DR. CARPENTER ON SPIRITUALISM. 



445 



He has also heard them on a sheet of paper sus- 

 pended from one corner by a thread held between 

 the medium's fingers. A similar experiment was 

 tried successfully by the Dialectical Committee 

 (" Report," p. 383). At a meeting of the same 

 committee raps were heard on a book while in the 

 pocket of a very skeptical member ; the book was 

 placed on the table, and raps were again heard ; 

 it was then held by two members supported on 

 ivory paper-knives, when raps were still heard 

 upon it (." Report," p. 386). 



Again, there is the evidence of Prof. Barrett, 

 an experienced physicist, who entered on this in- 

 quiry a complete skeptic. He tells us that he 

 examined the raps or knockings occurring in the 

 presence of a child ten years of age — that in full 

 sunlight, when every precaution to prevent de- 

 ception had been taken — still the raps would oc- 

 cur iu different parts of the room, entirely out of 

 reach of the child, whose hands and feet were 

 sometimes closely watched, at other times held. 

 The phenomena have been tested in every way 

 that the ingenuity of skeptical friends could de- 

 vise ; and as Prof. Barrett is well acquainted with 

 Dr. Carpenter's writings on the subject and the 

 explanations he gives, we have here another proof 

 of the utter worthlessness of these explanations 

 in presence of the facts themselves. 



The Hon. R. D. Owen has heard, in the pres- 

 ence of Miss Fox, blows as if made by a strong 

 man using a heavy bludgeon with all his force, 

 blows such as would have killed a man or broken 

 an ordinary table to pieces ; while on another oc- 

 casion the sounds resembled what would be pro- 

 duced by a falling cannon-ball, and shook the 

 house (" Debatable Land," p. 275) ; and Dr. Car- 

 penter would really have us believe that all these 

 wonderfully varied sounds under all these test- 

 conditions are produced by "snapping tendons." 



But what is evidently thought to be the most 

 crushing blow is the declaration of Mrs. Culver 

 given at length in the appendix. This person 

 was a connection of the Fox family, and she de- 

 clared that the Misses Fox told her how it was 

 all done, aud asked her to assist them in deceiv- 

 ing the visitors; two gentlemen certify to the 

 character of Mrs. Culver. The answer to this 

 slander is to be found in Capron's "Modern Spir- 

 itualism," p. 4'23. Mr. Capron was an intimate 

 friend of the Fox family, and Catherine Fox was 

 staying with him at Auburn, while her sisters 

 were at Rochester being examined and tested by 

 the committee. Yet Mrs. Culver says it was Cath- 

 erine who told her that "when her feet were held 

 by the Rochester committee the Dutch servant- 



girl rapped with her knuckles under the floor 

 from the cellar." Here is falsehood with circum- 

 stance ; for, first, Catherine was not there at all ; 

 secondly, the committee never met at the Foxes' 

 house, but in various public rooms at Rochester ; 

 thirdly, the Fox family had no " Dutch servant- 

 girl" at any time, and at that time no servant- 

 girl at all. The gentlemen who so kindly signed 

 Mrs. Culver's certificate of character did not live 

 in the same town, and had no personal knowledge 

 of her ; and, lastly, I am informed that Mrs. Culver 

 has since retracted the whole statement, and 

 avowed it to be pure invention (see Mrs. Jenck- 

 en's letter to Athenaeum., June 9, lS'TV). It is to 

 be remarked, too, that there are several impor- 

 tant mistakes in Dr. Carpenter's account. He 

 says the " deposition " of Mrs. Culver was made 

 not more than six years ago, whereas it was really 

 twenty-six years ago ; and he says it was a " de- 

 position before the magistrates of the town in 

 which she resided," by which, of course, his read- 

 ers will understand that it was on oath, whereas 

 it was a mere statement before two witnesses, 

 who, without adequate knowledge, certified to 

 her respectability ! ' 



1 Since the MS. of this article left my hands, I have 

 seen Dr. Carpenter's letter in the Athentvum of June 

 16th, withdrawing the charges founded on the declaration 

 of Mrs. Culver, which, it seems, Dr. Carpenter obtained 

 from no less an authority than Mr. Maskelyne 1 the great 

 conjurer and would-be "exposer" of spiritualism. He 

 still, however, maintains the validity of the explanation of 

 the " raps " by Prof. Flint and his coadjutors, who are said 

 to have proved that persons who have " trained themselves 

 to the trick" can produce an "exact imitation'''' of these 

 sounds. This "exact imitation " is just what has never 

 been proved, and the fact that a " training " is admitted to 

 be required does not explain the sudden occurrence of 

 these sounds as soon as the Fox family removed teinpora- 

 rily to the house at llydesville. If Dr. Carpenter would 

 refer to better and earlier authorities than Mr. Maskelyne 

 and M. Louis Figuier, he would learn several matters of 

 importance. He would find that Profs. Flint, Lee, and 

 Coventry, after one hasty visit to the mediums, published 

 their explanation of the " raps" in a letter to the Buffalo 

 Commercial Advertise?', dated February IT, 1851, before 

 making the investigation on the strength of which they 

 issued their subsequent report, which, therefore, loses 

 much of its value, since it interprets all the phenomena in 

 accordance with a theory to which the reporters were . 

 already publicly committed. On this scanty evidence we 

 are asked to believe that two girls, one of them only nine 

 years old, set up an imposture which for a long time 

 brought them nothing but insult and abuse, subjected 

 their father to public rebuke from his minister, and made 

 their mother seriously ill ; and that the}' have continuously 

 maintained the same for nearly thirty years, and in all this 

 long period have never once been actually detected. But 

 there are facts in the early history of these phenomena 

 which demonstrate the falsehood of this supposition, but 

 which Dr. Carpenter, as usual, does not know, or, if he 



