Medium at the side, her crinoline, as we have said, will conceal her own activity; if, on the other hand, it is produced by the foot of the Medium at the end, it will help to conceal the activity of her companion from a spectator placed, as was the writer, in fig. 1. Absurd as it seems to explain anything so obvious by diagrams, it is not so absurd as the fact that, they are sufficient to account for all the writer saw, as far as I have yet proceeded with his narrative. With respect to the mode in which questions were answered by the table, I can only refer the reader to the explanation in my former paper.[1]
After the customary rappings, as aforesaid, we are informed that at the request of the writer, the table replied that he might join the séance, and commenced a vigorous motion towards him. “The ladies were obliged to leave their chairs to keep up with it,” as they would be obliged to do if either of them had given it unobserved a push and both or either wished to keep up the impetus. The table would run easily upon a stretched carpet: and the necessity of following it would act somewhat in the way depicted in fig. 6, until the table was continuously pushed forward as far as the waistcoat of the spectator:
_-_Henry_Novra.png)
Fig. 6.
In due course the sofa-table intimated that its spiritual mission was fulfilled, and that the party must remove to “a small round table, which stood on a slender pillar, terminating in three claws.” The smaller table being more easily acted upon became positively riotous, the slightest inequality of pressure being sufficient to throw it off one of its three legs, and cause it to indulge in a variety of ridiculous antics. “It pitched about with a velocity which flung off our hands from side to side, as fast as we attempted to place them;” whence the reader may fairly infer that these attempts gave additional impulse to the eccentric movements of such a small piece of furniture. _-_Henry_Novra.png)
Fig. 7.In fact, a single performer might do much by more insidious impulses than those represented as communicated, in fig. 7, to an article so light as the table here described; in addition to which, what proof have we that the feet of the performers did not come into play when their hands ceased to act?
This table naturally ended by turning over on its side, and in this horizontal position glided slowly towards another table close to a large ottoman. A motion imparted to it, as if it slipped from their fingers, would easily give it the appearance of gliding some way of its own accord, over a tightly-stretched carpet. Any one expecting to see it move might exclaim it is moving alone, and it might move alone for some distance, as the writer witnessed, though not of its own impulse, as he seems to infer. But it would not be left long to this earlier impetus, if we take into account the significance of the following statement. “We had much trouble in following it, the apartment being crowded with furniture, and our difficulty was considerably increased by being obliged to keep up with it in a stooping attitude.” _-_Henry_Novra.png)
Fig. 8.We can imagine how such a succession of plunges after the table would naturally assist its efforts at locomotion. The Medium would have exceptional opportunities, and the uninitiated would involuntarily assist. “We were never able,” says the writer, “to reach it at any time together,” so that it probably received an independent push from each person who came up with it in succession; and the witness being conscious only of his own efforts, would be naturally astonished at the result of their joint activity.
- ↑ In addition to the means mentioned there, and the method peculiarly applicable to sofa-tables, by which the raps may have been produced, and probably were produced in this instance, I by no means exclude other agencies to which I know that Mediums have recourse. The manufacture of tables, in which by a combination of mechanism and galvanism such raps are produced, is easy: and they are more commonly than is supposed in the hands of private persons. Such tables can be moved freely about a room and shown to be totally disconnected from the floor, yet they can be set in action from an adjoining apartment, by means of an apparatus which I refrain from describing, as I know, from experience, that such knowledge is liable to abuse. I know a case in which such a table has been left behind by an out-going tenant (and hereafter I may, perhaps, indicate the house and the apartment), and I believe that the innocent landlady is quite unaware of the mysterious capacity of the treasure she possesses. I am certain that such a table was employed in a case which has recently been mentioned to me, in which raps were heard by a great number of persons in succession, the persons in question having been present in batches of five, and no person having been present in more than one of these. There was no professional Medium in the party, and the extreme improbability that each successive batch included some person equally adroit and equally disposed to keep up the deception is conclusive as to the alternative that this was a mechanical table. As I remarked, mechanical or electrical apparatus is more frequently resorted to than is commonly imagined, and is the peculiar resource of private exhibitors. It is, however, the object of all Mediums to vary their agencies as much as possible, in order to frustrate the tests which may be employed for their detection.
