The Sun.
London, England, 1855-10-08 00:00:00

R,

OYAL LYCEUM THEATRE. THIS
EVENING, and every evening during tho
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-
neesing 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,
for though everything becomes metamorphosed before the
eves 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 startly positions and unex-
Posted 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.
Professois Anderson returns his thanks to thronged and
fashionable audiences which have nightly filled the Lyceum
Theatre to overflow, and by means of whose generous aid he
has bolas seamed to announce Magic and Mystery for con-
tln repetition. ----Eurzen4,44 ,-tasiFittrtfThltfiZr6irhiii /Or
Las at 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 he
has travelled the globe in every clime ; secondly, that he 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
Alio honour him with their presence, he has not forgotten that
it 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 wheneverby
resorting to the conjuror's arts, in an illegitimate manner,
the designing have succeeded in 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
theatre 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 Anderson's exposé 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
pirit-rapping are expressed, and every evening, within the
Lyceum, how tables can be made to rap is exhibited
and elucidated. It is respectfully requested that this
public exposition will he accepted generally as Professor
Anderson's only mode of replying at full length to his
Multitudinous correspondents. lie 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 tho 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 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 Scotehman by birth, and now
in Italy, is a remarkable medium for all the manifestations
without apparatiss. Barnum, who is well-known throughout
the Anglo-Saxon world as a splendid humbug, offered him 2,000
York, per anum if ha would perform at his in New '
Barnnum then took it for granted thatmuseum mediums could
be brought. 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-
is)f and in very bad health : but he would have been afraid
losing his power as a medium, and he would sooner lose
Hes life. The refusal, however, male Barnum thoughtful.
inquired into the subject; and now Barnum, one of the
greatest humbugs in the world, and withal a conjuror, is
onienlof the firmest believers in spiritualism." It is cer-
ta y surprising to find such a paragraph as this in the
editorial article of an established journal, the editor of whom
1.'4'8.14 be supposed to be sane. Even if Barnum does believe
111
this spirit-rapping-- does spirit-rapping gain or lose by
accession to its adherents ? and, with Barnum's endorse-
ment to it, is this bill, drawn on public credulity, more likely
but be negotiated ? Professor Anderson would believe not ;
_when lie finds that educated clergymen of the Church of
t-England have the temerity to subscribe their names to so gross
seswindle, when he finds that the incumbent of Wortley (the
°- N. J. Godfrey) positively asserts his belief in it, and
writes a book on the subject, he considers it t • be time for
ittio i s r
ning effected,
to state that which he knows of the mechanism by which
1
and the mischief to which it tends. In the
3
Advertiser of October 3 appears a letter from Sir
David Brewster, relative to that which he saw at Cox's Hotel,
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
aance 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
light hand, apart from any person, it played an air.through-
out." With such a statement, printed for the edification of
the people of the 19th century, with the facts before us that
the most 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 convention"
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
tbe received by the people of England as genuine honest at-
empts 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 bias ever before been assembled within its walls in so
abort a period. Magic and Mystery is repeated every even-
itig, the programme being continually changed. Grand
fashionable Day Performance, or Saturday, October 13, 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-
ism, and illustrate the possibility of sleeping unsupported in
the air.
Act 2. The Aqua-Avial Paradox ; exemplifying the power
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 Recueils -Choisies : or Puck's Own
Pocket Book, with Puck himself within it.
Typifying the
evening's entertainment in the, production of the very volu-
minous from 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 Trou-
ble. In which will be comprised—the Advent of a Wed-
ding Ring, the Peregrinations of a Bank Note,ures the Transfor-
mation—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 Crcesus. Into
Which, though made entirely of glass Perfectly transparent,
and suspended so as to be visible to the eyes 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
of Opacity.
Act. 7. A New Bottle of Bacchus ; or, the Novel Wine
and Spirit Store. An improvement upon the " inexhaustible
bottle," inasmuch as the Wizard's bottle will not only be in-
exhaustible but will change its contents, ad infinitum, at the
butter-milk,
Nv.r.,°rd -of command, producing soda-water,
whisky,
Epsom salts, Port, Sherry, brandy, gm,
rum,id finally
112eac, or any other wine or spirit required;
ProN in -
Mild gto be filled with pocket handkerchiefs perfectly dry,
occupying the whole space when tightly packed.
Act 8. Half an Hour with the Spirits ; or, an Expose
of
BPirit-rapping. Introducing
the spirit-rapping tableand
tocsin of the invisibles.
Act. 9. Grand Mystic Amalgam, in which the property of
the Wizard's patrons will undergo some strange metamor-
Pu°ses, and, amongst others, their handkerchiefs become
!ransformed into the flags of victory—the banners of En
land, France Turkey, and Sardinia.
Act. 10. The Enchanted Chair of Comus, in which he who
,s.FatB himself will be under the magic spell, and appear to
.!'lle audience, under circumstances least expected, in a posi-
-won as Peculiar as perplexing.
_Ac t:11. The Mystery of the Charmed Chest
Nucleus of the Night's Wonders. To comprehend which the
audience will have the goodness to observe, in an earlier part
?f the evening, the chest suspended (like Mahommed's boffin)
In mid-air, into which all thing ill travel, and out of which
all will produced. 8 W
,ott. 12. The Homological Evaporation ; or, the Shortest
cute
to the Antipodes. Illustrating the easiest mode of
?rl_dding ourselves of a troublesome friend, and the advantages
rut the newly-discovered dia-te to the eastern hemisphere.rrestrial passage from the west.
6
Doors
I,_ . a open each evening at half-past 7 ; commence at 8.
:::`,rir te boxes, 1/. lls. 6d. and 1/. Is., to be obtained at the
I(44°' or at the principal libraries ; stalls, 4s. ; dress
t__e, 38.1- upper- boxes', 2s. ; pit, ls. ; galleiy, 6d: The
cev..-.oirefice is open daily, from 11 till 5, under the direction
f'' Al • Chatterton, jun. Grand fashionable Morning Per.
orlah,,,llee °ll Saturday, Oeqober 1; at 2 o'clock, Doors open
half-past 1.