22 Psychic Force and Modern Spiritualism. 
trifling things he thought he found out at Mr. Serjeant Cox’s, and how 
unsuccessfully I begged him to give the information he now says I was aware 
of, I need only quote from a letter I wrote him on May 24th last. It runs as 
follows :— 
“You have now for the third time given a very mysterious hint that you are 
in possession of a fact which would make me entirely alter my opinion about 
Mr. Home. Now I put it to you whether it would not be more consistent with 
our friendship for you to tell me fairly and candidly what you do know rather 
than keep me in suspense, week after week. You say it is impossible for you 
to write about it. That is a word I do not understand. If you will give me 
a plain statement of facts, and will not insinuate dishonest condu@ on the 
part of myself and family, I promise you that I shall not only be very grateful 
to you, but will give what you tell me the most serious attention.” 
Mr. Spiller never came, and to my earnest appeal to put me in possession 
of his concealed facts I received no answer. And yet he has the audacity to 
say that I was perfectly aware of his explanation of the phenomena’ he 
witnessed ! 
But it is further reported that Mr. Spiller was my assistant during my test 
experiments, and found out at my house how the accordion ‘trick ” was done.* 
Mr. Spiller was not my assistant, nor was he present at my house on any 
occasion when an accordion or any sort of apparatus was used. I refer 
to what he said about the only occasion when he ever saw an accordion 
in the same room with Mr. Home. I quote froma letter he wrote to me on May 
3rd:{—‘‘ The accordion business [at Mr. Serjeant Cox’s] was rather curious, 
but then I was not under the table at the time of ‘The Last Rose of Summer’ 
being played.”’ After experience of Mr. Spiller’s logical method I am not sur- 
prised at the inference that this is the same thing as being under the table 
and finding out how the trick was done. 
It would occupy too much space to re-state the accordion problem, but I 
will refer all who are interested to my description in the Quarterly Fournal of 
Science for July last. If Mr. Spiller has really found out how this ‘ trick” 
is done, why does he not publish it? for he would then have solved one of the 
most puzzling problems ever presented to his notice—a problem still unsolved 
by far wiser heads than his. 
Debarred by the editor of the Echo from making further use of the columns 
of that journal, Mr. Spiller retreats to the pages of the English Mechanic,t where 
he reiterates accusations the falsity of which I have before exposed by means 
of his own letters. He complains that his previous perverse mis-statements 
and personal misrepresentations have brought him under sharp criticism. 
Of course they have; but this criticism is simply a consequence of his 
own unwarrantable attack. I cannot argue with my detractor about psy- 
chic force, or the explanation of the phenomena recorded at my test 
séances, for the sufficing reason that he was never present at any of these 
experiments, and he has had no opportunity of knowing anything of the 
subje& except from my published papers. Professing to criticise my in- 
vestigations, he carefully avoids all reference to any of these papers, and keeps 
* English Mechanic, Nov. 3, 1871. 
+ Published by Mr. Spiller in the Echo for November 6, 1871. 
+ English Mechanic, Dec. 1, 1871. 
