710 



TENNESSEE. 



the living rather than an apparition of the dead 

 the impression received from an agent at about 

 the time of his dissolution. One is that pre- 

 cisely similar impressions are transferred from 

 persons who do not die at the time. It has been 

 found that telepathic action of the latter sort 

 can be produced experimentally, and under the 

 auspices of the society a large number of such 

 experiments have been made. The tests con- 

 sisted in the percipient naming articles or play- 

 ing cards thought of by the agent, reproducing 

 drawings, answering questions by the planchette, 

 etc. The tests have been far from uniformly 

 successful, but the proportion of successes is re- 

 garded as encouraging. Spiritualists claim that 

 even in thought transference between two liv- 

 ing persons the thought is conveyed by the spirit 

 of a deceased person. 



An important part of the evidence for the 

 reality of thought transference is the fact that 

 the experiences recorded have occurred at the 

 time when the mind of the agent was violently 

 affected in one way or another. The attempt 

 has been made to explain this away as mere co- 

 incidence, but the authors of " Phantasms of 

 the Living " have presented calculations to show 

 that the probability of such coincidences occur- 

 ring is almost infinitely small. It is evident that 

 if the percipient were in the habit of seeing a vis- 

 ion of some absent friend, say. once a week, the 

 fact that the agent died at the time when one of 

 them was seen might properly be taken as a co- 

 incidence of no moment, but where, as has often 

 occurred, such a phantasm was seen only once in 

 the whole life of the percipient, it can hardly be 

 explained away in this manner. Why we are 

 not all informed by telepathy of the death of 

 friends can not be known until more is learned 

 of the causes that make one mind different from 

 another. But there is no evidence for such 

 agency on the part of the deceased that can be 

 admitted in a scientific inquiry, such as the so- 

 ciety is conducting. Great care has been taken 

 by the society to verify every instance of telep- 

 athy that it has published. Independent writ- 

 ten accounts have been obtained from every ac- 

 cessible person who knew the facts in each case, 

 any letters, diaries, or other documentary evi- 

 dence obtainable have been examined by a rep- 

 resentative of the society, and in death cases the 

 date of the death has been ascertained from a 

 public record. The most valuable sort of evi- 

 dence a written record of the percipient's ex- 

 perience made before he could receive news 

 from the agent has been seldom procurable. 

 Heretofore few persons have known the desira- 

 bility of such records, but as the work of the so- 

 ciety becomes more widely known it is expected 

 that cases with incontestable documentary evi- 

 dence will be forthcoming. Until these are 

 obtained, the few conclusions that the investiga- 

 tors in this field have allowed themselves to 

 make are regarded as merely tentative. 



TENNESSEE, a Southern State, admitted to 

 the Union June 1, 1796. The population, ac- 

 cording to each decennial census since its ad- 

 mission, was 105,602 in 1800 ; 261,727 in 1810 ; 

 422,771 in 1820; 681,904 in 1830; 829,210 in 

 1840; 1,002.717 in 1850; 1,109,801 in 1860; 

 1,258,520 in 1870 ; 1,542,359 in 1880 ; and 1,767,- 

 518 in 1890. Capital, Nashville. 



Government. The following were the State 

 officers during the year : Governor, Peter Turney ; 

 Secretary of State, William S. Morgan ; Treas- 

 urer, Edward B. Craig; Comptroller, James A. 

 Harris : Commissioner of Agriculture, Statistics, 

 and Mines, T. F. P. Allison ; Superintendent of 

 Public Instruction, Frank M. Smith : Adjutant- 

 General, John A. Fite ; Attorney-General, G. W. 

 Pickle all Democrats. Chief Justice of the 

 Supreme Court, Benjamin J. Lea ; Associate 

 Justices, W. C. Caldwell, D. L. Snodgrass, John 

 S. Wilkes, W. K. McAlister. After Chief-Justice 

 Turney resigned, to take the office of Governor. 

 Justice Lurton was chosen to his place, and the 

 vacancy was filled by the appointment of John 

 S. Wilkes. When Judge H. E. Jackson was ap- 

 pointed to the United States Supreme Court, 

 Judge Lurton was appointed to take his place 

 as judge of the United States circuit court. 

 Judge Lea was chosen Chief Justice, and W. K. 

 McAlister was appointed to the vacancy. 



Finances. Some excitement was caused after 

 the failure of the Commercial National Bank by 

 uncertainty regarding State bonds to a large 

 amount, which were rumored to have been under 

 control of the bank, and believed to have been 

 used to further schemes of private speculation. 

 In October, 1892, 4-per-cent. bonds amounting, 

 in round numbers, to $1,500,000, were prepared, 

 with which to take up the outstanding 5s, 5s, 

 and 6s. 



Subsequently the new funding board decided 

 to cancel $1,000,000 of these bonds which had 

 not been sold, stamping on each the words: 

 " Canceled by order of the Funding Board April 

 18, 1893, the act authorizing the issuance of this 

 bond having been repealed before its negotia- 

 tion." The act of repeal, passed in April, em- 

 powered the Funding Board to issue two series 

 of bonds; one, $600,000 in amount, is the Peni- 

 tentiary series, and the other, more than $1,000,- 

 000, is the redemption series, and is to redeem 

 the funded 5-, 5J-, and 6-per-cent. bonds. In 

 May the Supreme Court rendered a decision as 

 to the validity of the new bonds, declaring them 

 to be constitutional. 



The mortgage indebtedness on property in the 

 State appears, by a United States census bulletin, 

 to average $23 to the head of population, and 

 its ratio to the assessed value of real estate is 

 8*67. The amount of deposits in the savings 

 banks at the close of 1892 was $1.292,913. 



Banks. In the period from Jan. 1 to Sept. 1, 

 16 Tennessee banks failed. Among these was 

 the Commercial National Bank of Nashville. 

 Connected with it was the failure of the cotton 

 firm of Dobbins & Dazey. An investigation by 

 Bank-Commissioner J. M. McKnight resulted in 

 the arrest and indictment of G. F. Dazey, of the 

 firm, and Frank Porterfield, cashier of the bank, 

 on a charge of conspiring to embezzle. The 

 Mechanics' Savings Bank and Trust Company 

 of Nashville made an assignment April 17, the 

 assets being placed at about $200,000 nominal, 

 and the liabilities at $150,000. The cashier, who 

 confessed himself a defaulter to the extent of 

 $40.000, died within a few days. 



Charities. The Eastern Hospital for the In- 

 sane had 290 patients in February, and the 

 Western Hospital 319. The Central Hospital 

 for the Insane has been partly rebuilt since the 



