rie.'

If the fair and frail Marie appears somewhat cautious in direct
allusions to her skull, and to her 'earth-life,' it is certainly to her
credit that she seems to have retained no taint of mercenary greed. She
made no demand or reference to a fee, and a second letter had to be sent
to her Medium to learn the amount of my debt. This is her reply:--'Your
kind favour came duly to me, and as your message to your Spirit Friend
was delivered previously, that is, as soon as it was written, I had no
further effort to make than to convey the following to you:

'Amants, heureux amants, voulez-vous voyager! Que ce soit aux rives
prochaines.

Patience, je n'en ai pas quand je suis si pres et si loin de vous.

Ah! tout ce qu'il y a dans le coeur de crainte, de douleur, de
desespoir, j'ai tout devine; tout souffert, je puis tout exprimer
maintenant surtout la joie. Adieu! Marie St. Clair.'

Here end my investigations into the power of Spirits to answer sealed
questions.

In every instance the envelopes had been opened and reclosed; it is
therefore scarcely necessary to add that every instance has borne the
stamp of Fraud.

There is yet one other dark chapter, perhaps the darkest of all, which
my duty compelled me to read.

I began with Dr. Mansfield, in Boston; let me end with him there.

In addition to the answering of sealed letters sent to him by mail, this
Medium exercises his Mediumistic powers on questions propounded to him,
or rather to the Spirits through him, at his own home.

His method of work, as described by several highly intelligent
observers, is somewhat as follows:--There are two tables in the room of
seance, at one of which sits the Medium, at the other the visitor. The
visitor at his table writes his question in pencil at the top of a long
slip of paper, and, after folding over several times the portion of the
slip on which his question is written, gums it down with mucilage and
hands it to the Medium, who thereupon places on the folded and gummed
portion his left hand, and in a few minutes with his right hand writes
down answers to the concealed questions; these answers are marvels of
pertinency, and prove beyond a cavil the Clairvoyant or Spiritual powers
of the Medium. So remarkable are the results of this phase of
Mediumship, that through them and through the high standing and
intelligence of those who believe in him, this particular Medium is a
tower of Spiritualistic strength. Examine my info