Swindling by Spiritualism,
London, Fab. 17. Swindling by spiritualism has just been tried with great success in Faris by a band of British pickpockets, the members of which gave themselves out as mediums. A few nights since great jubilation was caused among a select set of Paris spiritualists who commune with shadowy forms every evening in rooms in the Rue St Lszare. One of their number begged to introduce William Torry, a fair-haired Saxon young man, and two friends, as they had been deputed by the late lamented Leibnitz, the philosopher, to visit the votaries of psychical research of the Rue St Lazare. Torry and his cenfederates were accordingly invited to take a seat at the table with the brethren, and super, natural operations were at once begun. Suddenly the table quivered, there was a tap of a foot on the floor, vague mystical forms seemed to float in the air, and Torry was understood to say that he was the spirit of the great Malebranche. More wonderful still, he amazed the assembled Gauls by writing an eloquent message from Malebranche on a slate in capital French, although he was a Saxon unable to weild that language with accuracy or ease. The French spiritualists were delighted. Torry and his friends were lauded to the firmament, and asked to repeat their wonderful experiments, and to oommane with other deceased French philosophers and poets on the next evening, which they did. Again the shadowy figures moved about in mystical vapour, and the spirit of Victor Hugo was heard speaking amid the semi-darkness, when, some of the spiritual, ists felt tugs at their watchchains and hands fumbling about in their pockets, Immedi ately the alarm was given, the lights were turned up, and the spirits had disappeared, together with the British mediums, and several watches, purses, and chains belong, ing to the company, in addition to several objects of art which had been on the mantlepiece or the tables in the room where the seances were held. The police are now on the track of the mediums.
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Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 286, 13 April 1889, Page 3
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344Swindling by Spiritualism, Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 286, 13 April 1889, Page 3
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