Ceres at Eleusis. The Persian mysteries of
+Mithra, which were very popular during part of the latter days of the
+Roman empire, were of the same sort. So were those of Bacchus, Juno,
+Jupiter, and various other heathen gods. All of them were celebrated
+with great solemnity and secrecy; all included much that was terrifying;
+and all of their secrets have been so faithfully kept that we have only
+guesses and general statements about the details of the performances.
+Their principal object seems to have been to secure the initiated
+against misfortunes, and to gain prosperity in the future. Some have
+imagined that very wonderful and glorious truths were revealed in the
+midst of these heathen humbugs. But I guess that the more we find out
+about them, the bigger humbugs they will appear, as happened to the
+travelers who held a _post mortem_ on the great heathen god in the
+story. This was a certain very terrible and powerful divinity among some
+savage tribes, of whom dreadful stories were told--very authentic, of
+course! Some unbelieving scamps of travelers, by unlawful ways, managed
+to get into the innermost sacred place of the temple one night. They
+found the god to be done up in a very large and suspicious looking
+bundle. Having sacrilegiously cut the string, they unrolled one envelop
+of mats and cloths after another, until they had taken off more than a
+hundred wrappers. The god grew smaller, and smaller, and smaller; and
+the wonder of the travelers what he could be, larger and larger. At
+last, the very innermost of all the coverings fell off, and the great
+heathen god was revealed in all his native majesty. It was a cracked
+soda-water bottle! This indicates--what is beyond all question the
+fact--that the heathen mysteries had their foundation in gas. Indeed,
+the whole composition of these impositions was, gammon, deception,
+hypocrisy--Humbug! Truly, the science of Humbug is entitled to some
+consideration, simply for its antiquity, if for nothing else.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+HEATHEN HUMBUGS NO. 2.--HEATHEN STATED
+SERVICES.--ORACLES.--SIBYLS.--AUGURIES.
+
+
+Something must be said about the Oracles, the Sibyls, and the Auguries;
+which, besides the mysteries elsewhere spoken of, were the chief
+assistant humbugs or side shows used for keeping up the great humbug
+heathen religion.
+
+One word about the regular worship of heathenism; what maybe called
+their stated services. They had no weekly day of worship, indeed no
+week, and no preaching such as ours is; that is, no regular instruction
+by the ministers of religion, intended for all the people. They had
+singing and praying after their fashion; the singing being a sort of
+chant of praise to whatever idol was under treatment at the time, and
+the praying being in part vain repetitions of the name of their god, and
+for the rest a request that the god would do or give whatever was asked
+of him as a fair business transaction, in return for the agreeable smell
+of the fine beef they had just roasted under his nose, or for whatever
+else they had given him; as, a sum of money, a pair of pantaloons (or
+whatever they wore instead,) a handsome golden cup. This made the temple
+a regular shop, where the priests traded off promised benefits for real
+beef; coining blessings into cash on the nail; a very thorough humbug.
+Such public religious ceremonies as the heathen had were mostly annual,
+sometimes monthly. There were also daily ones, which were, however, the
+daily business of the priests, and none of the business of the laymen.
+To return to the subject.
+
+All the heathen oracles, old and new (for abundance of them are still
+agoing,) sibyls, auguries and all, show how universally and naturally,
+and humbly and helplessly too, poor human nature longs to see into the
+future, and longs for help and guidance from some power, higher than
+itself.
+
+Thus considered, these shallow humbugs teach a useful lesson, for they
+constitute a strong proof of man's inborn natural recognition of some
+God, of some obligation to a higher power, of some disembodied
+existence; and so they show a natural human want of exactly what the
+Christian revelation supplies, and constitute a powerful evidence for
+Christianity.
+
+All the heathen religions, I believe, had oracles of some kind. But the
+Greek and Latin ones tell the whole story. Of these there were over a
+hundred; more than twenty of Apollo, who was the god of soothsaying,
+divination, prophecy, and of the supernatural side of heathen humbug
+generally; thirty or forty collectively of Jupiter, Ceres, Mercury,
+Pluto, Juno, Ino (a very good name for a goddess that gave oracles,
+though she didn't know!), Faunus, Fortune, Mars, etc., and nearly as
+many of demi-gods, heroes, giants, etc., such as Amphiaraus,
+Amphilochus, Trophonius, Geryon, Ulysses, Calchas, AEsculapius,
+Hercules, Pasiphae, Phryxus, etc. The most celebrated and most
+patronized of them all was the great oracle of Apollo, at Delphi. The
+"little fee" appears to have been the only universal characteristic of
+the proceedings for obtaining an answer from the god. Whether you got
+your reply in words spoken by the rattling of an old pot, by observing
+an ox's appetite, throwing dice, or sleeping for a dream, your own
+proceedings were essentially the same. "Terms invariably net cash in
+advance or its equivalent." A fine ox or sheep sacrificed was cash; for
+after the god had had his smell (those ladies and gentlemen appear to
+have eaten as they say the Yankees talk--through their noses,) all the
+rest was put carefully away by the reverend clergy for dinner, and saved
+so much on the butcher's bill. If your credit was good, you might
+receive your oracle and afterward send in any little acknowledgment in
+the form of a golden goblet, or statue, or vase, or even of a remittance
+in specie. Such gifts accumulated in the oracle at Delphi and to an
+immense amount, and to the great emolument of Brennus, a matter of fact
+Gaulish commander, who, at his invasion of Greece, coolly carried off
+all the bullion, without any regard to the screeches of the Pythoness,
+and with no more scruples than any burglar.
+
+The Delphian oracle worked through a woman, who, on certain days, went
+and sat on a three-legged stool over a hole in the ground in Apollo's
+temple. This hole sent out gas; which, instead of being used like that
+afforded by holes in the ground at Fredonia, N. Y., to illuminate the
+village, was much more shrewdly employed by the clerical gentlemen to
+shine up the knowledge-boxes of their customers, and introduce the
+glitter of gold into their own pockets. I merely throw out the hint to
+any speculating Fredonian who owns a hole in the ground. Well, the
+Pythia, as this female was termed, warmed up her understanding over this
+hole, as you have seen ladies do over the register of a hot-air furnace,
+and becoming excited, she presently began to be drunk or crazy, and in
+her fit she gabbled forth some words or noises. These the priests took
+down, and then told the customer that the noises meant so-and-so! When
+business was brisk they worked two Pythias, turn and turn about (or, as
+they say at sea, watch and watch), and kept a third all cocked and
+primed in case of accident, besides; for this gas sometimes gave the
+priestess (literally) fits, which killed her in a few days.
