ABSTRACT
In a leader published on 20 February 1858, entitled ‘Well-Authenticated Rappings,’ Dickens mocks two species of imposture satirized in Household Words throughout the 1850s: the practice of food adulteration and the craze for spiritualism. Recounting ‘three spiritual experiences’ of the writer, the article begins by establishing its ironic claim to authenticity through the exaggerated provision of details concerning the exact circumstances of the events described, with an elaborate account of the provenance and location of the watch used to ascertain the time of the first visitation as ‘twenty minutes before ten’ on the ‘twenty-sixth of December last’: ‘On that memorable morning, at about two hours after daylight, the writer, starting up in bed with his hand to his forehead, distinctly felt seventeen heavy throbs or beats in that region.’1 Convinced that these ‘rappings’ are ‘of spiritual origin,’ given the amount of alcohol consumed at Christmas dinner the previous day, the writer summons the spirits to disclose themselves. He is alarmed to learn from his first spiritual experience that the ‘Port’ he had consumed was mixed with ‘Sloe-Juice, Logwood, Blackberry,’ and from his second, that the Pork Pie was contaminated with ‘Lead.’2 These adulterants are the source of the rappings whose ‘authenticity’ is comically warranted by the pain in his head. The third spiritual experience is described as ‘an exquisite case of Tipping,’ in which an ‘obnoxious young man,’ enamoured of ‘Miss L.B.,’ fumbles his attempt to pass her a billet-doux beneath the family dinner table. The letter is mistakenly put into the hand of her father, causing consternation among the assembled family and guests which her brother, ‘Young B.,’ tries to cover by blaming the spirits, claiming to be a medium and warning that ‘“There’ll be a Tipping presently, father. Look out for the table!’”3 Young B.’s diversionary tactic is apparently appreciated and rewarded by the obnoxious young man, for after the overturned table and agitated family group are eventually restored to order, the writer observes in Young B. ‘a noticeable attraction (I might almost term it fascination) of his left hand, in the direction of his heart or waist-coat pocket.’
