It's a Good Thing He Didn't Read Oscar's Thoughts

Mr. Wilde! There are ladies here!

When I stumbled on Washington Irving Bishop, the nineteenth-century mind reader who came to such a sorry end, I found myself wondering if he had ever crossed paths with Oscar Wilde. Bishop had spent some in London at a time when Wilde was one of its notable inhabitants. Still, even in that time, it was a big city.

They met in early June, 1881. It was reported in the Salt Lake Herald of June 7, 1881. If I understand the dateline properly, it might be that they met on June 4. Articles on the same page start with "New York, 6" and "Rockland Me., 5," so I conclude that "London, 4" means "London, June 4." No number is larger than 6; some articles on other pages explicitly say they occurred in late May.

Wilde is counted among the "well-known persons" who attended Bishop's private performance; not bad for someone whose accomplishments consist of a volume of poems. His tour of the United States and everything you might know Wilde for was yet to come.

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Washington Irving Bishop: Proving Mediums Frauds

Exposing frauds,
before becoming one
himself

It's Washington Irving Bishop Day here at Imp of the Diverse, and it even isn't his birthday (March 4, 1856, if you're curious or wish to celebrate it next year). I just keep stumbling across him when looking for other things. He's clearly one of those people who were famous in a certain period, but whose fame did not endure. Certainly, if we were reading a letter from the 1890s, and someone mentioned Oscar Wilde, we need no footnote. Washington Irving Bishop; better not assume your readers have heard of them. (Unless they read this blog.)

I have only begun my research on Bishop, and I'm finding much beyond the very brief biography of him in Wikipedia. He seems to be a neglected nineteenth-century figure, with an odd career path followed by the odd and tragic end, collapsing on the stage as he was doing his mind-reading act (which he claimed was not a trick), and the subsequent inquest over the autopsy.

Before Mr. Bishop was a mind reader, he had an interesting profession, that of exposing mediums as frauds, at a time when Harry Houdini was a two-year-old in Hungary. On May 23, 1876, Mr. Bishop made a demonstration of tricks used by spiritualists. The Milan Exchange picked up the New York Post story on June 1, 1876.

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Even the Miraculous Needs a Press Agent

The sort of picture I'd remember
if you had seen it.

Rod Dreher today linked to a piece by Julie Lyons on a pair of Texas exorcists. These aren't the first exorcisms Ms. Lyons has seen, having also attended exorcisms "while on Christian church missions in Nigeria and Botswana."She says of Ruth, the Pollard's client in Texas that,

Either she is an Academy Award-winning horror-film actress, with Ferrari-smooth shifts of body and voice, or she is encountering something in a subconscious realm. At one point, she speaks the name of a demon in a distinctly foreign voice: “Ba-al.” Later, in casual conversation, the pronunciation comes out differently: “Bail,” with a bit of a twang—the name of a Canaanite god mentioned numerous times in the Bible.

And of her earlier experiences, she says,

Through travels with church groups to Nigeria and Botswana, I’ve also seen phenomena I cannot attribute to natural means. I watched a boy of 10 or so who fell to the floor and began speaking in a guttural, grown man’s voice. Although I was among ordinary Nigerians who converse in broken, heavily accented English, the boy orated with precise British diction. At another time in the same place, a woman rolled and flailed with such force that she sent plastic chairs scattering.

There is possibly a huge gulf between phenomena that Ms. Lyon cannot attribute to natural means and phenomena that cannot be attributed to natural means. I don't suppose Ms. Lyon has video of the boy speaking "with precise British diction."

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If You're Not Dead, It's Not Really an Autopsy

The coroners were
certain he was dead at
the end of the autopsy

Washington Irving Bishop was a nineteenth-century mind reader, now largely forgotten, who came to a sorry end. He was performing in New York in May, 1889, when he collapsed on stage. An autopsy was performed to determine the cause of death, but that was followed by an inquest as to whether Mr. Bishop was dead before the autopsy started or just comatose. The New-York Tribune reported on this on May 29, 1889.

At the inquest, things got off to a less than encouraging start.

Deputy-Coroner Jenkins was the first witness called. He testified that on examining the body he found that portions of the brain had been removed for microscopical examination. From the condition of the body at the time he saw it he could not say whether death had taken place before the autopsy was made by Drs. Ferguson and Irwin.

Dr. Jenkins later "declined to express any positive opinion as to whether Bishop was dead when the autopsy was performed." Oh dear.

Dr. Irwin, one of the coroners who actually performed the autopsy,

described the death, and ascribed its cause to coma, and placed the actual time of death as shortly after midnight.

We can only hope that they waited until morning to begin their work. Dr. Irwin said that "the body had been on ice for some time before he saw it," which would have been before the autopsy, though Dr. Irwin would only go so far as to say that "he believed Bishop was dead before the autopsy was made." After, there was probably no doubt, what with them removing a chunk of his brain.

Another medical expert, Dr. Fitch, "testified as to the several methods of detecting death." We can presume that not objecting to an autopsy would be one of them, though the article does not specify what any of these are, or if they were actually used on Mr. Bishop.

After the doctors testified, Mr. Bishop's wife was supposed to as well, but was described as "too ill to testify," so the inquest adjourned until the morning of May 29.

Although here I'm writing about Mr. Bishop at his death, I think I'll be returning to him soon.

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