+
+Other oracles gave answers in many various ways. The priest quietly
+wrote down whatever answer he chose; or inspected the insides of a
+slaughtered beast, and said that the bowels meant this and that. At
+Telmessus the inquirer peeped into a well, where he must see a picture
+in the water which was his answer; at any rate, if this wouldn't do he
+got none. This plan was evidently based on the idea that "truth is at
+the bottom of a well." At Dodona, they hung brass pots on the trees and
+translated the banging these made when the wind blew them together. At
+Pherae, you whispered your question in the ear of the image of Mercury,
+and then shutting your ears until you got out of the market-place, the
+first remark you heard from anybody was the answer, and you might make
+the best of it. At Pluto's oracle at Charae, the priest took a dream,
+and in the morning told you what he chose. In the cave of Trophonius,
+after various terrifying performances, they pulled you through a hole
+the wrong way of the feathers, and then back again, and then stuck you
+upon a seat, and made you write down your own oracle, being what you had
+seen, which would, I imagine, usually be "the elephant."
+
+And so-forth, and so on. Humbug _ad libitum!_
+
+Like some of the more celebrated modern fortune-tellers, the managers of
+the oracles were frequently shrewd fellows, and could often pick up the
+materials of a very smart and judicious answer from the appearance of
+the customer and his question. Very often the answer was sheer nonsense.
+It was, in fact, believed by many that as a rule you couldn't tell what
+the response meant until after it was fulfilled, when you were expected
+to see it. In many cases the answers were ingeniously arranged, so as to
+mean either a good or evil result, one of which was pretty likely.
+
+Thus, one of the oracles answered a general who asked after the fate of
+his campaign as follows: (the ancients, remember, using no punctuation
+marks) "Thou shalt go thou shalt return never in war shalt thou perish."
+The point becomes visible when you first make a pause before "never,"
+and then after it.
+
+On a similar occasion, the Delphic oracle told Croesus that if he
+crossed the River Halys he would overthrow a great empire. This empire
+he chose to understand as that of Cyrus, whom he was going to fight. It
+came out the other way, and it was his own empire that was overthrown.
+The immense wisdom of the oracle, however, was tremendously respected in
+consequence!
+
+Pyrrhus, of Epirus, on setting off against the Romans, received equal
+satisfaction, the Pythia telling him (in Latin) what amounted to this:
+
+"I say that you Pyrrhus the Romans are able to conquer!"
+
+Pyrrhus took it as he wished it, but found himself sadly thimble-rigged,
+the little joker being under the wrong cup. The Romans beat him, and
+most wofully too.
+
+Trajan was advised to consult the oracle at Heliopolis, about his
+intended expedition against the Parthians. The custom was to send your
+query in a letter; so Trajan sent a blank note in an envelope. The god
+(very naturally) sent back a blank note in reply, which was thought
+wonderfully smart; and so the imperial dupe sent again, a square
+question:
+
+"Shall I finish this war and get safe back to Rome?"
+
+The Heliopolitan humbug replied by sending a piece of an old grape-vine
+cut into pieces, which meant either: "You will cut them up," or "They
+will cut you up;" and Trajan, like the little boy at the peep-show who
+asked: "which is Lord Wellington and which is the Emperor Napoleon?" had
+paid his penny and might take his choice.
+
+Sometimes the oracles were quite jocular. A man asked one of them how to
+get rich? The oracle said: "Own all there is between Sicyon and
+Corinth." Which places are some fifteen miles apart.
+
+Another fellow asked how he should cure his gout? The oracle coolly
+said: "Drink nothing but cold water!"
+
+The Delphic oracle, and some of the others, used for a long time to give
+their answers in verses. At last, however, irreverent critics of the
+period made so much fun of the peculiarly miserable style of this
+poetry, that the poor oracle gave it up and came down to plain prose.
+Every once in a while some energetic and cunning man, of skeptical
+character, insisted on having just such an answer as he wanted. It was
+well known that Philip of Macedon bought what responses he wished at
+Delphi. Anybody with plenty of money, who would quietly "see" the
+priests, could have such a response as he chose. Or, if he was a
+bull-headed, hard-fisted, fighting-man, of irreligious but energetic
+mind, the priests gave him what he wished, out of fear. When
+Themistocles wanted to encourage the Greeks against the Persians, he
+"fixed" Delphi by bribes. When Alexander the Great came to consult the
+same oracle, the Pythia was disinclined to perform. But Alexander rather
+roughly gave her to understand that she must, and she did. The Greek and
+Roman oracles finally all gave out not far from the time of Christ's
+coming, having gradually become more or less disreputable for many
+years.
+
+All the heathen nations, as I have said, had their oracles too. The
+heathen Scandinavians had a famous one at Upsal. The Getae, in Scythia,
+had one. The Druids had them; so did the Mexican priests. The Egyptian
+and Syrian divinities had them; in short, oracles were quite as
+necessary as mysteries, and continue so in heathen religions. The only
+exception, I believe, is in Mohammedanism, whose votaries save
+themselves any trouble about the future by their thorough fatalism. They
+believe so fully and vividly that everything is immovably predestinated,
+being at the same time perfectly sure of heaven at last, that they
+quietly receive everything as it comes, and don't take the least trouble
+to find out how it is coming.
+
+The Sibyls were women, supposed to be inspired by some divinity, who
+prophesied of the future. Some say there was but one; some two, three,
+four, or ten. All sorts of obscure stories are told about the time and
+place of their activity. There was the Persian or Chaldean, who is said
+to have foretold with many details the coming and career of Christ; the
+Lybian, the Delphic, the Cumaean, much honored by the Romans, and half a
+dozen more. Then there was Mantho, the daughter of Tiresias, who was
+sent from Thebes to Delphi in a bag, seven hundred and twenty years
+before the destruction of Troy. These ladies lived in caves, and among
+them are said to have composed the Sibylline books, which contained the
+mysteries of religion, were carefully kept out of sight at Rome, and
+finally came into the hands of the Emperor Constantine. They were
+burned, one story has it, about fifty years after his death. But there
+are some Sibylline books extant, which, however, are among the most
+transparent of humbugs, for they are full of all sorts of extracts and
+statements from the Old and New Testaments. I do not believe there ever
+were any Sibyls. If there were any, they were probably ill-natured and
+desperate old maids, who turned so sour-tempered that their friends had
+to drive them off to live by themselves, and who, under these
+circumstances, went to work and wrote books.
+
+I must crowd in here a word or two about the Auguries and the Augurs.
+These gentlemen were a sort of Roman priests, who were accustomed to
+foretell future events, decide on coming good or bad fortune, whether it
+would do to go on with the elections, to begin any enterprise or not,
+etc., by means of various signs. These were thunder; the way any birds
+happened to fly; the way that the sacred chickens ate; the appearance of
+the entrails of beasts sacrificed, etc., etc. These augurs were, for a
+long time, much respected in Rome, but, at last, the more thoughtful
+people lost their belief in them, and they became so ridiculous that
+Cicero, who was himself one of them, said he could not see how one augur
+could look another in the face without laughing.
+
+It is humiliating to reflect how long and how extensively such barefaced
+and monstrous humbugs as these have maintained unquestioned authority
+over almost the whole race of man. Nor has humanity, by any means,
+escaped from such debasing slavery now; for millions and millions of men
+still believe and practice forms and ceremonies even more absurd, if
+possible, than the Mysteries, Oracles, and Auguries.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+MODERN HEATHEN HUMBUGS.--FETISHISM.--OBI.--VAUDOUX.--INDIAN
+POWWOWS.--LAMAISM.--REVOLVING PRAYERS.--PRAYING TO DEATH.
