avocation I have been enabled to view this
entire matter from the side which the public cannot reach--the side
where the fraud of it all is so apparent that it becomes disgustingly
monotonous and common; and as a matter of duty to those who are half
inclined to accept Spiritualism as a divine revelation and blessed
experience, I have given but a single case--a sample of hundreds of
others--which illustrates the despicable character of many, if not a
majority, of Spiritualism's public champions and private disciples; only
adding that in this instance the picture does not show a thousandth part
of the hideousness of the original.

The Judge Williams mentioned as having presided at Batavia, N. Y., is
no myth, but an eminent jurist at present sitting upon the bench of one
of the most important courts in the country. He has not only furnished a
copy of his scathing remarks to the Winslow-Lyon jury upon their
disagreement, as related, but will vouch for the correctness of much of
this narrative, as most of the facts mentioned came under his personal
observation.

I have given them to the public trusting they will fill some good place
in the world, and assist in removing from the minds of those who are
occupying the debatable ground regarding the question of the genuineness
of Spiritualism and Spiritualistic "manifestations" the superstitious
fear and the sensuous fascination which have heretofore bound and held
them.

ALLAN PINKERTON.

CHICAGO, January, 1877.

THE SPIRITUALISTS

AND

THE DETECTIVES.

***

CHAPTER I.

"Kal'm'zoo!"-- The Home of the Nettletons.-- Lilly
Nettleton.-- A wild Heart and a burning Brain.

Most commercial and uncommercial travellers filling the swift shuttles
of transit between the East and the West will remember that while
passing through Michigan, over the Central road, the brakeman has
shrieked the legend "Kal'm'zoo!" at them as the train rushed into one of
the prettiest little cities in the country. There is nothing
particularly picturesque about Kalamazoo, unless the wondering face of
some harmless lunatic, on parole from the Asylum which stands so
gloomily among the hills beyond the town, the solemn visage of some
Baptist University student, who with his toast, tea and Thucydides, has
become grave and attenuated, or the plump form of some "seminary girl"
who _will_ look at the incoming trains, and flout her hand