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A BIOGRAPHY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 
 
 WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE PHYSICAL 
 
 AND PSYCHICAL PHENOMENA WHICH HAVE OCCURRED IN THEIR 
 
 PRESENCE; IN AMERICA AND EUROPE. 
 
 BY 
 
 T. L. NICHOLS, M.D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'FORTY TEARS OF AMERICAN LIFE ETC. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 SAUNDEKS, OTLEY, AND CO. 
 
 GG BROOK STREET, W. 
 
 18 64. 
 
 [All rights reserved.'] 
 
3>* 
 
 « 
 
 LONDON 
 
 PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. 
 
 NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The Motive and Method of this Book — The Possible and 
 the Actual — Facts and Theories . . . Page 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. 
 
 Born where, when, and of whom — Family Characteristics 
 — Monitions and Prevision — Childhood — Startling Mani- 
 festations — Boyish Occupation .... 8 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE MANIFESTATIONS. 
 
 The Rochester Knockings — First Seance of the Davenport 
 Family — Great Excitement — The Pistol-flash and 
 Spectre — Sharpshooting in the Dark — Floating in the 
 Air — Analogies and Explanat'cns . . *, 13 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ASTOUNDING PHENOMENA. 
 
 Excitement and Persecution — Dance of Breakfast Dishes — 
 A gigantic Apparition — An invisible Scribe — An asto- 
 nished Furniture Dealer — A Self- writing Pencil. Page 23 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ORGANISATION OF REGULAR STANCES. 
 
 An Apology or Explanation — Marvellous Manifestations — 
 Tests applied— Boys floating in the Air — A striking 
 Test— March of the Family Crockery — Upheld by a 
 Spectre — A Balancing Feat — ' George Brown ' — A 
 Murdered Man's Story — A Boy carried off by a 
 Ghost . 31 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 'we fly by night.' 
 
 Hands and Voices — Advent of 'John King' — Required to 
 leave Buffalo — Refusal and the Consequences — A mys- 
 terious Night Trip of sixty Miles — Manifestations in 
 Mayville — Another Ghost and Murder . . 45 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 STRIKING TESTS AT BUFFALO. 
 
 Keeping to the Facts— S. B. Brittain's Experience — Visit of 
 Rev. B. F. Barrett— Statement of Stephen Albro and 
 Mrs. Taylor— Most surprising Wonders . . 55 
 
CONTENTS. V 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 TELE BKOTHEES DAVENPORT ON THEIE TRAVELS. 
 
 Beginning of the Binding Tests— Judge Paine's ingenious 
 Experiments — Thread and Sealing Wax — Sewed up in 
 Sacks — Invincible Incredulity — Tobacco Test at Cleve- 
 land — Betting and Sailors' Tests at Toledo — \ German 
 Philosopher at Ann Arbor — Tarred Hope and Waxed 
 Ends at Rochester — A Series of Trials . Page 69 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE CAMBRIDGE PROFESSORS. 
 
 ' Old Harvard ' — Scientific Incredulity — A University 
 Commission — The Fox Girls — The Brothers examined 
 — Plenty of Rope — Prof. Pierce in the Cabinet — Phos- 
 phorus — What came of it 83 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 AMONG THE DOWK-E ASTERS. 
 
 Lola Montes — A Row in a Garret — A Storm of Feathers 
 — A Scene at Portland — A Mad-house Test — Boxed up 
 at Bangor — A Discomfited Darling — Seeing is not always 
 Believing 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MORE WONDERS IN MAINE. 
 
 A Riot and a Fight — ' Capt. Henry Morgan the Buccaneer' 
 — Mr. Rand's Story — The Escritoire unlocked — Mrs. 
 Rand's Testimony 109 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER XII, 
 
 MORE PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITIES. 
 
 A Bravo in the Cabinet — Jugglers and Conjurors — Domestic 
 Manifestations — The necessary Conditions — Tables set 
 by Invisibles — They eat Food like Mortals — Remarkable 
 Testimony Page 121 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE IMPRISONMENT IN OSWEGO. 
 
 Mr. Rand and his Testimonies — Strong Tests at Oswego — 
 Prosecution and Imprisonment — An astonished Jailer 
 — The Prison Door unlocked without visible Hands — 
 Declaration and Affidavit 135 
 
 ; 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 TO THE MISSISSIPPI AND BACK TO THE ATLANTIC. 
 
 Fastening a Committee — Sewed in Sacks — Social Science 
 Congress in Michigan — Beating the Telegraph at 
 Chicago — Bombardment of Fort Sumter — Dark Lan- 
 thorns in the Dark Circle — A Fight with a Spectre — A 
 Confederate discovered — Washington — Baltimore — Riots 
 and Prosecutions 15G 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 AT THE NEW YORK COOPER INSTITUTE. 
 
 Immense Audiences — Report of the ' New York Herald ' — 
 Report of 'The World' — Another Scene from the 'Herald' 
 —A Sporting Circle — Mayor and Aldermen — A Seance 
 in Brooklyn — Testimony of Mr. Tice . . .173 
 
CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND. 
 
 Character of the English — Past and Present Beliefs — The 
 Mission of the Brothers Davenport — Their Confederates 
 — The first Seance in London — The Press in a Difficulty, 
 and how they got out of it— Report of the 'Morning 
 Post'— 'The Times'— ' The Herald' . . Page 205 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 ' STILL THE WONDER GREW.' 
 
 Private Seances — Report of 'Master of Arts' in 'Daily 
 Telegraph ' — ' The Morning Star ' — A London Minister, 
 — The ' Morning Post ' — Tests that ought to be satis- 
 factory 237 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 IMPORTANT SEANCE. 
 
 Nobility, Savans, and Men of Letters — Second Seance at 
 Mr. Boucicault's — An admirable Description — Needless 
 Disclaimers — The true philosophical Method . 258 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM. 
 
 The Press in opposition — Ugly Trash for Bedlam — Common 
 Conjuring — Fantastic Tricks and Farthing Candles — 
 Miserable Trifling — Grotesquely absurd and stupidly 
 meaningless — Reverend Dobbs — Tedious, dull and vulgar 
 — The Secret not worth knowing — Human Nature and 
 an awful Warning * . 275 
 
Vlll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A PERSONAL, STATEMENT. 
 
 What I think of the Brothers Davenport, and what I saw at 
 a Seance at the Hanover-square Rooms . Page 287 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 ' AND THE MAGICIANS DID SO WITH THEIR ENCHANTMENTS.' 
 
 The ' Professors ' Excited — Duty to Expose Imposture — 
 Professor Anderson — Mr. Tolmaque — Challenges 
 quibbled out of — The Magicians resort to Tricks — Rope- 
 tying in demand — A Ten Years' Contest — Testimony of 
 an Amateur 301 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF MR. FERGUSON. 
 
 Six Months with the Brothers Davenport — Seance in a 
 Railway Tunnel — Convincing Manifestations — Personal 
 Explanations 317 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 MORE FACTS AND EVIDENCE. 
 
 / 
 
 
 Mr. Coleman's Statement — He talks with ' John King,' 
 and sees Divers Marvels — Astounding Phenomena- — Mr. 
 Howitt's Testimony — Facts and Tests — Genius and 
 Science nonplussed 338 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 WHO AND WHY. 
 
 By whom are the Manifestations produced, and for what 
 purpose — Examination of Evidence — Conclusion . 350 
 
A BIOGRAPHY 
 
 THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The Motive and Method of this Booh — The Possible and the 
 Actual — Facts and Theories. 
 
 It is my purpose, in the following pages, to 
 give as clear, full, and truthful a narrative 
 of the lives of the two young Americans, 
 known to the world as the Brothers 
 Davenport, and of the remarkable physical 
 and psychical phenomena which have for 
 eleven years been witnessed, in their pre- 
 sence, by multitudes of people, as I am able 
 
 B 
 
2 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 to write. The account is substantially 
 taken from the lips of the two brothers, 
 especially from those of Mr. Ira E. 
 Davenport, the eldest brother, whose story 
 of the experience of his whole life has, in 
 my judgment, every mark of simple truth- 
 fulness. His account is confirmed by the 
 reports of American newspapers in sixteen 
 States which they have visited, by several 
 pamphlets and biographical sketches, and 
 by the testimony of various persons, both 
 Englishmen and Americans, who have been 
 witnesses of the extraordinary manifesta- 
 tions with which they have been accom- 
 panied and some of whose testimonies will 
 be found in the following pages. 
 
 In writing this narrative, I do little more 
 than to set down in order what has been 
 told me by those in whose veracity I place 
 entire confidence, and reduce to a moderate 
 compass the testimony of ' a cloud of wit- 
 nesses.' I wish to present the facts con- 
 
THE BROTHEKS DAVENPORT. 6 
 
 nected with these young men, separated, as 
 far as possible, from any theory held by 
 themselves or others in regard to them. 
 The reader will be left, as he must and 
 ought to be, to draw his own conclusions. 
 I have no interest to deceive any one, or to 
 distort or exaggerate a single fact in the 
 narrative. It will be admitted that these 
 facts are sufficiently wonderful without the 
 least exaggeration. From first to last they 
 seem, to those who have only observed the 
 ordinary occurrences of life, incredible. 
 The word is not strong enough. They are 
 what most people will consider impossible. 
 To a similar objection to an extraordinary 
 fact, some one has replied, ' I did not say it 
 was possible ; I only said it was true.' 
 
 It is not well, however, to be hasty 
 in asserting that anything is impossible. 
 Many things, once deemed impossible, are 
 now matters of daily observation. It is 
 not long since millions of people would 
 
 B 2 
 
4 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 have considered crossing the ocean by 
 steam, travelling eighty miles an hour on 
 a railway, and sending messages by elec- 
 tricity, physical impossibilities. The first 
 photographs were great marvels. Many 
 facts in geology, natural history, and 
 physiology, are marvellous and inexplicable, 
 or unexplained. It is not known how a 
 broken bone is repaired, or blood sent to a 
 limb deprived of the use of its large arteries. 
 We are all accustomed to many things 
 which, but for their being common, would 
 seem marvellous, and be thought impos- 
 sible. At the same time, I do not pretend 
 for a moment that the cases I have men- 
 tioned are parallel to this of the pheno- 
 mena produced in presence of the Brothers 
 Davenport. I wish to say only that the 
 first question in regard to phenomena is 
 not one of probability, or even of what is 
 called possibility, but always a question of 
 fact It is not, is it likely ; but is it true ? 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 
 
 If, in describing these phenomena, I do 
 not attempt to account for them, and offer 
 no theory in regard to them, it would be 
 a mere affectation for me to ignore the 
 theories held by others. These are two 
 in number only. 
 
 The first is, that the Davenports are 
 simply magicians, or prestidigitators, like 
 Houdin, Anderson, and many others, who 
 by their own skill and the aid of confede- 
 rates produce their manifestations ; and that 
 they are impostors and knaves in solemnly 
 denying that they use any such means, or 
 any means whatever, to produce them. 
 
 The second theory is, that the manifesta- 
 tions are genuine, and effected by the aid 
 of some usually invisible intelligences, sup- 
 posed by some to be demons, and by others 
 the spirits of human beings who have de- 
 parted from this life. 
 
 Besides these, there have been vague 
 suggestions of unknown elements, electrical 
 
b A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 action, odic forces, and hidden powers ap- 
 pertaining to the human organism, which 
 may be unconsciously exercised. These are 
 vague suggestions, and have not the con- 
 sistency of developed theories, and are 
 unsupported by any basis of observation 
 or experiment. I mention them now only 
 that the reader, in perusing the statement 
 of facts, may try, if he wishes to do so, 
 to account for them upon any hypothesis 
 he may prefer. I shall revert again to 
 these theories ; but it will be evident to 
 every one that the great question first of 
 all to be settled is, whether the manifesta- 
 tions are what they are represented to be — 
 that is, produced by some power other 
 than the Davenports and their associates ; 
 or, whether the Davenports are impostors 
 who have for eleven years been deceiving 
 vast multitudes, and all this time liable 
 to punishment, and worthy of punishment 
 and execration, as the meanest, basest — 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 7 
 
 the most audacious and most atrocious, of 
 cheats and humbugs. 
 
 The Brothers Davenport, from the ages 
 of twelve and fourteen to the present time, 
 have stood before the world charged by 
 multitudes with this imposture. They 
 have been brought to public trial many 
 hundreds of times, and in the presence of 
 hundreds of thousands of people ; and the 
 charge of collusion, trick, or deception of 
 any kind has never been proved against 
 them. 
 
 What has happened in this long scene 
 of trials and triumphs will be found in the 
 following chapters, which will be read with 
 interest, I am certain, and I hope also with 
 candour and profit. 
 
A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. 
 
 Born, where, when, and of whom — Family Characteristics — 
 Monitions and Prevision — Childhood — Startling Mani- 
 festations — Boyish Occupation. 
 
 IraErastus Davenport and William Henry 
 Davenport, who are known as the Brothers 
 Davenport, were born in Buffalo, State of 
 New York, United States of America ; the 
 former September 17, 1839, the latter Feb- 
 ruary 1, 1841. Their only sister, Elizabeth 
 Louisa Davenport, was born December 23, 
 1844. 
 
 Ira Davenport, the father, was born at 
 Skeneatales, New York, in 1816. He is 
 descended from early English settlers in 
 America. His wife, Virtue Honeysett, was 
 born in the county of Kent, England, in 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. V 
 
 1819, and was taken to America in her 
 childhood. 
 
 Buffalo, the residence of the Davenports, 
 situated at the outlet of Lake Erie by the 
 Niagara River, and twenty miles south of 
 the famous cataract, was, at the period of 
 the birth of the Brothers Davenport, an 
 enterprising city of some twenty thousand 
 inhabitants, and has since increased to a 
 population of more than a hundred thou- 
 sand. Mr. Davenport, senior, had a place 
 under the city government, in the depart- 
 ment of police ; and though in moderate 
 circumstances, was widely known, and ap- 
 pears to have deserved and enjoyed the 
 confidence of his fellow-citizens. His wife's 
 father and other relations resided at May- 
 ville, in Chautauque County, about sixty 
 miles south-west of Buffalo. I mention 
 this circumstance for a reason that will 
 appear in the course of the narrative. 
 I find nothing in the characters of the 
 
10 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 progenitors of the Davenports which would 
 account for the extraordinary phenomena 
 which have occurred for eleven years past 
 in the presence of the subjects of this bio- 
 graphy, by the laws of hereditary descent. 
 It is related, indeed, that in the families of 
 both father and mother had been observed 
 many of those events which are considered 
 supernatural by some persons, and imagina- 
 tions and coincidences by others, and which 
 are both common and inexplicable. Thus 
 Mrs. Davenport, while a girl, heard, or 
 imagined she heard, one day, a voice direct- 
 ing her to observe the time as marked upon 
 a clock standing near her, which proved to 
 be the moment of her mother's death at 
 a distance. The female relations of Mr. 
 Davenport are said to have possessed ex- 
 traordinary gifts of healing, similar to 
 those formerly attributed to the sovereigns 
 of England, and something of the second- 
 sight, or prevision, which many believe to 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 11 
 
 have formerly been common in Scotland. 
 I mention these matters, not as attaching 
 weight to them, but because they are among 
 the family traditions. It is proper to say, 
 however, that Mr. Ira Davenport, senior, 
 in early life, had minute and circumstan- 
 tial previsions of events, places, persons, 
 and many of the circumstances of his future 
 life ; but this is not, I suspect, so uncommon 
 an experience as many persons imagine. 
 
 During the childhood of the Brothers 
 Davenport but few events occurred worthy 
 of recital. Ira remembers, when very 
 young, that his mother was alarmed by 
 loud knockings in the house, that she called 
 in a neighbour, and that they pursued 
 from room to room, and were followed by 
 knockings which they did not know how to 
 question, and which soon subsided. These 
 disturbances were coincident with a severe, 
 and as it seemed dangerous illness of Mr. 
 Davenport, then absent on a journey. 
 
12 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 In 1846 the family was disturbed by 
 what they described as c raps, thumps, loud 
 noises, snaps, cracking noises, in the dead 
 of the night/ They were startling and 
 annoying, but what could they do ? Dis- 
 connected from the subsequent events, they 
 were scarcely worthy of remembrance. 
 
 The two boys, born so near each other, 
 had, and still have, a striking resemblance 
 to each other. They are somewhat below the 
 medium size, and have a strongly marked 
 and handsome physiognomy, more English, 
 perhaps, than American. They received 
 the common school education free to every 
 boy in America, and are, I think, in thought 
 and conversation rather above the average 
 of young men brought up in similar con- 
 ditions. Their earliest and only employ- 
 ment, by which they assisted their parents 
 in their boyhood, was in the delivery of 
 newspapers from one of the several news- 
 paper offices in Buffalo. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 13 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE MANIFESTATIONS. 
 
 The Rochester Knockings — First Seance of the Davenport 
 Family — Great Excitement — The Pistol-flash and 
 Spectre — Sharpshooting in the Dark — Floating in the 
 Air — Analogies and Explanations. 
 
 About the year 1850 the western part of 
 New York was greatly excited by accounts 
 of what were called the Rochester Knock- 
 ings. Rochester is a city of New York 
 somewhat less in size than Buffalo, and dis- 
 tant some ninety miles, on the borders of 
 Lake Ontario. The knockings occurred in a 
 family of a mother and three daughters, who 
 became known as the Fox Girls. Their fur- 
 niture was shaken, doors violently opened and 
 shut, drawers opened, articles thrown about, 
 and finally questions were answered and 
 messages spelled out by raps or detonations, 
 
14 .A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 which appeared to be made on or in the 
 tables, floors, doors, and similar objects. 
 
 Naturally, these strange occurrences were 
 noised abroad, published in the newspapers, 
 and became a subject of general conversa- 
 tion. Mr. Davenport was a sturdy un- 
 believer in the rappings ; but the marvels 
 were talked about in the family, and one 
 evening Miss Elizabeth, then ten years old, 
 declared her belief that if such things hap- 
 pened to* anybody, they might just as well 
 happen to them. Whether this was childish 
 bravado, or the result of some internal con- 
 viction, it is needless to enquire. The re- 
 sult was that in the evening the father, 
 mother, and three children solemnly seated 
 themselves round a table, placed their hands 
 upon it, as they had read was done at 
 Kochester, and waited further developments. 
 
 After a few moments a movement as of 
 swelling or bulging was felt in the table ; 
 then crackling noises, tippings, raps, and 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 15 
 
 finally very loud and violent noises. At 
 first Mr. Davenport suspected the children 
 were i having a lark,' but when the noises 
 came to be quite beyond their power to 
 make, and messages were spelled out beyond 
 their power to manufacture — for the oldest 
 boy was now only in his fifteenth year — 
 he was convinced that whatever the agency 
 might be, it was no deception practised by 
 any member of his family. It is easy to 
 conceive that their first experiences were of 
 absorbing interest. They sat around the 
 table from seven o'clock in the evening until 
 daylight next morning. 
 
 They had prudently agreed to keep the 
 matter a profound secret, not wishing to 
 incur obloquy or ridicule ; but Mr. Daven- 
 port's mind was too full of the matter, and, 
 under an injunction of secrecy, he told a 
 friend, who told it to another. Of course it 
 spread like wildfire. * Knockings at the 
 Davenports' ! ' Hundreds flocked to the 
 
16 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 house. It was not only filled but sur- 
 rounded. The yard and even the street were 
 full. The thumpings, knockings, messages, 
 and so on, were repeated. On the third even- 
 ing, editors, lawyers, preachers, bankers, 
 merchants, all classes of people, crowded 
 the house ; and amid the manifestations 
 such as had been previously given, Master 
 Ira was taken with a violent propensity to 
 write, his hand becoming subject to extra- 
 ordinary gyrations. An eifort was made 
 by several strong men to hold his hands, 
 but without success. On being furnished 
 with paper and a pencil, he wrote with 
 extraordinary rapidity a series of brief 
 messages, which he distributed to various 
 persons in the company. These messages 
 were believed to be quite beyond either his 
 mental or physical powers, and contained 
 matters known only to the persons to whom 
 they were addressed, and quite beyond his 
 possible knowledge. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 17 
 
 On the fifth evening there was witnessed 
 a new and surprising, or perhaps I should 
 say more surprising, manifestation. In 
 compliance with a direction rapped out on 
 the table, by the now familiar method of 
 calling over the alphabet and having each 
 letter designated, a pistol was procured, 
 and capped, but not loaded. One of the 
 boys was then directed to go to a vacant 
 corner of the room and fire it. At the 
 instant that he fired, the pistol was taken 
 from his hand, and by its flash was plainly 
 seen by every person in the room held by a 
 human figure, looking smilingly at the com- 
 pany. The light and the form vanished 
 together, as when we see a landscape in a 
 flash of lightning, and the pistol fell upon 
 the floor. It was a very impressive scene, 
 and, if so explained, a striking optical illu- 
 sion — if a whole company can be supposed 
 to be affected by an illusion ; while, if a 
 deception, it was remarkably well managed, 
 c 
 
18 A BIOGRAPHY OE 
 
 and might put the patent for Professor 
 Pepper's ghosts in peril. 
 
 Among the pistol experiments at Buffalo, 
 somewhat later was one which may be of 
 interest to sportsmen and the rifle volun- 
 teers. Visitors brought their own loaded 
 pistols, which were laid upon the table. A 
 mark was placed upon the wall at the oppo- 
 site extremity of the room. The light was 
 then blown out, leaving the room in per- 
 fect darkness. In this darkness the pistol, 
 untouched by any one present, would be 
 fired. Often a spectral figure was seen or 
 imagined in the flash of the pistol. But 
 the mark was always hit. Sometimes the 
 ball cut out the designated spot in a play- 
 ing card, sometimes it passed through the 
 core of an apple. These tests were so com- 
 mon that there must be hundreds of wit- 
 nesses to testify to their reality. 
 
 On the next night the manifestations 
 were varied again, the house being as 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 19 
 
 crowded as ever ; and neither the idea of 
 illusion or delusion seems to account satis- 
 factorily for the phenomena witnessed by 
 credible people, who were probably as much 
 in their senses as people can be expected to 
 be under such circumstances. A request 
 was made by means of the rappings that 
 the room should be partially darkened. It 
 is, perhaps, useless to ask why. In Nature 
 and in Art some operations require light, 
 and some its absence. Most flowers bloom 
 by day — some open only in the night. But 
 I have only to relate what happened on this 
 memorable evening. 
 
 The boy Ira was seated at the table, by 
 the side of his father, and scarcely had the 
 light been dimmed when he was taken from 
 his side by some resistless force, laid upon 
 the table, and floated in the air over the 
 heads of all the people, and from one end of 
 the room to the other, at a height of nine 
 feet from the floor, every person in the 
 c 2 
 
20 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 room having the opportunity of feeling him 
 as he floated in the air above them. While 
 they were watching this marvel, some one 
 cried, l William is flying, too ! ' and the two 
 brothers were found to be alike defying the 
 laws of gravitation, or upborne by some 
 force, the nature of which we need not stop 
 to enquire. Stranger still — if one such fact 
 can be stranger than another, or if one 
 more adds to the marvel — the little sister 
 joined her two brothers in the air, and all 
 three floated about over the heads of the 
 people. 
 
 I am aware that natural philosophers may 
 give an explanation of this phenomenon, 
 or, what answers often for an explanation, 
 an analogy ; if, indeed, it may not be con- 
 sidered less troublesome to deny the fact. 
 It may be said that showers of fishes, frogs, 
 &c, which must have been for days sus- 
 tained in high regions of the atmosphere, 
 prove that there are forces in nature which 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 21 
 
 overcome or suspend gravitation, and that 
 the three Davenport children may have 
 been sustained and floated about in the air 
 in the same manner. I freely admit the 
 force of the suggestion. The believers in 
 animal magnetism will contend that they 
 were borne up and kept up by the united 
 and excited will-power of the assembly. 
 This is also an hypothesis of some plausi- 
 bility ; but, as I have said before, my busi- 
 ness is with the facts rather than with 
 possible or impossible reasons. 
 
 The facts which I have narrated became 
 known to all Buffalo, and the region round 
 about. They were witnessed by hundreds 
 of as respectable people as live anywhere. 
 There are many persons still living there 
 — for these events occurred scarcely eleven 
 years ago — who could testify to every fact I 
 have here given. There was very ocular evi- 
 dence of the force with which Ira was raised 
 up into the air, by a repulsion perhaps as 
 
22 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 strong as the usual attraction which brings 
 us down, for his head bulged through the 
 plaister of the ceiling. At another time, 
 and in the full sight of many persons, Ira 
 was carried through the air, not only about 
 the room, but through the hall, across the 
 yard, and landed beyond a fence in the 
 street, a distance, by measurement, of 
 seventy feet.* 
 
 * I ought, perhaps, to say that this phenomenon 
 of levitation is not peculiar to the Davenports, nor to 
 this age. It has been witnessed in this country, in 
 the case of Mr. Home, and is related of many persons 
 in the last eight hundred years. Any industrious 
 reader in the library of the British Museum will be 
 able to find a multitude of well-authenticated cases, 
 some of which have been judicially examined and 
 proven by a host of witnesses. It may be doubted, 
 however, if they can find, in any of the numerous 
 cases, any philosophical explanation of the pheno- 
 menon. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 23 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ASTOUNDING PHENOMENA. 
 
 Excitement and Persecution — Dance of Breakfast Dishes — 
 A gigantic Apparition — An Invisible Scribe — An as- 
 tonished Furniture Dealer — A Self-icriting Pencil. 
 
 I am unable to give the particulars of many 
 wonderful occurrences of this early period, 
 because there were so many, and because 
 the memory of many of them has been 
 obscured by the events of more than ten 
 years. I give those which, from some pecu- 
 liar feature, were recorded at the time or 
 have been best remembered. 
 
 It cannot be supposed that the excite- 
 ment caused by events of so remarkable a 
 character, witnessed by so many persons, 
 was entirely of an agreeable character. 
 Neither the probity of the father, the blame- 
 
24 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Jess character of the mother, nor the inno- 
 cence of the children, the oldest of whom 
 was only in his fifteenth year, saved them 
 from reproach, slanders, hatred, and perse- 
 cution. Perhaps the only matter of aston- 
 ishment is that, in a frontier town, which 
 had at that time a considerable population 
 of a wild and lawless character, there was 
 not more of violence and outrage. It needed 
 no little firmness on the part of Mr. Daven- 
 port to go quietly on the even tenor of his 
 way, amid ridicule, charges of fraud and 
 imposture, threats of prosecution and im- 
 prisonment, mob outrage and Lynch law, 
 and attempts at personal violence and clan- 
 destine murder. His natural firmness of 
 character, the consciousness of entire honesty 
 and good motives, and the sympathy of 
 many of the best men in Buffalo, sustained 
 him. They were as interested in the matter 
 as he could be. Furthermore, these marvels 
 had come to him unsought and unexpected. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 25 
 
 He naturally believed they had some pur- 
 pose, which he trusted was a good one. He 
 and his family seemed set apart for a pecu- 
 liar work. It is not strange that he bore 
 obloquy with calmness, and met threats 
 with courage. He was in just the condition 
 to have become a martyr. 
 
 On one morning, at this early period, the 
 family was sitting around the breakfast 
 table, when the knives, forks, and dishes 
 began to dance around, as if suddenly en- 
 dued with vitality. In a few moments 
 the table began to move, tipping up side- 
 way, balancing itself on one leg ; and, finally, 
 rising clear from the floor, floating in the 
 air without the least support, and moving 
 in such a way that it was wonderful that 
 the dishes upon it did not slide off, and 
 come crashing upon the floor. While the 
 table was displaying these curious antics — 
 William, the younger of the two brothers, 
 exclaimed, ' There is the biggest man I ever 
 
26 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 saw ; what a large man !' As no one else 
 saw any one in the room who did not be- 
 long to the family, we are obliged to take 
 the word of Master William for what he 
 saw, or imagined he saw. The father inter- 
 fered in his usual sensible way, saying, 
 c William, my son, keep still. Perhaps this 
 big man may have something to say to us. 7 
 He may have read that it was the correct 
 thing to speak to an apparition; it was, 
 at least, but common politeness to give him 
 a chance to speak, if disposed to do so. ]S T o 
 voice came from empty space ; but William 
 seemed moved to speak, and said, ' This 
 stranger is so tall that he can scarcely 
 stand up in this room ; and he is large in 
 proportion. He is a real giant.' 
 
 8 Will he tell who he is ; where he came 
 from ; and what he wants of us ?' asked the 
 father. 
 
 The answer, still given by the boy, seems 
 very absurd; but I give it as it is reported, 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 27 
 
 notwithstanding. The boy said, ' He says 
 he is not of this earth ; his name is William 
 E. Kichards ; and that he wishes to give us, 
 and those who meet with us, important in- 
 structions, on which much will depend in 
 the future. 7 Obviously, all this may have 
 come from the boy's excited imagination, 
 though that would not account for the 
 dance of the breakfast dishes or the flight 
 of the table with the breakfast upon it, 
 phenomena witnessed by the whole family; 
 and which naturally predisposed them to 
 believe in other and greater marvels. 
 
 At two o'clock, p.m., according to the 
 request of the imaginary or otherwise tall 
 personage, not of this world, but bearing or 
 assuming for the time the very sublunary 
 name of c Richards,' the party assembled, 
 including the Davenport family, and the 
 friends they selected for so interesting and 
 important a dance. In the room were two 
 tables. The company sat around one. On 
 
28 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 the other had been placed, by direction, 
 writing paper and pencils. 
 
 They sat silently some two minutes, when 
 in the broad light of day they all saw a lead 
 pencil rise from the table, take a nearly per- 
 pendicular position, as if held by some invi- 
 sible being, and commence writing rapidly 
 upon the paper, while the paper itself seemed 
 to be alive and to move under the pencil. 
 
 It is not in my power to give a copy of 
 the document so curiously written. It con- 
 sisted, in part, of directions for preparing a 
 room, and procuring a large table, for the 
 better accommodation of those who were 
 coming from far and near to see these won- 
 ders. ' Go/ said the paper, or pencil, or 
 the invisible, supposed by William to be the 
 giant he saw, or imagined he saw, c and I 
 will go with you and assist in making a 
 proper selection. When you come to a suit- 
 able table I will rap my approval. 7 
 
 They started immediately for a large 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 29 
 
 furniture establishment, kept by Mr. Taun- 
 ton Baldwin, and, after looking at several 
 tables, waiting for the promised sign, they 
 came to one, and were all startled, and 
 especially the furniture dealer, by a loud 
 and very emphatic detonation. Mr. Bald- 
 win, unaccustomed to that mode of selecting 
 furniture, enquired into the matter, and soon 
 became satisfied that something made noises 
 on or in his table. 
 
 The most noticeable phenomenon described 
 in the last portion of this chapter, that of 
 a pencil writing without visible control, is a 
 fact which does not rest upon the testimony 
 alone of the Davenports, or those who saw 
 it at their house in Buffalo. There have 
 been many similar cases, related upon un- 
 impeachable testimony. One that occurs to 
 me was that of Senator Simmons, of Ehode 
 Island. Wishing to see a certain name 
 written by a pencil while he sat at the table 
 and watched the proceeding, he saw the 
 
30 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 pencil move, rise, and make an ineffective 
 effort to write, and then topple over as if 
 the weight were too much for the force. 
 He then took a pair of scissors, and, holding 
 one of the bows over the paper, placed the 
 pencil within it, in a perpendicular position. 
 Then he distinctly saw the pencil, of itself, 
 write out the name desired, and then, 
 raising itself from the paper, go back and 
 dot an i. There were other circumstances 
 more important, perhaps, than the writing; 
 but I have preferred to mention only the 
 physical phenomena. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 31 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ORGANISATION OF REGULAR SEANCES. 
 
 An Apology or Explanation — Marvellous Manifestations — 
 Tests applied — Boys floating in the Air — A striking 
 Test — March of the Family Crockery — Upheld by a 
 Spectre — A Balancing Feat — ' George Brown ' — A 
 Murdered Mans Story — A Boy carried off by a Ghost. 
 
 The purchase of the large table, as narrated 
 in the last chapter, was the beginning of a 
 new series of manifestations. The friends 
 of Mr. Baldwin, the furniture dealer, were 
 curious to see the wonders he had witnessed, 
 aud the home of the Davenports was filled, 
 day and night, with eager enquirers. It 
 was very repugnant to Mr. Davenport to 
 receive money from those whose curiosity 
 was gratified, and he steadily refused for 
 many months to do so. His time was occu- 
 
32 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 pied, his business deranged, and his family 
 burthened with expenses. It was only 
 when he left home to take charge of the 
 boys in their early journeyings that he con- 
 sented to receive some compensation. It 
 became necessary, moreover, to fix a price, 
 if only as a means of excluding an idle and 
 perhaps mischievous crowd that would 
 otherwise have claimed admission. 
 
 I do not know that there is any need of 
 this explanation, or for any apology. Au- 
 thors, artists, poets, statesmen, and ministers 
 of religion, all live and all receive money 
 for their work. Pie that serves the altar 
 must live by the altar. The labourer is 
 worthy of his hire. Every labourer — every 
 one who renders a service — every one whose 
 time we occupy, deserves payment, unless 
 he obtains money under false pretences. 
 The fraudulent, of course, have no claim 
 whatever. 
 
 Nor does the receipt of money afford a 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 33 
 
 presumption of fraud, but rather the con- 
 trary. It is always to be presumed that 
 the man who wants our money wishes to 
 render some equivalent. We are not to 
 assume hastily that any man — much less a 
 man of unblemished reputation — is an im- 
 postor and a scoundrel. 
 
 At the seances which now began to be 
 held regularly, the manifestations already 
 described were repeated. Loud raps were 
 heard ; the table answered questions ; spec- 
 tral forms were seen in the flash of a pistol; 
 lights appeared in the upper parts of the 
 room ; musical instruments floated in the 
 air, while being played upon, above the 
 heads of the company. It would be too 
 much to expect of human nature to suppose 
 that all these things were witnessed with 
 simple faith and open-mouthed credulity. 
 There were enough to say it was a trick, 
 and to be determined to detect it. Probably 
 nine out of ten, when told of what occurred, 
 
 D 
 
34 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 declared it all a humbug, and that they could 
 detect and expose it. Consequently, a close 
 watch was kept upon the Davenports. Per- 
 sons were appointed to hold them. The 
 whole company took hold of hands when 
 the room was darken ed; that each might 
 vouch for the two next him. 
 
 On one occasion, four persons selected 
 for the purpose held the two boys; four 
 others securely grappled Mr. and Mrs. 
 Davenport ; and even the little Elizabeth 
 was held by two others. Every possible 
 precaution was taken. 
 
 When all this had been arranged, Ira 
 was lifted bodily into the air, until he rose 
 above the heads of those who held him, 
 and floated away close to the ceiling. Then 
 both boys, Ira and William, were laid upon 
 the table, and Mr. Plymptoo, a well-known 
 auctioneer of Buffalo, was requested toehold 
 them firmly by the feet. He seized their 
 ancles, when Ira was raised bodily into the 
 
THE BEOTHERS DAVENPORT. 35 
 
 air, followed by William. Not succeeding 
 in holding both, he next tried the youngest, 
 who, in spite of his added weight, was 
 raised up with such force that his head 
 broke through the ceiling of lath and 
 plaster. Mr. Plympton had held to the 
 boy with all his strength, but letting go, 
 to prevent being himself drawn he knew 
 not where, the boy, suddenly freed, went 
 up — by lunar attraction, let us say, or 
 terrene repulsion — with the result to his 
 skull and the plastering already stated. 
 The people who heard the crash thought 
 the boy was killed, and called for a light ; 
 but he was found to be quite unhurt. 
 There was no mistake, however, about the 
 hole in the ceiling. 
 
 Another manifestation, to use a conve- 
 nient word in describing what we have 
 perhaps no proper name for, was on this 
 wise : The company was seated around 
 two tables, and the room quite darkened, 
 
 D 2 
 
36 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Why darkened? it will be asked. Why 
 not darkened ? might be asked as readily. 
 It is a mystery, no doubt ; but the whole 
 matter is equally mysterious. W T hile every 
 person in the room was sitting by the 
 tables, in the darkness, the door of a pantry 
 was flung violently open, and the entire 
 stock of family crockery and glassware 
 taken from the shelves and piled upon the 
 tables. I say * taken ' and ' piled.' As I 
 do not know how it was done, or who did 
 it, it is better, perhaps, to say merely that 
 the whole stock was found to be heaped 
 upon the tables, which had been placed 
 together. Then the boys were raised up 
 and placed upon the dishes, and all the 
 chairs heaped upon the whole, without the 
 agency of any mortal hand that could be 
 discovered. All this was done without the 
 fracture of a single article, and in total 
 darkness. Lights were struck, and with 
 great care the boys and chairs were taken 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 37 
 
 down. The lights were again extinguished, 
 and every article was restored to its proper 
 place in the pantry, without the slightest 
 mishap or accident. 
 
 I am ' free to confess ' that if I were 
 inventing facts, or manifestations, or phe- 
 nomena, I should choose something more 
 dignified than the displacement and place- 
 ment of delf, china, and glass ; but a scene 
 which was witnessed the next day, at a two 
 o'clock matinee, may perhaps be more satis- 
 factory. The room was not darkened, only 
 obscured to a pleasant twilight. After 
 several of the usual phenomena were exhi- 
 bited, the two boys were raised from their 
 chairs, carried across the room, and held 
 up with their heads downward before a 
 window. ' We distinctly saw/ says an eye- 
 witness, - two gigantic hands, attached to 
 about three-fifths of a monstrous arm ; 
 and those hands grasped the ancles of the 
 two boys, and thus held the lads, heels up 
 
38 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 and heads downward, before the window : 
 now raising, now lowering them, till their 
 heads bade fair to make acquaintance with 
 the carpet on the floor.' This curious, but 
 assuredly not dignified, exhibition was 
 several times repeated, and was plainly seen 
 by every person present. Among these 
 persons was an eminent physician, Dr. 
 Blanchard, then of Buffalo, now of Chicago, 
 Illinois, who was sitting in a chair by the 
 side of Elizabeth Davenport; and all pre- 
 sent saw an immense arm, attached to no 
 apparent body — growing, as it were, out of 
 space — glide along near the floor, till it 
 reached around Dr. Blanchard's chair, when 
 the hand grasped the lower back round of 
 Elizabeth's chair, raised it from the floor, 
 with the child upon it, balanced it, and 
 then raised it to the ceiling. The chair 
 and child remained in the air, without con- 
 tact with any person or thing, for a space 
 of time estimated to be a minute, and then 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 39 
 
 descended gradually to the place it first 
 occupied. 
 
