Part 2

Mr. King, of Bath, brought out what he termed a “New Patent Ghost”; but my solicitors, Messrs. Hughes, Masterman, and Hughes, very soon quashed the alleged patent by appearing against Mr. King, when he tried to get his patent passed before the Solicitor-General, the result of which is thus described by

THE London New Music Hall Journal.

MANCHESTER, AUGUST 10, 1863.

WITHDRAWAL OF THE GHOST FROM THE LONDON NEW MUSIC HALL.

It is with unfeigned regret that I have to announce to my numerous patrons the withdrawal of the Ghost from the London New Music Hall. The reason is as follows:—My engagement with Mr. King, to whom a large sum of money was paid down, was with the understanding that he should personally superintend the first representation of the “Great Optical Illusion, the Marvellous Ghost,” which, however, he failed to do, and to which is attributable the failure and disappointment which ensued. I also distinctly understood that his representation was free from any infringement of the right of patent, and that it was in every respect equal to the original production of Professor Pepper. I beg, therefore, in order to acquit myself from the odium of disappointment which may have been felt by the unusually large attraction which it has occasioned to “The London” during the past week, to state that I have received an intimation from Professor Pepper that Mr. King’s representation is an infringement upon his own, and that I have no course left open to me but at once to bear the disappointment, and allow its immediate withdrawal. It is my intention, however, to seek redress in the proper quarter.

I therefore trust that my numerous friends will see the predicament in which I have been placed, and readily acquit me of all blame; assuring them that I am at all times, regardless of expense, anxious to secure the most sterling talent that can be procured, and to avoid anything in the shape of disappointment. JAMES HARWOOD.

I now introduced a Miniature Ghost of a danseuse, which, being only about fifteen inches high, danced on the stage to the great amusement of my very numerous kind patrons.

I took out a provisional patent for this addition to the Ghost Mysteries, and shall reproduce it this Christmas at the Polytechnic.

A Manchester man, under the _nom de plume_ of Kit Skewift, thus ridicules the efforts made by King to produce the Ghost at Manchester:—

TH’ GHOST!!!

“When aw wur a lad—(but that wurnt yusterday, nor th’ day before, nor any day last wick)—aw used to be trayted neaw and then to wot wur cawd a good ghost story. Owd foak then wur vast fond o’ ticklin’ yung foaks’ yers wi’ tales abeawt hobgoblins, ghosts, carnivorous giants, vampyres, ogres, un aw macks o’ uncouth beeins. Aw railly believe they thowt sitch tales wur profitable, morally un’ religiously speighkin’, un’ had little thowt abeauwt th’ uproar ’ut they caused amung eawr juvenoile nerves. Weel con aw remember beein’ neaw un then freetunt till it wur th’ herdest job i’ th’ world to keep my heart fro’ other roisin’ up into my meawth, or skutterin’ deawn in t’ clugs. My yure would ha’ stood up loike th’ bristles uv a dleetin’ brush, un’ th’ best com ut ever wur made would ha’ fawn a victim to any attempt to smooth it deawn to its gradely place; nay, aw believe if anybuddy had tried wi’ a par o’ curlin’ tungs to make it twist, they’d ha’ brokken um loike owd chips. These tales gien me no partikilur noshun as to wot ghosts wur; praps th’ tellers had no very clear ideo theirsels; but aw geet o sort uv a general inklin’ ’ut they wur a very quare, a very extriordinary, un a very wilful set o’ beeins; some on um vast fond uv a toidy practical joke; un aw on um i’ their element when they wur potterin’ foaks’ plucks to make eawt wot the dickens they meant by their merlocks.

