ARTICLE BY HORACE GREELEY, PUBLISHED IN THE TRIBUNE.
“Mrs. Fox and her three daughters left our city yesterday on their return to Rochester, after a stay here of some weeks, during which they have freely subjected the mysterious influence by which they seem to be accompanied, to every reasonable test, and to the keen and critical scrutiny of the hundreds who have chosen to visit them, or whom they have been invited to visit.
“The rooms which they occupied at the hotel have been repeatedly searched and scrutinized; they have been taken without an hour’s notice, into houses they had never before entered; they have been, all unconsciously, placed on a glass surface concealed under the carpet, in order to interrupt electric vibrations; they have been disrobed by a committee of ladies, appointed without notice, and insisting that neither of them should leave the room until the investigation had been made, etc., etc., yet we believe that no one to this moment pretends that he has detected either of them in producing or causing the ‘rappings;’ nor do we think any of their contemners has invented a plausible theory to account for the production of these sounds, nor the singular intelligence which (certainly at times) has seemed to be manifested through them.
“Some ten or twelve days since, they gave up their rooms at the hotel, and devoted the remainder of their sojourn here to visiting several families, to which they had been invited by persons interested in the subject, and subjecting the singular influence to a closer and calmer examination than could be given to it at a hotel and before casual companies of strangers, drawn together by a vague curiosity, mere rational interest, or predetermined and invincible hostility. Our own dwelling was among those thus visited, not merely submitting to but courting the fullest and keenest inquiry with regard to the alleged ‘manifestations’ from the Spirit world by which they were attended. We devoted what time we could spare from our duties, out of three days, to this subject, and it would be the basest cowardice not to say that we are convinced beyond a doubt of their perfect integrity and good faith in the premises. Whatever may be the origin or the cause of the ‘rappings,’ the ladies in whose presence they occur do not make them. We tested this thoroughly and to our entire satisfaction.
“Their conduct and bearing is as unlike that of deceivers as possible, and we think no one acquainted with them could believe them at all capable of engaging in so daring, impious, and shameful a juggle as this would be if they caused the sounds. And it is not possible that such a juggle should have been so long perpetrated in public, yet escape detection. A juggler performs one feat quickly and hurries on to another; he does not devote weeks after weeks to doing the same thing over and over deliberately, in full view of hundreds who sit beside or confronting him in broad daylight, not to enjoy but to detect his trick. A deceiver naturally avoids conversation on the subject of his knavery, but these ladies converse freely and fully with regard to the origin of these ‘rappings’ in their dwelling years ago, the various sensations they caused, the neighborhood excitement created, the progress of the developments—what they have seen, heard, and experienced from first to last. If all were false they could not fail to have involved themselves ere this in a labyrinth of blasting contradictions, as each separately gives accounts of the most astounding occurrences at this or that time. Persons foolish enough so to commit themselves without reserve or caution could not have deferred a thorough self-exposure for a single week.
“Of course a variety of opinions of so strange a matter would naturally be formed by the various persons who have visited them, and we presume those who have merely run into their room for an hour or so and listened, among a huddle of strangers, to a medley of questions—not all admitting of very profitable answers—put to certain invisible intelligencies and answered by rappings or singular noises on the floor, table, etc., as the alphabet was called over or otherwise, would naturally go away perhaps puzzled, probably disgusted, rarely convinced. It is hardly possible that a matter ostensibly so grave could be presented under circumstances less favorable to conviction. But of those who have enjoyed proper opportunities for a full investigation we believe that fully three-fourths are convinced, as we are, that these singular sounds and seeming manifestations are not produced by Mrs. Fox and her daughters, nor by any human being connected with them.
“How they are caused, and whence they proceed, are questions which open a much wider field of inquiry, with whose way-marks we do not profess to be familiar. He must be well acquainted with the arcana of the universe who shall presume dogmatically to decide that these manifestations are natural or supernatural. The ladies say that they are informed that this is but the beginning of a new era or economy, in which Spirits clothed in flesh are to be more closely and palpably connected with those which have put on immortality; that the manifestations have already appeared in many other families and are destined to be diffused and rendered clearer, until all who will may communicate freely and beneficially with their friends who have ‘shuffled off this mortal coil.’ Of all this we know nothing and shall guess nothing. But if we were simply to print (which we shall not) the questions we asked and the answers we received during a two hours’ uninterrupted conference with the ‘rappers,’ we should at once be accused of having done so expressly to sustain the theory which regards these manifestations as the utterances of departed spirits.
“We believe it is the intention of the ladies to shun henceforth all publicity or notoriety as far as possible. They do not expect or wish to make gain of the ‘Rappings;’ they have desired to vindicate their own characters from the gross imputations so freely cast upon them; believing that, that effected, they hope to be permitted hereafter to live in that seclusion which befits their sex, their station, and their wishes. We trust they may be permitted to do so.
“H. G.”