Ɛpsilon

To G. J. Romanes   21 September [1878]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

Sept 21st

My dear Romanes.

If you do not take in the Spiritualist, order the copy published last Thursday.— It contains a splendid exposure of your friend (is this not unkind?) Williams.— H. Wedgwood brought it here: he admits that Williams is proved a rogue, but declares that he is a medium, & that he (H. Wedgwood) has himself seen John King, notwithstanding the old beard & old dirty ghost-clothes! Is this not a psychological curiosity?2

Ever yours | C. Darwin

1
The year is established by the reference to the exposure of the medium Charles E. Williams as a fraud in the Spiritualist newspaper (see n. 2, below).
2
A letter in the Spiritualist, Friday 20 September 1878, p. 133, described the finding of false beards, muslin, ribbons, phosphoric acid, and an instrument for writing on sealed slates on the persons of Williams and another medium, Mr A. Rita, at a séance in Amsterdam. For Hensleigh Wedgwood’s interest in spiritualism, see Correspondence vol. 23, letter to G. H. Darwin, 2 [April 1875] and n. 2. John King was Williams’s spirit guide. For Romanes’s interest, see E. D. Romanes 1896, pp. 48–9, and Correspondence vol. 24, letter from G. J. Romanes, [after 23 September 1876]. See also Oppenheim 1985, pp. 281–2.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11699,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11699