+
+
+A scale of superstition and religious beliefs of to-day, arranged from
+the lowest to the highest, would show many curious coincidences with
+another scale, which should trace the history of superstitions and
+religious beliefs backward in time toward the origin of man. Thus, for
+instance, the heathen humbugs, whether revolting or ridiculous, which I
+am to speak of in this chapter, are in full blast to day; and they
+furnish perfect specimens of the beliefs which prevailed among the
+heathen of four thousand and of eighteen hundred years ago; of the
+Chaldee and Canaanite superstitions, and equally of those of the Romans
+under Augustus Caesar.
+
+The most dirty, vulgar, low, silly and absurd of all the superstitions
+in the world are, as is natural, those of the darkest minded of all the
+heathen, who have any superstition at all. For, as if for the
+humiliation of our proud human nature, there are really some human
+beings who seem to have too little intellect even to rise to the height
+of a superstition. Such are the Andaman Islanders, who crawl on all
+fours, wear nothing but a plaster of mud to keep the musquitos off, eat
+bugs, and grubs, and ants, and turn their children out to shift for
+themselves as soon as the little wretches can learn to crawl and eat
+bugs.
+
+These lowest of superstitions are Fetishism and Obi, believed and
+practiced by negro tribes, and, remember this, even by their ignorant
+white mistresses in the West Indies and in the United States, to day.
+Yes, I know where Southern refugee secessionist women are living in and
+about New York city at this moment, who really believe in the negro
+witchcraft called Obi, practiced by the slaves.
+
+A Fetish is anything not a living being, worshiped because supposed to
+be inhabited by some god. In some parts of Africa the Fetishes are a
+sort of guardian divinity, and there is one for each district like a
+town constable; and sometimes one for each family. The Fetish is any
+stone picked up in the street--a tree, a chip, a rag. It may be some
+stone or wooden image--an old pot, a knife, a feather. Before this
+precious divinity the poor darkeys bow down and worship, and sometimes,
+sacrifice a sheep or a rooster. Each more important Fetish has a priest,
+and here is where the humbug comes in. This gentleman lives on the
+offerings made to the Fetish, and he "exploits" his god, as a Frenchman
+would say, with great profit.
+
+Obi or Obeah, is the name of the witchcraft of the negro tribes; and the
+practitioner is termed an Obi-man or Obi-woman. They practice it at home
+in Africa, and carry it with them to continue it when they are made
+slaves in other lands. Obi is now practiced, as I have already hinted,
+in Cuba and in the Southern States, and is believed in by the more
+ignorant and foolish white people, as much as by their barbarous
+slaves. Obi is used only to injure, and the way to perform it upon your
+enemy is, to hire the Obi man or woman to concoct a charm, and then to
+hide this, or cause it to be hidden, in some place about the person or
+abode of the victim where he will find it. He is expected thereupon to
+fall ill, to wither and waste away, and so to die.
+
+Absurd as it may seem, this cursing business operates with a good deal
+of certainty on the poor negroes, who fall sick instantly on finding the
+ball of Obi, two or three inches in diameter, hidden in their bed, or in
+the roof, or under the threshold, or in the earthen floor of their huts.
+The poor wretches become dejected, lose appetite, strength, and spirits,
+grow thin and ill, and really wither away and die. It is a curious fact,
+however, that if under these circumstances you can cause one of them to
+become converted to Christianity, or to become a Christian by
+profession, he becomes at once free from the witches' dominion and
+quickly recovers.
+
+The ball of Obi--or, as it is called among the Brazilian negroes,
+Mandinga--may be made of various materials, always, I believe, including
+some which are disgusting or horrible. Leaves of trees and scraps of rag
+may be used; ashes, usually from bones or flesh of some kind; pieces of
+cats' bones and skulls, feathers, hair, earth, or clay, which ought to
+be from a grave; teeth of men and of snakes, alligators or other beasts;
+vegetable gum, or other sticky stuff; human blood, pieces of eggshell,
+etc., etc. This mixture is curiously like that in the witches' caldron
+in Macbeth, which, among other equally toothsome matters, contained
+frogs' toes, bats' wool, lizards' legs, owlets' wings, wolfs' teeth,
+witches' mummy, Jew's liver, tigers' bowels, and lastly, as a sort of
+thickening to the gravy, baboon's blood.
+
+A creole lady, now at the North, recently told a friend of mine that
+"the negroes can put some pieces of paper, or powder, or something or
+other in your shoes, that will make you sick, or make you do anything
+they want!" The poor foolish woman told this with a face full of awe and
+eyes wide open. Another lady known to me, long resident at the South,
+tells me that the belief in this sort of devilism is often found among
+the white people.
+
+The practices called Vaudoux or Voudoux, are a sort of Obi; being, like
+that, an invoking of the aid of some god to do what the worshipers wish.
+The Vaudoux humbug is quite prevalent in Cuba, Hayti, and other West
+India islands, where there are wild negroes, or where they are still
+imported from Africa. There is also a good deal of this sort of humbug
+among the slaves in New Orleans, and cases arising from it have recently
+quite often appeared in the police reports in the newspapers of that
+city.
+
+The Vaudoux worshipers assemble secretly, with a kind of chief witch or
+mistress of ceremonies; there is a boiling caldron of hell-broth, _a la_
+Macbeth; the votaries dance naked around their soup; amulets and charms
+are made and distributed. During a quarter of a century last past, some
+hundreds of these orgies have been broken up by the New Orleans police,
+and probably as many more have come off as per programme. The Vaudoux
+processes are most frequently appealed to for the purposes of some
+unsuccessful or jealous lover; and the Creole ladies believe in
+Vaudouxism as much as in Obi.
+
+In the West Indies, the Vaudoux orgies are more savage than in this
+country. It is but a little while since in Hayti, under the energetic
+and sensible administration of President Geffrard, eight Vaudoux
+worshipers were regularly tried and executed for having murdered a young
+girl, the niece of two of them, by way of human sacrifice to the god.
+They tied the poor child tight, put her in a box called a humfort, fed
+her with some kind of stuff for four days, and then deliberately
+strangled her, beheaded her, flayed her, cooked the head with yams, ate
+of the soup, and then performed a solemn dance and chant around an altar
+with the skull on it.
+
+The Caffres in Southern Africa have a kind of humbug somewhat like the
+Obi-men, who are known as rainmakers. These gentlemen furnish what
+blessing and cursing may be required for other purposes; but as that
+country is liable to tremendous droughts, their best business is to make
+rain. This they do by various prayers and ceremonies, of which the most
+important part is, receiving a large fee in advance from the customer.
+The rain-making business, though very lucrative, is not without its
+disadvantages; for whenever Moselekatse, or Dingaan, or any other chief
+sets his rainmaker at work, and the rain was not forthcoming as per
+application, the indignant ruler caused an assegai or two to be stuck
+through the wizard, for the encouragement of the other wizards. This
+was not so unreasonable as it may seem; for if the man could not make
+rain when it was wanted, what was he good for?
