Amanda, and Hannah assaulted.-- A Punch and Judy Show.

The reports which I had for some time received daily regarding Mrs.
Winslow's behavior satisfied me that the delay in reaching the
Winslow-Lyon case--which was at the bottom of the docket of the fall
term, and on account of a press of court business had been put over to
the winter term--the strict silence I had enjoined upon Mr. Lyon, and
the general suspicion which possessed her of everybody and everything,
were all having the natural effect of unsettling her completely, and I
determined upon a series of surprises and annoyances to the woman,
without in any way apprising Bristol and Fox of what was to be done; so
that although they might imagine from what source the unwelcome
"materializations" came, they would still be sufficiently uninformed to
share in the general surprise and escape the charge of complicity.

I accordingly sent three additional men to Rochester with thorough
instructions and full information as to the madam's residence and
habits, with a description of her tenants, including Bristol and Fox,
who were unknown to the operatives sent.

My object in doing this was a double one. I desired, first, to test the
woman's so-called spirit power; for, should these annoyances prove of
the nature of a persecution, she and her friends, the Spiritualists,
would be able to call celestial spirits to her aid, or, better still,
divine from whence the persecution came, and compel its discontinuance
by the means provided by ordinary mortals. In case she could not do
this, which was of course rather doubtful, I knew from her
superstitiousness and the guilty fear possessed by every criminal, which
she largely shared, that she would be quite likely to either make some
confessions which would implicate her in further blackmailing
operations, or force her into a line of conduct agreeing perfectly with
her true character, and which would compel her to show herself
thoroughly to the public; and further, I think I must confess to a
slight desire to assist a little in punishing her, after I had become so
fully aware of her villainous character.

Accordingly, while Mrs. Winslow was still deep in the plot of her great
drama, but before the changes suggested--which would have made her a
sort of literary nun in Fox's room--had occurred, she was the recipient
of a large package of railway time-tables, with the farthest terminus of
each road underscored, and further c