The Sun.
London, England, 1855-12-21 00:00:00

LAST FEW DAYS.

ROYAL LYCEUM THEATRE. —THIS
EVENING, and every evening during the
week, the GRAND ELEUSINIAN SPECTACLE of MAGIC
and MYSTERY, by Professor ANDERSON, the Great
Wizard of the North, in 12 acts, with over-changing variety
of incidents, continuous surprises, novel and extraordinary
effelots.

Magic and Mystery is an entirely new entertainment, pns-
teasing distinctive characteristics and peculiar phases of
amusement. It is not a monologue, for the audience them-
Pelves perform their parts with the principal actor, some of
them on the stage and others in front ; it is not an exhibition,
for though everything becomes metamorphosed before the
eyes of the visitors no one can be positive that he sees any
one thing ; but it is a comedy really performed by the com-
pany ; a melodrama replete with startling positions and unex-
pected denouements ; a magnificent spectacle, with 2,000 of
the public every night to appear as auxiliaries ; and an ex-
travaganza, in which all that seems to be is entirely beyond
the bounds of probability.
Professor Anderson returns his thanks to thronged an 1
fashionable audiences which have nightly filled the. Lyceum
Theatre to overflow, and by means of whose generous aid he
has been enabled to announce Magic and Mystery for con-
tinuous repetition. He believes that no professor of his art
I,asnt any time or in any place been honoured with an
amount of success so extensive, so decided, and so unusual.
He would attribute that success to three causes ; first, that
in his present entertainment he has placed before his visitors
the results of a life sedulously devoted to the attainment of
perfected skill in one peculiar art, and to perfect which ho
has travelled the globe le eve e e • enecendlY. that he .has'
"'Mired no tNnhle nor til-raltlie put this entertainment on
the stage in the most eloborate manner, by the employment
of the first mechanicians and artists of the day ; and thirdly
that, while, endeavouring to provide amusement for those
who honour him with their presence, he has not forgotten tha
it is possible to afford information also, and that the oppor-
tunity' should not be neglected of exposing conjuring wher-
ever it has been used for nefarious purposes, or whenever h'
resorting to the conjureee arts, in an illegitimate manner.
the designing have succeeded in making dupes of th:
credulous.
,The 937 letters on the subject of spirit-rapping, which Pe
teaser Anderson has received, from the time of opening the
'heatre up to the present date, bear witness to the great in-
,erest taken on thesubject of this singular delusion ; whilst
many of them bear melancholy evidence to the dangers -which
ettend a belief in the superstitious nonsense of the " Spiri-
tualists." Judging simply by the correspondence which ha'
resulted, Professor Anderson's expose of spirit-rapping and
his illustration of the so-called table, phenomena, have pro
&Iced a sensation unequalled by any preyious attempt to ex-
pose a mischievous and impudent juggle. It is impossibly'
fqr Professor Anderson to reply at length to a tithe of th.
communications which reach him on the subject. He regret-
tbat many of these should come from ladies and gentlemen
who; from their position in society and their well-known in
tellectual attainments, he would least have expected to have
been converts to a -belief so preposterous in itself, 'and se
easily susceptible of being controverted and disproved. Ever
evening, from the Lyceum stage, Mr. Anderson's opinions o
spirit-rapping are expressed, and every evening, within th
Lyceum, how tables can be made to rap is exhibited
and elucidated. It is respectfully requested that thi
public exposition' will be accepted generally as Professo-
Anderson's only mode of replying at full length to hi.
multitudinous correspondents. He regrets that Op.
names of the great and learned of the land should
have been made to figure in the documents emanating
fiem the spirit-rappers, as for instance the following, ex-
tiracted from the Morning Advertiser of Thursday, Septem-
ber 20, and taken by that journal from the New York Spiri-
tual Telegraph. It purports to emanate from an American
spirit-rapper, Mr. D. D. Hume :—" Sir David Brewster
frankly confesses that be is sorely puzzled' at what he has
witnessed, and Lord Brougham acknowledges himself to be
thoroughly nonplussed. Both of these noted men brought
the whole force of their keen discernment to bear upon the
solution of the phenomena; but the presence of substantial,
actual hands, and the demonstrative strength of the spirits
who thus clothed themselves for the time, and moved mate-
rial objects about the room, proved to be too much of a ques-
tion for them to master." Mr. D. D. Hume, the author of the
above, has recently left England, and the following account of
who, and what he is, occurs in the Family Herald, No. 648:
—" This young man, who is a Scotchman by birth, and now
in Italy, is a remarkable medium for all the manifestations
without apparatus. Barnum, who is well-known throughout
the Anglo-Saxon world as a splendid humbug, offered him 2.000
dollars per annum if he would perform at his museum in New
York. Barnum then took it for granted that mediums could
he bought.. He was somewhat astonished when his offer was
refused. Hume, on telling the fact in London lately, simply
and honestly remarked, that the money would have been very
acceptable to him, for he was poor, young (under 211), an or-
phan, and in very bad health : but he would have been afraid
of losing his power as a medium, and he would sooner lose
his life. The refusal; however, made Barnum th.oghtful.
Ho inquired into the subject; and now Barnum, one of the
greatest humbugs in the world, and withal a conjuror, is
one of the firmest believers in spiritualism." It is cer-
tainly surprising to find such a paragraph as this in the
editorial article of an established journal, the editor of whom
might be supposed to be sane. Even if Barnum does believe-
in spirit-rapping - does spirit-rapping gain or lose by
this accession te its adherents? and, with Barnum's endorse
anent to it, is this bill, drawn on public credulity, more likely
