extraordinary scenes the world over, which makes him
an entertaining companion, it gave me pleasure to extend to him what
little courtesies lay in my power, asking him to dine with me during his
visit, and to spend the evenings at my house, if the time hung heavy on
his hands at his hotel. He dined with me several times, and I
consequently saw more of him than did the other Commissioners. I told
him more than once that, as a Commissioner, I should watch him with lynx
eyes, and he always gave a laughing assent. I furthermore never
concealed from him that he had, by no means, converted me to
Spiritualism. [I last saw him in Boston, when, as I was passing along
Shawmut Avenue, I caught sight of him at a window; he eagerly beckoned
me to come in, and, as I settled myself in a chair, I said to him,
'Well, and how are the old Spirits coming on?' Whereupon he laughed and
replied, 'Oh, pshaw! you never believed in them, did you?'--April,
1887.]

I had several seances with him in afternoons after the seances with the
Commission, when I was accompanied by my mother, my sister, and by
several friends; of course, only by one or two others at a time.

It would be superfluous to rehearse here at length what Mr. Sellers has
set before you much better than I can, the steps to the conclusion to
which we all arrived: that the long messages were written beforehand.
The difference between them and the short answers to questions asked at
the seance, in the character of the handwriting, is too manifest and too
obtrusively patent to be disregarded. In the long message from 'William
Clark' on the slate which we have preserved and had photographed,
'Paul's injunction' is carefully included within quotation marks. The
short answers to questions were scarcely legible, and at times could be
deciphered only by help of the Medium himself. (This illegible
handwriting is not without its use; it engrosses the attention of the
sitters.)

It follows, therefore, that, if prepared slates are to be used, they
must be adroitly substituted for others, which the sitters know to be
clean. The question is thus narrowed to one of pure legerdemain, and the
Medium must necessarily have several slates at hand.

When two slates only are used, the prepared slate is usually lying on
the table when the sitters take their seats. No attention is called to
it, and some little time is taken in conversation, and in the spasmodic
jerking caused by 'electric currents'; in