Ɛpsilon

To ?   28 September 1878

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

Sept. 28th 1878

Private

Sir

I enclose a copy of the “Medium” with an account of the detection of Williams the Spiritualist. I am in hopes that you may think it worth while to publish the exposure of a person who has imposed on the public with such success for so many years—1

Sir. Your obedient servant | Charles Darwin

LS(A)

1
See letter to G. J. Romanes, 21 September [1878]. A letter in the Spiritualist, 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 the mediums Charles E. Williams and Mr A. Rita at a séance in Amsterdam. CD presumably reversed the words ‘Medium’ and ‘Spiritualist’ in his first sentence in error. The Medium and Daybreak, another spiritualist newspaper, ran a story about the affair on 27 September 1878, but they supported Williams and Rita and included statements from the two men claiming that they had been entrapped.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.3 Private] in CD’s hand
2.1 Sir. … Darwin] in CD’s hand

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11711,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11711