The Humbugs of the World


Contents
Publisher’s Note
Introduction
I. Personal Reminiscences.
Chapter I. General View of the Subject.—Humbug Universal.—In Religion.—In Politics.—In Business.—In Science.—In Medicine.—How Is It to Cease.—The Greatest Humbug of All.
Chapter II. Definition of the Word Humbug.—Warren of London.—Genin, the Hatter.—Gosling’s Blacking.
Chapter III. Monsieur Mangin, the French Humbug.
Chapter IV. Old Grizzly Adams.
Chapter V. The Golden Pigeons.—Grizzly Adams.—German Chemist.—Happy Family.—French Naturalist.
Chapter VI. The Whale, The Angel Fish, and The Golden Pigeon.
Chapter VII. Pease’s Horehound Candy.—The Door Rebellion.—The Philadelphia Aldermen.
Chapter VIII. Brandreth’s Pills.—Magnificent Advertising.—Power of Imagination.
II. The Spiritualists.
Chapter IX. The Davenport Brothers, Their Rise And Progress.—Spiritual Rope-Tying.—Music Playing.—Cabinet Secrets.—“They Choose Darkness Rather Than Light,” Etc.—The Spiritual Hand.—How the Thing Is Done.—Dr. W. F. Van Vleck.
Chapter X. The Spirit-Rapping and Medium Humbugs.—Their Origin.—How The Thing Is Done.—$500 Reward.
Chapter XI. The “Ballot-Test.”—The Old Gentleman and His “Diseased” Relatives.—A “Hungry Spirit.”—“Palming” A Ballot.—Revelations on Strips of Paper.
Chapter XII. Spiritual “Letters on the Arm.”—How to Make Them Yourself.—The Tambourine and Ring Feats.—Dexter’s Dancing Hats.—Phosphorescent Oil.—Some Spiritual Slang.
Chapter XIII. Demonstrations by “Sampson” Under a Table.—A Medium Who Is Handy with Her Feet.—Exposé of Another Operator in Dark Circles.
Chapter XIV. Spiritual Photographing.—Colorado Jewett and the Spirit-Photographs of General Jackson, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Stephen A. Douglas, Napoleon Bonaparte, Etc.—A Lady Of Distinction Seeks and Finds a Spiritual Photograph of Her Deceased Infant, and Her Dead Brother Who Was Yet Alive.—How It Was Done.
Chapter XV. Banner of Light.—Messages from the Dead.—Spiritual Civilities.—Spirit “Hollering.”—Hans von Vleet, The Female Dutchman.—Mrs. Conant’s “Circles.”—Paine’s Table-Tipping Humbug Exposed.
Chapter XVI. Spiritualist Humbugs Waking Up.—Foster Heard From.—S. B. Brittan Heard From.—The Boston Artists and Their Spiritual Portraits.—The Washington Medium and His Spiritual Hands.—The Davenport Brothers and the Sea-Captain’s Wheat-Flour.—The Davenport Brothers Roughly Shown Up by John Bull.—How a Shingle “Stumped” the Spirits.
Chapter XVII. The Davenport Brothers Shown Up Once More.—Dr. Newton at Chicago.—The Spiritualist Bogus Baby.—A Lady Brings Forth a Motive Force.—“Gum” Arabic.—Spiritualist Hebrew.—The Allen Boy.—Dr. Randall.—Portland Evening Courier.—The Fools Not All Dead Yet.
III. Trade and Business Impositions.
Chapter XVIII. Adulterations of Food.—Adulterations of Liquor.—The Colonel’s Whiskey.—The Humbugometer.
Chapter XIX. Adulterations in Drinks.—Riding Home on Your Wine-Barrel.—List of Things to Make Rum.—Things to Color It With.—Canal-Boat Hash.—English Adulteration Law.—Effects of Drugs Used.—How To Use Them.—Buying Liquors Under the Custom-House Lock.—A Homœopathic Dose.
Chapter XX. The Peter Funks and Their Functions.—The Rural Divine and the Watch.—Rise and Progress of Mock Auctions.—Their Decline and Fall.
Chapter XXI. Lottery Sharks.—Boult and His Brothers.—Kenneth, Kimball and Company.—A More Central Location Wanted for Business.—Two Seventeenth-Lies.—Strange Coincidence.
Chapter XXII. Another Lottery Humbug.—Two Hundred and Fifty Recipes.—Vile Books.—“Advantage-Cards.”—A Package for You; Please Send the Money.—Peddling in Western New York.
