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fingers. Observe also, by reference to the large picture, that, as Horatio sits at the extreme left of the three, he could only use his right hand for juggling, whereas the child-hand is a left one.

It has been doubted, by certain persons who have written to the newspapers, that more than one hand is shown at once in these light circles, but aside from my own observations, which prove the contrary, here we have the certificate of a clergyman of Albany:

CHITTENDEN, Oct. 29th, 1874.

This is to certify that at a light circle which I attended last evening at the Eddy homestead, I distinctly saw three spirit-hands displayed at one time; of which, one was that of a lady, a long, slim hand as white as marble; a second, the great hand of a man with the entire little finger of the right hand missing; the third, another man's hand, very white. HENRY J. CLINKER.

28 Hawk St., Albany, N. Y.

A call was soon made for writing materials, and a succession of spirit-hands clutching the pen that William offered them, and using my note-book as a tablet, wrote names on cards and threw them towards the audience. Some were names of the dead, some of the living; none, I am satisfied, familiar to the medium.

The performances of the evening concluded, at the request of a visitor, with a series of imitations of the boring, sawing, and splitting of wood, the filing of iron, and the pumping of water, the sounds occurring behind the curtain, and all being so true to nature as to evoke great applause.

During the entire sitting, as during each of like character, Horatio's two hands are supposed to have clasped the bared left arm of the person next him; his eyes were closed, and, as I said before, there was neither

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rustle of the curtain, nor movement of his feet, body, or shoulders. For all the attention he apparently gave to what was going on he might have been in a stupor, or enjoying a nap after a full meal.

Now, this experience offers, perhaps, as favorable an opportunity as any for the application of the theory, that no reliance should be placed upon the evidence of the senses. I either saw the baby-hand, and other larger ones, not the medium's, heard the co-incidental playing upon several instruments, and saw the guitar played upon, not only beyond the reach of Horatio's arm, but also flat against the south wall, in a position where he could not possibly hold, much less play upon it; or I did not.

If not, who psychologized my senses, and made me fancy all these things? Not Horatio, for stronger wills than his have vainly attempted to "magnetize" me, and he could not do it, if he tried ever so long. Who then? Nobody else in the flesh, for no one else had the slightest interest in the success of his circle; William and he never interfering with each other. Shall we say, then, some self-directed, vagrant force, allying itself with this medium? Or, as a last extremity, shall we say a spirit or spirits out of the body, and "let it go at that?"

I

CHAPTER XIII. \

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF SCIENTISTS.

SCARCELY ever sit down to write a chapter of this

story of my experience among the Chittenden ghosts without feeling the similarity between my mental state and that of one who threads his way through a strange forest by night. At one moment the traveler catches a glimpse of the path under some opening where the starlight comes down, and anon, lost in obscurity he runs against an obstacle that must be surmounted or skirted; his senses are kept constantly on the alert for foes of one kind or another, his eyes strained for pitfalls; a vague sense of danger besets him; but through all, his courage is sustained by the hope of getting safely out of the woods, and obtaining that security and repose which shall reward him for all the difficulties of the journey. I am continually oppressed with a consciousness of the possibility of deception by the truant senses, to the misleading of many good people who are obliged to depend upon their vigilance for the formation of their own opinions. It is not that I mistrust these mediums more than all mediums, but because, being obliged, so to say, to do my work at

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arm's length in consequence of their peculiar disposition, I am kept forever on the watch.

How vast a pity it is that this matter of the intercourse between the two worlds is so tainted with falsehood as to make such vigilance necessary; that the observation of its phenomena is so much in the hands of ignorant, dishonest, and even dissolute people; that the most atrocious fraud is often practised upon honest investigators, and that the sacredest feelings of the heart are trifled with for gain! But the responsibility for all this is easily placed. It lies at the door of those men of science who could discover to us the fundamental law upon which these things rest, if they would, but do not; so turning us over to charlatans and enthusiasts to be deceived and misled until our own dearly bought experience teaches us, and shames them into tardy action. If it is true that most mediums will cheat, when their real power temporarily leaves them, as it is, that only makes it all the more necessary that competent investigators should set to work without loss of time to discover the rule by which we might know the false from the true phenomena.

The pusillanimity of the men of the laboratory has been as great as the blind violence of the clergy. The one have not dared to pursue investigations that might bring upon them the censure of an ignorant public; the other have denounced as devilish, if not trivial, a series of phenomena that, if true, will soon be the last refuge of the church from the destructive engineering of the sappers of science. If both had joined forces twentyseven years ago in a patient and thorough investigation

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STAG AND HOUNDS.

of these "spiritual" phenomena, the law of their manifestation would have been long ago discovered, and the public would have been spared, at least the major part of the swindles and trickery by which mediums have defrauded it. Professor Robert Hare, the discoverer of the oxy-hydrogen blow-pipe, and one of the most eminent chemists of his day, whose name I have already mentioned in this work, recognized the duty devolving upon him, and spent some years in an investigation of Spiritualism. The result was his conversion to the belief. His colleagues, instead of applauding his course and awarding him the credit he deserved, set to calling him an imbecile, and, like a pack of hounds in full cry, ran together after the noble quarry, with a scent breasthigh.

This is what they are doing now to Wallace, Crookes, Varley, and the Continental philosophers. This is what their prototypes did to Columbus, Galileo, Harvey, Watt, Faust, and every other man who, being of giant character, could, so to speak, look over the heads of the crowd, and make them feel their own littleness. Mean envy begets spite, and spite malice, and malice cruelty. Until, then, the scientists give a full and fair investigation to this subject, and proclaim in an authoritative manner the truth, we need spend no time in denouncing mediums for charlatanry. We might as justly censure the people of a row of tenement-houses for piling the street full of garbage, while a competent Board of Health was in existence, but neglecting its duty.

It has been observed by frequenters of these "circles" that the appearance and behavior of Honto are good