been able at such times to read the Arabic numerals on my watch, which happen to be unusually large and pronounced.  Unquestionably Spiritualists will be at no loss to explain this puzzle; possibly they would say that I have here unconsciously given one of the very best of proofs of the reality and genuineness of Materialization, and that my unbelief acts on the sensitive, evanescent features of the Spirit like a chemical reagent, and that—­but it is not worth while to weaken by anticipation their solacing arguments.

In any statement of this problem we should bear in mind all the attending circumstances:  the darkened room; the music; the singing; the pervading hush of expectation; the intensely concentrated attention; the strained gaze at the dark Cabinet and at its white robed apparitions; and finally, the presence of a number of sympathizing believers.

There is another fact about these seances which I think cannot fail to impress even the most casual observer, and this is the attractive charms which the Cabinet seems to possess for the aboriginal Indian.  This child of nature appears to materialize with remarkable facility, and, having apparently doffed his characteristic phlegm in the happy hunting grounds, enters with extreme zest on the lighter gambols which sometimes enliven the sombre monotony of a seance.  Almost every Medium keeps an Indian ‘brave’ in her cohort of Spirits; in fact, there is no Cabinet, howe’er so ill attended, but has some Indian there.  It is strange, too, that, as far as I know, departed black men, who might be supposed to be quite as unsophisticated as departed red men, have hitherto developed no such materializing proclivities.  It is, perhaps, even more strange that while, in my experience, Italian Spirits neither understand nor speak Italian, and French Spirits can neither comprehend nor talk French, and German Spirits remain invincibly dumb in German, it is reserved to Indian ‘braves’ to be glibly and fluently voluble in the explosive gutturals of their own well-known tongue.

Before a seance begins, a thorough examination of the Cabinet is always tendered, a privilege of which I very seldom avail myself, and hold to be always superfluous, on the following grounds:  First, if the Spirits which come out of the Cabinet be genuine, it is of very small moment how they got in, and no possible scrutiny of the material structure of the Cabinet will disclose the process.  Secondly, if the Spirits be fraudulent, the Mediums are too quick-witted and ingenious in their methods of introducing confederates into the Cabinet not to conceal all traces of mechanical contrivance far too effectually to be detected in any cursory examination.  It is also to be borne in mind that much can be done under cover of the darkness, which is sometimes total for a few minutes before the seance begins, and also that the notes of the melodeon are sufficiently deep and loud to drown not a little rustling.  If the Mediums are deceitful