The Psychic Dog of Fendalton, the Horrible Severed Hand, and Other Colonial Wonders

Colin McGeorge - 1 May 1990

One of the highlights of the 1989 Conference was an entertaining history of the paranormal and pseudo-science in New Zealand. Part of Dr McGeorge’s talk follows, beginning with his account of an attempt early this century to control quackery by legislative means.

Advertisements for patent medicines, imported and local, with effects ranging from nil or placebo to malign, spattered newspapers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the Quackery Prevention Act, 1908, was a vain effort to chase the worst of them off the market. It would be tedious to make a parade of hyperbolic advertisements for all the compounds of soap, sugar, water, aloes, alcohol, cochineal and tinctures of opium offered to the credulous or desperate. One case will do.

“Viavi” was the invention of Hartland and Herbert Law of the United States. It was compounded, they insisted, only of pure vegetable ingredients and was “the most brilliant achievement of science that modern times have witnessed.” (H. Law and H. Law, Viavi Hygiene for Women, Men and Children, British Viavi Company, London, 1899, pp.33-4.)

A careful reading of their 600 page treatise on Viavi fails to disclose what the brew actually consisted of, but it was Clearly a wonderful remedy. It could be obtained in vaginal and rectal suppositories, as an ointment, a tonic and a liquid for external application, as a laxative and in three different coloured tablets; and it cured almost everything (Law and Law, p.506)

Dr Mason [the Chief Health Officer of New Zealand] thought it utterly worthless. Viavi, he said, “had as much virtue as did the King’s touch for scrofula.”(Appendices to the Journal of the House of Representatives [AJHR], 1907, 1-14, p.13) But Monte Holcroff’s Aunt Annie, who secured the agency for it and opened offices in Christchurch and Wellington, had no doubts. She used it freely herself and called for it to be brought to her as she lay stricken and dying. (M.H. Holcroft, The Way of a Writer, Whatamango Bay, Cape Catley., 1984, pp.9-10. For advertisements for free talks to ladies about Viavi treatment, see The Lyttelton Times [LT], 19-5-1910; LT. 12-10-1907.)

It was hoped that the 1908 legislation against quackery would stamp out a particularly nasty group of “specialists” who preyed on ignorant boys. They offered boys and young men “free copies of valuable books about themselves” i.e., information on sexual matters. At a time when parents were reticent and schools and schoolbooks were mute about sex, these books were very tempting. The quack pamphlets told their ignorant, furtive readers that nocturnal emissions or having one testicle hang lower than the other were serious abnormalities requiring special treatment by mail. This treatment would be spun out as long as possible, and when the dupe finally stopped sending money, usually to Melbourne, he would get a very solemn letter from the “doctor”. It was so dangerous to stop now that the “doctor” would be obliged, in the lad’s own interests, to write to his parents, clergyman, doctor or headmaster unless the sufferer came to his senses and resumed the course of treatment.

After 1899, newspaper proprietors refused to publish the advertisements of the worst of these rogues and in due course the Post Office drew up a blacklist of firms whose mail it would not handle. Most were Australian firms, in Sydney or Melbourne, but the list included the Dr Austin Improved Electric Belt Company of Dunedin and Herr Rassmussen of Wellington. (This dodge is dealt with in C. McGeorge, “Schools and Socialisation in New Zealand 1890-1914, Ph.D. thesis, University of Canterbury, 1985, pp.528-30. The Post Office blacklist is given in Mason’s evidence to the committee on the Quackery Prevention Bill, AJHR, 1907, 1-4, p.10)

The Quackery Prevention Act, 1908 was soon recognised to be ineffective against worthless patent medicines. The essential section read:

2. Every person commits an offence who publishes or causes to be published any statement which is intended by the defendant or any other person to promote the sale of any article as a medicine, preparation or, appliance for the prevention, alleviation or cure of any human ailment or physical defect and which is false in any material particular relating to the ingredients, composition, structure, nature or operation of that article, or to the effects which have followed or may follow the use thereof.

