John Henry Pepper

“ 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 [Pg 23] a prescribed round of duties, punctual to the minute—a Patent Ghost, in fact. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I am ready to wager from £5 to £50 with any one who chooses to accept my challenge that the phenomenon shall take place, and that no one present shall be able to detect any sort of trickery or jugglery in the matter. It is to be clearly understood that mere opinions that the thing is done by natural agency are to go for nothing. The natural agency must be proved. On the other hand I defy any one to produce the same phenomenon by natural agency without my being able to detect that agency. ”

“ An affidavit has been put in by the Plaintiffs, sworn to by a person calling himself a ‘nigger minstrel.’ He is elsewhere denominated an ‘Ethiopian Serenader,’ who had seen the Defendant’s ghost shown years ago—a very respectable man, no doubt, in his vocation; but to put the evidence of such a person against the affidavits of Michael Faraday, Sir David Brewster, and Professor Wheatstone, is a manifest absurdity. I, therefore, rule that the Great Seal of England be at once attached to the Defendant’s patent, and that the Plaintiffs do pay the costs. ”

“ Whereas the directors and managers of the Polytechnic Institution believe and maintain the phenomenon called ‘spirit-rapping’ to be produced by trickery, jugglery, or some natural agency, and to be an imposture, I, the undersigned, on the contrary maintain that there is some non-human agent which moves the tables, chairs, etc., and carries on an intelligent conversation with spectators by knocking, or tilting, or other signs. ”

“ He said: “Great stress had been laid on the impossibility of patenting a mere intangible nothing, viz., a ghost; but as he understood, the Defendant did not patent the shadowy result called the Ghost, but an apparatus for ‘Exhibiting Dramatic and other Performances,’ and without this apparatus no ghost could be rendered visible to an audience.” His lordship then continued: “I will now hear you on the novelty of the proposed invention, which your affidavits declare is not new, but an imitation of something already exhibited.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ The phantom actor, when standing on the stage b, leans against the screen k, which is inclined so as to be parallel with the glass screen, and is covered with black velvet or other dark material, as is also the stage b, in order that no image of either the screen k or the stage b may be seen in the reflection. f (the glass screen) is a large sheet of plate glass on the ordinary stage, of sufficient size to reflect the full length of the actors or objects on the hidden stage to the audience in the pit, boxes, and galleries of the theatre. The hidden stage is between the glass and the audience. ”

“ The object of our said Invention is by a peculiar arrangement of apparatus to associate on the same stage a phantom or phantoms with a living actor or actors, so that the two may act in concert, but which is only an optical illusion as respects the one or more phantoms so introduced. ”

“ If any one is so unwise as to be willing to pay £100 in the event of the phenomenon taking place in his presence, and of his being unable to detect any imposture, I undertake that the ‘medium’ shall exhibit in any private room, in any home, and with any furniture (provided it be not too heavy) , and that the said medium shall submit to be searched both before and after the exhibition.
“Nothing is easier than to lift a table by means of a concealed apparatus. The knocking also may be produced by means of muscular motion or otherwise. ”

“ The proper angle of inclination of the glass is ascertained experimentally by having persons in the different parts of the house to say when the image is shewn to them correctly. The scenery is so disposed as to conceal the frame of the glass, and we prefer that the glass should be able to descend into an opening or box g beneath the stage, in which case we counterbalance the glass and frame so that they may easily be raised into the position desired by means of a rope h, by which, aided by the bolts i, the glass is supported in the required position. ”

“ Before the illusion can please the eyes, the proper apparatus for producing it must be constructed; and the key to the result consists in the use, not of clear plate glass employed in the ghost illusion, but of engraved silvered glass.
Ordinary looking-glass, such as is used for common mirrors or looking-glasses, is usually made by attaching an amalgam of tin-foil and quicksilver to one side of a clean sheet of plate or other glass.
Glass prepared in this way cannot be successfully engraved, and when the chisel or other tool is drawn with pressure across it, is liable to chip ”

“ The lanterns are to be provided with means for instantaneously extinguishing or masking the light, and for reproducing it so that the phantom may be made to disappear and reappear at pleasure, whilst the audience and the ordinary stage will be more or less lighted in the ordinary manner according to the effects desired to be obtained. ”

