Magician Among the Spirits — Chapter 2 Part II - The Davenport Brothers
In one of the letters which Ira wrote me he says: “We never in public affirmed our belief in Spiritualism, that we regarded as no business of the public; nor did we offer our entertainment as the result of sleight-of-hand, or on the other hand as Spiritualism.
We let our friends and foes settle that as best they could between themselves, but unfortunately, we were often the victims of their disagreements.
” In a letter which Ira wrote from Maysville, dated January 19, 1909, which I received while in Europe, he says: “You must not fail to do me the honor of a visit when you return to America, although two years is quite a long time, and in the mean time, please let me hear from you whenever the ‘_Spirit_’ moves.
“Regarding the future, I think the possibilities within your grasp are almost boundless, splendid new territory, all South of Central America, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, India, Spain, Portugal and Africa.
”[28] “My old-time travelling companion, William M. Fay, told me four years ago while on a visit here from Australia, that he and Harry Kellar cleared over ,000 in about eight months in South America, and Mexico, and that was thirty-four years ago, and that the opportunities are now vastly improved, such as _railroads, instead of mules_, increase of population, advance in civilization in those backward countries.
He says it would be a pleasure trip now to what it was when he and Kellar had to travel on muleback.
He was very enthusiastic on the subject of making another tour and we would have done so but for the fact that his physicians strongly advised against it on account of poor health and weakened physical condition.
He is living at present in Melbourne, Australia, having settled there with his family in 1877, shortly after the death of my brother, which occurred July 1, 1877. He is not at all contented, notwithstanding his pleasant surroundings and ample fortune; after a man has become a regular ‘_Globe Trotter_,’ I don’t think it possible for him to settle down and lead a quiet monotonous life....
I wish here to say that our first tour through Europe consumed four years, leaving this country, August 26, 1864, returning September 29, 1868. Our second trip took us over three years, leaving here March 22, 1874, and returning October 20, 1877, four months after the death of my brother.
” When exhibiting in Liverpool the Davenports were the cause of quite a riot[29] which not only militated against them but stirred up some political strife as well.
I will quote Ira’s account of it from a letter to me dated January 19, 1909. [Illustration: FACSIMILE OF PORTIONS OF A LETTER WRITTEN TO HOUDINI BY IRA E.
DAVENPORT]
“Well, yes, regarding Liverpool, I have very vivid recollections, and after forty-four years they are far from being ‘scenes of mystified events,’ they were results of peculiar combinations, of unfortunate circumstances, _professional jealousy_, _religious prejudice_, _anti-American feeling_, with a few other disturbing elements thrown in, including ‘fenianism,’[30] which was engaging the public attention at that time, all worked up to a _white heat_ culminating in one of the most spectacular displays of ‘English Fair Play’ that was ever presented to an appreciative English public....
While in Liverpool and some other towns in England, we could not appear in the streets without being greeted by threatening crowds, with such exclamations as ‘Yankee Doodle,’ ‘John Brown’s Body,’ ‘Barnum’s Humbug,’ ‘Yankee Swindle,’ ‘Fegi Mermaid,’ and many other nice things too numerous to mention....
“I think my experience in Liverpool stands out as the most prominent example of ‘Fair Play’ ever dealt out to any American citizens and a nauseating example to all foreigners of ‘’ow’ the average Englishman does things at ‘’ome.
’...
It was well known that we were Northern men, and the world knows how the English sympathized with the slave holders’ rebellion, and they did not miss any opportunity of showing how they felt at the time on the subject.
While pretending that their brutal displays of hostility were caused by our refusal to be tied by a particular kind of knot, in fact our only offence was, objecting to be tortured at the risk of being permanently maimed or crippled for life....
Our appeal to the British public at the time is a plain truthful statement of the facts, regarding the riots in Liverpool, Huddersfield, and Leeds which several of the English papers had the fairness to publish.
All England seemed to have gone mad on the subject of cabinet smashing and speculative sharpers reaped a rich harvest selling bogus pieces of smashed Davenport cabinet.
Wood enough was sold in small pieces to make ten times as many cabinets as the Davenport Brothers ever used during their public career....
Although I am now in my 70th year, I would not for one moment hesitate to face the public of Liverpool, Huddersfield, and Leeds, and try conclusions with them again, drawing no line or limitations except those of torturing or maiming one for life....
