"Almost regularly in all our sittings," says Professor Zöllner, "while Slade's hands were visibly laid on the table and his feet confined, we felt under the table the touch of hands. I wished, therefore, to institute an experiment by which yet more convincing proof of the existence of these hands could be obtained. I proposed to Mr. Slade that he should place under the table a shallow porcelain vessel, filled to the brim with white flour, and that he should request the spirits before they touched us to dip their hands in this flour. In this way the visible traces of the touch would show themselves on our clothing, and after the touch. At the same time, we could look on the hands and feet of Slade for auy remnants of flour adhering to them. Slade expressed himself as ready to undertake the experiment under these conditions. I brought in a large porcelain bowl, filled it to the brim with flour, and placed it under the table. As to the outcome of this research, we did not make ourselves anxious, but for more than five minutes carried on magnetic experiments, while Slade's hands were always visible before us on the table. I felt, suddenly, my right knee under the table vigorously clasped and pushed downwards for about a second by a large hand. At the same moment, as I stated this to those who were present, and was about to rise, the bowl of flour was pushed, without visible touch, some four feet from its place under the table. On my pantaloons I had the impression in flour of a large, powerful hand, and on the surface of the meal in the bowl were printed the palm and forefingers, with all the fine details of the skin. A pains-taking examination of Slade's hands and feet showed not the slightest trace of flour. The comparison of his own hand with the impression in the flour proved that the latter was considerably the larger." * Zöllner, Weber, Scheibner, and Fechner affirm that they obtained music from untouched key-boards, and repeated successfully most of Crookes's experiments. I am no partisan for or against any yet unrisen star beneath the horizon of science. If the Biblical view of spirits, good and bad, could by modern evidence be proved to be true, I should be only the firmer believer in the Bible, with its whole supernatural history. If spirits that "peep and mutter," to use the Scriptural phraseology, are abroad in the world, and if there be need of warning moderu generations, as the ancient ones were warned, not to have commerce with demoniacal powers, I wish to listen to that warning made of old a part of Divine Revelation. I am not in danger of supposing that these atrocious, poisonous whisperings, which mislead men and women only too often into erratic opinions and conduct, are from on high. Whenever good angels appear in the Biblical history, they flame like the sun, or otherwise exhibit openly overawing powers. The angel * Zöllner, Vol. II., Part i., p. 310. that stood at the mouth of the sepulchre could not be looked at by the soldiers. They were as dead men in his presence. Always the appearance of good spirits puts into awe the human observer. I do not read accounts of such appearances in our modern circles. But, if you were to prove to me that good spirits can speak to us, as well as evil, I should yet say that transcendently greater proof of the supernatural origin of the Biblical revelation has been given than of any or all other alleged supernatural communications; and that, therefore, the inferior manifestations.must be subject to the supreme ones. While they are thus subject, I do not care what you prove concerning them. I do not think you have scientifically proved even that evil spirits can communicate with men. I do not think you have proved that good spirits can communicate. You are far from proving that any of these communications are a trustworthy source of knowledge of any kind, except that materialism is not true. Beyond these positions I do not need to go, in order to show you that I am ready to receive scientific evidence from any quarter. Prove to yourselves, if you can, that Archbishop Whately was right* when he asserted that the Biblical truths concerning good and evil angels are truths for all time. I believe that already; but, if you were to fortify this belief by modern instances, I should yet stand in Archbishop Whately's position, and make the teaching of modern spirits, especially of such as "peep and mutter," subject to the angelic spirits whose effulgence has made mortals as dead men, and to those communications which, by being absorbed into the veins of the ages, have been proved to give full health to human civilization. As the viper beneath the heel is subject to man, so would I have the witchcraft which peeps and mutters subject to Him who spake as never man spake. The more you prove the better. I think you have proved nothing of importance, except that there is a psychic force, and that the place for materialism is in fragments on the horns of Jupiter's moons, * See his treatise on "Scriptural Revelations concerning Good and Evil Angels," AMERICAN INVESTIGATIONS OF SPIRITUALISM. THE PRELUDE.