Notices of Boohs 8 
408 
[July, 
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 declared 
that the Misses Fox told her how it was all done, and asked her 
to assist them in deceiving the visitors ; two gentlemen certify 
to the character of Mrs. Culver. The answer to this slander is 
to be found in Capron’s “ Modern Spiritualism, ” p. 423. 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 Catherine 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 circumstance; for, first, Catherine was 
not there at all ; secondly, the Committee never met at the Fox’s 
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. Jencken’s 
letter to “ Athenaeum,” June 9, 1877). It is to be remarked, too, 
that there are several important 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 “ deposition before the magis- 
trates of the town in which she resided,” by which, of course, his 
readers will understand that it was on oath, whereas it was a 
mere statement before two witnesses, who, without adequate 
knowledge, certified to her respectability !* 
* Since the MS. of this article left my hands, I have seen Dr. Carpenter’s 
letter in the “ Athenaeum ” 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! the great conjurer and would-be 
“exposer” of spiritualism. He still, however, maintains the validity of the 
explanation of the “ raps ” by Professor 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 “ exadt imitation ” is 
just what has never been proved, and the fadl that a “training” is admitted 
to be required, does not explain the sudden occurrence of these sounds as soon 
as the Fox family removed temporarily to the house at Hydesville. 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 Professors Flint, Lee, and Coventry, after one hasty visit to 
the mediums, published their explanation of the “raps” in a letter to the 
“Buffalo Commercial Advertiser,” dated February 17th, 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 com- 
mitted. 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, subje&ed their father to public rebuke from 
