DECEIVING SPIRITS. How an American Lawyer was Fleeced.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 282, 18 July 1888, Page 6

DECEIVING SPIRITS. How an American Lawyer was Fleeced.

All the town (writes a New York corresponrlenb) has been discussing the sad case of a prominent lawyer, Mr Luther R. Marsh, who in his 75bh year has fallen a pecuniary victim to a gang of Spiritualist sharpers. He had been a believer in ' manifestations ' for many years, and was recently so much intere&ted in the results achieved by a certain woman named Miss Debar, that he installed her and her husband and family in his own house, and allowed her a princely income to devote her whole time to the business of enabling him to hold communion with the mighty dead. The woman's hufaband i& by profession an arbi&b, and her greatest successes in materialisation were in having 1 the spirits of Hembrant, Tibian, ilaffaclle, and others cover blank canva&es with instantaneously executed paintings. The modus operancli was to let Mr Marsh sit in a darkened room, holding the blank canvas above his bead, and after a time, as the disbelievers say, Mis Debar substituted one of her husband's daubs, and persuaded Mr Marsh that ib was a spirit picture. Quite a gallery of ' spook gems ' Avas thus accumulated, and Mr Marsh's infatuation at length reached the point of deeding his 75,000 dollar house to the Debars to be used as atcmple of the occult sciences. Then some legal friends iute"fered, the woman was arraigned on a charge of conspiracy to defraud, and the real estate was reconveyed to its lawful owner. Mr Marsh, however, still persists in believing in the reality of pictorial manifestations, and also in the authenticity of an epi&tle written to him by the Apostle Paul, which he read in extenso in open court. And what complicates the matter more is that he. is chairman of the commission appointed to condemn and pay for a quantity of land which is to be taken for some new parks. The Real Estate Exchange have formally petitioned for his removal, on the ground that his delusions manifestly prove him to be of unsound mind, and that no conlidence can be felt in any of his decision?. Nob improbably mobt of the people who are dissatisfied with the awards of the commission, will appeal to the Supreme Court on this very point, and the curious question will then come up ot how far a belief in spiritualism may go before it becomes open and unmistakable insanity. Of course, the mediums are pleased with the extensiveadvertising of their business by the newspapeis. for it is a curious fact that ex posurcs of this sort invariably breed a new crop of dupes.