—SHALL THE CIVIL DAMAGE LAW BE REPEALED ? [The defence of the Civil Damage Law, and especially the reference to the temperance principles of General Grant and Mrs. President Hayes, in contrast with the example of certain city clubs, was well received by the crowded audience, as was also the lecture.] EIGHTEEN Commonwealths in the American Union now stand in a majestic circle, with their hands locked together in support of the Civil Damage Temper ance Law, for the protection of the widow and the orphan against the fleecers of the poor. While seventeen states retain this righteous enactment, shall Massachusetts repeal it? Who is striving to break the circle? We have not had a year's experience of this law in Massachusetts, but it appears to have been found out in this commonwealth already, what has never been ascertained in these sister commonwealths, that the law has in it provisions going beyond the province of legislation. It has been discovered, not in rural Massachusetts, but in Boston, the centre of the whiskey-ring of New England, that this law pinches; and the first reason I have for supporting the law is that it does pinch the whiskey-ring, Show me what the whiskey-rings of our great cities do not want, and I will show you what the best portion of the American population does want, and the cities also, so far as they are not under the sway of luxury and avarice, and timorousness and social fashion, and a low-toned club life. Why should the Civil Damage Law not be repealed? 1. It has been adopted in nineteen states, and the expericnce of a quarter of a century under the law shows that it works well. The Civil Damage Bill was first proposed in Massachusetts, before a convention of Congregational ministers, by Dr. Hewitt, of Connecticut. A distinct proposal that such a law should be passed was laid on the table in the Massachusetts General Court in 1847. Indiana, however, adopted the law in 1853, and Ohio in 1854. The law has been placed on the statute-books of nineteen states, and is now on those of eighteen. These are Arkansas, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. In all but three of these states—Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont -the Civil Damage provisions are attached to licence laws. In ten of the states the responsibility is the same whether the sales are legal or illegal. Only five of the states require notice to be given to the dealer not to sell in order to maintain suits, and in Ohio the notice may be given to the town or city clerk. In Wiscon sin the local authorities may forbid sales to minors and drunkards. In Nebraska, the liquor-dealer is responsible to the cities and towns for the pauperism caused by drink.* 2. The Massachusetts law is less severe than are the laws maintained for years in New York and many Western states. The Massachusetts law relieves from liability all landlords whose premises were already leased at the time of the passage of the law, a provision not contained in any other Civil Damage Law ever passed. Will you notice, also, that the New York Law-and that of most of the Western states as well-allows licences to be granted without the consent of the owner of the real estate? The Massachusetts law forbids this, and, in so doing, throws an important protection around the landlord. If I own a building on Manhattan Island, and rent it to a liquor-seller, and he wants a licence, he applies for it to the proper authorities, and never comes near me, to get my permission. But if on the soil of Boston I own a building, and allow a liquor-seller to rent it, he cannot have a licence from the legal authorities without my written consent. The landlord in Massachusetts has also a right of action against his tenant, and can recover from him all money paid by the landlord on account of any liability incurred under this law. At first glance, you may think that the law is somewhat severe upon landlords; but at a second glance you will find that the landlord is entitled to recover all money paid by him on account of damage caused by his tenant, and can recover this, provided the latter has anything to pay. Landlords will not lose a penny by prosecutions under the Massachusetts law unless they rent their premises to tenants who are insolvent. The New York and the Western laws allow a tenant who has sold liquor, which has caused injuries, to escape entirely; while the landlord, who may be compelled to pay the damages, has no claim upon his tenant, no matter how wealthy the latter may be. The New York law and all the Western laws provide that " exemplary damages" may be recovered. In the Massachusetts law this provision is omitted. The heaviest verdicts obtained in the West have been under this provision. Its omission here is in accordance with the general policy of the state to grant only "actual damages" in cases of violations of individual rights. 