Spooks Raided. — Detectives Wooldridge and Barry Descend on a West Side Medium’s Place
Lively Fight Before the Officers Succeed in Making Arrests—One of the Number Set Upon and Severely Beaten Before Aided—Spectators at the Seance Take Part and the Row Becomes General—Search of the Premises Reveals a Systematic Plan to Deceive—Anger of the Dupes Turns to Chagrin at the Revelations Made by the Police.
September 2, 1906, Catherine Nichols, Sarah Nichols and Jennie Nichols, 186 Sebor street, fake exponents of materialization of spirits and general “spook” grafters, were arrested, the seances raided and the game closed, by Detectives Wooldridge and Barry.
The scene of the raid was a brick building at 184 Sebor street, which is just east of Halsted and a block south of Harrison street.
The medium arrested was Miss Jennie Nichols, who, with her mother, Mrs. Catherine Nichols, and her sister, Sarah, had been gleaning a harvest of dollars from guillible residents, mostly of the West Side of the city, during the last two years. The establishment of the Nichols family occupies parts of two buildings, the mother and her two daughters living at 186 Sebor street, next door to 184. On the second floor of the latter address was located the hall which they used for their public seances.
Plans Are Well Laid
The raid was made on the authority of a warrant which was applied for by Miss Muriel Miller, a young woman who was induced by the blandishments of other mediums to come to Chicago from her home in Portland, Ore. Miss Miller, who is employed in a barber shop in Clark street, is slightly deaf. She became interested in Spiritualism, and thus came in touch with the Nichols’ outfit.
She had written to another Chicago medium, and received letters in answer signed “Professor Venazo.”
It was explained to Miss Miller that the wonderful cures which the medium professed to be able to make were brought about while the patient was in a trance. In a letter which had been turned over to the police, “Professor Venazo,” which is the name with which an accomplice of certain Chicago mediums signed such communications, explained that because of stress of business it would be impossible to undertake to cure Miss Miller of her deafness unless she was prepared to put up at least $50 in cash.
The letter stated that if she would send to “Professor Venazo” $100 the medium would undertake to go to her home and cure her there. If she did not wish to pay that much money she could come to Chicago, pay the medium $50, and be cured “while in a trance.”
Detectives Barry and David Carroll were detailed to assist Wooldridge in serving the warrants and making the raid.
Detectives Attend Service
Barry and Carroll planned to effect an entrance to the “seance.” Inspector Revere was informed and asked to give a detail of six officers, who, headed by Detective Wooldridge, went to the hall on Sebor street. Barry and Carroll had preceded them and succeeded in convincing Jennie Nichols, who was the master of ceremonies, that they were interested in spiritualism and desired to witness the materializations.
When they went to the hall, Detective Barry walked in and found twenty-eight or thirty others there before him. Jennie Nichols was busy arranging the spectators in seats. She took a great deal of care about placing them. Carroll and Barry entered and signed their names on the register. This was a book in which everyone who is admitted to a seance is requested to place his name and place of residence. Barry signed as “John Woods”; address, 142 Ashland boulevard.
Calling Up the Spirits
When the seance opened Jennie Nichols conducted those who were in the hall through the main room and the one at the rear, before which the curtain was placed. Everything was all right, so far as Detectives Barry and Carroll could see. The cabinet from which the spirits were to come stood across one corner, and opposite it was a door leading into one of the two rooms in the rear of the hall.
They examined the cabinet and the rooms carefully, but found everything all right. After they had been through everything the doors were locked and they returned to their seats, Miss Nichols making some other changes in the arrangements of the seats, and then the place was darkened.
When the place had been made almost entirely dark, Jennie Nichols, the medium, began pacing back and forth in front of the curtain. She rubbed her hands over her head and eyes a number of times, and began to chant: “Come, O queen, O queen.”
When she began to call on the “queen” the spectators began to get excited. Most of them appeared to be thoroughly familiar with the proceedings, and several of them said: “Oh, I hope it’s the king.”
Then the medium pulled a cord which was attached to a light enclosed in a sheet-iron case, the one small opening of which was covered with several thicknesses of green tissue paper. When she pulled the string the room became darker than ever.
Spirits Begin to Move
Before she began her incantations the medium had requested everyone present not to cross their feet, and to try to assist her to bring the spirits before them. She said that it would probably not be possible to bring a spirit for everybody, but that if all helped her, the spirits wanted by many in the audience would surely appear.
Then she asked them all to sing “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” which they did, and after a few more passes over her temples and in front of her eyes the spirit began to move. The detectives could see it, and they began to think they had been wrong in thinking there was nothing in spiritualism. It certainly appeared real. First one form would glide back and forth in front of the curtain, then an entirely different one would appear. Altogether there were spirits of about ten men and children materialized.
