The Death-Blow to Spiritualism: Being the True Story of the Fox SistersDavenport, Reuben Briggs
History
The Death-Blow to Spiritualism: Being the True Story of the Fox Sisters
Davenport, Reuben Briggs
Fox, Margaret, 1833-1893; Jencken, Catherine Fox, 1836-1892; Mediums -- New York (State) -- Rochester; Spiritualism
This proposition she emphatically rejected and declared that she had
done forever with Spiritualism and spiritualists. She firmly believes
that leading men and women among the latter, particularly her eldest
sister Leah, are her secret persecutors, and that it was due to their
animus that she was arrested last spring and deprived of her two
boys, to whom she is immeasurably devoted.
There is much to sustain this charge, and the inference that this
mysterious persecution, of which, as she alleges, the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children was only the instrument, was
inspired by the fear that she and Mrs. Kane, having long been
exploited for the financial benefit of others, might do the very
thing they are doing now--betray the secrets of deception, which have
from the beginning of the spiritualistic movement been so well
guarded.
As was said in the _Herald_ yesterday, Mrs. Jencken knew nothing of
the course which her sister Maggie had taken until she landed on the
wharf of the Monarch line company. The _Herald_ did not state
yesterday that Mrs. Jencken was accompanied by her two boys, whom the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children made such great
efforts to keep apart from their mother in last May. As soon as she
heard the news of Maggie's disclosures from a friend who met her at
the steamer, she was overcome with fear lest, being now aware of the
means that had been employed to secure their release and her own, the
society would again attempt to deprive her of her children. She was
advised by a lawyer who knew the real source of the hostility to her
and the motives that prompted it, to send them back at once to
England. The boys declared that they did not want to fall into the
hands of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children again.
Both of them are now strapping big fellows for their age, and are
able and willing to earn their own living. One is fourteen years old
and the other will be soon sixteen. But for a misunderstanding as to
their ages on the part of the police justice last spring there would
never have been any question of retaining them in the custody of Mr.
Gerry's over-zealous myrmidons.
Mrs. Jencken's apprehensions, however, were not to be quieted, and
early in the morning she bundled off the two lads [and they are now
safely beyond the jurisdiction of the dreaded society of which Mr. E.
T. Gerry is the chief].[2]
"This shows," said a gentleman yesterday, "how far certain wealthy
spiritualists are powerful to inspire a kind of terrorism even in New
York city among those who have left their ranks."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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