Notes and Queries, Number 205, October 1, 1853 / A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Geneologists, etc.

The English public has ever been distinguished by an enormous amount of gullibility.
Ha ha, ha ha! this world doth pass
Most merrily I'll be sworn;
For many an honest Indian ass
Goes for an unicorn.
So sung old Thomas Weelkes in the year 1608, and so echo we in the year 1853! What with spirit-rapping, table-moving, Chelsea ghosts, Aztec children, &c., we shall soon, if we go on at the same rate, get the reputation of being past all cure.
In looking over, the other day, a volume in the Museum, marked MS. Sloane 958., I noticed the following hand-bill pasted on the first page:
At the sign of the Wool-sack, in Newgate Market, is to be seen a strange and wonderful thing, which is an elm board , being touched with a hot iron, doth express itself as if it were a man dying with groans , and trembling, to the great admiration of all the hearers. It hath been presented before the king and his nobles, and hath given great satisfaction. Vivat Rex.
At the top of the bill is the king's arms, and the letters C. R., and in an old hand is written the date 1682. On the same page is an autograph of the original possessor of the volume, Ex libris Jo. Coniers, Londini, pharmacopol, 1673.
In turning to Malcolm ( Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London , 4to. 1811, p. 427.), we find the following elucidation of this mysterious exhibition:
One of the most curious and ingenious amusements ever offered to the publick ear was contrived in the year 1682, when an elm plank was exhibited to the king and the credulous of London, which being touched by a hot iron, invariably produced a sound resembling deep groans. This sensible, and very irritable board, received numbers of noble visitors; and other boards, sympathising with their afflicted brother, demonstrated how much affected they might be by similar means. The publicans in different parts of the city immediately applied ignited metal to all the woodwork of their houses, in hopes of finding sensitive timber; but I do not perceive any were so successful as the landlord of the Bowman Tavern in Drury Lane, who had a mantle tree so extremely prompt and loud in its responses, that the sagacious observers were nearly unanimous in pronouncing it part of the same trunk which had afforded the original plank.