 In the midst of a series of similar mani- 
 festations, too numerous and too much alike 
 in their general characteristics to be re- 
 corded, there came one of a novel and start- 
 ling character, which was destined to sena- 
 rate the family, and start the two brothers 
 upon that extraordinary tour around the 
 world, which in ten years has brought them 
 to the confines of Europe and the centre 
 of one of its' most powerful kingdoms. 
 
 One day, at a private seance to which Mr. 
 Davenport had invited several of his friends 
 and persons well known to him, the table, by 
 tippings and rappings, spelled out a message, 
 which purported to come from one ' George 
 Brown/ who described himself as a Canadian 
 farmer, who had resided at Waterloo, W. C, 
 where his family still lived, and who had 
 been robbed and murdered, in a place which 
 he described, by members of a notorious 
 
40 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 gang of robbers, on both sides of the bor- 
 der known as the Townsend gang. These 
 particulars were given by one of the boys, 
 speaking in a sort of cataleptic or trance 
 state, in which he became, apparently, the 
 proxy of ' George Brown.' He named the 
 sum of money — fifty-two dollars, the price 
 of a yoke of oxen he had intended to pur- 
 chase. He, that is the boy, his spokesman, 
 was cross-examined by a lawyer who was 
 present, but he adhered to his story ; gave 
 the name and residence of his wife, the num- 
 ber of his children, and other particulars. 
 
 Mr. Davenport was much impressed with 
 the story, and went with a friend across 
 the Niagara River to Waterloo next day, 
 where, after due enquiry, he found that no 
 such man as the ' George Brown ' had ever 
 lived there. There was a rascal named 
 Townsend, and a gang called by his name, 
 but he could find no clue to the robbed 
 and murdered farmer. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 4l 
 
 Eeturning home chapfallen, it may be 
 presumed, they met the sheriff of the county, 
 and asked him if he had ever heard of a 
 George Brown, of Waterloo. 
 
 ' Yes,' said the officer, ' but not this Wa- 
 terloo ; a George Brown used to live at the 
 other Waterloo, sixty miles away. I used 
 to know him well, but he disappeared some 
 time ago, and was supposed to have been 
 robbed and murdered by some of the 
 Townsend gang. I know his wife and fa- 
 mily well.' 
 
 The circumstances related by the sheriff 
 agreed perfectly with the account the boy 
 in the trance had given. 
 
 On the return of the delegates to Canada, 
 and before they could report proceedings, 
 young Ira fell into the ' state,' took up the 
 ghostly role of George Brown, the murdered 
 man, and related everything that had hap- 
 pened to them, including the conversation 
 with the sheriff. 
 
42 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Great as was the impression made upon 
 Mr. Davenport, he could not overcome his 
 natural scepticism and fear of ridicule 
 enough to go to the Waterloo, to find the 
 widow of poor Brown, and make further 
 investigations, though several persons offered 
 to subscribe the money for his expenses; 
 He shirked the responsibility. 
 
 ' George Brown,' still enacted by Ira, or 
 finding representations and spokesmen in 
 tables, or otherwise, did not appear to be 
 pleased with the little faith given to his 
 story, and the manner in which his wishes 
 were neglected, and announced that he in- 
 tended to take Ira to the scene of his mur- 
 der. iSTot much attention was paid to what 
 was considered an absurd threat ; but the 
 boy, a few evenings after, while engaged 
 in his daily task of delivering evening 
 papers, first felt ' queer,' then lost his con- 
 sciousness, and found himself standing in 
 the snow, with no tracks around him to 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 43 
 
 show how he had come there, in a solitary 
 place, a mile and a half from home, on the 
 right bank of the Niagara river. ' George 
 Brown,' at his next visit, declared that he 
 had carried him across the river, which is 
 half-a-mile wide, and brought him back 
 again, just as an experiment ; but as the boy- 
 was unconscious all the time, until he found 
 himself on the bank, while his family were 
 sett-ins: alarmed at his absence, and as 
 nobody saw him carried across the river, 
 we have only i George Brown's ' testimony 
 on the subject, which we are not obliged to 
 believe without a sufficient corroboration. 
 
 Of course, we cannot prove a negative. 
 If the boy could be carried across the room 
 and out into the street, why not across 
 Niagara river ? — a feat beyond Blondin's, it 
 must be confessed. If seventy feet, why 
 not as many miles ? If people lose their 
 gravity, or are hurried away by their emo- 
 tions, or other sufficiently powerful in- 
 

 
 44 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 fluences, who shall say how far they may be 
 carried ? I believe simply that Master Ira, 
 as he then said and still says, in a manner 
 that carries conviction with it, found him- 
 self standing in the snow on the bank of 
 the Niagara, without knowing how he came 
 there. As ' we must draw the line some- 
 where/ I propose to draw it there. c George 
 Brown ' may have wished to stretch it. Or 
 he wished, it may be, to see his murderers 
 stretching lines of a different description. 
 
 In any case, I think Mr. Davenport, sen., 
 ought to have gone to Waterloo, and he 
 was soon very sorry that he did not. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 'we fly by night.' 
 
 Hands and Voices — Advent of ' John King ' — Required to 
 leave Buffalo — Refusal and the consequences — A ?nys- 
 terious Night Trip of sixty Miles — Manifestations in 
 Mayvitte — Another Ghost and Murder. 
 
 Whatever opinion may be formed by the 
 calm -judging reader of this matter of the 
 murder of l George Brown/ of Waterloo, 
 Canada West, it soon became evident 
 enough that the Davenports had incurred 
 the animosity of somebody. There came 
 to them dark threats of vengeance. The 
 boys were warned to be on their guard. 
 They were too brave to mind much about 
 obscure hints of assassination, and, like 
 nine American boys out of ten, Ira armed 
 himself with a loaded pistol for their de- 
 fence. One ni^ht the two bovs found 
 
46 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 themselves waylaid, and were fired at. Ira 
 valorously fired in return, and then both 
 took to their heels. The boys escaped 
 without injury, except to their clothing ; 
 there was a rumour that Ira's bullet had 
 been better sped. Not long after, some 
 friends came with the story that the house 
 was to be attacked at night and the children 
 murdered, and several persons volunteered 
 to watch over and defend them. The boys 
 were required to forego their paper-carry- 
 ing expeditions, which were their business, 
 play, and exercise. 
 
 At the morning and evening parties 
 of curious investigators into these strange 
 phenomena, there were now not only heard 
 the ringing of bells, thrumming of musical 
 instruments, movements of various objects 
 without apparent cause, including the three 
 Davenport children, but hands, seemingly 
 human, were both felt and seen. A hand 
 and part of an arm would rise above the 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 47 
 
 table, plainly visible, and allow itself to be 
 felt for a moment, when it would dissolve, 
 melt into air in the very grasp and under 
 the eyes of the spectator. Then a voice, 
 coming out of space, at first inarticulate, 
 but later condensed as it would seem in a 
 large horn or trumpet provided for the 
 purpose, spoke distinctly to them, conversed 
 with them, answered their questions, and 
 advised or directed their proceedings. I 
 do not know that this voice was a greater 
 marvel than many others that I have re- 
 lated. The first thing that occurs to every 
 one is that it was the result of so common 
 an art as ventriloquism. A ventriloquist 
 has no difficulty in making a voice appear 
 to come from up a chimney, or out of a 
 box, or from the cellar. Other illusions 
 can be managed by tubes and reflectors, as 
 in the 'mysterious lady' exhibited some 
 years ago, and the Anthropoglossos or 
 4 singing head 7 more recently. With a 
 
48 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 common speaking tube, a person a hundred 
 feet distant, and in another part of a large 
 building, seems to be speaking close to your 
 ear. But Mr. Davenport and his family 
 knew that they were not ventriloquists, and 
 all who came to see them could easily 
 satisfy themselves that there was no ma- 
 chinery. Besides, the voice was only one 
 of so many ' signs and wonders ' that it was 
 hardly worth trying to account for that, 
 unless the others could be explained as 
 easily. 
 
 The voice was asked, among other things, 
 what was its name. Tt replied that names 
 were of no consequence — one would do as 
 well as another, and they might call it 
 1 John King,' which they do to this day, 
 or familiarly 4 John.' This c John,' the 
 name of a voice, said to the father of the 
 Davenports that he must take his two sons 
 away from Buffalo, that it was dangerous 
 for them to stay, and that they were needed 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 49 
 
 elsewhere. Mr. Davenport would not con- 
 sent either to leave his family with them 
 or allow them to go. He thought they 
 were very well as they were. lie had 
 come to have some faith in the voice, and 
 the things he saw and heard, but saw no 
 sufficient reason why he should go about 
 the world to give other people a chance of 
 witnessing the same phenomena. If people 
 wished to see them, let them come to the 
 boys. Decidedly the boys should not go to 
 them. The reply was, that if they were 
 not allowed to go, they could and would be 
 taken. 
 
 The strange event which took place as 
 the result, apparently, of this conversation, 
 is variously vouched for ; but I have pre- 
 ferred to take the facts from the lips of 
 Mr. Ira Davenport, the elder of the two 
 brothers. He says that he was walking 
 one evening, at about nine o'clock, in the 
 streets of Buffalo with his brother William, 
 
 E 
 
50 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 this being the winter of 1853-4, and the 
 boys in their twelfth and fourteenth years. 
 Here Ira's recollection ceases. The next 
 thing he knew was that he found himself 
 and his brother in a snow-bank, in a field, 
 with no tracks near him, near his grand- 
 father's house, at Mayville, Chautauque 
 County, New York, sixty miles from 
 Buffalo. On waking up William, who had 
 not returned to consciousness, they made 
 their way to their grandfather's house, 
 where they were received with surprise, 
 and their story heard with astonishment. 
 Their father was immediately informed by 
 telegraph of their safety and whereabouts, 
 and he, good obstinate man, set himself to 
 find out how they got to Mayville. On 
 enquiry, he found that no railway train 
 could have taken them, after the hour they . 
 left home, more than a portion of the 
 distance, and the conductors on the road 
 knew the boys, and had not seen them. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 51 
 
 c John ' declared, through the trumpet, 
 after their return home, that he had trans- 
 ported them, or caused them to be trans- 
 ported, simply to show Mr. Davenport that 
 they could be taken to any distance as 
 easily as they could be carried about the 
 room, and to show him that it was useless 
 for him to try to keep them in Buffalo. 
 The boys, so far as I can judge from the 
 manner in which the story was related to 
 me by Ira, undoubtingly believe that they 
 were taken by no ordinary means of con- 
 veyance, and that the difficulties of the 
 journey were overcome for them in some 
 unexplained and inexplicable manner by the 
 same power, whatever that may be, which 
 has for eleven years worked in their pre- 
 sence so manv marvels, not less difficult of 
 explanation than their little trip from 
 Buffalo to Mayville. They do not say that 
 they were carried all the way, or part of 
 the way. They think they must have 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 walked a long distance, for their feet were 
 blistered. They were there, and knew not 
 how. 
 
 During this visit to the residence of their 
 grandfather, a circumstance occurred which 
 made a strong impression upon the whole 
 family, and especially upon the father of 
 the young Davenports, who had come to 
 bring them home. One night the whole 
 house was alarmed by cries, slamming of 
 doors, thumpings,rappings, and other noises. 
 The grandfather, a religious man, came from 
 his room with his Bible, which failed to 
 bring quiet. When the first consternation 
 was over, a voice was heard trying to speak 
 to them. It could not at first be under- 
 stood ; but a tin horn having been pro- 
 cured, the voice issued from it with suffi- 
 cient distinctness to tell its story. It (the 
 voice, let us say) declared itself to be 
 4 John Hicks,' a brother-in-law of Mr. 
 Davenport, who had some years ago lost 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 53 
 
 his first wife, married another, and died 
 suddenly some time after. The voice, 
 coming out of the trumpet which had suc- 
 ceeded the racket, told a sad and startling 
 story. It said 'John Hicks ' (whose voice 
 it professed to be) had been poisoned by his 
 wife ; but it exacted a promise from Mr. 
 Davenport that he would let his body and 
 the whole matter rest, and not seek for 
 justice or vengeance against his murderess. 
 This, to a man full of the discipline and 
 habits of the police department, was a hard 
 promise to keep. Mr. Davenport related 
 the matter to his friends, and their curiosity 
 stimulated his sense of duty, and he pro- 
 ceeded to have the corpse of his brother- 
 in-law disinterred and subjected to a post- 
 mortem examination. The Dr. Blanchard 
 already mentioned was one of the phy- 
 sicians. The details of the examination 
 have not been submitted to the writer 
 hereof — only the fact that the stomach and 
 
54 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 contents were found entire, with appear- 
 ances to justify, to say the least, strong 
 suspicion of foul play ; but the evidence 
 was not sufficient to convict the supposed 
 offender. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 55 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 STRIKING TESTS AT BUFFALO. 
 
 Keeping to the Facts — S. B. Brittairfs Experience — Visit of 
 Rev. B. F. Barrett — Statement of Stephen Albro and 
 Mrs. Tayloi — Most surprising Wonders. 
 
 There remains little more that need be 
 said of the lives and adventures of the 
 Brothers Davenport in their native city. 
 The father was at length brought to the 
 belief that they had a wider mission, and 
 consented, for a time, to accompany them. 
 I may, however, mention a few of the more 
 striking and peculiar displays of the mys- 
 terious force and intelligence, or intelligence 
 controlling force, which claimed to have 
 produced the phenomena already described. 
 It will be observed that I have ventured 
 no opinion, and offered no theory, respecting 
 
56 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 the nature of this intelligent force. It called 
 itself, in the first instance, 'Kichards ;' then 
 it adopted the name of l John,' or l John 
 King.' It, or something, professed to be 
 ' George Brown, of Waterloo/ who had 
 been murdered for his money ; and it, or 
 something else, declared itself to be ' John 
 Hicks,' poisoned by his wife, like ' Hamlet's 
 father.' It may be hard to believe that the 
 voices w r ere produced or the manifestations 
 made by any of these persons ; but it is 
 also rather difficult to prove the contrary. 
 Let us, then, like true Baconian philo- 
 sophers, cling to our facts. 
 
 4 How can we reason, but from what we 
 know V Let us have the facts first, and in- 
 ferences afterwards. We may not be able 
 to impeach our only witness, — a tipping 
 table, a pencil writing without a hand, or a 
 voice making itself audible or articulate by 
 means of a tin trumpet ; but I do not see 
 that we are bound, on the other hand, to 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 57 
 
 put implicit faith in their unsupported tes- 
 timony. 
 
 Many persons went from New York to 
 Buffalo, three hundred miles, to witness the 
 manifestations. During a visit of J. B. 
 Brittain, Esq., a well-known writer and pub- 
 lic speaker, a number of photographic por- 
 traits were placed in his hands, which he 
 knew to have been half-a-mile away when 
 the seance commenced, while no one had 
 entered the house to bring them. On this 
 occasion the forms produced, as from space, 
 seen and felt by all present, were those of 
 young children, of two years old ; and as 
 there were no such children in the house, 
 there was no thought of imposture. More- 
 over, the three young Davenports were heard 
 and felt floating in the air over the heads of 
 the company, each holding some musical 
 instrument, and producing sounds which 
 marked their progress. Mr. Brittain stood 
 up and felt them in the air above him. 
 
58 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Another of these visitors was the Rev. 
 Mr. Barrett, Swedenborgian clergyman at 
 Brooklyn, near the city of New York. As 
 a Swedenborgian he believed, of course, in 
 common with all Christians, in the existence 
 of beings separated from the common forms 
 of material existence ; but he did not believe 
 that they had power to act upon matter, and 
 of this, if true, he wished to be convinced. 
 As a test he brought with him a glass bottle 
 of immense strength, which he proposed 
 should be broken by an invisible force. As 
 a security against deception, he locked him- 
 self into a room with the two boys. He ex- 
 amined every part of it, for trap-doors or 
 means of concealment. He laid the bottle 
 on a table and sat down, placing his hands 
 and feet on both the boys, so as to feel the 
 least motion they could make. Then he 
 blew out the candle. 
 
 The first thing that occurred was suffi- 
 ciently ludicrous. The just extinguished 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 59 
 
 candle was rubbed all over his face. A 
 voice, plainly heard by all three, for no 
 others were present, informed him that it 
 was a preparation to enable him to swallow 
 the truth, of which he was to receive evi- 
 dence. Then came a blow, an explosion 
 or concussion, that sounded like the stroke 
 of a sledge-hammer, and the bottle flew 
 across the room, broke the plastering on 
 a brick wall, but was itself unbroken. It 
 was replaced upon the table. A louder 
 and heavier blow came with a similar re- 
 sult. This process was repeated seven 
 times, each time with greater force, and 
 the last time the bottle was shattered into 
 a hundred pieces, flying all over the room, 
 a piece grazing the face of Mr. Barrett. 
 His hat, which he had placed upon the 
 floor at one end of the room, was then 
 plunged into a tub of water which hap- 
 pened to be standing at the other end, and 
 in that state placed upon his head. 
 
60 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 When the candle was lighted Mr. Barrett 
 began to gather up the pieces of the bottle. 
 Ira asked him what he could want of them. 
 
 'When my friends, to whom I tell the 
 story, say that I was " psychologized," or 
 hallucinated/ said he, * I wish to show 
 them these pieces of glass, and ask them 
 if they are also hallucinated when they 
 believe thev see and handle them ? ! 
 
 Blowing out the candle again, Mr. Bar- 
 rett was raised in his chair from the floor, 
 and received other tests of an equally con- 
 vincing character. 
 
 Sceptics, then as now, often resorted to 
 private tests, but never without being 
 exposed, and sometimes in a ludicrous 
 manner, worthy of the ' tricksy spirits ' 
 of our great dramatist. One day a gentle- 
 man blacked the mouth of the trumpet 
 through which the voice was heard to 
 issue, supposing he could b} 7 that means 
 detect whoever should use it. In the 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 61 
 
 course of the conversation with the voice 
 he asked that he might be touched. In- 
 stantly he felt a finger moving around his 
 lips. On a candle being lighted, he went 
 eagerly to examine the mouths of the boys 
 and others present, to see if they were 
 blacked ; but every one burst into a laugh 
 at seeing a black circle, as if made with 
 the mouth of the trumpet, around his own. 
 
 Of another seance given at this period, 
 I find a circumstantial account published 
 in a Buffalo . weekly newspaper, l The Age 
 of Progress,' describing a visit of the editor 
 to the Davenports, dated October 13, 1855, 
 and signed by the editor's name — Stephen 
 Albro. 
 
 Mr. Albro had been requested to procure 
 a seance for a lady, whom he accompanied 
 to the room at 10 o'clock, a.m. on the day 
 appointed. He says : — 
 
 ' Mr. Davenport and his elder son were 
 present, and we four locked ourselves in, 
 
62 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 that we might be entirely secluded and free 
 from interruption. I then took particular 
 note of everything in the room — saw that 
 the only two ways of ingress were secured, 
 and that there was no possibility for any- 
 one besides ourselves to be in the room, or 
 to get in without our knowledge. Then 
 one of the two inside window-shutters was 
 closed, and the other was partially closed, 
 leaving an opening of about two inches in 
 width, and consequently apertures above 
 and below, through all which a sufficiency 
 of light was admitted to make a twilight in 
 the room, by which I could plainly see 
 every one around the table ; see both ave- 
 nues of ingress, and detect every motion of 
 everv hand in the room. When accustomed 
 to the light, I read an advertisement which 
 hung up against the wall, ten feet from 
 me. Ira sat next me on my left, the lady 
 on my right, and Mr. Davenport on the 
 opposite side of the table.' 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 6 
 
 After several manifestations, William 
 came and knocked at the door, and was 
 admitted, when the manifestations became 
 more powerful, xlfter mentioning several 
 incidents similar to those already described, 
 Mr. Albro continues : — 
 
 4 The next manifestation was the appear- 
 ance of human fingers, from under the 
 table [where bells had been rung, musical 
 instruments played, &c, while the editor 
 had carefully guarded against deception], 
 reaching over the edge of the table and 
 leaping upon it. Then whole hands ap- 
 peared in the same manner. These fingers 
 and hands were from the size of a large 
 man's hand to that of a small child. [No 
 children were present.] The largest ones 
 were black, and all the others were white. 
 [Observe, that there were but five persons, 
 including the Davenports, in the room, 
 which was light enough for everything to 
 be distinctly seen.] During the time of 
 
64 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 these exhibitions I put my hand under the 
 table. In a minute after, I felt the pressure 
 of cold fingers on my thumb. Then it 
 was grasped by a whole hand. I asked 
 who it was that grasped my thumb, and 
 was told that it was the spirit of my 
 father, the truth of which was soon made 
 evident by my own vision. I then re- 
 quested my father to grasp my whole 
 hand, which he did with such power 
 that it reminded me of the almost giant 
 grip which he occasionally made me feel in 
 urchinhood. He had a large and very 
 powerful hand ; and the one which grasped 
 mine was like it, both in size and power. 
 By the raps an umbrella was called for, 
 which was standing in a corner of the room. 
 One of the boys brought it and put it under 
 the table, closed. In a few moments it 
 made its appearance from under the table, 
 opened to its full extent. It came out at 
 the end of the table, at the left hand of the 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 65 
 
 elder of the two boys, and was raised up 
 and held over his head, the lower end of 
 the staff remaining below the table, and 
 between the boy's knees. It was moved up 
 and down, and twirled round one way and 
 the other, as it was held over his head. It 
 immediately moved from him to me, the 
 staff passing along against the edge of the 
 table. My head being higher than that 
 of the boy, it was necessary to elevate it, 
 to get it over my head. In doing this, a 
 female hand and arm, of the most exquisite 
 model, appeared from under the table — the 
 beautiful hand graspiug the staff of the 
 umbrella, and moving it up and down, and 
 turning it, as above related. To this narra- 
 tive of facts, to which I append my signa- 
 ture, I am ready at any time to append my 
 affidavit : and further, I am ready to testify, 
 under oath, that none of these things which 
 I have related were done by any of the five 
 persons in the room, and that no other per- 
 
 F 
 
66 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 son belonging to this mundane sphere was 
 in the room during their enactment. 
 
 (Signed) ' Stephen Albro.' 
 
 The above statement is slightly condensed 
 from the original, but not altered in any 
 essential particular. Mr. Albro, I am as- 
 sured, was widely known in Buffalo and all 
 that region as a man of high respectability 
 and intelligence, — one not likely to be de- 
 ceived, and certainly not likely to deceive 
 others. 
 
 The lady who accompanied Mr. Albro 
 also furnished the following statement : — 
 
 ■& 
 
 ' To the Pieaders of the "Age of Progress." 
 
 1 Mr. Albro having shown me the fore- 
 going report in manuscript, and I being the 
 lady referred to as accompanying him to 
 Mr. Davenport's room, and witnessing the 
 manifestations which he narrates, I hereby 
 certify that this report is true in every par- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 67 
 
 ticular — not including what he felt with his 
 hands under the table. And I further cer- 
 tify that his account, instead of exceeding 
 the truth, falls much short of the reality of 
 what I witnessed. 
 
 (Signed) < Mary M. Taylor.' 
 
 Jf it were considered worth while to do 
 so, I could fill twenty volumes like this 
 with similar statements, made under the 
 solemnities of an oath if required, testify- 
 ing to similar phenomena, and given by 
 honest and intelligent witnesses, whose 
 evidence would be taken by any court in 
 Christendom in any case whatever. 
 
 Mr. Albro appears to have been con- 
 vinced that the hand which grasped his 
 was that of his father, long since dead. 
 What he appears to have known as a fact, 
 was that it was not the hand of Mr. Daven- 
 port, or of the lady or the two boys, the 
 only persons present. So of the hands that 
 
 F 2 
 
68 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 appeared at the end of the table, and the 
 beautiful feminine hand and arm that held 
 the umbrella. If the facts narrated by Mr. 
 Albro stood alone, or if he and those with 
 him were the only witnesses, we might throw 
 them aside as a cheat or hallucination ; but 
 when there are hundreds of such facts and 
 thousands of such witnesses, it becomes 
 more difficult. Still, a man of strong will 
 can refuse to believe alm9St anything. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 69 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT ON THEIR 
 TRAVELS. 
 
 Beginning of the Binding Tests — Judge Paine's ingenious 
 Experiments — Thread and Sealing Wax — Sewed up 
 in Sacks — Invincible Incredulity — Tobacco Test at 
 Cleveland — Betting and Sailors' Tests at Toledo — 
 A German Philosopher at Ann Arbor — Tarred Rope 
 and Waxed Ends at Rochester — A Series of Trials. 
 
 When time enough had elapsed for the good 
 people of Buffalo to be satisfied of the verity 
 of the facts heretofore related, and when 
 Mr. Davenport had seen and felt signs and 
 wonders enough to satisfy him that he could 
 no longer oppose the desire of the mys- 
 terious intelligence to give the people of 
 other regions similar opportunities, the two 
 Brothers Davenport, accompanied first by 
 their father, and afterwards by other per- 
 
70 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 sons who acted as their friends or agents, 
 commenced the journeyings which have 
 now continued nearly ten years, in which 
 they have visited most of the important 
 towns on one Continent, and have begun a 
 similar mission in another hemisphere. 
 
 It is impossible, in my brief limits, to 
 fully describe the incidents of their long 
 journeyings. The experience of one town 
 or city was generally repeated in another, 
 though the manifestations were varied, and 
 new and more severe tests were proposed 
 as old ones failed to detect what people 
 thought must be imposture. The best I can 
 do in this case, is to keep as nearly as pos- 
 sible the order of .time, and select from the 
 great mass of ever-occurring incidents those 
 which seem most interesting in themselves, 
 and those which will give the reader the 
 best idea of the nature of the phenomena 
 evolved, and the best means of judging, if 
 such a judgment can be formed, of the 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 71 
 
 cause and purpose of what was done, by 
 whom, and why. My own work in the mat- 
 ter, as far as I can now see, is pretty much 
 confined to the what, or the first part of the 
 subject. The rest may, I hope, be safely 
 confided to the judgment of an enlightened 
 public. 
 
 It was not long after the Davenport Bro- 
 thers commenced to visit places where they 
 were unknown, and where the wonders ex- 
 hibited in their presence, and to which their 
 presence seems to be in some way a neces- 
 sary condition, created an intense and wild 
 excitement, breaking out at times into blind 
 and violent opposition and persecution, be- 
 fore tests began to be required to satisfy 
 people more or less that they were not im- 
 posed upon by artful jugglers. The}^ were 
 first held by persons selected from the 
 audience, two or more being appointed to 
 hold each of the brothers while the mani- 
 festations were being accomplished. This 
 
72 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 process was found to be exhausting to the 
 boys, perhaps from some adverse or antago- 
 nistic magnetism, and unsatisfactory to the 
 public, who looked upon those selected to 
 hold them as confederates. It was then 
 proposed to bind them with ropes. When the 
 ropes, though knotted in the most careful 
 manner by the most skilful persons, were 
 found to be untied in a few moments, the 
 crowd asked, naturally enough, c Why don't 
 you have handcuffs V The handcuffs were 
 procured ; but they were no more satisfac- 
 tory than the ropes, for the intelligent audi- 
 ence said, ' You have got handcuffs made 
 on purpose :' but, as they seldom brought 
 any themselves, it was difficult to satisfy 
 their requirements. 
 
 At Painesville, a small town in Ohio, on 
 Lake Erie, Judge Paine, who had given his 
 name to the township, contrived, with seve- 
 ral of his friends, a series of tests which 
 showed no little ingenuity. These were men 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 73 
 
 of the class who may be called invincibly 
 incredulous. Neither seeing, hearing, nor 
 feeling, with them was believing. They 
 would have delighted a recent writer in 
 the ' Cornhill Magazine,' who has declared 
 that no one ought to believe anything un- 
 usual on any amount of evidence, that of 
 his own senses included. 
 
 After the brothers had been bound as se- 
 curely as the Lake Erie sailors and riggers 
 could tie them, and the manifestations had 
 been made while they were thus bound, 
 spectral hands shown, instruments played 
 upon and thrown about, or they unbound 
 by what appeared invisible agency, or the 
 genii of Eastern story, the Judge proposed 
 a test which, he said, would satisfy him and 
 everybody. This of course ; nothing is 
 more common than for a man to imagine 
 that what satisfies him of the truth of some- 
 thing hard to believe must satisfy everybody 
 else. The result is, that each person who is 
 
74 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 satisfied is instantly denounced as a fool or 
 a knave by all the remaining unbelievers. 
 The learned Judge said, if the boys were 
 bound, not with rope, but with linen thread, 
 and this sealed with sealing-wax, and then 
 the trumpet blacked with printers' ink, so 
 as to blacken any hand that touched it, he 
 would be satisfied, and everybody else, of 
 course. The test was accepted : the mani- 
 festations occurred as usual — the seals were 
 unbroken. Was Judge Paine satisfied ? — 
 Not in the least. The next day he was 
 ready with a new test. This time, the boys 
 were first tied with cords, then enclosed in 
 sacks, and the sacks tacked to the floor. All 
 the instruments were blacked, and every 
 possible precaution taken. The hall and 
 the streets were crowded with people. The 
 hands were formed, the instruments whirled 
 about in the air and beaten, and abundant 
 evidence given that somebody or something 
 was wide awake and active ; but when lights 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 75 
 
 were brought, the brothers were very safe 
 in their sacks. When the Judge saw them 
 secure, he said to his friends, ' We've got to 
 give in on this!' But next day he had 
 a new theory : the boys had untied them- 
 selves, ripped open the bags, made the mani- 
 festations, and then got back again all safely 
 sewed up and tied. Truly, there is no cre- 
 dulity like incredulity. 
 
 At Cleveland, a beautiful city on Lake 
 Erie, a very obstinate sceptic, watching nar- 
 rowly to detect some jugglery or imposture, 
 was very suddenly and drolly converted to 
 a belief in the genuineness of the manifesta- 
 tions. He was sitting in the midst of the 
 audience, when the voice which sometimes 
 accompanies the manifestations was heard 
 to say with emphasis, i No, I don't want any 
 of that ;' at which the sceptic burst into 
 laughter, which he afterwards explained. 
 Taking a chew of tobacco, in a sort of bra- 
 vado he held out the paper, mentally offer- 
 
76 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 ing some to the voice or its owner — to 
 c John.' The words heard bv the audience 
 were the instantaneous answer. 
 
 Toledo is a port on Lake Erie, at the ex- 
 tremity opposite to Buffalo, a town of con- 
 siderable traffic, but having a population, it 
 must be confessed, of a somewhat lawless 
 character. The traveller who stops at a 
 hotel at Toledo is likely enough to run 
 against a Faro table, and will readily find 
 men to bet on anything, from a trotting 
 horse to a presidential election. Of course, 
 a crowd assembled to see the now famous 
 Brothers Davenport; and equally, of course, 
 they began to lay heavy wagers on the suc- 
 cess or non-success of the performance. A 
 committee was selected to give the sporting 
 men the fairest possible chance. It con- 
 sisted of two sailors, two riggers, and two 
 captains of vessels to direct operations. 
 They brought their own rope, a sufficient 
 quantity, and marlinspikes, to work with. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 77 
 
 They not only tied the ropes about their 
 heads, feet, arms, and bodies, in all the in- 
 genious knots known to the craft, but 
 spliced the ropes as well as tied them, and 
 then wetted the knots, to make the rope swell. 
 After three-quarters of an hour of hard 
 work, the two captains declared themselves 
 satisfied. It is doubtful if, without using 
 their knives, they could have freed the boys 
 in the time which had been taken to tie 
 them. While thus bound, the usual mani- 
 festations, of which I need not repeat the 
 description, were given, and the boys found 
 bound as strongly as ever. Then the lights 
 were turned down, and they were found 
 with every knot untied, completely liberated, 
 in the space of five minutes. The losing 
 sportsmen paid their bets, and the audience 
 went home astonished if not satisfied. 
 
 Not the least of the many difficulties and 
 annoyances attendant upon the giving of 
 such manifestations and tests as have been 
 
78 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 described, was the conduct of the committees 
 who stood between the brothers and the 
 large assemblages who everywhere gathered 
 to see them. Sometimes it was difficult to 
 get persons willing to serve ; at others they 
 were prejudiced and unfair, or what theo- 
 logians call 'invincibly ignorant.' For 
 example, at Ann Arbor, in Michigan, a 
 German, whose conceit and bad English 
 made him a sort of favourite with the 
 public, was selected to sit in the cabinet in 
 which the two brothers were bound. He 
 sat between them, so as to be able to tell at 
 every moment whether they continued to 
 be bound — whether they even stirred in the 
 places to which they were firmly secured, 
 and, above all, whether a concealed con- 
 federate exhibited phantom hands, played 
 upon the instruments, or threw them out 
 upon the platform. The German was shut 
 in the cabinet. The instruments climbed 
 up his body, rested on his head, and were 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 79 
 
 played upon as usual. Hands and arms 
 appeared at the openings of the closet. He 
 was between the two brothers, where he 
 could hear every breath and feel every 
 motion. The doors were thrown open, and 
 they were seen to be securely bound. Then 
 the German gentleman gave his testimony. 
 ' Were they fastened all the time ? ' was 
 asked. 
 
 ' Yaas ; dey vas fastened every minute. 7 
 1 Did they make any movement ? ' 
 1 No ; dey never sdirred at all.' 
 1 Was there anybody else there but you 
 three?' 
 
 i No ; nobody else vas dere. How coult 
 dey be ? You could see dat yourselves/ 
 
 1 Well, then, whose were the hands, and 
 who made the noises ? ' 
 1 Oh, dey vas de poysV 
 ' How do you know? You just said 
 they were bound fast all the time, and 
 didn't move.' 
 
80 A BTOGEAPHY OF 
 
 ' Yaas, dey vas fast enough ; but it most 
 have been dem, because de-re vas nobody else 
 to do it ! ' 
 
 The logic is perfect, of course, but not 
 entirely satisfactory. 
 
 At Rochester, in New York, new methods 
 of binding were tried, When fortifications 
 were to be made for the defence of a town, 
 and the council discussed the choice of the 
 materials to be used, a man who owned a 
 quarry was in favour of stone ; the pro- 
 prietor of a brick-yard contended for the 
 superiority of well-burnt bricks, and the 
 tanner declared that ' there was nothing like 
 leather.' Rochester, besides its millers and 
 merchants, has a large population of canal 
 boatmen and shoemakers. The canallers 
 insisted on tarred ropes, while the shoe- 
 makers stuck to waxed-ends, as the best 
 means of tying the brothers securely. As a 
 compromise, they used both, and the young 
 men were first bound as fast as a sailor on 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 81 
 
 ' the raging Erie Canal ' could devise, and 
 then finished off with the tyings of waxed 
 thread by the shoemaker. It was of no use ; 
 rather, it was of just the same use as any 
 other thorough and satisfactory test. All 
 the manifestations were given, which the 
 audience satisfied themselves there was no- 
 body to give, and then the boys in a few 
 moments were freed from their adhesive 
 entanglements. Those who could be satis- 
 fied of the verity of what they saw were 
 satisfied. Those who could not, were con- 
 tent to call it a humbug and imposture, the 
 nature and agencies of which, however, they 
 were farther than ever from being able to 
 explain. 
 
 While on a visit to London, a large flou- 
 rishing town in Canada West, in 1857, a 
 seance was attended by his Worship the 
 Mayor, and several members of the corpo- 
 ration. The mayor himself actively assisted 
 in fastening the brothers with tarred ropes, 
 
 G 
 
82 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 and as a private test, which it is believed 
 he communicated to no one, he blacked 
 some of the knots which were not in sight, 
 but which were afterwards found untied. 
 When the doors of the cabinet had been 
 closed a voice from the trumpet said — ' Mr. 
 Mayor, why did you black the knots ? ' 
 The result was that no visible hands were 
 blackened. 
 
 In every such case, it is to be observed, 
 these two boys are put on trial of honesty 
 and veracity. They declare that certain 
 manifestations of physical and intellectual 
 power — force directed by intelligence — take 
 place in their presence, which neither they 
 nor any other living person actively or 
 consciously produce, Every seance is a trial 
 more or less perfectly conducted of this first 
 question at issue. The first fact established, 
 other questions may be in order. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 83 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE CAMBRIDGE PROFESSORS. 
 
 ' Old Harvard ' — Scientific Incredidity — A University Com- 
 mission — The Fox Girls — The Brothers examined — 
 Plenty of Rope— Prof. Pierce in the Cabinet — 
 Phosphorus — What came of it. , 
 
 It was at about this period that certain 
 Professors of Harvard University undertook 
 to investigate, explain, and abolish every- 
 1 thing of a preter- or super-natural character. 
 Old Harvard is the Oxford of the New 
 World — the oldest university, and one which 
 holds the highest rank. Its seat is Cam- 
 bridge, a suburb of Boston, which claims 
 to be the Athens of America and the ' hub 
 of the universe ' beside. Thus ; Boston is 
 the most intelligent and scientific city in 
 America, and America is the most intelli- 
 
 G 2 
 
84 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 gent country in the world ; ergo, Boston in 
 a literary and scientific way is the hub, 
 focus, or pivotal centre — of the universe. 
 Q.E.D. 
 
 The parties arrayed in this contest were 
 principally Dr. Gardner of Boston, who 
 asserted that phenomena were exhibited 
 above or beyond the ordinary operations of 
 nature, and which could not be accounted 
 for by physical laws as recognised by 
 modern science ; and Professors Agassiz, 
 Pierce, and others, of Harvard, who denied 
 the possibility as well as the fact of such 
 manifestations. As a rule, men who have 
 made a reputation in any science drive 
 down a stake there — erect a barricade which 
 no one must pass, and are ready to de- 
 nounce all discoveries which go beyond 
 their own. They deny every alleged fact 
 which does not square with their theories. 
 Showers of fish may fall upon a marching 
 regiment in India, and be fried and eaten 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 85 
 
 by the soldiers ; toads may be seen coming 
 alive from solid rocks blasted with gunpow- 
 der twenty feet below the surface in quar- 
 ries or railway cuttings, and the toads, and 
 the rocks where they had lain ever since the 
 rocks were formed, with the holes in which 
 they reposed split across by the explosion, 
 preserved and seen by all who care to see 
 them, and yet no Professor of Xatural His- 
 tory will admit the fact until he has got a 
 theory to fit it. It is a humbug, an impos- 
 ture, and a delusion. 4 So much the worse 
 for the facts.' 
 
 Our Harvard Professors made or accepted 
 the challenge to examine some of the nre- 
 ternatural phenomena — not that thpy had 
 the least idea of finding and accepting truth, 
 or advancing the cause or increasing the 
 domain of science, but that they might ex- 
 pose and authoritatively denounce what they 
 believed to be a great imposture or a great 
 delusion. It was a verv srood thing to do, 
 
86 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 provided they had been as willing to accept 
 an established fact as they were to denounce 
 an established humbug. 
 
