ADDENDA.
Just as I depicted the ghost of the wig and pigtail to bow out all the old-fashioned ghosts, methought I heard a voice say, "Well, sir, suppose it granted that you have shown the utter impossibility of there being such things as ghosts of hats, coats, sticks, and umbrellas; admitting that you really have "laid" all these ghosts of the old style, what say you to the "spirit manifestations" of the present day?"
Well, this does certainly seem to be putting rather a "Home question"—a "Home thrust," if you please; but sharp as the question may be, and difficult as it may seem to answer, I am not going to shirk the question.
In the first place, this inquiring spirit must please to recollect that these "spirit-rappers" of the present day are almost an entirely new-fashioned spirit, a different sort of ghost altogether, or ghosts in "piecemeal;" only bits of spirits, who never come of their own accord, and have to be squeezed out of a table bit by bit, when they do hold up a hand, or tap or touch people's legs under the table with their hand, or a bit of one. But never having attended a "séance," I cannot give the inquiring spirit any information about these spirits from my own personal knowledge. If the inquirer wishes to know "all about" these spirits, he had better apply to Mr. D. D. Home, who is quite "at home" with these spirits, upon the most "familiar" terms! in fact, "hand and glove" with them; and they feel so much at home with Mr. Home, that they are constantly putting their hands and arms, if not their legs, "under his mahogany." I therefore take the liberty of referring "Inquirer" to this Home medium, or any other medium, Home or foreign, for a "full, true, and particular account" of the character and conduct of these new-fashioned, New-found-land ghosts or spiritual gentlefolk, for it does not appear that there are any of the "working-class" amongst them.
It has been asserted by Mr. Home, that he has seen "full length" ghosts. These I shall put to the test a little further on.
As I intend putting a few questions myself to these "mediums," or through this medium, to the spirits, I have to hope that these questions of mine will be taken by the inquiring spirits who question me as an answer to their question upon what may be at present considered upon the whole as almost, if not entirely, unanswerable, at least with the ordinary natural organs of thought and judgment, and therefore it must be left to these tabular spirits or their mediums to explain (that is, if they can) that which, to the "outsiders," as the affair stands at this moment, is an inexplicable puzzle.
In bringing forward my questions, I will take the liberty of making an extract from the "Times," of the 9th of April last, where Mr. D. D. Home's book of "Incidents in my Life," is reviewed with considerable acumen and ability; and wherein the writer states that a Dr. Wilkinson was desirous of obtaining some information and explanations respecting the "ways and means" of these spirits. The Doctor asked Mr. Home why the effects (that is, the manifestations) "took place under the table and not upon it." Mr. Home said, that "in habituated circles the results were easily obtained above board, visibly to all, but that at the first sitting it was not so; that scepticism was almost universal in men's intellects, and marred the forces at work; that the spirits accomplish what they do through our life sphere, or atmosphere, which was permeated at our wills, and if the will was contrary, the sphere was unfit for being operated upon." Moreover, allowance must be made for a certain indisposition on the part of the spirits (as we infer a sort of spiritual bashfulness), "which deters them from exhibiting their members in a state of imperfect formation." When some had merely a single finger put upon their knees, "Mr. Home said that the presenting spirits could often make one finger where they could not make two, and two where they could not form an entire hand, just as they could form a hand where they could not realize a whole human figure" (for there seems never to have been life sphere at a séance adequate to the exhibition of an entire figure, "though Mr. Home has frequently seen spirits in their full proportions when alone").
And now for one of my questions, which question is not only my question, but a public question, and one which Mr. Home is bound to answer, if he can. I therefore publicly call upon that gentleman to inform the public if these spirits, which he saw in their "full proportions," were in a state of nudity, or if they had clothes on? and if clothed, of what those clothes were made? If he does not know these particulars of his own knowledge, as he has the ear of these spirits, their entire confidence, and as they have his ear, let him call upon them to let him into the secret of the manufacture of their garments, or how the spirits procure them; and until Mr. Home explains this satisfactorily to the public, we have a right to suspect that either he has been himself deceived, or that he——Perhaps I had better not finish the sentence.
The "inquiring spirit" will see that the clothes are the test, and this test stands good here, as well as with the old fashioned ghosts, and this, I presume, will be allowed as rather a "Home question" to Mr. Home; a Home thrust which he can only parry by giving the information asked; which, if he does not, I will not say "Britons, strike Home," but unless he or the spirits "rap" out a satisfactory answer, he may rely upon it that he will feel the weight of public opinion, which will weigh rather heavily upon him. But I give him a first-rate chance of becoming exceedingly popular, for the mass, the millions, are ready to believe anything in the shape of a fact, and I am confident that the whole world would be delighted to get hold of such a secret as this. It would be, perhaps, extreme cruelty to put this gentleman quite "out of spirits;" but unless he tells us what the clothes of spirits are made of, I should say that he will stand in rather an awkward position before the bar of public opinion.
Another question here I'll put, about this spirit "D D outfit,"