Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery

Subjects:

Light, Exhibitions, Spiritualism, Charlatanry, Imposture, Controversy

    Believing the Athenaeum to be aping the critical style of the Saturday Review, notes the former periodical's claim that J Manning's 'optical ghosts' will 'beat the conjurors' and drive away mediums such as Daniel D Home and Charles H Foster. Punch questions this argument because it presumes that séance phenomena 'are really visible'.