“People have thought my manner and habit very strange indeed regarding the Truth of Spirit control There has been many things practiced which I see now was wrong and foolish yet the Truth stills exist that we can come back and make ourselves felt you ask if I am pleased with what Thomas [probably Thomas R. Hazard, who was with us at the time] is doing I am in many respects though there are things best left undone and unsaid You are perfectly aware of my past feelings also of my desire to have the truth properly investigated which I feel it will be and the Truth and Truth only sought after by the Committee I am more concious now than a time back Henry Seybert”

Another communication in my possession, obtained by a friend from the same Medium, at another seance, is in an equally good and strikingly different hand from the former, and reads thus:  “Yes both of those Spirits were there and were plainly seen There was others there that were imperceptable Alice Cary”

As examples of communications, in irregular scrawls on slips of paper, in my possession, thrown from behind a screen by a Materialized Spirit, at a seance of Mr. Keeler, are the following:  “Hello folks” “Oh I am a big slugger” “How is your nose Doc” “I am seeing the sad result of my work.  H. Seibert” [sic].  The punctuation and spelling are carefully copied.

JOSEPH LEIDY.

* * * * *

THE SLADE-ZOELLNER INVESTIGATION.

Perhaps no other investigation of Spiritistic phenomena has exercised so strong an influence upon the public mind in America, at least, as that conducted by Professor J.C.F.  Zoellner and his colleagues in Leipsic in 1877 and 1878.  In November and December of the year 1877 and in May of 1878, Professor Zoellner had a number of seances with Dr. Henry Slade, the American Medium, in Leipsic, the results of which he has narrated in his “Scientific Treatises,” and which he finds of special interest in connection with certain physical speculations with which he was before this time occupied.  He declares himself specially authorized to mention by name as present at some of his investigations his colleagues, Professors Fechner and Scheibner, of the University of Leipsic, and Professor Weber of Goettingen.  These three, he states, were perfectly convinced of the reality of the observed facts, and that they were not to be attributed to imposture or prestidigitation.  He also mentions the presence of Professor Wundt at at least one of the sittings.

The phenomena narrated by Zoellner—­the bursting of the wooden screen, the passages of coins out of closed boxes, the abnormal actions of the solid wooden rings, the tying of knots in the endless cord, the prints made upon smoked paper by the feet of four-dimentional beings—­all these have become classic in Spiritistic literature, and the accounts may be obtained in convenient form collected, arranged and translated into English by Mr. C.C.  Massey, of Lincoln’s Inn, London.