Professor Fay and Mr E. D. Davies.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2622, 4 June 1877, Page 2

Professor Fay and Mr E. D. Davies.

Public expectation had been raised to such a pitch by the announcement for over a week of the appearance of the Davenport Brothers and their coadjutors, that some disappointment was felt when it became known that owing to the fiasco at the Auckland Theatre Royal on last Tuesday night -the company had been disrupted. However, the promised entertainment by Professor W. M. Fay and Mr Davies at the Academy of Music was sufficient to attract a large audience on Saturday night, when Mr Fay and Mr Davies succeeded in giving an entertainment which appeared to give great satisfaction. Mr Fay had brought with him the cabinet used by the Davenport Brothers, ; , ; and gave some of the cabinet " manifestations," which were of : a surprising ; character, but probably not nearly so effective as those given by the. Brothers, but Mr Fay mentioned that he had hot done any of the cabinet business for eighteen months previous, so that he could not guarantee that that portion of the programme would be as complete as it could be,made by the brothers. „Mr Davies mentioned at the opening that the names of several gentlemen had been submitted as a com* mittee to tie Mr Fay-—which were read! — and two of them, Messrs J. 'C. "Williams and J. Ley don, at once went dh to the stage, .the others whose names were read being absent. There werie some slight marks .of disapproval ". manifested by the audience at .the choice—possibly because Messrs Williams and Leydon displayed a pardonable anxiety to goon the stage, rather than from any suspicion that they were in collusion with Professor Fay. However, the demonstration was very feeble, and Messrs Leydon arid Willianas proceeded to tie Mr Fay in the cabinet. They fastened his hands behind him to the seat, with, as stated by Mr Williams, g torn fool's knot;' thjsn they lashed hia) legs to the seat, and finally tied both his feet down by knots round his ankles. Mr Williams vi as requested to fasten the; doors of the cabinet by drawing the bolts of the side panels inside. He had fixed one, and turned his back on Professor Fay to fasten the other, when a tambourine was suddenly put over his head, which species of "bonnetting" had the eft'ectof making "Joseph" beat a hasty retreat from the cabinet. The doors being "closed, bells began to ring, hands to appear at the opening in the centre panel of the cabinet; guitars were strummed in a "weird sort of way, and the tambourines were rattled.' The doors being opened, Mr Fay was found seated, and, as stated by the committee, as securely tied as before, I not a knot being disturbed. Again the doors were closed, and in a few seconds the noises recommenced, Mr Leydon averring that the hands which every now and then appeared at the opening, and which he managed to touch, were " real flesh and blood." Various other phases of the cabinet business were then gone through. Mr Fay released himself from the tying; then he tied himself up more securely than the committee had done. Subsequently a spoonful of flour was placed in each hand, but the cabinet doors were no sooner closed than the musical instruments were heard, and the noise inside the cabinet was as great as before. As a final test Mr Williams went inside' the cabinet and was lashed to the Professor, and his experience was that the musical instruments were "flying all about him,*' but the Professor moved not. The cabinet tricks seemed to put the au-

dience in good humour, and Mr E. D. Davies, who followed, after a short interval, with his ventriloquial entertainment, kept.the audience amused for nearly an hour. Besides the figures Tom and Joe, whose amusing dialogue abounded in harmless local allusions, Mr Pavies imitated six or seven other voices, including that of a little, girl saying her lesson. He made them sing in Lancashire and other dialects, and with rich Irish .brogue, and sustained the illusion in each case so completely that ho was frequently and warmly applauded, and most of those who had heard him before were prone to admit .that he had lost none of his cunning in the manipulation of voice and immobility of feature. The last part of the programme .was Mr Fay's " dark seance," which approaches more' nearly to the manifestations of professed spiritualists than anything we have seen before, although the Professor disclaims any wish to induce his ; audience to infer that he is assisted by ipirit agency, " Seated at a table Mr Fay ties himself, to all appearances most securely. The lights are then put out, and.the.instruments begin to play as in the cabinet. Lights being turned on the Professor is found tied, as before Then he waa sJubjeciedWmore crucial test. Seated in ; a' chair, as usual, the .knots being sealed, the impressions of his boots were marked on two pieces of paper, a, coin being lightly placed on each, foot. As soon as the lights were ! turned out the same results were obtained. Then the guitars — three of them—were rubbed over with a mixture of oil and phosphorus, which emitted a luminous appearance in the dark. The guitars began to give forth the samp weird sounds as soon a3 the lights were out; they rose • from the table, floated about the stage, and were finally pitched indifferent.directions; all the time the bells being rung, and other noises being made. A little more light on the subject showed Mr Fay unmoved-—his feet inside the pencil marks, the coins on his feet. Then he threw off his coat in a few seconds after the lights were put out, put on another one in a similarly short space of time, and finally,'with a cordon of gentlemen on the stage to prevent anyone from coming on to assist him, with his hands on one gentleman's arm, and a complete circle formed, the guitars moved about, rose from the table, played about, and above the heads of the persons on the stage, and generally behaved in a manner suggestive of diablerie. The whole manifestations were •of an • inexplicable character.- Seeing is believing, but if any one can build up a theory of " how its done " after seeing it done once, we should like to meet him. The entertainment will be repeated this evening, and we believe that those who are content to be mystified will see phenomena which will pazzle them long enough to account for, while the knowing ones will form and change their theories of the modus operandi as often as they see the manifestations. :. '. ,;• •