+
+The ceremonies of the pow-wows or medicine-men of the North American
+Indians, are less brutal than the African ones. These soothsayers, like
+the Obi-men, prepared charms for their customers, usually, however, not
+so much to destroy others as to protect the wearer. These charms consist
+of some trifling matters tied up in a small bag, the "medicine-bag,"
+which is to be worn round the neck, and will, it is supposed, insure the
+wearer the special help and protection of the Great Spirit. The pow-wows
+sometimes do a little in the cursing line.
+
+There is a funny story of a Puritan minister in the early times of New
+England, who coolly defied one of the most famous Indian magicians to
+play off his infernal artillery. A formal meeting was had, and the
+pow-wow rattled his traps, howled, danced, blew feathers, and
+vociferated jargon until he was perfectly exhausted, the old minister
+quietly looking at him all the time. The savage humbug was dumbfounded,
+but quickly recovering his presence of mind, saved his home-reputation
+by explaining to the red gentlemen in breech-cloths and nose-rings, that
+the Yankee ate so much salt that curses wouldn't take hold on him at
+all.
+
+The Shamans (or Schamans) of Siberia, follow a very similar business,
+but are not so much priestly humbugs as mere conjurors. The Lamas, or
+Buddhist leaders of Central and Southern Asia are, however, regular
+priests, again, and may be said, with singular propriety, to "run their
+machine" on principles of thorough religious humbug, for they do really
+pray by a machine. They set up a little mill to go by water or wind,
+which turns a cylinder. On this cylinder is written a prayer, and every
+time the barrel goes round once, it counts, they say, for one prayer. It
+may be imagined how piety intensifies in a freshet, or in a heavy gale
+of wind! And there is a ludicrous notion of economy, as well as a
+pitiable folly in the conception of profiting by such windy
+supplications, and of saving all one's time and thoughts for business,
+while the prayers rattle out by the hundred at home. Only imagine the
+pious fervor of one of these priests in a first-class Lowell mill, of
+say a hundred thousand spindles. Print a large edition of some good
+prayer and paste a copy on each spindle, and the place would seem to him
+the very gate of a Buddhist heaven. He would feel sure of taking heaven
+by storm, with a sustained fire of one hundred thousand prayers every
+second. His first requisite for a prosperous church would be a good
+water-power for prayer-mills. And yet, absurd as these prayer-mills of
+the heathen really are, it may not be safe to bring them under
+unqualified condemnation: for who among us has not sometimes heard windy
+prayers even in our Christian churches? Young clergymen are especially
+liable and, I might say, prone to this mockery. These, however, are but
+exceptions to the general Christian rule, viz.: that the Omniscient
+careth only for heart-service; and that, before Him, all mere
+lip-service or machine-service, is simply an abomination.
+
+A less innocent kind of praying is one of the religious humbugs of the
+bloody and cruel Sandwich Islands form of heathenism. Here a practice
+prevailed, and does yet, of paying money to a priest to pray your enemy
+to death. For cash in advance, this bargain could always be made, and so
+groveling was the spiritual cowardice of these poor savages, that, like
+the negro victim of Obi, the man prayed at seldom failed to sicken as
+soon as he found out what was going on, and to waste away and die.
+
+This bit of heathen humbug now in operation, from so many distant
+portions of the earth, shows how radically similar is all heathenism. It
+shows, too, how mean, vulgar, filthy, and altogether vile, is such
+religion as man, unassisted, contrives for himself. It shows, again, how
+sadly great is the proportion of the human race still remaining in this
+brutal darkness. And, by contrast, it affords us great reason for
+thankfulness that we live in a land of better culture, and happier hopes
+and practices.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+ORDEALS.--DUELS.--WAGER OF BATTLE.--ABRAHAM THORNTON.--RED HOT
+IRON.--BOILING WATER.--SWIMMING.--SWEARING.--CORSNED.--PAGAN ORDEALS.
+
+
+Ordeals belong to times and communities of rudeness, violence,
+materialism, ignorance, gross superstition and blind faith. The theory
+of ordeals is, that God will miraculously decide in the case of any
+accused person referred to Him. He will cause the accused to be
+victorious or defeated in a duel, will punish him on the spot for
+perjury, and if the innocent be exposed to certain physical dangers,
+will preserve him harmless.
+
+The duel, for instance, used to be called the "ordeal by battle," and
+was simply the commitment of the decision of a cause to God. Duels were
+regularly prefaced by the solemn prayer "God show the right." Now-a-days
+nobody believes that skill with a pistol is going to be specially
+bestowed by the Almighty, without diligent practice at a mark.
+Accordingly, the idea of a divine interposition has long ago dropped out
+of the question, and duelling is exclusively in the hands of the devil
+and his human votaries,--is a purely brutal absurdity. But in England,
+so long was this bloody, superstitious humbug kept up, that any hardened
+scoundrel who was a good hand at his weapon might, down to the year
+1819, absolutely have committed murder under the protection of English
+law. Two years before that date, a country "rough" named Abraham
+Thornton, murdered his sweetheart, Mary Ashford, but by deficiency of
+proof was acquitted on trial. There was however a moral conviction that
+Thornton had killed the girl, and her brother, a mere lad, caused an
+appeal to be entered according to the English statute, and Thornton was
+again arraigned before the King's Bench. In the mean time his counsel
+had looked up the obsolete proceedings about "assize of battle," and
+when Thornton was placed at the bar he threw down his glove upon the
+floor according to the ancient forms, and challenged his accuser to
+mortal combat. In reply, the appellant, Ashford, set forth facts so
+clearly showing Thornton's guilt as to constitute (as he alleged,)
+cause for exemption from the combat, and for condemnation of the
+prisoner. The court, taken by surprise, spent five months in studying on
+the matter. At last it decided that the fighting man had the law of
+England on his side, admitted his demand, and further, found that the
+matters alleged for exemption from combat were not sufficient. On this,
+poor William Ashford, who was but a boy, declined the combat by reason
+of his youth, and the prisoner was discharged, and walked in triumph out
+of court, the innocent blood still unavenged upon his hands. The old
+fogies of Parliament were startled at finding themselves actually
+permitting the practice of barbarisms abolished by the Greek emperor,
+Michael Palaeologus, in 1259, and by the good King Louis IX of France in
+1270; and two years afterwards, in 1819, the legal duel or "assize of
+battle" was by law abolished in England. It had been legal there for
+five centuries and a half, having been introduced by statute in 1261.
+
+Before that time, the ordeals by fire and by water were the regular
+legal ones in England. These were known even to the Anglo Saxon law,
+being mentioned in the code of Ina, A. D., about 700. It appears that
+fire was thought the most aristocratic element, for the ordeal by fire
+was used for nobles, and that by water for vulgarians and serfs. The
+operations were as follows: When one was accused of a crime, murder for
+instance, he had his choice whether to be tried "by God and his
+country," or "by God." If he chose the former he went before a jury. If
+the latter, he underwent the ordeal. Nine red hot ploughshares were
+laid on the ground in a row. The accused was blindfolded, and sent to
+walk over them. If he burnt himself he was guilty; if not, not.
