Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1888-10-29
sPIRITUALlsT EXHIBITIONS.

SPIRTTUALIST EXHIBITIONS.
Confessions Of a Man Who Has Man.
aged Such Shows.
HOW ANNA EVA PAY PRODUCED wprrrrx rnxxrr.
LEGATIONS OF HER eHosTs-rHE FLOATING IN
M1D-AIR BUSINESS RUINED IN ENGLAND.
From the New York Sun
A wel-known manager Of travelling theatrical
companies, at present in this city, had handed
to him on the street yesterday a dodger an
nouncing the death to Spiritualism" enter
tainment that DR.. Richmond, the dentist, prom
ised to give in the Academy of Music. He
laughed as he glanced it over, and then said:
This chap ought to hire me; could give
him lots Of points on spiritualism. I've been
something of aspiritualist myself, in fact. had
my first experience with spiritualism about
eight years ago, when I was proprietor of
theater in a city on the Pacific slope and, be-
sides, used to take charge of combinations that
wanted to make tour of q number Of theaters
IN smaller towns In the same part Of the coun-
Try; An advance agent came along one day
and said he wanted to get the house for the
next Sunday evening for the Miller Brothers to
give splrltualist show. Sunday night, long
before the hour to open, there was the biggest
y. o"u ever seen III tOWn warning 10 get IN, ana
those fellows didn't sell ticket under % cents,
and charged so and IS for most of the seats.
Ihey took in over 5000 at the door, of which
received the munificent sum of S75, when l
might just as well have had 60 per cent.
Some time after that the advance agent of
Anna Eva Fay came along and wanted to hire
the house. didn't hire that time; wanted
shares or nothing and as had the only thea
ter In town he had to accept my terms. They
had a big house and afterward engaged me to
manage their tour through the small towns
where l controlled the houses. had to go
with the company, and in that way got my first
insight into the business. wasn't taken into
any secrets Of the trade at all; these mediums
never give themselves away except to their
actual confederates, but a man with half an
whole business was.
ONE OF ANNA EvA's GREAT TRICKS
then was the production of the spirit of some
well-known person who had died in the place,
and the verifcation of the identity by the pro-
duction of its name and other particulars writ
ten on slip OF paper which some one in the
audience had inserted through slit in the cab
met. 1t made the countrymen get right down
on their knees and groan when they saw those
blank slips come out, with names and dates of
which the medium was thought to be abso-
iutely ignorant, written on them. Some times
they used even to recognize the handwriting
1t was simple enough. Part of the business
OF the advance agent was to visit the grave
yard in each town where he billed the COM
pany. From the tombstones he copied names,
dates OF death and other particulars, especially
OF recently deceased persons, or of persons
who seemed to have been of some prominence
In the community. He also went through files
OF the recent issues Of the local papers and
copied particulars from death notices and obit-
uary columns The mass of memoranda thus
gathered he enclosed in an envelope and left
at the hotel for Anna Eva when she came.
FROM these memoranda names and other mat
tiers were copied upon slips of paper exactly
IKE those the audience was to have; and the slips
thus written on were concealed upon the me-
dlum's person when she went into the cabinet
After that the substitution Of the written slips
for blank ones put in by the audience was
perfectly simple matter. OF course it goes
without saying that the tying in the cabi-
net was all a sham. That is so with all of
them. The staples to which the ropes are fas-
tened seem solid enough to any ordinary ex-
animation, but any one who knows the trick can
pull them out without trouble. As to the hands.
any one with slender hand can, with practice,
double it up 30 that it will slip out of any knot
that can be tied or out of the smallest size of
handouts.
THE TRICK OF MATER1ALIzINa FLOWERS
and making them float in the air before the
cabinet was another strong card for Miss Fay
We used to buy the flowers of some florist as far
away from the center Of the town as possible
They had very long stems, and she simply
stuck them through holes in the cabinet and
waved them about. In the dim light nobody
| could tell that they were not floating in the air
and the poor fools in the audience used to
snatch them up after the performance and carry
them away as sacred. Several bad breaks were
made on that trip, but she was never really
caught. Miss Fay is the cleverest woman I
ever knew at the business, and don't believe
she ever can be actually caught in one Of her
tricks. Even when things look pretty dark for
her she manages to slip out of the trap some
how. For one thing, she is q dreadfulfy sweet
most appealing look when it is necessary. and
few men can Withstand that. They drop the
subject and let her go on without giving the
FLOATING ON THE AIR.
"Miss Fay's latest mishap, and about the
only one that has ever amounted to much, was
last year, at Huddersfeld, England. Business
was getting dull, and she had to get up some
new attraction, 30 she advertised that she
would float in mid-air from the stage to the
gallery, distance OF IS feet. over the heads of
the audience. This brought out big house.
When all was ready the lights were turned
down and it was announced that the floating
was to begin. lot Of fellows had smuggled
long pole with hook on the end into the
hall during the day, and at given signal they
struck matches and one of them sawed the
pole about in the air over the heads of the au-
dience. Pretty soon the hook caught on
wire that ran from the stage to the gallery and
hauled down white silk bag inflated to look a
little like woman. Meantime two other men
who had concealed themselves in a staircase
leading from the stage to the gallery and not
open to the public had caught Miss Fay being
carried in the arms of her husband up to the
gallery to be able to appear there when the
lights were turned on. There was a big SEN
sation. Miss Fay went back to the stage and
explained that this preliminary act with the
silk bag was merely to test the faith of the au-
dience, as faith was absolutely essential to her
own safety in performing the feat. The au-
dience laughed at her, and the papers for the
next day or two were full of it. Nevertheless,
the very next night, in a town not 60 miles
from Huddersfeld, she had a big house. She
abandoned the floating in the air trick, how
ever, and has never attempted it SINCE There
isn't any such thing as spiritualism; it's hum
bug and fraud from beginning to end"
His Intelligent Dog Johnny.
From the Lewiston Journal
Inever allowed Johnny, that was my dogs