to be negotiated 1 Professor Anderson would believe not ;
but, when he finds that educated clergymen of the Church of
England have the temerity to subscribe their names to so gross
-a swindle, when he finds that the incumbent of Wortley (the
Rev. N. J. Godfrey) positively asserts his belief in it, and
writes a book on the subject, he considers it t • be time for
,him to state that which he knows of the mechanism by which
it is effected., and the mischief to which it tends. In the
-Morning Advertiser of October 3 appears a letter from Sir
David Brewster, relative to that which he saw at Cox's Hotel,
in company with Lord Brougham, He distinctly. states that
which the Wizard of the North proclaims every night—that
spirit-rapping is nothing more than conjuring applied to bad
-purposes. In the Morning Advertiser of the following day,
-however, there is an answer to Sir David's letter from one
who was present when he and Lord Brougham had their
séance with the spirits, in which the writer says, that " the
-table (a large dinner-table, I believe) moved about in the most
extraordinary manner, and, among other things, a large ac-
cordion was conveyed by an invisible agency to my hand and
then to Lord Brougham's, in which, held by his lordship's
right hand, apart from any person, it played an air through.
.ont." With such a statement, printed for the edification of
e the people of the 19th century, with the facts before us that
the meet talented men of the day are permitting themselves
-to be deluded by these juggling spirit-mongers—that the
greatest novelist of the age is now engaged in making it the
subject of a new work, and that a " spiritual convection"
has actually been advertised to be held in St. Martin's-hall,
Professor Anderson trusts that his exposures of the spiritual-
ists of America, as given by him nightly at the Lyceum, will
be received by the people of England as genuine honest at-
tempts to provide an antidote for the bane of the spiritual
jugglers.
- In the course of the last five weeks 100,017 persons have
visited the Lyceum Theatre, —a larger number, it is believed,
than has ever before been assembled within its walls in so
short a period. Magic and Mystery is repeated every even-
ing, the programme being continually changed. Grand
- fashionable Day Performance, or Saturday, December 22, at
-2 o'clock ; the programme being thus arranged ;
Part 1. —Act 1. The Mesmeric Couch : or, the Clinical
. Capabilities of the Atmosphere : in which the Wizard will do
by magic that which some suppose to be effected by mesmer-
I lain, and illustrate the possibility of sleeping unsupported in
the air.
Act 2. The Aqua-Avial Paradox ; exemplifying the power
I of producing animated nature from fire and water only, and
. the possibility of eliciting from the simplest elements the most
complex forms of ornithological existence.
' Act 3. Le Livre des 11;eueils Choisies : or, Puck's Own
Pocket Rock, with Puck himself within it. Typifying the
evening's entertainment in the production of the very volu-
minous fronr a small volume, in the extraction of magnitude
. out of minuteness, in developing bulk where no space appears
for its existence, in discovering odd things in odd places, and
in bringing forth unexpected wonders from the most unlikely
- place for to be found.
Act 4. Magical Locomotion • or, Transition without Trott.
ble. In which will be comprised—the Adventures of a Wed-
ding Ring, the Peregrinations of a Bank Note, the Transfer-
. oration—black into white, and the Discovery of every Article
in the position which would seem the most inappropriate.
Act 5. L'Ecrin de Verre; or, the Casket of Croesus. Into
which, though made entirely of glass perfectly transparent,
and suspended so as to be visible to theieyes of all present,
the Wizard will cause the money of his visitors to transport
- itself, and rain into the casket, though its lid be closed,
locked, and the key in the possession of the audience.
Act 6. Clairvoyance Extraordinary ; or, the Transparency
df Opacity.
Act. 7. A New Bottle of Bacchus ; er, the Novel Wine
and Spirit Store. An improvement upon the " inexhaustible
- bottle," inasmuch as the Wizard's bottle will not only be in-
J; exhaustible, but will change its contents, ad infinitum, at the
word of command, producing soda-water, butter-milk,
Epsom salts, Port, Sherry, brandy, gin, rum, whisky,
noyeau, or any other wine or spirit required ; and finally
' proving to be filled with pocket handkerchiefs perfectly dry,
- and occupying the whole space when tightly packed.
Act 8. Half an Hour with the Spirits ; or, an Expose of
- Spirit-rapping. Introducing the spirit-rapping table and
tocsin of the invisibles.
Act. 9. Grand Mystic Amalgam, in which the property of
the. Wizard's patrons will undergo some strange metamor-
'i phones, and, amongst others, their handkerchiefs become
transformed into the flags of victory—the banners of Eag
land, France, Turkey, and Sardinia.
- Act. 10. The Enchanted Chair of Comus, in which he who
seats himself will be under the magic spell, and appear to
- the audience, undericirennestances least expected,
tion as peculiar as perplexing. in a posi-
Act. 11. The Mystery of the Charmed Chest ; or, the
Necleus of the Night's Wonders. To comprehend which the
audience will have the goodness to observe, in an earlier part
of the evening, the chest suspended (like Mahommed's coffin)
in mid-air, into which all things will travel, and out of which
all will be produced.
Act. 12. The Hoteological Evaporation • or, the Shegtest
• Route to the Antipodes. Illustrating the easiest mode of
ridding ourselves of a troublesome friend, and the advantages
of the newly-discovered dia-terrestrial passage from the west-
ern to the eastern hemisphere.
Doors- open each evening at half-past 7 ; commence at 8.
Private boxes, 1/. Ils. 6d. and 1/. ls., to be obtained at the
Box-office, or at the principal libraries ; stalls, 4s. ' • dress
circle, as. ; upper boxes, 2s. ; pit, ls. ; gallery, 6d. The
Box-office is open daily, from 11 till 5, under the direction
. of Mr. Chattorton, jun. Grand fashionable Morning Per-
formance on Raturday, December 22, at 2 o'clock. Doors opes
- at tall-past 1.