Occult forces seem to throw the soap bars.
The startling and mysterious manifestations continue in evidence at the Mission-Street factory.
Detectives are all puzzled. Sleuths admit that it is beyond their comprehension.
Queer gyrations of the wares.
Window-panes pierced by the soft material as if by cannon balls.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.”
Ever since Saul of Tarsus visited the witch of Endor, which is the earliest record of investigation into the occult realm, the human race has been awed by supernatural manifestations, and every new exhibition of psychic force or semblance thereto arouses the curiosity of all minds, whether they be skeptical or not.
The manifestations which have been occurring at the Yucca Root Soap Factory on Mission street since last Friday are no exception to the rule, and whether these manifestations be the result of some unknown force or the clever work of some joker the interest of the public is daily intensified by the peculiar action of certain bars of soap, which, certainly, is not behaving itself just as well regulated soap should. Yesterday morning the soap began to fly around the room with even greater force than on the day previous, when the detectives sent by the Chief of Police were compelled to admit themselves thoroughly puzzled.
A short time after the two girls employed in wrapping soap in the packing-room began to work between fifteen and twenty bars of soap flew up from the racks arranged along the wall, and fell into the aisle between the racks. While the employees were occupied in gathering up this soap other bars were flying around, some striking the girls and one giving such a severe blow to Lillie Coombs that she cried out in pain. After the first manifestation had ceased and the girls were again quietly at work a cake of soap went hurtling through the air from the front end of the room out through a pane of glass in the rear window, with sufficient force to break a round hole without shattering the glass.
Exterior of the Mission Street Soap Factory, Where the Strange Manifestation Took Place Yesterday.
From 11 o’clock until 1 in the afternoon there was a cessation of the exhibition, with the exception of an occasional cake of soap flying across the room. At 1 o’clock a large quantity was again lifted in the air and deposited on the floor, and immediately afterward another cake went with incredible velocity through the air and made a hole through another pane of glass similar to the first. During the afternoon the manifestations were much less than before, but notwithstanding the fact that there were at times as many as seven people in the room the soap flew around, despite all efforts to find the cause for the peculiar movement.
At 3 o’clock three detectives from the Police Department, a surgeon from the Receiving Hospital and three other gentlemen were in the room to make a thorough investigation. During their search in the room the soap displayed some activity, but not as much as before.
Derby hats seemed to make good targets for the invisible soap-thrower, and Detective Egan had just finished his statement that he was sure it was not done by any invisible force when a cake of soap struck his hat and almost knocked it from his head. This made him lose his temper, and he was vociferous in his denunciation of the people in the place until Mr Curtis, the proprietor, informed him that he had been sent there to unearth the cause of the queer doings, and suggested that instead of abusing anyone he find the author of it. Mr Curtis also told him that if he could find anyone who was doing it he wanted the guilty party arrested at once, and assured the irate detective that the culprit would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, as he wanted the wholesale damage to his soap stopped.
Detective Egan was certain that he could unearth the whole business in about a minute, and went to work bulldozing the little girls and Mr Curtis from the start. “Here,” he said to Mr Curtis, “you might as well tell us at once how this is done. We are sure to find it out, and then it will be bad for you.” “You were sent here to find the perpetrator of this,” replied Mr Curtis. “Why don’t you do that. I can assure you that if you find him I will see to it that he is prosecuted to the full extent of the law. It is time this business is stopped, as we are losing too much soap.”
“Here, you,” said Egan to Lillie Coombs, “who told you to swear that you saw these things. Why don’t you tell the truth?” Lillie protested her innocence in the matter, and then the detective tried the same tactics on Annie O’Connor and said: “Who told you to throw this soap? Own up now. You know you threw it.” Annie, too, failed to satisfy the Hawkshaw, and he again turned his batteries on Mr Curtis, who finally gave him to understand that he had been sent there to find out who was doing it and not to bulldoze the establishment. “If it is one of my employees I want to know it,” said Mr Curtis. “Find him, and that is all I ask of you. I will see to it that he is prosecuted.”
The Soap Is Stacked on Racks, and Has Been Seen by Many Persons to Dart From Place to Place. In the Distance Are the Windows Broken by the Flying Bars.
Among the peculiar manifestations seen yesterday afternoon were two that would take the exhibition entirely out of the range of human aid in the moving of the soap. From the front end of the room there runs a stovepipe to a chimney in the rear, a distance of about twenty feet. This pipe is about ten feet from the floor and about four feet above the racks on which the soap is drying. A cake of soap rose in the air to this pipe and circled it twice and was then thrown with considerable force to the opposite side of the room. A second cake of soap rose gently in the air and sailed across the room just above the racks, settled to the floor and spun around on one end for several seconds. In neither instance was it possible for these cakes of soap to have been thrown by any person in the room. Neither is is possible for any one to throw anything so that it will go as these cakes went.
