FACSIMILE OF PORTIONS OF A LETTER WRITTEN TO HOUDINI BY IRA E. DAVENPORT
“Well, yes, regarding Liverpool, I have very vivid recollections, and after forty-four years they are far from being ‘scenes of mystified events,’ they were results of peculiar combinations, of unfortunate circumstances, professional jealousy, religious prejudice, anti-American feeling, with a few other disturbing elements thrown in, including ‘fenianism,’[30] which was engaging the public attention at that time, all worked up to a white heat culminating in one of the most spectacular displays of ‘English Fair Play’ that was ever presented to an appreciative English public.... While in Liverpool and some other towns in England, we could not appear in the streets without being greeted by threatening crowds, with such exclamations as ‘Yankee Doodle,’ ‘John Brown’s Body,’ ‘Barnum’s Humbug,’ ‘Yankee Swindle,’ ‘Fegi Mermaid,’ and many other nice things too numerous to mention....
“I think my experience in Liverpool stands out as the most prominent example of ‘Fair Play’ ever dealt out to any American citizens and a nauseating example to all foreigners of ‘’ow’ the average Englishman does things at ‘’ome.’... It was well known that we were Northern men, and the world knows how the English sympathized with the slave holders’ rebellion, and they did not miss any opportunity of showing how they felt at the time on the subject. While pretending that their brutal displays of hostility were caused by our refusal to be tied by a particular kind of knot, in fact our only offence was, objecting to be tortured at the risk of being permanently maimed or crippled for life.... Our appeal to the British public at the time is a plain truthful statement of the facts, regarding the riots in Liverpool, Huddersfield, and Leeds which several of the English papers had the fairness to publish. All England seemed to have gone mad on the subject of cabinet smashing and speculative sharpers reaped a rich harvest selling bogus pieces of smashed Davenport cabinet. Wood enough was sold in small pieces to make ten times as many cabinets as the Davenport Brothers ever used during their public career.... Although I am now in my 70th year, I would not for one moment hesitate to face the public of Liverpool, Huddersfield, and Leeds, and try conclusions with them again, drawing no line or limitations except those of torturing or maiming one for life.... I shall always feel a great deal of pleasure in your success, especially in meeting and overcoming anything in the nature of hostility and opposition. I remember seeing a notice of the death of Dr. Slade quite a while ago. I became acquainted with him in 1860. He then resided in the State of Michigan.”
The above excerpt shows the pluck and courage of a genuine showman at the age of seventy, still ready for a tussle with an entertainment based on natural laws.
The Davenport Brothers while exhibiting in Manchester, England, had the distinction of being publicly imitated and ridiculed by two celebrated actors, Sir Henry Irving and Edward A. Sothern, who were appearing at the Theatre Royal. With some friends they had witnessed a performance by the Davenport Brothers and determined to expose what Irving termed a “shameful imposture.” With the assistance of these men he gave a private performance in imitation of the Davenport seance at a popular club and was so successful that he was requested to repeat it in a large hall. So on Saturday, February 25, 1865, the Library Hall of the Manchester Athenæum was filled with an audience invited to witness “a display of ‘preternatural philosophy’ in a private seance à la Davenport provided by some well-known members of the theatrical profession playing in the city.
A wig, a beard, a neckerchief, a tightly buttoned frock coat, and artistic makeup so completely transformed Irving that he looked the exact double of Dr. Ferguson. With his inimitable charm of manner Irving assumed the dignified air and characteristic gestures of the doctor and impersonating his reverend tones he gave an interesting and semi-jocose address with just enough seriousness to keenly satirize the old doctor and at its close received thunderous applause from the delighted audience.[31]
Irving and his friends then proceeded to imitate the manifestations with a remarkable degree of accuracy. “The ‘brothers’ were tied hand and foot, placed in a cabinet, and immediately began their manifestations. Weird noises were heard, hands became visible through the opening in the cabinet, musical instruments were seen floating in the air, and the trumpet was several times thrown out. When the doors were opened, the brothers were shown to be securely tied. They reproduced every effect of the performances accompanied by appropriate remarks and delightful witticisms from Irving.”
At the close of the seance, the performers received a vote of thanks, the audience cheering Irving repeatedly. The Manchester papers were filled for several days with accounts and letters concerning the Irving seance, and in response to many urgent requests it was repeated a week later in the Free Trade Hall, but the net result of the exposure to Irving was the loss of his engagement at the Theatre Royal as he refused to capitalize its success by giving nightly performances at the theatre.
The extent to which people allowed themselves to be deluded by the Davenport exhibitions is evident from the following passage taken from D. C. Donovan’s “Evidences of Spiritualism.” As a voluntary investigation committee of one he had been allowed to sit in the cabinet with the Brothers while the manifestations were in progress. In his account of his experiences he says:
“Whilst I was inside, several arms were thrust out at the openings and distinctly seen by persons outside. Now it is certain that these were not the arms of the Brothers, because they could not have reached the openings without rising from their seats, and had they done this, I should have detected it in an instant; moreover, if their hands had been free, they could not have played six instruments at once and still have hands left with which to touch my face and hands and pull my hair. Some of my friends endeavor to persuade me that the Davenports did move, but that being in the dark I did not notice it. Darkness, however, although highly unfavorable to seeing, is not at all so to feeling, and I had my hands on their shoulders, where the slightest muscular moving would have been detected.”