 Among the persons summoned to be 
 tried before the Harvard Professors on the 
 charge of falsely pretending that very un- 
 usual, or what may properly be called 
 super- or preter-natural phenomena oc- 
 curred in, and seemingly by means of, their 
 presence, were the Misses Fox, and the 
 Brothers Davenport. The manifestations 
 in the presence of the Fox girls were 
 chiefly confined to loud explosive rappings 
 or thumpings on tables, doors, or other 
 vibratory substances, which raps manifested 
 an intelligent source by answering ques- 
 tions, written or mental, and spelling out 
 messages. Phenomena, force, intelligence. 
 This is what the Harvard Professors had 
 first to investigate, before going further. 
 The raps or thumps were plain and loud 
 enough. They seemed to come from the 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 87 
 
 centre of doors or tables — the professors' 
 doors or tables, which could not be sus- 
 pected of jugglery. 
 
 The girls, who have been described to me 
 as honest and simple-hearted, were sub- 
 jected by the learned professors to a very 
 severe ordeal. First, they were carefully 
 examined for concealed machinery. Then 
 it was a question whether they could not 
 make loud thumpings, as with a mallet, 
 seeming to come out of the centre of a 
 mahogany table, with their knee joints or 
 toes. So their limbs were confined, and 
 their feet placed upon pillows. It was of 
 no use. The sounds continued all the 
 same, and the professors made no other 
 discovery but that there were unaccount- 
 able noises. 
 
 The Brothers Davenport were reserved 
 till the last. At the beginning, they were 
 submitted to a cross-examination. The 
 professors exercised their ingenuity in pro- 
 
88 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 posing tests. c Would they submit to be 
 handcuffed ? ' 4 Yes/ < Would they allow 
 men to hold them ?' 'Yes.' A dozen pro- 
 positions were made, accepted, and then 
 rejected by those who made them. If any 
 test was accepted by the brothers, that was 
 reason enough for not trying it. They 
 were supposed to be prepared for that, so 
 some other must be found. It was of no 
 use to put them to any test to which they 
 were ready, and apparently eager, to sub- 
 mit. At last the ingenious professors fell 
 back upon rope — their own rope, and plenty 
 of it. They brought five hundred feet of 
 new rope, selected for the purpose. They 
 bored the cabinet, set up in one of their 
 own rooms, and to which they had free 
 access, full of holes. They tied the two 
 bovs in the most thorough and the most 
 brutal manner. They have, as any one 
 may see, or feel, small wrists, and hands 
 large in proportion — good, solid hands 
 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 89 
 
 which cannot be slipped through a ligature 
 which fits even loosely on the wrists. 
 When they were tied hand and foot, arms, 
 legs, and in every way, and with every 
 kind of complicated knotting, the ropes 
 were drawn through the holes bored in the 
 cabinet, and firmly knotted outside, so as 
 to make a network over the boys. After 
 all, the knots were tied with linen thread. 
 Professor Pierce then took his place in the 
 cabinet between the two brothers, who 
 could scarcely breathe, so tightly were they 
 secured. As he entered, Professor Agassiz 
 was seen to put something in his hand. 
 The side doors were closed and fastened. 
 The centre door was no sooner shut than 
 the bolt was shot on them inside, and Pro- 
 fessor Pierce stretched out both hands to 
 see which of the two firmly-bound boys 
 had done it. The phantom hand was 
 shown ; the instruments were rattled ; the 
 professor felt them about his head and face ; 
 
90 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 and at every movement kept pawing on 
 each side with his hands, to find the boys 
 both bound as firm as ever. Then the 
 mysterious present of Professor Agassiz 
 became apparent. The professor ignited 
 some phosphorus by rubbing it between his 
 hands, and half suffocated himself and the 
 boys with its fumes, in trying to see the 
 trick or the confederate. At last, both 
 boys were untied from all the complicated 
 fastenings without and within the cabinet, 
 and the ropes were found twisted around 
 the neck of the watchful Professor Pierce ! 
 Well, and what came of it all ? Did the 
 professors of Harvard tell what they had 
 seen ? Not in the least. To this day they 
 have made no report whatever of the re- 
 sult of their investigation, and are pro- 
 bably, to this day, denouncing it all as 
 humbug, imposture, delusion, et cetera. 
 What can a man of science do with a fact 
 he cannot account for, except deny it ? 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 91 
 
 It is the simplest way of overcoming a 
 difficulty, and avoiding the confession that 
 there is something in the world which he 
 does not understand. Of all men in the 
 world, men of science, and especially 
 scientific professors, are the last to acknow- 
 ledge that c there are more things in heaven 
 and earth, than are dreamt of in their 
 philosophy. ' 
 
92 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 AMONG THE DOWN-EASTERS. 
 
 Lola Monies — A Row in a Garret — A Storm of Feathers — 
 A Scene at Portland — A Mad-house Test — Boxed up at 
 Bangor — A Discomfited Darling — Seeing is not 
 always Believing. 
 
 Having got through with the Professors of 
 Old Harvard, and passed through college, 
 but without receiving the diploma to which 
 they were entitled, the Brothers Davenport 
 reposed at the Fountain House, in Boston, 
 where they made the acquaintance of many 
 distinguished personages in the literary 
 emporium, of whom they pleasantly re- 
 member the pretty, eccentric, and kind- 
 hearted Lola Montes, Countess of Lands- 
 feldt, who received what she believed to be 
 communications from several of her de- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 93 
 
 parted friends, and notably from her last 
 husband who had drowned himself on their 
 voyage from Australia to California. There 
 was, of course, no inquest, for the body was 
 never found, but a jury could not have 
 hesitated to return a charitable verdict. If 
 not a case of mental alienation, they could 
 not have made it worse thsmfelo de se, with 
 extenuating circumstances. The beauteous 
 Lola mourned for him sincerely, and was 
 very generous to his family. Here, also, 
 they became acquainted with Mr. F. 
 Woodward, who, in the absence of their 
 father, who returned to Buffalo, became for 
 a time their agent. 
 
 Woodward entered upon this trust with 
 very little, if any, faith in the reality of the 
 manifestations. He presumed there was 
 some trick about them ; but as he could not 
 discover it, he thought others would not, 
 and so he consented to aid in what he 
 thought must be a paying speculation. 
 
94 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 On arriving at Newburyport, a beautiful 
 seaport town of Massachusetts, north-east of 
 Boston, the hotel at which they proposed to 
 stop was so full that the only place they 
 could get was a large attic, in which were 
 a dozen or more double and single beds, ar- 
 ranged as in a ward in a hospital, a common 
 enough thing in America, where the ball 
 room of a tavern is filled with cot-beds, in 
 crowded seasons. 
 
 In this large room, where there were al- 
 ready two lodgers, Mr. Woodward took one 
 bed, and the two brothers another. Wood- 
 ward, being purse-bearer, put the wallet 
 containing his money under his pillow. 
 When the light had been extinguished a 
 little while, the bed on which the brothers 
 reposed began to rock about like a boat on 
 the waves, or jolted with the motion of a 
 hard trotting horse. Woodward called out 
 to know what was up. On being told, his 
 curiosity was greatly excited, and he begged 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 95 
 
 to be allowed to come to them, that he might 
 feel, at least, what was being done. 
 
 He came, forgetting his wallet, but had 
 no sooner laid down on the eccentric and 
 demonstrative bed, than he heard his money 
 jingling. He sprang to get it, but it was 
 gone, and could nowhere be found. Then 
 commenced a wild uproar in the room. 
 Cords were broken, beds fell upon the floor, 
 sheets and coverlids were torn in pieces, 
 and the two strangers rose in a fright, 
 dressed hastily, paid their bills, and went 
 to find more quiet lodgings. The noise 
 increased. Woodward felt strange hands 
 seizing him. His wallet was restored as 
 mysteriously as it had been taken. At last 
 the landlord came up with a light, when 
 everything became instantaneously as quiet 
 as it had been tumultuous a moment before. 
 He inquired the cause of the uproar. The 
 young men could only protest that they had 
 not made it. ' Well, then,' said the reason- 
 
96 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 able man, 1 1 should like to know who did 
 if you didn't. There is nobody else here, 
 and this room is in a nice condition, 1 
 don't think.' 
 
 ' All we can say is, that we have been 
 perfectly quiet, and have not made the least 
 noise or done any mischief.' 
 
 As the two Davenports and Mr. Wood- 
 ward gave the same assurance, the landlord 
 was a little staggered, but returning com- 
 mon sense made him look about the room 
 at his demolished furniture, and remark 
 that they were, as far as he could see, the 
 only persons who could have caused the 
 damage he was already reckoning up to put 
 in the bill, with serious doubts as to its 
 speedy liquidation. 
 
 1 We have told you all we know about the 
 matter,' said Ira, ' but if you will blow out 
 the candle, you may probably have a chance 
 of judging for yourself.' 
 
 Standing by the bed with the two boys, 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 97 
 
 and making sure of the presence of the 
 equally astonished Woodward, the landlord 
 blew out the light. The instant it was ex- 
 tinguished the contents of a feather bed 
 were emptied over his head, and the hul- 
 laballoo began again worse than ever— 
 ropes cracking, sheets tearing, and bedsteads 
 crashing, until he felt his way to the door, 
 escaped from the room, and rushed down 
 
 stairs ' as if the was after him.' 
 
 "When he had gone, things became peace- 
 ful, and the three companions were left to 
 their repose. In the morning the great 
 garret room was as fine a spectacle of a 
 wreck as one could wish to see. The land- 
 lord's first impulse was to get his bill for 
 damages paid, and then to get rid of his 
 troublesome and alarming guests. Mr. 
 Woodward paid the rather heavy bill — some 
 sixty pounds for a night's lodging — and, 
 at the urgent request of the landlord, they 
 took their luggage to another hotel. But 
 
 H 
 
it 1 
 
 . IT:- 
 
 ill 
 
 98 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 the news spread, and the garret was visited 
 that day by three or four hundred people. 
 
 Travelling eastward from Newbury port 
 they came to Portland, the finest seaport in 
 Maine, and one of the best on the Atlantic 
 coast ; a beautiful town, moreover, of 26,000 
 inhabitants, and the residence of John Neal, 
 novelist and poet. Here the excitement 
 and the interest to see them was very great, 
 but they were not the less subjected to tests 
 of an extraordinary character. To make 
 sure that the phantom hands — I say phan- 
 tom, though they are palpable as well as 
 plainly visible — were not the hands, of the 
 Davenports (and it was made very certain 
 that they could not be those of any other 
 person) they were bound hand and foot, and 
 to their seats, by two sea captains and two 
 riggers, selected from the audience, who 
 secured them with all the ingenuity and 
 appliances of their craft. These adepts con? 
 sumed not minutes merely but hours, at 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 99 
 
 least hard upon two hours, in tying them. 
 Their character was at stake, and they made 
 very thorough work. 
 
 In spite of all this the manifestations pro- 
 ceeded as usual. While the two brothers 
 were thus bound at each end of the cabinet 
 as fast as human skill could bind, and the 
 cabinet in which they were seated was 
 watched on every side, above and beneath, 
 by an eager crowd and a hard-headed com- 
 mittee, the doors were fastened on the inside, 
 not by a spring bolt, but by one that re- 
 quires to be pushed by some force, and then 
 began the ringing of bells, drumming on tam- 
 bourine, tuning of violin and guitar, the 
 appearance of hands and even of arms, and 
 finally such a concert as could not have 
 been played by less than three pairs of 
 hands ; at the end, or as a finale to which, 
 the doors were suddenly thrown open, the 
 instruments rolled and tumbled out upon 
 the floor almost before the noises had ceased, 
 
 H 2 
 
100 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 and the committee and whole audience saw 
 and felt that not a knot had been stirred, and 
 that not one of the four hands of the two 
 boys inside could by any possibility have 
 been free for a moment, or have done any 
 of the things that had been seen and heard. 
 In the audience was an officer of the 
 State Lunatic Asylum, and when they were 
 next to be secured, he proposed to do it, 
 not by ropes, but by an apparatus he had 
 brought with him for that purpose, and 
 which was one for binding dangerous luna- 
 tics. This apparatus consisted in part of 
 leather handcuffs, made so as to be as se- 
 cure as those of steel, without being pain- 
 ful. As an additional security, the gentle- 
 man was allowed to be seated inside the 
 cabinet between the boys, so that he could 
 be sure, whatever was done, they had no 
 hand in it. The doors closed — the centre- 
 bolt shot of its own accord, and the instru- 
 ments inside began their astonishing gyra- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 101 
 
 tions. I am not aware of what was done 
 by the gentleman who was keeping watch 
 and ward, but for some reason, or without 
 a reason, he got a severe blow upon the 
 nose, and came out very thoroughly con- 
 vinced that neither of the boys had given 
 it, and requiring no more striking proofs 
 that there were forces, and perhaps beings 
 in the universe, with which or whom he 
 had not been previously acquainted. 
 
 Proceeding slowly through the state of 
 Maine, in which they spent two years, visit- 
 ing nearly every town of any importance, 
 they came to Bangor, the great lumber- 
 mart and manufactory on the falls of the 
 Penobscot river, at the head of navigation r 
 a thriving, busy town, and full of the very 
 cutest and smartest of down-east Yankees. 
 
 One of these, Mr. Darling, a prosperous 
 master-carpenter, man of science, ingenious 
 mechanic, who had made notable inventions, 
 who was an energetic and leading man, and 
 
102 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 who, as a Swedenborgian, was well c posted ' 
 in the matters not only of this world and 
 its inhabitants, but of the i heavens, and 
 hells, and earths of the universe,' wrote a 
 piece in a newspaper, denouncing the Da- 
 venport manifestations as utterly unworthy 
 of any angels, demons, or spirits with whom 
 he was acquainted, — and as a receiver of the 
 faith and works of Swedenborg, he thought 
 himself authorised to speak for them, — but 
 an impudent and bungling piece of jug- 
 glery, which he engaged to expose, if 
 they would submit to a test he would pro- 
 vide, without knowing it beforehand, so as 
 to be able to circumvent it, under a penalty 
 of three hundred dollars. 
 
 This challenge was at once accepted, and 
 the town, of course, thrown into a fever of 
 excitement. The newspapers took up the 
 matter, as they must every matter which 
 greatly interests the public, according to 
 the great law of supply and demand. The 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 103 
 
 town thought and talked of little else than 
 the great match between the Swedenborgian 
 master- carpenter and the Brothers Daven- 
 port. It may be doubted if even a presiden- 
 tial election would have made a greater 
 excitement. There are usually two parties 
 to an excitement, but I believe a majority 
 of the people of Bangor expected to see the 
 Davenports thoroughly exposed and put to 
 open shame, and there was somewhat of the 
 combined sensation of a trial and execution 
 at the same time — as if the judge, after a 
 conviction for murder, instead of drawing 
 on the black cap and passing sentence, 
 should call in the executioner and have the 
 convict hanged, after the manner of Judge 
 Lynch and drum-head courts-martial. 
 
 The night appointed came, and the hall was 
 more than crowded — it was jammed. The 
 brothers had no notion of the nature of the 
 trial, and were, perhaps, as much astonished 
 and as much amused as anybody, when Mr. 
 
104 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Darling and his six confederates marched 
 solemnly upon the stage, with a load of what 
 seemed boxes, and ropes, which turned 
 out, upon examination, to be really a very 
 ingenious apparatus. The audience cheered 
 as if the victory had been already w r on, and 
 the few who believed in the manifestations 
 were gloomy and perplexed. If they did 
 not doubt, they feared. 
 
 Mr. Darling proceeded to adjust his 
 apparatus. It consisted of long wooden 
 tubes, two for the arms of each brother, 
 fitting closely, and projecting three inches 
 beyond the ends of their fingers. There 
 were similar tubes for the legs. Holes had 
 been bored in them, so that they could be 
 fastened to the arms and legs, or otherwise 
 secured. While Mr. Darling and his assist- 
 ants were securing them, the Davenports 
 aided them with suggestions, advising them 
 to fasten the knots away from their teeth, 
 and from experience instructing them how 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 105 
 
 their limbs could be placed in more secure 
 positions. This cool and quiet confidence 
 greatly troubled Mr. Darling. He trembled 
 with excitement. The perspiration rolled 
 from his face. At last the operation was 
 declared completed. Persons from the au- 
 dience were invited to examine the fixtures. 
 They were decided to be ' in a tight place,' 
 and the announcement was received with im- 
 mense applause. Editors, preachers, and other 
 sceptics, were in a state of ecstatic beatitude. 
 
 1 Now, ladies and gentlemen,' said the 
 agitated Mr. Darling, l they are secure.' 
 The house was hushed to silence. The two 
 side-doors were closed and fastened, shutting 
 in two-thirds of the cabinet, then the centre 
 door was shut, and instantly bolted on the 
 inside — by whom ? 
 
 Mr. Darling heard the sound with a con- 
 sternation he could not conceal, but began 
 to seal up the doors with sealing-wax, as 
 if anyone could open them unobserved, 
 
106 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 under his eyes and the eyes of the whole 
 assembly. Directly the instruments in 
 the cabinet began to be played, hands and 
 arms were displayed at an opening near 
 the top of the centre door, the trumpet was 
 thrown out of the cabinet, and then the 
 doors suddenly opened, and the boys found 
 as firmly secured as ever. The doors were 
 closed again, A great rattling and whisking 
 of ropes was heard for a few moments ; the 
 doors were opened, and the brothers stood 
 up as free as when they had walked into the 
 cabinet. 
 
 Now the applause came from _ the other 
 side, with mocking cries of ' Darling, Dar- 
 ling ! ' Mr. Darling gave it up like a man. 
 He had done his best. If anybody could 
 do better, he was welcome to try. 
 
 Their success in Bangor was of course 
 triumphant, as it was generally through- 
 out the State, and wherever the people gave 
 the phenomena a fair, or even unfair exami- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 107 
 
 nation. An affidavit was drawn up, sub- 
 scribed and sworn to by a number of lead- 
 ing and respectable citizens, who imagined 
 that everybody would believe what they 
 swore to, and of course they had the mor- 
 tification of finding that their testimony had 
 not the slightest weight with those who were 
 determined that they would not believe, or 
 whose minds were so constituted that they 
 could not. It is said that belief is involun- 
 tary. It is certain that unbelief, or appa- 
 rent unbelief, with strong and persistent 
 denial, appears to be accompanied at times 
 with great wilfulness. 
 
 Mr. Darling, of Bangor, may have been 
 converted, or have remained sceptical ; but 
 if he went away a believer, and expected 
 any person who had not seen what he did, 
 to believe it on his testimony, he was pro- 
 bably disappointed. The wife of his bosom 
 may not improbably have said to him, c My 
 Darling, you are either a knave or a fool, or 
 
108 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 both together, to come and tell me such 
 rubbish. 7 And she would have been con- 
 sidered a sensible woman, though indulging 
 too much in her candour at the expense of 
 her politeness. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 109 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 MORE WONDERS IN MAINE. 
 
 A Riot and a Fight— 1 Capt. Henry Morgan the Buccaneer'' 
 — Mr. Rand's Story — The Escritoire unlocked — Mrs, 
 Rands testimony. 
 
 These manifestations, as I may have men- 
 tioned, however triumphantly given, in spite 
 of all the various tests to which they «were 
 submitted, were met everywhere with a 
 more or less violent opposition. In large 
 and orderly towns, the brothers were only 
 denounced as charlatans, jugglers, and hum- 
 bugs generally; in the smaller ones, and 
 among ruder communities, they were some- 
 times assailed with open violence. Thus, 
 while holding a seance in the town hall of 
 the small seaport town of Orland, in Maine, 
 Ira became conscious of an impending row, 
 

 110 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 not as coming from the audience, but from 
 4 outsiders ; ' and before they had far ad- 
 vanced in their operations, the doors were 
 broken open by a rabble of drunken sailors 
 and fishermen, who, it was afterwards said, 
 had been hired by a zealous Methodist, with 
 a hundred dollars, to drive them out of 
 town. - ! 
 
 The town-hall immediately became the 
 scene of a desperate fight. Benches were 
 torn up, windows smashed, women screamed 
 or fainted, and all hands went in for a rough 
 and tumble i scrimmage,' in which the boys, 
 of course, took part, and the assembly 
 succeeded, at the expense of many broken 
 heads, black eyes, and bloody noses, in beat- 
 ing off their assailants ; but for that day, 
 the manifestations were, of course, prevented, 
 unless some took place during the melee. 
 The assaulting party was beaten off, but 
 it might gather reinforcements and return ; 
 so they barricaded, armed themselves as 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. Ill 
 
 well as they could, and waited. There was 
 no second attack, and the assembly went to 
 their homes. 
 
 c Well/ I said to Mr. Ira Davenport, when 
 he had got so far in the narrative of this 
 affair, as I have substantially given it, ' what 
 happened them ? Did you go away and 
 try some less belligerent neighbourhood !' 
 
 4 No ; we stayed there. "Morgan" told 
 us to go on.' 
 
 L But a while ago it was " John," or 
 "John King," who seemed to have the 
 direction of your affairs.' 
 
 4 Yes, but at this time it was Henry 
 Morgan, the buccaneer. We had some more 
 seances, and from that time everything was 
 perfectly quiet and satisfactory.' 
 
 I am not sufficiently familiar with the life 
 and character of Captain Henry Morgan to 
 be able to say whether he was a likely 
 person to manage such manifestations as 
 were given in presence of the Brothers 
 
112 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Davenport, but a bold buccaneer ought to 
 be 'some* in a fight. The things done 
 require somebody, or something to do them, 
 and that somebody or thing may call him- 
 or it-self Henry Morgan, and we have no 
 means of establishing an alibi, or in any 
 way proving the contrary. This being the 
 case, we will stick to the facts, and reserve 
 the mooted point of identity for more mature 
 consideration. 
 
 This visit or mission to the State of 
 Maine was made in 1857. Among the 
 persons with whom they became acquainted 
 in this State was Mr. Luke P. Rand, who 
 accompanied them on their return to Buffalo, 
 and in their visits to various places. At 
 Oswego, New York, in 1859, he published 
 a pamphlet of sixty pages, containing his 
 own observations and experience, connected 
 with the manifestations. It is entitled c A 
 Sketch of the History of the Davenport 
 Boys,' &c. He seems to have been — for I 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 113 
 
 understand that he died some time ago — an 
 honest, simple-hearted, zealous, religious 
 man, and he quotes whole pages of Scripture 
 to prove that whereas there were signs and 
 wonders and marvels formerly, say from 
 the creation down to a few centuries ago, 
 there is a possibility of their occurring at 
 the present day ; though he would hardly go 
 so far, I presume, as to claim that the beat- 
 ing on a tambourine by invisible hands, or 
 by visible hands apparently not connected 
 with living human bodies, was to be com- 
 pared with a Scripture miracle. I think 
 Mr. Rand would have done better to have 
 kept to his facts, of which he seems to have 
 witnessed an abundance, and to have left 
 alone both theories and Scripture. I am 
 satisfied by internal and external evidence 
 that he has made an honest statement of 
 facts, and some of these I purpose to give, 
 with the testimony of his wife, and others 
 published in his pamphlet. 
 
114 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Mr. Rand, writing with great earnest- 
 ness, and as far as I can judge with entire 
 sincerity, says that * scores and hundreds 
 were permitted to feel the kindly and intelli- 
 gent clasp ' of a large and strong hand, 
 growing out of space, . or coming out of 
 darkness, which he believed to be the hand 
 of i Henry Morgan,' and of other hands 
 similarly produced, as in the case of Mr. 
 Albro, already cited. Mr. Rand says, 4 I 
 have often felt, not only the clasp but the 
 grasp of that hand, handling me as if I were 
 a child, holding the grasp until the indenta- 
 tions of the pressure were clearly seen by 
 the audience, when my hand was released 
 from the spirit-hand, in full view, in the 
 clear bright light. Often, within three 
 seconds from the time we have seen the 
 boys pinioned to their seats, beyond the 
 possibility of release by themselves, has that 
 hand, at a distance beyond their possible 
 reach, clasped my own with a firm grasp, 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 115 
 
 and thus been thrust forth into the full gaze 
 of the audience. And many scores of others 
 have felt the same grasp and had the same 
 experience. . . The facts are so astonishing 
 that we often find persons who are not 
 only incapable of receiving the testimony of 
 others, but unable also to rely upon the 
 evidences of their own senses. 
 
 1 In the town of Milford, Maine, in the 
 presence of twenty-five persons, a ; ' secre- 
 tary " (escritoire) was unlocked by invisible 
 hands, and numerous articles taken out and 
 distributed among the audience. In this 
 case the key had been in the lock. The 
 owner then placed the articles back, locked 
 the " secretary/' and placed the key in the 
 hands of a gentleman present, selected for 
 the trust. All persons in the room joined 
 hands, so that each one was held by two 
 others. The light was extinguished by one 
 who was held, and we instantly heard the 
 bolt of the lock slide, and the contents of 
 
116 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 the " secretary " were again distributed 
 among our company, in perfect stillness. 
 A large spy glass was drawn out to its 
 utmost extent, and brought far across the 
 room over the heads of several persons, and 
 placed, partly upon my head, and partly 
 upon the head of a gentleman of Bangor, 
 who sat next to me. The gentleman to 
 whom the key was entrusted, held it in his 
 hand all the time, and no person could have 
 moved about the room, had there been such 
 person, without being detected. This com- 
 pany was a selection of intelligent and can- 
 did persons, assembled there for the express 
 purpose of testing these manifestations.' 
 
 In the testimony of Mrs. Rand, as com- 
 municated to a newspaper of Oswego, New 
 York, and afterwards published in this 
 pamphlet, she says : ' As one who has a 
 right to speak of things she knows, will 
 I make my solemn declaration. On or 
 near the first of January 1858, I was 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 117 
 
 called to attend a seance of these boys 
 (Brothers Davenport) held in Bradley, 
 Maine. A company of ladies and gentle- 
 men were assembled, forming a double cir- 
 cle, the ladies being in the centre, and the 
 gentlemen in the rear ; we all joined hands. 
 Mr. Woodward invited us to sing and we 
 did so.* Next a committee was chosen to 
 tie the boys. When they were securely tied, 
 the lights were extinguished, and sounds 
 from the instruments in the box in which 
 the boys were seated and tied, were heard. 
 Tunes were played, in which could be dis- 
 tinguished the sounds of five different in- 
 struments — a guitar, tambourine, drum, 
 violin, and bell. The bell was repeatedly 
 rung outside the box, and touched some of 
 the party on the shoulders and head, and 
 then fell upon the floor. A hand was visibly 
 
 * This exercise of singing is sometimes resorted 
 to for the purpose, it is said, of harmonizing the 
 circle. 
 
118 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 protruded from a hole in the upper part 
 of the box. The sounds were made to the 
 last moment before the doors were opened, 
 and the committee examined the boys, and 
 reported that every knot in the rope was 
 as they left it. It had taken the committee 
 fifteen minutes to tie therm' 
 
 1 At Milford,' continues Mrs. Eand — and 
 here we come to some very curious ex- 
 periences, ' I was invited by the presiding 
 spirit, or what purported to be so,' — observe 
 that the lady means to be very careful in 
 her statement — ' to sit with the boys in the 
 box. I accepted this invitation, only wishing 
 to be assured of gentle usage. I was 
 fastened to a seat between the boys by a 
 rope around my wrists, and passing through 
 an aperture in the seat that I might not be 
 able to assist in the legerdemain. I saw 
 the boys when I took my seat by them, and 
 know they were fastened as securely as 
 ropes and the strength of man could fasten 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 119 
 
 them ; as only lions would need to be 
 fastened for man to feel secure in their 
 presence. Darkness ! and as quick as that 
 word can be spoken came a hand, large and 
 strong, upon my head. Where did that 
 hand come from ? It was larger than the 
 hands of either of the boys, and came 
 quicker than they could have possibly been 
 freed, had they ever so great dexterity. 
 The audience were all seated with joined 
 hands. Next, a large bell was drawn across 
 my face. A guitar was placed in my lap, 
 withdrawn, and replaced. A drum and 
 other things were piled against me, and 
 again the hand moved over my head, rested 
 a moment on the back of my neck, when I 
 distinctly felt the form of a wrist. Some- 
 thing was close to my hair, and a moment 
 after, when the doors were thrown open, and 
 the whole audience rushed to see what had 
 been done, the ropes were all tied as 
 strong as ever, but my comb was found 
 
120 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 twisted into Ira's hair. The doors were 
 again closed, my comb was put back into 
 my own hair, and the instruments were 
 thrown around us. 7 
 
 Mrs. Rand then quotes several passages 
 of Scripture to show that miracles have 
 been, and closes her testimony. 
 
 Mr. Eand accompanied the Brothers to 
 Buffalo, and with them visited many places 
 in New York, where he had some very ex- 
 traordinary experiences, which I shall notice 
 more particularly in their proper place. 
 
 I may also observe that here as elsewhere 
 I have somewhat condensed the testimony 
 of the witnesses, by throwing out super- 
 fluous expressions, but have in no way 
 changed the purport of their language. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 121 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MORE PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITIES. 
 
 A Bravo in the Cabinet — Jugglers and Conjurors — Domestic 
 Manifestations — The necessary Conditions — Tables set 
 by Invisibles — They eat Food like Mortals — Remarkable 
 Testimony. 
 
 On their return from Maine towards 
 Buffalo, the Brothers, accompanied by their 
 friend Mr. Rand, arrived at Lowell, a manu- 
 facturing town in Massachusetts, often, from 
 the number of its cotton mills, called the 
 Manchester of America. Here they remained 
 for four weeks, giving public and private 
 seances, and creating, as everywhere, a 
 1 great sensation.' During this period a 
 seance was arranged for twenty-five persons, 
 and the boys were warned by their invisible 
 confederates, this time by means of raps on 
 
122 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 a table, that there was a conspiracy to ex- 
 pose them. A man had been selected to 
 enter the cabinet with them who had been 
 a gambler and a bravo in San Francisco, 
 where he had killed two men, and been half 
 hanged himself under Judge Lynch, from 
 whom he had been barely rescued. This 'dare 
 devil ' was determined to fathom the mys- 
 tery, and his friends stood by to assist him. 
 On being tied, not too securely, between 
 the two boys, who were thoroughly fastened, 
 he managed, by the aid of a dirk knife in 
 his sleeve, to cut the rope and free his 
 hands. At the instant he received a blow 
 over the forehead, with a trumpet, which 
 cut a deep gash, from which the blood 
 spirted freely. He seized Ira, and found 
 him tied securely as ever. He turned and 
 grasped William, who was also closely 
 bound. He called ' light,' and a dark lan- 
 tern was thrust through the hole in the 
 door, and by its light he saw that no one 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 123 
 
 was in the cabinet but the two Brothers and 
 himself, and that their fastenings had not 
 been changed in the slightest degree. He 
 opened the doors, and his friends seeing him 
 wounded and covered with blood, supposed 
 he had been attacked and rushed forward to 
 revenge him. 
 
 The bold, bad man was not a mean one. 
 ' Stand back ! ' he shouted, ' these boys did 
 not strike me — they did not touch me. 
 Look for yourselves. There they are, bound 
 exactly as you left them. Gentlemen, you 
 can do as you like, but I have had enough 
 of it.' 
 
 Another of the party, still unsatisfied, 
 took his place in the box, to try the same 
 game, but found himself so instantaneously 
 seized by hands which he knew did not ap- 
 pertain to visible bodies that he became 
 frightened and begged to be let out. 
 
 Going from Lowell to Boston, the Bro- 
 thers Davenport found a man by the name 
 
124 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 of Bly pretending to expose them or their 
 jugglery by cutting ropes and the aid of 
 confederates. The brothers confronted him, 
 claimed to be tested in the most thorough 
 way by the persons who had seen the Bly 
 performance and knew its methods, and 
 were entirely successful. In eleven years, in 
 America, where people are not wanting, at 
 least, in shrewdness and inventive powers 
 — in trickery, or the power of seeing into 
 trickery — net only has no one ever ad- 
 vanced a plausible explanation on the 
 hypothesis of fraud, sleight-of-hand, col- 
 lusion, &c, but the most adroit conjurors 
 — Mr. Herman, of New York, for example 
 — have fully acknowledged that their art 
 afforded no explanation. Indeed, they are 
 as different as possible. Four persons out 
 of five know how almost every trick of the 
 jugglers is performed. They can be studied 
 in books ; their apparatus can be bought of 
 the manufacturers, who instruct purchasers 
 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENFORT. 125 
 
 in the various tricks and illusions ; they 
 are advertised in the ' Times ' newspaper. 
 Some jugglers, after doing certain tricks, 
 explain the modus operandi. Juggling is 
 a parlour amusement. But the things 
 daily and nightly done in the presence of 
 these young men, and in which it is made 
 evident to every one who has eyes and 
 hands, and chooses to use them, that they 
 have and can have no active agency, have 
 never been explained on the hypothesis 
 of legerdemain, illusion, or collusion, and it 
 is quite certain that they never can be. 
 
 After leaving Boston, the Brothers 
 visited Worcester, and Springfield, Massa- 
 chusetts, Troy,Waterford, Saratoga Springs, 
 Utica, and Rochester, in New York, and 
 were joyfully welcomed home by their 
 family and friends after their long absence. 
 And here I may, as well as anywhere, give 
 some account of the very peculiar mani- 
 festations, of what we may call a domestic 
 
126 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 character, which occurred at various times 
 when they were at home, in the presence 
 of their family and of familiar friends, 
 when all the conditions may be supposed 
 to have been favourable to their manifesta- 
 tions. 
 
 The first of these conditions appears to 
 be darkness. Why darkness should favour 
 these operations, or why light should hinder 
 them, it may be difficult to explain : we 
 may be content with the fact. Total 
 darkness, it has been seen, is not always 
 necessary; but the greater part seem to 
 require at least a partial obscurity. For 
 some reason, the belief that supernatural 
 manifestations are more proper to night 
 and darkness than to the open light of day, 
 has existed always and everywhere. 
 
 Quiet, harmony, and the isolation of the 
 persons who seem in some way necessary 
 to the operation of the generally invisible 
 forces, are readily obtained in a home circle. 
 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 127 
 
 In these family parties, when it was 
 desired to give their friends an opportunity 
 to see other than the usual manifestations, 
 and when every precaution had been taken 
 to secure the necessary conditions, and also 
 to exclude the shadow of suspicion, or even 
 of doubt, from the mind of any ; when 
 everything had been arranged, and the 
 lights were extinguished, a curious perform- 
 ance would commence. The table would 
 be drawn out into the centre of the room, 
 the table-cloth spread, the dishes brought 
 from the pantry, fifteen feet distant, the 
 table set, tea made, bread cut, and the 
 slices buttered, and then tea poured out for 
 the party. While this was doing, there 
 were heard noises like the rustling of 
 women's garments. Once, when Mr. 
 Davenport, Senior, was sitting tilted back 
 on the hind legs of his chair in an Ame- 
 rican fashion, he was suddenly thrown over 
 backward.* Afterwards, a communication 
 
128 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 was rapped out by the alphabetic telegraph, 
 in which a lady begged to apologise for the 
 accident, caused, as she said, by the hoops 
 of her l crinoline ' having accidentally caught 
 under the raised leg of the chair in 
 passing. 
 
 If one thing were more strange, or inex- 
 plicable, or incredible than another in all 
 this history, I confess that I might hesitate 
 at giving the following narration, which I 
 have received from the lips of the Brothers 
 Davenport, and which I find confirmed in 
 the pamphlet of Mr. Eand. It is proper to 
 say, also, that I have had from as credible 
 people as I am acquainted with, scores of 
 similar narratives. Such may be found 
 abundantly in a recent work by the cele- 
 brated William Howitt, and also in a meri- 
 torious book by Thomas Brevior, which is 
 quite a compendium of preternatural mani- 
 festations and experiences. 
 
 Mr. Eand also testifies to something 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 129 
 
 which may be harder to swallow than the 
 fact of tables and dishes setting themselves, 
 and supper getting itself ready, or being 
 got ready by invisible hands. It is, that 
 these mysterious intelligences eat — eat like 
 common mortals, and appear to relish their 
 food, and have good appetites, and, it is to 
 be hoped, good digestions. At all events, 
 if we believe the testimony, the food disap- 
 pears; and, hard as this may be to believe, 
 it is not more difficult than what I have 
 witnessed in London, and what has been 
 witnessed by hundreds, as will be recorded 
 in its proper place. 
 
 Mr. Rand, writing at Oswego, New 
 York, in 1859, where he was with the 
 Brothers Davenport, says: — 
 
 ' Within the last few weeks a new order 
 of manifestations has been introduced. 
 Spirits [this is the name which Mr. Rand 
 chooses to give to invisible intelligences, or 
 mysterious intelligent forces, and it may be 
 
 K 
 
130 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 as good as another] have spoken with 
 audible voices, in the light, without a 
 trumpet, as we have rode or walked by the 
 way, and exhibited hands, placing them 
 upon our persons, and handling us freely. 
 [If Mr. Eand, by the plural pronouns, 
 simply meant himself, this testimony would 
 not be of much worth ; as what only one 
 person sees, hears, or feels may be readily 
 referred to imaginary or other illusions ; but 
 I do not understand him as claiming to 
 have seen or heard any such thing when 
 not in the presence of the Brothers Daven- 
 port.] Spirits have also eaten food in our 
 presence ; cake, fish, boiled corn [maize], 
 pineapple, and other fruits. We [here he 
 clearly speaks of more persons than one] 
 have usually placed the food upon the table, 
 darkened the room, provided against any 
 deception ; then taking our seats around 
 the table — near it or distant from it, as 
 the case might be — the spirits have freely 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 131 
 
 eaten, and talked to us the while. Six or 
 eight ears of corn [green maize, boiled] 
 have often been eaten in this way at one 
 time, and in some instances much more, 
 together with fruits and other food. Of 
 this we have had proof, as the spirits have 
 often brought the corn to us, and requested 
 us to partake with them. 
 
