In this cabinet, made in imitation of the one used by the Davenport Brothers, the benches are fitted into a groove making it possible for them to be slipped out in case of an extra severe tie-up, giving enough freedom to ring bells and do a number of other things without releasing the hands in the usual way. This is something of an improvement in mystery cabinets.
[19] They rubbed vaseline into their hands and wrists to facilitate their movements. The rope generally used was similar to the Silver Lake sash cord.
[20] It was sometimes claimed that after their demonstrations were over the Davenports turned the papers and remarked them. This Ira said was a deliberate lie as they never left their places throughout the entire performance.
[21] At one of their seances a man tied the brothers so tightly that it was necessary for them to make a desperate struggle to effect a release. The next night the man tried a more difficult test, simply laying the ropes all over their bodies, but the Davenports worked so slowly, deftly, and with such inexhaustible patience that they saved their reputation.
[22] Nor did he hesitate to tell me that he sometimes used as many as ten confederates at a seance for protection.
[23] William Fay, in order to be prepared for an emergency, always carried a piece of rope in his mandolin, and boasted to his partners:
“I’ll not chaw the ropes like you fellows, I’ll cut.”
[24] The original cabinet of the Davenports, made of bird’s-eye maple, was pawned for thirty pounds in Cuba many years ago and is still there.
[25] In order to prove to the public that they did not make use of their hands test conditions were imposed by filling both the brothers’ hands with flour and then tying them behind their backs. Almost every publication that has written an exposé of the Davenport Brothers claims with glee that the trick was performed by putting flour into their pockets from which they took a fresh handful after the manifestations were finished and pretending that their hands were clenched all the time. It is claimed that once a committeeman instead of placing flour in their hands filled them with snuff and after the manifestations had been performed they had their hands fulls of flour. Ira told me that this was a deliberate lie as they did not need to get rid of the flour in their hands as they could do all the tricks with their hands clenched using the free thumb.
[26] The levitation act which has helped to swell the ranks of the Spiritualists and which mystified scientist and laymen alike, was one of the simplest deceptions ever practiced on the guileless masses by cunning mediums. A reformed medium in Bristol, England, told me that he would endeavor to free himself from his restraints, and by deft manipulations managed to pick up a person who sat in a chair nearby. Although the sitter had only been lifted a few inches from the floor he believed in all good faith that his head had actually brushed the ceiling, this impression being created by the medium gently passing his hand over the top of the sitter’s head.