The Sun.
London, England, 1855-11-28 00:00:00

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 ever-changing variety
of incidents, continuous surprises, novel and extraordinary
effects,

Magic and Mystery is an entirely new entertainment, pos-
sessing distinctive characteristics and peculiar phases of
amusement. It is not a monologue, for the audience them-
selves perform their parts with the principal actor, some of
them on the stage and others in front ; it is not an exhibition,
or though everything becomes metamorphosed before the
eyes of the visitors no ono 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 and
`ashionable 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
has at any time or in any place been honoured with au
amount of BRUess so extensive, so decided, and so unusual.
lie would attribute that success to three causes; first, that
:n his present entertainment ho 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 he
has travelled the globe in every clime ; secondly, that ho has
spared no trouble nor expense to put this entertainment on
the stage in the most elaborate 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 that
t is possible to afford information also, and that the oppor-
tunity should not be neglected of exposing conjuring where-
ever it has been used for nefarious purposes, or whenever by
-esorting to the conjuror's arts, in an illegitimate manner,
the designing have succeeded iu making dupes of the
credulous.

The 937 letters on the subject of spirit-rapping, which Pro-
fessor Anderson has received, from the time of opening the
'heatre up to the present date, bear witness to the great in-
terest taken on the subject of this singular delusion ; whilst
many of them bear melancholy evidence to the dangers which
attend a belief in the superstitious nonsense of the " Spiri-
tualists." Judging simply by the correspondence which has
resulted, Professor person's expose of spirit-rapping and
his illustration of the so-called table phenomena, have pro-
duced a sensation unequalled by any previous attempt to ex-
pose a mischievous and impudent juggle. It is impossible
for Professor Anderson to reply at length to a tithe of the
communications which reach him on the subject. He regrets
that 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 so
easily susceptible of being controverted and disproved. Every
evening, from the Lyceum stage, Mr. Anderson's opinions on
spirit-rapping are expressed, and every evening, within the
Lyceum, how tables can bo made to rap is exhibited
and elucidated. It is respectfully requested that this
public exposition will be accepted generally as Professor
Anderson's only mode of replying at full length to his
multitudinous correspondents. He regrets that the
names of the great and learned of the land should
have been made to figure in the documents emanating
from the spirit-rappers, as for instance the following, ex-
tracted 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 he is ' sorely puzzled' at what he has
witnessed, and Lord Brougham acknowledges himself to be
thoroughly nonplussed. Both of these noted mon 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-
Lion 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 splendidhumbug, 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
be 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 20), 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 thoughtful.
He 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 to its adherents ? and, with Barnum's endorse.
ment to it, is this bill, drawn on public credulity, more likely
to be negotiated ? 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 to 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
ssPlPuhai however,rPolctwas
sraasewsP :
tPpthhirileetganrh
present
nts ihts
spirits,
conjuring applied to bad
Bo f
ro theug letterf oal lmo
twhf
hri
anoatmgd ,
their‘datahny ae,
ns
i wni:jear
whicht ando Advertiser
i the
hi.,eard writer David's
anowilitihfhtaorieson: more than
table (a large dinner-table,believe) says,
I 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
out." With such a ersoli ,it played an 'qt. statement,through-
printed for the edification of
the people of the 19th century with
the most talented men of the d'av the facts before us that
to bo deluded by these jugglingare permitting themselves
greatest novelist of the age isnev;
enspirit-rongers—that the
subject of a new work, and that a engaged in ml aking it the
has actually been advertised to bo held "spiritual
St. mcaornvention"
Professor Anderson trusts that his exposures of the tini'ris-thaaalll,.
ists of America, as given by him nightly at the Lyceum,sP 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)! on Saturday, December 1, at
2 o'clock ; the programme being thus arranged ;...._
Part 1. —Act 1. The Mesmeric Coach : or, the Clinical
Capabilities of the Atmosphere : in which the Wizard will do
by magic that which some.suprle to to effected by mesmer-
-1 ism, and illustrate
the air. the possibility of sleeping unsupported in
Act 2. The Aqua-Avial Paradox ; exemplifying the power
of prodwing minutia witurg from fire and yrator ozaj, and