The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-09-27
HE JARRED MoNARcHs.
And Thrilled Poorhouses-He Made Two Fortunes and Hadn't a Penny When He Died,

And Thrilled Poorhouses-He Made Two Fortunes and Hadn't Penny When He Died,
 The death of Henry Shade, the once famous state writing medium which occurred last Friday in a Michigan santorium removed from the ranks of spiritualism the most noteworthy figure that ever summoned to the under world.' the wraths of those who had passed into the Great Be- yond
 Shade had exhibited his wondrous powers before the crowned heads of Europe and the paupers of Ameri- can almshouses, in the institutions of which he was at different times an inmate-for diversity came to him twice, after he had made two fortunes and had been reputed to be a million aire. Many persons of eminence had indorsed him as having genuine me- diumistic powers, among them being Henry Ward Beecher. In England he was the subject of a sensational. ex- pose, and when his fraud was laid bare it nearly cost him a term In jail. The doctor" ranked higher than any other person who dabbed in the mys- ticisim of spiritualisrn, not even except ing the Fox sisters. He was, 1t Is said, the original of 'Mr. Sludge," in Brownlng's poem. ~..
 It is not claimed that Slade was the originator of the slate writing trick, but he certainly brought it to perfection and popularized 1t. In early life he was a farmer boy in Ni- agra County, New York. He came to New York City in the late sos and created furore. Mr. Beecher, who went to see him, was profoundly irn- pressed and admitted his belief in Shades possession of more than or dinary power. He made enormous sums of money and was a rich man when, in 1876, he wen to London, where he repeated his successes and had the metropolis in fever of ex- kcitement. Communities of savants had sittings with him and reported that they could not explain it. The cele- brated Dr. Carpenter said that he was shaken in his disbelief'' in spiritual ism. The London courst and police took notice after a time, exhibitions of fortune telling being against the law, in that city. Sergt. Cox asked Prof
 F. Ray Lankester to have a sitting with pr, Slade and report.
 On September Il, 1876, P0f. Lank- ester attended a seance. He caught Slade in the act of writing, under the table, 8 message on a slate, using a thimbled colored like his skin to the end of which a bit of slate pencil had been attached slade was arrested, convicted and got three months. in jail, the limit for that misdemeanor. On appeal he got off through defect in the wording of the commitment.
 The case attracted some attention in Europe. The Russian court wanted a medium, real or false, for its diver sion. They sent for slade. He ex- hibited before the Czar, and was a court sensation for St. Petersburg season. He dropped out of sight very suddenly, but bobbed up again in this country in the early sos, dead broke and showing in small towns. He went abroad again, and had a renewal of popularity in Berlin, where he ex- plotted ideas about the fourth dimerl- sion. He was even honored by a German treatise. "Transcendental Psychics, by Prof. Zoliner.
 For 10 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 first day after he landed and was treated in Roosevelt Hospital. The physicians noticed that his hands were calloused. as though he had been doing hard work.
 He went West and showed up at last in Detroit. There he lived, old
 broken and half insane, in one room, and made his living by giving tests" to servant girls at 10 cents sitting. Tn time he got too broken even for that and was sent to a sanatoriufr1, where he died. How he lost his great fortunes is unknown. for Shade never Eagle.