The Humbugs of the World: An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All AgesBarnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor)
General
The Humbugs of the World: An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages
Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor)
Impostors and imposture
"I vants my vrow, what I left in Harlem, to takes that two tousand
dollars and gives it back to that Jew's vrow. That's what I came
for to-day, Sir. (Has your vrow got it?) Vell, my vrow has got it
in a tin box. Ven I first go, I takes the money, I gives it to my
vrow, and she takes care of it. Now I vants my vrow to give that
two tousand dollars to that Jew's vrow.
"(How do you spell your name?) The vrow knows how to spell. (Hans
Von Vleet.) There's a something you cross in it. The vrow spells
the rest. Ah, that's wrong; you makes a blunder. Its V. not F.
That's like all vrows. (Do all vrows make blunders?) Vell, I don't
know; all do sometimes, I suppose. (Didn't you like vrows here?)
Oh, vell, I likes 'em sometimes. I likes mine own vrow. I not likes
to be a vrow myself. (Don't the clothes fit?) Ah, vell, I suppose
they fits, but I not likes to wear what not becomes me."
It is scarcely necessary to make comments on such horrible nonsense as
this. I may recur to the subject in future, should it appear expedient.
At present I must drop the subject of female men.
At the head of the "Message Department" is a standing advertisement,
which reads as follows:
"Our free circles are held at No. 158 Washington street, Room No. 4
(up stairs,) on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. The
circle-room will be open for visitors at two o'clock; services
commence at precisely three o'clock, after which time no one will
be admitted. Donations solicited."
On the days and at the hour mentioned in the above advertisement, quite
an audience assembles to hear the messages Mrs. C. may have to deliver.
If a stranger present should request a message from one of his
spirit-friends, he would be told that a large number of spirits were
seeking to communicate through that "instrument," and each must await
his turn! Having read obituary notices in the files of old newspapers,
and the published list of those recently killed in battle, the medium
has data for any number of "messages." She talks in the style that she
imagines the person whom she attempts to personate would use, being one
of the doctrines of spiritualism that a person's character and feelings
are not changed by death. To make the humbug more complete, she narrates
imaginary incidents, asserting them to have occurred in the
earth-experience of the spirit who purports to have possession of her at
the same time she is speaking. Mediums in various parts of the country
furnish her with the names of and facts relative to different deceased
people of their acquaintance, and those names and facts are used by her
in supplying the "Message Department" of the "Banner of Light."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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