Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-12-01

n difference does it make so long as you
are not afraid of Spooks? Indeed, as
a matter of honest-to-goodneSs fact,
but few persons outside of lot of nervous ones
ever saw a spook anyway.
Upon one OCCASION many years ago, the
writer thought he would like to just what
a real spirit looked like, and so, through Curl
OSity more than anything else one night with
a party he ventured down to the seance par
lors of certain advertised medium of this
city who then was reputed to be upon the best
terms with the inhabitants of the next world
who, by the way of mutual admiration, were
said to be on good terms with this particular
medium. It was said he could, at so much per-
trot out the spirits for the qualification of ALL
and Of course our party, which included my
wife by the way, were all willing to put up the
per-" for the slight qualification of just one
look at George Washington, Abraham Lincoln
or Robert e. Lee.
The mediums Office was somewhere in the
heart OF the downtown section of the city and
after We arrived there and paid the price of
admission, the show ready to start.
The seance took place in just oldtime,
dinary-Sized parlor ROOM in one corner of
which a curtain was hung, back of which the
medium was to sit. Across another corner a
larger curtain was hung, back of which GER
tain class of musical spirits-members, per-
hapS, Gabriels Army Band - were nightly
expected to come to play the banjo, ring bells,
and raise the devil in general, sometimes even
having the audacity to venture beyond the cur
tain and to commune and mingle with the au-
dience. =.
T IPON this particular occasion, the spooks
were not near so accommodating as Ham
let's father. and indeed for a while became
balky and positively refused to do anything,
until finally the medium called for some one
in the audience to come into the screened-off
corner with her, in order to assist in coaxing
the backward souls of departed dignitarieS or
friends out into the open. OF course the room
was pitch dark, and each one seemed willing
that the other fellow should be the one to an
swer the call and go into the cabinet.
The writer's brother-in-law a Down East
Yankee, was sitting Immediately in his rear.
His experience had led him as a sailor to travel
the high seas and to visit nearly every large
port in the world. But this was one occa-
sion when they, so to speak, had his goat, and
instead of bravely taking his place in the
cabinet with the medium, as one might nat
urally have expected him to do, he proceeded
to nudge the writer in the ribs, naturally indi-
eating that "She means you"
But the writer was situated differently in
that he did not have another member of the
male sex near enough to nudge in the ribs; in
deed, he was situated somewhat like the Gal
liant Six Hundred" in that he had women to
the right Of him, women to the left of him
and women in front Of him, and it would have
been ungallant for him to pass the nudge on
Whereas he confesSes that he experienced a
very gruesome feeling, yet there was nothing
else for him to do but to go into the cabinet.
Even then the ghosts refused to walk and the
most they did was behind the larger curtain
entirely out Of harms way The regretful ex-
cuSe was given us, on our departure that the
conditions" were not Just right that evening
for naturalization, though probably the real
reason was that there were too many strange
men present
Not long after this as the writer recalls
some Georgetown College students attended a