The Sun.
London, England, 1855-12-22 00:00:00

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a fair library containing works of all sorts ;
ladies only knew what they could show th,
very glad they would be to see them, in
would join. (Cheers.) As he knew they
bow short the speeches were he would nut
e,
any longer. (Cheers.)
Mr. W. BROWNE dwelt at some length on the'ait7
all to support such institutions as this, and to,,Xseciset.., _
moral influence over the minds of their fellowl*WAttireslSM:l4l
The Rev. J. F. Sisirsost dilated at some length eif' -
the general benefits arising from Mechanics' Institutes,
which, he said, by increasing the intelligence, increased
the morality and the religious feelings of ti • psople.
Mr COCKBURN next addressed the mee ing in a long
and eloquent speech. He congratulated th• member■
on the prosperity of their institution. In alluding to
the benefits which had been cmferred on the •immunity
by the bequests of large sums of money to suck institu-
tions as the Cumberland Infirmary, he expressed a hope
that some eccentric individual would remember in his
wills the claims of the Mechanics' Institute and leave
them 1,0001. He had always been an advocate for the
news room, and was rejoiced to hear of its success, but
they must remember that thelnewspaper department was
merely an appendix to the great feature of the institu-
tion— the library. He concluded with some general ob-
servations on the value of Mechanics' Institutes, which
were loudly cheered.
Mr. JOHN FERGUSON proposed in suitable terms a
vote of thanks to the gentlemen who had addressed the
meeting.

ARGYLL ROOMS.-LAURENT'S CASINO
NOW OPEN for the winter !won. Pritripal Cornet
a Plated', M. Boaleourt.—Doors open at 8. Admission One Shilling.
Lanrent's new Varsoviana every n:ght.

Not i~?,76,J

GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY.-
* CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS —On MONDAY, 24th De _ember,
a Cheap Excursion Train will leave Paddington at 6.30 p m., for
Bristol and Bath, returning on Wednesday, 26th December, from
Bristol, at 7 a.m., and Bath at 7.30 a.m. Fares there and b .ck :
Bristol, lOs. and 65., and Bath, 0?. and ss. No luggage beyond a
eszpet bag allowed. Tickets net transferable.

GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY.-
CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS. Return Tickets issued on
Saturday, Dec. 22d, and three following day., will be available up to
Wednesday, the 26th, inclusive. On the Bristol and Exeter and
South Devon Lines Return Tickets are not available on,Sundays.
The Trains on Christmas Day will run as on -undays, with the
addition of the down day mail from Paddington to Bri tot at In a.m.,
and the up day Mail from Bristol to Paddington at 10 a.m., which
Will run as on week days. with the exception of the branch trains
between Maidenhead and Wycombe, Reading and Ilsoingstoke,
Chippenham, From., and Warminster, Gloucester and Hereford, and
over the South Wales Line.

LAST NIGHT.
ROYAL LYCEUM THEATRE. THIS
EVENING, and every evening during the
week, the GRAND ELEUSINIAN SPECTACLE of MAGIC
and MTSTERY, by Professor ANDERSON, the Great
'Wizard •f the North, in 12 acts, with ever-changing variety
of incidents, continuous surprises, novel and extraordinary
effects.

Mr. DAVIDSON seconded tho motion, which was oar.
rie I by acclamation, after which Mr. P. H. HOWARD
bri, fly returned thanks.
Mr. W. BROWNE proposed a vote of thanks t 3 the
Mayor for his courtesy in presiding.
The motion was carried unanimously.
The CHAIRMAN vacated the chair, and the room was
cleared for dancing, which was kept up with great
spirit and excellent order ❑ntil four o'clock in the morn-
ing.

