242 Notices of Books. (April, 
place thirty or forty years ago; to say nothing of a new fact, 
tallying with all the rest—the cessation of the spiritual visits, as 
soon as the visitor had no longer any motive to show herself.” 
‘‘ How extraordinary,” many readers will exclaim, ‘‘ that a man 
of Mr. Owen's ability should waste his time in discussing ghost 
stories!” It is indeed extraordinary ; for do we not know all 
about possible and impossible spirits? Our men of science and 
our philosophers are not quite sure that a spirit is possible ; but 
if possible, they are all quite clear that spzvits would never behave 
in the ridiculously human way in which reputed ghosts invariably 
act. Let us, therefore, refuse to listen to these ghost stories 
told by people we know nothing of, and hear what Mr. Owen has 
to tell us of the wonders he has himself witnessed. 
He spent an immense deal of time in trying to discover that 
gross imposture, the spirit rap, but in vain! For this purpose 
he once lived for a week in a medium’s house, with full power to 
investigate. He walked all over the house with the medium, but 
the raps came everywhere. They sounded on the floor, walls, or 
ceiling of every room, on every article of furniture, on doors and 
windows, on the marble mantel-piece, and the steel grate. With 
the same medium they occurred on board a steamer, on the stool 
he sat on, on the keel of a small boat in the water, on the ground 
out of doors, on trees, and on rocks by the sea-shore. With 
every test that he could apply, he could find no physical cause 
for these sounds. Sometimes they occurred as delicate tickings, 
at others like blows of a sledge hammer—so tremendous that it 
seemed impossible any article of furniture could resist them: yet 
the table on which they resounded showed not a scratch! On 
almost all these occasions the rooms were searched, the doors 
were locked, and the mediums were held fast; yet Mr. Owen 
could never find out the trick! How strange, when the thing is 
said to be so simple that our men of science will not even take 
the trouble to refute it ! 
In the matter of table-moving he had no more success. When 
Faraday exposed table-turning, he remarked that experimenters 
who thought tables even rose in the air should suspend them in 
a balance, and see if the weight was affected by this supposed 
force. Mr. Owen, at the suggestion of the late Dr. Robert 
Chambers, did this. Together, they suspended a table, weighing 
exactly 121 lbs., about 8 inches from the floor, by a powerful 
steelyard: two mediums were present, whose feet and hands 
were attended to; yet, without any contact whatever, the table, 
when requested, became lighter, coming down to 60 lbs., having 
thus lost half its weight: when requested to be made heavier it 
weighed 144 lbs. What are we to make of this? ‘Two tho- 
roughly reliable witnesses and a balance tell us one thing; but 
men of science say it can’t be true: which are we to trust ? 
Continuing his researches, Mr. Owen had sittings alone with 
a medium. He examined the room, he locked and sealed the 
