The bouquet is secured with a thread attached to the piano, and it then goes through the door, where an assistant holds the loose end. A small loop of wire is attached to the bouquet, and a thread runs through it. When the lady enters the room and lays the bouquet on the table, this thread is passed through the loop of wire. When the bouquet is desired to travel to the lady, the assistant has only to raise the end of the thread high enough and the bouquet slides down the incline into the lady’s hand.
Fig. 32.—The Telegraph Set.
A medium in Detroit, Mich., has lately been hoodwinking the public and coining money with an idea that was quite original. He employed a small, shallow box, composed of wooden sides and ends and slate top and bottom. The box and its lid were about of even height, and were hinged together. (Fig. 32.) The box contained a telegraph key connected up to a sounder and a dry battery sitting outside of the box on the table. The medium allowed everything to be well examined. It was proved that the battery on the table was the only means of operating the sounder whenever the key was worked. If one of the wires were disconnected, or the box were closed and the key thus out of the way of manipulation, the sounder would not work. After everything was satisfactorily explained, notes were written on pieces of paper, which were folded and placed upon the table. These are taken, one at a time, and placed in the box and the lid closed. If conditions are favorable, the spirits will be enabled to read one of the inclosed notes, and will send a telegraphic reply over the sounder; and such is ofttimes the result. Of course, we know spirits do nothing of the sort; it is the medium who accomplishes all of this. How does he know the contents of the note? How does he cause the ticker to work with the key inclosed in the box? The visitor is placed on one side of the table, generally facing a window, so as to have the light shine into his or her eyes. The medium sits opposite with his back toward the window; the box containing the key is at his side of the table, with the hinges, or the back of the box, toward the visitor. Now, if the lid of this box is opened and a paper taken off the table and placed in the box and the lid closed, you could not tell for certain if the paper was actually placed in or not, for the simple reason that the cover of the box, when up, completely masked the operation. It is by the above scheme that the medium obtains the notes on the paper. The first one or two are actually placed in the box; then the next one is deliberately dropped into the medium’s lap instead of the box. He unfolds it, reads it, refolds it, and, on opening the box, apparently takes it from there and places it back on the table and does not lose track of it. Two or three other papers are placed in it by the visitor, and again taken out by him. Again the visitor is asked to place in it the one the medium knows the contents of. Now the ticker commences to work. With his left hand carelessly resting on the corner of the closed box, the medium writes with his right hand, with a pencil, on a pad of paper, the communication received over the ticker. The visitor removes the paper from the box, and the answer just written by the medium on the pad is found to be a reasonable one to the written request.
All that remains to be explained is the working of the sounder. It is very simple. In the first place, the lid and box are hinged so as to be hinge bound; that is, they will not, of their own weight, quite touch each other, possibly about an eighth of an inch, or less, apart. But by the pressure or weight of the hand they will come together. Now, the telegraph key, like all such instruments, is provided with a tension screw, which can be screwed one way or the other. When the medium desires his instrument to work, he raises this tension screw, to which is fastened the button of the key, just high enough to touch the lid on the inside of the box when it is closed of its own weight. Now, when the hand is resting on the box, he proceeds to make the sounder “speak” at will, with no perceptible movement of his hand. A simple muscular contraction of the palm of the hand, which cannot be detected, is sufficient to control the sensitive key, by pressure of the box cover on it. The whole thing is so simple, and at the same time puzzling, that it makes one laugh to think how little it takes to make a fool of a man.
In the case of this medium, the head of the tension screw was brass, and left a brassy mark on the slate top. He soon observed this, and changed it for a hard rubber one, which left no telltale marks behind. Sometimes he did not raise the tension screw, but laid the folded paper the question was written on on top of it. This made up the required height. Other mediums improved on the above method by working the key through the box by an electro-magnet concealed in the table top. The current to the magnets was turned on and off, or broken, as the line is used, by means of a small button in the body of the table, pressed by the medium’s leg. This method allowed him to keep his hand off the box.
The raps, or noises, are produced in various manners. Press your boot heel gently against a table leg. The slipping of the leather against the wood makes perfect spirit raps, wood being a good conductor of sound. The raps apparently come from the table top if attention is directed in that direction. Some mediums, with the tips of their fingers pressed firmly on a table top, slip them, by a dexterous movement, along the varnished surface, thus making very fair examples of raps or thuds. Some mediums, in their own homes, have tables provided with electro-magnets concealed in them, by which the knocks are accomplished. Medical experts claim that a very good result can be obtained by the mere displacement of the tendons of the muscle called peroneus longus, in the sheath in which it slides behind the external malleolus. Others again produce it by snapping the toe or knee joints. Watch a boy some day as he snaps his finger joints, and if he were to rest his elbows on the table while doing so, the sound would be intensely strengthened.