+Sometimes, instead of this, the accused carried a piece of red hot iron
+of from one to three pounds' weight in his hand for a certain distance.
+
+The ordeal by water was, in one form at least, the same wise alternative
+in after years so often offered to witches. The accused was tied up in a
+heap, each arm to the other leg, and flung into water. If he floated he
+was guilty, and must be killed. If he sank and drowned, he was
+innocent--but killed. Trial was therefore synonymous with execution. The
+nature of such alternatives shows how important it was to have a
+character above suspicion! Another mode was, for the accused to plunge
+his bare arm into boiling water to the elbow. The arm was then instantly
+sealed up in bandages under charge of the clergy for three days. If it
+was then found perfectly well, the accused was acquitted; if not, he was
+found guilty.
+
+Another ordeal was expurgation or compurgation. It was a simple
+business--"as easy as swearing;" very much like a "custom house oath."
+It was only this: the accused made solemn oath that he was not guilty,
+and all the respectable men he could muster came and made their solemn
+oath that they believed so too. This is much like the jurisprudence of
+the Dutch justice of the peace in the old story, before whom two men
+swore that they saw the prisoner steal chickens. The thief however,
+getting a little time to collect testimony, brought in twelve men who
+swore that they did not see him take the chickens. "Balance of evidence
+overwhelmingly in favor of the prisoner," said the sapient justice (in
+Dutch I suppose,) and finding him innocent in a ratio of six to one, he
+discharged him at once.
+
+This ordeal by oath was reserved for people of eminence, whose word went
+for something, and who had a good many thorough-going friends.
+
+Another sort of ordeal was reserved for priests. It was called
+_corsned_. The priest who took the ordeal by _corsned_ received a bit of
+bread or a bit of cheese which was loaded heavily, by way of sauce, with
+curses upon whomsoever should eat it falsely. This he ate, together with
+the bread of the Lord's supper. Everybody knew that if he were guilty,
+the sacred mouthful would choke him to death on the spot. History
+records no instance of the choking of any priest in this ordeal, but
+there is a story that the Saxon Earl Godwin of Kent took the _corsned_
+to clear himself of a charge of murder, and (being a layman) was choked.
+I fully believe that Earl Godwin is dead, for he was born about the year
+1000. But I have not the least idea that _corsned_ killed him.
+
+The priests had the management of ordeals, which, being appeals to God,
+were reckoned religious ceremonies. They of course much preferred the
+swearing and eating and hot iron and water ordeals, which could be kept
+under the regulation of clerical good sense. Not so with the ordeal by
+battle. No priests could do anything with the wrath of two great mad
+ugly brutes, hot to kill each other, and crazy to risk having their own
+throats cut or skulls cleft rather than not have the chance. In
+consequence, the whole influence of the Romish church went against the
+ordeal by battle, and in favor of the others. Thus the former soon lost
+its religious element and became the mere duel; a base indulgence of a
+beast's passion for murder and revenge. The progress of enlightenment
+gradually pushed ordeals out of court. Mobs have however always tried
+the ordeal by water on witches.
+
+Almost all the heathen ordeals have depended on fire, water, or
+something to eat or drink. Even in the Bible we find an ordeal
+prescribed to the Jews (Numbers, chap v.,) for an unfaithful wife, who
+is there directed to drink some water with certain ceremonies, which
+drink God promises shall cause a fatal disease if she be guilty, and if
+not, not. It is worth noticing that Moses says not a word about any
+"water of jealousy," or any other ordeal, for unfaithful husbands!
+
+This drinking or eating ordeal prevails quite extensively even now. In
+Hindostan, theft is often enquired into by causing the suspected party
+to chew some dry rice or rice flour, which has some very strong curses
+stirred into it, _corsned_ fashion. After chewing, the accused spits out
+his mouthful, and if it is either dry or bloody, he is guilty. It is
+easy to see how a rascal, if as credulous as rascals often are, would be
+so frightened that his mouth would be dry, and would thus betray his own
+peccadillo. Another Hindoo mode was, to give a certain quantity of
+poison in butter, and if it did no harm, to acquit. Here, the man who
+mixes the dose is evidently the important person. In Madagascar they
+give some _tangena_ water. Now tangena is a fruit of which a little
+vomits the patient, and a good deal poisons or kills him; a quality
+which sufficiently explains how they manage that ordeal.
+
+Ordeals by fire and water are still practiced, with some variations, in
+Hindostan, China, Pegu, Siberia, Congo, Guinea, Senegambia and other
+pagan nations. Some of those still in use are odd enough. A Malabar one
+is to swim across a certain river, which is full of crocodiles. A Hindoo
+one is, for the two parties to an accusation to stand out doors, each
+with one bare leg in a hole, he to win who can longest endure the bites
+they are sure to get. This would be a famous method in some of the New
+Jersey and New York and Connecticut seashore lowlands I know of. The
+mosquitoes would decide cases both civil and criminal, at a speed that
+would make a Judge of the Supreme Court as dizzy as a humming-top.
+Another Hindoo plan was for the accused to hold his head under water
+while a man walked a certain distance. If the walker chose to be lazy
+about it, or the prisoner had diseased lungs, this would be a rather
+severe method. The Wanakas in Eastern Africa, draw a red hot needle
+through the culprit's lips--a most judicious place to get hold of an
+African!--and if the wound bleeds, he is guilty. In Siam, accuser and
+accused are put into a pen and a tiger is let loose on them. He whom the
+tiger kills is guilty. If he kills both, both are guilty; if neither,
+they try another mode.
+
+Blackstone says that an ordeal might always be tried by attorney. I
+should think this would give the legal profession a very lively time
+whenever the courts were chiefly using tigers, poison, drowning, fire
+and red hot iron, but not so much so when a little swearing or eating
+was the only thing required.
+
+This whole business of ordeals is a singular superstition, and the
+extent of its employment shows how ready the human race is to believe
+that God is constantly influencing even their ordinary private affairs.
+In other words, it is in principle like the doctrine of "special
+providence." Looked at as a superstition however--considered as a
+humbug--the history of ordeals show how corrupt becomes the nuisance of
+religious ways of deciding secular business, and how proper is our great
+American principle of the separation of state and church.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+APOLLONIUS OF TYANA.
+
+
+The annals of ancient history are peculiarly rich in narratives of
+pretension and imposition, and either owing to the greater ignorance and
+credulity of mankind, or the superior skill of gifted but unscrupulous
+men in those days, present a few examples that even surpass the most
+remarkable products of the modern science of humbug.
