The Sun.
London, England, 1863-03-02 00:00:00

ble in Hyde•park the occasion will be more profit-
able. It will furnish them with some experience
both of a winter's bivouac and of tt;te perils of noc-
turnal manoeuvring. If they do not get run over
by the Royal carriages, they may expect to derive
many ,aluable lessons from the;mishaps of the day.
Sir G. Grey and the Lord Chamberlain appear to
divide between them the honour of having contrived
these admirable arrangements for exhibiting the
Princess to her adopted people. Of the Lord Cham-
berlain's administrative powers the public have had
no opportunity of judging. Sir G. Grey's capacity
in that respect is sufficiently familiar to all who have
followed the controversy touching garotters and se-
cordary punishments. It would not seem to he any
great achievement of administrative dexterity to
bring a Princess into a metropolis sufficiently early
to avoid the necessity of either exhibiting her in
the dark or converting her progress through the
streets into a race. If he cou,d not manage such
an undertaking with more skill than he has shown,
he had better have renounced the idea of a metro-

politan progress altogether, and taken the Princ( ss
to Windsor by the 'cross country lan's's.
SPECTATOR.--The Americans are on the verge of
discovering a chemical test for ghosts, and have dis-
covered a chemical means of identifying them.

While Sir G. Grey is feebly explaining that he sees
no mode of making ticket-of-leave men known to
the county police, Mr. W. H. Mumler, of Boston,
U.S., with that sort of vigilant energy which will
but too soon discontent us with the dilatory charac-
ter of our English aristocracy, has discovered a
mode of photographing what, having regard to the
very unspiritual nature of their occupations, we
fear we ought to call the tickets-of-leave of the
other world. It is discovered that ghosts, under
certain supplementary magnetic conditions, affect
nitrate of silver, even when they are insensible to
the human eye. We have before us English pho-
tographic copies of these first products of Mr. Mum-
ler's spiritual art—the photographs of three ghosts,
and must proceed to acquaint our readers with the
antecedents of this very striking discovery. Mr.
Mumler is a powerful medium, being a rich reser-
voir of Od force. Lat.:: last year he was taking a
photograph of himself—a very good one now be-
fore us—when, to his great astonishment, on deve-
loping the picture he perceived in the chair on which
his hand had been leaning another figure not visibly
with him before. He recognised her as a deceased
relative of his own, who died at about 12 or 14
years of age, which age she still appears to retain.
The picture is faint and hazy, just like that of chil-
dren who move during the process, dressed in ordi-
nary English costume, the hair carefully parted and
well brushed, the left arm transparent, so that the
chair shows through, while a circular sort of halo
encompasses the ghost. When the news transpired
that a ghost had sat (gratuitously, of course) there
was a rush to Mr. Mumler. It is found that most
persons ponrtrayed by this powerful medium had a
ghost at their side, generally of a deceased relative
or friend. One old gentleman now before us, Mr.
Luther Parks, of Boston, has at his side, but float-
ing in the air on a level with his shoulder, a wreath
of vapour, something resembling a female figure,
with a garland of flowers slightly raised above her
head. She stretches forth a vapoury arm towards
Mr. Lut her Parks ; but the curtain is visible through
her at every point, it is said, in the original; the
London copy makes the vapour more substantial. In
the portrait of Mr Alvin Adams, " the great express
agent of America," the figure by his side is a" good
likeness" of a nephew who died a few years ago.
The ghost is sitting not on a chair, but beside it—
probably not needing the support and sitting only
dramatically, he had missed his aim—and is reading
a book open in his hands. A lengthy communica-
tion from a very dull departed spirit in another
page of the Spiritual Magazine informs us that he
has access to a library in the spiritual world, which
it must be very cheering to Messrs. Longman and
Murray to know; unfortunately, he gives us no idea
of the catalogue. Of course, Mr. Mumler is be-
sieged not merely by sitters, but unfortunately also,
by " investigators." " Ever since I have commenced
taking these pictures," he writes, " I have been con-
stantly dogged forward and backward from my
camera to my closet by investigators, till I have be-
come sick of the name." He has, however, given a
few photographers leave to inquire carefully, and
we have a certain photographic artist, Mr. William
Guay, who was deputed to inquire by Messrs. Da-
vis, the proprietors of the Herald of Progress, and a
certain Dr. H. T. Child, of Philadelphia (evidently
a strong spiritualist originally), reporting strongly
in favour of the ghost portraits. The American
Photographic Society, meeting in New York, had
resolved, indeed, that " the spiritual likenesses are
a fraud and a gross deception," and the Evening
Post had expressed the same opinion—still, as this
was the opinion of prejudgment, not of inquiry, Dr.
