Look into my Crystal Ball…
This week's Times Past column by historan Jonathan Smyth looks at a touring medium whose show in Cavan town raised a few questions in 1886...
The mysterious Mr Alfred Gordon reminds me of a cross between Fagan from Oliver Twist and that stranger in the riddle who came to town on Friday, stayed three days but departed the following Wednesday.
Like the puzzle, the enigmatic Gordon had the country confused. His arrival and departure in each town left a trail of perplexity. The so-called ‘exposer’ of spiritualism and thought reading put on shows that most people never had witnessed before. His reputational credentials added flair to his act, having once performed to an audience in both houses of the American State Senate.
Spiritualism and seances were very popular from the 1840s to the 1920s and included followers like Arthur Conan Doyle, author of Sherlock Holmes; Thomas Edison, inventor of the phonograph; Queen Victoria, who relied on a medium to seek her dead husband’s advice on political matters; and Mary Lincoln, who wished to speak with her late husband Abraham Lincoln. Alfred Gordon’s evening raised a few questions in the Cavan Weekly News by a curious member of the hall committee in Cavan Town. But was it all chicanery?
Unuttered thoughts
The very thought of a nineteenth century clairvoyant with powers must have unnerved the curious who crammed country halls. Each show was prepared meticulously, for example an advertisement for a show in Tralee, printed in the Kerry Weekly Reporter on December 5, 1885, stated that the show was to take place in Tralee’s concert hall and the room was to be fully furnished for the paying public. Gordon was promoted as the ‘famous’ English ‘thought reader’ and ‘exposer’ extraordinaire of ‘spirit mysteries’ whose marvellous ability to read unuttered thoughts was to be demonstrated.
It was said that large crowds often turned up and hundreds had to be turned away from sold-out venues. The Kerry paper gave further endorsement to the mind-reader, telling locals his ‘seances’ had achieved the highest success ever gained by any entertainer during the last quarter century. Slogans used to publicise his show boasted: Science for the Scientists! Mystery for the Mystics! And Unbounded Amusement for Everybody! Admission to see Gordon’s ‘wondrous gifts’ was charged at 3 shillings, 2 shillings and 1 shilling per ticket.
Cavan speculation
Of all the places visited by the English entertainer, it was in Cavan Town that practical rationalisation came to the fore in a letter to the Cavan Weekly News following the great Gordon’s Monday night show on February 8, 1886. On the following Friday, a letter sent to the Weekly News editor from a member of the platform committee at the hall where the entertainment happened was published. Although the hall is not named, it is likely that Alfred Gordon’s was in the Protestant Hall where in subsequent years great entertainers like Percy French and his Kinnypottle Players tread the boards.
The author of the letter ‘by way of critique’ made comment on Mr Gordon’s seance, the parts whereby aid of a medium he found ‘a pin’ and his ‘murder test’. Gordon’s bizarre ability, said by him to be a gift or a faculty, could be no more than his ‘concealing our ignorance under the cloak of a technical term’ wrote the committee member. The canny person informed the editor: ‘Scientists seeking for a deeper reason have suggested that the performer, in doing such acts, derives instruction from tactile impressions, imparted unconsciously by the person serving as medium… besides my own experience in acting the part of medium, lead me to believe that it is almost impossible to avoid giving these hints.’
Writing on a slate, banjo playing, the hammer and bell-ringing and other acts, while Gordon was physically tied up, could not be explained. In conclusion, the letter finishes: ‘In giving credit for these performances we should, however, always bear in mind that there is a good deal of conjuring and sleight of hand mixed up with professional thought-reading.’
Carlow fraud
Gordon’s conjuring skills were not so much of concern in Carlow as his forgetful approach to unpaid bills. After putting on a superb show in Carlow town in March 1886, the mind-reader skedaddled, leaving the local newspaper defrauded of money owed for printing and advertising. He was challenged about it at the railway station to which he cheekily responded in ‘his native cockney accent’, that ‘as the Irish had gone in for the no rent manifesto, he did not see why he should not do the same.’
A week later, the Nationalist and Leinster Times coverage of the Carlow petty sessions announced Gordon had received a summons from P.J. Conlan for £1 18s, advertising and printing costs. The great mind-reader was a ‘no show’ and the bench pointed out three technical defects in the summons, which omitted what printing work had been done. The crafty Alfred Gordon had already left the country. Conlan just wanted to expose the fraud perpetrated against his newspaper by a crook.
Conclusion
Even with the best intentions to unravel Gordon’s methods, this particular mind-reader remains a mystery. A publication in 1885 titled ‘Light’, volume 5, recalled the visit of ‘a Mr Alfred Gordon’ to the Isle of Man, of whom a Mr Lockerby wrote about in The Isle of Man Times, as a medium of a low order whose ‘similarly conditioned’ spirits aid him in his tricks.
Ironically, Gordon wrote a long letter to denounce spiritualism as a ‘gross impostor’ and that he felt a need to expose the truth. The Light called out Gordon’s motive for the letter, labelling it a ploy to avail the performer an opportunity of promoting his own seance shows.
Before I forget, if you haven’t solved that riddle about the stranger’s stay in town, the answer is in his mode of transport: Friday, the horse.
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