 1 On one occasion,' continues Mr. Eand, 
 ' a party of gentlemen came to witness this, 
 and brought thread to tie the Brothers 
 Davenport. They were first secured firmly 
 by ropes, then the thread was added ; after 
 which the boys' mouths were muzzled. 
 Bandages were also put upon the mouths 
 of all persons in the room. The pine-apple 
 was then sliced and placed upon a stool 
 entirely removed from the boys, when it 
 was eaten by unseen visitors, who were 
 heard in their merry repast, and the rinds 
 of the pine-apple were found dropped at 
 their pleasure [sic] at the close. There are 
 
132 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 plenty of witnesses to these facts, whose 
 names can be given to those who apply to 
 Rufus Briggs, of this city (Oswego, New 
 York). For the satisfaction of any who 
 may wish for evidence on this matter, we 
 give the names of a portion of the persons 
 present when the Davenports were tied 
 with ropes, and further secured with thread 
 and muzzled, and yet food was eaten [dis- 
 appeared ?] in their presence/ 
 The names given are — 
 
 4 Philander Rathbun, 
 John Knapp, 
 Samuel Reynolds, 
 David Fairchild, 
 Kufus Briggs.' 
 
 It might be worth while for some person 
 to write a letter to Oswego, directed to 
 either of these gentlemen, enquiring if these 
 things happened as here related. 
 
 Mr. Rand is satisfied that what he calls 
 
THE BROTHEKS DAVENPORT. 133 
 
 1 spirits' do really eat food like common 
 mortals, and he makes the following state- 
 ment in proof. 
 
 1 An Indian spirit has often brought from 
 the table to me an ear of corn (maize or 
 Indian corn), inviting me to eat of the 
 same with him, which I have often done. 
 He has taken my hand, placed my fingers 
 between his teeth, and given me sensible 
 evidence of their reality. He has placed 
 my hand upon his head, so that I could 
 feel its form, and his long straight hair, 
 most sensibly. And others have had this 
 same experience, and the world will know 
 that these are facts.' 
 
 I have no question of the perfect sincerity 
 of this statement, but it will be doubted by 
 many whether all necessary precautions 
 were taken against deception. On the other 
 hand, it does not appear that there was any 
 disposition or motive to deceive. The 
 pamphlet does not seem to have been written 
 
134 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 in the interest of the Davenports, or for any 
 purpose but to enable Mr. Rand to give to 
 the world what he seems to have believed 
 were important truths. 
 
 As to the disappearance of material 
 objects, as in this case, those who know 
 most of matter will have least difficulty. 
 Destroy certain forces, or suspend their 
 operation, and all material forms become as 
 nothing. Loose the attraction which holds 
 in their places the atoms of a globe of steel, 
 or the great globe itself, and they would 
 become invisible gases. In truth, we know 
 so little of matter, and it is so difficult to 
 prove that matter exists, that the most 
 advanced physicists of the present day are 
 disposed to consider all material forms as 
 nothing more -than modifications of force. 
 Abolish matter, and we have nothing left 
 but force and its governing intelligence. 
 
THE BROTHEES DAVENPORT. 135 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE IMPRISONMENT IN OSWEGO. 
 
 Mr. Band and his Testimonies — Strong tests at Oswego — Pro- 
 secution and Imprisonment — An Astonished Jailer — 
 The Prison door unlocked ivithout visible hands- 
 Declaration and Affidavit. 
 
 I now proceed to give some account of 
 the adventures of the Brothers Davenport 
 in Oswego, New York, and its vicinity, as 
 contained in the pamphlet of Mr. Rand, 
 their ' guide, philosopher, and friend,' from 
 which I have made some extracts in the 
 preceding chapter, including a small perse- 
 cution, and a rather remarkable martyrdom. 
 Mr. Rand had made the acquaintance of 
 the Brothers Davenport during their visit 
 to Maine, and appears to have become very 
 familiar with the mysterious forces, powers, 
 
136 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 intelligences, or whatever they maybe, who, 
 or which, according to their own testimony, 
 are engaged in the production of the asto- 
 nishing phenomena which will be found 
 imperfectly described in these pages. Mr. 
 Eand chooses to call these powers, forces, 
 or intelligences, * spirits ' — I do not know 
 upon what authority, and have some doubt 
 of the strict propriety of the term, as applied 
 to beings that have hands which grasp, 
 teeth which bite, and who eat hearty sup- 
 pers of boiled Indian corn and pine -apples. 
 This, however, is a mere verbal criticism. 
 Words and names are not of much conse- 
 quence, if we understand what is meant by 
 them ; and Mr. Eand has a right to use his 
 own designations so long as he states the 
 facts correctly and honestly to the best of 
 his knowledge and belief, and that he does 
 this I see no reason to question. He says : 
 c The boys came into our vicinity, and we 
 were invited to attend their circles, and 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 137 
 
 became deeply interested in the manifesta- 
 tions. The circles at which we made our 
 first acquaintance with them were held in 
 Orono (our residence), Old Town, and 
 Bradley. I mention these places because 
 the Davenports spent nearly a year at 
 this locality, making it their home for the 
 time — holding many circles, both in public 
 and private, during their stay here, in the 
 midst of a large circle of their friends, who 
 had every opportunity of becoming ac- 
 quainted with the boys, and the manifesta- 
 tions given through them. We also made 
 the acquaintance of the spirits ; they seemed 
 like familiar friends — they talked much with 
 us and to us — they came to our homes, and 
 talked familiarly with us and our children, 
 often shaking us by the hand, often passing 
 their hands upon our brows and upon our 
 persons, handling and freely playing upon 
 musical instruments, five and more, even, 
 at the same instant of time, and giving the 
 
138 A BIOGEAPHY OE 
 
 most unmistakeable and absolute positive 
 demonstration of their presence and power 
 in a great variety of other ways and modes 
 of communication.' 
 
 I will give the remainder of the testimony 
 of Mr. Rand, as to what he witnessed at 
 public and private seances in the city of 
 Oswego, and then condense from his very 
 remarkable pamphlet the account of their 
 persecution, arrest, trial, and imprisonment 
 in Oswego, with the release of Mr. Rand 
 from prison by supernatural, or if the 
 word is preferred, preternatural agency, with 
 the sworn affidavit of all the witnesses to 
 this very striking manifestation, which is 
 just as incredible, impossible, and true, as 
 all the other phenomena described in this 
 volume. 
 
 c At a large and stormy audience in the 
 city of Oswego,' says Mr. Rand, c a com- 
 mittee, selected from that audience, tied 
 and worked upon these Devonport boys 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 139 
 
 more than one hour, putting on all the rope 
 we then had, about ninety feet, though we 
 have often carried one hundred and fifty 
 feet", and twenty-seven feet of strong cord 
 furnished by the audience. To this we 
 submitted, to satisfy the audience ; and then 
 the younger boy's knots were firmly wound 
 and secured by new and strong copper wire, 
 bent and twisted on with forceps. This we 
 also allowed for the test ; and then the 
 doors of the box were sealed with wax and 
 private seals, and every avenue by which 
 anyone could approach the box was guarded 
 by sentinels. Then were the lights extin- 
 guished, and the older boy was untied in 
 eleven minutes — every knot. He was taken 
 out and held by the committee, and the 
 younger boy examined, and the knots and 
 fastenings found all secure. The box was 
 again closed, and the younger boy left alone. 
 He was released from his bonds of ropes, 
 knots, and twisted wires in eight minutes.' 
 
140 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 To suppose the possibility of a slight 
 youth of nineteen, with no instruments, and 
 firmly bound with ropes and wires, hand 
 and foot, on his seat and to his seat, shut 
 up in darkness, and unaided, freeing him- 
 self, by first untwisting copper wires twisted 
 on with forceps, and then untying more 
 than a hundred feet of rope and cord, when 
 it was not in his power to make the least 
 movement toward' such an operation, is, to 
 speak very mildly, exquisitely absurd. 
 
 The next test, as described by Mr. Rand, 
 ought also to be considered satisfactory — if 
 people, in such a case, could be satisfied. 
 He says : — 
 
 ' At a private circle of about forty per- 
 sons, in the city of Oswego, the Davenport 
 boys, with Wm. M. Fay, who took a seat 
 with them, were all fastened at the extremes 
 of a very long and large table, with strong 
 fine cotton thread, wound closely round 
 their wrists, and tied in many knots, each 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 141 
 
 wrist of each boy being wound many times, 
 and closely tied in many knots each time, 
 and then the threads on either side of each 
 lad carried out a few inches, tied in a knot 
 at the end, and tacked down to the table by 
 a common tack, and that knot and tack 
 sealed with wax. This was faithfully done 
 by a committee. All had an opportunity 
 to look upon the knots and seals, and all 
 knew it was utterly impossible for either 
 boy to move his hand without breaking the 
 threads. The instruments were then laid 
 in the middle of the table, far beyond the 
 possible reach of the boys. The audience 
 were then all tied together by ropes and 
 cords, so that no one could move without 
 the knowledge of others, and then, on ex- 
 tinguishing the light, those instruments 
 were taken up and borne about the room 
 and over our heads, and thrummed and 
 played by some intelligent hands other than 
 our own. This was certain, as instantly on 
 
142 
 
 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 lighting the gas we found the boys, in 
 every instance, firmly tied and immovably 
 
 secur 
 
 The William M. Fay here mentioned is a 
 young man of about the same age as the 
 Brothers Davenport, and appears to be en- 
 dowed with, or attended by, similar powers. 
 He was born in Buffalo, of German parents, 
 and one of the first evidences he gave of 
 being attended by extraordinary manifes- 
 tations was, when playing with other boys, 
 being raised bodily from the ground, and 
 lodged in a neighbouring tree, in sight of 
 his companions. He joined the Brothers 
 Davenport during their visit to OsAvego ; 
 and his name will often appear in the future 
 pages of this narrative. 
 
 While on this celebrated visit to Oswego, 
 an important town near the eastern extre- 
 mity of Lake Ontario, with water-power, 
 mills, commerce, and a population of 
 17,000 inhabitants, the Brothers Daven- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 143 
 
 port accepted an earnest invitation to visit 
 a small village, named Phoenix, twenty miles 
 from Oswego. At this place, while giving 
 a private seance, they were arrested, at the 
 instigation of some persons whom Mr. 
 Rand describes as ' legal bigots and perse- 
 cutors,' who, c with fiendish exultation,' 
 conducted them before the village magis- 
 trate, where they were charged with vio- 
 lating a municipal law which provides that 
 persons exhibiting shows, circuses, mena- 
 geries, &c, should procure a license. The 
 Brothers had never thought of complying 
 with this formality, licenses not being re- 
 quired for concerts, lectures, and similar 
 entertainments. Their seance was a concert, 
 so far as the playing on musical instruments 
 by invisible, or very slightly visible, per- 
 formers, was concerned ; a lecture, as to the 
 explanations of Mr. Rand ; and as to the 
 tying and untying of knots, moving of pon- 
 derable bodies by invisible forces, &c, it 
 
144 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 may have been considered as philosophical 
 experiments. Only on the hypothesis that 
 they were jugglers, or sleight-of-hand per- 
 formers, could they be fined for neglecting 
 to procure a license. 
 
 Mr. Kand undertook to defend his own 
 case, and I do not see that his efforts dis- 
 proved the proverb so dear to the learned 
 profession of the law, which says that ' a 
 man who pleads his own cause has a fool 
 for a client.' He made a speech filled 
 with scriptural quotations, and resting upon 
 the facts of the case. He should have pro- 
 posed a seance then and there, with the 
 magistrate to superintend the tests and 
 operations. They were fined thirteen dollars 
 and thirty-nine cents. — say, two pounds 
 fifteen shillings — or in default, to suffer 
 one month's imprisonment at the county 
 jail in Oswego. 
 
 As this fine was considered by Mr. Rand 
 and the Brothers Davenport — and, what was 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 145 
 
 considerably more important to them, the 
 intelligences who directed their movements, 
 and who told them not to pay a farthing — 
 a sort of religions persecution, they became, 
 in a mild way, martyrs to the truth, and, 
 refusing to pay the fine, were taken to 
 prison. Of course, their friends were 
 aroused ; those who believed in them were 
 indignant, and the general public was 
 greatly excited. 
 
 On arriving at the jail at Oswego they 
 were met by their friends, and the first 
 thing done after entering the prison was to 
 give a seance, for the benefit of the jailer, 
 who was as curious as the rest of the world 
 to witness the manifestations. His mode of 
 procedure also, in choosing satisfactory tests, 
 was highly original and effective ; and here 
 let me copy from the pamphlet of Mr. 
 Eand, which was published on the spot, 
 which appeals to a whole community of 
 witnesses, and which has never, to my 
 
 L 
 
146 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 knowledge, been invalidated. The account 
 says : — 
 
 ' The jailer, having expressed his willing- 
 ness [to witness some manifestations], ad- 
 justed iron handcuffs to the boys' wrists, and 
 made them fast to the iron bars in the door 
 of the cell ; a trumpet, furnished for the occa- 
 sion, was then placed back into the cell, 
 beyond the possible reach of the Brothers 
 Davenport, their hands being fastened in an 
 elevated position by the handcuffs to the iron 
 bars of the cell doors, the boys standing in 
 the cell. The cell was then made dark, by a* 
 cloth being put up at the bars of the door. 
 Then the trumpet was taken from the hack part 
 of the cell, where it had just been placed, 
 and brought to the bars of the door, and 
 beat upon them ; and a voice spoke through 
 the trumpet familiarly, holding an intelligent 
 conversation with us who stood without the 
 door of the cell, in relation to the circum- 
 stances under which we had come to the 
 
 J 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 147 
 
 jail — stating to E. Briggs [the Bufus Briggs 
 heretofore mentioned], who was present, 
 that he [the voice] would not have their 
 friends outside get excited, as if we were to 
 be let out of the jail immediately : that there 
 was a purpose to be executed in relation to 
 our coming to prison, and that we were to 
 remain there.' 
 
 Was the jailer convinced by this mani- 
 festation ? It appears not. He did not 
 understand it, and, taking refuge in his 
 ignorance, said : ' It was a matter for scien- 
 tific investigation!' Not bad for a jailer; 
 but Mr. Band was indignant at such an 
 answer, and that any man could doubt that 
 the power which brought the trumpet to 
 the cell door and then spoke through it was 
 any other than an intelligent being. There 
 was no question about the phenomena. The 
 two young men were alone in the cell, fast 
 handcuffed to the bars of the door ; and the 
 trumpet came itself, or was brought, and 
 
 L '2 
 
148 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 words were spoken. As to the words there 
 may have been some chance for doubt ; but 
 I agree with the jailer that the trumpet, 
 at least, required scientific investigation ; 
 though of what nature may be a question. 
 Perhaps judicial investigation would be 
 better. 
 
 While confined in this jail, at first in cells, 
 and later in a larger and more comfortable 
 room, they had a great number of visitors, 
 and gave many seances, which there was no 
 disposition to hinder, as they were not 
 imprisoned for any crime, but merely for 
 refusing to pay a fine, wrongly inflicted, as 
 they believed, for a supposed disregard of a 
 municipal regulation. About five or seven 
 days before the expiration of their term 
 they were directed to settle their affairs 
 and hold themselves in readiness. This 
 direction came from whatever intelligence 
 held communication with them, and some 
 of their friends were told that they might 
 
 \ 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 149 
 
 be expected to be set free in an unusual 
 manner. The jailer became interested, and 
 enquired why the mysterious forces, so 
 worthy of ' scientific investigation/ did not 
 unlock their prison doors. Mr. Eand says 
 that, from what he — the jailer — had seen, 
 he seemed to believe that they could do it. 
 However, he put a new lock on the door, 
 determined to do his duty in every emer- 
 gency. 
 
 The last night came. They were all to- 
 gether in the room, Mr. Rand and the two 
 Brothers Davenport, and he took the boys 
 by the hand and talked like a father to 
 them. The jailer came to the door of the 
 room at the usual locking-up time, and 
 asked if they were all there. ' We answered 
 promptly to the call that we were.' He put 
 on a new lock which they had never seen. 
 4 Then/ says Mr. Rand, ' immediately, sooner 
 than we expected, a voice spake in the room, 
 and said that I was to go out that night. 
 
150 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 I was told to put on my coat and bat and 
 be ready. It was oppressively warm in our 
 small room, witb tbe window and door both 
 closed, and I asked if I could be allowed to 
 sit with my coat off, as I did not expect we 
 should be released for more than an hour; 
 but the answer was : " Put on thy coat and 
 hat — be ready." Immediately, not more 
 than twenty minutes from the time we were 
 locked up, the door was thrown open, and 
 a voice said, " Now, go quickly. Take with 
 you the rope ( one which had been in the 
 room), go to yonder garret window, and 
 let thyself down and flee from this place ; 
 we will take care of the boys. There are 
 many angels present, though but one speaks." 
 The boys came out with me into the hall, 
 took up the lock which lay upon the floor, 
 and for the first time examined it, and spoke 
 of its being warm. They were told [by the 
 voice] to return to the room, and the door 
 was closed and locked again. ' 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 151 
 
 Mr* Eand, having made his way out of 
 the jail, expected the boys to follow him. 
 He told a friend whom he met that they 
 were coming, and wrote the same to his 
 wife, who was then in Massachusetts. It 
 never occurred to him that the door was 
 relocked. He says solemnly : 4 It matters 
 not to me what force these statements may 
 have in the minds of others ; I make them 
 because they are true. Before God and 
 man I make them, and shall make them 
 while I exist; and, thanks be to God on 
 high, I am not alone in -this testimony. ' 
 
 The boys, Mr. Kand came to think, were 
 not allowed to go out, because people would 
 not believe ; and they might have been 
 again imprisoned for making their escape. 
 ■ There are those,' he mournfully says, ' who 
 cannot believe, who cannot entertain facts 
 from human testimony. It is with them, 
 as when, in a strange locality, the sun rises 
 in the wrong place. They cannot make it 
 seem right.' 
 
152 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Even the jailer was cruel enough to 
 charge Mr. Rand, when he went back to 
 the jail, with having deceived him, and not 
 being in the room when he came, with a 
 new lock and extra care, to lock them in 
 for the night. This was a rather lame 
 excuse for the jailer, for it was his most 
 special business to have known that these 
 prisoners, at least, were locked up safely. 
 If the jailer, whose business it was to know, 
 and with all his experience of the trumpet 
 manifestation, and others, when he had 
 himself manacled the boys to the cell door, 
 could not believe that his strong lock had 
 been unfastened and fastened again by that 
 power which Mr. Rand believed l was 
 nothing else than the strong spirit-hand of 
 Henry Morgan,' what credence could be ex- 
 pected of ' outsiders' who had had no such 
 experience ? The more wonders — and the 
 greater the wonders — proclaimed of these 
 Brothers, the louder, of course, would rage 
 the storm of abuse, and the stronger would 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 153 
 
 be the accusations of jugglery and impos- 
 ture. After all, there was no proof of the 
 unlocking and relocking of the door, and 
 the preternatural escape of Mr. Eand, but 
 his own declaration and that of the only 
 two witnesses, corroborated by the fact that 
 the jailer ought to have known, and believed 
 he did know, that he had locked them all 
 three into the room with more than usual 
 care. These declarations they made in the 
 most solemn form possible, and under the 
 sanction of an oath, taken before two magis- 
 trates, as follows : — 
 
 1 Declaration and Affidavit. 
 
 ' Be it known to all people, that in the 
 seventh month a.d. 1859, we, the under- 
 signed, were imprisoned in the common jail, 
 in the city of Oswego, N.Y., on account of 
 propagating our religious principles, and 
 that after twenty-nine days of our confine- 
 ment, at evening, when we were all in our 
 prison-room together, as we had just been 
 
154 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 locked in by the jailer, we having truly 
 answered to his call, a voice spoke and said : 
 44 Band, you are to go out of this place this 
 night. Put on your coat and hat — be ready." 
 Immediately the door was thrown open, and 
 the voice again spake and said : " Now walk 
 quickly out and on to the attic window yonder, 
 and let thyself down by a rope, and flee from 
 this place. We will take care of the boys. 
 There are many angels present, though but 
 one speaks. 1 '' The angelic command was 
 strictly obeyed. 
 
 4 That this, and all this, did absolutely 
 occur in our presence, we do most solemnly 
 and positively affirm before God and angels 
 and men. 
 
 6 Subscribed and sworn before me, this 
 1st day of August, 1859. 
 (Signed) 
 
 4 James Barnes, 
 i Justice of the Peace. 
 
 4 Ira Erastus Davenport. 
 4 Luke P. Band. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 155 
 
 1 Subscribed and sworn before me by 
 William Davenport, this 5th day of August, 
 1859. 
 
 < W. B. Bent, 
 ' Justice of the Peace. 
 
 ' William Davenport.' 
 Are we to believe that these three men 
 have added to imposture lying, and to lying 
 perjury ? 
 
 Or were they themselves the victims of 
 some delusion ? 
 
156 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 TO THE MISSISSIPPI AND BACK TO THE 
 ATLANTIC. 
 
 Fastening a Committee — Sewed in Sacks — Social Science 
 Congress in Michigan — Beating the Telegraph at 
 'Chicago — Bombardment of Fort Sumter — Dark Lan- 
 thorns in the Bark Circle — A Fight with a Spectre — A 
 Confederate discovered — Washington — Baltimore — 
 Riots and Prosecutions. 
 
 After a brief stay at their home in Buf- 
 falo, to which they returned after the events 
 narrated in the last chapter, the Brothers 
 Davenport commenced a tour westward by 
 the southern shore of Lake Erie. At the 
 beautiful town of Cleveland, Ohio, where 
 their weird exhibitions were attended by 
 large assemblages, an unusually hard-headed 
 committee, in spite of the usual tests, per- 
 sisted in the theory of legerdemain, and 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 157 
 
 proposed on the next evening to bring tests 
 which should satisfy everybody. 
 
 This being agreed to, a greater crowd 
 than ever came to assist at the trial. The 
 Brothers were bound with cords to their 
 seats in the cabinet. Then their wrists 
 were tied together with shoemaker's waxed 
 thread. Next, silk tapes were fastened 
 around their wrists and fingers and sealed 
 with sealing-wax. The musical instru- 
 ments were then lashed to the middle seat 
 of the cabinet quite beyond their reach. 
 
 When all was completed the Brothers, 
 accustomed to the shifts and subterfuges of 
 committees, insisted upon a public acknow- 
 ledgment that they were satisfied with the 
 tests. It was made. 'Is there any loop- 
 hole, any way to back out ? ' they asked, 
 ' None whatever/ was the answer. The 
 doors were closed and instantly the music 
 began to play, the bell to ring, hands 
 were protruded, and manifestations made of 
 
158 
 
 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 an unusually startling character : the doors 
 were opened, and seals, tapes, and strings 
 were unbroken. The committee, if not 
 satisfied, was confounded. 
 
 At Akron, Ohio, the test demanded, as 
 perfectly satisfactory, was that after being 
 bound as securely as the ingenuity of the 
 committee could effect it, the Brothers 
 should be carefully and strongly sewed up 
 in sacks ; and this they also submitted to 
 with the usual result. 
 
 Similar scenes, perpetually varied, but 
 with the same general results, attended the 
 visits to Columbus, the State Capital, Xenia, 
 Dayton, &c. 
 
 At Lyons, Michigan, where they were 
 invited to attend a convention of people in- 
 terested in psychological phenomena — a sort 
 of Social Science Congress, differing some- 
 what from that presided over by Lord 
 Brougham — after gratifying large assemblies 
 for three nights they were again prosecuted 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPOET. 159 
 
 for giving performances without a license. 
 The justice before whom they were taken 
 proved to be a man of sense, and dismissed 
 the charge, saying that the law did not 
 apply to them, and if what they averred was 
 true they should not be persecuted, while, 
 if it was an imposture, persecution would 
 only spread it the faster. 
 
 At the great lake city of Chicago, Illinois, 
 they gave for some time seances limited as 
 to numbers, alternating with large assemblies, 
 with bindings by ship -riggers, flour tests, 
 &c, such as have been described elsewhere. 
 
 This was in April 186.1, and in the midst 
 of a seance, a voice speaking through the 
 trumpet announced the beginning of the 
 bombardment of Fort Sumter, nearly a 
 thousand miles distant. An hour or so 
 later the same news came in due course by 
 telegraph. Had the manifestation ended 
 here it might be considered a lucky guess 
 or a remarkable coincidence, but the news 
 
ICO 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 of the events of this famous siege came hour 
 by hour, and clay by day, and always in 
 advance of the telegraph, owing to the time 
 taken by the latter in repeating messages. 
 There were two excited crowds in Chicago 
 filling the streets, greedy for news, one at 
 the telegraph station, another at the rooms 
 of the Brothers Davenport ; and the news 
 by the Davenport telegraph not only came 
 sooner but w r as more accurate. This was 
 notably shown when the electric telegraph 
 announced that the Confederate floating 
 battery had been knocked in pieces by the 
 guns of Fort Sumter. The trumpet voice 
 denied that any such thing had happened. 
 Bets were made on the result, and when 
 later news came the Davenports were found 
 right, as usual. 
 
 At one of the smaller towns in Illinois 
 one of the visitors, determined to know w r ho 
 really performed the wonders done in the 
 dark circle, brought under his clothes a 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 161 
 
 dark lanthorn, intending to open it when 
 the instruments were flying about. The 
 light was extinguished, but instead of the 
 usual sounds raps were heard upon the 
 table calling for the alphabet, and the fact 
 of the presence of the dark lanthorn made 
 known. Upon its being found and ejected 
 the expected manifestations commenced. 
 
 The next night three dark lanthorns were 
 brought by as many persons, with the idea 
 that if one were suspected and detected the 
 others, or certainly one of them, might re- 
 main. Light out, and, as before, raps for 
 alphabet. Lanthorn! One was 
 found and put out. Darkness again. Raps 
 again. Lanthorn! A second one 
 was found. The same process was repeated, 
 and the last lanthorn put out, but not before 
 it had burnt the clothes of the man who had 
 so dishonourably tried to conceal it. Then 
 everything went on as usual. 
 
 The result, of striking a match or show- 
 M 
 
162 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 iug a light suddenly, while the musical 
 instruments are circling rapidly in the air, 
 I ought to say here, perhaps, is their instant 
 release from the controlling power. They 
 fly with more or less velocity in the direc- 
 tion in which the propelling force was 
 acting at the moment. In this way the 
 instruments are sometimes broken, and 
 persons who may be in the way of their 
 flight are seriously injured. This happens 
 at times, but in a less degree, when the 
 persons holding hands let go in the midst 
 of a manifestation. A match was struck at 
 Newcastle-on-Tyne, with such results as I 
 have mentioned ; but as a test, though dan- 
 gerous, it was perfect, for while the instru- 
 ments were seen to fall to the floor in 
 different directions, no one was seen who 
 could have directed their motions. 
 
 At Iowa City, west of the Mississippi, 
 handcuffs were proposed instead of ropes, 
 and accepted ; but handcuffs are more 
 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 163 
 
 liable to suspicion than ropes, and less 
 satisfactory. A clever mechanician could 
 make handcuffs which could be opened 
 without the key, while ropes, knots, and 
 seals everyone can more easily judge of. 
 
 At Davenport, Iowa, 'Lanthorn' was 
 spelt out again, and as the person who had 
 it would not avow himself, his name was 
 spelt out by raps on the table. Of course 
 this might have been contrived for effect, 
 but it very certainly was not. It was here 
 that a man brought a test of his own in- 
 vention — plates of tinned iron, with holes 
 for the thumb and fingers, which were tied 
 in their places by twine ; but, as often hap- 
 pens, when his test had been accepted, and 
 had failed to detect the imposition he 
 expected to defeat, he was still unsa- 
 tisfied. 
 
 At Keokuk, Iowa, the mayor compelled 
 them to pay a licence-fee of twenty dollars 
 
 M 2 
 
164 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 a night. ' If you were a party of negro 
 minstrels ' said he, c I would give you a 
 licence for two dollars. I would ask you 
 iifty if I could. I would rather have given 
 a hundred than you should have come here; 
 and I will give you a hundred out of my 
 own pocket if you will go away.' Why ? 
 
 One night at St. Louis, Missouri, in the 
 midst of the dark seance, a violent scuffle, 
 accompanied by heavy blows, was heard in 
 the open space in the middle of the circle, 
 while the musical instruments were career- 
 ing through the air. A light was struck ; 
 and on the floor lay a young man, almost 
 senseless, with his head covered with bruises, 
 and by his side lay a knife and battered 
 trumpet. The Brothers Davenport were 
 bound to their chairs, the circle was un- 
 broken, except by the absence of this young 
 man, who, according to his own story, being 
 determined to solve the mystery, had rushed 
 forward when he heard the sounds, armed 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 165 
 
 with his knife. A strange contest ensued in 
 which he was beaten by some antagonist 
 whom he could not clutch, while every cut 
 and stab he gave with his knife was at the 
 empty air, and he was finally knocked down 
 to all appearance with the trumpet that lay 
 beside him. 
 
 At Louisville, Kentucky, on the Ohio 
 Eiver, an old steamboat captain tied the 
 Brothers with tarred rope so brutally that 
 the audience hissed him, and then put on 
 iron handcuffs, but was no nearer the solu- 
 tion of the mystery. 
 
 Voyaging eastward to the Atlantic sea- 
 board, the Brothers Davenport visited Phi- 
 ladelphia, in Pennsylvania, the second city 
 in the United States. Here they met with 
 violent opposition from several quarters — 
 from the philosophers, the religious bigots, 
 the spiritualists, and the rabble who cared for 
 nothing but to make a row. It required 
 fifty policemen to keep order. In spite of 
 
166 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 this the most extraordinary manifestations 
 were given, and many curious tests resorted 
 to. One night a famous sceptic, in whose 
 sagacity the people seemed to have great 
 confidence, was chosen with remarkable 
 unanimity as one of a committee to examine 
 and report upon the manifestations. He had 
 come fully prepared. He tied them with 
 the greatest care, and then, to make his 
 knots secure, wound them with annealed 
 wire, which he made fast by twisting with 
 a pair of forceps. 
 
 ' Are you satisfied ? • asked Ira. 
 
 c Yes, perfectly satisfied.' 
 
 c Will you be satisfied if the manifestations 
 take place as usual ? ' 
 
 ' yes, certainly ..' 
 
 1 No, you will not ; or if you are your 
 friends will not, and before you leave this 
 room somebody will charge you with being 
 our confederate.' 
 
 The man was indignant at such a sup- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 167 
 
 position. He knew his popularity, and 
 believed that if he could be satisfied every- 
 body who knew him would be also. He 
 was not long in finding the contrary. When 
 the audience was passing out Mr. Ira 
 heard him having hi^h words and almost 
 coming to blows with a man who accused 
 him of having aided in what he believed to 
 be an imposture. 
 
 At Washington, the Federal capital, the 
 Brothers Davenport gave a series of seances 
 at Willard's Hall, which were attended by 
 most of the distinguished men connected with 
 Congress and the Government. One night 
 a flourishing personage got elected on the 
 committee, who began by making a speech 
 to the audience, telling them he had long 
 wished for an opportunity to expose this 
 gross imposture, by which so many even 
 intelligent people had been deceived. At 
 last he had the opportunity, and they 
 would soon see one more humbug exploded. 
 
168 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Then he tied the young men until he was 
 satisfied. The doors were closed. He was 
 watching eagerly very near them. A hand 
 came through the aperture, seized him by 
 the hair, and pulled his head this way and 
 that with more violence than was comfort- 
 able. The doors were thrown open, and 
 it was evident that the only visible occu- 
 pants of the cabinet were bound fast as 
 ever. 
 
 The ambitious committee-man was not 
 satisfied. He came next night with some 
 hundreds of feet of tarred rope, and 
 covered them from head to foot with a 
 complete network. When it was fastened 
 he took out twenty dollars in greenbacks, 
 which he promised to give to the Sanitary 
 Commission, if unsuccessful. The result 
 was the same as before, and the com- 
 mission twenty dollars richer by the ope- 
 ration. 
 
 In Baltimore, Maryland, the Brothers 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 169 
 
 had large and orderly assemblies ; they sub- 
 mitted to the most convincing tests, and 
 the manifestations were more perfect, 
 various, and powerful than in almost any 
 other American city. This fact may, I 
 believe, be scientifically accounted for. 
 
 In one of the towns of New Jersey a 
 committee-man secretly daubed some of the 
 knots in the ropes with printer's-ink. When 
 the 'phantom hands ' were pushed through 
 the opening, one of them was seen playing 
 for a moment round his face. The excited 
 committee-man turned to the audience to 
 explain the circumstance, when he was 
 astonished by * a most unoriental roar of 
 laughter.' His face was completely smeared 
 with the ink. The hands of the Davenports 
 were not in the least blackened. 
 
 In visiting some of the wild and lawless 
 western villages, ignorance and fanaticism, 
 unrestrained by a police, sometimes caused 
 disorders, and even riots of a threatening 
 
170 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 character, as well as more legalised forms 
 of persecution. In Kichmond, Indiana, for 
 instance — where, from there being a large 
 Quaker population, the Davenports expected 
 to have a quiet time — there was a most 
 violent opposition. When novel tests had 
 failed — when creosote secretly rubbed upon 
 the instruments could not be smelt upon 
 the hands of any, and only violence was 
 left to those who opposed the manifestations 
 which they could not disprove, the lights 
 were put out, benches smashed, women 
 frightened, revolvers drawn, and, finally, 
 preparations made to administer to the 
 Brothers the favourite American remedy for 
 any kind of heterodoxy ever since the 
 Eevolution of 1776 — tarring and feathering. 
 The boys, their father, and Mr. Lacy (who 
 then accompanied them as lecturer) were 
 rescued from the mob separately by some 
 courageous women, who, under the obscurity 
 of night, took them away, making them pass 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 171 
 
 for their protectors ; and they all met, 
 strangely enough, at the same house, some 
 distance in the country, while a raging 
 mob was searching for them, with yells 
 and threats, until three o'clock in the 
 morning. 
 
 As late as November 1860 they were 
 threatened with violence, at the Armoury 
 Hall, at Coldwater, Michigan. With a 
 sword snatched from the wall in one hand, 
 and a knife in the other, the elder brother 
 kept the mob at bay, until they took refuge 
 in the hotel, and when threatened there by 
 a larger mob defended the staircase with a 
 revolver, fortunately without the necessity 
 of bloodshed. A vexatious prosecution for 
 using arms in self-defence, and for giving 
 an entertainment within two miles of a re- 
 ligious meeting, ended in nothing. 
 
 These prosecutions, some of which have 
 been alluded to, notably the one attended by 
 imprisonment and the release of Mr. Rand 
 
172 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 at Oswego, were troublesome, costly, and 
 vexatious. There were eleven in all, a few 
 of which resulted in small fines, and when 
 these were resisted, in imprisonment. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 173 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 AT THE NEW YORK COOPER INSTITUTE. 
 
 Immense Audiences — Report of the ' New York Herald'' — Re- 
 port of ''The World' — Another Scene from the ' Herald" 1 — 
 A Sporting Circle. — Mayor and Aldermen. — A Seance 
 in Brooklyn. — Testimony of Mr. Tice. 
 
 The seances given by the Brothers Daven- 
 port at the Cooper Institute, New York, in 
 May 1864, were the culmination and crown- 
 ing triumphs of their ten years' American 
 experience. The Cooper Institute — the gift 
 of Mr. Peter Cooper, a wealthy merchant of 
 New York, to the city — contains a very large 
 free reading-room, library, picture-gallery, 
 and school of art. The lecture-room is one 
 of the largest in America, and, being cen- 
 trally situated, is used for the largest public 
 meetings. 
 
174 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 This immense room, seating more than 
 three thousand persons, was densely crowded, 
 night after night, to witness the manifesta- 
 tions. Full reports were given in the New 
 York papers, from which I select, with some 
 condensation, an editorial notice, and a full 
 and evidently very fair report from the ' New 
 York Herald, ' and a fuller report, written 
 in a humouristic and sensational style, but 
 pretty correct in its details of facts, from 
 the leading Democratic organ, the ' New 
 York World ' 
 
 From a leader in the ' New York Herald,' 
 May 4, 1864:— 
 
 A NEW ERA IN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT THE 
 
 DAVENPORT BROTHERS. 
 
 As the world grows older it grows wiser. 
 Human development has made greater ad- 
 vances in every direction within the past 
 fifty years than during the live thousand 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 175 
 
 years before. Old things are now passing 
 away ; everything is becoming new. Sys- 
 tems of science, religion, philosophy, go- 
 vernment — all are being revolutionized. We 
 are in a transition state from darkness to 
 light, and every day brings us nearer to the 
 grand new era of the future. 
 
 Here, for example, are the Davenport 
 Brothers. They do the most wonderful 
 things in public and private. Perhaps their 
 performances are more astonishing in a 
 private parlour, where deception appears 
 impossible, than in a public hall, where 
 there may be room for a suspicion of 
 trickery. These brothers make musical in- 
 struments float about the room. They cause 
 spectral arms and hands to become visible 
 and tangible. They raise chairs and tables 
 from the floor to the ceiling. They illumi- 
 nate the room with balls of blazing fire. 
 While these phenomena are occurring the 
 Brothers remain seated, their hands and feet 
 
176 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 firmly tied and incapable of motion, even if 
 any sleight-of-hand or sleight-of-foot could 
 suffice to perform such modern miracles. 
 Yet the Davenport Brothers do not attri- 
 bute these wonders to spiritualism. They 
 say that the power to produce such mani- 
 festations has been bestowed upon them; 
 and it is perhaps the same occult power, 
 differently developed, as that shown in the 
 telegraph and the steam-engine. It may be 
 a physical power, or a mental power, or a 
 moral power, or a combination of them all, 
 but certainly it is as yet inexplicable. 
 
 From a report in the c New York Herald/ 
 May 1864 :— 
 
 THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS —MORE WONDER- 
 FUL MANIFESTATIONS THE WHEAT-FLOUR 
 
 TEST, &C 
 
 The performances of the Davenport Bro- 
 thers at the Cooper Institute continue to 
 
THE BEOTHEES DAVENPOET. 177 
 
 attract general attention and large audiences, 
 Last evening there was a very full and fa- 
 shionable house, and the manifestations were 
 unusually satisfactory. This was undoubt- 
 edly the result in a great measure of the 
 good order maintained by the spectators, 
 almost all of whom were too intelligent to 
 interfere with their own enjoyment by un- 
 necessary vociferation. Those who made 
 the most noise were those whose opinions 
 are of the least consequence. 
 
