The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-12-12

street blew up with loud crash"
who's this pallid Dinah party" asked
the House Detective. IAN volts her pur-
ticularly lay?'
She's the Latin lady that came over
here to show US how inferior our home
grown spiritualistic manifestations were
to the genuine imported article" ex-
planned the Hotel Clerk
ut seems that back home where she
lives she's regarded as being the orig
inal Maggie J. Pippin of the spiritual
istic bunch. Leading scientists, or bugs,
used to come TO her house and hold hands
with her for hours at time, she being
widow. They'd feel the cool wind that
blew out of her right knee joint
and her left forhead-for no superior VEN
tilation. and they'd listen to messages
from her best friend in the spirit world,
who has gentleman named John. So
they brought her over here to do some
ground and lofty manifesting In New
York. I guess maybe they'd heard what
Harry Lauder was getting week on this
side.
But tho investment didn't pan out
very we'll, and the lady sort of fell
down on her intellectual face I guess the
climate didn't suit. Anyway, her draughts
all got stopped up on her and as for
John, he just quit cold. A selected group
of true believers have been Willing away
the long evenings of the early winter
sitting around a table with the madame
and roofing for John until they had
cramps In their legs. oh, you John,'
they'd say, come on, you john They
couldn't have been any more fervent II
it'd been craps game with everybody
Logging to make the same point on the
dice. But If John was in the cabinet he
stayed there. When it came to sitting
tight in a cabinet and not making a sound
our own Talna Jim Wilson had nothing
on poor John.
Once In great while John did unbend
sufficiently to move the table for few
feet. But there was nothing really SEN
sational about It. Any furniture mover
could have moved 1t twice as far In half
the time with one hand tied behind his
back. 1t was great disappointment to
Professor Hysloppy and Professor Mon
sterbugg and the other eminent profs
that took an interest. But personally I'm
glad it turned out that way and l hops
the next person that tries to smuggle q
cheap foreign spook past the custom
house gets run in by one of Mr.. Willie
Loeb's eagle-eyed boys. That bunch of
zealous-minded lads would hold up the
Twelve Apostles and frisk them for dut-
liable articles and l don't see why they
should show any more consideration for
a spook than they do for a perfect lady
from Dayton, Ohio. with her pompadour
full of point lace and diamonds.
Our own native born American spooks
such as Little Bright Eyes in Brooklyn
and other infant industry spooks, ought
to have protection, 1t seems to me, from
the foreign pauper labor spooks of Eu-
rope AS to wooden fabrics and the like.
I'm one of the reddest-hottest little free
trader you ever saw but when 1t comes
to spooks from Italy and elsewhere I'm
a protectionist from away up at the
head waters of Nelse Aldrich Creek.
There's hardly season of the year when
l don't need clothes of some sort for
outdoor wear but as for spooks, I can
take them or I can leave them alone;
and I generally do. Protection for home
spook Enthusiastically my motto, even
If am a democrat, and don't care who
knows it,"
your pear to be takin' a big inter-
est in such things all of sudden"
said the House Detective suspiciously.
Amt been turnin' spiritualist yourself,
have your"
mot as yet" said the Hotel Clerk.
mot so as to be visible to the bare
or Mary Garden eye. But I've a
friend who's that wrapped up In spir-
its till he'd come might near bein' SO
per cent denatured alcohol If he was a
patent medicine. He's one of those
uIn md
and leans toward the occult. Twas he
who led me into the charmed circle and
let me get Whit of the inner myster-
les.
"TIis name is Iycurgus n. McWhorters,
this friend of mine, and he looks like
the kind of man who would have that
kind of a name I had an evening off
here the other night and I thought I'd
drop into one of the boxing clubs up
town and see couple of likely lads
change each others outlook upon life.
But nothing would do McWhorters but
that should go with him over to Brook
Into Fair Brooklyn, which has Brazil
beaten eight ways for the Jack as
place where the nuts come from-and at
tend a regular, really truly seance. So
I went.
I'VE crossed the bridge into foreign
parts and took one of those ten-rninute
lasts less than three-Quarters of an hour.
We got OF at a. street where you'd mag
inc an undertaken would like to live.
and eventually we reached one of those
places that had d close call once from
being q Brooklyn boarding house and
never entirely recovered from the shock.
1 knew what we were striking as soon
as we entered the front door and were
warmly greeted by a combination odor
of wet umbrella, kerosene lamp. Old Red
Sandstone boiled cabbage, and bulk iodo-
form. We were ushered into a front par
1or full of crippled furniture that smelled
like the back room of taxidermist store
There were few sad-faced yet earnest
seekers after truth there that looked as
If they'd lost lot of relatives and were
expecting to lose lot more almost any
minute: and cabinet in one corner and
a lot of tamborines and bells and tin fish
horns and other instruments used in
spook orchestra scattered around. There
was also party at the door who looked
like a husband emeritus and who col
lected one bone for each person present.
Then the medium came In She was o.
stout lady with a cute, curly little
mustache and about one inch of bust
measurement, would imagine, for each
year of her life, which would make
her at least 4s as to age. I could tell
even at the distance I sat from her that
she had leaning toward vegetables of
the leek family eaten just as they are.
But McWhorters whispered to me in an
awed sort of way that she was a great
medium.
$50 they turned down the gas and
everybody said .sh!' and 7 felt that just
before-the- battle-M Mother feeling stealing
over me, and it was go still that you