As the apparitions moved slowly in front of the curtain, in the spectral light which made it impossible to detect more than a faint outline of the form, women rushed forward crying out that it was their husband, or their child, that they saw. They stretched out their hands to clasp the forms of their departed, but Jennie Nichols and her male assistant would take them by their hands and tell them they must not touch the spirit or it would fade away. You could get within six inches of the figures, and peer into the faces as they passed to and fro, but everyone was restrained from attempting to touch them. In the ghostly light of the room the closest inspection could not determine that the figures were frauds, so clever were they disguised.
Keys Up the Spectators
While the detectives were waiting for the materialization, a woman they knew entered the room. Barry put his handkerchief up to his face for fear she would recognize him. They wanted to know what was the matter with him, and Barry said that he guessed he had something in his eye. They wanted to take it out, and he had to put his handkerchief away. He thought he was discovered, but the woman, Mrs. Ella Hoobler, 319 West Madison street, said nothing about him. After they had arrested the Nichols woman, Mrs. Hoobler told Barry she had recognized him when she first entered the room, but she thought he was “bug” in the game, and said nothing.
After about ten materializations of husbands and children had keyed the spectators up to a high pitch, Mrs. Hoobler asked for the spirit of her daughter, Helen. In a few minutes the figure of a young girl, clad in white from head to foot, appeared before the curtain.
“Oh, Helen, my Helen!” Mrs. Hoobler exclaimed, rushing to the apparition. “Oh, mamma!” came the answer in a shrill falsetto voice.
Jennie Nichols and the big assistant seized Mrs. Hoobler’s hands just as she was about to clasp what she believed to be the spirit of her daughter in her arms.
“You must not touch it,” Jennie Nichols told her, “or the spirit will go away.”
The poor, almost frantic woman kneeled before the apparition. Barry thought it was time to get busy, and he whispered softly to Carroll: “Watch out, there’s going to be a pinch.” Then he threw on the flashlight and whistled for the squad outside to come in.
Just as he did this the “spook” in front of him looked so realistic that for the life of him he couldn’t decide whether he was going up against a real spirit or not. But he took a chance and grabbed for it. Even when he had hold of it and knew it must be flesh and blood, it seemed so slimy, with the white stuff rubbed over it, that he felt his hair rising.
Just about that time the medium outfit got busy. The big man who had been helping Jennie Nichols hold the hands of the people who were trying to grab the spirits of their dead hit Barry over the head with some sort of a club that knocked him to the floor. Jennie Nichols put out the light entirely, grabbed Barry’s flashlight and began pounding him over the head with it. They went to the floor in a rough and tumble scrimmage, the crowd on top of them, yelling and screaming.
In the next room Carroll was busy, too. He got hold of Mrs. Catherine Nichols, the mother, who had been helping with the show, and he was beset by spectators who were incensed because the seance had been broken up.
Wooldridge Takes a Hand
When Detective Wooldridge and his detail broke down the doors of the hall and made their entrance into the place it was pitch dark, and they had to strike matches before they could separate the combatants.
After a semblance of order had been restored in the place the premises were searched, and a most astounding outfit of disguises discovered. Before this development the spectators, who had been held in the place, were very angry with the officers, saying that they had been attending the seances for the last two years; that they knew Jennie Nichols as a medium had shown them the spirits of their dead. When the officers produced Sarah Nichols, to whom Detective Barry had held when he seized the “spook,” they discovered that she had been wearing a pair of sandal slippers with felt five inches thick for soles; a pair of men’s black trousers and the white shroud and painted picture face of a young girl.
Attached to a pole in front of her was a paper head, around which was a white shroud four feet in length. Those in attendance believed this image to be the spirit of a believer’s dead relative. The “medium” had “spook” images of men, women and children, and could produce them as circumstances demanded. The light was turned up, and the contemptible imposition on credulity was exposed to twenty-six dupes, who had been paying $1 apiece for the privilege of attending meetings of the “spook” grafters for years. It was the greatest exposé of “spooks” that has been made in many years. A wagon load of masks, wigs, false whiskers, tin horns, gowns with safety pins in them, skulls and skeletons with cross-bones to match, were seized.
Women Refuse to Talk
At the station the women refused to talk. Sarah Nichols, the “spook,” had donned a house dress before she was taken to the station. Jennie Nichols, the “medium,” was dressed in a neat black gown of rich material. The mother appeared in a black skirt and a white shirtwaist. The latter is a gray-haired woman apparently about 50 years old. She wept copiously. Sarah Nichols also wept. In the scrimmage after the arrest her ear had been injured, and it was bleeding when the trio was booked at the station.
