Theatre Riot Threatens in Pittsburgh When He Condemns Mediums.

Special to The New York Times.

PITTSBURGH, Sept. 17.—The failure of the Rev. Alice S. Dooley, pastor of the Pittsburgh Church of Divine Healing, to answer three questions placed before her in sealed envelopes by Harry Houdini, the magician, and a subsequent statement of the artificers practiced by false mediums nearly precipitated a riot tonight in the Alvin Theatre.

Following the accusation by Houdini that spiritualism was fraud, a woman in the first balcony became hysterical and aroused the audience to partisanship by her shouts of malediction aimed at the magician. The audience took sides for and against and a verbal tilt ensued which was quelled only when the magician consented to meet the mediums and test them where conditions would be favorable for themselves.

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