The true history of the ghost : $b and all about metempsychosisPepper, John Henry
History
The true history of the ghost : $b and all about metempsychosis
Pepper, John Henry
Magic tricks -- Equipment and supplies -- History
ADVERTISEMENT.
“Caution to persons pirating Professor Pepper’s Ghost.
—Messrs. Dircks and Pepper are the sole Patentees of the
Ghost invention. The third and last hearing took place
before Sir Roundell Palmer, the Solicitor-General, on
Saturday the 15th August, 1863, when he decided in favour
of Messrs. Dircks and Pepper.”
I also addressed the following letter to the Press:—
“POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTION,
“309, Regent Street, London,
“_21st August, 1863_.
“To the Editor of ______
“Sir,
“On public grounds I venture to call your attention to the
fact that many persons are now going about the country
endeavouring to pirate effects to be produced by the
apparatus patented by Mr. Dircks and myself, and to deceive
the public by giving them an exhibition with which they are
certain to be disgusted, and with which I have nothing to do.
I beg to enclose one of the numerous statements I have received
from different parts of the country alluding to the imposture
now so commonly practised. I shall esteem it a favour if you
would insert this and the accompanying statement in your
valuable journal.
“I am, Sir,
“Your obedient Servant,
“JOHN HENRY PEPPER.”
I won all the cases taken into Court against persons using my name in
a fraudulent manner, and in one flagrant instance the Magistrates gave
the impostor fourteen days’ imprisonment for “getting money under false
pretences.”
The famous _savant_ Mon. l’Abbé Moigné, of Paris, wrote the brief
notice of the ghost which is here copied from his journal called _Les
Mondes_, May, 1863:—
NOUVELLES ET FAITS DIVERS.
ROYAL POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTION.
“Les énergiques directeurs de l’Institution royale polytechnique ont
inauguré une série de matinées fashionables amusantes du samedi qui, à
en juger par les deux séances déjà données, promettent un très-heureux
succès. On a surtout remarqué le leçon expérimentale de M. Pepper, sur
le thallium, sur les merveilles de l’analyse spectrale, et la part
qu’elle a eue à la découverte du nouveau métal. En raison du beau
monde qu’elles devaient recevoir, les galeries avaient été tapissées
et décorées avec goût de plantes exotiques rares. Comme intermède, on
avait choisi le _Freischütz_, qui n’a rien perdu de sa fraîcheur et de
son attrait, au triple point de vue musical, optique et humoristique.
La semaine dernière, LL. AA. RR. le prince et la princesse de Galles
ont fait une visite privée à cet incomparable établissement, et elles
ont voulu qu’on les initiât aux mystères des fantômes. M. Pepper n’a
pas cru pouvoir mieux répondre à leurs désirs qu’en faisant apparaître,
sous forme de spectre, à leur grande surprise, une des personnes même
de leur suite.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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