+
+One of their most surprising instances--in fact, perhaps, absolutely the
+leading impostor--was the sage or charlatan (for it is difficult to
+determine which) known as Apollonius Tyanaeus so called from Tyana, in
+Cappadocia, Asia Minor, his birthplace, where he first saw the light
+about four years earlier than Christ, and consequently more than
+eighteen and a half centuries ago. His arrival upon this planet was
+attended with some very amazing demonstrations. With his first cry, a
+flash of lightning darted from the heavens to the earth and back again,
+dogs howled, cats mewed, roosters crowed, and flocks of swans, so say
+the olden chroniclers--probably geese, every one of them--clapped their
+wings in the adjacent meadows with a supernatural clatter. Ushered into
+the world with such surprising omens as these, young Apollonius could
+not fail to make a noise himself, ere long. Sent by his doting father to
+Tarsus, in Cilicia, to be educated, he found the dissipations of the
+place too much for him, and soon removed to AEgae, a smaller city, at no
+great distance from the other. There he adopted the doctrines of
+Pythagoras, and subjected himself to the regular discipline of that
+curious system whose first process was a sort of juvenile gag-law, the
+pupils being required to keep perfectly silent for a period of five
+years, during which time it was forbidden to utter a single word. Even
+in those days, few female scholars preferred this practice, and the boys
+had it all to themselves, nor were they by any means numerous. After
+this probation was over, they were enjoined to speak and argue with
+moderation.
+
+At AEgae there stood a temple dedicated to AEsculapius, who figured on
+earth as a great physician and compounder of simples, and after death
+was made a god. The edifice was much larger and more splendid than the
+Brandreth House on Broadway, although we have no record of AEsculapius
+having bestowed upon the world any such benefaction as the universal
+pills. However, unlike our modern M. D.s, the latter was in the habit of
+re-appearing after death, in this temple, and there holding forth to the
+faithful on various topics of domestic medicine. Apollonius was allowed
+to take up his residence in the establishment, and, no doubt, the
+priests initiated him into all their dodges to impose upon the people.
+Another tenet of the Pythagorean faith was a total abstinence from
+beans, an arrangement which would be objectionable in New England and in
+Nassau street eating houses.
+
+Apollonius however, who knew nothing of Yankees or Nassau street,
+manfully completed his novitiate. Restored at length to the use of beans
+and of his talking apparatus, he set forth upon a lecturing tour through
+Pamphylia and Cilicia. His themes were temperance, economy, and good
+behavior, and for the very novelty of the thing, crowds of disciples
+soon gathered about him. At the town of Aspenda he made a great hit,
+when he "pitched into" the corn merchants who had bought up all the
+grain during a period of scarcity, and sold it to the people at
+exorbitant prices. Of course, such things are not permitted in our day!
+Apollonius moved by the sufferings of women and children, took his stand
+in the market place, and with his stylus wrote in large characters upon
+a tablet the following advice to the speculators in grain:
+
+"The earth, the common mother of all, is just. But, ye being unjust,
+would make her a bountiful mother to yourselves alone. Leave off your
+dishonest traffic, or ye shall be no longer permitted to live."
+
+The grain-merchants, upon beholding this appeal, relented, for there was
+conscience in those days; and, moreover, the populace had prepared
+torches, and proposed to fry a few of the offenders, like oysters in
+bread-crumbs. So they yielded at once, and great was the fame of the
+prophet. Thus elevated in his own opinion, Apollonius, still preaching
+virtue by the wayside, set out for Babylon, after visiting the cities of
+Antioch, Ephesus, etc., always attracting immense crowds. As he
+penetrated further toward the remote East, his troops of followers fell
+off, until he was left with only three companions, who went with him to
+the end. One of these was a certain Damis, who wrote a description of
+the journey, and, by the way, tells us that his master spoke all
+languages, even those of the animals. We have men in our own country who
+can talk "horse-talk" at the races, but probably none so perfectly as
+this great Tyanean. The author of "The Ruined Cities of Africa," a
+recent publication, informs us that at Lamba, an African village, there
+is a leopard who can "speak." This would go to show that the "animals,"
+are aspiring in a direction directly the opposite of the acquirements of
+Apollonius, and I shall secure that leopard, if possible, for exhibition
+in the Museum, and for a fair consideration send him to any public
+meeting where some one is needed who will come up to the scratch!
+
+But, to resume. On his way to Babylon, Apollonius saw by the roadside a
+lioness and eight whelps, where they had been killed by a party of
+hunters, and argued from the omen that he should remain in that city
+just one year and eight months, which of course turned out to be exactly
+the case. The Babylonish monarch was so delighted with the eloquence and
+skill of the noted stranger, that he promised him any twelve gifts that
+he might choose to ask for, but Apollonius declined accepting anything
+but food and raiment. However, the King gave him camels and escort to
+assist his journey over the northern mountains of Hindostan, which he
+crossed, and entered the ancient city of Taxilia. On the way, he had a
+high time in the gorges of the hills with a horrible hobgoblin of the
+species called empusa by the Greeks. This demon terrified his companions
+half out of their wits, but Apollonius bravely assailed him with all
+sorts of hard words, and, to literally translate the old Greek
+narrative, "blackguarded" him so effectually that the poor devil fled
+with his tail between his legs. At Taxilia, Phraortes, the King, a
+lineal descendant of the famous Porus--and truly a porous personage,
+since he was renowned for drinking--gave the philosopher a grand
+reception, and introduced him to the chief of the Brahmins, whose
+temples he explored. These Hindoo gentlemen opened the eyes of
+Apollonius wider than they had ever been before, and taught him a few
+things he had never dreamed of, but which served him admirably during
+his latter career. He returned to Europe by way of the Red Sea, passing
+through Ephesus, where he vehemently denounced the speculators in gold
+and other improper persons. As they did not heed him, he predicted the
+plague, and left for Smyrna. Sure enough, the pestilence broke out just
+after his departure, and the Ephesians telegraphed to Smyrna, by the
+only means in their power, for his immediate return; gold, in the
+meanwhile, falling at least ten per cent. Apollonius reappeared in the
+twinkling of an eye, suddenly, in the very midst of the wailing crowd,
+on the market place. Pointing to a beggar, he directed the people to
+stone that particular unfortunate, and they obeyed so effectually, that
+the hapless creature was in a few moments completely buried under a huge
+heap of brickbats. The next morning, the philosopher commanded the
+throng to remove the pile of stones, and as they did so, a dog was
+discovered instead of the beggar. The dog sprang up, wagged his tail,
+and made away at "two-forty" and with him the pestilence departed. For
+this feat, the Ephesians called Apollonius a god, and reared a statue to
+his honor. The appellation of divinity he willingly accepted, declaring
+that it was only justice to good men. In these degenerate days, we have
+accorded the term to only one person, "the divine Fanny Ellsler!" That,
+too, was a tribute to superior understanding!
+
+Our hero next visited Pergamus, the site of ancient Troy, where he shut
+himself up all night in the tomb of Achilles; and having raised the
+great departed, held conversation with him on a variety of military
+topics. Among other things, Achilles told him that the theory of his
+having been killed by a wound in the heel was all nonsense, as he had
+really died from being bitten by a puppy, in the back. If the reader
+does not believe me, let him consult the original MS. of Damis. The
+same accident has disabled several great generals in modern times.