Magic and Mystery is an entirely new entertainment, pos-
sessing distinctive characteristics and peculiar phases of
amusement. It is act a monologue, for the audience them-
selves perform their parts with the principal actor, some of
them en 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
list, bounds of probability.
s, Professor Anderson returns his thanks to thronged ail
fashionable audiences which have nightly filled the Lyceum
'theatre to overflow, and "by means of whose generous aid he
Aim been enabled to announce Magic and Mystery for con-
tinuons repetition. Hg believes that no professor of his art
has at any time or in any place been honoured with an
amount of 'access so extensive, so decided, and so unusual.
-He would attribute that success to three causes ; first, thatd
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 arouble nor expense to put this entertainment on
the stage in tse most elaborate manner, by the employment
of the first rnechaniciane 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
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 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 Pro-
cessor Anderson has received, from the time of opening the
heatro np to the present date, bear witness to the great in-
erest taken on the subject of this singular delusion ; whilst
many of them bear melancholy evidence to the dangers which
• ttcnd a belief in the superstitious nonsense of the " Spin-
naliste." Judging simply by the correspondence which has
!earthed, Professor Anderson's exposé of spirit-rapping and
•:,-erklais illustration of the so-called table phenomena, have pro-
*ethic-0d a sensation unequalled by any previous attempt to ex-
.s.Ypateil/4.cis mischievous and impudent juggle. It is impossible
l'ivfsir:,P,liefettane Anderson to reply at length to a tithe of the
-cifitrnunfCations which reach him on the subjects •'He regrets
that many of these shoultistome from ladiei and gentlemenwho, from their position in society and their well-known in-
tellectual attainments, he would least ,have expected to have
teen converts.. -to 'a 'belief so preposterous in itself, and so
casilgeusceptible of being controverted and disprowl, Every
evening; from the' Lyceum stage, Mr. Anderson's opinions on
spirit-rapping are expressed, and every evening, within the
Lyceum, how tables can be made to rap is exhibited
and elncitlatnd. It is respectfully requested that this
tr;publie 'exlosition ivill be accepted generally as Professor
s Skillndetten-a santy sm.:nib-sof 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-
• -her 20, and taken by that journal from the Ness 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 me* brought
' the whole force of their keen discernment to bear upon the
a solution of the phenomena; but the presence of substantial,
,as actual hands, and the demonstrative strength of the spirits
t, who thus clothed themselves for the time, and moved mat&
• rial objects about the room, proved to bo too ranch of a ques-
t, Lien 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 20), an or-
• phan, and in sery bad heaun 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
editosial article of an established journal, the editor of whom
. might be supposed to be sane. Even if Barnum does believ'
in spirit-rapping-- does spirit-rapping gain or lose by
this accession to its adherents and, with Barnum's endorse
4.4" ment to it, is this bill, drawn on public credulity, more likely
- to be negotiated T 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
4 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 ho knows of the mechanism by which
It is effected, and the mischief to which it tends. In the
Morning Advertiser of October S appears a letter from Sir
1.
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 tits Morning Advertiser of the following day,
however, there is an answer to Sir David's letter from one
I who was present when he and Lord Brougham had their
séance with the spirits, in which the writer says, that " the
• lodsle (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-
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
tnl 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 of England, as genuine honest at-
tempts to provide an antidote for the bane of the spiritual
-` 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-i. —Act 1. The Mesmeric Couch : or, the Clinica'
' 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
be air,
• Act 2. The Agua-Ivial 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 Recisions 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's. L'Ecrin de Verre ; or, the Casket of Crcesns. Into
which, though made entirely of glass perfectly transparent,
and suspended so as to be visible to the eyes of all present,
tht`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 Opticitx.
Act. 7. A New Bottle of Bacchus ; or, the Novel Wine
and Spirit Store. An improvement upon the " inexhaustible
bottle," ihasranch is the Wizard's bottle will not only be in-
' ixiCanstihle, 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 wino 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 Expos 6 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 underg,o some strange metamor-
phoses, and, amongst others, their handkerchiefs become
transformed into the flags of victory—the banners of Eig
laud, France, Turkey, and Sardinia.
Act. 10. The Enchanted Chair of Comus, in which he who
eats 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 produced.
Act. 12. The Homological Evaporation ;. or, the Shc. test
toutn to the Antipodee. 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 ; continence at 8.
dressTh
e
• Private boxes, 11. lls. 6d. and 11. is,, to be obtained at the
• Boxsoffice, or at the principal libraries ; stalls, 456.".
circles 3e. ; upper boxes, 2s. ; pit, le. ; gallery,
Box-office is open daily, from 11 till 5, under the direction
of Mr. Chatterton, jun. Grand fashionable Morning Per-
fonnanee on Matnrdety, December 12, atp o'clock. Doors open
at Lalf-past 1.