SPIRITUALISM EXPOSED.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1664, 20 June 1879, Page 3

SPIRITUALISM EXPOSED.

Professor S. S, and Mrs Clara Baldwin gave one of their astonishing r performances, or rather revelations, on Wednesday night, at the Town Hall, Ashburton. The weather was adverse, and the roads and streets covered with thick mud, but nevertheless a large and eager audience assembled. The professor, on the rising of the curtain, addressed his hearers, thanking them for the compliment they paid him by coming on such a night, and insisting on the necessity of quiet and order to make the performance a success. A fluent speaker, with the real racy transatlantic twang, a strong sense of humor, and the power of imparting it, and a good voice, the professor soon had his hearers under his control, and from test to test, and seancs to seance, they watched and listened breathlessly for more than three hours, and when it was over many were indeed astonished to find on referring to their watches how he and his clover wife had made time fly. Of course, as is usual, a committee was selected to eit on the stage, Messrs Guinness, Gh D. Branson, Dunn, and Sergt. Felton, being those chosen, and the audience must have been much pleased with the minuto attention given by them, and their close examination of the apparatus. The first tests wero purely chemical—the production of spiritual lightning—illustrated with a most amusing anecdote of how the Professor detected the imposture, and the feat of changing the color and taste of water from a simple jug. Next came the "seance infernale" a la Davenport, performed in the light with great dexterity. The handcuff test and others followed, all performed with marvellous address. The second part of the programme was however that which excited most attention. Madame Clara Baldwin wa3 apparently placed in a mesmeric sleep, and the audience generally were requested to write on pieces of paper any question they thought fit, and to place the same in their peckets without confiding in any one elso. They wero then to bond their whole attention to the wist to have the question answered. Madame Baldwin was then questioned by the Professor, and without a single failure answered at least twenty queries with marvellous correctness, giving tho answer first, '.and the question afterwards. There could have been no collusion, as the Professor never once left tho platform ; the questioners were abovo suspicion, and the paper used was in most instances a scrap taken from the pocket of the querist, and never seen or handled by the Professor or any of the assistants. Indeed in threo cases the queries wore purely mental ones, raised by persons who had no material on which to inscribe them, and who simply bent their attontion to the desire of being answered. The answers were given with wonderful effect, the audience being more and more astonished as person after person rose and testified to the correctness of tho questions. Tho distance of tho earth from the sun, tho time of marriage, the whereabouts of the individual at a certaiu future date, the querist's success in life, the number of people in the hall (answer correctly given), the time of death, the whereabouts of the Kellys, and many other inquiries, were answered fluently, and, what is more, the questions were distinctly stated, in most cases word for word. For fully an hour the close attention of the audience was held, and when at last the Professor announced that the Katie King Mystery would be given to conclude tho performance, there were few who did not wish for a yet further exhibition of Madame Clara's power. The Katie King Mystery consists in Madame Baldwin being tied round the neck tightly with a rope, the ends of which are passed through two holes in the cabinet in which the lady is seated, and knotted securely outside. The lights are then darkened, different faces, evidently disguise?, appear at tho cabinet windows, and eventually a figure clad in white, supposed to bo an apparition of the beautiful Katie King, issues from the cabinet, and on returning the doors aro flung open, and Madame Baldwin is discovered Beated, securely fastened as before. A light is placed outside the cabinet, to show that the ends of the rope fastened outside were never interfered with. Last night another performance was given, at which the tests were as startling and the explanations as remarkable as on the previous evening. The company appear in Christchurch tomorrow night.