Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-12-15
THE NATURALIZATION" MATTER.
A Reply to the Charges of Fraud.

Reply to the Charges of Fraud.
From the San Francisco Call, December 14thl
Editor Morning Call. In your issue of
November 23d You published a letter
signed "Junius, the writer of which as.
serts that he possesses "evidence demon.
most wlckedly" in regard to the alleged
spirit materializations referred to in my
communications to Mind and Matter, the
substance of which you reproduced
"Junius says he has the confession of " a
young lady" of San Francisco, to the eff
feet that she several times personated my
daughter, and the confessions of others,
probably equally respectable impostors, to
the effect that they personated the de-
ceased friends of parties not named. He
says that "if it were not that her (the
medium's) case is before the Courts, and
that it is undesirable, if not absolutely in
decorous, that it should be tried by the
papers in advance" he would at once give
you his alleged evidence for publication.
Truly, much virtue is in an eli" Yet
do not understand the "Junius" view of
indecorum in the premises. To my mind,
nothing could be more indecorous than his
anonymous and disingenuous attempt to
prejudice the case by pretending the pos
session of evidence which he takes care to
withhold, while at the same time he en-
deavors to derive from it all the weight
which demonstrated facts could carry.
Lest l should be accused of rebuking my
own fault in another, however, permit me
to say here that l am really guiltless of
b he l,,
paper trial. l left San Francisco on
the q of October. The trial of the case
referred to was then set for the 10th of
October l did not write to Mind and
Matter until the 25th of October, and
then l supposed that the trial had been
held and that the case was at an end. But
"Junius" has no such excuse. Knowing
that the case is still pending, he takes ad-
vantage of your iberality to make, under
this thin pretext of desire to expose i'm.
posters, an attack upon the medium which
is too vague and formless to be repealed
specifically, yet which is calculated to pre-
iudice the minds of that large majority who
are always ready to accept hearsay testi-
mony. In regard to the nature of his state
ment, | am led to doubt whether "Ju-
MUS" knows what evidence is. In the
first place he seems to think that an anony.
nous accusation is reputable method OF
attack But, in fact, his anonymity prima
facie impeaches his honesty. In the second
place he declares his conviction that | have
been deceived, because some persons Whose
very confession of such practices would
prove them to be dishonest, and therefore
utterly untrustworthy, and capable of any
falo hau FOL hat
they personated spirits. He appears to
have some atfidavits to this effect, and these
he seems to look upon as conclusive evi.
dence. Now every lawyer knows that this
kind of statement is, as a rule, unreliable,
and that things are habtually set down in
them which the atlantis would be very re.
luctant to swear to in open Court, with the
penitentiary looming in the background.
In the present case |, for one, am strongly
disposed to believe that all the affidavits
referred to are perjured statements, and if,
as "Junius asserts, "young lady" has
declared that she personated my daughter,
| have not the least doubt that this
young lady" has told very unladylike
falsehood. One of my grounds of assur-
ance in this matter is the perhaps unim-
portant fact that the personatien of spirits
by living persons in nine out of ten Of the
seances referred to by me in my letter to
Mind and Matter, would have been,
not difficult or improbable, but ply
sically impossible. And when GU
MUS J" asserts that at seance where
the isolation of the medium was complete
and where the introduction of any human
being to the cabinet was an absolute i'm
possibility, yet spirits were presented by
human beings, | have, l think, very good
ground for the conviction, not that | have
been deceived, but that "Junius has been
imposed upon, if indeed he is not a willing
instrument of cowardly malice When
the persons who have given him his al.
legged evidence have been cross-examined
in Court when they have demonstrated
their fitness to be received as witnesses at
all when they have encountered the risks
attending perjury in support of the state
ments they are now trying to get before
the public in this skulking anonymous
fashion, it will be time enough for self-re-
specting and intelligent men and women to
form judgment as to where the fraud lies
In the meantime | will only add that l
do not ask you to publish this for my sake
1t is quite unimportant to me what is
thought of my ability to judge of facts by
those whose own incapacity their loose and
fabby conclusions sufficiently indicate
But l ask you to publish this because, in
printing the letter of "Junius," you have,
doubtless inadvertently, given an unfair
advantage to the enemies of a woman
whose guilt they would be only too glad to
have established without the trouble and
difficulty of proving it in the Courts.
GEORGE FREDERIC PARSONS.
New York, December 4, 1858.
I'VE give place to the above letter from
Mr.. Parsons, but in Justice to our CORE
spondent, "Junius, 1t should be said that
the latter has the evidence of half dozen
persons to prove beyond the possibility of a
doubt that Mr.. Parsons was grossly de-
ceived by the medium in question. Ed.
Call.