EXTRAORDINARY SCENE NEAR BIRMINGHAM.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1036, 28 November 1882, Page 3

EXTRAORDINARY SCENE NEAR BIRMINGHAM.

During a recent controversy at Walsall relating to Spiritualism, it transpired that a Mrs Beddows' Birchills, who has, it is said, been conned ed more or less intimiitely with the locil meetings of spiritualists, and has been regarded as a medium, had given out that she was possessed by seven spirits, and that her familiars, or one of them, had revealed to her that she was to die on the night of the 19th February at eight o'clock, whilst she was sitting at an American organ in her house, and that her pet dog would die an hour later, and her cat an hour later still. This story, with some few variations, obtained wide currency, and the interest in the ridiculous aspect of the affair was heightened by the knowledge that the infatuated woman was making the last disposition of her effects, and giving directions for her ' laying out' and burial, when, according to one account, her attendants were to hear her singing as she was carried to the grave. On Sunday night, when the realisation of the prediction was to have taken place, an immense crowd numbering, probably, 5000 people at oie time, assembled in the neighborhood of the house of her husband, Mr Solomon Beddows, cabinetmaker, among them being many who had known the woman as formerly a regular attendant at the Mount Zion Primitive Methodist Chnpvl, find others who, from sympathy with tlie teachings of the spiritualists or general credulousuess, looked for the verification and prediction at the appointed hour. Five minutes before the lime, it is said, Mrs Beddows seated herself at the brgan ; and the

dirge which was to he licr dirge, and at eight she threw herself back and went, through some spasmodic movements, which ended, as she declared, in the Angel of Death being beaten off uigloriously—so ingloriously, it may be added, that he Imd not even the life of the dog or the cat as his spoil. This shook her faith in the revelations from spirit-land, and she declared that she would believe no more in them. Meanwhile the crowd waited outside, discussing in no measured terms the mischievous teachings which were held to have disturbed her mental balance, and the mental balance of others in the town, and it was not till near midnight that the street resumed its wonted quiet. A posse of police was on duty, under Superintendent Hamilton, and at one time there seemed a promise of some disorder, but this was promptly subdued.