 At the suggestion of Mr. Lacy, who said 
 that there had been some talk about wires 
 and electricity, glass tumblers were placed 
 under the feet of the stools upon which 
 stands the magic cabinet or closet. The 
 closet was carefully examined inside and 
 out, and was found to contain nothing and 
 to have no visible connection with any ap- 
 paratus. The Davenport Brothers — two 
 very intelligent and gentlemanly persons — 
 then came forward, and were warmly 
 N 
 
178 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 welcomed. These gentlemen were securely- 
 tied, hand and foot, by the committee, and 
 fastened to the seats in the closet. The 
 committee reported themselves perfectly 
 satisfied thus far, and certainly we have 
 never seen better tying than that accom- 
 plished by the Fire Marshal. The lights 
 were turned down. Half-a-dozen musical 
 instruments — a guitar, banjo, tambourine, 
 violin, trumpet, and bell — were placed in 
 the closet by the committee. The two side 
 doors of the cabinet were closed and locked, 
 also by the Messrs. Baker. Then the centre 
 door was pushed to, and in less than a 
 second it was bolted upon the inside and 
 the trumpet thrown violently out of the 
 hole in the door. The committee rushed to 
 the closet, the lights were turned up, and 
 there sat the Davenports bound as before. 
 The astonishment of the audience may be 
 imagined. Those who were sceptics a mo- 
 ment ago now began to doubt their own 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 179 
 
 conclusions and joined in the general ap- 
 plause. 
 
 The manifestations then followed in the 
 regular order, the audience remaining very 
 quiet and watching everything critically and 
 intelligently. The committee seemed to be 
 extremely impartial, and briefly reported 
 the results of their examinations. A full 
 chorus of instruments playing a jig was 
 heard inside the closet : the doors w r ere 
 hastily opened, and the Davenports had not 
 moved. Spectral hands and arms appeared 
 at the closet window: the doors were 
 opened, and the Davenports were still 
 bound. While the doors were partly open 
 the instruments were flung out and a hand 
 was seen to strike Fire-marshal Baker. 
 Still the Davenports were tied. Then, the 
 doors being closed for three minutes, the 
 Brothers were discovered perfectly un- 
 bound. In four minutes more they were 
 bound again, better than the committee 
 
180 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 could have bound them, as these gentlemen 
 candidly acknowledged. Then Judge Baker 
 entered the closet and sat between the 
 Davenports. The doors were shut ; the 
 manifestations continued ; and when the 
 lights were again turned up, the Judge was 
 revealed with a tambourine on his head, 
 and reported that the Davenports had not 
 •moved a muscle. The Fire Marshal then 
 tried the same experiment and made the 
 same report. All of the manifestations 
 were repeated several times, to satisfy the 
 most distrustful. It Avas especially noted 
 that in every case the inside bolt of the 
 centre door was heard to shoot into its 
 socket in less than a second after the door 
 was closed. This destroyed the theory that 
 the Davenports untie themselves. 
 
 By way of finale, Mr. Lacy suggested 
 that wheat-flour should be placed in the 
 hands of the Messrs. Davenport while they 
 were still tightly tied. This was accord- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 181 
 
 ingly done by the committee, and any of 
 the flour that had fallen within the box 
 during the operation was neatly brushed 
 away. The doors were then closed for the 
 last time, and still the manifestations con- 
 tinued. Noises were heard, an open hand 
 was shown at the window, and the trumpet 
 was thrown out. The doors were opened, 
 and there stood the Davenport Brothers, 
 unbound and holding the wheat-flour in 
 their hands. The committee failed to find 
 any of the flour about the closet or upon 
 the clothes of the Davenports ; and yet they 
 could not have avoided spilling some of it 
 had they unclosed their hands ever so little. 
 For such wonders, and for those performed 
 by Mr. Fay in the room above, the hypo- 
 thesis of legerdemain or jugglery does not 
 seem a reasonable explanation. No modern 
 juggler has ever performed such decep- 
 tions, if they are deceptions ; and during 
 the many years that the Davenports have 
 
182 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 appeared in public no one — not even the 
 professors of Harvard College — has detected 
 them in their ' impositions/ as some people 
 call the manifestations. 
 
 The following description of another of 
 their famous seances, from the i New York 
 World/ is in some respects more graphic and 
 particular, and records occurrences more 
 remarkable, if possible, than the one from 
 the ' Herald.' It is also a good illustration 
 of the American style of reporting, which 
 is in newspapers somewhat like pre-Raphaeli- 
 tism in Art. 
 
 From the ' New York World ' : — 
 
 THE NEW SENSATION THE DAVENPORT BRO- 
 THERS AT THE COOPER INSTITUTE. 
 
 The Davenport Brothers, known through- 
 out the country, appeared last evening at the 
 Cooper Institute; and it was announced by 
 advertisement that startling wonders, mys- 
 terious displays, and unaccountable mani- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 183 
 
 festations v^ould take place in their pre- 
 sence. The fame of their feats of diablerie 
 had preceded them, and the large hall was 
 crowded. 
 
 The Wonderful Closet 
 
 Upon the centre of the platform a plain 
 closet, with three doors opening in front, 
 from six to eight feet broad and eight to 
 ten feet high and two or three feet through, 
 was placed upon three stools with four legs 
 each. The closet was entirely disconnected 
 from either the platform below or the 
 column behind, which it did not touch. 
 
 A Preliminary Explanation. 
 
 At eight o'clock the musicians retired, and 
 Mr. Lacy, the agent, appeared on the plat- 
 form. He made a few remarks, in which he 
 said that they did not come here to force 
 any religion or philosophy on the audience, 
 but simply to show them a series of startling, 
 
184 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 mysterious, and wonderful manifestations, 
 for which they could account as they 
 thought proper. One of the conditions 
 necessary to this was darkness, and there- 
 fore this closet was used ; so that the young 
 men might be in the dark, and yet the 
 manifestations might be witnessed by the 
 audience. 
 
 Choosing the Committee. 
 
 He desired that a committee of two 
 should be chosen by the audience, to ex- 
 amine all the manifestations and see if there 
 was any deception. By vote of the audience, 
 Colonel Olcott and Rev. G. T. Flanders were 
 selected as a committee. Colonel Olcott is 
 a candid and intelligent gentleman, well 
 known to many citizens. Rev. Mr. Flanders 
 is the present pastor of the Second Univer- 
 salist Church, which meets in the hall of 
 the Historical Society building, and is well 
 known to the public as an eloquent preacher, 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 185 
 
 and is respected in the community as a can- 
 did, educated, and unimpeachable gentle- 
 man. He came to the platform with much 
 reluctance, and after many calls. 
 
 These gentlemen then examined the 
 closet in every part. The doors being 
 thrown open, two seats were discovered, one 
 on either side. The doors being shut, an 
 opening of less than a foot square, in the 
 shape of a diamond, remained near the top. 
 The closet was pronounced simply a plain 
 affair, with no springs, traps, or machinery 
 in any part, and the seats were securely 
 fastened. The carefulness of the gentle- 
 men in looking under and over and inside 
 and around the article excited considerable 
 laughter but gave satisfaction. 
 
 The Davenport Brothers now appeared 
 on the platform. They looked remarkably 
 like each other in almost every particular, 
 both quite handsome and between twenty 
 and twenty-five years old, with rather long 
 
lOb A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 curly black hair, broad but not high fore- 
 heads, dark keen eyes, heavy eyebrows, 
 moustache, and ' goatee/ firm-set lips, mus- 
 cular though well-proportioned frame. 
 They were dressed in black with dress-coats, 
 one wearing a watch-chain. 
 
 They are Tied. 
 
 . The committee examine them, they in 
 the closet, one on each side ; and the com- 
 mittee are a considerable time in tying them 
 in every possible way with small ropes. 
 Their hands are bound behind them, their 
 feet bound together around the ankles, 
 below and above the knee ; they are tied to 
 the sides of the closet so that they cannot 
 stand up, and Colonel Olcott also ties his 
 man about the waist. 
 
 Mr. Flanders stated, for himself and his 
 colleague, that these gentlemen were tied in 
 the most complicated manner possible. 
 "With respect to those he had tied he would 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 187 
 
 i 
 
 defy any man with both his hands to untie 
 the snarl and complication of knots in half 
 an hour. He would state that he had never 
 witnessed performances of this character 
 before, and had no opinion in regard to them. 
 He was not accustomed to make up his 
 mind either for or against anything he 
 knew nothing about. He had never seen 
 these two gentlemen (the Davenports) that 
 he was aware of, and had only heard of them 
 by rumours through the newspapers. 
 
 A Tyer of Knots Pronounces his Decision. 
 
 A gentleman in the audience said a 
 friend of his, acquainted with tying knots, 
 would like to see if the men were tied 
 securely. The tyer of knots examined the 
 men carefully. 
 
 A Voice — ' What does the professor say ?' 
 
 Tyer of Knots — c The knots seem to be 
 sufficiently complicated at any rate.' 
 
 Whether they are professionally as well 
 
188 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 done as an expert might do them deponent 
 sayeth not. 
 
 Look Out! 
 
 The gas was partially shut off — not, 
 however, bat that everything was plainly 
 visible. A bell, trumpet, guitar, hddie, and 
 banjo were placed between the Brothers, out 
 of reach of each, in centre. The committee 
 closed the two side doors, and as Mr. Olcott 
 was closing the middle one he was 
 
 Struck in the Face ! 
 
 by what appeared to be a man's hand, and 
 many of the audience saw the hand. How 
 was that ? The doors were opened, and 
 there sat the two men quietly tied. They 
 were examined and were secure. Rev. Mr. 
 Flanders then proceeded to shut the doors, 
 and was quietly adjusting the bolt of the 
 middle door, when he suddenly withdrew it, 
 and turned about with a start. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 189 
 
 Mr. Flanders — ' I will state to the au- 
 dience that, on reaching to adjust the bolt, 
 my fingers were severely grasped.' 
 
 Hardly were the words out of his mouth, 
 when, rap ! thump ! out of the opening the 
 heavy trumpet right against and over Mr. 
 Flanders' head on to the platform. (Little 
 screams from the audience.) Mr. Lacy, the 
 agent, opened the doors and turned on the 
 gas as quickly as possible, and the two 
 men were sitting, each on his side, calm 
 and fast. 
 
 Colonel Olcott — C I will state that this 
 trumpet was thrown out with such force 
 that the mouth is bent.' 
 
 Kev. Mr. Flanders (with his hand to 
 his forehead) — ' Fin afraid it was bent on 
 my skull.' (Laughter.) 
 
 While the doors were being shut again 
 a hand passed quickly out twice before the 
 middle door, and the audience saw it. Then 
 a bell was thrown out of the opening, and 
 
190 A BIOGRAPHY OE 
 
 the doors being suddenly opened the two 
 men were sitting still and secure. 
 
 Whispers — ' There's no humbug about 
 that ! ' ' Oh ! oh ! did you see the hand ? ' 
 
 The doors were shut, and a hand ap- 
 peared plain and palpable at the opening, 
 shaking its fingers. 
 
 The agent looked into the middle door, 
 and a hand caught him by the beard. It 
 had a man's wristband and coat-sleeve. 
 
 Mirabile Dictu ! 
 
 The doors were closed and the committee 
 took seats. Tremendous knocks were heard 
 at the back, side, front, and top of the closet. 
 Two hands — not ghostly and shadowy, but 
 plainly flesh and blood — appeared out of the 
 opening and shook the fingers. The guitar 
 and the violin were heard, as though being 
 tuned. Mr. Flanders stood on one side, and 
 Mr. Olcott on the other, so that there was 
 no part of the closet but what was visible as 
 
THE BKOTHEES DAVENPORT. 191 
 
 disconnected from the platform or column. 
 Suddenly a band of musicians seemed to be 
 playing inside the closet ; there was the 
 violin, the guitar, and sometimes the banjo 
 or bell. A very quick jig was struck up 
 and continued a little time, and while it was 
 playing a hand came at the opening. Finally 
 the spirits were disgusted with the music, 
 and pitched the banjo violently out of the 
 opening, so that it passed beyond the plat- 
 form against a gentleman's head. The 
 spirits were evidently excessively disorderly 
 — they were mad, and there was no method 
 in their madness. First they slammed the 
 sides of the closet as though they would 
 knock it sky-high, so to speak, then they 
 played spasmodically on the instruments, 
 and, wildest of all, they must dash a banjo 
 against a quiet gentleman's head with a force 
 greater than Dan Bryant exerts in his most 
 hilarious efforts. The doors were opened 
 quickly, and the young men were discovered 
 
192 
 
 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 sitting, apparently in meditative mood, tied 
 fast. It was noticed, however, that they 
 were in perspiration, but the closet was 
 close. 
 
 The Severest Test. 
 
 Mr. Flanders then sat in the closet 
 between the two young men, one hand tied 
 to each man, so that any motion of body or 
 limb would be felt by him. 
 
 The doors were shut and dead silence 
 reigned. There was heard the sound of 
 voices in the closet ; then came a great' 
 racket — it seemed to be a wreck of matter 
 and a crash of worlds ; the instruments 
 were tuned. 
 
 The doors being opened, there sat the 
 young man and Mr. Flanders smiling, with 
 a banjo on his head. He was untied, and 
 coming out took a bell out of his bosom. 
 
 Relating Jus Experience. 
 He said, while in the closet, what had 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 193 
 
 occurred had been so incredible, that he was 
 justified in a degree of hesitation in making 
 the statement. He felt hands over his face, 
 upon his breast, back, shoulders ; his nose 
 was held tightly, his ears pulled ; he was 
 struck with instruments, and all the while 
 he had his hands on the young men's legs, 
 and his fingers stretched so as to touch their 
 bodies, and they were immovable. Of 
 course there was no deception here, and, 
 as he should not like to be suspected of col- 
 lusion, he should be glad if some other 
 person would take the same place. 
 
 The Spirits Tie and Untie Knots. 
 
 When the doors were opened again the 
 ropes were lying in a pile between the young 
 men, and they walked out free. They were 
 shut up again, and in four minutes the doors 
 were opened and they were securely tied, 
 but not as they were at first. The ropes 
 o 
 
194 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 first used were recognised as the same now 
 on the young men. 
 
 Again the young men were shut up, and 
 there was knocking and music, and appear- 
 ance of hands and arms : some swore that 
 it was often the hand of a lady. 
 
 A Voice — c Show us their faces.' 
 
 The Agent — ' Faces not unfrequently 
 appear.' 
 
 Voice — c Let's see one then.' 
 
 The Agent (philosophically) — ' They are 
 not mine to show.' 
 
 Voice — ' Can't you catch that hand ? ' 
 
 Acting on the suggestion, both of the 
 committee grasped the hands as they ap- 
 peared. 
 
 Voice — ' Were the hands cold ? ' 
 
 Mr. Olcott — ' No ; they were warm and 
 moist.' 
 
 Mr. Flanders said he had tried to hold 
 it, but though his grip was very strong he 
 could not do it. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 195 
 
 Once, while the middle door was open, 
 the trumpet, in full sight of the audience, 
 shot into the air in the direction of Mr. 
 Olcott's head. 
 
 The l World ' also gives a report of a 
 private seance, or dark circle, with Mr. 
 Ira Davenport and Mr. William M. Fay, 
 accompanied by the same kind of manifesta- 
 tions as those which have so much 
 astonished the savans, the literati, and the 
 highest circles of English society. 
 
 The following extract from a report in 
 the ' New York Herald,' giving an account 
 of the closing scenes of another seance at 
 the Cooper Institute, is not, I am assured, 
 an exaggeration : — 
 
 6 The brothers now re-enter the cabinet, 
 and in a few minutes, apparently without 
 earthly assistance, the doors are opened, 
 and the youths appear more firmly tied 
 than ever. Mr. Bradbury so reports. Mr. 
 Conklin says, vaguely, " I can't see how 
 o 2 
 
196 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 that's done." A gentleman proposes, that 
 as the Brothers might slip their hands out 
 of the ropes and in again, that thread, 
 instead of cord, be used to tie them. There 
 was at this time indescribable confusion 
 among the audience. Mr. Conklin is urged 
 to get into the box with the Brothers and 
 find out the deception, if he can. " Get 
 mto the box, Conklin." • " That's it ; go in, 
 Conk." "Go in, Conk." Mr. Conklin 
 looks imploringly at the audience; he is 
 evidently terribly confused. A lull in the 
 cries and noises enables him to be heard. 
 " Gentlemen," he cries, " be men and 
 ladies." This speech was hailed with 
 another general outburst of merriment, in 
 the midst of which Mr. Conklin enters the 
 miraculous cabinet, and is last seen before 
 the doors close sitting between the Bro- 
 thers, with a hand on the shoulder of each. 
 As the doors closed the uproar among 
 the audience was redoubled. u Goodbye, 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 197 
 
 Conklin," cries a stentorian voice at the 
 back part of the hall ; " I smell brim- 
 stone," cries another ; " How — are — you 
 — Conklin ? " ejaculates still another voice. 
 And now the audience are hushed in silence, 
 as strange voices inside the cabinet are 
 heard. There is a drumming on the guitar, 
 and the bell is rung. In a few moments 
 the doors are opened, and Conklin comes 
 forth like a ghost from a sepulchre. 
 The Brothers are seen still tied fast, and 
 apparently unchanged in their position in 
 the slightest degree. The audience are 
 clamorous for a report of Conklin's ex- 
 perience while with the goblins. He says, 
 u I had a hand on the shoulder of each. 
 They did not move a muscle, or I should 
 have felt it ; and, by the Eternal ! I don't 
 believe they did move. But I got a crack 
 on my head from the violin — that I know." 
 (Boisterous laughter.) Once more are the 
 doors shut, and in the shadowy darkness a 
 
198 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 long white spectral human arm is seen 
 slowly moving through the aperture. The 
 audience is hushed. A sensation is created. 
 There is something supernatural in the 
 appearance of this ghostly-white arm. But 
 the inevitable Conklin is dauntless — he is 
 not scared. He rushes to seize the arm, 
 and a sturdy red hand at the end of it 
 seizes his own hand and drags the un- 
 fortunate man's arm clear into the aperture 
 with a grip that made him wince with pain. 
 Conklin acknowledged that that was a 
 hand, " and a mighty powerful one, too." 
 And now a terrible racket is heard in the 
 cabinet : the spirits seem to have broken 
 loose, and are raising a miniature pandemo- 
 nium. Thundering, rapping, tumultuous 
 shaking of the doors and sides of the 
 cabinet, loud bellringing, the clanging of 
 musical instruments, and other noises of 
 almost every sort create a disturbance last- 
 ing some minutes. Ever and anon the 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 199 
 
 spectral arm appears. The audience be- 
 come infected with the tempest of dis- 
 cordant sounds, and help along the infernal 
 din by all kinds of cries. Once when the 
 mysterious arm appeared, a masculine voice 
 cried, " Stick your knife in that arm, Conk- 
 lin." (Sensation.) Conklin was no such 
 brute. There were vociferous cries of 
 " Open the door," u Open the door," " Oh ! 
 let 'em rip," " Order," "Order," "Order! " 
 Mr. Lacy appeals to the audience to be 
 quiet. The ghostly hand spasmodically 
 rings the bell at the aperture. " Look out 
 for your head, Conklin." A regular shindy 
 is struck up ; the violin is played vividly, 
 the tambourine is banged savagely, the bell 
 is rung vociferously, and every few mo- 
 ments that strange white arm is thrust out 
 and in the aperture, like the arm of a 
 corpse through a new-made grave amid 
 gleams of moonlight. " Oh, humbug ! " 
 ejaculates a hardened sceptic near us. 
 
200 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 " You're a philosopher/' deprecatingly 
 observes a careful and deeply-interested 
 watcher of the entire phenomena. The 
 cries to " Open the door ! " now became 
 unanimous and boisterous all over the 
 house. Mr. Lacy finally opened the doors, 
 and out came, pellmell, the guitar, 
 trumpet, tambourine, and we don't know 
 what else ; while the Brothers were seen 
 still tied as tight and fast as ever, and 
 sitting as composedly as if nothing had 
 happened. Conklin, perfectly dumb- 
 founded, exclaimed, " Gentlemen, this is 
 beyond my comprehension ! " ' 
 
 During their triumphant season at New 
 York, so fully and vividly reported by the 
 leading journals of that city, they were in- 
 vited ohp Jay to visit Mr. John Morrissey, a 
 well-known sporting man and prizefighter 
 — perhaps the most successful and popular 
 member of what used to be called the 
 f Fancy ' in America. He fought Heenan ; he 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 201 
 
 backed other champions : he has his horses 
 on the racecourse ; he used to keep a faro 
 bank ; he speculates in stocks and gold in 
 Wall Street. 
 
 The Brothers Davenport were naturally 
 curious to see so distinguished a character, 
 and they aver that many clergymen have 
 treated them with less politeness and kind- 
 ness than was shown to them by Mr. M. and 
 his friends, and on other occasions by pub- 
 licans and sinners. The object of the visit 
 was to arrange for a private seance for Mr. 
 Morrissey and his friends. It was readily 
 agreed to. A sailor was brought by one 
 party, who spent an hour and a half in tying 
 the Brothers with tarred rope, until they 
 were covered as with a net, and heavy bets 
 were made that they would or would not be 
 untied. This was the only manifestation 
 they cared for. Everything was conducted 
 with as much scrutiny as the pending in- 
 terests demanded, but also with a fairness 
 
202 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 that would have shamed more pretentious 
 people. When the lights were put out a 
 variety of manifestations were given. Then 
 the knots were all untied in fifteen minutes, 
 to the satisfaction of winners and losers. 
 
 A private seance was also given to the 
 Mayor and Common Council of the City of 
 New York, who will, I trust, pardon me 
 for having given precedence to the more 
 piquant if less dignified one attended by 
 Mr. John Morrissey and his respectable 
 confreres. 
 
 I close this long but I believe interesting 
 chapter with the following statement, pub- 
 lished in the New York papers : — 
 
 The Brothers 1 Hands Blacked. 
 
 We have had furnished us a statement 
 made by Mr. Thomas S. Tice, an unbeliever, 
 respecting certain tests applied by him 
 while the Brothers were exhibiting in 
 
THE BROTHEES DAVENPORT. 203 
 
 Brooklyn. Mr. Tice acted as one of the 
 committee on the occasion referred to. 
 
 ' Mr. Tice's Statement. 
 
 1 1 took a piece of chamois skin well filled 
 with lampblack, previously prepared for the 
 purpose, and, unknown to the Brothers, 
 while examining the cords that tied their 
 hands, I smeared them over as well as I 
 could, even rubbing the black upon the 
 wrists, so that if it were their hands that 
 appeared at the aperture it would show the 
 smearing I gave them. I was at the side 
 of the cabinet when a hand appeared at the 
 opening which I did not see ; but I imme- 
 diately enquired if there was any black upon 
 it, when it was stated that the hand was a 
 beautiful clean white hand and without 
 any trace of black upon it, and there were 
 at least a dozen people in the front row 
 watching to see if they could detect any 
 black upon the hand whatever. 
 
204 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 ' Again, after both of us that were on the 
 committee had been inclosed with them, a 
 hand appeared at the opening — as clean and 
 perfect a hand as could be. In fact the 
 hand looked quite fleshy, and as if it be- 
 longed to some young lady, and not like 
 the Brothers' hands, with veins and sinews 
 showing very plainly ; and, in conclusion, I 
 will only add that I cannot account for the 
 mysteries that appear in connection with 
 the Brothers and their wonderful cabin et.' 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 205 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND. 
 
 Character of the English — Past and Present Beliefs — The 
 Mission of the Brothers Davenport — Their Confederates 
 — The first Seance in London — The Press in a Diffi- 
 culty, and How they Got out of it — Report of the ' Morn- 
 ing Post'— 1 The Times'—' The Herald. ' 
 
 Aeter the ten years of strange and won- 
 derful experiences in America, here truth- 
 fully but briefly and imperfectly recorded, 
 and while a sanguinary war is raging over 
 their native land, the Brothers Davenport, 
 after a visit to the British- American Pro- 
 vinces, elsewhere spoken of, received and 
 obeyed the direction given them to cross the 
 Atlantic to their ancient fatherland, the 
 birthplace of their mother, and in which the 
 dust of their ancestry reposes, to continue 
 in Britain and in Europe a mission in whose 
 
206 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 beneficent purposes they have an undoubt- 
 ing faith, and which may carry them around 
 the world. 
 
 England, the country in which they would 
 naturally first continue the work so long and 
 faithfully pursued in America, is probably 
 one of the most incredulous, materialistic, 
 practical, and impracticable countries in the 
 World. Hard, scientific, unimpressible, and 
 unimaginative, devoted to precedent and re- 
 specting authority, the English people, as a 
 rule, have long since adopted, and are now 
 firmly settled in, the belief that there is and 
 can be nothing beyond the range of ordinary 
 experience. Two centuries ago they be- 
 lieved in witchcraft, and burned or hanged 
 wizards and witches in abundance. Three 
 centuries ago they believed in miracles — 
 that is, they believed that miracles might be, 
 and often were, worked in the later as well 
 as in the earlier Christian centuries. That 
 faith still exists over a large part of Europe ; 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 207 
 
 but in England it died out after the Refor- 
 mation, and has not been revived. To an 
 Englishman at this day a miracle, such as 
 his ancestors three or four hundred years ago 
 believed in with an earnest and lively faith, 
 and such as the people of three-fourths of 
 Europe still believe in, seems an utter ab- 
 surdity. It is opposed to his science, and 
 it shocks his common-sense. It is stuff and 
 nonsense. In the days of Shakspeare, the 
 ghost of the Royal Dane in Hamlet, the 
 dread spectre of the murdered Banquo in 
 Macbeth, and the terrible vision that froze 
 the blood of Richard III., were very real 
 things ; now they are matters of ridicule, 
 and at the most appeal only to some chil- 
 dish remnant of traditional superstition. 
 The Englishman has long since made up his 
 mind that what he calls the laws of nature 
 are, in this steam-engine-driven and gas-en- 
 lightened age, never violated: the Society 
 for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge and 
 
208 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 the ' Penny Cyclopaedia ' settled all that 
 long ago. 
 
 If the Brothers Davenport have really any 
 mission — any proper and worthy business — 
 in England, it is to meet on its own low 
 ground, and conquer by appropriate means, 
 the hard materialism and scepticism of 
 England. The first step to knowledge is 
 -to be convinced of ignorance : small things 
 often lead to great results. 
 
 The fall of an apple or the swing pf a 
 pendulum may suggest an investigation 
 into the most profound laws of the physical 
 world. If the manifestations given by the 
 aid of the Brothers Davenport shall prove 
 to the intellectual and scientific classes in 
 England that there are forces — and intelli- 
 gent forces, or powerful intelligences — ber 
 yond the range of their philosophies, and that 
 what they consider physical impossibilities 
 are readily accomplished by invisible and 
 to them unknown intelligences, a new uni- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 209 
 
 verse will be opened to human thought and 
 investigation. 
 
 I say, if they have any real mission ; for 
 to come here as mere jugglers, doing tricks 
 by sleight-of-hand and aid of confederates, 
 denying that they are so done, would be 
 not only a mercenary, base imposture, but, 
 in their case, the most infamous of false- 
 hoods, and the most horrible of perjuries. 
 If they say falsely, they and those who are 
 with them, that they have no voluntary 
 agency in the production of the phenomena 
 described in these pages ; if they are try- 
 ing to palm off as preternatural or super- 
 natural, the results of mere trick and col- 
 lusion, they are the most base and infa- 
 mous wretches in the world, compared with 
 whom a common forger, an ordinary felon, 
 is a man of honour and a gentleman. I 
 cannot put this case more strongly than I 
 wish to put it, or than it ought to be put. 
 Penal servitude for life at Norfolk Island 
 p 
 
210 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 would be a mild punishment for so detest- 
 able an outrage. 
 
 In good faith, as I believe with no shadow 
 of doubt, the Brothers Davenport embarked 
 from the city of New York on the 27th of 
 August, 1864, bringing with them, in con- 
 sequence of a nervous debility in Mr. Wil- 
 liam Davenport, a reinforcement in Mr. 
 William M. Fay, who is not to be con- 
 founded with one H. Melville Fay — said, 
 upon I know not what kind of authority, 
 to have been detected in attempting to pro- 
 duce similar manifestations, or what might 
 pass for them, in Canada. They were 
 accompanied by Mr. Palmer, widely known 
 as an impressario or business manager in 
 the operatic and dramatic world, to whom, 
 as an experienced agent, was confided the 
 business and pecuniary portion of their 
 undertaking — a matter of such obvious 
 necessity that it needs neither apology nor 
 explanation. To these were added Mr. J. 
 
THE BKOTHEES DAVENPORT. 211 
 
 B. Ferguson, a gentleman of education and 
 position, formerly a clergyman of Nash- 
 ville, the capital of Tennessee, where he was 
 highly respected and esteemed. Mr. Fer- 
 guson was born in the valley of Virginia, 
 but emigrated early in life west of the 
 Alleghanies. He is now forty-seven years 
 old, and is greatly esteemed by those who 
 know him best as a man of integrity and 
 honour, of high religious principle, purity 
 of character, deep thought, and eloquent 
 expression. Distinctively American, of the 
 southern and western type, with striking 
 American peculiarities, he has yet, I believe, 
 made a very favourable impression upon 
 Englishmen. In the war that has con- 
 vulsed his native country, and desolated 
 the State in which he was born and in 
 which he resided, he has taken the part of 
 a peacemaker, and in that capacity has 
 visited Richmond, and once before crossed 
 the Atlantic. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 It is very unlikely that such a man, 
 holding such a character, standing in such 
 a position, so gifted, honoured and beloved, 
 would lend himself to a mean and mise- 
 rable imposture. In another chapter, Mr. 
 Ferguson has given his own statement of 
 the motives which have induced him to 
 accompany the Davenport Brothers, to 
 watch over them, and be the intellectual 
 manager of the seances, in which powers 
 and forces unknown to and unrecognised 
 by science are demonstrated by incontro- 
 vertible facts. 
 
 This party arrived safely at Glasgow, 
 Sept. 9th, and on the 11th reached the 
 great metropolis. Their first private seance 
 was given at the residence of Mr. Dion 
 Boucicault, the well-known dramatic author 
 and actor — author of * London Assurance/ 
 ' the Young Actress/ ' Colleen Bawn,' 
 1 Streets of London,' and a score of enter- 
 taining and delightful comedies and dramas, 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 213 
 
 in which it is hard to say whether his 
 merits as dramatist or actor were more 
 conspicuous. I speak in this special man- 
 ner of Mr. Boucicault as a matter of 
 justice, because he has shown a moral 
 courage equal to his ability, and because I 
 shall be indebted to his hand for one of 
 the clearest descriptive statements of the 
 nature of these manifestations that has 
 ever been written. 
 
 This first and very important seance, 
 given Sept. 28, 1864, was attended by 
 several gentlemen connected with the lead- 
 ing daily newspapers of London, and other 
 distinguished men of science and letters. 
 It would have been difficult to select a 
 company better able to examine the phe- 
 nomena presented, or better qualified to 
 make a proper report to the public. In the 
 case of the production of a new farce, the 
 opening of a donkey-show, or a prize-fight 
 for the belt of the champion of England, 
 
214 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 the reports of these gentlemen, who stand 
 high upon the staffs of their respective 
 journals, would have been published in the 
 usual form ; but in this case, where occult 
 powers and hidden forces of the universe 
 were in question, every daily paper except- 
 ing the ' Morning Post ' published the ac- 
 counts which were given as anonymous 
 communications. This is not at all to be 
 wondered at. Considering the obstinate 
 incredulity of the public mind, it is won- 
 derful that the editors of these leading 
 organs of public opinion published them at 
 all. It may be supposed that they thought 
 the facts reported to them too marvellous 
 to be vouched for, but also too striking to 
 be passed over in silence. 
 
 I propose to copy from these reports so 
 much as may be pertinent to the case and 
 interesting to the reader, taking the liberty 
 to condense, by omitting superfluous por- 
 tions, unnecessary repetitions ; and first the 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 215 
 
 article from the ' Morning Post,' which ap- 
 pears to have been written by one of its 
 staff editorial. 
 
 From the London ' Morning Post/ Sept. 
 29, 1864 :— 
 
 6 Extraordinary Manifestations. 
 
 c Yesterday evening, in the front drawing- 
 room of a house in the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood of Portland-place, a select number 
 of persons were invited to witness some 
 strange manifestations which took place in 
 the presence, if not by the agency, of three 
 gentlemen lately arrived from America. 
 The party consists of two brothers named 
 Davenport, twenty-four and twenty-five 
 years of age, and a Mr. Fay, a gentleman 
 born in the States, but we believe of German 
 origin. They are accompanied by Mr. H. 
 D. Palmer, a gentleman long and favour- 
 ably known in New York in connection with 
 operatic matters, and by a Dr. Ferguson, 
 
216 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 who explains the nature of the manifesta- 
 tions about to be presented, but who does 
 not venture to give any explanation of them. 
 It should be stated at the outset that the 
 trio, who appear to be gifted in so extraor- 
 dinary a manner, do not lay claim to any 
 particular physical, psychological, or moral 
 power. All they assert is that in their pre- 
 sence certain physical manifestations take 
 place. The spectator is, of course, at liberty 
 to draw any inference he pleases. They 
 invite the most critical examination (com- 
 patible with certain conditions to be ob- 
 served), and those who witness the manifes- 
 tations are at liberty to take all needful 
 precautions against fraud or deception. 
 
 4 The party invited to witness the mani- 
 festations last night consisted of some twelve 
 or fourteen individuals, all of whom are ad- 
 mitted to be of considerable distinction in 
 the various professions with which they are 
 connected. The majority had never pre- 
 
THE BKOTHERS DAVENPORT. 217 
 
 viously witnessed anything of the kind. All, 
 however, were determined to detect, and, if 
 possible, expose any attempt at deception. 
 The Brothers Davenport are slightly-built, 
 gentleman-like in appearance, and about the 
 last persons in the world from whom any 
 great muscular performances might be ex- 
 pected. Mr. Fay is apparently a few years 
 older, and of more robust constitution. 7 
 
 The writer proceeds to describe the cabi- 
 net, and says the bolt of ' the middle door 
 was shut by some invisible agency from the 
 inside.' The Brothers are securely tied. 
 1 Instantly on the centre door being closed 
 the bolt was secured inside, and hands were 
 clearly observed through the opening. A 
 gentleman present was invited to pass his 
 hand through the opening, and it was 
 touched by the hands several times.' Music 
 was heard ; the doors flew open ; the Bro- 
 thers are seen to be firmly secured ; the 
 doors are * closed by persons who, when 
 
218 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 doing so, were touched by invisible hands, 
 and the noise of undoing the cords was dis- 
 tinctly heard.' ' After an interval of two 
 minutes, the Brothers were found securely 
 bound with the same cords, the ends of the 
 rope being some distance from their hands.' 
 A gentleman sits in the cabinet with his 
 hands tied to the knees of the two Daven- 
 ports, whose hands were bound behind their 
 backs, and to the bench, and their feet 
 securely fastened. The gentleman stated 
 that ' the instant the door was closed, hands 
 were passed over his face and head, his hair 
 was gently pulled, and the whole of the 
 musical instruments played upon, the bells 
 violently rung close to his face, and the 
 tambourine beat time on his head. Even- 
 tually the instruments were thrown behind 
 him and rested between his shoulders and 
 the back of the cabinet.' A gas-burner and 
 two candles were burning. 
 
 Here are the facts— two Davenports and 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 219 
 
 a witness in a box scarcely larger than 
 needed to contain them, and all securely 
 bound — yet observe what happened : — 
 
 A dark circle was then formed, the 
 Brothers bound to chairs, and the whole 
 company, including Mr. Ferguson and Mr. 
 Fay, taking hold of hands. ; The instant 
 the lights were extinguished the musical 
 instruments appeared to be carried all about 
 the room. The currents of air which they 
 occasioned in their rapid transit were felt 
 upon the faces of all present. The bells 
 were loudly rung; the trumpet made knocks 
 on the floor, and the tambourine seemed to 
 be running round the room jingling with all 
 its might. At the same time tiny sparks 
 were observed as if passing from south to 
 west.' Several persons were lightly, and one 
 (the representative of the 'Times,') severely 
 struck with the passing instruments. Lights 
 were struck from time to time, and the 
 Brothers always found securely bound. 
 
220 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Mr. Fay was now bound to one of the 
 chairs, with his hands firmly tied behind 
 him. As soon as the light was extinguished, 
 a whizzing noise was heard. ' It's off/ said 
 Mr. Fay, meaning his coat, and on striking a 
 light, his coat was no longer on, but lying 
 on the floor, and his hands were still 
 tied together behind him ! 4 Astonishing 
 though this appeared to be, what followed 
 was more extraordinary still. Dr. Fergu- 
 son requested a gentleman present to take 
 off his coat and place it on the table. This 
 was done, the light was extinguished, a re- 
 petition of the whizzing noise was heard, 
 and the strange coat was found upon Mr. 
 Fay, whose hands and feet were still 
 securely bound, and his body tied almost 
 immoveably to the chair.' Several other 
 manifestations were made, and some while 
 the Davenport Brothers and Mr. Fay, in- 
 stead of being bound, were held by those 
 present, and all with similar results. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 221 
 
 This manifestation of the taking off a 
 man's coat, and putting on another man's, 
 both garments being intact, with the wrists 
 closelv bound together behind the back, and 
 the person securely tied to a chair, is un- 
 doubtedly one of the most astounding ever 
 given. It is simply what is called a physical 
 impossibility. It is as if two links of a 
 chain should be separated without a frac- 
 ture and then restored to their places. That 
 it was done on this occasion, and has been 
 done scores, perhaps hundreds of times, 
 there is no doubt whatever. 
 
 All this was done, it will also be observed, 
 not in the presence of ignorant and credulous 
 persons, but in a select company, which 
 included some of the sharpest minds in 
 England ; not in a prepared theatre, but in 
 a gentleman's drawing-room, where there 
 could have been no deception had it been in 
 any case possible. 
 
 After giving the details, which I have 
 
222 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 condensed, because they will be still more 
 minutely given in other statements which are 
 to follow, the writer in the i Morning Post ' 
 makes the following observations : — 
 
 ' The seance lasted more than two hours, 
 during which time the cabinet was minutely 
 inspected, the coats examined to ascertain 
 whether they were fashioned so as to favour 
 a trick, and every possible precaution taken 
 to bind the hands and feet of the persons 
 whose presence appeared to be essential to 
 the development of the manifestations. 
 
 ' It may be asserted that all the illustra- 
 tions above enumerated can be traced to 
 clever conjuring. Possibly they may t or it 
 is possible that some new physical force can 
 be engendered at will to account for what 
 appears on the face of it absolutely unac- 
 countable. All that can be asserted is, that 
 the displays to which we have referred took 
 place on the present occasion under condi- 
 tions and circumstances that preclude the 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 223 
 
 presumption of fraud. It is true that dark- 
 ness is in some cases an essential condition, 
 but darkness does not necessarily imply 
 deception. But, putting aside the cabinet 
 manifestations, there is abundance left to 
 excite curiosity and challenge the attention 
 of the scientific. Learning, we know, is 
 not a limited quantity; it is inexhaustible 
 for all mankind, and here is a field for the 
 investigation of the scientific world. In the 
 present state of knowledge upon the subject of 
 occult forces, dependent more or less upon the 
 will, all that can be said is, that the mani- 
 festations of Messrs. Davenport and Mr. Fay 
 appear to be altogether inexplicable. 
 
