The Sun.
London, England, 1855-10-17 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 pecutiar 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
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 startly 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
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. He believes that no professor of his art
has at any time or in any place been honoured with an
• , amount et success so extensive, so decided, and so unusual.
would attribute that success to three causes ; first, that
in his present entertainment he has placed before his visitors
the resulte of a life sedulously devoted to the attainment of
perfecteft skill in one peculiar art, and to perfect which he
has tr•a:velled the globe in every clime ; secondly, that he has
Spare d 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
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 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
fessor Anderson has received, from the time of opening tle
theatre up to the present date, bear witness to the great In-
terest taken on the subject of this singular delusion ; wailst
Many of them bear melancholy evidence to the dangers which
attend a belief in the superstitions nonsense of the Spiri-
tualists." _ Judging simply by the correspondence which has
"resulted, Professor Anderson'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 te a tithe of the
Communications which reach him on the subject. Ho 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 too a belief so preposterous in itself, and so
easily susceptible of being controverted and disproved. Every
"ening, ',tom 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 elucidated. It is respectfully requested that this
Mlle exposition will be accepted generally as Professor
Anderson's only mode of replying at full length to his
Multitudinous • correspondents. Ho regrets that the
tames of the great and learned of the land should
ave been made to figure in the documents emanating
from the spirit-rappers, as for instance the following, ex-
racted from the .21forning Advertiser of Thursday, Septern-
ter• 20, and taken by that journal from the New York Spiri-
.tal 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, mud 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 ho would perform at his museum in New
-York. Barnum then took it for granted that 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 bean 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.
Ile 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 au established journal, the editor of whom
might be supposed to be sane. Even if Barnum does believe
fa spirit-rapping -- does spirit-rapping gain or lose by
this accession to its adherents ? and, with Barnum's endorse-
-Itent to it, is this bill drawn on public credulity, more likely
to_ bo negotiated ?
I Professor Anderson would believe not :
England
when he finds that educated clergymen of the Church of
c'ngland have the temerity to subscribe their names to so gross
Itzsewindle, when he finds that the incumbent of Wortley (the
.7- N. J. Godfrey) positively asserts his belief in it, and
b'Writes a book on the subject, he considers it to be time for
um to state that which he knows of the mechanism by which
.4.. is effected, and the mischief to which it tends. In the
az ami
,ng Advertiser of October 3 appears a letter from Sir
t'avld Brewster, relative to that which he saw at Cox's Hotel,
company with Lord Brougham. He distinctly states that
which theVizard of the North proclaims every night—that
ayirit-rapping is nothing more than conjuring applied to bad
Purposes, ln 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
seance 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-
e?rdion was conveyed by au invisible agency to my hand and
then,, to Lord Brougham's, in which, held by his lordship's
Light band, apart from any person, it played an air through-
eat." 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 tho day arc 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-
lets of America, as given by him nightly at the Lyceum, will
t"0 received by the people of England as genuine honest at-
tett' DtS 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,
!hethan has ever before been assembled within its walls in so
rt a period. Magic and Mystery is repeated every even-
lug, the programme being continually changed. Grand
fashionable Day Performance, or Saturday, October 13, at 2
o'clock ; the programme being thus arranged ;
a, Part 1.--Act 1. The Mesmeric Couch : or, the Clinical
Capabilities of the Atmosphere : in which the Wizard will do
I)3' magic that which some suppose to be effected by mesmera
'glut and illustrate the possibility of sleeping unsupported in
the air,
_Act 2. The Aqua-Avial Paradox ; exemplifying the power
°I 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. Lo Livre des Reeueils Choisies : or, Puck's Own
.rocket Book, with Puck himself within it. Typifying the
evening's entertainment in the production of the very Tolle-
elinous 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 bo comprised—the Adventures of a Wed-
ding Ring, the Peregrinations of a Bank Note, the Transfer-
tnation—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
bottle Sirit Store. An improvement upon the " inexha
" 'inasmuch as the Wizard's bottle will. not only begoneexhaustible but will change its contents, ad infinitum, at the
Word of command, producing soda-water, butter-milk,
Epsomsalts, Port, Sherry, brandy, gin, rum, whisky,
hProving
or any other wine or spirit required; and finally
to be filled with pocket handkerchiefs perfectly dry,
'11(1- occupying the whole space when tightly packed.
of
4,. Act 8. Half an Hour with the Spirits ; or, an Expose
cOirit-rapping. Introducing the spirit-rapping
tocsin of the invisibles. tableand
Act. 9. Grand Mystic Amalgam, in which the property of
the Wizard's patrons will undergo some strange metamor-
13aeses, 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 he 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 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, 11. lls. 6d. and U. ls., to bo obtained at the
Bog-office, or at the principal libraries ; stalls, 4e. ; dress
circle, 3s, ; upper boxes, 2s. ; pit, I‘. ; gallery, 6d. The
• tox-office is open daily, from 11 till 5, under the direction
of Mn. :Chatterton, jun. Grand fashionable Morning Per-
formance on Saturday. October 20, at 2 o'clock. Doors open
at half-past 1. ,