The Spiritualist newspaper > No.413, July 23rd 1880

THE SPIKITUALIST.
Jttly 23, 1880
46
and I shall rejoice to come to you again. I am
glad the mediums will stop with you a little
longer. While the earthly-minded keep aloof,
and while you meet in the same spirit of love
and sympathy as to-night, I will come to you
again. I loye you all. Good night! Good night!
God bless you ! ”
Scarcely had the spirit ceased speaking when
I was asked to write down the address. I said,
it would be difficult to remember. It lasted a
good half-hour, and remarkable was the change
observed in Mr. Herne’s features when, after a
few slight convulsions and tremblings of arms
and hands, he recovered consciousness and
opened his eyes.
It was noteworthy that we had not met that
evening for any manifestations at all. It was
a social gathering of friends in no way prepared
for a seande. So much the greater was our
surprise and delight to be favored with such a
spiritual communication
Hamburg, Germany.
+
A CASE OF APPARENT INJUSTICE.
The Times of last Tuesday contains the fol¬
lowing paragraph, under the appropriate title
of u Alleged Fortune-Telling —
“At the Leicester Borough Police-court,
yesterday, an extraordinary case of fortune¬
telling came on for hearing. A woman named
Eliza Kenney was charge with unlawfully pre¬
tending to tell fortunes. Mr. J. B. Fowler
defended. It appeared from the evidence of
two young women, named Brown andStreetham,
that they visited the house of the defendant in
Leicester, and asked her whether she would
tell them their fortunes. She told them to call
again, and they did so, when the defendant
said, 5.1 suppose you want to know about your
future husbands.’ After some preliminaries,
she pretended to fall into a mesmeric sleep. A
number of questions were then asked about a
soldier in India, whom the defendant char¬
acterised as deceitful. Other questions, chiefly
relating to the probabilities of the marriage of
one of the young women, were put to the
defendant, and were answered by her. After
the fortunes of both witnesses had been told,
the defendant made a charge of 3s. 6d. each,
which was paid. It, however, turned out that
the questions which were put to the defendant
were of purely imaginary things, and that the
girls had been instructed to visit Kenney by
the police. For the defence, Mr. Fowler stated
that the woman had been servant to two doctors,
who had found that she was possessed of second-
sight. He submitted that the prosecution had
\\ failed, because the defendant never pretended
?j to tell fortunes, but only to answer questions
)|- while in a trance, and that to support the
s| charge it was necessary to prove that she had
|| defrauded or deluded the witnesses, which
?j clearly she had not done. The Bench fined
;{ the woman 40s. and costs, with the alternative
Sj of one month’s imprisonment.”
How it is a fact, as clearly established as
11 the presence of the sun at noon-day, that
11 individuals do commonly enough pass into
sj trances, and hold rational conversations not
| known to them in their normal consciousness,
?| or remembered only as a vague dream. It is
)j also true that in that state, they commonly
I! enough give precise details, with accurate
|i proper names and dates, relating to the past
i career of persons present whom they had never
>| previously heard of in their lives. The late
sj J. W. Edmonds, Judge of the Supreme Court,
| Hew York, testified in a pamphlet how his
11 daughter while in such a trance condition,
would hold a sustained conversation in Greek
11 with natives of Greece. In her normal state
(j she did not understand the language. Further-
>| more, the question has been raised whether
Sj persons who in the presence of such sensitives,
<j tell untruths either because of natural perver-
?! sity, or as common informers, or because paid
n to say what is not true by Her Majesty’s
>j Government (to the improvement by example
; of the morals of the people), bring lying spirits
|j about the medium, so that said common in-
>| formers, and said government, are all swimming
Sj in the same boat.
In this particular case the solicitor stated
jj that two doctors testified that the alleged
> sensitive is a sensitive, in so far that she
Tj possesses the faculty of second-sight, as certified
I j by two doctors, who do not, however, appear to
? j have given their testimony in court, so far as can
>| be ascertained from the report. We should be
Sj glad to print the second-sight facts they have
sj observed. Meanwhile, the scientific problem
? j at the root of the matter has been relegated to
>| policemen, paid women, and police magistrates,
S who, if they be government authorities on
s scientific problems, ought at once to leave
?j Leicester, in order to sit in judgment on the
>| Boyal Society, and to take charge of the Royal
sj Observatory, as well as the Meteorological
( \ Department of the Board of Trade.
This continuous relegation of psychological
m problems to incompetent authorities on scien-
m tific matters, is bringing the law and the
K government into contempt among the vast
j? numbers of people who understand the ques-