“For some days th’ good foaks o’th’ city o’ Manchester have had before their een uppo’ th’ waws, un’ i’th’ shop windows, bills printed i’ black un flarin’ red ink, th’ letters big enoof welly for a bloint chap to see, anneawncin’ at th’ Lunnun New Music Haw th’ appearance uv a ‘Mervellous Ghost’—_King’s_ Ghost! as a roival to that uv Professor Pepper. Loike aw curious foak ’ut are made hongry wi’ expectashun, aw went th’ other neet to have a look at it, imaginin’, as aw went alung through th’ streets, that at last aw should get a peep at a spectre uz would carry back my moind to my yung days, un gie me some inseet into th’ naytur and essence uv sperrits—not sitch as one beighs at th’ keawnter uv a _vault_, but sitch as proceed fro’ th’ clay tenement that lies, moshunless, decayin’ within. Aw durnt know but aw felt a little bit sayrious too, un’ a tunchy bit groiped wi’ fear, for it met be that th’ seet would be made doubly awful by th’ appearance uv my gronny’s ghost; if it wur, un hoo seed me, hoo’d be shure t’ gie me a blisterin wi’ hur tung, for hoo wur a raddler at takkin’ th’ sheighne eawt on me wi’ that glib little member uv hus. But when th’ ghost did appear—or _should_ have appeart in its full proposhuns, by th’ mack aw fun’ mysel as far fro th’ possesshun uv a genuine crumb o’ ghostly wisdum uz ever aw wur i’ my born days. It should ha’ bin an illustrious ghost—no less a chap than Owd Hamlet, th’ suvverin uv anyshunt Denmark; un’ theerefore a rail _King’s_ ghost (beawt patent). But that may akeawnt fer its peevishness, its tricks, un’ its uncommon way o’ introducin’ itsel’. It wouldn’t appear aw at wonst; at fust it showed its yed; then, giving itsel’ a wry neck, it lugged in its showders un its breast; then it disappeart, un’ shortly begun to ascend wi’ its legs un’ feet, or else a pair uz it had borrowed fro’ a nayburin’ corpse, uppermost; un’ when it had getten so far in seet as its sternum, it flittert abeawt in an ungrayshus manner, as if tryin’ to doance th’ Cure on its yed. Praps it wur _because_ it wur a _King’s_ ghost that it wur so wilful, un’ tried to be so unnatural in its ways, for some o’ th’ owd kings wur rum jockies, un’, for owt we know, owd Hamlet met be loike owd George Thard, who, Byron says, geet into heaven by mistake, wi’ his yed under his arm, not havin’ any use for it in a place wheere good thowts un good principles are alone acceptable. Owd Hamlet met be labburin’ under an idea that Lankishire wur a place in which a chap would be uv as mitch service to his felly crayturs when stonnin’ on his yed as when reort up i’ th’ ushual style on his feet.

“This ghostly bizness is cawd an ‘optical illushun.’ Shouldn’t it be cawd an ‘optical _delushun_’? Aw know aw never seed as monny pairs o’ optics so noicely chetted as there wur on this occashun. Professor Buck’s kunjurashuns we know beforehond are nowt but decepshuns; but aw’ll be flogged if i’th’ way o’ bamboozlin’ one’s wits, un’ makin th’ sense uv seet counifogle aw eawr other senses, he isn’t far ayed o’ King’s ghost—a very prince besoide a regilur muff.

“Neaw Pepper’s ghosts, they say, are genuine, are wot they’re professed to be—foine specimens uv wot true science un’ profershunal skill con accomplish. When aw th’ whole bevy o’ King’s ghosts are _mustert_, they’re not, placed alungsoide o’ one _Pepper_, wuth so mitch as a pinch o’ _sawt_; though, by th’ way ’at they try to catch owd brids, they met have a lerge stock on hond o’ th’ latter herticle.

