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Notices of Books . 
409 
This is an example of the reprehensible eagerness 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 perpetuate. He tells us that “ the 
‘ Katie King ’ imposture, which had deluded some of the leading 
spiritualists in this country, as well as in the United States, was 
publicly exposed.” This alleged exposure 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 spirit-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 described 
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 her- 
self and the Holmes’ 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 move- 
able panel as she alleged ; that the Holmes’ 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 she would expose the Holmes’ ; 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 that was said to require the personation of Mrs. White. 
his minister, and made their mother seriously ill ; and that they have con- 
tinuously maintained the same for nearly thirty years, and in all this long 
period have never once been adually detected. But there are fads 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 knows 
does not make public. These fads are, firstly, that two previous inhabitants 
of the House at Hydesville testified to having heard similar noises in it ; and, 
secondly, that on the night of March 31st, 1848, Mrs. Fox and the children 
left the house, Mr. Fox only remaining, and that during all night and the fol- 
lowing night, in presence of a continual influx of neighbours the “ raps ” con- 
tinued exactly the same as when the two girls were present. This crucial fad is 
to be found in all the early records, and it is surprising that it can have escaped 
Dr. Carpenter, since it is given in so popular a book as Mr. R. Dale Owen’s 
“ Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World ” (p. 209). Mr. Owen visited 
the spot, and obtained a copy of the depositions of twenty-one of the neigh- 
bours, which was drawn up and published a few weeks after the events. This 
undisputed fad, taken in connedion 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 Dialedical Committee, completely and finally dispose of the “ joint and 
tendon” theory as applicable to the ascertained fads. What, therefore, can 
be the use of continually trying to galvanise into life this thoroughly dead 
horse, along with its equally dead brother the table-turning “ indicator ” ? 
VOL. VII. (N.S.) 2 F 
