STORES FOR THE FIRST OF APRIL.

ALL FOOLS'-DAY drawing near, it is a
seasonable occupation to calculate what we have
in store for the occasion, and to take stock
of the provision in reserve, to meet the great
demand of the anniversary.

First (for the moment postponing the
substantials of the annual feast, and beginning
with the spirits), we are happy to report the
existence in England, in its third volume of a
Spiritual Telegraph "and British Harmonial
Advocate." Walled up in the flesh, as it is
our personal and peculiar misfortune to be,
we are not in a condition to report upon the
derivation or meaning of the British adjective,
Harmonial. Unknown to Doctor Johnson
in the body, it has probably been
revealed to him in the spirit, and by him been
communicated to some favored "Medium."
The Harmonial Advocate is published in one
of the northern counties erewhile renowned
for horses, and which may yet be destined to
establish a celebrity for its acquaintance with
another class of quadrupeds.

In the January Harmonial, we find a Bank
for the First of April, on which we will
present our readers with a few small drafts,
which may enable them to form a proximate
idea of the value of its Rest. Its
following extract from " the British Court
Journal," of this last blessed eighteen
hundred and fifty-sixth Christmas-time, will
show how far we have travelled in all those
years.

"One of our greatest English poets being
in communication with the medium, asked
for the summons of Dante. The presence of
the latter was immediately made manifest by
the written answers returned to the questions
of the inquirer, and Mr. B— then asked
the medium to request the great Italian to
make himself visible! Presently there arose,
as if from the ground beneath the table, two
long, thin, yellow hands, unmistakable as to
their Italian origin, undeniable as to their
having belonged to a student and a gentleman.
While the assembly were yet gazing in
breathless awe, and may be something of
terror likewise, the hands floated away, or
were rather borne, as it were, across the
room, and rose to the marble console opposite,
upon which stood a vase containing an
orange tree in blossom. The hands slowly
and softly, without noise, but visibly to all,
plucked from the stem a sprig of orange
flower with its leaves and buds, and returning
to the table, paused above the head of
Mrs. B—, the poet's wife, herself an exquisite
and beautiful poet likewise, and, placing
the sprig upon her raven hair, disappeared
gradually from sight, seeming once more to
sink to the floor, while the audience
remained speechless and awe-struck, and but
little inclined to renew the experiment,
that same night, at all events. The sprig
of orange blossom is religiously preserved by
Mrs. B—, whose honour and truth are
unimpeachable; while the witnesses gathered
round the table at the time of the occurrence
all testify to the apparition, as well as to the
utter unconsciousness of the medium, who
neither spoke nor moved during the whole
time the circumstance was taking place."—

We happen to have had communicated to
our humble bodily individuality by a letter of
the alphabet, remarkably like B, some
emphatic references to a similar story; and
they were not merely associated with the
production of two hands, but with the
threatened production of one foot— the latter
not a spiritual, but a corporeal foot,
considered as a means of impelling the biped,
Man, down a staircase.

We learn from the same pages that Mr.
J. J. of Peckham, went into an appointed
house at Sandgate-by-the-Sea, last autumn, at
four of the clock in the afternoon, and unto
him entered the Medium, " evidently suffering
from physical prostration; " spiritual
knockings immediately afterwards hailed the
advent of J. J., and in answer to the question,
Were the spirits pleased with Mr. J. J. of
Peckham being there ? " the rappings, as
if on the under-side of the table, were
rapid and joyous, and as loud as if made
with a hand-hammer;" being probably
made, we would deferentially suggest, by the
ghost of the celebrated " Harmonial"
blacksmith. In the evening a loo-table politely
expressed its happiness in making the
acquaintance of the visitor from Peckham, by
suspending itself in the air " clear of the floor,
about eight inches." On another occasion, a
lady of London, attending her uncle during
his last illness, was gratified by a spectacle