g Story.-- The practical result
of Spiritualism.

Superintendent Bangs arrived at Terre Haute in good time, and found
himself in one of the greatest centres of Spiritualism in the world.

The very air seemed charged and surcharged with the permeating power.
People watching incoming trains had a listless, far-away look, as though
watching for the dim spirits which were constantly expected from the
other land, but which never came. The clamorous cabmen raised their
sing-song voices as if only expecting, though more than desiring, only
shadowy freight. The regular loiterers had long hair, cadaverous faces,
and large, lustrous eyes, and where females appeared, they were
generally in pinched faces, flowing hair, long pantaloons and short
gowns, as if ready for a grand Amazon-march upon the gullible public.

On the way to the hotel every other stairway held the sign of one or
more clairvoyants, mediums, or astrologists, and every manner of
business seemed to have the ghostly trail upon it. The pedestrians upon
the streets, the men at their counters, the workmen at their trades, the
women at their various employments, the common laborers at their most
menial toil, each and every, from the highest to the lowest, seemed to
have a weary, listless air, as if constant wrestling with communicating
spirits healthier and more robust than themselves, had left a chronic
exhaustion upon and with them.

At the hotel the register was thin and ghostly, the office was deserted
and dreary, the meals were served in a listless, dreamy way, as if the
guests were ghosts and the waiters not so good. In fact, the whole place
and everything in it was tinctured with the common craziness, and gave
the healthy, wide-awake stranger the impression of having suddenly come
upon a community of mild lunatics, who were quite happy in the
conviction that they were directing the affairs of both earth and
heaven, and establishing pleasant, intramural relations between their
chosen Hoosier City and the beautiful City beyond the River; all of
which would be very pleasant and profitable if anybody had ever come
back from the undiscovered country to give us its geographical outlines,
define its limits, or explain any profit that has accrued from becoming
a monomaniac on a subject that has no relation whatever to the common
needs and duties of life, and has never been known to give to the world
or its society a single healthful, helpful nature or intellect