The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1884-01-04
The Materalizing Fraud.

Some years ago Mrs. Hull duped mum.
Der ofinielligent and respectable people Of
Portland by one of the vilest frauds of which
it is possible to conceive. Mrs. Hull claimed
to be medium" and to possess the power
to 'materialize" The spirits of the departed.
or In other words, to restore to them the
bodies which they inhabited when on earth.
Strange as 1t may seem this preposterous
claim found many believers and night after
night Mrs. Hulps 'seances" were thronged
with pc, pie who went away firmly believing
that they had kissed and embraced departed
husbands and brothers wives and children.
One night skeptic clutched the hand of
the ''materiaiized spirit' and dragged its
owner out into the light. The spirit could
not "dematerialize' but there stood Mrs.
Hull, abashed and confounded For the
sake of gain this woman and her husband
flor he was party to the fraud had trfied
with the most sacred feelings of the human
heart and been guilty of crime of biacker
hue than many for which men pay a penal
~ of years of imprisonment
But the exposure of Mrs. Hull was no
more full and complete than that of many
other Undertaking mediums'' has been.
Still these mediums continue to ply their
infamous trade and victimize the supersti-
tious. Yesterday the PRESS copied from
the New York Evening Post letter from
Boston correspondent giving an account of
some recent seances of this kind in Boston.
The PRESS copied it chiefly to show that
This business is still carried on and that
some new and not very decent features have
been added to it.
For the republication of this article a resi-
dent of Brunswick reprimands the PRESS Sc
verely by letter and accuses it Of taking good
deal OF pains ito ridicEle belief that is en-
braced BY millions of intelligent people, and
wants us "to redeem the paper' by publish
ing an account of one of these seances
which appears in the Banner Of Light and
was written by ga well known broker of Bog
ton" We have read the article In question
and find that its description of the seance
very closely resembles that of the cores
pendent of the New York Post There Is
the same promiscuous hugging and kissing.
VIC PAoniuShb HiOhcI llfQSelf cOQfeSSlQO
that he kissed and embraced one of The
"materializsd Spirits with great unction.
The only substantial difference between the
the two accounts is that one is pervaded with
an air OF skepticism and the other with an
air of belief, and to certain point in the
narrative even this difference does not exist,
for the prominent broker" confesses that
though the spirit he kissed was said to be
his daughter, he did not recognize her. In.
deed he seems to have had q suspicion the
spirit was none other than the medium, for
he took the pains 10 lift both of them to see
If he could detect any difference in their
weights. Further Oh, however, he encoun-
tered spirit whom he thought he could
Identify and then he put implicit faith in the
whole performance. The only result which
could be accomplished by publishing this
account, therefore, would be to show that
there is one person who still believes In this
humoug. We are willing to admit this We
are willing to admit also tn the Brunswick