the North," and other conjurers in England,
gave the Davenports battle, but the "prestidigitators" did not reap many
laurels. Conjurers are no more likely to understand the tricks of the
mediums than any other person is. Before a trick can be exposed it must
be learned. Dr. Van Vleck, having learned "the ropes," is competent to
expose them; and he is doing it in many interesting public lectures and
illustrations.

If the Davenports were exhibiting simply as jugglers, I might admire
their dexterity, and have nothing to say against them; but when they
presumptuously pretend to deal in "things spiritual," I consider it my
duty, while treating of humbugs, to do this much at least in exposing
them.

CHAPTER X.

THE SPIRIT-RAPPING AND MEDIUM HUMBUGS.--THEIR ORIGIN.--HOW THE THING IS
DONE.--$500 REWARD.

The "spirit-rapping" humbug was started in Hydesville, New York, about
seventeen years ago, by several daughters of a Mr. Fox, living in that
place. These girls discovered that certain exercises of their anatomy
would produce mysterious sounds--mysterious to those who heard them,
simply because the means of their production were not apparent. Reports
of this wonder soon went abroad, and the Fox family were daily visited
by people from different sections of the country--all having a greed for
the marvelous. Not long after the strange sounds were first heard, some
one suggested that they were, perhaps, produced by spirits; and a
request was made for a certain number of raps, if that suggestion was
correct. The specified number were immediately heard. A plan was then
proposed by means of which communications might be received from "the
spirits." An investigator would repeat the alphabet, writing down
whatever letters were designated by the "raps." Sentences were thus
formed--the orthography, however, being decidedly bad.

What purported to be the spirit of a murdered peddler, gave an account
of his "taking off." He said that his body was buried beneath that very
house, in a corner of the cellar; that he had been killed by a former
occupant of the premises. A peddler really had disappeared, somewhat
mysteriously, from that part of the country some time before; and ready
credence was given the statements thus spelled out through the "raps."
Digging to the depth of eight feet in the cellar did not disclose any
"dead corpus," or even the remains of one. Soon after that, the missing
peddler reappeared in Hydesville, sti