“ 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. [Pg 25] 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.” ”

“ The author thought the time had now arrived when a new generation who knew not the ghost might be interested in its revival, and with that idea the authorities at the present Polytechnic concurred, so that by the time these pages are read it is hoped the ghost will be in full career once more, and if the author only receives a tenth part of the great patronage he received in 1863 he will be amply repaid for all his exertions in reproducing the ghost illusion. ”

“ But it will not always speak when it is wanted to speak, and the ‘medium’ has no power over it to make it answer questions. But the fact that it often tells lies and often refuses to tell anything, does not make void the fact that it does also at times answer every question which one can ask it. ”

“ This arrangement will render it less likely that the audience should imagine that there is anything interposed between them and the actors than if the glass plate remained permanently in position during the scene. The hidden or lower stage may be provided with a well or hole up which an actor can rise; he will then appear as a spectre rising out of the visible stage. ”

“ The playbill alluded to a ghost that was to be shown, and counsel again called attention to their plan of the ghost apparatus, which he was instructed to say was the same or very similar to that used by Defendant. The affidavit of some other dramatic professional was also brought forward with several others; but all [Pg 34] things come to an end, and at last the same distinct question rang out: “Have you anything more to urge on this question of novelty?” ”

“ The inimitable George, as his friends delighted to call him, treats with profound contempt the spirit rappers, and all the cheats and fortune-telling mendicants who try to impose on innocent people with their bad conjuring tricks—people who might have got through the world safely ”

“ This spiritualism is doing an immensity of mischief, and ought to be exposed, but it will never be exposed if people shut their eyes to the fact. It will not be the less a fact, and will not the less impose on all who witness it, because there are men and women who predetermine in their own minds that it cannot be true, and refuse to be convinced by either their senses or their understandings. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Being placed in a support or rack against the wall, and quite upright, a chisel—or rather, a series of chisels—are drawn across the surface in straight lines, and perpendicular, by the use of a large T-square. Every time the chisel is drawn with pressure across the varnished back of the glass a portion of the silver is removed, leaving a straight line quite clear or transparent, and, in fact, laying bare the surface of the plate glass. ”

“ In all ages there have been deaf adders whom no music could charm, and there are in these days also many [Pg 27] ‘who having eyes will not see, and who having ears will not hear.’ On what grounds does any one assume as a certainty that such a thing is impossible? ”

“ The author’s friends and the public all know how steadily he has opposed the so-called Spiritual deceptions, which generally are not a half nor a quarter as clever as the tricks of a first-rate conjuror. ”

“ Oranges were changed into pots of marmalade, and given away to the boys, and a chest of tea was converted into a tray carrying a steaming teapot, sugar, milk, cups of tea, and handed by the attendants to the ladies in the reserved seats only—such is the blighting influence of cash, which caused the one-shilling people to be neglected and the eighteenpenny-reserved-seat folks to have their teas. ”

“ Chatterton, also subsequently and after the famous ghost trial before the Lord Chancellor. The Music Halls no longer tried to infringe the patent, but those who required it paid their fees for licences to do so.
The famous ghost trial came on in September at the private residence of the Lord Chancellor Westbury, who very graciously agreed to hear this patent case at once, because his lordship was informed by my solicitor, Mr. Walter Hughes, junr., that if he could not do so the Polytechnic Ghost would most likely be swamped by the multiplicity of imitators, good, bad, or indifferent. ”

“ The glass is adjustable and it is readily adjusted to the proper inclination by having a person in the pit, and another in the gallery, to inform the party who is adjusting the glass when they see the image correctly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But to return to the Christmas of 1862, ever memorable in the annals of the Institute because Mr. Pepper brought out the illusion in quite a different manner from that contemplated by Mr. Dircks, and so improved and simplified the ghost that it could be shown in any lecture hall or theatre, if sufficiently large to contain the necessary apparatus. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Letters Patent to Henry Dircks, of Blackheath, in the County of Kent, Civil Engineer, and John Henry Pepper, of No. 309, Regent Street, in the County of Middlesex, Professor of Chemistry, and Honorary Director of the Polytechnic Institution, for the Invention of “Improvements in Apparatus to be used in the Exhibition of Dramatic and other like Performances.” ”