 1 In a little time we believe it is their 
 intention to give seances at the Egyptian 
 Hall or some other suitable place, when the 
 public will be afforded an opportunity of 
 witnessing some of the astonishing feats of 
 which we have given an outline. For the 
 present it is sufficient to say that they 
 
224 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 invite the strictest scrutiny on the part of 
 men of science, and that, whatever be the 
 theory involved, they repudiate any active 
 agency in the production of the extraordi- 
 nary manifestations which take place in 
 their presence. It is perhaps well for them 
 that they were not in the flesh a century 
 and a half ago, as, in the then state of 
 human knowledge and social enlightenment, 
 they would unquestionably have been con- 
 ducted to Smithfield, and burnt as necro- 
 mancers of the most dangerous type/ 
 
 The writer of this article, in the most 
 fashionable and aristocratic journal in Eng- 
 land, no doubt conferred with the gentle- 
 men of the press and other cool and careful 
 observers then present, and has given their 
 ideas and observations as well as his own. 
 It has every appearance of being a fair, 
 candid, and intelligent statement, and the 
 editor of the ' Morning Post' did not shrink 
 from the responsibility of giving it a suit- 
 able place in his journal. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 225 
 
 The e Times' — the leading journal of Eng- 
 land, Europe, and the world, ' The Thun- 
 derer,' the paper that more than any other 
 can make and unmake fortunes and reputa- 
 tions, which wields so great a power, that 
 it may be hoped its conductors never forget 
 that great power involves a corresponding 
 responsibility — the { Times ' is said to have 
 been represented on this occasion by one 
 of its ablest writers, but its account of the 
 seance is c From a Correspondent.' It may 
 seem strange that the ' Times ' did not pub- 
 lish a report of the personal observations of 
 one of the most trusted and matter-of-fact 
 writers on its staff, but it is well to be 
 wary of impossibilities. 
 
 The ' Correspondent ' of the \ Times,' 
 September 30th, says : — ' I was present at a 
 seance, at the house of Mr. Dion Bouci- 
 cault, whose party comprised several persons 
 known in the literary and artistic world. 
 Having arrived rather late, I missed some 
 Q 
 
226 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 of the earlier " experiments," which seem to 
 have been extremely curious. 
 
 1 When I entered the room devoted to 
 the " manifestations " I found it occupied by 
 a number of persons who attentively listened 
 to a strange discordant concert held within 
 a wardrobe placed at the end furthest from 
 the door. When the sounds had ceased the 
 wardrobe was opened, and three compart- 
 ments were discovered, two of which were 
 occupied by the Brothers Davenport, bound 
 hand and foot with strong cords, like the 
 most dangerous malefactors. The centre 
 compartment held the musical instruments, 
 and on each side of this sat the corded 
 brothers. The ostensible theory is that 
 the Davenports, bound as they were, pro- 
 duced a combination of noises, compared 
 to which the performance of the most ob- 
 trusive German band that ever awakened 
 the wrath of a Babbage is the harmony of 
 the spheres. The cords are examined, the 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 227 
 
 wardrobe is closed, the instruments are re- 
 placed, and presently, through an aperture 
 in the centre door, a trumpet is hurled with 
 violence. The wardrobe is reopened and 
 there are the Brothers Davenport corded as 
 before. 
 
 ' A change takes place in the manner of 
 the performance. Hitherto the brothers 
 have remained incarcerated in this box, 
 while the audience are at liberty. They 
 now leave the wardrobe and take their place 
 in the middle of the room, where they are 
 firmly bound to their chairs. The gentle- 
 man who officiates as their lecturer or 
 spokesman even offers to drop sealing-wax 
 on the knots, and requests any one of the 
 company to impress it with his own seal. 
 On the evening of my visit this offer was 
 not accepted, but the fault, if any, lay with 
 the investigators. When the lights had 
 been extinguished, and as we were all seated 
 round the room with hands joined, at the 
 
 Q2 
 
228 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 request of the lecturer, a most extraordi- 
 nary " manifestation " took place. . The air 
 was filled with the sound of instruments 
 which we had seen laid upon a table, but 
 which now seemed to be flying about the 
 room, playing as they went, without the 
 smallest respect to the heads of the visitors. 
 Now a bell jingled close to your ear, now 
 a guitar was struck immediately over your 
 head, while every now and then a cold wind 
 passed across the faces of the whole party. 
 Sometimes a smart blow was administered, 
 sometimes the knee was patted by a myste- 
 rious hand ; divers shrieks from the mem- 
 bers of the company indicating the side on 
 which the more tangible " manifestations " 
 had taken place. A candle having been 
 lighted, the brothers were seen still bound 
 to their chairs, while some of the instru- 
 ments had dropped into the laps of the vi- 
 sitors. I myself had received a blow on the 
 
THE BEOTHERS DAVENPORT. 229 
 
 face from a floating guitar which drew 
 enough blood to necessitate the employment 
 of towel and sponge. 
 
 ' A new experiment was now made. Dark- 
 ness having regained its supremacy, one of 
 the brothers expressed a desire to be relieved 
 of his coat. Eeturning light showed him 
 in his shirt-sleeves, though his hands were 
 still firmly bound behind his chair. It was 
 now stated that he was prepared to put on 
 the coat of any one of the company willing 
 to " loan " that article of attire, and an as- 
 senting gentleman having been found, the 
 coat, after a short interval of darkness, was 
 worn in proper fashion by a person for 
 whom it had not been designed by the tailor. 
 Finally, the brothers desired a release, and 
 one of the company, certainly not an accom- 
 plice, requested that the rope might fall 
 into his lap. During the interval of dark- 
 ness a rushing sound as of swiftly drawn 
 
230 
 
 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 cords was audible, and the ropes reached the 
 required knees, after striking the face of the 
 person in the next chair. 
 
 ' Such are the chief phenomena. To sum 
 up the essential characteristics of the exhi- 
 bition, it is sufficient to state that the bro- 
 thers, when not shut up in the wardrobe, 
 are bound while the candles are alight, per- 
 form their miracles in the dark, and on the 
 return of light are found to be bound as 
 before. The investigators into the means 
 of operation have to ascertain whether the 
 brothers are able to release themselves and 
 resume their straitened condition during the 
 intervals of darkness, and whether, even if 
 this is practicable, they can, without assist- 
 ance, produce the effects described. 1 — Times, 
 Sept. 13. 
 
 A clear, brief, evidently honest statement 
 by a man who would have exposed the 
 slightest indication of imposture had there 
 been any to expose. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 231 
 
 The ' Morning Herald ' and ' Standard ' 
 were represented at the party of Mr. Bou- 
 cicault, it is stated, by one of the able 
 writers of their regular staff, but the report, 
 following the prudent example of the lead- 
 ing journal, is given in a communication 
 4 to the Editor,' over the signature of ' In- 
 credulous Odi.' 
 
 Having given a careful statement of the 
 facts, it will be sufficient to copy a few of 
 this clever writer's observations, and his 
 c views of a puzzle which, whether it be 
 physical or metaphysical, is likely to cause 
 much and various speculation ere it be 
 finally, if ever, solved.' 
 
 Mr. ' Incredulous Odi ' was there at the 
 beginning. He c examined the cabinet and 
 found it too simple in construction to 
 admit of any concealed machinery. One 
 of the gentlemen engaged in tying the 
 Brothers Davenport was a nautical gentle- 
 man, and 'profound in the matter of knots. 
 
232 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 He had no doubt of the perfect rigidity of 
 his fastenings, nor had the other gentle- 
 man, or any of the company who examined 
 the complicated ligatures, which, passing 
 through holes perforated in the bench, and 
 connecting the ancles with the wrists of 
 the patients, served to render all free mo- 
 tion, at any rate of arms or feet, an 
 impossibility. 
 
 c Dr. Ferguson told us that he would 
 advance no theory or explanation of what 
 was about to happen, and begged us not to 
 discuss the causes of what we saw or heard, 
 but content ourselves with the attitude of 
 simple and candid observers. Now, let me 
 say what did happen, so far as my own 
 observation is concerned. As the doctor 
 had told us, the bolt of the middle door 
 was heard to be drawn from inside ; hands 
 then appeared at the lozenge- shaped aper- 
 ture, one from each side of the cabinet, as 
 it appeared, and jigged flittingly in front 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 233 
 
 of the curtain, which was thrust slightly 
 back. The hands were in a semi-obscurity, 
 the gas by which the room was lighted 
 having been slightly lowered, and the arms 
 belonging to them not being visible from 
 the smallness of the aperture, they looked 
 ghostly enough to elicit a set of little awe- 
 struck ejaculations from the ladies present/ 
 But this \ Incredulous Odi ' is not con- 
 tent with stating the facts. He thinks it 
 necessary to offer a theory by way of ac- 
 counting for them. He thinks that if the 
 brothers, bound in the cabinet and watched 
 by a third person sitting between them, 
 could have got only partially loose, with- 
 out the use of their hands, thev might 
 have shown the hands, played on three or 
 four instruments, &c. ! He suspects that 
 Mr. Fay may have moved and played 
 upon the guitar while in close contact with 
 himself and the ■ Times ' correspondent. 
 He says : — 
 
234 
 
 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 ' Granting that Mr. Fay and his com- 
 panion could move at all, bound as they 
 were — and since the chairs to which they were 
 bound were not fastened to the ground, this 
 seems an easier supposition than in the 
 case of the cabinet — there is no reason 
 why they should not by the act of their 
 own bodies do all that was done — 
 viz., chuck about handbells, whisk guitars 
 rapidly enough round to cut people's noses, 
 trundle tambourines along the ground, take 
 off and put on coats, remove watches out of 
 hands holding them out, and place rings on 
 the wrong man's finger (the new science is 
 fallible even in its native darkness), espe- 
 cially to a quiet observer like myself it was 
 clear there was time enough allowed to do all 
 this naturally and be found in one's seat 
 again when the signal was again given for 
 light. I am not going to adventure an 
 exact explanation of how this is to be done, 
 as the modus operandi is at present an im- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 235 
 
 mature conception in my brain, but I have a 
 shrewd guess at it. I will only say that Mr. 
 Fay is a very strong-built man, and could 
 carry Mr. Davenport, a very light weight, 
 in any conceivable position ; adding, that I 
 should like to be entrusted, during this 
 performance, with the candle and lucifer 
 borne by Dr. Ferguson, unrestricted by the 
 promise not to re-illume the former till I was 
 requested.' 
 
 To any one who has seen how these 
 young men are bound in their chairs, with 
 their wrists firmly knotted behind their 
 backs ; who has heard the guitars ringing 
 and whirling through the air like a flight 
 of swallows, arid seen the candle lighted 
 instantly, and examined the ropes with 
 which they were tied, this kind of theorizing 
 is more wonderful than the phenomena it 
 tries to explain. 
 
 It is needless to give further extracts 
 from the notices of this famous seance, 
 
236 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 which spread the news of the arrival of the 
 Brothers Davenport and accounts of the 
 wonders wrought in their presence over the 
 world. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 237 
 
 CHAPTER XVIL 
 
 { ST1LL THE WONDER GREW.' 
 
 Private Seances — Report of ' Master of Arts ' in Daily Tele- 
 graph — The Morning Star — A London Minister — The 
 Morning Post — Tests that ought to be satisfactory. 
 
 To the remarkable opening seance described 
 in the last chapter succeeded others at 
 private houses, and at one of the smaller 
 salons of the Queen's Concert Rooms, Han- 
 over Square ; but all were private in the 
 sense that they were attended by persons of 
 scientific, literary, or social distinction, who 
 were specially invited. 
 
 One of them, at the residence of Mr. S. 
 C. Hall, well known in the world of litera- 
 ture and art, where the cabinet was not used 
 (which is the c apparatus' referred to be- 
 low), was attended by, among many others, 
 
238 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 a well-known man of letters, whose very- 
 clear and excellent account of what he heard 
 and saw was in due time published by the 
 ' Daily Telegraph,' as a communication 
 from a 'Master of Arts/ following the 
 prudent example of other leading journals. 
 This account of the seance is so frank and 
 so vivid as to deserve to be given entire, 
 and whether written by editor or corre- 
 spondent, is evidently a clear and truthful 
 statement. 
 
 ' The Brothers Davenport. 
 1 (To the Editor of the " Daily Telegraph") 
 
 c Sir, — I was a witness, on Friday even- 
 ing of last week, to some of the ' manifes- 
 tations ' which were exhibited by, or rather 
 occur in the presence of, the young Ameri- 
 cans who have recently come over here. It 
 is well known that they intend to give 
 public seances among us, and the more 
 ordinary of these manifestations will soon 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 239 
 
 therefore become familiar. There are, never- 
 theless, circumstances about a private sitting 
 which make it especially useful for previous 
 criticism, since it takes place in a locality 
 and amid a society where deception must 
 be more difficult, while inspection is natur- 
 ally closer and freer than at a public hall. 
 In the circle, for instance, to which I was 
 invited, the guests were mutually known, 
 and bent upon the sharpest investigation. 
 The host was a man of letters, of a character 
 for truth and gravity which it would be 
 impertinence to eulogise ; the scene was an 
 apartment crowded to profusion with deli- 
 cate works of art, and therefore most awk- 
 ward for any rough conjuring resources ; 
 and finally, the apparatus employed, 1 under- 
 stand, elsewhere, was by the nature of the 
 place excluded here. These are conditions 
 which cannot be repeated in public ; I there- 
 fore offer you, Sir, as a contribution to the 
 decision which such strange phenomena 
 
240 
 
 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 await, my own observations, stripped of 
 bias, theory, or opinion, and made as I 
 should make them in the witness-box of a 
 court of justice. 
 
 ' Custodem quis custodiet ? however — who 
 will testify to the witness ? He may be in 
 turn an impostor — may be incapable of calm 
 observation — may be a headlong generaliser 
 — and those with him may have been seve- 
 rally and collectively, like himself, fools or 
 knaves. True, that is possible ; but what is 
 not possible is to find evidence not open to 
 these astute objections. I pass them by, 
 therefore, as the inevitable fate of anony- 
 mous testimony. My name will weigh, how- 
 ever, with you, I think, for sincerity and ordi- 
 nary intelligence] and with regard to an 
 acquaintance with the resources of legerde- 
 main, a long hnoidedge of jugglers and snake- 
 charmers, with their budget of tricks, has at 
 least blunted the edge of my wonder upon 
 that score. For my fellow-guests, they too 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 241 
 
 were not people upon whom deception could 
 be easily played. Officers of the army and 
 navy, a colonial baronet, a well-known sculp- 
 tor, a public writer, and others habituated 
 to keep their wits about them,, made up, 
 with ladies, the circle of twelve or fifteen 
 present. 
 
 t The party was completed by the two 
 Brothers Davenport, a Mr t Fay, and a Mr. 
 Ferguson. There is nothing very marked 
 about the first two gentlemen; the Daven- 
 ports are quiet young men, of mild and 
 agreeable address; so also is their com- 
 panion, Mr. Fay, though he is more English 
 or German in appearance. The spokesman 
 of the party, indeed, Mr. Ferguson, seems 
 a decidedly " remarkable man," as those who 
 encounter him in metaphysical discussion 
 will probably acknowledge. I pass, how- 
 ever, from metaphysics to what I saw, 
 heard, and felt. We sate in a half-circle 
 round the side of the drawing room — Mr. 
 R 
 
242 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Ferguson being at one end, and one of the 
 Davenports at the other ; in the middle the 
 second brother and Mr. Fay placed them- 
 selves upon two ordinary chairs, with a 
 small table between them, on which were 
 laid a guitar, bell, tambourine, and trumpet ; 
 while about twelve yards of clothes-line, in 
 two pieces, lay at hand. It was then re- 
 quested that some of our party should 
 secure each of the sitters hand and foot to 
 the chairs with the cord. Mr. Davenport 
 was operated upon by a captain of one of 
 Her Majesty's vessels of war, a distinguished 
 Arctic navigator (Captain Inglefield). As 
 a yachtsman, I must here plunge so far into 
 technicalities as to say that each ankle of 
 Mr. Davenport was roundly seized, up by 
 this gentleman with a " clove-hitch," as 
 also each wrist — the wrists being fastened 
 to the bar of the chair behind, and the legs 
 made secure by passing the line round and 
 round the foot-bars, and up to meet the 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT, 243 
 
 wrist- rope, when both were joined with a 
 "bread-bag knot." Sailors well know that 
 a " bread-bag knot " can only be imitated 
 by those who comprehend exactly the trick 
 of turning a " reef-knot " into it ; in fact, 
 it is the old boatswain's trap to catch a 
 thief at his biscuit-store. Mr. Fay was 
 made fast less scientifically, but very suffi- 
 ciently, and the circle was formed in front 
 of the captives. We were specially warned 
 to keep our hands joined while darkness 
 lasted, and the gentlemen at each extremity 
 of the semicircle were duly grasped and 
 held by their neighbours. The lights were 
 then extinguished, and in an instant there 
 commenced a medley of noises from tam- 
 bourine, guitar, and bell. These sounded 
 in all parts of the apartment, now high, 
 now low, now here, now there — simultane- 
 ously be it observed — and the passage of 
 them through the air could be heard and 
 felt, immensely rapid, and accompanied by 
 
 B 2 
 
244 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 no foot-fall on the floor. The knees, fore- 
 head, and feet of those in the circle were 
 every now and then rapped by the instru- 
 ments in a manner boisterous but harmless, 
 and exclamations of amusement or surprise 
 on our part mingled with the curious Babel. 
 The guitar especially passed and repassed 
 with what was more like flight than ordi- 
 nary motion, at times violently strummed, 
 at others as gently thrilled as an iEolian 
 harp. At the end of all this a signal for 
 light was given by taps, and, the apartment 
 being instantly illuminated, the prisoners 
 were discovered exactly as they had been 
 last seen, the instruments lying about, or 
 upon the knees of those present. The 
 captain's sailor-like fastenings were pre- 
 cisely as he had left them, and were de- 
 clared to have been untouched after our 
 closest examination. The same was the 
 case with Mr. Fay. Hands were then 
 joined, and the lights were once more ex- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 245 
 
 tinguished; whereupon the same curious 
 and vivacious sounds, motions, and play- 
 ful rappings re-occurred ; and hands, or 
 what appeared such— soft, warm, and 
 well-defined — grasped the joined hands of 
 some, or touched the knees and heads 
 of others. This interval was very brief 
 indeed, and then a sound was suddenly 
 heard of rope being swiftly whisked apart. 
 The light was struck again, and Mr. 
 Davenport was found perfectly free, with 
 his rope festooned about the neck of one 
 of the guests. The whole space of this 
 interval did not appear at all sufficient for 
 the task of thus disentangling the captive in 
 toils. 
 
 * After discussing this marvel or trick, 
 the circle was re-formed, the rope placed on 
 the floor, and the lights re-extinguished. 
 To the same discordant music, and with 
 the same rustling noise, the rope was now 
 heard to be taken up, and in a very short 
 
246 A BIOGRAPHY OE 
 
 time Mr. Davenport was shown to us more 
 tightly bound than before, in the old posi- 
 tion, with a perfect roll of hitches on wrists 
 and ankles and the chair-bars. Again dark- 
 ness was made, and it was desired that the 
 dress- coat worn by the prisoner should be 
 removed. Certainly — no sooner said than 
 done ; for with a u swish " something was 
 heard to fly towards the circle, and Mr. 
 Davenport appeared bound exactly as be- 
 fore, but in his shirt-sleeves, the coat lying 
 between two of those looking on. We had 
 been requested previously to assure our- 
 selves of the integrity of the second set of 
 knots by sealing them ; this was not done, 
 but an india-rubber band was twisted in a 
 very peculiar way over the principal knot, 
 and band and knot, so far as the sharpest 
 of us could judge, were absolutely intact 
 after the experiment. We had either wit- 
 nessed^ therefore, a feat which laughs at the 
 lavj of " the continuity of matter" resembling 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 247 
 
 that of turning the skin of an orange inside 
 out without breaking it, or we have been 
 duped. You, sir, must take your choice, as 
 we did, of the alternatives. This was per- 
 formed with Mr. Davenport's coat, which 
 may give "Wizards of the North and 
 South" the right to smile at what they 
 could certainly, with some important pre- 
 paration beforehand, counterfeit. But after- 
 wards the coat of one of the gentlemen 
 present was taken oiF and laid on the table, 
 and, with. the same u swish " in the dark, it 
 was instantly and accurately adjusted to the 
 back and arms of Mr. Davenport ; his wrists 
 being still bound together and still fastened 
 behind him to the chair-back ; the knots 
 also being again ascertained to be, so far as 
 could be judged by the closest inspection, 
 unviolated. Again, Mr. Editor, I must pre- 
 sent you with the dilemma, upon the horns 
 of which we were tossed ; either we had 
 witnessed an annihilation of what are called 
 
248 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 "material laws" or we were the dupes of 
 extremely clever conjuring. 
 
 ' The last is the explanation, I have per- 
 ceived,, of some professional prestidigitators, 
 naturally alarmed for their trade ; but, 
 though the " coat-ehanging trick " is com- 
 mon enough among the " Houdiiis " and 
 " Andersons " of Europe and Asia, it re- 
 mains to be- seen if they can accept the 
 conditions of it which I have attempted to 
 describe. If they can, it is doubtless pres- 
 tidigitation which we witnessed, and the 
 darkness is a shield of tricksters, not an 
 atmospheric condition absolutely demanded 
 by the subtle laws of some new and unex- 
 plained force. As a candid reporter of the 
 proceedings, I must confess that the verdict 
 of "conjuring" was not that which was 
 pronounced by my .companions. But then 
 almost every one was in the habit of seeing 
 and hearing "manifestations," at home, or 
 in private residences, of a kind daily familiar 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 249 
 
 now to them, whatever, and whencesoever 
 they may be — familiar, indeed, I under- 
 stand, to thousands of persons, but very 
 little spoken of except among the initiated. 
 These would make, however, a bead-roll 
 most surprising to the exoteric,, comprising, 
 it is whispered, distinguished statesmen, 
 authors, scientific men and clergymen, who 
 form together a curious and quiet, society 
 — either the embodiment of a mutual and 
 colossal self-deceit, or the silent heralds of a 
 social revolution which must shake the world. 
 1 I shall neither report to you the astound- 
 ing accounts which were sriven to us of 
 what " had occurred " in the same way, nor 
 the explanations attempted in the conver- 
 sations that followed. My wish has been 
 simply to present here what was seen, heard, 
 and felt to happen in a private drawing- 
 room, and among intelligent and careful 
 observers, with serious reasons for detecting 
 a trick, if trick could be detected. It only 
 
250 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 remains to add that the cords upon Mr. 
 Fay's hands and feet had been all this while 
 so tightly tied, that the tension was painful, 
 and another minute's gloom was therefore 
 resorted to to free him, upon which the 
 cords were instantly thrown loose and fas- 
 tened about Captain Inglefield's neck, in a 
 knot which sailors call the " hangman's" — 
 an intricate slip-knot, which gives upwards, 
 but not downwards. A voice then called 
 through the speaking trumpet " Good 
 night ; " and the puzzling " manifesta- 
 tions" of which I offer you a perfectly 
 sincere, and I think an exact account, were 
 concluded. The problem is very simple. 
 The " wizards" have only to perform ex- 
 actly the same things, and whatever more 
 can be done, under the conditions which the 
 Brothers Davenport dictate and accept, and 
 the public will agree with their view of 
 what at present is not easily explained. 
 'I am, Sir, yours, &c, 
 
 'Master or Arts.' 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 251 
 
 To this testimony, which speaks for itself, 
 I shall add a few brief extracts from that of 
 other competent observers, without tasking 
 the patience of the reader by copying entire 
 articles. 
 
 In a communication to the ' Morning 
 Star,' written, it is said, by Mr. W. E. Hick- 
 son, for eleven years editor and proprietor 
 of the ' Westminster Quarterly Review,' 
 occur the following observations : — 
 
 ' The moment Mr. Ferguson took away his 
 hand the middle door was pulled to and fast- 
 ened from within , and at the next instant 
 the distinct form of a large human hand 
 appeared at a diamond- shaped aperture of 
 the door; sounds were heard among the 
 musical instruments ; the doors flew open, 
 and the trumpet and bells were thrown out 
 on the floor. By whom ? Not certainly by 
 the two bound prisoners, for, if free, there 
 had hardly been time for them to rise from 
 their seats. Was it possible that the pro- 
 
252 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 jecting forces required had been obtained 
 by electric and chemical agency ? This ex- 
 periment was repeated several times with 
 similar but not quite the same results. Once 
 the two bells appeared outside the aperture 
 ringing violently without any hand to hold 
 them, and sometimes different hands ap- 
 peared — two, in one instance, together. 
 And what were these hands ? Mr. Fergu- 
 son was asked might they be touched. Per- 
 mission being accorded, two gentlemen ap- 
 proaching the aperture were patted by the 
 hands, and I succeeded in just touching one 
 of them, or something palpable, before it 
 receded backwards, vanishing or melting in 
 the darkness. The brevity of the interval 
 of their appearance, too short for serious 
 examination, was the unsatisfactory part of 
 this experiment. 
 
 ' Who carried the guitar ? Not Mr. Fer- 
 guson, for his hands were joined to ours ; 
 not Messrs. Davenport and Fay, for they 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 253 
 
 remained tied to the chairs, and the position 
 of their feet, which we had marked with 
 pencil, showed they had not stirred. If a 
 a confederate in list slippers, no footfall 
 could be detected, and no chance was given 
 us, with our legs stretched out, of tripping 
 him up as he passed. 
 
 1 The coat test, however, and indeed all 
 the manifestations, have yet to be better 
 tested than, under the circumstances, they 
 could be by me, or anyone witnessing them 
 only for the first time. I will say of them 
 only that the general result of what was 
 seen, heard, and felt by all, was, in spite of 
 the ludicrous mixed up with it, more start- 
 ling and perplexing than I had conceived, 
 calculated . to produce certainly a profound 
 impression on many minds, and that, if jug- 
 glery be at the bottom of it, those by whom 
 it can be exposed cannot too early explain 
 the deception in the interests of the public/ 
 
 Another correspondent of the \ Morning 
 
254 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OE 
 
 Star/ the Rev. Jabez Burns, after describing 
 the preparations of binding, &c, and stating 
 that the knots were covered with sealing- 
 wax, and sealed with the crest of a gentle- 
 man present, says : 
 
 ' The guitar was now touched with 
 phosphorus, and when the lights were ex- 
 tinguished we saw the luminous spots on it, 
 on the table. Shortly it rose and moved 
 around and above, us, and we could dis- 
 tinctly trace it by the phosphorescent light 
 it emitted. In passing close to me it struck 
 the foot of a young gentleman whose hand 
 was linked with mine, and left the phos- 
 phorus light on the leg of his trousers. In 
 the course of the experiments the coat of 
 one of the Davenports was removed, and 
 afterwards they were uncorded, and the 
 rope of one thrown into the lap of a person 
 who sat near me. 
 
 * Now such are the actual occurrences, 
 without rhetorical garniture, and literally 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 255 
 
 as they were seen by myself and all 
 present. 
 
 ' I had expected that Dr. Ferguson would 
 be in connection with the closet, but he 
 never went near it during the experiment, 
 one of the gentlemen being invariably be- 
 tween him and the closet. I cannot conceive 
 of any exhibition being more open and straight- 
 forward, and if there should be a conjuror 
 able to repeat these tricks, as they are called, 
 I shall be glad to be one of a committee to 
 record it J 
 
 The ' Morning Post' of October 6, 1864, 
 contains an article, not published as a com- 
 munication, which says : 
 
 4 The theory of the Americans [Brothers 
 Davenport] is that, by whatever agency 
 they are untied, they themselves are passive 
 agents in the matter, and that their own 
 hands in no way contribute to their release. 
 An ingenious test was applied, a few evenings 
 since, at a seance which took place at the 
 
256 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Queen's Concert Rooms, Hanover Square, 
 to prove the value of the assertion. To 
 show that the uncording was not effected 
 by the hands of the Americans, some flour ■ 
 was procured, and after the process of 
 pinioning had been completed to the satis- 
 faction of all present, the fingers of the 
 brothers were covered with the substance, 
 and they were required to hold a quantity 
 of it firmly in their hands, clasped and locked 
 firmly one in the other. They were at the 
 time dressed in ordinary evening costume, 
 ■ and it would have been impossible for them 
 to have untied the ropes, and subsequently 
 tied them again, without being covered with 
 the flour. The result was, however, as the 
 Americans predicted it would be. When 
 the doors of the cabinet were thrown open, 
 they were found with their limbs untied, 
 and in precisely the same positions in which 
 they had been left, but with no portion of 
 the flour on their clothes. The doors of 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 257 
 
 the cabinet were subsequently closed, and 
 after an interval of two or three minutes 
 were thrown open, when the brothers were 
 found tightly pinioned hand and foot, and 
 clutching the flour as before.' 
 
 The reader, in the earlier chapters of this 
 biography, may have had a faint suspicion 
 that the writer had what the phrenologists 
 used to call ' the organ of credenciveness ' 
 largely developed. Will the testimony of 
 so many of the most accurate observers, and 
 able writers of the leading journals of Lon- 
 don, convince him that every statement con- 
 tained in this volume is not only made in good 
 faith, but is supported by good evidence ? 
 
 If what some of the ablest writers in 
 England assert is to be believed, then all 
 here stated may be believed ; for when we 
 pass the limit of ordinary possibilities, we 
 have no guide but the observation of facts. 
 It is no longer a question of what is pro- 
 bable or possible, but of what is true. 
 s 
 
258 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 IMPORTANT SEANCE. 
 
 Nobility, Savans, and Men of Letters — Second Seance at Mr. 
 Boucicaults — An admirable Description — Needless 
 Disclaimers — The true Philosophical Method. 
 
 I come now to the most important, clear, 
 and authoritative statement yet made in 
 this volume : — 
 
 On the night of October 11th, 1864, a 
 very distinguished company assembled at 
 the residence of Mr. Dion Boucicault, to 
 witness the manifestations which are given 
 in the presence of the Brothers Davenport. 
 It consisted of Yiscount Bury, M.P., Sir 
 Charles Wyke, G.C.B., Sir Charles Nichol- 
 son, Ambassador to Mexico, the Chancellor 
 of the University of Sydney, the Speaker of 
 the House of Representatives of Queensland, 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 
 
 25 9 
 
 Mr. Robert Bell, Mr. Robert Chambers, 
 LL.D., Mr. Charles Reade, D.C.L., Capt. 
 Inglefield, the Arctic navigator, two phy- 
 sicians, and several writers of the daily 
 press, whose names will be found in the fol- 
 lowing luminous and admirable report of 
 the proceedings by Mr. Boucicault. 
 
 1 The Davenport Brothers. 
 < To the Editor of the " Daily News." 
 i Sir, — A seance by the Brothers Daven- 
 port and Mr. W. Fay took place in my 
 house yesterday in the presence of 
 
 Mr. J. W. Kaye, 
 „ J. A. Bostock, 
 
 „ H. J. RlDEOUT, 
 
 Lord Burt, 
 
 Sir Charles Nicholson, 
 Shi John Gardiner, 
 Slr C. Lennox Wyke, 
 Rev. E. H. Newenham, 
 Rev. W. Ellis, 
 Capt. E. A. Inglefield, 
 Mr. Charles Reade, 
 „ James Matthews, 
 „ Algernon Borth- 
 
 wick, 
 „ I. Wdlles, 
 „ H. E. Ormerod, 
 
 Robert Bell, 
 J. N. Mangles, 
 H, M. Dunphy, 
 W.Tyler Smith, m.d. 
 E. Tyler Smith, 
 T. L. Coward, 
 John Brown, m.d. 
 Robert Chambers, 
 
 and 
 Dion Boucical-lt. 
 
260 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 ' The room in which the meeting was 
 held is a large drawing-room, from which 
 all the furniture had been previously re- 
 moved, excepting the carpet, a chandelier, 
 a small table, a sofa, a pedestal, and twenty- 
 six cane-bottomed chairs. 
 
 ' At two o'clock six of the above party 
 arrived, and the room was subjected to care- 
 ful scrutiny. It was suggested that a cabi- 
 net to be used by the Brothers Davenport, 
 but then erected in an adjacent room, should 
 be removed into the front room, and placed 
 in a spot selected by ourselves. This was 
 done by our party, but in the process we 
 displaced a portion of this piece of furni- 
 ture, thus enabling us to examine its mate- 
 rial and structure before we mended it. At 
 three o'clock our party was fully assembled, 
 and continued the scrutiny. We sent to a 
 neighbouring music-seller for six guitars 
 and two tambourines, so that the imple- 
 ments to be used should not be those with 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 261 
 
 which the operators were familiar. At half- 
 past three the Brothers Davenport and Mr. 
 Fay arrived, and found that we had altered 
 their arrangements, by changing the room 
 which they had previously selected for their 
 manifestations. The seance then began by 
 an examination of the dress and persons of 
 the Brothers Davenport, and it was certified 
 that no apparatus or other contrivance was 
 concealed on or about their persons. They 
 entered the cabinet, and sat facing each 
 other. Captain Inglefield then, with a new 
 rope provided by ourselves, tied Mr. W- 
 Davenport hand and foot, with his hands 
 behind his back, and then bound him firmly 
 to the seat where he sat. Lord Bury, in 
 like manner, secured Mr. I. Davenport. 
 The knots on these ligatures were then 
 fastened with sealing-wax, and a seal was 
 affixed. A guitar, violin, tambourine, two 
 bells, and a brass trumpet were placed on 
 the floor of the cabinet. The doors were 
 
262 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 then closed, and a sufficient light was per- 
 mitted in the room to enable us to see what 
 followed. I shall omit any detailed account 
 of the Babel of sounds which arose in the 
 cabinet, and the violence with which the 
 doors were repeatedly burst open and the 
 instruments expelled ; trie hands appearing, 
 as usual, at a lozenge-shaped orifice in the 
 centre door of the cabinet. The following 
 incidents seem to us particularly worthy of 
 note : — While Lord Bury was stooping 
 inside the cabinet, the door being open, and 
 the two operators seen to be sealed and 
 bound, a detached hand was clearly ob- 
 served to descend upon him, and he started 
 back, remarking that a hand had struck 
 him. Again, in the full light of the gas 
 chandelier, and during an interval in the 
 seance, the doors of the cabinet being open, 
 and while the ligatures of the Brothers 
 Davenport were being examined, a very 
 white, thin, female hand and wrist qui- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 263 
 
 vered for several seconds in the air above. 
 This appearance drew a general exclama- 
 tion from all the party. Sir Charles Wyke 
 now entered the cabinet, and sat between 
 the two young men — his hands being right 
 and left on each, and secured to them. The 
 doors were then closed, and the Babel of 
 sounds recommenced. Several hands ap- 
 peared at the orince — among them the 
 hand of a child. After a space, Sir Charles 
 returned amongst us, and stated that 
 while he held the two brothers several 
 hands touched his face and pulled his hair ; 
 the instruments at his feet crept up, played 
 round his body and over his head — one of 
 them lodging eventually on his shoulders. 
 During the foregoing incidents the hands 
 which appeared were touched and grasped by 
 Captain Inglefield and he stated that to the 
 touch they were apparently human hands, 
 though they passed away from his grasp. 
 I omit mentioning other phenomena, an 
 
264 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 account of which has already been rendered 
 elsewhere. 
 
 The next part of the seance was per- 
 formed in the dark. One of the Messrs. 
 Davenport and Mr. Fay seated themselves 
 amongst us. Two ropes were thrown at 
 their feet, and in two minutes and a half 
 they were tied hand and foot, their hands 
 behind their backs bound tightly to their 
 chairs, and their chairs bound to an adjacent 
 table. While this process was going on, 
 the guitar rose from the table, and swung 
 or floated round the room and over the 
 heads of the party, and slightly touching 
 some. Now a phosphoric light shot from 
 side to side over our heads; the laps and 
 hands, and shoulders of several were 
 simultaneously touched, struck, or pawed 
 by hands, the guitar meanwhile sailing 
 round the room, now near the ceiling, and 
 then scuffling on the head and shoulders of 
 some luckless wight. The bells whisked 
 
THE EROTHERS DAVENPORT. 265 
 
 here and there, and a light thrumming was 
 maintained on the violin. The two tam- 
 bourines seemed to roll hither and thither 
 on the floor, now shaking it violently, and 
 now visiting the knees and hands of our 
 circle — all these foregoing actions, audible 
 or tangible, being simultaneous. Mr. 
 Kideout, holding a tambourine, requested 
 it might be plucked from his hand; it was 
 almost instantaneously taken from him. At 
 the same time Lord Bury made a similar 
 request, and a forcible attempt to pluck a 
 tambourine from his grasp was made, 
 which he resisted. Mr. Fay then asked 
 that his coat should be removed. We 
 heard instantlv a violent twitch ; and here 
 occurred the most remarkable fact. A light 
 was struck before the coat had quite left 
 Mr. Fay's person, and it was seen quitting 
 him, plucked off him upwards. It flew up 
 to the chandelier, where it hun^ for a 
 moment, and then fell to the ground. Mr. 
 
266 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Fay was seen meanwhile bound hand and 
 foot as before. One of our party now 
 divested himself of his coat, and it was 
 placed on the table. The light was ex- 
 tinguished, and this coat was rushed on to 
 Mr. Fay's back with equal rapidity. Dur- 
 ing the above occurrences in the dark, we 
 placed a sheet of paper under the feet of 
 these two operators, and drew with a pencil 
 an outline around them, to the end that if 
 they moved, it might be detected. They of 
 their own accord offered to have their hands 
 filled with flour, or any other similar sub- 
 stance, to prove they made no use of them, 
 but this precaution was deemed unneces- 
 sary ; we required them, however, to count 
 from one to twelve repeatedly, that their 
 voices constantly heard might certify to 
 us that they were in the places where they 
 were tied. Each of our own party held his 
 neighbour firmly, so that no one could move 
 without two adjacent neighbours being 
 aware of it. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 267 
 
 6 At the termination of this seance, a 
 general conversation took place on the 
 subject of what we had heard and wit- 
 nessed. Lord Bury suggested that the 
 general opinion seemed to be that we 
 should assure the Brothers Davenport and 
 Mr. W. Fay, that after a very stringent 
 trial and strict scrutiny of their proceed- 
 ings, the gentlemen present could arrive at 
 no other conclusion than that there was no 
 trace of trickery in any form, and cer- 
 tainly there were neither confederates nor 
 machinery, and that all those who had 
 witnessed the results would freely state in 
 the society in which they moved, that so 
 far as their investigations enabled them to 
 form an opinion, the phenomena which had 
 taken place in their presence were not the 
 product of legerdemain. This suggestion 
 was promptly acceded to by all present. 
 