This act quickly proved ineffective. (F.S. Maclean, Challenge for Health: a history of public health in New Zealand, Government Printer, 1964, p.169.) The charge that one had advertised a remedy which did not work could readily be met by producing a respectable person to testify that the preparation or treatment in question had done him or her a power of good.

Section 240 of the Criminal Code Act, 1893, on the other hand, should have given fortune-tellers pause for thought. Unlike the present legislation on this matter, it did not exempt entertainments; and the maximum penalty was severe.

Everyone is liable to one year’s imprisonment with hard labour who pretends to exercise or use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration, or who undertakes to tell fortunes, or pretends from his skill and knowledge in any occult or crafty science to discover where or in what manner any goods or chattels supposed to have been stolen or lost may be found.

Successful prosecutions were, however, rare and the penalties imposed were mild. In 1909 the Auckland police, after vain attempts to secure convictions, had a stroke of good fortune. A woman mislaid or was robbed of a valuable broach and she wrote to “Madame Urania” who offered a mail order service for a shilling. Madame Urania’s reply was as helpful as such things ever are.

The broach appears to be in the possession of a dark, thick-set female who appears to be making a change of some sort in a few days. I do not see that you will recover it, as there appears to be some mystery about the matter or secrecy. I have taken the question as theft. If it should have only been mislaid, it would be found concealed under other things such as papers, books, etc. (LT, 3-9-1909)

What Madame Urania had not foreseen was that the recipient would march into a police station in triumph demanding action in following up this fresh lead in the case. Madame Urania did not get twelve months; she was fined £2 and 14 shillings costs and was unrepentant.

Spiritualism was a newsworthy novelty in New Zealand in the 1870s. Twenty five pamphlets pro and con spiritualism were published between 1870 and 1889 (A.G. Bagnall, ed., New Zealand National Bibliography to the Year 1960, vol 1) and there were numerous public lectures and letters to the daily papers. In Dunedin, the first spiritualistic experiments were made in 1870, and the Mutual Improvement Society sponsored a series of lectures on this subject. (J. Dakin, Contemporary public opinion and the secular provision of the Education Act 1877, New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 21 (2) 1986, pp.189-194.

See also P.J. Lineham, Freethinkers in nineteenth century New Zealand, New Zealand Journal of History, vol 19, no 1, 1985, pp.6I-81.) A Dunedin society for investigating spiritualism was formed in 1872. It included firm believers in spiritualism as well as those who kept an open mind; and Robert Stout, who became in due course Minister of Education, Prime Minister, Chief Justice and Chancellor of the University of New Zealand, was a leading light. (Dakin, 1986) The churches eyed all this askance and a deacon of Knox Church was excommunicated for appearing on the platform at a spiritualist lecture on a Sunday. (Dakin, 1986).

Most published criticism of spiritualism came from outraged Christians rather than sceptics in the modern sense. Consider this brisk exchange of pamphlets:

In 1879, Matthew Green published The Devil’s Sword Blunted: or spiritualism examined and condemned out of the mouths of its own advocates. (G.T. Clarke, Dunedin, 1879.)

In reply Mrs Emma Hardinge Britten fired off Spiritualism Vindicated and Clerical Slanders Refuted: In answer to Mr M.W. Green, Christian Minister of Dunedin. Given in the presence of 1800 people in Garrison Hall, Dunedin… (G.T. Clarke, Dunedin, 1879.)

Green riposted with Mrs Hardinge Britten in the Crucible: Being a lecture delivered by M.W. Green, Christian Minister … in reply to “Spiritualism Vindicated and Clerical Slanders Refuted.” (G.T. Clarke, Dunedin, 1879.)

