The Sun.
London, England, 1855-12-07 00:00:00

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MR. AT IBIt&T SMITECS MONT BLANC
is Open TO-ITIGIIT, at 8 o'clock, - nd every evening (except
Sgaturday). The first Morning Repraentation will take pace On
aturday, Dec. Bth.

ARGYLL ROOMS.-LAIIRENT'S CASINO
NOW OPEN for the winter season. Fria •Ipol Comet
Piston. M. Bouleourt.—Doors open at 8. Admlssion one Shilling.
Laurent's new Varsoviana every sight.

MR. W. S. WOODIN as RACHEL, in Les
Horaces.—Mr. W. S. WOCDIN will have the honour of
ring it representation of the celebrated tragedienne, with other new
features every evening until further notice, in his NEW ENTER-
YAINSI'ENT, the OLIO cf ODDITIES, illustrated by 50 instan-
taneous Metamorphoses of Voice, Character, and Costume, and a
Panorama of the beautiful Lakes of Westmoreland and Cumberland,
evening, at S.—Polygraphic-hall, King William. street, Cl.ar-
n-eross.

PRIZE CATTLE SHOW of the SMITHFIELD
CLUB.—The Arnual Exhibition of Prize Cattle, Seeds, Roots,
Implements, &c., commences on Tuesday Mora'bg, and cores on
Friday Evening,-1 I th, 120.1, 13th, and 14th December. BAZAAR,
/-STREET, and BAKER-STREET. Oden irom daylight till
"le in the evening. Admittance One Shilling.

GENERAL POST-On-WE, DECEMBER, 1855.
THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL will receive
Tenders for the supply of WAX, COMPOSITION, and TAL-
.I,'"W CANDLES. and OIL and SOAP, for the use of this office,
"Ting the year 1856.
The Tenders must be delivered at the Secretary's Department of
hi" effiee, at or before noon, on Saturday, the 22d instant, and they
Postmaster-General,"
be enclosed in sealed co,ers, addressed to " Der Atzjesty's
and endorsed, "Tenders for Candles, BLe."

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.
3f,
„agiC and Mystery is an entirely new entertainment, pos-
fB2ing distinctive characteristics and peculiar phases of
"4"isement. 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
e 338 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' melodrama replete with startling positions and unex-
mted denouements ; a magnificent spectacle, with 2,000 of
the,_lllUblic-overy, night to appear as auxiliaries; and an ex-
."
,-.4tnagna, In which all that seems to be is entirely beyond
130taids of probabilit:
Professor Anderson returns his thanks to thronged an,"
iafhionable audiences which have nightly filled the Lyceum
iTheatre to overflow, and by means of whose generous aid he
has
4. been enabled to announce Magic and Mystery for con-
tinuous repetition. He believes that no professor of his. art
'as at any time or in any place been honoured with an
amount of success so extensive, so decided, and so unusual.
Ire 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
rerfected skill in one peculiar art, and to perfect which he
has travelled the globe in every clime ; secondly, that he has
Feared no trouble nor expense to put this entertainment on
be 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
is possible to afford information also, and that the oppor-
',Unity should not be neglected of exposing conjuring where-
ever it has been used for nefarious purposes, or whenever by
resorting to the conjuror's arts, in an illegitimate manner,
e designing have succeeded in making dupes of ths
credulous.