 ' Before leaving this question, in which 
 my name has accidentally become mixed 
 
2-38 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 up, I may be permitted to observe that I 
 have no belief in what is called Spiritualism, 
 and nothing I have seen inclines me to 
 believe in it — indeed, the puerility of some 
 of the demonstrations would sufficiently 
 alienate such a theory ; but I do believe 
 that we have not quite explored the realms 
 of natural philosophy — that this enterprise 
 of thought has of late years been confined 
 to useful inventions, and we are content at 
 least to think that the laws of nature are 
 finite, ascertained, and limited to the scope 
 of our knowledge. A very great number 
 of worthy persons seeing such phenomena 
 as I have detailed ascribe them to super- 
 natural agency ; others wander around the 
 subject in doubt; but as it engages seriously 
 the feeling and earnest thought of so large 
 a number in Europe and America, is it a 
 subject which scientific men are justified in 
 treating with the neglect of contempt ? 
 ' Some persons think that the require- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 269 
 
 ment of darkness seems to infer trickery. 
 Is not a dark chamber essential in the 
 process of photography ? And what would 
 we reply to him who should say, " I believe 
 photography to be a humbug ; do it all in 
 the light, and I will believe otherwise, and 
 not till then?" It is true that we know 
 why darkness is necessary to the production 
 of the sun picture ; and if scientific men 
 will subject these phenomena to analysis, 
 we shall find out why darkness is essential 
 to such manifestations. 
 
 1 1 am, &c., 
 
 'Dion Boucicault.' 
 
 326 Regent Street, Oct. 12, 1864. 
 
 I have given this clear and authorised 
 statement of facts entire, as it appeared in 
 many of the London journals, because I 
 did not wish to take the liberty of con- 
 densing in the slightest degree so remark- 
 able a document. Otherwise I should have 
 
270 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 taken the liberty to omit — and, had I been 
 consulted in the matter, should have ad- 
 vised Mr. Boucicault to omit — the first few 
 lines in the last paragraph but one. He 
 had given the facts as they were witnessed 
 by himself and the distinguished party of 
 gentlemen he had invited. They were all 
 satisfied that there had been, and could 
 have been, no deception, no collusion, no 
 imposture whatever in the manifestations. 
 What are called physical impossibilities — 
 what are usually denominated miracles — 
 occurred at every stage of the procedings. 
 They could not distrust themselves or each 
 other, and they took the most thorough 
 means of preventing the possibility of their 
 being imposed upon by the Brothers Da- 
 venport, Mr. Fay, and Mr. Ferguson. 
 Where, then, was the necessity of a per- 
 sonal disclaimer as to a matter, theory, or 
 belief, of which there was, so far as ap- 
 pears, no question whatever ? Or why did 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 271 
 
 not Mr. Boucicault go further, and assert 
 that he was not a Methodist, or Mormon, 
 Eoman Catholic or Buddhist, nor a believer 
 in Fetishism or Mumbo Jumbo ? 
 
 The report is complete, and every one 
 must agree that it is admirably written, 
 so far as it is a report, down to the two 
 concluding paragraphs. Mr. Boucicault 
 fails only, where many men of genius 
 have failed, when he comes to personalities 
 which had better be left out of the case 
 altogether. 
 
 It is also to be regretted that Lord Bury 
 became so nettled by the chaffing of l Times' 
 correspondents as to consider it necessary 
 to make a petulant answer, which had, how- 
 ever, the merit of being also a witty one. 
 He says : ' One of your correspondents, 
 who informs us with superfluous candour 
 that he is "no conjuror," proposes, for the 
 sake of fair play, to bind me and Captain 
 Inglefield hand and foot, and throw us 
 
272 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 into the Serpentine. I should like to say 
 a few words first.' Lord Bury proceeds to 
 say that he refused to sign a paper which 
 referred the manifestations to some mys- 
 terious agency, and said that 4 all the Bro- 
 thers Davenport could reasonably expect 
 from us was, that we should state in society 
 the simple truth — viz. that we had failed to 
 detect any evidence of trickery or collusion.' 
 Of course this was all that could be asked 
 of any committee whatever. Lord Bury 
 and the gentlemen present at this seance 
 are not asked to tell us how these things 
 are done. Of course they know no more 
 about it than the rest of us. What we 
 require of them is very clearly indicated — 
 it was to tell us what was done, and that 
 it was not done, so far as twenty-four gen- 
 tlemen, as well qualified for the purpose as 
 any other two dozen in the United King- 
 dom, could judge, by trick or collusion, 
 fraud or jugglery. Further these depo- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 273 
 
 nents say not, and further no one can 
 reasonably expect them to say. 
 
 In the case of the toads enclosed in solid 
 limestone, what could they do more ? They 
 would first examine the stone as it lay in 
 the quarry; they would see it split open. 
 The toad, waking from his sleep of ages, 
 drags himself out of his hole in the rock, 
 and the cavity which contained him is 
 examined. If Lord Bury were on a sci- 
 entific committee, should we expect him to 
 tell us how the toad came to be enclosed in 
 the solid rock, or how it had managed to 
 survive its incarceration of thousands of 
 years ? Not at all. We might take his 
 theory for what it was worth : but what 
 we should want first of all would be assu- 
 rance of the facts, and that there was, as 
 far as he and the committee could judge, 
 4 no trick or collusion. ' 
 
 Still I must say that the lovers of truth, 
 without regard to theories, are indebted 
 
 T 
 
274 
 
 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 to Lord Bury and all the gentlemen who 
 attended this seance, and more than all, 
 perhaps, to Mr. Boucicault, for an exhi- 
 bition of so much candour, moral courage, 
 and genuine philosophy, which I cannot 
 but think more in character for English 
 gentlemen than the sneers, ridicule, and 
 flagrant abuse of a portion of the press of 
 this metropolis. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 275 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM. 
 
 The Press in Opposition — Ugly Trash for Bedlam — Com- 
 mon Conjuring — Fantastic Tricks and Farthing Candles 
 — Miserable Trifling — Grotesquely absurd and stupidly 
 meaningless — Reverend Dobbs — Tedious, dull, and vulgar 
 — The Secret not worth knowing — Human Nature and 
 an Awful Warning. 
 
 Having given so much of the testimony of 
 the London newspaper press and its corre- 
 spondents respecting the earlier seances of 
 the Brothers Davenport in England, it 
 may be considered but fair, and it will 
 certainly be amusing, to ' hear the other 
 side/ 
 
 The 'Standard' of October 1, 1864, in 
 its leading leader, begs c to suggest that it 
 was all, from beginning to end, a piece of 
 flagrant jugglery.' It thinks ' it is asto- 
 
 T 2 
 
276 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 nishing to find respectable journals defacing 
 their columns with this ugly trash.' It gives 
 all the particulars, notwithstanding, in its 
 largest type and most conspicuous column, 
 and then says: — i When a "floating guitar" 
 has drawn blood, while the Brothers re- 
 main bound to their chairs, the remedies 
 which irresistibly suggest themselves are 
 those of Bethlehem Hospital. ' ' To what 
 are we coming, or rather to what are we 
 going?' ' But what, after all. is the social 
 use of these enchanters ? They do nothing 
 for us. They cannot trace a pickpocket, or 
 find a lost watch, or reclaim a missing 
 relative. . . . We discard Magus, and we 
 had hoped not to hear of him again, dupli- 
 cated by the Brothers Davenport, with 
 their changing of coats, their miraculous 
 appearance in shirt- sleeves, and their ap- 
 paratus of ropes, which we trust will be 
 some day more efficaciously employed. . . . 
 Really, an intellectual poison and in toxica- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 277 
 
 tion have come into fashion on these be- 
 wildering subjects, and the public have 
 been dosed so often and so powerfully that 
 we wish this experimental physician who 
 prescribes such mysterious drugs would 
 cut short his visit.' 
 
 It is pretty evident that this writer tries 
 to think the manifestations are vulgar 
 jugglery, but he finds it hard to keep to 
 that opinion. He suspects they are real, 
 and is a little afraid of them. 
 
 The ' Spectator ' thinks it looks like i a 
 common case of conjuring managed by a 
 secret entrance into the apartment behind 
 the cabinet.' But as the room is alight, and 
 the committee passed behind the cabinet or 
 surrounded it, such an explanation will not 
 answer. When persons sit in the cabinet 
 between the brothers, no such aid would be 
 possible. 
 
 The ' Herald,' October 4, says : c An 
 attempt is being made to palm off these 
 
278 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 Brothers Davenport as phenomena. They 
 themselves accept their ludicrous reputa- 
 tion, though as yet we have heard nothing 
 of their doings more extraordinary or dig- 
 nified than the tricks of a common juggler 
 in the street, of a Chinese theatre, or of a 
 strolling company of Japan. . . . We trust 
 that public curiosity will not encourage the 
 sham. It means, if anything, that spirits — 
 powers hovering between earth and heaven 
 — help a man off with his coat, tinkle a 
 muffin-bell, play upon banjoes, touch people's 
 knees, rap them on the knuckles, and play 
 a hundred fantastic tricks, which cease im- 
 mediately upon the lighting of a farthing 
 candle. It is too much !' 
 
 It is also 4 too much ' to be begging the 
 whole question in this fashion. The first 
 thing to be decided is, are these things 
 done, and not by the Davenports or other 
 human agency ? Who or what does them, 
 and why they are done, will then be the 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 279 
 
 questions next in order. It is not philo- 
 sophical to say of any phenomenon, ' If this 
 occurred, it must have been from such a 
 cause, which is absurd — therefore it never 
 happened.' So many improbable things 
 happen that we have the proverb, ' Truth is 
 stranger than fiction.' 
 
 While some of the journals are content 
 to be flippant and sarcastic, the c Daily 
 News,' of October 8, is tremendously indig- 
 nant. In' its solemn view of the subject, 
 1 it is both surprising and deplorable that 
 persons of education and standing should 
 not only countenance but welcome and 
 applaud such efforts, and that influential 
 organs of opinion should be found ready 
 to give them indirect encouragement, if not 
 positive support.' The ' Daily Xews ' asserts 
 that their tricks are vulgar jugglery, such 
 as are commonly performed on both sides of 
 the Atlantic. Then it scolds educated and 
 respectable people for encouraging such im- 
 
280 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 postures. Then it is a reaction from scep- 
 ticism. Finally, c such miserable trifling 
 with noble emotions is not only utterly 
 unworthy of any serious and manly mind, 
 but must, in the nature of the case, lead to 
 most injurious results. To divorce any 
 emotion from its true objects and ends is to 
 abuse and degrade it, and to do thus with 
 regard to emotions that lead us beyond the 
 world of sense tends directly to dry up the 
 most sacred springs of belief and action.' 
 
 And all this outburst of eloquence and 
 morality about a party of common jugglers, 
 who are doing tricks with which everybody 
 is familiar ! It reminds one of the thunder- 
 clap that astonished poor Moses when he 
 had stolen into a dark corner of a chop- 
 house to eat his bit of bacon. 
 
 The ' Saturday Keview ' would be ex- 
 pected of course to have something very 
 spicy or very savage on so exciting a sub- 
 ject. It could not keep its various nick- 
 
THE BROTHEES DAVENPORT. 231 
 
 names of ; Saturday Reviler,' &c. other- 
 wise. It says : c As to the phenomena 
 themselves, anything so grotesquely absurd 
 and stupidly meaningless has not yet been 
 produced, even in the dreary annals of 
 spiritualism.' And then, losing its usual 
 pointed vivacity, it goes off, like the l Daily 
 News/ into a solemn sermon about 'the 
 world of spirits/ — as if that had anything 
 to do with the case whatever ! 
 
 The ' John Bull ' has heard a story of a 
 ' Reverend Dobbs,' in Canada, who tied 
 and untied knots, and declared himself 
 ready to do whatever the Davenports did 
 if they would only lend him their apparatus 
 — the apparatus consisting of a walnut-box, 
 some half-inch ropes, and a few not very 
 costly musical instruments ! 
 
 The ' London Review ' suggests ' that 
 until the Brothers can be seen bound 
 while the manifestations are occurring, 
 people will believe they have something 
 
282 
 
 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 to do with them ; ' but as thousands of 
 people have seen the manifestations, and 
 the Brothers fast bound without so much 
 as a second intervening, this goes for very 
 little. 
 
 The * Morning Star ' says : ' We give an 
 opinion which we know is not shared by 
 some highly intelligent and candid men who 
 were present at last night's performance 
 (the Press seance), when we say that it ap- 
 peared to us tedious, dull, and vulgar. If 
 the exhibition were an avowed display of 
 conjuring cleverness it would be but a 
 poor and vapid entertainment. Only those 
 who believe it to be performed by some super- 
 natural or extra-natural power can feel any 
 genuine interest in it.' 
 
 This is to a certain extent true. If the 
 manifestations were deceptions, by leger- 
 demain, machinery, and the aid of confede- 
 rates, they would be very poor and worthless, 
 and the whole London press would have 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 283 
 
 made itself very contemptible by taking so 
 much notice of them. 
 
 The ' Globe ' is rather of this opinion, and 
 talks in a superior manner of ' two baker* s 
 dozens of accomplished gentlemen engaged 
 in a dark room in trying to find out how 
 conjurors perform their tricks ! What a 
 satire on this enlightened age ! . . . We say, 
 let the brother conjurors make their money ; 
 but if they are to be put to the test, let the 
 test be applied, not by men of science, but 
 by a board of conjurors under a competent 
 chairman. We should then soon know the 
 secret — a secret not worth knowing.' 
 
 It has been stated in some of the London 
 papers that the Brothers Davenport were 
 watched closely for a week by Mr. Hermann, 
 one of the cleverest prestidigitateurs and 
 conjurors in America, without being able to 
 get any clue to the secret, and that he became 
 perfectly convinced that no kind of jugglery 
 had anything to do with it. The suggestion, 
 
284 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 however, is not a bad one. There are no 
 doubt respectable manufacturers of conjur- 
 ing apparatus and performers in London, who, 
 associated with two or three men of science 
 and a couple of sharp detectives, might find 
 out the ' secret not worth knowing.' 
 
 It is useless to continue quotations which 
 are to the same purport, and when we have 
 no guarantee of the wisdom or even of the 
 sincerity of the writers. If the leading 
 writers of the leading papers of London, 
 stating simply matters of their own obser- 
 vation — what they saw and heard — felt 
 obliged to assume the mask of contributors, 
 as if not sufficiently shielded by being anony- 
 mous, or if the editors of these leading and 
 powerful organs of public opinion thought 
 it necessary thus to disown the members of 
 their respective staffs, what could be ex- 
 pected of periodicals in a less independent 
 position ? 
 
 On the whole, ' human nature 7 enters about 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 285 
 
 as largely into the composition of the gen- 
 tlemen of the press as elsewhere. The press 
 is ' free ' to do what is for its interests, and 
 it is c independent ' of whatever will not 
 affect its circulation and influence. No- 
 where probably is the press less purchasable, 
 or less capable of being directly influenced 
 by base and mercenary considerations ; but 
 there is the great public of readers, whose 
 tastes and prejudices must be consulted. 
 The case of a celebrated monthly magazine 
 has been an ' awful warning ' to the whole 
 English press. Some years ago it published 
 a perfectly fair statement of facts, as ob- 
 served by one of its favourite contributors. 
 The result is said to have been the loss of 
 three thousand copies of its circulation, to 
 say nothing of unmeasured ridicule and 
 abuse. Even in free England it is not 
 always profitable to tell the truth. This 
 magazine has repented and recanted. A 
 few months ago it laid down the rule that 
 
286 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 a man ought not to believe what he con- 
 sidered improbable on any amount of testi- 
 mony, that of his own senses included — a 
 safe rule for magazine editors, no doubt, if 
 not a wise one for the general public. First 
 make up your mind what you will believe 
 and what you will refuse to believe, and 
 then * so much the worse for the facts/ 
 when they happen to be against you. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 287 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A PERSONAL STATEMENT. 
 
 What I think of the Brothers Davenport, and what I saw at 
 a Seance at the Hanover-square Rooms. 
 
 This may be as good a place as another to 
 give my individual testimony respecting the 
 Brothers Davenport, and the phenomena 
 which occur in their presence. 
 
 The young men, with whom I have had 
 but a brief personal acquaintance, and whom 
 I never saw until their arrival in London, 
 appear to me to be, in intellect and charac- 
 ter, above the average of their young coun- 
 trymen. They are not remarkable for 
 cleverness, though of fair abilities, and Ira 
 has some artistic talent. The manifesta- 
 tions seem to have been quite as extraordinary 
 ten years ago, when they were boys of four- 
 

 288 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 teen and fifteen years, as at the present 
 time. The young men seem entirely honest, 
 and singularly disinterested and unmerce- 
 nary — far more anxious to have people 
 satisfied of their integrity and the reality of 
 their manifestations than to make money. 
 They have an ambition, without doubt, 
 which is gratified in their having been 
 selected as the instruments of what they 
 believe will be some great good to mankind, 
 and they are not free from the personal 
 tastes and vanities common to their age, 
 and from which only a few of the very 
 wisest of us are entirely exempted. 
 
 I have elsewhere given my estimate of Mr. 
 Ferguson, the gentleman who exercises a 
 friendly and almost parental care over them, 
 and who attends them to state the conditions 
 of the manifestations. Of the purely busi- 
 ness relations of Mr. Palmer I need not 
 again speak. 
 
 The seance I am about to describe took 
 place at the Queen's Concert Kooms, Hano- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 289 
 
 ver Square, on Friday evening, October 28, 
 1864. The company consisted of fifty- two 
 persons, the larger portion of whom had 
 secured admission by payment. The rest — 
 members of the Press, and some who had 
 attended previous seances — were invited. 
 It was desired that Captain Inglefield 
 should be one of the tying and trying com- 
 mittee, but he declined, on the ground that 
 he had done his best on two or three former 
 occasions, but his knots were all untied, and 
 he was naturally discouraged. 
 
 Two intelligent and sufficiently sceptical 
 gentlemen were chosen, and proceeded to 
 tie the two brothers in and to the slight 
 cabinet, which could be seen over, under, 
 and on each side, and by the committee 
 behind. It was at no time possible that 
 any person could approach it in any way, or 
 for any purpose, unseen by the audience: 
 concealed machinery was equally out of the 
 question. 
 
 u 
 
290 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 After the binding twenty persons, per- 
 haps, examined the ropes and knots. The 
 side doors were then shut and fastened. The 
 middle door was then pushed close, and the 
 bolt inside was instantly heard to shoot into 
 its fastening ; the trumpet was thrown out 
 of a small opening near the top of the door, 
 and the middle door thrown open from the 
 inside. In two seconds — as quickly as pos- 
 sible — the other doors were opened, and the 
 Brothers seen to be firmly bound, precisely 
 as they had been. Who threw out the 
 trumpet ? Hands were shown at the open- 
 ing, and the bell held out and rung, and 
 then dropped on the floor. Instantly the 
 open doors stowed the Brothers bound. 
 There was not a moment's delay — not time 
 to untie or tie one of twenty knots. Whose 
 were the hands, and who rang the bell ? 
 Most certainly neither of the Davenports, 
 and as certainly no other person. 
 
 One of the three doors was closed, and 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 291 
 
 from behind it hands and portions of arms 
 appeared. The closed door was flung open 
 instantly, and the young men were seen 
 bound as before. Once a feminine hand 
 and two-thirds of a bare arm was reached 
 through the hole in the middle door, and 
 the whole interior was exposed in a moment, 
 with the same result as before. 
 
 "What hands and arms were those ? Cer- 
 tainly not those of the Davenports, and as 
 certainly there was no other person in the 
 cabinet, or near it. 
 
 The doors were again closed, and a rattling 
 and drawing of ropes was heard for nearly 
 four minutes (three minutes forty- eight 
 seconds), with the ringing of the bell and 
 other noises. The doors were opened, and 
 the young men stood up free, while the 
 thirty or forty feet of small rope with which 
 they had been bound lay coiled between 
 them. 
 
 Had they unbound themselves? Their 
 
 u 2 
 
292 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 wrists were firmly knotted together ; their 
 hands cannot pass through a rope-ring con- 
 siderably larger than their wrists, and they 
 could in no way reach the ends of the ropes. 
 On other occasions they have held their 
 hands full of flour, had the knots sealed, 
 and submitted to similar tests innumerable. 
 
 The doors were closed again, and after a 
 noise of rattling and whishing of ropes, 
 lasting about two minutes, they were found 
 to be bound more thoroughly and securely 
 than before. A large portion of the audience 
 went upon the platform to inspect this new 
 binding. Who did it ? The hands were 
 firmly knotted together, and fixed in their 
 position ; the feet were immovably fast- 
 ned. They were bound to their seats, 
 and the ends of the rope were entirely beyond 
 their reach. It is certain that they did not 
 tie themselves, and it is equally certain 
 that no other visible person was in the box. 
 
 Several musical instruments were now 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 293 
 
 placed in the cabinet between the Brothers, 
 but not within their reach. The doors were 
 scarcely closed before we heard the tuning 
 of the violin, the keys turning while the 
 strings were snapped. That takes two hands. 
 TVhose ? Then a rude concert commenced — 
 the violin being played with the bow ; the 
 tambourine rumbled, the guitar thrummed, 
 and the bell joined in the accompaniment. 
 The music was not of a high order, but 
 three common rustic tunes were played in 
 good time and tune, lasting in all some ten 
 or fifteen minutes. Then, while the instru- 
 ments were still sounding, the middle door 
 suddenly flew open, the instruments came 
 tumbling out, the side doors were instantly 
 opened, and everyone saw the Brothers 
 Davenport bound hand and foot, with no 
 indication that they had made the slightest 
 movement. The committee reported the 
 knots perfect. People got upon the platform 
 to look for themselves. 
 
294 
 
 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 Now, who made the music ? Certainly 
 not the Davenports. Provided they could 
 have got out of their fastenings, which I be- 
 lieve impossible, they had not two seconds 
 from the time we heard the instruments all 
 playing, before we saw them securely and 
 elaborately bound, so that the committee 
 could not see even the slightest change. 
 Well, who made the concert ? It required 
 four pairs of hands ; but here were but two, 
 and they securely fastened ! 
 
 It was stated by one of the committee that 
 Mr. William Davenport's pulse was raised 
 to 130, while Mr. Ira Davenport's was not 
 affected. The fact of Ira's pulse not being 
 affected perceptibly, shut in the close box, 
 proves that he did not unbind and bind him- 
 self, or take part in the rapid and violent 
 concert. The different state of William's 
 pulse, under the same conditions, would 
 indicate some difference of temperament, 
 or constitutional susceptibility. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 295 
 
 The assembly was next seated in a semi- 
 circle of two rows, one close behind the 
 other. In the centre, some ten feet removed 
 from the nearest persons, was an ' oblong 
 table and two chairs, one on each side of the 
 table. Mr. Ira Davenport was firmly bound 
 to one chair, by a gentleman selected from 
 the company, and Mr. Win. M. Fay to the 
 other. Their feet were made fast, and their 
 hands very firmly tied behind them. Sheets 
 of white paper were placed under their feet, 
 and marked round with a pencil. Every- 
 body took hold of hands, so that each person 
 was held by two others. Wm. Davenport 
 was held by a gentleman at one end of the 
 semicircle, and Mr. Ferguson, who held the 
 candle and matches for relighting, was held 
 by Captain Inglefield at the other. 
 
 The instant the light was extinguished, 
 and before the quickest-footed person could 
 have entered the room, the bell and musical 
 instruments on the table were in com mo- 
 
296 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 tion. A guitar flew around in the air above 
 our heads like a bat or swallow, twanging 
 as it went, its course and motion being easily 
 distinguished by the sound. It went much 
 higher than a man could reach, and it was 
 not thrown in right lines, but flew in curves 
 or circles, ringing as it went, and plainly 
 fanning the air upon our faces with its rapid 
 motion. The sound was not so sharp as 
 that made by the fingers or thumb, but loud 
 and full. After a few moments the instru- 
 ment rested on the floor, a match was struck, 
 and everyone was satisfied that neither Mr. 
 Davenport nor Mr. Fay had moved. Their 
 hands were tied behind them, their feet had 
 not stirred from the pencil-marks. 
 
 Now, who made the flying music ? Not 
 the Davenports, nor any person in the com- 
 pany, for they were all secured too firmly, 
 had they been able to do it. By some 
 power the twanging ringing instrument 
 was made to fly round the room over our 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 297 
 
 heads more like the flight of a swallow 
 than anything to which I can compare it. 
 Again and again after these sounds the 
 candle was lighted, and each time the fas- 
 tenings found secure. 
 
 Then Mr. Fay was unbound by some in- 
 visible power, while Mr. Davenport remained 
 bound ; next Mr. Davenport was unbound, 
 while Mr. Fay was bound ; then both were 
 found again more securely bound, if possible, 
 than at the beginning. 
 
 And now came the crowning marvel — a 
 thing so utterly astounding that I should 
 not hope to be believed had I been its only 
 witness. While both were firmly bound 
 to their chairs, several feet apart, and the 
 company secured by each other, a slight 
 rushing or whishing sound was heard, and 
 the light called for. Mr. Fay's coat, which 
 he had on the moment before, was lying on 
 the table, and he sitting in his shirtsleeves, 
 with his hands still firmly tied together at 
 
298 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OE 
 
 the wrists behind him, and also to the chair. 
 The coat was examined, and no rip or rent 
 discovered. 
 
 How can a man take off his coat, or how 
 can it be taken off, with his hands tied to- 
 gether behind him ? I only know, as some 
 hundreds of persons in London know, that 
 it was done! 
 
 It was asked if some gentleman would 
 lend his coat for a few moments. A stout 
 beaver-cloth coat was proffered and laid 
 upon the table. The candle was blown out, 
 and in a few moments relighted. The bor- 
 rowed coat was found completely and pro- 
 perly put on Mr. Davenport, over his own, 
 while his hands were seen to be firmly and 
 very tightly tied behind him, and bound to 
 the back of the chair. I felt and examined 
 the knots, as did many others : there was 
 no mistake, or possibility of a mistake. 
 
 How was this done ? To say that in those 
 few moments Ira Davenport was unbound, 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 299 
 
 put on the coat, and was again tied, is absurd. 
 It was the same when the knots were sealed 
 with sealing-wax or his hands fastened 
 with sticking-plaister. There was not time 
 even to untie him had there been confede- 
 rates to do it. He could not have untied 
 himself. It is perfectly evident that these 
 coats went on and off, in direct violation of 
 what we know as physical laws, by the same 
 power that had done all the things which 
 may seem less wonderful or less impossible, 
 but of which we can give no better expla- 
 nation ; and they show that this power has 
 a control over material substances of which 
 we are unable to form the least conception. 
 
 I am sensible that my account does not 
 differ essentially from several others, but 
 there were particular points which I wished 
 to press upon the notice of the reader. 
 
 There is one more. If what I have 
 written be true, and every cool observer 
 present will confirm every word, the whole 
 
300 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 matter deserves the most earnest investiga- 
 tion of men of science, It is more interest- 
 ing than the gorilla : it is of more impor- 
 tance than a new gas, a new metal, or a 
 newly-discovered planet. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 301 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 ' AND THE MAGICIANS DID SO WITH THEIR 
 ENCHANTMENTS.' 
 
 The '■Professors'' Excited — Duty to Expose Imposture- 
 Professor Anderson — Mr. Tolmaque — Challenges 
 Quibbled out of— The Magicians resort to Tricks— 
 Hope-tying in Demand — A Ten Years' Contest — Testi- 
 mony of an Amateur. 
 
 In the l Dark Ages ' the marvels done in 
 presence of the Brothers Davenport would 
 have been referred by a large majority of 
 the people to necromancy or witchcraft. 
 In these enlightened days ail those who do 
 not care to examine ascribe them at once to 
 legerdemain, and the mechanical deceptions 
 of professional jugglers or so-called conju- 
 rors. Of course at this daj 7 , and in this 
 country, no one out of the nursery believes 
 in magic as it was anciently believed in 
 
302 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 everywhere, and still is over the Eastern 
 World. 
 
 Most people have been amused and, per- 
 haps, astonished at the tricks of our modern 
 magicians, who fry pancakes in hats, make 
 cards or money dance, pour all kinds of 
 liquors out of a single bottle, shoot gold 
 watches into the centre of uncut oranges, 
 and so on. These tricks are amusing and, 
 until we know the modus operandi, they are 
 surprising. It is not strange that those 
 who cannot account for the Davenport ma- 
 nifestations, and who also know but little 
 about them, should class them with such 
 performances. 
 
 It is not strange, either, that as soon as 
 the various * professors ' of these magical 
 arts found the phenomena attending the 
 Brothers Davenport noticed in the leading 
 papers of England as their amusing but 
 not especially wonderful performances were 
 not likely to be, they should endeavour to 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 303 
 
 take advantage of this kind of publicity, and 
 of the excitement these wonders had pro- 
 duced. And if the 'professors' believed 
 that the Davenports were mere jugglers 
 like themselves, they had also a right to be 
 indignant, as would everyone, that they 
 were gaining notoriety, and perhaps money, 
 under false pretences. I cheerfully admit 
 that it would be the right, and perhaps the 
 duty, of every magician in England to ex- 
 pose such a base and infamous deception, 
 and they could not do it too speedily. 
 
 The Brothers Davenport had scarcely ap- 
 peared in London before Professor Ander- 
 son, then performing at St. James's Hall, 
 declared that they were ' very clever young 
 artistes, who have been performing the rope- 
 tying trick, bell-ringing, trumpet-flying, and 
 changing-coat experiments, all of which my 
 son is exhibiting at the present time in 
 America, by natural agency only.' Then 
 came ' M. Tolmaque, Presticligitateur,' de- 
 
304 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 daring that ' he could do the same things 
 as the Davenports in the same manner,' and 
 offering to show a committee how they were 
 done if the Davenports would do the same. 
 An i Officer of the Army ' offered to take 
 off his jacket without removing his coat ; 
 but when he was required to have his hands 
 tied together, like the Davenports, he re- 
 spectfully declined. 
 
 The Brothers Davenport met the state- 
 ment of Professor Anderson fairly and 
 squarely, as follows : — 
 
 30S Regent Street, Oct. 6, 1864. 
 
 1 Sir, — Having read your letter in the 
 " Morning Post " of Saturday last, we beg 
 to accept the challenge made or implied in 
 that communication. We are ready to ap- 
 pear before a party of twelve or more gen- 
 tlemen, specially chosen as capable of 
 fairly investigating the phenomena we pre- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 305 
 
 sent. You shall be present, and shall have 
 every facility given yon to examine the 
 empty room and the instruments we use. 
 You shall then explain, to the satisfaction 
 of the gentlemen present, the legerdemain 
 you have stated we employ, or produce, if 
 you can, in your own person the same re- 
 sults. Should you succeed, by legerdemain, 
 in performing or imitating those results, or 
 be able to detect and expose imposture, we 
 shall then be ready to acknowledge that 
 your accusations are justly founded. But if 
 you fail — as we are well assured you will 
 do — we shall require you to retract publicly 
 the accusations you have publicly made 
 against us. 
 
 ' We are, &c, 
 
 1 Brothers Davenport. 
 
 ' To Professor Anderson, 
 < St. James's Hall.' 
 
306 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 The Professor denied that he had given 
 any challenge ! It would be impossible for 
 even a professor of legerdemain to back more 
 coolly out of a difficulty. 
 
 A similar letter was sent to ' M. Tol- 
 maque, Prestidigitateur,' and he also de- 
 clined the encouuter in the same manner. 
 
 These two magicians did not so with their 
 enchantments. 
 
 Finally, to cover the whole ground, the 
 following letter was written, and, like the 
 others, published in the 'Morning Post' 
 (Oct. 8, 1864) :— 
 
 London, Oct. 4, 1864. 
 
 < Sir,— The seance which took place in 
 your house, and in the presence of yourself 
 and friends, last Wednesday evening, has 
 given, rise to much discussion, in which we 
 have been pronounced by some not only 
 jugglers but impostors [say jugglers, and 
 therefore impostors]. Two professed con- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 307 
 
 jurors have publicly announced that they 
 can produce, by legerdemain, all the phe- 
 nomena we have exhibited. We accept the 
 challenge, and shall feel obliged if a com- 
 mittee of gentlemen of character and posi- 
 tion can be found, selected from such as are 
 quite free from any prejudice in the matter, 
 A seance shall then take place in a room 
 which may be examined beforehand, and 
 with instruments to be furnished by the 
 committee. We are prepared to produce 
 there certain phenomena in the presence of 
 these gentlemen, and in the presence of the 
 two conjurors ; and when we have done, 
 the conjurors shall be required to attempt 
 to produce the same, under the same condi- 
 tions, or shall expose, to the satisfaction of 
 the committee, the fraudulent means we are 
 stated to have employed: but this they 
 shall do by the exercise and exhibition of 
 legerdemain (or, if they please, by ma- 
 chinery), and not by any occult power of 
 
 x 2 
 
308 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 the nature of that we possess, and which 
 they might use in secret and then repudiate, 
 for we do not pretend that we have the 
 exclusive possession of the power we 
 employ. 
 
 ' We trust, sir, in fairness to us and to 
 those who believe in our honesty, that the 
 test will be fairly and strictly applied, and 
 the result, whatever it may be, made 
 public. 
 
 ' We make this offer in all sincerity and 
 good faith, and we hope it will be met and 
 dealt with in the same spirit. 
 
 ' W T e are, yours truly, 
 
 ' Ira Erastus Davenport, 
 ' William H. Davenport, 
 'William M. Fay. 
 
 ' To Dion Boucicault, Esq.' 
 
 This fair and open challenge, which has 
 simple good faith written in every sentence, 
 and which, in the latter portion, shows the 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 309 
 
 extent of it in a very curious manner, met 
 with no response from the magicians. 
 
 A correspondent of the ' Morning Post ' 
 asks of M. Tolmaque, who gave an exhibi- 
 tion of tying and untying himself, very 
 clever, no doubt, but not at all to the pur- 
 pose, — ' Can he, dressed in black, and 
 holding powdered chalk or flour in his 
 hands, effect both the phenomena of tying 
 and untying the ropes, as exhibited by the 
 Brothers Davenport, and in the same space 
 of time, without dropping any of the flour 
 from his hands ? Can he produce visible 
 and palpable hands, distinctly and unequivo- 
 cally human to outward sight and touch, 
 ending at the wrist, without wires or rods 
 or human arms connected with them V 
 The writer offers to pay any sum he may 
 name to any prestidigitateur who can do 
 these things, on condition that, failing, he 
 will give a quarter of the sum to some 
 charity. 
 
310 
 
 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 Professor Anderson, instead of accepting 
 any of these offers, challenged the Brothers 
 to do their 6 tricks ' in his theatre, in full 
 light, instead of darkness ; knowing per- 
 fectly well that total darkness in some cases, 
 and partial obscurity in others, was usually 
 an indispensable condition and, so far as 
 can be known, one of the laws of the phe- 
 nomena—as much so, perhaps, as in the 
 camera obscura. If the things done in the 
 absence of light could be done in its 
 presence, the cabinet and ropes, sealing- 
 wax, flour, straps of diachylon, and all other 
 tests might be dispensed with, though it 
 may be doubted if people would more 
 readily believe. 
 
 M. Tolmaque declined the challenge, on 
 the ground that he would have nothing to 
 do with works of darkness. 
 
 Mr. Palmer was not quite satisfied with 
 the ' backing out ' of the prestidigitateurs. 
 He was nettled, perhaps, that a portion of 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 311 
 
 the press persisted in declaring that the 
 magicians had solved the problem and ex- 
 posed the cheat, when they had refused the 
 fairest opportunities to do so, with all the 
 glory that would have attended such an 
 achievement. Mr. Palmer therefore, on 
 the 22nd of October, published the follow- 
 ing : — ' If M. Tolmaque or any other per- 
 son will, by legerdemain, produce precisely 
 the same phenomena as those to which the 
 Brothers Davenport give rise, under pre- 
 cisely the same conditions, to the satisfaction 
 of a majority of the noblemen and gentlemen 
 who were present at the seance held last 
 Friday evening at the Hanover-square 
 Rooms, I will pay £100 to any of the 
 dramatic funds that may be selected ; the 
 party of course attempting, should he fail, 
 to pay a like sum to the same institu- 
 tion/ 
 
 The dramatic funds are vainly watching 
 and waiting for that hundred pou ds ; but 
 
312 
 
 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 the response of M. Tolmaque is a curiosity. 
 He writes (< Morning Star/ Oct. 24) :— 
 
 c I, M. Tolmaque, prestidigitateur, hereby 
 inform Mr. Palmer, that as long as he sails 
 under false colours I will not answer him, 
 or any of his friends, on the subject of the 
 Brothers Davenport. 
 
 ' M. Tolmaque.' 
 
 And this, I believe, ended the pretences 
 of the magicians, who, not being able to do 
 so with their enchantments, gave curious 
 experiments of their own, and untied knots 
 at the music-halls. 
 
 This feat of untying knots is old and 
 familiar enough, and is just what the Bro- 
 thers Davenport do not do. To prove this 
 they allow the ropes to be sealed : to prove 
 it they hold both their hands filled with 
 flour or other white powder : to prove it 
 they have been sewn up in bags, enclosed 
 in wooden tubes, and subjected to all the 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 313 
 
 tests mentioned in these pages, and a hun- 
 dred beside. What they wish to show is 
 that they neither untie nor tie themselves, 
 and that they do none of the remarkable 
 things done in their presence. 
 
 The same power or powers that show the 
 hands without arms, or hands and arms 
 where no bodies are visible ; which play on 
 the instruments; which hurl the guitar 
 sounding through the air ; which remove a 
 coat from, or put one upon, a man whose 
 hands are bound securely together — the 
 same power ties and unties the Brothers 
 Davenport, when they are placed beyond 
 the aid of confederates, and equally pre- 
 vented — by the flour test, for example — from 
 doing it themselves. 
 
 Mr. Palmer might very safely have offered 
 the magicians themselves a thousand, or 
 ten thousand, pounds to do one of these 
 things by jugglery, under the same con- 
 ditions. 
 
314 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 The tyings and untyings at the theatres 
 and music-halls may be ingenious tricks 
 enough ; but it is very absurd to compare 
 them with what is seen at the seances of the 
 Brothers Davenport. 
 
