The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1870-06-23
The Gambols OF Ghosts.
From the Chicago Post.

From the Chicago Post.
The ghosts that reappear on earth tt
mortal eye and ear are, in their forms Gu
riously made, and in their antics curious
Iy versatile. They strike attitudes more
or less. graceful and assume faces more or
less familiar before Numbers camera.
They Indicate their presence to some
thousands Of 6 mediums" by fusilade
of inlly raps. They paint pictures tor
Anderson. while the dIsembodled SIT for
nortraits. They pick up Home, IN broad
daylight, and carry him out of one third
story window and in at another, as If he
we're fe.., her. They write your ghost
1v friend, name on Fosters arm In let
ters Of bIood. They pick up slate pen
c,l and write p.,sthumous letters on Mrs.
Keioxins late " hen she holds 1t out at
arm & length and nobody nigh They
dictate queer initiative poems to Mrs Do
fen. tell Their names and personal history
to Lizzie Keyser, and, finally, travel as
the BODY guard Of DR.. Newton, defending
INN from atl.ils, and endowing him with
the u, ophet' 5 islon and the ostles' heal
Inc, toucli. At least, this is what the Splr-
itiIal,sts saq hey do; and it is to be con
ceded that. alter subtracting all those do
mos that are attributable To imposition,
an1aIt the stories that are ieferable to
deluslon, there is still lett reSiduum of
nh. 1lomena that furnish opportunity for
further Investigators.
IT, - discreditabie to the discerning sci
ence and progressive thought OF this time
that he so called SpirituaiIsm, II there
is nothing whatever at its base except
delusion and fraud, should have become
Gu firmly rooted IN the land 1t has gain.
ed GROUND SO rapidly, that it has become
the prevailing belief in many commbni-
es It's organs claim three million adj
herents In this country alone. Its ipecu-
liar philosophy of death and the hereaf
ter. has, within twenty years, banished
the devil, modified the hell, and recon
structed the heaven of every Protestant
denomination, though the Change has
come SO gently and lmperceptably, that
Christians everywhere, though they feel
the new beneuiction, do not stop to ask
who set the Gates A jar"
In every State in the Union are thou
sands who believe that they can converse
with their beloved dead that their dis
embodied friends furnish palpable evi-
dence of their presence; and they chal-
lenpe the positiyists to the examination.
WIN is science so reticenc? 1t is on sci
entists that we rely TO disapprove the
wild vagary, but they disappoint us.
They disdain to investigate. They rest
content with their own pr1orS logic.
Professor Agassiz, Mr. Herbert Spencer,
Faraday and Joseph Henry, have settled
the question thus :" These alleged phe7
nomena are swindles or decisions; they
cannot be genuine In, the nature OF
things" But the trouble is that questions
settled by the q pri0ra method do not stag
settled. That is the way that Tycho
Brahe proved that the sun revolved
around the earth; that Nicolas Wood
proved that locomotive could never be
made to 90 more than five miles an hour;
that forty scientific men demonstrated a
hundred years ago, that the idea of a
magnetic telegraph was an absurd and
impossible craze One fact is worth a
thousand theories and since thought
was flashed around the world on wire,
it is not satisfactory to shut ones eyes,
stop ones ears, and decide arbitrarily
that an alleged phenomena cannot be
SO, in the nature of things" For who
knows, until the ultimate test is made
what IS the nature Of things?
The demand we make of scientific men is,
that they come in with their demonstra
ton and relieve the public anxiety. In
every town are people involved in this
wild dream of Spiritualism and modern
science is unworthy of its high preten-
sions if it does not proge the believers to
be dupes, and the mediums charlatans
and mountebanks. To indulge in these
epithets, and then superciliously to ig
more the necessity of the proof, is not the
scientific method. 1t is the method of
quacks. Not only in the interest of sci
ence, but of theology, do we make this
serious demand Spiritnalism is vital
power in the land, and it has had more
influence than any other agency in unset
thing the Old foundations. Let the wis
est men of this generation come to the
front and stem the tide, by disproving at
least some of the physical phenomena of
the so-called Spiritualism, and thereby
restoring to million fretted souls their
ancient anchorage. Firm in the faith
that truth is stronger than error, and
facts stronger than theories, let them
Strike for that which ought to be,
And God will bless the blow"
rts