I shall always feel a great deal of pleasure in your success, especially in meeting and overcoming anything in the nature of hostility and opposition.
I remember seeing a notice of the death of Dr. Slade quite a while ago.
I became acquainted with him in 1860. He then resided in the State of Michigan.
” The above excerpt shows the pluck and courage of a genuine showman at the age of seventy, still ready for a tussle with an entertainment based on natural laws.
The Davenport Brothers while exhibiting in Manchester, England, had the distinction of being publicly imitated and ridiculed by two celebrated actors, Sir Henry Irving and Edward A. Sothern, who were appearing at the Theatre Royal.
With some friends they had witnessed a performance by the Davenport Brothers and determined to expose what Irving termed a “shameful imposture.
” With the assistance of these men he gave a private performance in imitation of the Davenport seance at a popular club and was so successful that he was requested to repeat it in a large hall.
So on Saturday, February 25, 1865, the Library Hall of the Manchester Athenæum was filled with an audience invited to witness “a display of ‘preternatural philosophy’ in a private seance à la Davenport provided by some well-known members of the theatrical profession playing in the city.
A wig, a beard, a neckerchief, a tightly buttoned frock coat, and artistic makeup so completely transformed Irving that he looked the exact double of Dr. Ferguson.
With his inimitable charm of manner Irving assumed the dignified air and characteristic gestures of the doctor and impersonating his reverend tones he gave an interesting and semi-jocose address with just enough seriousness to keenly satirize the old doctor and at its close received thunderous applause from the delighted audience.
[31] Irving and his friends then proceeded to imitate the manifestations with a remarkable degree of accuracy.
“The ‘brothers’ were tied hand and foot, placed in a cabinet, and immediately began their manifestations.
Weird noises were heard, hands became visible through the opening in the cabinet, musical instruments were seen floating in the air, and the trumpet was several times thrown out.
When the doors were opened, the brothers were shown to be securely tied.
They reproduced every effect of the performances accompanied by appropriate remarks and delightful witticisms from Irving.
” At the close of the seance, the performers received a vote of thanks, the audience cheering Irving repeatedly.
The Manchester papers were filled for several days with accounts and letters concerning the Irving seance, and in response to many urgent requests it was repeated a week later in the Free Trade Hall, but the net result of the exposure to Irving was the loss of his engagement at the Theatre Royal as he refused to capitalize its success by giving nightly performances at the theatre.
The extent to which people allowed themselves to be deluded by the Davenport exhibitions is evident from the following passage taken from D. C.
Donovan’s “Evidences of Spiritualism.
” As a voluntary investigation committee of one he had been allowed to sit in the cabinet with the Brothers while the manifestations were in progress.
In his account of his experiences he says: “Whilst I was inside, several arms were thrust out at the openings and distinctly seen by persons outside.
Now it is certain that these were not the arms of the Brothers, because they could not have reached the openings without rising from their seats, and had they done this, I should have detected it in an instant; moreover, if their hands had been free, they could not have played six instruments at once and still have hands left with which to touch my face and hands and pull my hair.
Some of my friends endeavor to persuade me that the Davenports did move, but that being in the dark I did not notice it.
Darkness, however, although highly unfavorable to seeing, is not at all so to feeling, and I had my hands on their shoulders, where the slightest muscular moving would have been detected.
” In view of what Ira Davenport told me about their manipulations I cannot read the above account without feeling sorry for Mr. Donovan, who, if his belief was genuine, had reached the highest point of delusion.
Because of the particular qualifications and aptitude of magicians to detect fraud it is not surprising that Spiritualistic publications seize eagerly any word coming from them favorable to the cause of Spiritualism.
With the comment, “it is well worth preserving and placing beside that of Belachini, the German conjuror, as an answer to those of our opponents, who, ignorant of legerdemain, declare our phenomena to be of that character,” “The Spiritualist” of September 9, 1881, quoted from the Paris “_Revue Spirits_” the following statement of E. Jacobs, a French prestidigitator: “Relating to phenomena which occurred in Paris in 1865, through the Brothers Davenport, spite of the assertions, more or less trustworthy, of the French and English journalists, and spite of the foolish jealousies of ignorant conjurors, I feel it my duty to show up the bad faith of one party, and chicanery of the other....
All that has been said or done adverse to these American mediums is absolutely untrustworthy.
If we should judge rightly of a thing we must understand it, and neither the journalists nor the conjurors possess the most elementary knowledge of the science that governs these phenomena.
