Year: 1874

those of our cOtenp0rarlcS VINO nave cStaD-
lished connection with outlying ghOstly quar-
ters: THE TRIBUNE only undertakes to deliver
news from tracts accessible to railway trains,
telegraphs, or at least, not to put too coarse
q point on it, balloons. 1t is encouraging to
reflect, however, that by the clumsy ghost
stories which serve for padding in many OF
the papers just now, in default of more en-
ioyable murder or divorce case, wholesome
superstition is being wakened in the American
mind. A ghost may not bo the most healthy
or clean occupant of cranky brain, but 1t Is
better than the lifelong greenback, and in
any case is not likely to stay long. The
sanest man has some cObwebbed su-
perstition hidden in an out of the
way corner of his beliefs, and it is
lust as well it should be taken out and aired
now and then, if but to test what substance
there is in it. That a spiritual manifestation
of any sort should find plenty of believers
does not argue one point toward its truth;
the universal longing is 30 strong to catch
glimpse of the darkness beyond that last
frozen sea- that We welcome the poorest stick
or spar that seems to float back to us
thence. Especially is this eagerness and ere
dulity exaggerated where the friction and
noise of city life do not remove our dead from
us to illimtable distances. They lie sleeping
in the shady church-yard, or in quiet cor
ncr of the farm, where we pass them two or
three times day; they are not surely so far
away. 1t does not seem unnatural that scme-
where they should find break in the wall,
and return, though but for n moment. 1t is
no wonder that raps and materialized
spirits find hosts of believers who never
saw or heard either of them. BY the time the
report of them penetrates to a farm kitchen or
village sewing circle, they seem to occupy
much bigger space than the Presidents Mes
sage or the matters therein. When we con-
slider the ghosts that will be routed out OF
their sleep to meet them around wood fires In
New-Englan1 or enormous CRATES OF bituml-
nous coal in the West when we think OF the
histories of remarkable dreams and presenti-
mcnts told by the young fellows with power
full gustO and feeble attempt ut scientific
explanation afterward, and the "queer things"
dragged slowly by the old man from his fOggy
memory, and his delighted cackle as he finds
everybody listening (the boys, who usually
vote gran'ther q bore, the gravest of all)-
when we consider all this mystery, and fear
and wonder thrown like a sudden fine back
ground of shadow up behind our daily life,
we protest we are ready to declare that Amer
leans owe debt to the materializcd spirits"
for this bone gathering, holiday month at
least.


But when we turn from their audience to
the spirits themselves, that is a more practl-
cal. and at first sight assuredy much moro
ludicrous matter. We have no intention of
embroiling ourselves in the affairs of alien
peoples, and consequently have nothing to
say as TO the morality or good sense of the
procedure adopted by the newcomers. who
profess to be the pioneers OF leglons about to
visit us in Ga sort OD flesh from the spirit
world. Certainly their mode of opening COM
munication is not what we have right to
expect. DevOut believers in spiritualism, we
understand, stand off doubtfully as yet. They
maintain, what any rational man comedies,
that the old spirituallsm is either what it
nrofesses to be, or q blind cropping in scen-
tific mysteries, which scientific men ought to
examine and explain. But this "materializa-
"tionn must be either spirits assuming visible
shane. or a skiful trick of clever knaves.
There is no halfway ground. Ii it be the
dead, who have at last returned after
the vain buHnOHS VI OLA lhouS"uu
wears. we must acknowledge the glamour
il pretty we'll swept off of death, for us.
For six thousand years the world has stretched
ont it's hands to the wise and good and loved
who have gone into the silence to come back,
TO send us tidngs. They know how great
our need has been. And now that the gulf
is bridged comes no prophet of them all to
help humanity. No mother to her child, no
wife to her husband, but Katie King" who
eats oranges and calls us "stoOpid," and
"Rosey, an Indian GIRL" who gathers mosquito
netting out of the air and kicks her legs about
like a Dutch ballet girl, and "Ann," Dublin
washerwoman. The requisites for the renewal
of their earthly life by the disembodied souls
are equally remarkable. The potent agencies
of Nature are not called upon to aid them,
although we are told they are "enabled to
appear by control of natural forces.o The
only natural forces needed are q very dark
room q wooden box with a medium inside, a
window in the background and the audi
ence in front of it, solemn obliga-
ton, or better still rope, fOrbidding
she audience to investigate too closely. Why
should they investigate closelyf The ring of
speculative gentlemen and nervous ladies who
encircle the box with clasped hands, singing
in the dark, very seldom have any more
profitable occupation elsewhere, and their
evenings entertainment costs less than the
theater, and suits their taste and intellect bet
ter. 1t would be rough treatment to take the
bread out Of tho ghosts mouths aQw. lust at