it was handed to him. In this way a dozen or more of the chance visitors received messages which were always intelligible to them and often strikingly appropriate. I will give some of the messages I thus received myself.

On my second visit a very sceptical friend went with us, and seeing the writing-pad on the piano marked several of the sheets with his initials. The medium was very angry and said it would spoil the séance. However, he was calmed by his friends. When it came to the writing the pad was given to me over the top of the curtain to hold. I held it just above the medium's shoulder, when a hand and pencil came through the curtain, and wrote on the pad as I held it. It is a bold scrawl and hard to read, but the first words seem to be, "Friends were here to write, but only this one could. ... A. W." Another evening, with the same medium, I received a paper with this message, "I am William Martin, and I come for Mr. William Wallace, who could not write this time after all. He wishes to say to you that you shall be sustained by coming results in the position you have taken in the Ross case. It was a most foul misrepresentation."

This, and other writing I had afterwards, are to me striking tests in the name William Martin. I never knew him, but he was an early friend of my brother who was for some time with Martin's father to learn practical building, the latter being then engaged in erecting King's College. When I was with my brother learning surveying, etc., he used often to speak of his friend Martin, but for the last forty-five years I had never thought of the name and was greatly surprised when it appeared. About a month later I had the following message from the elder Martin, written in a different hand :

:

"MR. WALLACE,

"Your father was an esteemed friend, and I like to come to you for his sake. We are often together. How strange it seems to us here that the masses can so long exist in ignorance. Console yourself with the thought that

though ignorance, superstition and bigotry have withheld from you the just rewards to which your keen enlightenment and noble sacrifices so fully entitle you, the end is not yet, and a mighty change is about to take place to put you where you belong.

"WILLIAM MARTIN."

I have no evidence that this Mr. Martin was a friend of my father, but the fact that my brother William was with him as stated (which must have been a favour), renders it probable. On the same evening there were a number of messages to about a dozen people all in different handwritings, several of which were recognized. My friend General Lippitt had a most beautiful message which he allowed me to copy, as it was a wonderful test and greatly surprised and delighted him. His first wife had died twenty-seven years before in California. She was an English lady and he was greatly attached to her. This is the message:

"DARLING FRANCIS,

"I come now to greet you from the high spheres to which I have ascended. Do you recall the past? Do you remember this day? This day I used to look forward to and mention with such pride? This, my darling, is my birthday anniversary. Do you not remember? Oh how happy shall we be when reunited in a world where we shall see as we are seen and know as we are known.

"ELIZABETH LIPPITT."

General Lippitt told me it was his first wife's birthday, that he had not recollected it that day, and that no one in Washington knew the fact but himself.

A German gentleman who was present had a message given him, which was not only written, as he declared, in excellent German, but was very characteristic of the friend from whom it purported to come.

On this evening most wonderful physical manifestations occurred. A stick was pushed out through the curtain. Two

watches were handed to me through the curtain, and were claimed by the two persons who sat by the medium. The small tambourine, about ten inches diameter, was pushed through the curtain and fell on the floor. These objects came through different parts of the curtain, but left no holes as could be seen at the time, and was proved by a close examination afterwards. More marvellous still (if that be possible), a waistcoat was handed to me over the curtain, which proved to be the medium's, though his coat was left on and his hands had been held by his companion all the time; also about a score of people were looking on all the time in a well-lighted room. These things seem impossible, but they are, nevertheless, facts.

Before passing on from my Washington friends, I wish to give one curious test which occurred to General Lippitt recently, and an account of which he sent to me in February, 1894. In his early life he had lived in Paris, and had become acquainted with several members of the Bonaparte family, and had rendered some services to them. This was only known to himself, but it accounted (to him) for the fact that he had, through different mediums, received messages from some of them, and from Napoleon III. In August, 1893, he had séances with a medium previously unknown to him, and received on a slate under test conditions a long message in French, purporting to come from Napoleon III., and to give his last dying thoughts. A facsimile of this is given in a Chicago paper, and is written as if it were an ordinary prose message; but on copying it out I found that it was in rhyme, and, so far as I could judge, very forcible, and even pathetic I therefore sent a copy of it to Mr. F. Myers, asking him what he thought of it, and whether it was correctly written. In reply he told me that he had paid special attention to the rules of French poetry, and that this was correct verse such as no one but a Frenchman could have written. General Lippitt, who was a good French scholar, observes that there is only one error in it-the omission of the final "e" in the word profonde near the end, which is doubtless an oversight, when all the other refinements of the language, as

verse.