Jennie Nichols was the most composed of all. She held a palm leaf fan in front of her face and above it twinkled a pair of shrewd blue eyes. As she and her relatives were led from the private room at Harrison street she even laughed, although her mother and her sister were in tears, and her victims were denouncing her for having robbed them, through their credulity, of hundreds of dollars, which many of them could ill afford to lose.
Wooldridge Makes Ghost Walk in Police Court
A “spook” sat on the bench with Justice Prindiville. He made ghosts walk and graveyards yawn.
The “spook” was Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge.
When Miss Sarah Nichols, “the ghost,” Miss Jennie Nichols, “the trance medium,” and Mrs. Catherine Nichols, mother of the other two known as the “overseer,” appeared in court to answer to charges of obtaining money by false pretenses through spiritualistic seances, Detective Wooldridge crowded to the center of the stage.
He bore a great board, on which were tacked white shrouds, grinning skulls and cross-bones, the costume of an Indian, and other instruments of the medium’s trade.
“For the benefit of the public at large,” he said, addressing the court, “I ask permission to expose the methods of these fake spiritualists.”
The permission was given, and “Spook” Wooldridge took the wool sack.
“Spook” Wooldridge Demonstrates
He lit the punk with which the mediums were wont to light up the skull. He burned incense. He put on a white gown.
“This is Carrie’s garment,” he said, pointing to where “Ghost” Carrie, twenty-four years old and buxom, stood.
He went through the whole performance, save the grease paint. He started to daub his face with the stuff, which gave a ghostly hue, when the justice interrupted:
“You needn’t dirty your face, Friend Spook. You’ve scored your points already.” The “Spook” had, indeed.
Despite the exposures, many women and a few men who had come to hear the cases, expressed their devotion to the persons arrested and to the “cause.”
They finally became so demonstrative that Justice Prindiville ordered the court room cleared of the “devotees.”
“This is not a matinee, a spiritualists’ meeting or a circus,” said the Justice. “Let the devotees meet in the outer hall.”
Fifty women, of all ages and many conditions of life, stood with mouths wide open and eyes bulging as Wooldridge went through his performance. They were the victims of the Nichols women.
Jennie Nichols and Sarah Nichols were fined $100 each.
Arrest South Side Mediums
To conclude the record of the day, Detectives Wooldridge and Barry, accompanied by two officers from the Cottage Grove station, visited a seance given by Clarence A. Beverly and Mrs. M. Dixon at Arlington hall, Thirty-first street and Indiana avenue. The officers bought tickets and awaited the performance. After a lecture on psychic problems by “Dr.” Beverly and a programme of music rendered by children, “Dr.” Dixon took the rostrum and went through a series of clairvoyant discoveries.
Among the things which she professed to predict while in her “trance” was a prognostication which had not a little to do with the developments of the evening. After she had pointed out a number of persons in the audience and told what they had done or should do, she discovered Wooldridge and singled him out.
“I see a man with glasses who has his hands crossed over his knees,” she said. “I am governed by the spirit of John Googan, an Irishman. He gives you a message,” pointing to Wooldridge, “and says that whatever John orders must be done.”
At this Wooldridge, arising from his seat, advanced to the rostrum.
Officer Serves Papers
“John Collins, chief of police, says, Mrs. Dixon, that I am to put you under arrest under a state warrant charging you with receiving money by a confidence game. I also have a warrant charging the same offense against Clarence A. Beverly. Dr. Beverly, please come forth.”
Dr. Beverly presented himself, and both he and Mrs. Dixon were taken to Harrison street, where strenuous efforts on their behalf on the part of “Dr.” Harry H. Tobias, spiritual mental healer, with offices at 118 East Thirty-third street, and others, failed to procure them bonds.
The arrest of Beverly and Mrs. Dixon was made on a warrant signed by Miss Miller, who had entered into correspondence with them from her home in Portland, Ore. The fee in Chicago was to have been $50, according to the letters she received from the mediums, as in the preceding instance. She borrowed money to come to Chicago, and had but $25 to pay the “healers.” When she received no benefit from their treatment she made complaint and was threatened with violence, she alleges. Thereupon she laid her case before Chief Collins, resulting in the raid and the closing up of this place.
Thus did the sleuth a-sleuthing vanquish the ubiquitous “spook,” the “ghost,” the “spirit,” the re-incarnation, the Mahatma, the “sending,” and all the hosts of the immaterial world, whose immaterialism was being converted into good hard material cash by the producers of the evanescent shapes from beyond the veil.
Thus did Clifton R. Wooldridge and his able assistants make “spooking” a dangerous business in Chicago.