“But, moind yoa, aw dunnot blame Mestur Harwood, th’ lesse o’ th’ Haw. Now, not I; he, aw understond, has been done as weel, nay to a bigger tune, than th’ public; un’ that he’s doubly vext to think that he should, aimin’ at producin’ every novelty ’ut’s wuth presentin’ to th’ public, pay his good money for a bad ghost! Un’ to aw th’ professhunals engaged at th’ establishment it mun be awfully mortifyin’; for wot gives ’um th’ horrors mooar than an ominous convicshun that th’ _ghost winnot wawk_? Heawever, if awm reetly informt, King’s ghost is to vanish, un’ Pepper’s is to appear in its place. This shows a determinashun not to be done wi’ a pousy Jack-o-lantern.

“By th’ _Music Haw Journal_ aw see too that Stead, th’ original Cure, un’ Mestur Ware, th’ author uv so monny comic sungs, are to appear next wick. Booath o’ theese chaps aw seed i’ Lunnun, when aw went to look at th’ Eggsibishun; un’, my word, if they dunnot make Lankishire foak lowf away aw unpleasant dreoms, un’ shift aw th’ bile left by th’ ghost, awm no judge, that’s aw! So, there’s no need to despair. As Shakspere says, ‘Shadows avaunt!’ un’ make way for substanshul entertainments.—Yours gradely,

“August 7, 1863. KIT SKEWIFT.”

Towards the end of May, 1863, the audiences increased enormously at the Royal Polytechnic, so that it became necessary to have a select afternoon performance, the admission fee being raised from 1s. to 2s. 6d. on Saturday mornings only. It was at this period that I was honoured with a visit from their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales and suite; and after the performance had been witnessed by them, I showed the Prince and Princess how the ghost was raised, and explained to my distinguished audience all the machinery and appliances used. Some of the suite amused the Prince by becoming ghosts, and the following notice appeared the next morning in the _Times_, May 20th, 1863:—

“Yesterday morning, by special command, Professor Pepper had the honour of delivering his ghost lecture before their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the Prince and Princess Louis of Hesse, who were attended by the Countess of Macclesfield, Baroness Von Schenck, Major Teesdale, and Captain Westerweller. The distinguished party were received by Professor Pepper, and after being conducted round the galleries passed to the large theatre, where a commodious Royal box had been prepared for their reception. At the conclusion of the lecture, by the invitation of Professor Pepper, they went behind the scenes, and examined with much interest the machinery and appliances for producing the Polytechnic ‘ghost.’ At the conclusion, their Royal Highnesses graciously thanked the directors of the institution, and after shaking hands with Professor Pepper, retired.”—_The Times, May 20th, London, England._

“The ghosts of the Polytechnic, which manifest themselves as a startling appendix to Mr. Pepper’s ‘Strange Lecture’ on optical illusions, have proved singularly attractive, and when the hour arrives for their appearance the lecture room becomes as crowded as the pit of a theatre on the night of Boxing-day.”—_(Second Notice), The Times, Jan. 20th, London, England._

The real element of success in the production of “The Strange Story,” however, must be assigned to the ghost.

So many base and servile imitators now appeared with a sorry imitation of the Polytechnic ghost that it became necessary to send the following advertisement to all the London papers:—

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.

“Depuis que ce petit article a paru dans les journaux anglais, notre ami, M. Pepper, est venu installer à Paris, au théâtre impérial du Châtelet, le mystérieux appareil avec lequel il réalise ses apparitions fantastiques. De son côté, M. Robin a inauguré, samedi dernier, dans la salle déjà si fréquentée du faubourg du Temple, ses représentations de spectres vivants impalpables. L’attention publique étant ainsi vivement excitée, il nous semble que le moment est venu de rappeler l’article suivant inséré par nous dans le _Cosmos_ de 1858, tome XIII, p. 563, et qui ne fut pas assez remarqué, parce que le moment n’était sans doute pas venu:—