+
+Apollonius next made a tour through Greece, visiting Athens, Sparta,
+Olympia, and other cities, and exhorting the dissolute Greeks to mend
+their evil courses. The Spartans, particularly, came in for a severe
+lecture on the advantages of soap and water; and, it is said, that the
+first clean face ever seen in that republic was the result of the great
+Tyanean's teachings. At Athens, he cured a man possessed of a demon; the
+latter bouncing out of his victim, at length, with such fury and
+velocity as to dash down a neighboring marble statue.
+
+The Isle of Crete was the next point on the journey, and an earthquake
+occurring at the time, Apollonius suddenly exclaimed in the streets:
+
+"The earth is bringing forth land."
+
+Folks looked as he pointed toward the sea, and there beheld a new island
+in the direction of Therae.
+
+He arrived at Rome, whither his fame had preceded him, just as the
+Emperor Nero had issued an edict against all who dealt in magic; and,
+although he knew that he was included in the denunciation, he boldly
+went to the forum, where he restored to life the dead body of a
+beautiful lady, and predicted an eclipse of the sun, which shortly
+occurred. Nero caused him to be arrested, loaded with chains, and flung
+into an underground dungeon. When his jailers next made their rounds,
+they found the chains broken and the cell empty, but heard the chanting
+of invisible angels. This story would not be believed by the head
+jailer at Sing Sing.
+
+Prolonging his trip as far as Spain, Apollonius there got up a sedition
+against the authority of Nero, and thence crossed over into Africa. This
+was the darkest period of his history. From Africa, he proceeded to the
+South of Italy and the island of Sicily, still discoursing as he went.
+About this time, he heard of Nero's death, and returned to Egypt, where
+Vespasian was endeavoring to establish his authority. While in Egypt, he
+explored the supposed sources of the Nile, and learned all the lore of
+the Ethiopean necromancers, who could do any thing, even to making a
+black man white; thus greatly excelling the skill of after ages.
+
+Vespasian had immense faith in the Tyanean sage, and consulted him upon
+the most important matters of State. Titus, the successor of that
+monarch, manifested equal confidence, and regarded him absolutely as an
+oracle. Apollonius, who really seems to have been a most sensible
+politician, wrote the following brief but pithy note to Titus, when the
+latter modestly refused the crown of victory, after having destroyed
+Jerusalem.
+
+"Apollonius to Titus, Emperor of Rome, sendeth greeting. Since you have
+refused to be applauded for bloodshed and victory in war, I send you the
+crown of moderation. You know to what kind of merit crowns are due."
+
+Yet Apollonius was by no means an ultra peace man, for he strongly
+advocated the shaving and clothing of the Ethiopians, and their thorough
+chastisement when they refused to be combed and purified.
+
+When Domitian grasped at the imperial sceptre, the great Tyanean sided
+with his rival, Nerva, and having for this offence been seized and cast
+into prison, suddenly vanished from sight and reappeared on the instant
+at Puteoli, one hundred and fifty miles away. The distinguished Mr.
+Jewett, of Colorado, is the only instance of similar rapidity of
+locomotion known to us in this country and time.
+
+After taking breath at Puteoli, the sage resumed his travels and
+revisited Greece, Asia Minor, etc. At Ephesus he established his
+celebrated school, and then, once more returning to Crete, happened to
+give his old friends, the Cretans, great offence, and was shut up in the
+temple Dictymna to be devoured by famished dogs; but the next morning
+was found perfectly unharmed in the midst of the docile animals, who had
+already made considerable progress in the Pythagorean philosophy, and
+were gathered around the philosopher, seated on their hind legs, with
+open mouths and lolling tongues, intently listening to him while he
+lectured them in the canine tongue. So devoted had they become to their
+eloquent instructor, and so enraged were they at the interruption when
+the Cretans re-opened the temple, that they rushed out upon the latter
+and made a breakfast of a few of the leading men.
+
+This is one of the last of the remarkable incidents that we find
+recorded of the mighty Apollonius. How he came to his end is quite
+uncertain, but some veracious chroniclers declare that he simply dried
+up and blew away. Others aver that he lived to the good old age of
+ninety-seven, and then quietly gave up the ghost at Tyana, where a
+temple was dedicated to his memory.
+
+However that may be, he was subsequently worshiped with divine honors,
+and so highly esteemed by the greatest men of after days, that even
+Aurelian refused to sack Tyana, out of respect to the philosopher's
+ashes.
+
+Dion Cassius, the historian, records one of the most remarkable
+instances of his clairvoyance or second sight. He states that
+Apollonius, in the midst of a discourse at Ephesus, suddenly paused, and
+then in a different voice, exclaimed, to the astonishment of all:--"Have
+courage, good Stephanus! Strike! strike! Kill the tyrant!" On that same
+day, the hated Domitian was assassinated at Rome by a man named
+Stephanus. The humdrum interpretation of this "miracle" is simply that
+Apollonius had a foreknowledge of the intended attempt upon the tyrant's
+life.
+
+Long afterwards, Cagliostro claimed that he had been a fellow-traveler
+with Apollonius, and that his mysterious companion, the sage Athlotas,
+was the very same personage, who, consequently, at that time, must have
+reached the ripe age of some 1784 years--a lapse of time beyond the
+memory of even "the oldest inhabitant," in these parts, at least!
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  A Catalogue of
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+  NEW YORK.
+
+1866.]
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+  =Walter Barrett, Clerk.=
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+  TEACH US TO PRAY.--By Dr. Cumming.                       do.   $1.50
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+  COSMOGONY.--By Thomas A. Davies.                   8vo. cloth, $2.00
+
+  TWENTY YEARS around the World. J. Guy Vassar.            do.   $3.75
+
+  THE SLAVE POWER.--By J. E. Cairnes.                      do.   $2.00
+
+  RURAL ARCHITECTURE.--By M. Field, illustrated.           do.   $2.00
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+The following errors were corrected:
+
+  viii  EXPOSE changed to EXPOSE
+  viii  BY JOHN BULL changed to BY JOHN BULL.
+  viii  HOMEOPATHIC changed to HOMOEOPATHIC
+  ix    TWO-HUNDRED changed to TWO HUNDRED
+  ix    "ADVANTAGE CARDS." changed to "ADVANTAGE-CARDS."
+  x     DIVINING GOBLINS. changed to DIVINING.--GOBLINS.
+  x     SORCEROR. changed to SORCERER.
+  x     ZUTE changed to ZIITO
+  x     MR. WRIGHT'S SIGEL changed to MR. WRIGHT'S SIGIL
+  x     WHISKERFUSTICUS. changed to WHISKERIFUSTICUS
+  x     RELIGOUS HUMBUGS changed to RELIGIOUS HUMBUGS
+  x     IMPOSTER changed to IMPOSTOR
+  x     A RELIGOUS HUMBUG changed to A RELIGIOUS HUMBUG
+  25    attractt he changed to attract the
+  32    Quixotte. changed to Quixote
+  32    Great Britian changed to Great Britain
+  37    million of frances changed to million of francs
+  39    "California Menagrie," changed to "California Menagerie,"
+  47    THE GOLDEN PIGEONS--GRIZZLY ADAMS--GERMAN CHEMIST--HAPPY
+        FAMILY--FRENCH NATURALIST. changed to
+        THE GOLDEN PIGEONS.--GRIZZLY ADAMS.--GERMAN CHEMIST.--HAPPY
+        FAMILY.--FRENCH NATURALIST.
