446 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



This is an example of the reprehensible eager- 

 ness with which Dr. Carpenter accepts and retails 

 whatever falsehoods may be circulated against 

 mediums ; and it will be well to consider here 

 two other unfounded charges which, not for the 

 first time, he brings forward and helps to perpet- 

 uate. He tells us that " the ' Katie King' impost- 

 ure, which had deluded some of the leading spir- 

 itualists in this country, as well as in the United 

 States, was publicly exposed." This alleged ex- 

 posure was very similar to that of Mrs. Culver's, 

 but more precise and given on oath — but the oath 

 was under a false name. A woman whose name 

 was subsequently discovered to be Eliza White 

 declared that she had herself personated the spir- 

 it-form at several stated seances given by the two 

 mediums Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, she having been 

 engaged by them for the purpose; and she de- 

 scribed a false panel made in the back of the 

 cabinet by which she entered at the proper time 

 from a bedroom in the rear. But Colonel Olcott, 

 a gentleman connected with the New York daily 

 press, has proved that many of the particulars 

 about herself and the Holmeses stated in Mrs. 

 White's sworn declaration are false, and that she 

 is therefore perjured. He has also proved that 

 her former character is bad ; that the photograph 

 taken of "Katie King," and which she says was 

 taken from her, does not the least resemble her; 

 that the cabinet used had no such movable panel 

 as she alleged ; that the Holmeses' manifestations 

 went on just the same on many occasions when 

 she was proved to be elsewhere; that she herself 

 confessed she was offered a thousand dollars if 



knows, does not make public. These facts are, first, that 

 two previous inhabitants of the house at Hydesville testi- 

 fied to having heard similar noises in it ; and, secondly, that 

 on the night of March 31, 1848, Mrs. Fox and the children 

 left the house, Mr. Fox only remaining, and that during: all 

 night and the following night, in presence of a continual 

 influx of neighbors, the "raps" continued exactly the 

 name as when the two girls were present. This crucial 

 fact is to be found in all the early records, and it is sur- 

 prising that it can have escaped Dr. Carpenter, since it is 

 given in so popular a book as Mr. R. Dale Owen's "Foot- 

 falls on the Boundary of Another World" (p. 209). Mr. 

 Owen visited the spot, and obtained a copy of the deposi- 

 tions of twenty-one of the neighbors, which was drawn 

 up arid published a few weeks after the events. This un- 

 disputed fact, taken in connection with the great variety 

 of sounds — varying from taps, as with a knitting-needle, 

 to blows, as with a cannon-ball or sledge-hammer — and 

 the conditions under which they occur — as tested by Mr. 

 Crookes and the Dialectical Committee, completely and 

 finally dispose of the " joint-and-tendon" theory as appli- 

 cable to the ascertained facts. "What, therefore, can be 

 the use of continually trying to galvanize into lite this 

 thoroughly dead horse, along with its equally dead brother 

 the table-turuing " indicator J " 



she would expose the Holmeses ; and, lastly, that 

 in Colonel Olcott's own rooms, under the most 

 rigid test-conditions, and with Mrs. Holmes only 

 as a medium, the very same figure appeared tlurt 

 was said to require the personation of Mrs. White. 

 The full details are given in Colonel Olcott's " Pco 

 pie from the Other World," pp. 425-4*78. 



Another alleged exposure is introduced in the 

 following terms : " I could tell you the particu- 

 lars, in my possession, of the detection of the 

 imposture practised by one of the most notewor- 

 thy of these lady mediums in the distribution of 

 flowers . . . these flowers having really been pre- 

 viously collected in a basin up-stairs and watered 

 out of a decanter standing by — as was proved by 

 the fact that an inquisitive skeptic having fur- 

 tively introduced into the water of the decanter 

 a small quantity of ferrocyanide of potassium, its 

 presence in the ' dew ' of the flowers was after- 

 ward recognized by the appropriate chemical test 

 {a per-salt of iron) which brought out Prussian 

 blue." 



In his article on the " Fallacies of Testimony," 

 in the Contemporary Review of January, 1876, 

 where Dr. Carpenter first gave an account of this 

 alleged exposure, it is stated that " a basinful of 

 these flowers (hollyhocks) was found in a garret 

 with a decanter of water beside it," that the fer- 

 rocyanide was mixed with this water, and that all 

 this was not hearsay, but a statement in writing 

 in the hand of the "inquisitive skeptic" himself. 

 It turns out, however, that this part of the state- 

 ment was wholly untrue, as we know on the au- 

 thority of a letter written by the lady of the house, 

 and afterward published, and Dr. Carpenter now 

 seems to have found this out himself; but, instead 

 of withdrawing it wholly (as in common fairness 

 he ought to have done), be still retains it ingen- 

 iously modified into an inference, but so worded 

 as to look like the statement of a fact ; " these 

 flowers having really been previously collected in 

 a basin," etc. — " as was proved " — not by finding 

 them, but by the chemical test ! What an ex- 

 traordinary notion Dr. Carpenter must have of 

 what is " really " proof! Let us, however, look a 

 little further into this matter, of which more is 

 known than Dr. Carpenter adduces, or than he 

 thinks advisable to make public. Dr. Carpenter's 

 informant was a member of the family in whose 

 house the medium was staying as a guest. He 

 had therefore full knowledge of the premises and 

 command over the servants, and could very easily 

 have ascertained such facts as the bringing of 

 a large bunch of hollyhocks, asters, laurels, and 

 other shrubs and flowers, into one of the visitors' 



