Dr. James Edmunds, a Committee was
appointed "to investigate the Phenomena alleged to be Spiritual
Manifestations, and to report thereon." The names of twenty-eight
members were proposed. Three of these declined to act. Eight more names
were added, so that the Committee, as finally constituted, consisted of
thirty-three, three of whom were ladies. Among the best-known names were
H. G. Atkinson, F.G.S.; Charles Bradlaugh; E. W. Cox, serjeant-at-law;
Rev. C. Maurice Davies, D.D.; Charles R. Drysdale, M.D.; James Edmunds,
M.D.; Robert Hannah; H. D. Jencken, barrister-at-law; William Volckman;
and Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, F.R.S. It is believed that Robert Hannah
and Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace are the only survivors.

In order to investigate the phenomena in question by personal experiment
and test, the Committee resolved itself into six Sub-Committees. In May
1870 the Committee appointed an Editing Committee to prepare a joint
report, based solely on the evidence that had been before it. A month
later the Editing Committee presented a draft report, which with some
trifling verbal alterations was adopted _nem dis_. A resolution was then
carried that a copy be forwarded to the Council of the Dialectical
Society, with a recommendation that it be printed and published. This
the Council declined to do. Upon this the Committee met and passed the
following resolution:--

"That the Report be referred to the Editing Committee, and that they be
requested to prepare it for publication, together with any supplementary
or counter reports that may be received from members of the Committee,
and appending thereto the reports of the Sub-Committees, and the
evidence, oral and verbal, that has been collected; the entire work,
when ready for publication, to be submitted for approval to the
Committee."[1]

Such is the origin of the volume from which the following extracts are
made.[2] Considerations of space necessitate dealing with the work of
one Sub-Committee only. The essential part of the REPORT OF
SUB-COMMITTEE NO. 1 is as follows:--

"Since their appointment on the 16th of February 1869, your
Sub-Committee have held forty meetings for the purpose of experiment and
test.

"All of these meetings were held at the private residences of members of
the Committee, purposely to preclude the possibility of pre-arranged
mechanism or contrivance.

"The furniture of the room in which the experiments were conducted was
on every occasion its