The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1877-09-21

the delivery of lecture upon animal
magnetism, being speedily accomplished
he took his leave.
Wynn said /, as the door closed
behind him, @do you remember Mark
Tufts, who was convicted of burglary in
Charleston. and who afterwards escaped
! from 5 ate Prison.
Yes" answered Wynn "and could
not think of whom the man reminds me
yes, it is Mark Tufts
1t is Tufts himself" replied. Il rec
ognized him before he had uttered three
sentences. I came across the room to
look for the scar of wound on the left
cheek, given him by companion in a
drunken brawl. The mark is there.
And l know that the little finger and
the first joint of the one next it are miss
ing from the hand he carries in sling,
and which he pretends to have been
hurt in a recent railroad accident"
@Pierson G. Leffingwell' was elabor
ately engraved on the card with which
he had introduced himself. looked
from the window; the man had crossed
the street and was standing on the
piazza of the Epping House. Presently
he entered, and shortly afterward reap
peared, accompanied by showily dress
ed woman and young girl; in the ap-
pearance of the latter l remarked moth
ing, except perhaps extreme fragility.
A programme indicated that at the
close of the lecture some interesting de.
monstrations would be exhibited. Mrs
and Miss Louise Leffingwell, it was
stated, were both mediums, and the
former gifted with remarkable powers
of reading the future.
We decided st once to assist at this
protection. The mans extreme audaci-
ty and villainy made him interesting.
Indeed, so entire had been the popular
conviction, in the trial to which have
referred, of the mans vindictive, delib
crate, malice, that his sentence was not
more severe. Nota very large audience.
of course, was to be expected in place
like Epping; but it was pretty fair
turn-out,-several hundreds-and these
we're mostly collected before Mrs Lef
fingwell and the young lady made their
appearance.
On the platform at one side of the hall
was placed table and several chairs.
Mr. Leffingwell came in, arranged these,
withdrew again, and soon returned con-
Quoting his assistants The woman
seated herself in bustling, important
way, arranging and rearranging her
dress, and sending around bold, assured
glances. The girl took her place quietly,
without raising her eyes until the fall
ing of a window which had not been
properly fastened up then she lifted
them moment, with startled, expect
ant look, l observed the group closely,
for l had begun to grow interested in
them.
The lecture was tissue of trashy
plagiarisms, through which what the
man would be at was not clearly per-
ceptible 1t was evident, however, that
he had himself a sort of grotesque faith
in what he was trying to say-a kind of
trembling belief involved in his diabol
ism. And this suggested to me plan
for the solution of a query which had
entered my mind; how far, namely that
slight young girl sitting there with an
air of such utter abstraction was a volun-
tary accomplice of Mr. and Mrs Letting
well. That they were well matched ad-
mitted scarcely doubt. The woman.
large-framed, coarsely featured, swarthy, |
with thick, sensual lips and black brows
meeting over lurid eyes, looked for an
emergency of wickedness. In dress she |
was the counterpart of her husband;
everything about her was tawdrv; a !
fashy silk gown, much flo,nced. heav /
lily wrought and solid white Grape shawl
a rigolette, as | believe they term those |
triangular tagrags which women were
then beginning to wear on the head,
quantity of bracelets, rings, chains,
brooches, and the like, and vulgar
looking fan, which she flourished unre-
mittingly, made up her outfit. She i'm
pressed one as having forgone every |
womanly trait.
Not so the girl claimed by the Letting |
wells as their daughter She looked at
most fourteen, and might have been a |
year or two younger. She wore lilac
colored dress and black silken scarf, |
the simplicity of her attire not less than
the frail, delicate beauty of her person
contrasting noticeably with the intense
vulgarity of the woman beside her. Her
face was too pale, but the features we're
exquisite in outline; the brow lov, with |
shadowy chestnut hair; the eyes blue,
knew afterwards, though / had supposed |
them black, were so large and fringed
with such thick, long eye lashes, that
they seemed to make half her face.
There was an occasional slight compress |
sion of the under lip that showed her to
be i'll at ease, whether from physical pain
or some other cause, and under an air of
apparent lenguor, quick, nervous clos
ing and unclosing of the little left hand
which held the edge of her black scarf.
She wore no ornaments.
Ofcourse do not pretend in any way
to account for the phenomena / am
to describe. No theory that ever came
in my way has seemed to me to bear
adequate credentials In most instances
too, which have been related to me,
have felt compelled to doubt facts and
inferences. l will give an unvarnished
statement of occurrences-premising |
only that 1 had previously and precisely,
when l had found myself in a mood
which have particularly belonging to
me on this day, been able to exert the |
influence to which have been given the |
epithets magnetic, odic, and the like,
over some refractory subjects.
At the close of Mr. Ieffingwell's de- |
clamatory farrago he came to the front |
of the platform and proposed, for the
more satisfactory demonstrations of his
science, to experiment on any one or
several among his auditors who might
solicit proof in their own persons. A
middle-aged man of stolid aspect and a |