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Obituary The Hodgson Report on Madame Blavatsky

By W.A. Carrithers

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Curtain and Wall-Cloth

C. CURTAIN AND WALL-CLOTH

But it was not enough that Hodgson should claim there had been a secret passageway through wall and Shrine.

1. As he admitted, between this wall and Shrine there was tacked calico wall-cloth and hung muslin curtain (221, 327).

2. But Hodgson made no claim whatever that these barriers contained openings corresponding or not to alleged apertures in wall and Shrine ("not the smallest trace," reported a Member of the Council of the S.P.R., who had been present at the "exposure"); neither did he intimate that the muslin or calico ever had been disturbed since first put there --- even though he questioned the tailor who prepared them (327).

3. While Mons. Coulomb kept discreetly silent on this problem, Mme. Coulomb simply ignored the calico and misrepresented the muslin's position.  How did Hodgson meet this evidence?  That he was well aware it presented an imminent, fatal danger to his case appears from the fact that, although his drawing shows the other curtains, Hodgson suppressed and omitted from his Plan all sign of this curtain and wall-cloth.  So "peculiarly convenient" was the Shrine position immediately in front of these barriers that, by a typical "vanishing act," Hodgson caused the muslin and calico to disappear!  He well knew that to Science it makes no difference whether a letter or a saucer passes through a brick wall or whole muslin or calico --- it would be a "miracle" in any case!