 It should be observed that this conflict 
 with the conjurors is not a new thing with 
 the Brothers. It began ten years ago, 
 when they were but children, and when the 
 phenomena were quite as extraordinary as 
 they are to-day. They have been watched 
 by the cleverest jugglers, who failed to 
 discover the semblance of trickery. They 
 have everywhere challenged every kind of 
 test, and the most searching examinations. 
 No magician has ever ventured to accept 
 their standing challenge to exhibit the same 
 phenomena under the same conditions. 
 
 Observe, also, that the so-called magicians 
 never interfere with each other — never 
 challenge each other. Each does as well as 
 he can, and no one ever attempts to expose 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 315 
 
 another's tricks. They do all they can, 
 however, to throw discredit on the Daven- 
 ports, not because they can but because 
 they cannot do the same or even similar 
 things. The London press, while giving 
 credit to the skill of Professor Anderson, 
 has very frankly declared that his pretended 
 imitation or exposure of the Davenports is 
 simply absurd. There is not the least 
 resemblance. When Professor Anderson's 
 coat is taken off his back while his hands are 
 securely fastened behind him with cord, or 
 tape and sealing-wax, or copper wire, or dia- 
 chylon plaister, or by wires passing through 
 holes in his thumb and finger-nails, or by 
 several of these means in combination, under 
 the inspection of a competent and impartial 
 committee, he may talk about ' an exhibition 
 after the manner of the Brothers Davenport.' 
 On this matter the following extract from 
 a communication in the Newcastle Chronicle 
 (Nov. 7, 1864) is to the purpose. The writer, 
 
316 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 after describing the favourable impressions 
 made upon him by the Brothers and their com- 
 panions, so different from what certain of 
 the London papers had led him to expect, 
 says : — 
 
 C I have only this remark to make. I 
 have seen nearly all the greatest conjurors 
 of the present day. I have been behind the 
 scenes, and assisted in making the necessary 
 preparations for a wizard's entertainment. 
 I have seen both M. Tolmaque and Mr. Red- 
 mond do their rope- trick, and I know how it 
 is done. I can honestly declare that what the 
 Davenports do as far surpasses Anderson, 
 Tolmaque, and Redmond, as these gentle- 
 men can surpass such a clumsy amateur as 
 I am. I am totally at a loss to account for 
 the Davenports' feats by any known principle 
 of legerdemain. If what they do is con- 
 juring, all I can say about it is, that it is 
 the cleverest conjuring I ever saw or heard 
 of.' 
 
'THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 317 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF MR. FERGUSON. 
 
 Six Months with the Brothers Davenport — Seance in a Rail- 
 way Tunnel — Convincing Manifestations — Personal 
 Explanations. 
 
 The Rev. J. B. Ferguson, late of Xash- 
 ville, Tennessee, who has already been 
 mentioned as having accompanied the 
 Brothers Davenport to England, and who 
 has been engaged as director and lecturer, 
 so far as explanations are required, at the 
 seances given in this country, has, at the 
 request of the present writer, given an 
 account of his experiences with them in the 
 following 
 
 Statement. 
 4 On the night of the 26th April 1864, in 
 
318 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 company with a friend, I attended the 
 exhibition of the Brothers Davenport at 
 the Cooper Institute, New York. On the 
 night succeeding, in company with five of 
 my friends from the Southern States, I 
 attended another exhibition at the same 
 place. I had been for years familiar 
 with phenomena and experiences of a similar 
 character to those represented as attending 
 the Brothers ; and from the knowledge of 
 this fact, my Southern friends were anxious 
 that I should accompany them. 
 
 'Of the Davenports themselves personally, 
 or as representatives of the ' wonders ' asso- 
 ciated with their names, I knew nothing. 
 Of course I had often seen their names in 
 public prints, but my attention to what was 
 said either in their favour or to their dis- 
 paragement had never been sufficiently at- 
 tracted to secure any conviction respecting 
 them. Accordingly, on my way to their pro- 
 posed entertainment, in reply to a question 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 319 
 
 of iny friends, I remember to have stated that, 
 if the Davenports were not jugglers or de- 
 ceivers, and were really instruments through 
 which man's allied nature to the invisible 
 or spiritual world was reflected, we should 
 receive evidence such as no candid man 
 could refuse to accept. I also expressed a 
 hope that one of my friends, who was a 
 sceptic in the saddest sense, would receive 
 the tangible proof of what he had heard me 
 assert and defend for fifteen years. 
 
 ' When we came to the place of meeting — 
 the large lecture-room of the Cooper Insti- 
 tute, the largest in New York city — we 
 found some thousands assembled. The 
 entertainment — for such it may properly 
 be called — opened, and a committee was 
 chosen to secure the young men in the 
 cabinet and report to the audience what 
 occurred. I need not describe the manifesta- 
 tions, or their effect on the audience, as the 
 New York papers gave graphic reports at 
 
320 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 the time, and have indulged in tiresome 
 repetitions since. It is enough to say that 
 I was convinced that the Davenports were 
 no jugglers, and that the displays of power 
 through them admitted of no explanation 
 according to any known estimate of natural 
 laws. I called upon the Davenports in 
 private, and attended their public enter- 
 tainments for eleven days and nights. My 
 sceptical friend, after the closest scrutiny, 
 admitted that there was no clandestine 
 mechanism or arrangement of machinery, 
 and no sleight-of-hand in what he had so 
 doubtingly and thoroughly examined. He 
 is a man of the first eminence at home and 
 abroad in discovery, and in the application 
 of discovery in the most intricate and diffi- 
 cult mechanics, and in mechanical skill has 
 few equals. 
 
 4 When the Davenports appeared at Brook? 
 lyn, near New York, it happened that their 
 representative before the public was absent ; 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 321 
 
 and they, through their friends, invited me 
 to introduce them to the public of the city 
 of Brooklyn. In that city, at the time, I 
 was solicited to meet the representatives of 
 a highly respectable religious society, with 
 a view to becoming their pastor. I, how- 
 ever, consented to introduce the Davenports 
 in " the City of Churches." I did this in a 
 spirit of candid enquiry and experiment 
 respecting a subject which I hoped might 
 prove of interest. I did so knowing that, 
 however desirable it might be that I should 
 become the pastor of the church above men- 
 tioned, my action in this matter would put 
 an end to all hope of such pastoral charge 
 being entrusted to me. I did so because I was 
 fully convinced that the phenomena which 
 occurred in the presence of the Brothers 
 was a part of the supramundane evidence 
 given to this age — evidence not to be mea- 
 sured by the conventional restrictions of 
 
 Y 
 
322 
 
 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 time and men, however respectable the 
 time or however religious the men. 
 
 ' When I saw and knew, for myself and 
 not by another, that the evidences given 
 through the Davenports were true, I ac- 
 cepted a proposition to accompany them to 
 England and Europe — if, after three or four 
 months' experience with them before the 
 public, I should find the work such as I 
 could perform without detriment to them 
 or to myself. Accordingly, I spent three 
 months in the interior towns and cities of 
 New York State and New England, and a 
 month in the chief cities of Canada. Dur- 
 ing this time they were brought before 
 every class of the communities they visited ; 
 every conceivable form of fastening and 
 other methods of l test ' and trial were sub- 
 mitted to — such as being held by the hands 
 and feet while the manifestations of force 
 were witnessed, the use of sealing-wax, and 
 many other devices — and always with com- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 323 
 
 plete and undeniable success. Indeed, it 
 were impossible for me by any use of lan- 
 guage too strongly to state this fact. 
 
 1 During this time I resided with them at 
 the same hotels, and we often occupied the 
 same suite of apartments. I travelled with 
 them, in the unavoidable intimacy of tra- 
 velling companionship, over thousands of 
 miles of the widespread territory referred 
 to, and consequently must have had every 
 opportunity of detecting fraud, if fraud 
 there were to be detected. But it becomes 
 me to say that I never detected any, nor 
 the appearance of any. When they were, 
 to all appearance, sound asleep, some of the 
 most marked of the manifestations have 
 occurred. In travelling by rail, when 
 entering a dark tunnel, I have, to a mental 
 wish, received them in tangible and unmis- 
 takable forms; and this experience has 
 been repeated in England. For example, 
 upon our arrival at Liverpool, when we had 
 
324 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 taken our seats for London, immediately 
 upon leaving the former city, amid expres- 
 sions indicative of the natural anxiety of 
 young Americans in their first observations 
 and experiences as strangers in a strange 
 land, on entering the tunnel near Liverpool, 
 one of our party, I think Mr. Fay, said, " I 
 wonder if John came with us over the sea ? " 
 The question was instantly answered thus : 
 — I was grasped by a strong hand, and so 
 was each one of the company. At the same 
 time that I was thus grasped, my face and 
 hands were gently felt by seemingly human 
 hands. I confess the evidence was so 
 palpable and satisfactory as to distinctness 
 of touch, responding to my wishes, that I 
 feared some one of our party was the 
 operator. I pleasantly charged them with 
 it, when each solemnly protested he was the 
 recipient of similar evidences, and had not 
 moved, nor even desired to do so. I then 
 desired mentally that I should be met by an 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 325 
 
 evidence of such a character that it would 
 admit of neither doubt nor denial. As we 
 entered another tunnel I changed my posi- 
 tion in the railroad carriage, so that no one 
 of my party could touch me without my 
 knowledge. In response to a mental wish I 
 was touched, my face manipulated, and my 
 person distinctly handled, when I knew 
 positively that no one visible was near me. 
 Of the satisfaction given by such an evi- 
 dence I need not speak : no words can do 
 it justice. I state the fact, and leave it to 
 the appreciation of all who have the desire 
 for similar evidences. I could give many 
 other instances of force guided by invisible 
 intelligence. On extinguishing the light in 
 my room, I have had my chair instantly 
 lifted and placed upon my head, with the 
 legs upward, and the cushion resting on the 
 top of my head. A voice — not mine, not 
 that of anyone present — has directed me to 
 feel the position of those present. I did so, 
 
326 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 while the chair held itself, or was held, 
 firmly where it was placed. In distinct 
 vocal tones I was invited to be seated, the 
 chair being at the same time taken from my 
 head and placed properly, that I might 
 comply with the invitation. 
 
 ' I might record a volume of such and 
 similar manifestations. But with respect to 
 all these evidences, expressions, or demon- 
 strations from the invisible world, I have one 
 remark to make ; I wish it to sink deep into 
 the minds of my readers. These are not given 
 in response to mere curiosity, idle wish, or 
 selfish desire. They have come when and 
 where they were needed, and where there was 
 a degree of good faith in the individual to 
 use the evidence for universal good. The 
 rule with me is, that whenever and wherever 
 the mind is ready for an ascent in actual 
 progress, evidences are given that transcend 
 all our existing standards of truth and good. 
 ' For six months I have travelled with the 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 327 
 
 Davenports, and in various conditions, 
 advantageous and disadvantageous, I have 
 witnessed the evidences of the power 
 that attends them. I have seen them 
 subjected to every form of scrutiny that 
 scepticism could devise. I have seen their 
 professed friends, with anxiety, caused by a 
 bigoted and sensuous denial, return to the 
 Davenports with fresh doubts, to be met and 
 reassured by evidences that admitted of no 
 denial. I can truthfully say that no time, 
 place, or condition of the most diverse and 
 promiscuous audiences, or the most select 
 companies, has ever prevented the manifes- 
 tations, though they have been rendered less 
 satisfactory in various ways. The anxiety 
 caused the Brothers by aimless discussion, 
 captious criticism, and obstinate denial is a 
 very unfavourable condition. I have seen 
 them associated with persons who only 
 wished to make gain of their gifts, and 
 whose methods of presenting them to the 
 
328 
 
 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 public were calculated only to produce dis- 
 trust, and to place the evidences of the 
 power attending them on a level with or- 
 dinary jugglery. I have seen these persons 
 confounded, most unexpectedly to them- 
 selves, by the evidences of truth, wisdom, 
 and power attending the manifestations: 
 Through the most painstaking ordeals, the 
 severest scrutiny, the most searching ana- 
 lysis these evidences have passed. They 
 have ever come forth more clear, more 
 satisfactory and convincing to all honest 
 enquiry. Many of my own friends, utterly 
 unconvinced, and looking upon me with 
 profound astonishment that I should be so 
 duped as to become insensible to the charms 
 of respectability and, I may add, to the 
 attraction and use of the 4 almighty dollar/ 
 have witnessed these evidences, and have 
 either become silent, or have acknowledged 
 that no duty could be more sacred than the 
 one I have assumed. In the presence of 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 329 
 
 doubt, distrust, and odium, ray own arm 
 has at times become weak and my heart 
 faint. 
 
 ' This state in me has been met by proofs 
 of a superior recognition and protection be- 
 yond the power of mortals to order or deny. 
 Hence I can say, in presence of men and of 
 the Great Unseen though not Unknown 
 Power who governs all human action, that 
 these evidences are all and much more than 
 is claimed for them by those through whose 
 agency they are brought before the mind. 
 These evidences are entirely above and be- 
 yond the capacity of those through whom or 
 by whom they are given, physically, intellec- 
 tually, and morally. True, the mental 
 capacity of the Messrs. Davenport is fully 
 equal to, if not above, the average of their 
 countrymen, or men' of their age and op- 
 portunities. Physically, they are sound, 
 healthy, active men. Morally, I know them 
 to be honest candid men, with manly, 
 
330 
 
 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 moral courage, decision of character, per- 
 severance, and self-reliance under difficulties 
 and dangers that would have appalled many 
 who have presumed to disparage them with- 
 out knowledge of their character, or from 
 inability to account for these wondrous 
 manifestations. I feel it a duty I owe to 
 truth to say, that I know these men as well 
 as men usually know each other. I know 
 also that it is thought that persons who 
 are made the instruments of such or kindred 
 manifestations are liable, more than others, 
 to disease of both body and mind, and it is 
 often more than hinted that their morality 
 is far beneath the common standard. This 
 is not true of the Davenports. And when 
 it is considered that for three years they 
 gave free exhibitions, and for over seven 
 years they have made these exhibitions the 
 business of their lives, and are to-day men 
 of clear heads and sound healthy bodies, 
 we are forced to the conclusion that the 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 331 
 
 manifestations through them are perfectly 
 consistent with the laws or conditions of 
 mind, physical organization, or true moral 
 responsibility. Indeed, in a somewhat 
 varied field of observation upon men and 
 manners, I know of no men of like age and 
 opportunities who are their equals, certainly 
 none their superiors, in all that tends to 
 sound judgment, perseverance in the path 
 of duty, or capacity to meet the diverse 
 fortune or serious responsibilities of life. 
 
 ' Such manifestations are not confined to 
 these persons ; I meet them in degrees 
 everywhere. I have had similar experi- 
 ences and demonstrations in my own per- 
 son for years. I have met them in others 
 in the most calm and serious periods of my 
 somewhat eventful life. I am sure that no 
 man can give to them an honest and un- 
 biassed attention without being satisfied 
 that they transcend our existing estimates 
 
332 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 alike of benevolent purposes and of material 
 law. 
 
 'I have no reason to doubt that persons 
 through whom supramundane manifesta- 
 tions have been given have mingled trickery 
 and fraud with what was really above them. 
 Human nature is frail. Curiosity on the 
 part of the public, and an eager desire for 
 notoriety on the part of those who are for 
 the time being ministers to this exacting 
 curiosity, have been too powerful tempta- 
 tions to the weak and foolish. It has of 
 course been said that the Davenports have 
 descended to tricks. I can only speak for 
 the time I have known them. Since my 
 connection with them I know that they have 
 not so descended, nor needed to descend. 
 It is to the fact of entire sincerity that I 
 attribute their untarnished success in the 
 New World and in London and England. 
 They are mortal, and subject to temptation, 
 like all of us ; but as regards these evidences 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 333 
 
 they can have no inducement to fraud any 
 more than a man with a million of pounds 
 has occasion to steal. They need not to 
 invent tricks when genuine phenomena con- 
 stantly attend them. Whenever they have 
 sat for the manifestations they have been 
 presented in such form as to be convincing. 
 There is only one exception to this state- 
 ment in England, and that occurred at the 
 meeting of the representatives of the press, 
 (October 25, 1864), in London. Even 
 then evidence was given in one form though 
 withheld in another. There were dictation 
 and interruption on that occasion which 
 proved sufficient to derange the conditions 
 of manifestation partially. But on that 
 very evening I witnessed manifestations, in 
 the presence of the Davenports and Mr. 
 Fay, after the Press seance, and elsewhere, 
 transcending all I had seen during my con • 
 nection with the Brothers. Lessons of 
 wisdom on all that had transpired were 
 
334 
 
 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 given in an audible voice, and much was an- 
 ticipated, for them and for myself, that no 
 mortal vision could then descry. 
 
 The evidences of intelligence, of wisdom, 
 of prophetic information and warning, of 
 insight as to events that are as yet to occur, 
 and which always do occur when thus fore- 
 told — the protection and guidance and care 
 unfailing attending the mission of these 
 men and all who are connected intimately 
 with it are to me equally powerful and 
 convincing evidences as the manifestations 
 of force or power. 1 do not undervalue 
 those evidences of power that shock the ma- 
 terialist into belief. I know what immor- 
 tality is worth as a motive to man in pro- 
 ducing a living hope, and I know that these 
 evidences are evidences of hope to all — yes, 
 one mighty all — despite all the denials, vain 
 efforts at explanation, and seeming misap- 
 plication that a diversified appreciation and 
 culture mav make of them. I know they 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 335 
 
 are true, and will outlive all our standards 
 of adaptation and application. I know they 
 reveal the Godlike in man. I know they 
 are the culmination of the movements of all 
 the nations, tribes, and peoples of a common 
 humanity. I know they reveal a unity in 
 all human diversity. They will go on in in- 
 creasing power, as our age and time shall 
 unfold to receive them. They will stay the 
 desolating hand of selfish and sectarian ani- 
 mosity. They will lay low the vain con- 
 ceptions of those who seek not beyond the 
 gratification of personal desire and self-ag- 
 grandizement. They will assure us that God 
 lives in all : and as spirit is above form, 
 right above wrong, so will they rise above the 
 murky mire and the clodded earth, which 
 too often weigh us down beneath all that 
 would adorn and beautify man as one and 
 undivided in the Spirit that gives him life 
 and destiny. However faint the scintilla- 
 tions, they come as the sparkling gems of 
 
336 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 thought divine to illumine the midnight of 
 human erring: and they make us know 
 that there is no hour so auspicious with 
 hope, no day so bright, no achievement so 
 good but that its equal will come to each, 
 and bring the conscious reflection that 
 through the deepest penury and want, and 
 the most trying scenes of human care and 
 responsibility, we are ever ascending, under 
 the mighty hand of progress, that spans all 
 time, to a good no language can either 
 express or measure, under the benign re- 
 flection of the evidences of a hope to man 
 universal, which are so signally marking 
 our age or time. I present, dear Sir, to 
 you this my honest and unwavering testi- 
 mony to the nature and character of the 
 manifestations that ever attend these de- 
 servedly-celebrated young Americans. 
 
 ' J. B. Ferguson, 
 ' Of Nashville, Tennessee.' 
 
THE BEOTHEES DAVENPOET. 661 
 
 The peculiar relation of the writer of the 
 above statement to the Brothers Davenport 
 gives him a right to speak warmly in their 
 behalf, and the zeal and enthusiasm with 
 which he engages in their work, and his 
 ideas of its importance and consequences, 
 are evident. Those ideas are his own, and 
 for them he is alone responsible, 
 
338 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 MORE FACTS AND EVIDENCE. 
 
 Mr. Coleman's Statement — He talks with l John King? and 
 sees Divers Marvels — Astounding Phenomena — Mr. 
 Howitfs Testimony — Facts and Tests — Genius and 
 Science nonplussed. 
 
 Mr. Benjamin Coleman, of No. 51 Pem- 
 bridge Villas, Bayswater, a gentleman well 
 known upon the London Stock Exchange, 
 and who has been a careful observer of 
 extra-natural phenomena in both hemis- 
 pheres, has prepared an account of his 
 observations at several public and private 
 seances of the Brothers Davenport, from 
 which I have been permitted to select the 
 following facts, not contained in the previous 
 chapters, or more circumstantially related. 
 Of the Brothers Davenport, Mr. Coleman 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 339 
 
 says : c Under ordinary circumstances, it 
 would have been a sufficient guarantee of 
 the respectability of the Davenports, that 
 they were associated with a gentleman of 
 the high character and intellectual acquire- 
 ments of Mr. J. B. Ferguson, whose past 
 history and great sacrifices for the cause of 
 truth is well known to me.' 
 
 While in America, Mr. Coleman was 
 assured by Professor Mapes, an eminent 
 chemist and engineer, that ' John King ' had 
 conversed with him in an audible voice for 
 half an hour, and had given his hand a most 
 powerful grasp. ' I am now enabled,' says 
 Mr. Coleman, ' to corroborate this extraor- 
 dinary fact, for I, too, have conversed with 
 " John King." ' It was at a private seance, 
 at which were present only the Brothers 
 Davenport, Mr. Ferguson, and Mr. Coleman. 
 He says : ' The lights being extinguished 
 we sat a short time in silence, when a start- 
 ling bang was made upon the tambourine, 
 
 i 
 
 % 2 
 
340 
 
 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 which instrument, with the guitar, were 
 instantly placed upon my knees. A hand 
 gently caressed me on the head, and a stream 
 of phosphoric light passed across the spacious 
 room, which was succeeded by another rising 
 from the floor to the ceiling. A voice then 
 spoke to me through a trumpet which was 
 brought within a few inches of my face ; and 
 in a clear, distinct and sonorous voice, I was 
 thus addressed : — 
 
 c " How are you, Coleman ? " 
 .' "Oh ! " exclaimed both of the Davenports, 
 " that's i John' — that's ' John/ — we have not 
 heard him speak for a long time. Keep him 
 in conversation, Mr. Coleman." 
 
 4 I then said, " You appear to know me, 
 John." 
 
 4 " Yes ; I knov/ you in spirit." 
 4 " Have you ever seen me before ? " 
 4 " Yes ; I saw you in America." 
 '" Do you think, John, that you will be able 
 to convince the sceptics in this country ? " 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 341 
 
 4 " Yes ; we have power enough to make 
 them surrender. There is a lady standing 
 by your side." 
 
 1 " What is her name ? " 
 
 < " Kate." 
 
 * At this moment one of the Davenports 
 said, " I hope you will be with us to-morrow 
 night, John (the night of the press seance)." 
 
 1 " Certainly, certainly ! " — then turning 
 in an opposite direction, as I could easily 
 detect by the sound, the voice said, " How 
 are you, Ferguson ? " ' 
 
 After a few words more, the voice turned 
 again to Mr. Coleman, a hand passed over 
 his head, and patted him kindly on the 
 shoulder, and the voice said, ' I must go 
 now ; good night.' 
 
 ' Sceptics may save themselves the trouble,' 
 says Mr. Coleman, ' of suggesting illusion, 
 ventriloquism, &c. I know it was a reality. 
 I am sure that a voice addressed me, and 
 that it was not the voice of a mortal.' 
 
342 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 ' At a stance at the house of a friend, the 
 coat of Mr. Fay was removed from his back 
 in an instant, and my friend's coat put upon 
 him in the same space of time, Mr. Fay's 
 hands being firmly tied together behind 
 him, and the knots of the cord sealed. On 
 the same occasion, the still more bewildering 
 fact occurred of Mr. Ira Davenport's waist- 
 coat being removed while his coat remained, 
 his hands being bound behind his back. 
 The waistcoat lay at our feet, with his 
 watch in the pocket and the chain hooked 
 in the button-hole, just as he had worn it a 
 moment previously, the waistcoat remaining 
 buttoned.' 
 
 Mr. Coleman confesses himself staggered 
 by this phenomenon. It must be a trick. 
 But how could it be done in an instant, and 
 with the hands tied and the seals unbroken ? 
 He says : 
 
 4 On a subsequent occasion I saw the 
 same phenomenon when the wrists were 
 
THE BROTHEKS DAVENPORT. 343 
 
 secured with soft copper wire, in addition to 
 the rope, which made it impossible to slip 
 the hands, and for more perfect security, at 
 other times, when the natural hands would 
 have been required to play on musical in- 
 struments, &c., sticking-plaister was put 
 around the hands, which were also filled 
 with flour. 
 
 ' I saw at another seance Mr. Fay tied to 
 his chair, with his hands fastened behind 
 his back, and after several coils with inter- 
 mediate knots around his person, Captain 
 Dray son of the Royal Observatory at Wool- 
 wich fastened the final knot beneath the seat 
 of the chair, and placed a legible seal in wax 
 on this final knot, which of course embraced 
 the two cords of the rope. After the usual 
 manifestations, Mr. Fay requested the in- 
 visible operators to untie him and leave, if 
 they could, the seal unbroken, We heard 
 the untying of the rope, and in a minute or 
 two Mr. Fay was set at liberty, when, to 
 
344 
 
 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 our amazement, the first knot remained with 
 the seal intact) every intermediate knot was 
 taken out, leaving a plain knotless rope with 
 a loop at the end. This remarkable fact 
 was made evident to all present, numbering 
 some thirty or forty persons, who eagerly 
 examined the rope and were obliged to ac- 
 cept the palpable fact, inexplicable as it 
 appears to be. 
 
 i On another evening, the lights being 
 extinguished, Sir Henry de Hoghton asked 
 that Mr. Fay's coat should be taken off. He 
 had scarcely uttered the words when Mr. 
 Ferguson struck a brilliant light, and / saw 
 the coat leaving the body of Mr. Fay, and all 
 could see it in its flight in the air, until it 
 reached and rested on the knees of Sir Henry, 
 who was sitting in the centre of a large semi- 
 circle some ten or fifteen feet from either Mr. 
 Fay or Mr. Ira Davenport, who were both tied 
 hands and feet to their chairs. Sir Henry 
 de Hoghton then took off his own coat, and 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 345 
 
 placing it on his knee asked that it should 
 be put upon Mr. Fay. We instantly heard 
 a rushing sound, and in less time than it 
 takes me to say it — in fact not more than a 
 second or two — Sir Henry's coat was found 
 not on Mr. Fay, but on Mr. Davenport, over 
 his own coat, which had not been removed. 
 ' Let the incredulous smile and the savans 
 shake their heads; these astounding facts 
 remain and are unimpeachable. 
 
 ' Benja. Coleman. 
 
 ' London, 51 Pembridge Villas, 
 1 Bayswater.' 
 
 A very remarkable statement, which, 
 standing alone, would go far to send a man 
 to a lunatic asylum, but which is supported 
 by such abundant testimony, and is suscept- 
 ible of such easy proof, that a less solid and 
 reputable man might make it with safety. 
 
 But let the reader consider a moment one 
 or two of these facts. Can he conceive of a 
 
346 A BIOGEAPHY OF 
 
 man's waistcoat being taken all buttoned 
 from his body, without removing his coat, 
 and while his hands are bound together 
 behind him ? Can he conceive of a dozen 
 well-tied knots in a doubled rope being 
 untied, while the last knot that secured all 
 the others remains intact with its seal 
 unbroken ? 
 
 Mr. William Howitt, the well-known and 
 delightful author of so many thoroughly 
 English books, has published a statement 
 respecting the Brothers Davenport, from 
 which I am able to make only brief extracts. 
 Mr. Howitt says: — 
 
 i Having been familiar with the career of 
 the Davenports in America for the last ten 
 years, in fact, ever since they were boys — 
 having read the testimonies of the most re- 
 spectable American journals, and knowing 
 that thousands of the acutest and most 
 honest of the distinguished men of America 
 had satisfied themselves of the bona fide 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 347 
 
 nature of their manifestations, I did not 
 even require to see them myself to be quite 
 certain that they were genuine. I knew 
 that every ingenuity, every test which a 
 most wide-awake and ingenious people 
 could apply, had been applied in their case. 
 I knew that they had gone, through all these 
 years, over the length and breadth of the 
 North American continent, through all 
 that rowdyism, vulgarism, learned igno- 
 rance, journalistic conceit, lying, menace 
 and browbeating violence could do and 
 show.' 
 
 Mr. Howitt says that he saw these mani- 
 festations at the Hanover Square Kooms, 
 and was satisfied of their genuineness, and, 
 with his usual frankness and independence, 
 he did not hesitate to declare his convic- 
 tions. 
 
 To give a full account of all the remark- 
 able phenomena that have occurred in this 
 metropolis alone, during the brief stay of 
 
348 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 the Brothers Davenport, would require a 
 volume. At one seance in a private mansion, 
 one of the instruments, whirling through 
 the air, knocked a large and costly vase 
 from the mantel-piece. It was heard to fall 
 upon the fender with a crash and shiver, as 
 if it had been dashed into fragments. No 
 one doubted that such was the case until a 
 light was struck, and it was found standing 
 upon the hearth, whole and uninjured. 
 
 The tests which have been applied have 
 been almost as remarkable as the phenomena 
 produced. At a seance at the residence of 
 a distinguished man of letters, a clergyman 
 twice broke the circle and rushed into the 
 centre of the room, expecting to find either 
 the Davenports untied or to detect their 
 confederates. In each case he found them 
 both firmly bound in their chairs, and no 
 other person. 
 
 These facts are very well known to almost 
 all the writers of the London press. They 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 349 
 
 would be confirmed personally by nine out 
 of ten of the writers for the most respectable 
 journals. The time will probably come 
 when they will be willing to publish to the 
 world their genuine convictions. It is re- 
 markable that even those who have honestly 
 and frankly stated the facts have offered no 
 theory to explain them. No mechanician, 
 no adept in legerdemain, no man of science, 
 has attempted to show how one of these 
 marvels has been accomplished. A score or 
 two of the very cleverest men of England, 
 some of whose names have been given, have 
 had the best possible opportunities to in- 
 vestigate the whole matter. Had there been 
 fraud, deception, or delusion of any kind, 
 they could not have failed to detect it. 
 
350 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 WHO, AND WHY ? 
 
 By whom are the Manifestations Produced, and for What 
 Purpose ? Examination of Evidence — Conclusion. 
 
 When any person has become convinced by- 
 testimony which he cannot doubt, or, if that 
 be not sufficient, by the evidence of his own 
 senses, that the phenomena described in 
 these pages are real, actual, unquestionable 
 facts, the next thing in order is to ask 
 how, or rather by whom, are they produced ? 
 If the Brothers Davenport, as they solemnly 
 aver, have no direct and voluntary agency 
 in producing the manifestations, and there 
 is no collusion, no deception, no jugglery or 
 fraud about them, by what or by whom are 
 they accomplished ? 
 
 Are they the result of some subtle ele- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 351 
 
 merit, like magnetism and electricity ? Most 
 certainly not. These natural forces act 
 according to certain laws, and do not pos- 
 sess intelligence. Electricity may rend 
 trees and rocks, produce light and heat, 
 propel machinery or convey messages, but 
 for these last operations it requires to be 
 guided by some intelligence out of itself. 
 Electricity or galvanism will not tie or 
 untie ropes, nor play on musical instru- 
 ments, nor take off or put on the coats of 
 persons whose hands are securely tied to- 
 gether, much less hold conversations and 
 communicate information. 
 
 What we see exhibited at every stage of 
 this history, and in all the phenomena, is 
 force, governed by intelligence. We cannot 
 conceive of an active intelligence, or an 
 intelligent force or power, except as an 
 individualised being, in some respects like 
 ourselves. In all tljese manifestations there 
 are evidences of the actions, and conse- 
 
352 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 quently of the existence, of intelligent 
 beings, having some faculties similar to our 
 own, usually invisible, but with the power 
 of taking on, under certain conditions, a 
 partial visibility. Hands and arms are 
 often seen — perhaps oftener felt unseen, 
 and not seldom both seen and felt. Some- 
 times, but rarely, larger portions of forms, 
 very human in their appearance, are visible. 
 ' These hands, arms, portions of bodies, seem 
 to be formed in space out of no visible ma- 
 terial; but visibility, it must be remem- 
 bered, is only an accident of matter, not an 
 essential property. They also melt away, 
 sometimes to the sight, often to the feeling, 
 into invisibility and intangibility. 
 
 Men have at different times and in diffe- 
 rent countries believed in the existence of 
 many kinds of beings having these pro- 
 perties of intelligence, force, and of being 
 visible or invisible at will, or according 
 to varying conditions. The belief in the 
 
 : 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 353 
 
 gods and demi-gods of the old mytho- 
 logies of India, Egypt, Greece, and Scan- 
 dinavia, was once common, if not uni- 
 versal. So has been the belief in fairies, 
 brownies, the ' good people,' spirits, gob- 
 lins ; also in angels and demons ; good and 
 bad spirits of a high order of intelligence; 
 and it has been only in very recent times 
 that many persons have doubted of the con- 
 tinued existence of human beings, and that 
 they sometimes appeared, after being sepa- 
 rated from the body, or in some way made 
 their presence known to the living. 
 
 Now, it must be admitted by those who 
 have attended the seances of the Brothers 
 Davenport, that very wonderful and very 
 astounding manifestations do take place. 
 
 It must be admitted that the Brothers 
 Davenport do not produce them ; and also 
 that no living men, by trick or skill, can or 
 do produce them. 
 
 We cannot conceive of any blind force in 
 
 A A 
 
354 
 
 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 nature producing manifestations of intelli- 
 gence, or speaking, playing on musical in- 
 struments, and exercising mechanical inge- 
 nuity — in some cases in defiance of the com- 
 mon laws of nature. 
 
 We are forced to the conviction that 
 these things are the work of intelligent 
 beings ; and it is also certain that they are 
 usually intangible, invisible, and not subject 
 to material laws, and that they can exercise 
 powers over matter, of which we can form 
 no distinct conception. 
 
 The next question is — who, or of what 
 nature, are these beings ? 
 
 The character of the manifestations is not 
 such as to indicate that they are the work 
 of a high or superior order of intelligences. 
 We cannot suppose, for example, that an- 
 gels would be engaged in producing such 
 phenomena. 
 
 We cannot reasonably attribute them to 
 a high order of wicked spirits. There are 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 355 
 
 no evidences of transcendent intelligence 
 joined to transcendent malice. They are 
 sometimes called diablerie ; but I see no 
 evidence, so far as the Davenports are con- 
 cerned, of such demoniac complicity. 
 
 The only real clue or positive testimony 
 we have, as to the beings who produce the 
 phenomena described, is the declarations of 
 the beings themselves. They are the only 
 witnesses we can examine : theirs is the only 
 testimony we can take. 
 
 Their testimony is that they are human 
 beings like ourselves. They do not say that 
 they are better than we are, or wiser. They 
 say that, by the fact of no longer having 
 bodies composed of the grosser forms of 
 matter, they have certain advantages over 
 us in respect to sight, locomotion, &c. In 
 many cases they declare their identity with 
 persons who have lived upon the earth, and 
 they convince many persons of this identity. 
 
 The Brothers Davenport, from the be- 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 A BIOGKAPHY OF 
 
 ginning'of their remarkable experience, have 
 had, by various means, communications from 
 the intelligences which produce the mani- 
 festations. They are as familiar with an 
 audible voice which speaks to them as with 
 the phenomena commonly witnessed. They 
 have a familiar acquaintance with two or 
 three of these intelligences, who profess to 
 be human beings in a different stage of 
 existence. These voices, and these verbal 
 communications, have been heard by many 
 persons besides themselves, and by some in 
 this country. 
 
 I give these facts, as they have been sub- 
 stantially given elsewhere in the course of 
 the narrative, that all the important facts 
 may be placed before the reader. 
 
 This being the testimony of the very 
 powers or forces which claim to produce the 
 phenomena, we are to decide whether they, 
 speaking of themselves, are worthy of belief. 
 So far as I know, their testimony is unim- 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 357 
 
 peached. There is no witness to the contrary. 
 There is no other hypothesis even which will 
 bear examination. If the operations per- 
 formed are those of intelligent beings, and 
 those beings are not what they declare 
 themselves to be, what are they ? 
 
 I am. not putting forward a hypothesis, 
 but simply recording the testimony or 
 explanation given by the manifesting power, 
 as one of the facts of the manifestations. 
 It is no theory of the Brothers Davenport. 
 They do not advance any. But they afford 
 in some way, not clearly known to physiolo- 
 gists and psychologists, the means — some 
 aromal element, perhaps, or nerve aura of a 
 peculiar character — by which the manifesta- 
 tions are made ; and one of those manifesta- 
 tions is the declaration, true or false, that 
 they are made by human beings in another 
 state of existence. 
 
 To this statement it is objected by certain 
 theologians, that men, when they leave the 
 
358 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY OF 
 
 body, go at once either to a place they would 
 not leave for such a purpose, or to a place 
 they could not. To this, it may be replied, 
 that other theologians recognise the existence 
 of intermediate conditions, and of future 
 states, as various as men's characters and 
 actions. 
 
 Another objection is, that the manifesta- 
 tions are trifling, coarse, vulgar, and not in 
 accordance with our views of the nature 
 and conditions of men in another state of 
 being. To this, it may be replied, that we 
 know very little of that state, and that as 
 men differ very greatly in culture and tastes 
 in this world, we do not know that they 
 suddenly change their natures, or become 
 wise, dignified, and good, by getting rid of 
 their bodies. Reasoning of the other life 
 from this, we should expect changes to be 
 gradual, and not rapid. Growth and pro- 
 gression appear to be the law of the universe, 
 as regard both matter and mind. 
 
THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 359 
 
 As to the manifestations, they are cer- 
 tainly very human, or they would not 
 attract so wide and deep a human interest ; 
 and, a priori, one would say they were more 
 likely to be produced by human beings 
 than by any others we know of; and if it 
 can be shown that they are not produced 
 by human beings in the body, it is not a 
 very unreasonable supposition that they 
 may be produced by the same sort of beings 
 out of the body. 
 
 When we come to this point, and possibly 
 before, we are met with that wonderful 
 question, Cui bono ? It looks very wise in 
 Latin, and is pertinent enough in English. 
 What is the object, and what can be the 
 benefit of these manifestations ? 
 
 If they were only facts in physical 
 science, and had no other significance, they 
 would be of greater interest than any facts 
 of recent observation. 
 
360 
 
 THE BROTHERS DAVENPORT. 
 
 If they are ever so coarse manifestations 
 of the existence of intelligences, ordinarily 
 hidden from our senses, their use in over- 
 throwing a coarser materialism is evident : 
 if they give us palpable evidence of the 
 existence of a universe of which we were in 
 doubt, and of a life in the future, in which 
 millions have no faith whatever, they are 
 not useless. 
 
 These and similar manifestations seem to 
 me to be rude and elementary lessons, 
 adapted to ignorance and false science 
 worse than ignorance; the first steps to 
 the recognition of a higher life. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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