The sun., 1905-09-11
sIl7EWRITINGSLADE' 'SDEATH
.,,oDI,S FIGURE or THE UNDER
uORLD mas PASSED OUT.

.... U,aud EXPOSED In England ana lie
rarely Escaped Jaii-Many Persons
r.Lcn In-He Accumulat cd and Lost
rortunes and Finally Died In Poverty.
y,,or .Dr" Henry Slade, slate writing
.d,,m died last Friday In q Michigan
..r.torium there passed one OF the most
'...,o,,s figures In the under world. He
~ heen n rich man at least twice and a
D.u,.r twice. He had exhibited his "pow-
N monarchs and to paupers In aims
,o,.e. In which be lived during his times Of
S..raty. He had been indorsed as
ling genuine powers by people as emf
-, sa Henry Ward Beecher and he was
~. y. .tar performer In a sensational expose
- .nirituaism In England-an exposf
~,,ch nearly cost him q three months
,..,n .s in Jail. Excepting the Fox sisters,
No medium was ever 80 famous. 1t is said
M.t he was the original Of Mr.. Sludge
N Browning's poem.
Glade while perhaps not the originator
=, the slate writing trick. brought 1t to
..1ection and made it popular. So well
-. he known In connection with this
l.r,ce that the agents for the goods used
y, .n,lrious mediums still advertise their
h..t slate writing apparatus as -the ex-
.,miye device OF the great Slade.' He
~ another tradition to the profession Of
;.ts mediumship. These people usually
,s. highfalutin' language, mixed with
wat deal Of bad grammar. In this they are
s,loxing Slade, who was a man OF def
cisnt early education, but had picked up
. rsat deal OF mystic and pseudoscientific
tak.
"A told in THE Sun yesterday, Slade
..s1ed as farmer boy in Niagara County.
IA WAS scarcely in his teens when
\. bepsn to astonish the other boys by
table tipping. slate writing and the like.
n vas in New York in the late sos
snd early '7os. His slate writing created
. h,ror Henry Ward Beecher saw him,
,nd admitted that the thing was past him.
N,ny believing spiritualists, who admit
~ Slade was proved a fraud later, think
tba. be had real occult powers in his early
d.v, but that his control" was uncertain
.nd that he resorted to fraud in order to
mike results certainty.
addtualism was having big run just
IN, 6lade's earnings were large. He
m already q rich man when, in 1875, he
vspt To England and was a nine days
vooder. Committees OF savants had sittings
vth him and reported that they could not
szplsin 1t. The celebrated DIR. Carpenter
IA that he was shaken in his disbelief in
uiisuslism. The London courts and police
toot notice after Q time, exhibitions Of
fortune telling being against the law in
thst city. Serjeant Cox asked Prof. Z.
Ray Lancaster to have sitting with DIR. ="
GAds and report.
On Sept. II. 1875, Prof. Lancaster attended
sssance. He got theory, and came back
four days later to prove it.
The seanoe took place in a well lighted
room. The medium and his "sitters' sat
On opposite sides Of table. Slade brought
cut . late. with pencils. and showed both
ddes to prove that it was blank Placing
piece Of pencil on the face Of the slate,
Sl,de pressed the face against the under
surface Of the table so closely that no hand,
10, even a finger, could be introduced
bsssen. There would be a slight scratch
hs no,se. and Slade would show the slate
With mesa ge on 1t.
Prof. Lancaster. who pretended absolute
hsNd ali throu Oh, noticed that there was
an interval between the showing OF the
clean slate and the placing OF the slate
under the table. During that interval
Slade eoughed as though he had bad C, Id
and did unexpected things to turn his
sittes attention to another part Of the
room. Also he thought he saw slight
motion in the muscles I the arm with which
Slade held his slate under the table.
On the second visit the professor and an
assistant caught and held Slade just as he
was placing the slate under the able. Al
they Found message all written out. slade
tried to shake something out Of his hand.
Ihsy caught it, and found that he wore
thimble cClored like his skin, with bit Of
slate pencil on the end. He had written
the message On his knee du ring his COY gh..
hg spell. II that failed, with his thimbled
finger be could scrawl of message while
boldins the slate under the table. This
brought the message on the wr ng side of
the slate, but he would detract attention
for moment while he Topped the slate
over.
siistie vas arrested, convicted and got
three months in jail. the limit for that mis-
a defect in the wording of the commit
ment.
The case attracted some attention in
Europe. The Russian court wanted
medium, real or false, for its diversion.
They sent for Slade. He exhibited before
". Petersburg season. He dropped out
ofsght very suddenly, but bobbed up again
10 this country in the early sos, dead
broke and showing in small towns. He
went abroad again, and had renewal of
popularity in Berlin, where he exploited
ideas about the fourth dimension, He
Wa even honored by heavy German
sreatise. "Transcendental Psychics, by
Tor ten years the world lost sight of him,
until in 1895 he appeared again on the
streets of New York, old, ragged. walking
On crutches. He had a paralytic stroke
The hrst day after he landed, and was
tnated in Roosevelt Hospital The physi--
cans noticed that his hands were calloused
u Enough he had been doing hard work.
He went West and showed up at last in
pcroit. There he lived, old. broken and
nAl insane, in one room, and made his
nnne BY giving tests" to servant girls at
Moents sitting, In time he got too broken
eenfor that and was sent to q sanatorium,
where he died
,Sade never had any confidants. He was
srways a man Of mystery. No one knows
nov ne lost or spent the fortune, estimated
900, which he dropped between his
~ OF popularity at the Russian court and
~ temperance in New York.
A0LTkE IN; STEERAGE EMPTY.