As a Prestidigitator of repute and a sincere Spiritualist, I affirm that the mediumistic facts demonstrated by the two Brothers were absolutely true, and belong to the Spiritualistic order of things in every respect....
Messrs. Henri Robin and Robert Houdin, when attempting to imitate these said feats, never presented to the public anything beyond an infantine and almost grotesque parody of the said phenomena, and it would be an ignorant and obstinate person who could regard the question seriously as set forth by these gentlemen.
If, as I have reason to hope, the psychical studies to which I am applying myself at this time, succeed, I shall be able to establish clearly (and that by public demonstration) the immense line of demarcation which separates mediumistic phenomena from conjuring proper, and then equivocation will be no longer possible, and persons will yield to evidence, or deny through predetermination.
(Signed) “E. Jacobs.
[32] “Experimenter and President of Conference to the Psychological Studies at Paris.
” Dion Boucicault, an Irish Dramatist and actor of prominence in America and equally so in Europe, entertained the Davenports at his home in London (1865) where he felt assured that the room could not contribute to fraudulent results.
Twenty-three friends, men of rank and some prominence, among them clergymen and medical doctors, were in attendance.
He did not report if any were believers, but it is inferred from his writing that none were.
As in other cases, the utmost precaution was taken to render conditions most acceptable to the investigators, nevertheless, the usual manifestations took place and Mr. Boucicault wrote lengthy reports as to details, and as a conclusion to his report he wrote: “At the termination of the seance a general conversation took place on the subject of what we had heard and witnessed.
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 proceedings, the gentlemen present could arrive at no other conclusion than that there was no trace of trickery in any form, and certainly there were neither confederates nor machinery and that all those who had witnessed the results would freely state in 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.
“Some persons think that the requirement 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 would say, ‘I believe photography to be a humbug--do it all in the light, and we will believe otherwise’?
It is true that we know why darkness is necessary to the production of the sun-pictures; and if scientific men will subject these phenomena to analysis, we shall find out why darkness is essential to such manifestations.
It is a subject which scientific men are not justified in treating with the neglect of contempt.
--I am, etc. , “Dion Boucicault.
” Richard Francis Burton, eminent English traveller, writer, and translator of _The Arabian Nights_, wrote to Dr. Ferguson, Davenport Brothers’ lecturer and manager: “I have spent a great part of my life in oriental lands, and have seen there many magicians....
I have read and listened to every explanation of the Davenport ‘tricks’ hitherto placed before the English public, and, believe me, if anything would make me take that tremendous jump ‘from matter to spirit,’ it is the utter and complete unreason of the reasons by which the ‘manifestations’ are explained.
” Nor was it in England alone that able men were completely fooled by the Davenports’ performance.
Frenchmen as well, after seeing the exhibition, hastened to put their favorable opinions in writing.
Hamilton, a well-known expert in the art of legerdemain, and son-in-law of Robert Houdin, the famous conjuror, wrote: “Messrs. Davenport,--Yesterday I had the pleasure of being present at the seance you gave, and I came away from it convinced that jealousy alone was the cause of the outcry against you.
The phenomena produced surpassed my expectations, and your experiments were full of interest for me.
I consider it my duty to add that those phenomena are inexplicable, and the more so by such persons as have thought themselves able to guess your supposed secret, and who are, in fact, far indeed from discovering the truth.
“Hamilton.
” M.
Rhys, a manufacturer of conjuring implements and himself an inventor of tricks, wrote the Davenports: “...
I have returned from one of your seances quite astonished.
As a person who has devoted many years to the manufacture of instruments for legerdemain performances, my statement made with due regard to fidelity, and guided by the knowledge long experience has given me, will, I trust, be of some value to you....
I was admitted to examine your cabinet and instruments ...
with the greatest care but failed to find anything that could justify legitimate suspicions.
From that moment I felt that the insinuations cast about you were false and malevolent.
” These are but a few of innumerable instances where men of culture, knowledge and experience, were deluded by the performance of the Davenport Brothers, just as men are to-day with my presentations, and when the reader takes into consideration the confession of Ira Erastus Davenport[33] to me in 1909, and the fact that he taught me his full method of manipulating seances, he can then form some conception of the extent to which the most intelligent minds can be led astray by what seem to them phenomena, but to me, mere problems susceptible of lucid explanation.
CHAPTER III
