How the scratching of the slate pencil is produced when the slate is lying on the table (I have been told that the sound is heard then) I cannot possibly explain, for the plain reason that I am too deaf to hear it, and I was, therefore, never on the watch for anything unusual. (Nor did I ever hear the sound of writing when the slate was held on the shoulder of my opposite neighbor, but I could see, and I knew what was going on, for the slate had once been placed on my own shoulder.)

When three slates are used, the third, and prepared, slate, is either on the little table behind him or on the floor resting against the supports of this little table.  In either case he seizes the opportunity when his sitters are engrossed with an answer just given to a question, to substitute one of the slates which he has been using, and which he has just before ostentatiously washed on both sides, for the prepared slate.  This I have distinctly seen him do twice, and once when I had arisen from my seat to read an answer on the slate, held by Mr. Sellers, I noticed when I resumed my seat that a certain slate which I had been watching was gone from where it had been resting against the leg of the little table, and we then immediately had the long message between closed slates. [This was the ‘inferential’ substitution referred to on page 59 of this Appendix.] The slate which we have preserved and had photographed I saw him take from the table at his back.

Next, as to his answers to questions.  I became so familiar with his methods in this department that I could have told at almost any instant what he was doing.

After the question has been written the slate is handed to him face downward.  A piece of pencil is then placed on the slate near the edge of the slate farthest from the Medium’s hand as it holds the slate; of course, as the writing is to be done under cover of the table, and as the Medium’s hand or wrist is supposed to be always visible, the pencil must be far under the table.  The awkwardness, therefore, must be overcome of having to reach or grope after it before the slate can be turned over, which it must be in order to enable the Medium to read the question on the under side.  This difficulty is surmounted by constantly bringing out the slate and looking at it to see if any answer has appeared.  By this manoeuvre a double end is attained; first, it creates an atmosphere of expectation, and the sitters grow accustomed to a good deal of motion in the arm that holds the slate; and secondly, by constantly moving the slate the fragment of pencil (which, be it noted, having been extracted from those slate pencils which are enclosed in wood, like lead pencils, is square in shape and remains stationary on the spot to which it is moved), this pencil, I repeat, is moved up to the side of the slate within reach of a thumb and finger; when this is done, it is dexterously seized by the Medium, who is in turn at that instant seized by violent