W.C. Curtis, manager of the company, said yesterday afternoon that the manifestations were certainly of a psychic nature. His attention was first called to them on his return from a camping trip to the mountains last week. Lillie Coombs told the other girls in the place that a large jar containing a rosebush had raised up and made a noise in the room where she was working. The story was told to Mr Curtis, and as he saw that the girls were frightened he laughed at them and made light of the incident. On Friday of last week several cakes of soap were thrown about, and Saturday the manifestation became much more pronounced. He went to the girls and told them that he had laughed with them over the joke and now wanted them to stop throwing the soap, as every cake had to be melted over which was thrown. The girls cried and protested their innocence, and asked him to remain in the room, when he would see for himself.
That afternoon he saw the soap flying around, and then came to the conclusion that there was some unseen force at work. Sunday he sent a man to the place to see if there were any manifestations going on, but all was quiet. Monday morning the manifestations became so pronounced that in order to quiet the employees, who thought a man was hidden somewhere about the place, he put the matter in the hands of the police. This was not effective, as the exhibitions increased after their search until yesterday, when it extended to the breaking of windows.
In speaking of the matter Mr Curtis said: “I have studied theosophy for years and have seen manifestations in India that were more strange, but have never seen any that were more pronounced. I am perfectly satisfied that there is no material agency here. It is a psychic force that is causing it, but I am at a loss to understand the reason for it. I satisfied myself that no person about the place could do it, and after I was sure of this, which conclusion I arrived at after a most thorough investigation, I knew there could be but one cause for it. It is impossible for the results to be produced by any person throwing the soap. Some of the manifestations are such as could not be produced by human agency. When the soap was thrown about so freely that we saw that we were being damaged by it my partner and I determined to make a thorough investigation. We sent everybody out of the room and locked the doors so that there could be no possibility of any one coming in. We watched for some time without seeing anything and were just about to give it up when a cake of soap came flying through the air and hit him in the back. You can see that had there been any person in the room it would have been impossible for him to hide.”
Mr Kytka, the expert in writing, was one of the interested investigators of the phenomena, and when he saw a cake of soap land on the floor he examined it and found that it was glycerine soap. He immediately began a learned exposition of just how it was done and said that the glycerine had peculiar properties which made the soap crawl out of the box and drop on the floor. He had just finished his exposition of the matter when a piece crawled up in the air and missed his nose about an inch, exploding his theory and causing him to turn a little pale.
When asked if they were afraid, the two little girls who work in the room where the phenomena occur said they were at first, but they are now getting accustomed to it. Notwithstanding their assertions, it was evident that both were very nervous and disliked very much to go among the boxes of soap. When their occupation necessitated their passing down the alley between the racks they cringed and hurried along as if they were afraid of getting hit. Both still persist in saying that they saw the form of a man several times in the rear of the room, and while the investigations were going on yesterday Lillie Coombs went to the rear of the room and returned trembling violently, saying that she saw him again. No urging could prevail upon her to go back, even accompanied by Mr Curtis.
The Cross (X) Marks the Corner in the Factory Where the Girls Say They Saw an Apparition.
Among the callers at the factory yesterday was a woman who claimed to be a spiritual medium. She went to the rear of the room and held a conversation with the invisible unknown who is causing the disturbance and then reported that she had asked him several questions and received answers. The employees could hear her, but failed to catch the tones of the spirit to whom she was supposed to be conversing. She asked if he was in pain and said that she said he was uncomfortable. “Do you suffer?” “Yes; these girls bother me.” “Can we do anything for you?” “Yes; pray for me. I am in hell and am suffering for a drink of water.” The woman said that the manifestations were caused because the spirit wanted to attract attention. The people about the factory place little confidence in the medium or what she said about the invisible visitor.
The San Francisco Call, August 18th 1897.
The American ghost is a new and quite up-to-date kind of a spook, very unlike the superior old crusted goblins on this side of the water. Instead of taking up its abode in a haunted house, to be examined at leisure by a society for the investigation of its little psychic ways, the American ghost, without any regard for the rules of the game, proceeds to turn a soap factory into a pandemonium by playing pitch and toss with the bars of soap.
This, with due allowance for exaggeration, is what apparently has happened in a San Francisco factory, and the unfortunate workpeople lived in such terror of flying soap cakes that they called in the city detectives to arrest the malicious spook. The detectives suffered severely, but failed to discover the cause of the soap dance.
It is difficult to understand why disembodied spirits want to go “fooling round” with soap, which can be no sort of use to them. If this particular and peculiar spook were not located in America, we should suggest that he is the ghost of the legendary character who, after crying “What, no soap!” died, whereupon somebody else very imprudently married a barber.
Westminster Gazette, 3rd September 1897.
The Ghost Factory on Fire.
The Yucca root soap factory at 1157 Mission street seems to keep up its reputation as a ghostly applicant for notoriety. A few months ago it advertised a ghost soap walk, and yesterday it took fire and did itself $150 of damage. Mice and matches or ghosts and matches was the cause.
The San Francisco Call, October 20th, 1897.