ot only said he had done
all their tricks without spiritual aid, but he moreover explained
exactly how he caught the Davenports in their impositions. He and a
long-legged friend went to one of the "dark seances" of the Davenports,
during which musical instruments were to fly about over the heads of the
audience, bang their pates, thrum, twang, etc. Addison and his friend
took a front seat; as soon as the lights were put out they put out their
legs too; stretching as far as possible; and, to use the unfeeling
language of Mr. Addison, they "soon had the satisfaction of feeling some
one falling over them." They then caught hold of an arm, from which a
guitar was forthwith let drop on the floor. In order to be certain who
the guitar-carrier was, they waited until the next time the lights were
put out, took each a mouthful of dry flour, and blew it out right among
the "manifestations." When the lamps were lighted, lo and behold! there
was Fay, the agent and manager of the Davenports, with his back all
powdered with flour. Addison showed this to an acquaintance, who said,
"Yes, he saw the flour; but he could not understand what made Addison
and his friend laugh so excessively at it."

The spiritualist newspapers don't think Addison is so great a medium as
they did!

Great accounts have recently come eastward from Chicago, of a certain
Doctor Newton, who is said to be working miracles by the hundred in the
way of healing diseases. This man operates with exactly the weapons all
the miracle-workers, quacks, and impostors, ancient and modern use. All
of them have appealed to the imaginations of their patients, and no
person acquainted with mental philosophy is ignorant that many a sick
man has been cured either by medicine and imagination together, or by
imagination alone. Therefore, even if this Newton should really be the
cause of the recovery of some persons from their ailments, it would be
no more a miracle than if Dr. Mott should do it; nor would Newton be any
the less a quack and a humbug.

Newton has operated at the East already. He had a career at New Haven
and Hartford, and in other places, before he steered westward in the
wake of the "Star of Empire." What he does is simply to ask what is the
matter, and where it hurts. Then he sticks his thumb into the seat of
the difficulty, or he pokes or strokes or pats it, as the case may be.
Then he says, "There--you're cured! God bless you!--Take yourself off!"

Chicago must