3. Legal analogy justifies the Civil Damage Law. Suppose that I am riding to Cambridge, and drop through the bridge and lose my life, or simply break a limb. Damages can be recovered against the city government, if my dropping through is the result of the carelessness of the municipal authorities in not keeping the bridge in order. But suppose that, on the way to the same place, I stop at a corner grocery, or some gilded hotel grog-shop, and become so intoxicated that I drop through the bridge or break a limb at the very spot where I had previously sustained injury. In the latter case I have no redress. The city licensed the groggery: the city has control of the bridge. You do not complain when the city is made responsible for the damages caused by its carelessness, in the one case. Why should you complain when the rum-seller and the owner of the saloon are made responsible, in the other? You say I might keep out of danger in the saloon; so I might keep out of danger on the bridge. If I drop through a hole in the bridge in Boston by daylight, and am so injured as to be prevented from physical labour, my family can recover damages; but if, at midnight, I, a tempted man, inheriting, it may be, bad blood from intemperate ancestors, fall into some moral cavity in the slums of your cities, and then, going out intoxicated, am run over by an omnibus and VOL. V. • See Boston Herald, September 1st, 1879. 185 injured so that I cannot labour physically, my family has no redress. For one, I affirm that in such inequalities all legal analogy is forgotten. Although our jurisprudence aims to be just in most cases where individual rights are violated, yet in this case it is very clearly unjust, because it lacks all analogy with its own proceedings in other cases. In law, a man in his senses is supposed to intend the probable consequences of his own acts. He is held responsible accordingly. The probable consequences of his acts are known to the rum-seller when he sells to the minor, the weak man in middle life or age, or to the drunkard. Let the law treat the rum-seller and his landlord as it treats other depredators on society. Let it hold them, as men in their senses, responsible for the probable consequences of their own acts. If a sane man should carelessly throw a firebrand into a powder magazine, he would be liable to be prosecuted for the murder of those who lose their lives by the explosion. If a confectioner, for the sake of gain, should sell poisoned candy to children, although he were to warn them against the use of it, you would very soon find the man brought to a pause in his trade by the law. But if he deals out poisonous intoxicating liquors to thoughtless youth, though well knowing that the result will be the loss of property, reputation, health, and perhaps of life, the suffering parent or wife can neither chastise the rum-seller for the outrage nor prevent its repetition. Does Massachusetts want the law repealed which remedies all this, when seventeen other states keep the enactment on their statute books? Is Massachusetts willing to fall behind Ohio and Indiana, New York, and even Arkansas ? The revenue laws of the United States confiscated property used by a lessee for rum-selling, although the owner of the property knew nothing about it. The Supreme Court recently rendered a decision sustaining the action, and holding that the "legal conclusion must be, that the unlawful acts of the distiller bind the owner of the property in respect to the management of the same, as much as though they were committed by the owner himself." Only last October a decision was given by the Supreme Court of the United States affirming the validity of prohibition title-deeds in the case of Cowell against the Colorado Springs Company. You have, therefore, the highest judicial authority in the land affirming that it is perfectly legal for a man to sell property with the proviso that it shall never be used for the manufacture or sale of intoxicating liquors. 4. Decisions of the supreme courts of most of the states having the Civil Damage Law on their statute books have been obtained, and in every case they have declared the law constitutional. Wealthy landlords tell us, in the green-room in the Massachusetts State House, that the Civil Damage Law goes beyond the sphere which the constitution opens to legislators. We are assured that Massachusetts has forgotten herself entirely. But the supreme courts of a dozen states have affirmed the constitutionality of Civil Damage Laws stricter than ours. Twelve thousand dollars has been awarded in one case in Illinois for the loss sustained by a wife through her husband's falling into habits of intemperance, discontinuing his business, and wasting his means. One drunken man fell from a waggon, and was hurt so as to cause a costly sickness and a permanent disability. Another was drawn into a fight with pot companions, and killed. Another, too intoxicated to walk, was sent home in a waggon, and a barrel in the waggon rolled upon and crushed him. Another, helplessly staggering past a railway crossing, was run over by the train. roaming along the streets of the town, fell into an open cellar, and was never Another, |