+  56    "Golden Australian Pigeons," changed to 'Golden Australian
+        Pigeons,'"
+  57    PHELADELPHIA changed to PHILADELPHIA
+  58    package of Pease's changed to package of "Pease's
+  60    'pay,' havn't changed to 'pay,' haven't
+  64    tragic scene.' changed to tragic scene."
+  65    is now published' changed to is now published.
+  79    after the trying changed to after the tying
+  91    Britian changed to Britain
+  92    dextrously changed to dexterously
+  110   pretentions changed to pretensions
+  111   Presidental changed to Presidential
+  115   invocations, adressed changed to invocations, addressed
+  115   complete success changed to complete success.
+  115   in ecstacy changed to in ecstasy
+  119   Spirtual Photography changed to Spiritual Photography
+  119   MRS. COANT'S changed to MRS. CONANT'S
+  119   called the trance. changed to called the trance."
+  122   occuping changed to occupying
+  127   professsed changed to professed
+  136   supervison changed to supervision
+  141   she was pregnant changed to she was pregnant.
+  143   guage-faucet changed to gauge-faucet
+  147   by this expose, changed to by this expose
+  156   vermillion changed to vermilion
+  161   Cliquot changed to Clicquot
+  170   But you bid changed to "But you bid
+  173   persverance changed to perseverance
+  180   $200, changed to $200,"
+  185   cant changed to can't
+  189   SUBTERANEAN changed to SUBTERRANEAN
+  190   prospecters changed to prospectors
+  194   Napolean changed to Napoleon
+  195   reaity changed to reality
+  199   matter of form;" changed to matter of form;
+  200   as follows: changed to as follows:"
+  202   impudence then changed to impudence than
+  210   they prefered changed to they preferred
+  211   odorifous changed to odoriferous
+  211   apprized changed to apprised
+  213   etc. etc., changed to etc., etc.,
+  213   _Holland_! changed to _Holland_!"
+  216   April 21st. changed to April 21st,
+  221   merchandize changed to merchandise
+  225   Every body changed to Everybody
+  227   stock--The changed to stock--the
+  228   all winter changed to All winter
+  229   coin than than changed to coin than
+  232   CHAPTER XXVII. changed to CHAPTER XXVIII.
+  234   Popocatapetl changed to Popocatepetl
+  237   over to Williamsburgh changed to over to Williamsburg
+  242   FLORENCE changed to FLORENCE.
+  245   gullability changed to gullibility?
+  246   maccaroni changed to macaroni
+  246   sold almost- changed to sold almost
+  252   domicil changed to domicile
+  265   "The suggestion, changed to The suggestion,
+  269   with faces of changed to "with faces of
+  271   The "Albany changed to the "Albany
+  271   "the New York changed to the "New York
+  274   enclyclopedias changed to encyclopedias
+  276   Magnficent changed to Magnificent
+  280   Pensylvania changed to Pennsylvania
+  281   ridiculing Beecher. changed to ridiculing Beecher."
+  281   fusilade changed to fusillade
+  284   THE ACTOR changed to THE ACTOR.
+  286   sovereigns." changed to sovereigns.'
+  287   "Now Sir," said he, "I wish changed to "'Now Sir,' said he, 'I wish
+  287   this house alone." changed to this house alone.'
+  288   However, before changed to "However, before
+  291   futhermore changed to furthermore
+  298   ghost havin changed to ghost having
+  305   amissable changed to admissible
+  307   CHAPTER. XXX. changed to CHAPTER XXXVII.
+  317   Holy Ghost. changed to Holy Ghost."
+  318   ho, ho! changed to ho, ho!"
+  320   failed; changed to failed:
+  322   swarthy and wizzened changed to swarthy and wizened
+  324   "prime-minister, changed to "prime-minister,"
+  327   Mr Worrall changed to Mr. Worrall
+  334   transmigra- changed to transmigration
+  339   elysium changed to Elysium
+  339   Antionette changed to Antoinette
+  341   remarked." I changed to remarked. "I
+  341   Constantiople changed to Constantinople
+  342   What message changed to "What message
+  342   "She does changed to She does
+  346   from the the Court changed to from the Court
+  348   evidently had'nt changed to evidently hadn't
+  351   could'nt seem changed to couldn't seem
+  354   CHAPTER LXII. changed to CHAPTER XLII.
+  355   Raisonnee, changed to Raisonnee,"
+  363   Constantiople changed to Constantinople
+  367   arms, &c, changed to arms, &c.,
+  368   hand seveeral changed to hand several
+  368   no Riza Rey changed to no Riza Bey
+  375   enthusiams changed to enthusiasms
+  375   ascetisms changed to asceticisms
+  381   intepretation changed to interpretation
+  382   doggrel changed to doggerel
+  392   HUMBUGS NO. 2 changed to HUMBUGS NO. 2.
+  393   know!) changed to know!),
+  398   hard-fisted changed to hard-fisted,
+  403   other beasts: changed to other beasts;
+  423   revisted changed to revisited
+  Ads 3 N.B changed to N.B.
+  Ads 3 United States changed to United States.
+  Ads 3 in full changed to in full.
+  Ads 3 MISERABLES--In changed to MISERABLES.--In
+  Ads 3 self-culture changed to self-culture.
+  Ads 4 MARIAN GREY-- do changed to MARIAN GREY.-- do.
+  Ads 5 RUE changed to TRUE
+  Ads 5 OW changed to HOW
+  Ads 5 do changed to do. (line of LOOKING AROUND)
+  Ads 5 FEMME.) changed to FEMME).
+  Ads 7 DRIFTING ABOUT, changed to DRIFTING ABOUT.
+  Ads 8 ABOUT WOMEN changed to ABOUT WOMEN.
+  Ads 8 HUGH MILLER changed to HUGH MILLER.
+
+The following words had inconsistent spelling and hyphenation:
+
+  broom-stick / broomstick
+  CONJUROR / CONJURER
+  conjuror / conjurer
+  conjurors / conjurers
+  Christoforo / Cristoforo
+  death-bed / deathbed
+  etc. / &c.
+  Ethiopean / Ethiopian
+  feted / feted
+  ghost-like / ghostlike
+  hand-bill / handbill
+  hell-broth / hellbroth
+  hob-goblins / hobgoblins
+  hodge-podge / hodgepodge
+  lamp-black / lampblack
+  log-wood / logwood
+  M.D. / M. D.
+  meantime / mean time
+  mosquitoes / musquitos
+  New-York / New York
+  sea-coast / seacoast
+  sea-shore / seashore
+  stock-broker / stockbroker
+  to-day / to day
+  Twenty-seventh street / Twenty-seventh Street
+  Wall street / Wall Street
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Humbugs of the World, by P. T. Barnum
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