SPIRITS AND TAMBOURINES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 212, 2 June 1919, Page 5

SPIRITS AND TAMBOURINES

We have never been able to understaud the connection between tambouriues and disembodied spirits; and we,may be quite sure that if any occupant of the spiritworld should ever visit the world of living men it will not announce its presence by ringing a bell, spinning tambourines, or pulling somebody'? coat oft' his back. Yet these are the antics; familiar enough, that have been exhibited at ft Cardiff seance where things happened which have greatly impressed Sir Arthur Coiiaa Doyle. Mr. Nevil Maskelyne lias just reproduced, avowedly as a conjuror,. tho tambourine, bell, anil coat "business''— for tho matter of that, indeed, practically everything that mediums have ever done Ims been reproduced on the stage of illusion, or has been unmasked as mors fraud. We express no opinion of our own upon tho good faith of those concerned at Cardiff—a more or less scientific committee has investigated these doings and has found that nothing happoned which oould not have been produced "without too clever trickery." _ However strongly we may all feel convinced that; there are powers of Nature as yet not understood, we may rest assured that the dead do not return to earth to perform acts of silly vulgarity and arc not desirous of being known by stupid nicknames—"Tho Guardian.'