The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-13 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SIIN.

Stn,—A seance by the Brothers Davenport and Mr W.
Fay took place in my house yesterday, in presence of Lord
Bury, Sir Charles Nicholson, Sir John Gardiner, Sir C.
Lennox Wyke, Rev. E. 11. Newenharn, Rev. W. Ellis,
Capt. E. A. Inglefield, Messrs Chas. Reade, Jas. Matthews,
Algernon Borthwick, I. Willes, H, E. Ormerod, J. W.
Kaye, J. A. Bostock, W. J. Ridout, Robert Bell, J. N.
Mangles, H. M. Dunphy, W. Tyler Smith, M.D., E. Tyler
Smith, T.L. Coward, John Brown, M D., Robt. Chambers,
and Dion-Boucicault.

The room in which the meeting was held is a large draw-
ing-room, from which all the furniture had been previously
removed, excepting the carpet, a chandelier, a small table, a
sofa, a pedestal, and 26 cane bottomed chairs.
At 2 o'clock six of the above party arrived, and the room
was subjected to careful scrutiny. It was suggested that a
cabinet, to be used by the Brothers Davenport, but then
erected in an adjacent room, should be removed into the
front room and placed in a spot selected by ourselves. This
was done by our party, but in the process we displaced a
portion of this piece of furniture, thus enabling us to exa-
mine its material and structure before we mended it. At 3
o'clock our party was fully assembled and continued the
scrutiny. We sent,to a neighbouring musicseller for six
guitars and two tambourines, so that the implements to be
used should not be those with which the operators were
familiar. At half past three the Brothers Davenport and
Mr Fay arrived and found that we had altered their ar-
rangements, by changing the room which they had previ-
ously selected for their manifestations. The seance then
began by an examination of the dress and persons of the
Brothers Davenport, and it was certified that no apparatus
or other contrivance was concealed on or about their per-
sons. They entered the cabinet and sat facing each
other. Captain Inglefield then, with a new rope provided
by out selves, tied. Mr W, Davenport hand and foot, with
his hands behind his back, and then bound him firmly
to the seat where he sat. Lord Bury, in like manner, se-
cured Mr. I. Davenport. The knots on these ligatures
were then fastened with sealing.wax and a seal was affixed.
A guitar, violin, tambourine, two bells, and a brass trumpet,
were placed on the floor of the cabinet. The doors were then
closed, and a sufficient light was permitted in the room to
enable us to see what followed. I shall omit any detailed
account of the Babel of sounds which arose in the cabinet,
and the violence with which the doors wero repeatedly
burst open and the instruments expelled ; the hands ap-
pearing, as usual, at a lozenge-shaped orifice in the centre
door of the cabinet. The following incidents seem to us
particularly worthy of note :—While Lord Bury was stoop-
ing inside the cabinet, the door being open, and the two
operators seen there sealed and bound, a detached hand was
clearly observed to descend upon him, and he started back,
remarking that a hand had struck him. Again, in the full
light of the gas chandelier, and during an interval in the
seance, the doors of the cabinet being open, and while the
ligatures of the Brothers Davenport were being examined,
a very white, thin, female hand and wrist quivered for
several seconds in the air above. This appearance drew a
general exclamation from all the party. Sir Charles Wyke
now entered the cabinet and sat between the two young
men, his hands being right and left on each, and secured
to them. The doors were then closed and the Babel of
sound recommenced. Several hands appeared at the orifice,
among them the bands of a child. After a space Sir Charles
returned amongst us and stated that while he held the two
brothers several hands touched his face and pulled his
hair ; the instruments at his feet crept up, played round his
body and over his head, one of them lodging eventually on
his shoulders. During the foregoing incidents the hands
which appeared were touched and grasped by Captain
Inglefield, and he stated that to the touch they were ap-
parently human hands, though they passed away from his
grasp. .

