be a credulous place, for we are informed of immense crowds
besieging this man, and undergoing his manipulations. One of the Chicago
papers, having little faith and a good deal of fun--which in such cases
is much better--published some burlesque stories and certificates about
"Doctor" Newton, some of them humorous enough. There is a certificate
from a woman with fourteen children, all having the measles at once. She
says that no sooner had Doctor Newton received one lock of hair of one
of them, than the measles left them all, and she now has said measles
corked up in a bottle! Another case was that of a merchant who had lost
his strength, but went and was stroked by Newton, and the very next day
was able to lift a note in bank, which had before been altogether too
heavy for him. There was also an old lady, whose story I fear was
imitated from Hood's funny conceit of the deaf woman who bought an
ear-trumpet, which was so effective that

----"The very next day
She heard from her husband in Botany Bay!"

The Chicago old lady in like manner, after having had Doctor Newton's
thumbs "jobbed" into her ears, certifies that she heard next morning
from her son in California.

One would think that this ridicule would put the learned Dr. Newton to
flight; but it will not until he is through with the fools.

I have already given an account of some of the messages from the other
world in the "Banner of Light," in which some of the spirits explain
that they have turned into women since they died. This is by no means
the first remarkable trick that the spirits have performed upon the
human organization. Here is what they did at High Rock, in
Massachusetts, a number of years ago. It beats Joanna Southcott in funny
absurdity, if not in blasphemy.

At High Rock, in the year 1854 or thereabouts, certain spiritualist
people were building some mysterious machinery. While this was in
process of erection, a female medium, of considerable eminence in those
parts, was informed by certain spirits, with great solemnity and pomp,
that "she would become the Mary of a new dispensation;" that is, she was
going to be a mother. Well, this was all proper, no doubt, and the lady
herself--so say the spiritualist accounts--had for some time experienced
indications that she was pregnant. These indications continued, and
became increasingly obvious, and also, it was observed, a little queer
in some particulars.

After a while, on