“‘_Fantômes optiques._—MM. Dircks et Pepper ont inventé une charmante disposition optique à l’aide de laquelle il fait apparaître des spectres et produit des illusions singulières. Il partage en deux compartiments, par une large glace sans tain, comme on en fait beaucoup aujourd’hui, la salle dans laquelle la scène doit se jouer. Dans le premier compartiment, en avant, il place les acteurs dont on ne devra voir que les images, destinées à représenter les spectres ou revenants; dans le second compartiment, à droite, il installe les acteurs qui devront être vus en personne; les spectateurs sont installés dans l’obscurité, au-dessus du premier compartiment en avant. Dans cette disposition, évidemment, si la scène commence, les spectateurs verront directement, à travers la glace, les acteurs du second compartiment; ils verront par réflexion seulement, ou dans leurs images formées au sein du premier compartiment et mêlés aux acteurs vus en personne, les acteurs situés au-dessous d’eux, dans le premier compartiment. Ces images refléchies, beaucoup moins lumineuses, feront l’effet d’ombres vivantes, d’êtres revenus de l’autre monde; on pourra les faire avancer, rétrograder, sortir ou rentrer à travers les murs, en faisant varier la distance à la glace des acteurs qu’elles représentent, et l’on obtiendra des effets vraiment extraordinaires. C’est assurément une excellente idée.’

“C’est bien aussi là le secret de ces photographes spirites dont l’Amérique a eu l’initiative et qui ont tant fait de bruit.”

And now Mr. Dircks, who had hitherto been most friendly to me, began to be otherwise, and to write me offensive letters, which I forbear to publish. Every morning and evening at the Royal Polytechnic I mentioned his name as a co-inventor. The daily programme always contained his name, and I can appeal to numbers who know me well that I have never attempted to borrow other people’s honours from them, and if a discovery was made always gave to the person making it full credit for the same. It is certain that Dircks’ apparatus was comparatively useless and that he knew nothing of the use of my double stage, and in fact the Solicitor-General, Sir Roundell Palmer, declined to grant a patent on Dircks’ crude idea, as it was only when he understood the great improvement made by the use of the double stage and the employment of the electric light that he granted (as stated in the copy of the advertisement) at the third hearing the Ghost Patent which the Lord Chancellor subsequently ordered to be sealed after great opposition made by several Music Hall proprietors. It is a very curious fact that the original model which Horne, Thornthwaite and Wood sent me was stolen by some person, who in my absence gave a fictitious verbal order as if from the firm named, and I never saw it again. The thief could not, however, have derived much benefit from the robbery, as the model was more likely to lead the possessor in the wrong than the right direction. I suppose the model went to America or Australia, as my imitators in those countries mostly made a terrible fiasco of the ghost when they first attempted to show it.

The following notice by a newspaper, of which unfortunately the name was cut off and lost, gives a very fair criticism on the ghost and its inventors:—

THE PATENT GHOST.

“Modern researches in Spiritualism have led to one practical result—the discovery of a ghost. Not of an ordinary old-fashioned ghost, appearing in the midnight hour to people with a weak digestion, haunting graveyards and old country mansions, and inspiring romance-writers into the mischief of three-volume novels; but of a well-behaved, steady, regular, and respectable ghost, going through a prescribed round of duties, punctual to the minute—a Patent Ghost, in fact. This admirable ghost is the offspring of two fathers, of a learned member of the Society of Civil Engineers, Henry Dircks, Esq., and of Professor Pepper, of the Polytechnic. To Mr. Dircks belongs the honour of having invented him, or, as the disciples of Hegel would express it, evolved him from out of the depths of his own consciousness; and Professor Pepper has the merit of having improved him considerably, fitting him for the intercourse of mundane society, and even educating him for the stage. After having bowed to the public at the Polytechnic Institution, he some weeks ago made his _début_ upon the boards of the Britannia Theatre, in a new and highly original drama, entitled, ‘The Widow and Orphans,—Faith, Hope, and Charity,’ in which piece he continues to present himself nightly to crowded audiences with the greatest imaginable success.