Chapter XXIII. A California Coal Mine.—A Hartford Coal Mine.—Mysterious Subterranean Canal on the Isthmus.
IV. Money Manias.
Chapter XXIV. The Petroleum Humbug.—The New York and Rangoon Petroleum Company.
Chapter XXV. The Tulipomania.
Chapter XXVI. John Bull’s Great Money Humbug.—The South Sea Bubble in 1720.
Chapter XXVII. Business Humbugs.—John Law.—The Mississippi Scheme.—Johnny Crapaud as Greedy as Johnny Bull.
V. Medicine and Quacks.
Chapter XXVIII. Doctors and Imagination.—Firing A Joke out of a Cannon.—The Paris Eye Water.—Majendie on Medical Knowledge.—Old Sands of Life.
Chapter XXIX. The Consumptive Remedy.—E. Andrews, M. D.—Born Without Birthrights.—Hasheesh Candy.—Roback the Great.—A Conjurer Opposed to Lying.
Chapter XXX. Monsignore Cristoforo Rischio; Or, il Créso, The Nostrum-Vendor of Florence.—A Model for Our Quack Doctors.
VI. Hoaxes.
Chapter XXXI. The Twenty-Seventh Street Ghost.—Spirits on the Rampage.
Chapter XXXII. The Moon-Hoax.
Chapter XXXIII. The Miscegenation Hoax.—A Great Literary Sell.—Political Humbugging.—Tricks of the Wire-Pullers.—Machinery Employed to Render the Pamphlet Notorious.—Who Were Sold and How It Was Done.
VII. Ghosts and Witchcrafts.
Chapter XXXIV. Haunted Houses.—A Night Spent Alone with a Ghost.—Kirby, the Actor.—Colt’s Pistols Versus Hobgoblins.—The Mystery Explained.
Chapter XXXV. Haunted Houses.—Ghosts.—Ghouls.—Phantoms.—Vampires.—Conjurors.—Divining.—Goblins.—Fortune-Telling.—Magic.—Witches.—Sorcery.—Obi.—Dreams.—Signs.—Spiritual Mediums.—False Prophets.—Demonology.—Deviltry Generally.
Chapter XXXVI. Magical Humbugs.—Virgil.—A Pickled Sorcerer.—Cornelius Agrippa.—His Students and His Black Dog.—Doctor Faustus.—Humbugging Horse-Jockeys.—Ziito and His Large Swallow.—Salamanca.—Devil Take the Hindmost.
Chapter XXXVII. Witchcraft.—New York Witches.—The Witch Mania.—How Fast They Burned Them.—The Mode of Trial.—Witches To-Day in Europe.
Chapter XXXVIII. Charms and Incantations.—How Cato Cured Sprains.—The Secret Name of God.—Secret Names of Cities.—Abracadabra.—Cures for Cramp.—Mr. Wright’s Sigil.—Whiskerifusticus.—Witches’ Horses.—Their Curses.—How to Raise the Devil.
VIII. Adventurers.
Chapter XXXIX. The Princess Cariboo; Or, The Queen Of The Isles.
Chapter XL. Count Cagliostro, Alias Joseph Balsamo, Known Also as “Cursed Joe.”
Chapter XLI. The Diamond Necklace.
Chapter XLII. The Count de St. Germain, Sage, Prophet, and Magician.
Chapter XLIII. Riza Bey, the Persian Envoy to Louis XIV.
IX. Religious Humbugs.
Chapter XLIV. Diamond Cut Diamond; Or, Yankee Superstitions.—Matthias the Impostor.—New York Follies Thirty Years Ago.
Chapter XLV. A Religious Humbug on John Bull.—Joanna Southcott.—The Second Shiloh.
Chapter XLVI. The First Humbug in the World.—Advantages of Studying the Impositions of Former Ages.—Heathen Humbugs.—The Ancient Mysteries.—The Cabiri.—Eleusis.—Isis.
Chapter XLVII. Heathen Humbugs No. 2—Heathen Stated Services.—Oracles.—Sibyls.—Auguries.
Chapter XLVIII. Modern Heathen Humbugs.—Fetishism.—Obi.—Vaudoux.—Indian Powwows.—Lamaism.—Revolving Prayers.—Praying to Death.
Chapter XLIX. Ordeals.—Duels.—Wager of Battle.—Abraham Thornton.—Red Hot Iron.—Boiling Water.—Swimming.—Swearing.—Corsned.—Pagan Ordeals.
Chapter L. Apollonius of Tyana.