In 1869 he appeared again in New York, and commenced business on his old lines
- Date of account
- Published 1923
- Source
- The Case Against Spirit Photographs
- Reference
- The Case Against Spirit Photographs · selected passage 12
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
In 1869 he appeared again in New York, and commenced business on his old lines
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyIn 1869 he appeared again in New York, and commenced business on his old lines. Before he had been practising many months, however, the public authorities arrested him, and prosecuted him for fraud. At the trial the Boston evidence was disallowed and consequently little positive evidence of fraud was brought against him, for he had only been practising in New York for a short time. The chief ground of the prosecution was a spirit extra which he represented to be a dead relative of the sitter’s, whereas the latter declared it to be utterly unlike the relative in question. The trial was interesting, in that Mumler was defended by many of his sitters, who swore that they recognised his extras as their dead friends; and by others, including a professional photographer, who had investigated his processes and had found no evidence of trickery.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis source supplies historical scientific, skeptical or conventional context. Its terminology and conclusions may not reflect current scholarship.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice uses this as an alternative-explanation source, not as an automatic dismissal of testimony. Claims still need to be compared with the actual evidence and current knowledge.
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