Counterblasts from orthodox Christians might have limited the spread of spiritualism, but they did not stop it. In 1886, in newly formed Spiritualistic Association in Wellington conducted New Zealand’s first spiritualist funeral, attended. by two representatives of a Palmerston North association; and one of the mediums present went into a trance to deliver the funeral oration. (LT 6-11-86)

In the same year, a Sydenham group made what may have been the first recorded New Zealand attempt by spiritualists to assist the police in their enquiries. In 1885, Arthur Howard went missing, presumed drowned while bathing at Sumner. Howard, it transpired, had recently insured his life for £2,400, the premiums on this sum amounting to more than half of his annual income. The insurance companies were understandably reluctant to settle with his widow.

Two months after Howard disappeared, two brothers called Godfrey found a severed hand on the beach at Taylor’s Mistake and Mrs Howard identified a ring on it as her husband’s. The hand was carefully examined by Christchurch medical men who concluded that it was a woman’s and that the wrist bones showed the marks of a sharp instrument.

The Godfreys and Mrs Howard were arrested for conspiracy to defraud and a little later Howard himself was nabbed in Petone wearing a wig and a dyed moustache. After trials in packed Christchurch courtrooms, the Godfreys and Mrs Howard were acquitted and Howard got two years for attempting to defraud an insurance company.

So, where did the horrible severed hand come from.

Seven bodies were exhumed in the Wairarapa where Howard had been hiding out and one from the Addington cemetery in Christchurch; but none of them had been mutilated. (This account is drawn from The Severed Hand or the Howard Mystery—with portraits of Mr and Mrs Howard, the Messrs Godfrey, and the Mysterious hand [1886] facsimile edn, Capper Press, Christchurch, 1974.)

The Sydenham seance, with four men and two women initially present, was held in August, 1886, four months after the trials. The spirits were coy until the ladies withdrew; then, although they would not give a name, they were very helpful. It was the hand of woman aged 31, buried in the Catholic section of the Lyttelton cemetery on the right hand side of the gateway. She had been married twice and had died in childbirth ten months earlier. One of the spirits present was that of her first husband who volunteered that her second husband was in the North Island, and he was a member of the Salvation Army and a “bad lot”. (LT, 18-8-86.) The police, as far as I know, did not act on this information. There may still be a headstone in that cemetery to match the spirits’ information. Look around. If you find a candidate, charge Berlitz or Playfair plenty.

The results of a number of other seances were recorded in books and pamphlets or posterity’s edification. Theodore King, who was Postmaster in Gore in 1902 (Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory 1902, p.1457) published his Occult Research in 1899 and a much expanded “revised edition” in 1909. (T. King. Occult Research: reincarnation, life on other planets and antiquity unveiled by spirit intelligences, printed by Southland News, Invercargill, 1909)

King’s book is full of interesting news, for example, that there are canals on Mars, retained by sand walls (p.76) and the inhabitants, who are telepaths, operate large vessels propelled by electricity drawn from the atmosphere.

King’s “Southern Cross Circle”, which operated in Gore and, apparently, in Dunedin, had a long list of spirit visitors including Helen of Troy (p.36), Hercules (pp.36-37) and Minnehaha (p.162). Charles Dickens was still at work on the other side and writing “Slum Life in Spirit Land” (p.64). As testimony to Dickens’s creative powers on this side of the veil, Sarah Gamp spoke briefly to the circle (p.115).

Jesus, King and his associates were told, would appear in the United States—in 1976 (p.92) or 1977 (p.41). France, they learnt, would be a monarchy again in about thirty years time (p.56). And the spirits had the occasional commercial tip: “If you care for speculation, go in for petroleum at Gisborne; it is one sea of petroleum” (p.174).

All told, King’s book is a fascinating catalogue of the cuckoo, much of it still in circulation. Inter alia, it discusses or mentions Atlantis, the third eye, healing crystals, visitors from other planets living unknown among us, reincarnation, telepathy, astrology, pyramidology, phrenology and palmistry.

