SPIRITUALISM IN AMERICA.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 1981, 11 May 1875, Page 3

SPIRITUALISM IN AMERICA.

The New York Tribune publishes an account of the recent performances of a Mr Tippie, a spiritual medium in Kansas, who has for liis attendant a spirit said to be a member of "the King Tribe of People," which existed "in Asia 20,000 years ago." Father King, as the spirit is called, refuses to communicate save through " an ordinary dinner horn three . feet long." )He iis ?a fastidious ghost, and as he lived before the age of " voice building" (if not, indeed, before any age whatsoever), it is observed that many of his utterances are so deficient in elocutionary clearness as to be nothing more than inarticulatpigrunts and groans. Moreover, and as usual, Father demands that the room shall be darkened before he will breathe a syllable through the Delphic horn. For the rest,* the admission to the seance was fixed at 50 cents V X head. "And among the '.h.eadstthus £ >admitted to thp exhibition was the long S^oiit> NO f a certain Miss Jennie Lapsey. \§J}& seems to have acted with great fairness, for she went privately to Tippie, and asked him what would be the eftect if, during the visit of Father King, the robni'■ shouldVbe suddenly; illuminated. ■- "Good grabibus I" responded Tippie, !' It might kill me by severing the electrical current between myself arid Father King." This most needlessly frightened Miss Jennie, who did not want to murder even Tippie; but she was re-assured when he added, " I do not fear anything of the kind, because Father King would know if there were any person present prepared to make a trial of the kind', and therefore 'would not appear." So Jennie carried'&ufc her original plan; she procured a dark lantern; and next night, when Father King was uttering the most astonishing nonsense through the horn, the bull's-eye was turned on. Father King didn't "know," it seems. Down tumbled the horn to the floor: Over ; went Medium Tippie writhing with extemporaneous stomach-ache! The electrical current between himself and Father King had been severed, and the next day he left town, taking wilh him the magic horn. Of course the reader will see the ' main point of the denouement, which is the false prediction of Tippie, that" Father King "would refuse to be present if any person in the room should be armed with a dark lantern. In this case, one point is as good as a hundred. Jennie- with the bull's-eye was there, and Father King though 20,000 years old, and proportionately sharp, came and bellowed through the horn"all'the same. Tippie, besides the access of stomach-ache, is floored by hi»-own conditions. This settles the question. Father King came once too often. He will never come again, at least . to that particular part of Kansas.