The Sun.
London, England, 1855-12-12 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 ever-changing variety
of incidents, continuous surprises, novel and extraordinary
effects,

Magic and Mystery is an entirely-new entertainment, pos.
vessing 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 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 I
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. Ho believes that no professor of his art
has-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 lie,
has travelled the globe in every clime ; secondly, that he has
pared 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 bim'with their presence, he has not forgotten the,
it is possible to afford information also, and that the oppor-
tunity should not be neglected of exposing conjuring wher-
ever it hat; been used for nefarious purposes, or whenever by
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 Pre-
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 daugers which
uttencl a belief in the superstitions 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 o'i
spirit-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 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 fork. 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 apparatus. Barnum. who is well-known throughout
the Anglo-Saxon world as a splendid humbug, offered him MOO
dollars per annum if he would perform at his museum in Ne w
York. Barnum then took it for granted that medium' could
be bought. Ho was somewhat astonished when his offer was
refused. Hume, on telling the fact in Loudon lately, simply
and honestly remarked, that the money would have been very
acceptable to him, for ho 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.
Me 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 whore
might be supposed to be sane. Even if Barnum does believe
in spirit-rapping--does spirit-rapping gain or lose
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 4 Professor Anderson would believe not ;
hut, 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 kis 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 ono
who was present when be and Lord Brougham had their
genet) 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 band, 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"
bas actually been advertised to be hold 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, on Saturday, December 15, 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
lw magio 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 Reeueils 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 Adventures of a Wed-
ding Ring, the Peregrinations of a Bank Note, 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 Verve; 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
word of command, producing soda-water, butter-milk,
Epsom salts, Port, Sherry, brandy, gin, rum, whisky,
aoyean, 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-
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 Comue,in which be who
Rats himself will be under the magic spell, and appear to
, the audience, under circumstances least expected,
tion as peculiar as perplexing. in a posi-
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 bo produced.
Act. 12. The Homological Evaporation ; or, the Shc.test
Route to the Antipodes. Illustrating the easiest mode of
ridding ourselves of a troublesome Mend, 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/. 11s. 6d. and ii. ls., to be obtained at the
Box-office, or at the principal libraries; stalls, 4s. . • dress
circle, 3s. ; upper boxes, 2s. ; pit, ls. ; gallery, 6d. The
Box-office is open daily, from 11 till 5, uncle' the direction
of Mr. Chatterton, jun. Grand fashionable Morning Per-
formance on Saturday, December.ls, at 2 o'clock. Doors open
at 411-past 1,