I omit mentioning other phenomena ; an account of
which has already been rendered elsewhere.
The next part of the seance was performed in the dark.
One of the Messrs Davenport and Mr Fay seated themselves
amongst us. Two ropes were thrown at their feet, and in
two minutes and a half they were found tied hand and foot,
their hands behind their backs bound tightly to their chairs,
and their chairs bound to an adjacent table. While this
process was going on the guitar rose from the table, and
swung or floated round the room and over the heads of the
party, and lightly touching some. Now a phosphoric light
shot from side to side over our heads; the laps and hands
and shoulders of several were simultaneously touched,
struck, or pawed by hands, the guitar meanwhile sailing
round ;he room, now near the ceiling, and then scuffling on
the head and shoulders of some luckless wight. The bells
whisked here and there, and a light thrumming was main-
tained on the violin. The two tambourines seemed to roll
hither and thither on the floor, now shaking it violently,
and now visiting the knees and hands of our circle—all
these foregoing actions, audible or tangible, being simulta-
neous. Mr Rideout, holding a tambourine, requested it
might be plucked from his hand ; it was almost simulta-
neously taken from him. At the same time Lord Bury made
a similar request., and a forcible attempt to pluck a tam-
bourine from his grasp was made, which he resisted. Mr
Fay then asked that his coat should be removed. We heard
instantly a violent twitch; and here occurred the most re-
markable fact. A light was struck before the coat had quite
left Mr Fay's person, and it was seen quitting him, plucke3
off him upwards. It flew up to the chandelier, where it hung
for a moment,and then fell to the ground. Mr Fay was seen
meanwhile bound hand and foot as before. One of our party
now divested himself of his coat, and it was placed on the
table. The light was extinguished, and this coat was rushed
on to Mr Fay's back with equal rapidity. During the above
occurrences in the dark we placed a sheet of paper under the
feet of the two operators, and drew with a pencil an outline
around them, to the end that if they moved it might be
detected, They of their own accord offered to have their
hands filled with flour or any other similar substance, to
prove they made no use of them, but this precaution was
deemed unnecessary. We required them, however, to
count from one to twelve repeatedly, that their voices coa-
-1 scantly heard might certify to us that they were in the
places where they were tied. Each of our own party held
his neighbour firmly, so that no one could move without two
adjacent neighbours being aware of it.
At the termination of this seance a general conversation
took place on the subject of what we had heard and wit-
nessed. Lord Bury suggested that the general opinion
seemed to be that we should assure the Brothers Davenport
and Mr W. Fay that, after a very stringent trial and strict
scrutiny of the proceedings, the gentlemen present could
arrive at no other conclusion than that there was no trace of
trickery in any form, sad certainly there were neither con-
federates nor maohincry, and that all those who had wit-
nessed the result would freely state in tho society in
which they moved that, so far as their investigations
enable them to form an opinion, the phenomena which had
taken place in their presence were not the product of
legerdemain, This suggestion was promptly acceded to by
all present.

Betore leaving this question, in which my name has
accidentally been mixed up, I may be permitted to ob-
serve that I have no belief in what is called spiritualism,
and nothing I have seen inclines me to believe in it ; indeed,
the puerility of some of the demonstrations would suffi-
ciently alienate such a theory; but I do believe that we
have not quite exploded the realms of natural philosophy—
that this enterprise of thought has of late 3 ears been con-
fined to useful inventions, and we are content at last to
think that the laws of nature are finite, ascertained, and
limited to the scope of our knowledge. A very great
number of worthy persons seeing such phenomena as I have
detailed ascribe them to supernatural agency; others
wander around the subject in doubt ; but as it engages
seriously the feeling and earnest thought of so large a
number in Europo and America, is it a subject which
scientific men are justified in treating with the neglect of
contempt ?

Some persons think that th 3 requirement of darkness
seems to infer trickery. Is not a dark chamber essential.
in the process of photography ? And what would we reply
to him who should say, " I believe photography to be a
humbug; do it all in the light, and I will believe; not till
then." It is true that we know why darkness is necessary
to the production of the sun picture; end if scientific men
will subject these phenomena to analysis we shall find out
why darkness is essential to such manifestations.—Yours
obediently, DioN BOUCICAULT.
326, Regent-street, Oct. 12.

ELOPEMENT.—The Boulogne gimmes has the
following story of an elopement :—" It is very long
since the Flaneurs of Boulogne have been gratified by the
scandal of an elopement, and we regret that last week fur-
nished forth a case, which may provide some business for
Sir J. P. Wilde. A gallant son of Mars, Captain M—,
whose better half is in England, seems to have won the
affection of a young English demoiselle residing in the Rue
Royale, who had, however, another string to her bow,
whose attentions were very assiduous and somewhat
,in-
convenient to the captain and his fair inamorata. On
Thursday last the loving couple had, it is supposed, deter-
mined to enjoy a tour either to Paris or the interior, and
the last train in the evening was to bear them from hence.
A difficulty presented itself ; the single gentleman suitor
intervened with a proposition to meet the lady fair, and
spend an agreeable eveniug with her. She was non-
plussed, and sought the captain's aid, who went to work
with stratagem. Ile invited the loving bachelor to gowith
him to the theatre and witness " Faust," suoessfully urg-
ing him to go. He was deservedly punished for preferring
the captain's saciety to the ladye fair. In the course of 'a
quarter of an hour the captain left his stall, promising to
return in five minutes. Time passed, and he returned no
more, He had flown,"