Another useful source is T.J. McBride’s Glimpses into Spirit Life (Christchurch, Whitcombe and Tombs, [1927]) which includes spirit messages received in Christchurch through Mr and Mrs Rienzi Owen of Linwood. There are messages from Bishop Grimes of Christchurch, Lord Northcliffe, William Fergusson Massey, the recently departed Prime Minister of New Zealand, and Tommy Taylor, Mayor of Christchurch and a notable campaigner against alcohol.

The other side is a nice place where the buildings, copies of the best architecture on earth, are made of ectoplasm. There are excellent free concerts where the music produces beautiful colours. There is neither money nor commerce; work consists of giving or listening to lectures on “useful subjects such as sound, light, music, vibrations and magnetism” The spirits can travel to other planets and they take a keen interest in earthly affairs. Massey haunts Parliament and Taylor is still working as enthusiastically as ever for Prohibition—an ardent spirit, one might say.

McBride had been ill, but he was restored by a “Healing Golden Rain” (p.108) and the spirits congratulated him on this. Early in 1926 a spirit commented “He has made a marvellous recovery and will remain on earth quite a while yet.” (p.106). Early in 1927 another spirit was pleased to see him looking so well. McBride, who was in his seventies, died in September, 1927 (LT, 12-9-27).

One of the spirits also commented:

Another thing I notice is that what Spiritualists you have here are not keen enough… I may be wrong, but the people of New Zealand, especially in the South Island, seem very much behind in this work. A good medium to start things is what is wanted. Of course, I know that finance is a big handicap everywhere, and unless the people can afford to pay a good salary to a good medium, they cannot expect to get good results or good mediums. (p.98).

McBride, a Canadian, had been one of the directors of the Massey—Harris company and retired to New Zealand in 1902: Owen was a clerk. (Wise’s New Zealand Post Office Directory 1926, p.1913.)

In 1920, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle beat the drum for spiritualism throughout New Zealand on a lecture tour (Sir A.C. Doyle. The Wanderings of a Spiritualist. Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1921). His published account of his travels provides a useful “who was who” of local spiritualists. In Auckland, for example, he met the Rev Jasper Calder, Mr Pearson (a medium), Mrs Stables (President of the New Zealand Association of Spiritualists), Mr Poynton (a stipendiary magistrate with a longstanding interest in spiritualism) and Clement Wragge who told him that missionaries from Atlantis had been all over the Pacific and left traces everywhere (Doyle, pp.182, 188, 191).

In Christchurch he met, amongst others, Mr Peter Trolove, to whom he gave one of his photographs of fairies. Poynton had told Doyle of a wonderful psychic dog owned by Mrs McGibbon of Christchurch and Doyle duly went to see.the amazing beast. Unfortunately, “Darkie”, a terrier, was old, blind and deaf and Doyle had to rest content with assurances that Darkie could once bark out the answers to sums and operate on numbers that people were only thinking of.

Doyle’s tour was financially rewarding; and he learnt that there were fairies at the bottom of some New Zealand gardens too, evidence he later used in defending his general belief in little folk. Mrs Annie Hardy of Te Kuiti had seen eight or ten little figures, the size of toddlers, ride past on tiny ponies (Press, 30-10-22, Horace Leaf, Under the Southern Cross: a record of a pilgrimage, Cecil Palmer, London, 1923, pp.166-7.) Another unnamed woman had “seen fairies in all parts of New Zealand, but especially in the fern-clad gullies of the North Island.” She was also a medium and used to ask the fairies to help make her plants grow. (Press, 30-10-22.)

A year later, Horace Leaf, armed with information and introductions from Doyle, made very much the same tour to keep the fires of spiritualism in the dominion fed. He too called on Wragge and Poynton and on mediums and officers of spiritualists’ associations. He too went to see Darkie, now seventeen years old, blind, deaf and afflicted with goitre so that Leaf, like Doyle, could not put the wonderful terrier’s powers to the test (Leaf, p.195). In Dunedin he met “Mrs R” a powerful medium whose first name was Johanna and who had been told that she was a reincarnation of Joanna Southcott. Leaf remarks that, indeed, there was a “fairly close resemblance” between Mrs R. and “a photograph of the famous visionary”—who died in 1814, a little early for photography (Leaf, p.219).

