Page:The humbugs of the world - An account of humbugs, delusions, impositions, quackeries, deceits and deceivers generally, in all ages (IA humbugsworld00barnrich).djvu/155

 gentleman applied the lampblack test to his assumed mediumship, whereupon he “came to grief.”

The following is copied from the “Portland Daily Press,” of March 21.

"“.—The ‘wonderful’ spiritual manifestations of the ‘boy-medium,’ Master Henry B. Allen, in charge of Doctor J. H. Randall, of Boston, were brought to a sad end last evening by the impertinent curiosity and wicked doings of some of the gentlemen present at the séance at Congress Hall.

“As usual, one of the company present was selected to sit at the side of the boy, and allowed his hand and arm to be held by both hands of the boy while the manifestations were going on. The boy seized hold of the gentleman’s wrist with his left hand, and his shoulder, or near it, with the right hand. The manifestations then began, and among them was one trick of pulling the gentleman’s hair.

“Immediately after this trick was performed, the hand of the boy was discovered to be very black—from lamp-black, of the best quality, with which the gentleman had dressed his head on purpose to detect whose was the ‘spirit-hand’ that pulled his hair. His shirt-sleeve, upon which the boy immediately replaced his hand after pulling his hair, was also black where the hand had been placed. The gentleman stated the facts to the company present, and the séance broke up. Dr. Randall refunded the fifty cents admission fee to those present.”"

The spiritualists of the city were somewhat staggered by this exposé, but soon rallied as one of their number announced a new discovery in spiritual science. Here it is, as stated by himself:

“Whatever the electrical or ‘spirit-hand’ touches, will inevitably be transferred to the hand of the medium