Appalling Death of a Spirit Medium.
On Monday evening, at the Athenaeum Assembly Rooms, Temple-row, Birmingham, a spiritualistic service was held, and in the course of it a medium named Benjamin Hawkes, a toy dealer of New-street, addressed the meeting. He spoke for fully half an hour, appearing to be in his usual health, and then he described with startling vividity a séance in which the apostle Peter had manifested himself to the assembled spiritists. Peter had clasped hands with him, and he (Hawkes) felt the close pressure of the apostle's grasp. From this, he argued that it was quite possible to understand how Thomas called Didymus thrust his hand into the side of the “Personification of Divine Love.” The instant these words were out of the speaker's mouth, he fell back on a chair behind him. There was great excitement, for the meeting believed Hawkes was under strong “spirit control.” A few seconds elapsed, and a surgeon came up to the medium and found him dead. The meeting broke up in wild confusion. Perhaps a more exciting scene never occurred than the death of this man, with the wild words of his fervent belief fresh on his lips.