A SPIRITUALIST EXPOSED.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XX, Issue 1429, 15 February 1888, Page 5

A SPIRITUALIST EXPOSED.

One of the most prominent materializing mediums iv Boston for a long time has been Mrs Hermans B. Fay, who has given public seances regularly in that city. On the afternoon of November 19, the Record sent a party of ten young men and two young women to one of her seances to test the genuineness of her spiritualistic manifestations. The visitor found fifteen others present, most of them men. Daylight was shut out of the room where the seance was given by J heavy draperies. In one corner was the cabinet, and opposite it were about thirty chairs for visitors, arranged in a semi-circle. A pale, dreamy-looking woman played on a cabinet organ. Mrs Eay is of medium height, and is a strong, athletic-appearing woman. After announcing her rules and collecting a dollar a-head from each person present the seance was begun. A figure in white emerged from the cabinet at three different times and beckoned to persons in the room to come into the j cabinet, where they were greeted by alleged spirits of dead relatives or friends. The figure appeared a fourth time, and, evidently being convinced that it had a sympathetic audience, ventured far down the room. It appeared as a gipsy girl with long hair flowing down her back. Advancing boldly, it paused in front of the myestigators, and confidingly stretched forth both hands. Like a flash one man clinched them in a strong grasp, and ejaculated { Now.' Instantly a man ignited a bunoh of matches, and the chandelier was a blaze of light. Other ready hands stripped the curtains, and the sun's rays flooded the room. In the centre of the room, directly under the blaze of the chandelier, struggling, fighting, biting, and scratching like a tigress in the grip of four young men, who bad all they could do to hold her, was Mrs Herman Fay. She had said that the form would not be bers, but she got there just the same. Her flowing hair, ,a switch about 2ft long, had been torn from her head in the melee, as also was her ' spirit robe ' a piece of cheap cotton gauze about four yards long and two and a half yards wide. Captain Dixon, the master of ceremonies, who attempted to rescue Mrs Pay, was grabbed around the neck by another athletic young man. He struggled vigorously, and shouted ' D you, let me go,' but he was held in a firm clasp A pair of shoes found in the cabinet were composed of three pieces of cork, nailed together, one on top of the other, and having a strap to fasten them to Mrs Fay's feet. When she represented tall figures she put theae on her feet, Loud i demands for their money were made by the unbelievers, and Captain Dixon was compelled to pay a dollar to all who demanded it. The exposure was complete.

The immigration scheme is not totally suspended. Although the superior attraction of Yankee novelties over the Atlantic pre cents New Zealand from receiving fresh accessions of British paupers at present, we are getting the benefit of another class of new chums. Three hundred stoats and weazels have been dispatched per R.M.S. Aorangi for Lyttelton.

Magistrate (sternly to tramp) : " The address you give as your place of residence is a vacant lot." Tramp : " Yes, yer honour, that's where I slaepa o' nights."