314 STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE. 



subsequently awoke. I reply that no such person was in existence. 

 Sir Edmund's second wife had died two years previously, and he did 

 not marry again till three months after the event he relates. 



" ' 2. Sir Edmund mentions an inquest on the body. I reply, on 

 the authority of the coroner, that no inquest was ever held. 



" ' 3. Sir Edmund's story turns upon the judgment of a certain case 

 which was to be delivered next day, January 28, 1875. There is no 

 record of any such judgment in the Supreme Court and Consular 

 Gazette p , of which I am now Editor. 



" * 4. Sir Edmund says that the Editor (reporter ?) died at one in 

 the morning. This is wholly inaccurate ; he died between eight and 

 nine A.M., after a good night's rest.' 



" The Editor of the Nineteenth Century" Dr. Maudsley continues, 

 " having submitted Mr. Balfour's letter to Sir E. Hornby, subjoins 

 that gentleman's rejoinder, in which, after accusing Mr. Balfour of 

 want of good feeling and taste in not having written to him privately, 

 instead of amusing the public at his expense, he practically, though 

 ungraciously, admits the whole case against him. 



"It is probable," concludes Dr. Maudsley, " that similar stories of 

 the kind would collapse in a similar manner were they tested properly 

 by independent observation and inquiry, and were some one willing 

 to take the trouble to make the inquiry, and, having made it, to take 

 the trouble of contradicting them and exposing them." 



Comment on the above case is needless. The mental attitude also 

 of those whose belief in ghosts and apparitions can be bolstered up 

 into a state of profound sincerity by recitals of which the foregoing 

 is an example, lies practically beyond the region and field of sober 

 criticism. 