f The 937 letters on the subject of spirit-rapping, which Pre-
.es
sor Anderson has received, from the time of opening the
I,lleatre 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
Sttend a belief in the superstitious nonsense of the " Spiri-
tualists." Judging simply by the correspondence which has
r!sulted, Professor Anderson's exposé of spirit-rapping and
hra 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
In' Professor Anderson to reply at length to a tithe of ths
eolumunications which reach him on the subject. He regret,
that
e many of these should come from ladies and gentlemen
/tvuo, from their position in society and their well-known in-
ellectual attainments, he would least have expected to have
teen converts to a belief so preposterous in itself, and s
easily susceptible of being controverted and disproved. Every
evening:, from the Lyceum stage, Mr. Anderson's opinione
'll,sirit-rapping are expressed, and every evening, within th-
Yeennl, how tables can be made to rap is exhibited
;ratiblideclueiclated. It is respectfully requested that this
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-
vacted from the Morning Advertiser of Thursday, Septem-
h`et 20, and taken by that journal from the New York Spirt-
f„-Lai Telegraph. It purports to emanate from an American
1,114R-rapper, Mr. D. D. Hume :—" Sir David Brewster
:,a41,1Y confesses that he is sorely puzzled' at what he has
',ltnessed, and Lord Brougham acknowledges himself to be
1.-poroughly 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,e
trial hands, and the demonstrative strength of the spirits
Who thus clothed themselves for the time, and moved mate-
objects about the room, proved to be too much of a pies-
for them to master." Mr. D. D. Hume, the author of the
"'eve, 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, offereciliim 2.000
a
per annum if he would perform at his museum in New
forlc. Barnum then took it for granted that medium" could
e bought. He was somewhat astonished when his offer was
taflued. Hume, on telling the fact in London lately, simply
sud honestly remarked, that the money would have been very
teeePtable to him, for he was poor, young (under 2o), an or-
Phan, and in very bad health : but he would have been afraid
??. losing his power as a medium, and he would sooner lose
is life. The refusal, however, made Barnum thoughtful.
Re inquired into the subject; and now Barnum, one of the
greatest humbugs in the world, and withal a conjuror, is
‘ile 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
!night be supposed to be sane. Even if Barnum does believe
rn spirit-rapping—does spirit-rapping gain or lose b 3
this accession to its adherents? and, with Barnum's endorse-
ment to it, is this bill, drawn on public credulity, more likel3
to be negotiated ? Professor Anderson would believe not ;
lot, When he finds that educated clergymen of the Church of
-reagland have the temerity to subscribe their names to so gross
aSwindle, when he finds that the incumbent of Wortley (the
Rev. N. J. Godfrey) positively asserts kis belief in it, and
Writes a book on the subject, he considers it t' be time for
hire to state that which he knows of the mechanism by which
rt is effected, and the mischief to which it tends. In the
4'es °"0:129 Advertiser of October 3 appears a letter from Sir
Brewster, relative to that which he saw at Cox's Hotel,
M 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 bed
,Inn'Poses. In the Morning Advertiser of the following day
flowever there is an answer to Sir David's letter from one
:,110 was present when he and Lord Brougham had their
Zane° with the spirits, in which the writer says, that " the
‘4l-0 (a large dinner-table, I believe) moved about in the must
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'-'
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
be received by the people Qf 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
mshionable Day Performance, or Saturday, December 8, 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-
lain, 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 R;eusils Choisies : or, Puck's Own
Pocket Rook, with. Puck himself within it. Typifying the
evening's entertainment in the production of the very voile-
Milieus 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 Adventures of a Wed-
ding Ring, the Peregrinations of a Bank Note, the Transfor-
mation—black into white, and the Discovery of every Article
be the position which would seem she 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 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 no's only be in-
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,
noyeen, 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. f
Act 8. Half an Hour with the Spirits ; or, an Expose o
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-
phoses,' and, amongst others, their handkerchiefs become
transformed into the flags of victory—the banners of Eng
land, France, Turkey, and Sardinia.
Act. 10. The Enchanted Chair of Comus, in which be who
seats himself will be under the magic spell, and appear to
the audience, under circumstances least expected, in a posi-
tion as peculiar as perplexing.
Act. 11. The Mystery of the Charmed Chest ; or, the
Nucleus 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 Homological Evaporation ; or, the Shortest
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/. 115. 6d. and I/. ls., to be obtained at the
Boa-office, or at the principal libraries; stalls, 4s. ; dress
circle, 3s. ; upper boxes, 2s. ; pit, Is. ; 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 Saturday, December 8, at 2 o'clock, Doors open
at half-past 1.