well as the numerous accents, are correct. General Lippitt also prints a certificate that the medium knew no French; but that is quite unnecessary in view of the test conditions. Esprit C., who signs it, is one of the medium's guides who knows French.

"L'Heure sonne ! on la compte; elle n'est déjà plus :
L'airain n'annonce, hélas ! que des moments perdus.
Son redoutable son m'épouvante, m'éveille;

Et c'est la voix du temps qui frappe à mon oreille.
S'il ne m'abuse point, le lugubre métal

De mon heure dernière a donné le signal :

C'est elle ! . . . où retrouver tant d'heures écoulées ?
Vers leur source lointaine elles sont refoulées ;

Le seul effroi me reste et l'espoir est banni.
Il faut mourir, finir, quand je n'ai rien finí,
Où vais-je? et quelle scène a mes yeux se déploie
Des bords du lit funébre, où palpite sa proie
Aux lugubres clartés de son pâle flambeau,
L'impitoyable mort me montre le tombeau.
Eternité profonde: Océan sans rivage :
De ce terme fatal c'est toi que j'envisage;
Sur le fleuve du temps, quoi? c'est là que je cours?
L'éternité pour l'homme? il vit si peu de jours."

Esprit C.

At San Francisco my time was short, and my experiences were limited to a slate-writing seance of a striking and very satisfactory nature. I went with my brother John who had lived in California nearly forty years, and who, the day before, had bought a folding-slate bound with list to shut noiselessly. The séance was in the morning of a bright sunny day, and we sat at a small table close to a window. Mr. Owen, the editor of the Golden Gate, with a friend (a physician), accompanied us; but they sat a little way from the table, looking on. The medium, Mr. Fred Evans, was quite a young man, whose remarkable gift had been developed under Mr. Owen's guidance.

From a pile of small slates on a side-table four were taken at a time, cleaned with a damp sponge, and handed to us to examine, then laid in pairs on the table. All our hands were then placed over them till the signal was given, and on

ourselves opening them writing was found on both slates. Two other pairs were then similarly placed on the table, on one of which the medium drew two diagonal pencil lines, and on that slate writing was produced in five different coloursdeep blue, red, light green-blue, pale red-lilac, deep lilac, and these could be seen all superposed upon the pencil crosslines. My brother's folding-slate was then placed upon the floor a foot or two away from the table, and after we had conversed for a few minutes, keeping it in sight, it was found to be written on both the inner sides. It then occurred to me to ask the medium whether writing could be produced on paper placed between slates. After a moment's pause, as if asking the question of his guides, he told me to take a paper pad, tear off six pieces, and place them all between a pair of slates. This I did, and we placed our hands over them as before, and in a few minutes, on opening them, we found six portraits in a peculiar kind of crayon drawing.

I will now describe what were the writings and drawings we obtained, which are all now before me. The first was a letter filling the slate in small, clear, and delicate writing, of which I will quote the concluding portion: "I wish I could describe to you my spirit home. But I cannot find words suitable in your earthly language to give it the expression it deserves. But you will know all when you join me in the spirit world. . . . Your loving sister, Elizabeth Wallace. Herbert is here."

Here are two family names given, the first being one which no one present could have known, as she died when we were both schoolboys. The opening and concluding parts of the letter show that it was addressed specially to myself. The next was addressed to my brother, referring to me as "brother Alf," and is signed "P. Wallace." This we cannot understand, as we have no relative with that initial, except a cousin, Percy Wilson. It is, I think, not improbable that in transferring the message through the medium, and perhaps through a spirit-scribe (as is often said to be the case), the surname was misunderstood owing to the latter supposing that the communicant was a brother.