“Possibly, all Britons do not know where the Britannia Theatre is situated, and it may not be necessary, therefore, to state that it has its place in the metropolitan suburb of Hoxton, inhabited chiefly by toy-makers and doll-dressers, and marked under the letter =N= by the Postmaster-General. Sceptics may smile at the idea of a Patent Ghost making his first appearance in a neighbourhood so little fashionable, and so far removed from the residence of Master Home, commander-in-chief of spirits and mediums, and solicitor-general of demons, ghosts, and shadows of the universe. It is no mere accident; for it appears that there are good spiritual reasons why the ghost should have come out at Hoxton and nowhere else. Here, in this toy-making quarter, there lived, about a hundred years ago, a worthy citizen and officer of the Lord Mayor, Mr. Francis Bancroft, who was haunted all his life long with the one great idea that his body was predestined to arise visibly from the dead, and to wander over British earth in the shape of a tangible ghost. So deeply impressed was he with this belief that, while walking in the flesh, his chief object was to take measures towards insuring his safe and speedy resurrection. With considerable faith in the celebrated maxim of Luther’s active Roman antagonist, indulgence-selling Monk Tetzel:

‘_Sobald das Geld im Kasten klingt Die Seel’ aus dem Fegfeuer springt_’

(As soon as the money rattles in the boxes, The soul jumps out of purgatory.)

citizen Bancroft took great care, during his mortal career, to accumulate a respectable amount of cash with the object of forming a bribe for the guardians of his body. Accordingly, in his will he left the sum of twenty-eight thousand pounds for the establishment of schools and almshouses, with this proviso, that his body should be ‘preserved within a shew glass’ in the church.”

During the time I was in Paris, and arranging the ghost for exhibition at the Théâtre du Châtelet under Mons. Hostein, I was surprised to find that the conjuror, Mons. Robin, was showing the ghost at his séances. My lawyers interviewed him, and discovered that, some years before, a little toy had been brought out and patented in France by which a miniature ghost could be shown. It consisted of a box with a small sheet of glass, placed at an angle of forty-five degrees, and it reflected a concealed table, with plastic figures, the spectre of which appeared behind the glass, and which young people who possessed the toy invited their companions to take out of the box, when it melted away, as it were, in their hands and disappeared.

In France at that time all improvements on a patent fell to the original patentee, and under that law I lost the patent in France; but Mons. Hostein honourably paid me a large sum of money for the use of my improved ghost at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris. Query.—Had Mr. Dircks’ patent agent, in his searches after patents, ever come across the toy invented in Paris? Because it is substantially the ghost apparatus and produced that illusion; and thus it shows how correct are the words of Solomon, who has told us “There is nothing new under the sun.”

If the reader will consult a book written by me, entitled “Cyclopædic Science Simplified,” formerly published by Messrs. Frederick Warne and Co., but now bought and published by Messrs. Lippincott, the great American publishers of Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.A., he will find a very near approach to the ghost apparatus copied from Robinson’s “Recreative Memories” published in 1831. The same author describes how the famous magician (so-called) Nostrodamus deceived even the astute and wily Marie de’ Medicis by a vision which appeared in a looking-glass. Moreover, Sir Walter Scott, in his beautiful poem, “The Lay of the Last Minstrel,” has introduced the use of mirrors for producing ghostly appearances, in the vision seen by the ill-fated Earl of Surrey, in the mirror huge and high of Cornelius; the vision being “That fair and lovely form, the Lady Geraldine” (verses 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, canto vi.).

Before travelling about so much I had a trunk full of letters referring to the ghost illusion, many treating it as a supernatural phenomenon, and not an effect from natural causes.

In about four months my secretary wrote at least 1,000 letters in answer to those addressed to me.

I was offered house property in exchange for the right to exhibit the ghost and a full description of the apparatus on attendance at the Polytechnic to see how things were manipulated.

I publish one of the most amusing letters, which has no address or proper signature, but only the initials “R. C.”:—