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, snake oil men and flim-flam merchants were able to operate freely and profitably. The Quackery Prevention Act, 1908 did not drive dubious remedies off the market and no fortune-teller as far as I know incurred the maximum penalty provided for in the Criminal Code Act, 1893.

At the 1896 Census there were some “sceptics” under the heading “No Religion”—two of them—along with 5 Altruists, 1 Anarchist, 1 Chartist, 3 Egoists, 1 Fatalist, 1 Kalazoist, and 1 Universal Hedonist (Census, 1896, Religions of the People, p.89); and there were diverse associations of freethinkers, but neither sceptics nor freethinkers offered any substantial critique of claims of the paranormal. The severest strictures against psychics were from outraged orthodox Christians, working on premises of doubtful superiority to those of King, McBride, or Doyle. Worthington’s most relentless opponent was the Reverend Hosking of the Christian Evidence Society. Doyle’s sternest critics were Clerics; in Christchurch his views were condemned by Bishop Brodie and other clergymen and he later wrote that The Press “represents the clerical interest and also the clerical intolerance of the Cathedral city” (Doyle, p.199).

The most common source of genuinely sceptical comment on amazing claims was the daily press. It is instructive to compare Doyle’s reaction to an Australian medium with that of some New Zealand reporters some years earlier.

In Australia in 1920, Doyle attended a demonstration by Charles Bailey, an “apport medium”, but the results were not impressive. Bailey produced some spirit hands but Doyle was for once actually suspicious: “there was a disturbing suggestion of cuffs about those luminous hands” (Doyle, pp.101-102)

In New Zealand in 1909, Bailey, with the president of the Wellington Spiritualist Society present, demonstrated his psychic powers to a group of reporters who were unimpressed (LT, 16-8-1909). At his second sitting for Doyle, Bailey managed to produce a nest with an egg in it; on his second performance before the New Zealand reporters he produced “a native mat from Sumatra and a small live wild bird from Malaya” (LT, 21-8-1909).

At this point the creator of Sherlock Holmes concluded that Charles Bailey was “upon occasion a true medium with a very remarkable gift for apports” (Doyle, p.104-105). The New Zealand reporters asked if the spirits could produce a copy of that morning’s Melbourne Argus, a request Bailey ignored.

Has New Zealand made any unique contribution to nonsense? The list of possibles looks a bit thin and unoriginal: a psychic dog, some lost pets, a phantom canoe, some spooks, a weeping headstone, and divers lights in the sky. If there is to be a distinctive Kiwi contribution, I think we must invent one—one that will benefit us economically, of course. We could announce that lost virility may be restored by eating kiwifruit—as long as they are grown in the Southern Hemisphere on wires precisely aligned north and south. Or we could tout the remains of the Clyde dam as incontrovertible evidence of Atlantean civilisation—and then run expensive conducted tours of the site, secure in the knowledge that in a few years time no one will admit to having any connection whatever with it or to knowing anything at all about it.

Although I have dealt with a sorry succession of mountebanks and self-deluders, we have no reason whatever to feel generally superior to Edwardian New Zealanders. With the exception of phrenology, all the beliefs and activities King mentions are still in play; and whereas King almost certainly paid to have his book published, many authors are now raking in royalties from stuff like that. Advertisements for palmists, astrologers and Tarot card readers are more common in Christchurch papers now than they were in the 1890s.

Sadly, there are still plenty of people who could, with a bit of effort, be persuaded to pay for sheepshit sandwiches. But are there fewer now or more? Phineas T. Barnum is supposed to have said that there was a sucker born every minute. Well, the birthrate has gone down, but the total population is much greater now—so I would think it is about one every twenty seconds.