Child and Mr. Gluey attach no value to it, and be-
lieve. One of the ghosts thus protographed is the
statesman Daniel Webster, and bears " a close re-
semblance to portraits painted in the latter portion
of his lifetime, the sunken cheeks particularly. The
top of the head is bald, with the hair combed up
from each side—the expression of the features is
very grave and solemn. The dress is not distinct,
but so far as it can be perceived, is unlike any-
thing in the painted or engraved portraits, but
slightly resembles the costume on the Washington
status in the State House." The sitters appear
sometimes to determine their own ghost, some-
times to be disappointed by getting one they
don't want. A gentleman from Illinois gave
a broad hint : he insisted on sitting with his
right hand held up as if holding some-
thing. Mr. Mumler expostulated at the awk-
wardness of the attitude. "No matter," he said,
" take it so." When the plate was developed a
child appeared sitting on the arm, with its head
against the sitter's shoulder. Finally, it is stated
that two other " Mediumistic " photographers have
developed the same power,—one an orthodox Rox-
burgh artist, who, when he heard they were called
spirit-pictures, " refused to have any more pictures
made that bore the second figure,"—which seems
to imply that the artist controls the ghosts, and
warns trespassers peremptorily off the nitrate of
diver. But a young man in his employ, who had
seen them made, appears curiously enough to
have had (or learned ?) the mediumistic secret,
and has photographed Dr. Child and Mr. Robert
Dale Owen on the sly, each with a ghost
to himself beside him. It is only necessary
to add that Miss Coggswell, five years ago,
"in the very room where Mr. Mumler now ope-
rates, had the following appear on her arm In
five years spirit pictures will be made in this
room.'" Dr. Child says :—" My guardians told me
two years since, in a communication to Mr. Robert
Dale Owen, that spirit photographs would be taken
just as they are at this day." And by a large
number of mediums, far and near, the same thing
has been foretold. It is clear, therefore, that
spiritual prompters have paved the way for this
discovery. Mr. Mumler was bound to fulfil the
prophecy.
LONDON REVIEW.—FouI weather seems to be
gathering in the Continental sky. The French
nation gives
signs of awakened interest in the tra-
gedy which is passing in Poland. A panic has
fallen on the Bourse; for, from the various Parisian
journals of the day, the loud but well-known roll
en the war-drum is beginning to be heard. M. de
La Guerroniere mutters about the mission of France
and the autonomy of Poland in a tone that reminds
us of his ill-boding cry four years ago when the
mission of France and the autonomy of Lombardy
were in question. Nor can we wonder et the
stir. A gallant, excitable, and overbearing people
might have brought themselves to hold their breath
so long as it was merely a matter of Russian abso-
lutism in Poland. It has been reserved for a sense-
less Prussian Ministry to revive before the eyes of
eager France the hateful recollections of a Holy
Alliance, and to kindle her indignation with the
sight of a monarchy, ridiculous at home, trampling
on the prostrate Polish race abroad. The name of
Prussia is a name which awakens no pleasant or
friendly feelings in the hearts of the French masses.
In stretching her arms towards the Rhine, the
French Empire would at any time have gratified
not merely an acquisitive instinct, but a national
and deep-seated animosity. The friendship between
England and Prussia has been till lately an
insuperable obstacle to a move in that direction.
The Prussian Premier has at last succeeded in
placing his country in the one position where
she can hope for no self restraint on the part
of the French nation, and no sympathy on the part
of England. Europe at this moment—the symptoms
are unmistakable—is drifting towards a desperate
political complication. The resignation of M. Bis-
mark Schonhausen may mitigate, but it cannot
altogether undo the harm that that feeble and in-
efficient statesman has done. By this time a note
has doubtless been despatched to St. Petersburg,
which, whatever its courtesy and frankness, still
must wear, to a jealous northern eye, the semblance
if not of a menace, at least of an intervention. What
will be the result, it is impossible to say. But there
can be little doubt that the French Empire is act-
ing wisely in heading the movement of indignation
that agitates the whole of the Liberals of the Con-
tinent. To tear still further the treaties of 1815—
to complete the restoration of oppressed nationa-
lities which he has begun—to distract the minds of
the revolutionists of Europe from the Roman ques-
tion—to make France forget Mexico—to unite
compactly around him the Catholic and the Liberal
sections of the French people, and with all this to
gratify French vanity with the wild hope of some
happy windfall on the frontier of the Rhine—is an
opportunity which falls to few but the Napoleons.
Were the Emperor ten years younger, he would
a
probably not hesitate a week. But hearts grow less
chivalrous as hairs grow grey. To push once more
into the maze of European revolution requires cool