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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



Mr. Maskelyne, can be very easily accomplished. 

 " Miss Fay will pass a bell to the colonel's mouth, 

 which he will shake as a terrier does a rat, while 

 his boot operates upon the guitar-strings, and 

 produces the thrumming ; and the ' medium,' 

 with a fan held between her teeth, will gently 

 wave it iu the face of him who holds her hand." 

 And he thus explained to his audience at the 

 Egyptian Hall every one of the apparent marvels 

 of Eva Fay's " dark seance ; " these being, as he 

 truly says, " too simple and absurd to bear any 

 other treatment." 



But, while not putting forth any public claim 

 as a spiritualistic "medium," Eva Fay asserted 

 herself in private to be such ; and, for good rea- 

 sons of her own, sought to convince the London 

 spiritualists iu general, and Mr. Crookes in par- 

 ticular, that she really was so. Accordingly, Mr. 

 Crookes subjected her to what he considered to 

 be " scientific tests ; " which, as I am assured 

 on good authority, could be evaded by a " dodge " 

 so simple (reminding one of Edgar Poe's well- 

 known story of " The Lost Letter ") that Mr. 

 Crookes's highly-trained scientific acumen could 

 not detect it. 1 And this is confirmed by the 

 statement of Mr. Maskelyne (" Modern Spiritual- 

 ism," p. 122), that, while this testing was in prog- 

 ress, Miss Fay's business agent made Mr. M 



an offer, at first verbally, and then confirmed by 

 letters in his possession (dated Birmingham, May 

 12 and 15, 18*75)— copies of which I have my- 

 self seen— that for an adequate sum of money 

 the "medium" should expose the whole affair, 

 "scientific tests" and all—" complicating at least 

 six big guns, the F. R. S. people "—as she was not 

 properly supported by the spiritualists ! 



This offer having been declined by Mr. Maske- 

 lyne, and her London audiences dwindling away, 

 Eva Fay returned to the United States, carrying 

 with her a letter from Mr. Crookes, which set 

 forth that, since doubts had been thrown on the 

 spiritualistic nature of her " manifestations," and 

 since he, in common with other Fellows of the 

 Royal Society, had satisfied himself of their gen- 

 uineness by " scientific tests," he willingly gave 

 her the benefit of his attestation. This letter 

 was published, in facsimile, in American news- 

 papers ; and Eva Fay announced her spiritual- 

 istic seances as " indorsed by Prof. Crookes and 

 oiher Fellows of the Royal Society ! " 



Unluckily, however, for her own reputation 

 and for that of Mr. Crookes, it happened that a 



1 1 shall give the whole explanation in the new edi- 

 tion of my lectures. 



young gentleman of New York, Mr. Washington 

 Irving Bishop, of excellent soeial position — his 

 father being a very eminent lawyer, and Wash- 

 ington Irving having been his godfather — was 

 moved to bestow a great deal of time and atten- 

 tion on the pretensions of the spiritualistic "me- 

 diums." 



" A friend whom he loved, as did every one 

 else who enjoyed his acquaintance — a young man 

 full of promise, intellectual, gifted, brilliant — be- 

 came ill, and was sent to a foreign country for 

 treatment. Here he finally fell under the infernal 

 arts of the spiritual medinmistic healers, who re- 

 stored him to his home and friends hopelessly in- 

 sane ; and thus he remains to this day. Mr. Bish- 

 op covenanted with himself — those bonds are 

 strong ones when made in thorough earnest — that 

 he would leave no stone unturned until he had fer- 

 reted out the explanation of the whole mediumistic 

 business." — (Boston Herald, November 6, 1870.) 



Convinced that there was deception in the 

 matter, he devoted many months to the investi- 

 gation, and finally discovered the clew. He then 

 trained himself to do everything done by Eva 

 Fay, " a woman who had successfully cheated two 

 hemispheres ; who had fairly drained money from 

 rich and poor, high and low ; who fooled men of 

 the sharpest intellects, men of science and close 

 students of human and every other nature ; " and 

 exhibited to his circle of private friends, which in- 

 cluded several of the most distinguished members 

 of the clerical and medical professions in New 

 York, an exact counterpart of Eva Fay's per- 

 formances. Two of the latter, one of them well 

 known in this country as an eminent physiologist 

 as well as an able surgeon, and the other an ex- 

 surcjeon-general in the United States Arm)-, ad- 

 dressed to him the following letter : 



" New York, March 30, 1876. 



" W. Irving Bishop, Esq. 



"Dear Sir : It has given us great pleasure to 

 witness the very satisfactory manner in which you 

 show the fraudulent nature of the pretensions of 

 the so-called spiritual mediums, especially those of 

 Annie Eva Fay, who has received the indorsement 

 of Mr. William Crookes and other Fellows of the 

 Royal Society. We believe the performances of 

 these people are calculated to produce evil effects 

 upon the credulous and disordered imaginations 

 of many persons ; and, with a view to put an ef- 

 fectual stop to them, we earnestly request you to 

 communicate to the public the manner in which 

 the so-called spiritualists conduct their deceitful 

 practices. Such an expose as we refer to can only 

 be productive of good results ; and we trust, 

 therefore, in view of the importance of the whole 



