vin.] TABLE-TIPPERS. 127 



to protect his own pockets and the heads of his 

 dupes with asbestos cloth, without attracting notice. 

 Such a proceeding would require far less skill than 

 those of professional magicians, like Hermann or 

 Houdin, in comparison with whose truly wonderful 

 achievements the best performances of spiritualists 

 are not for a moment worthy to be named. 



Still keeping to Mr. Home, his famous trick of 

 " levitation," or appearing to float through the air 

 out of one third-story window into another, seems 

 partly to illustrate the effects of intense expectation 

 in producing, hallucination, partly to show us for the 

 thousandth time how little unsifted human testimony 

 is worth ; for on one occasion, while two " respectable 

 witnesses " were sure that they saw the great " me- 

 dium " come sailing feet foremost through the 

 window, their less gullible companion was equally 

 positive that the levitating gentleman was sitting 

 quietly in his arm-chair all the while ! Nothing is 

 more common than for us to be told what people 

 of undoubted veracity have seen. For my own part, 

 if I were to answer frankly in such cases, I should 

 take my cue from a celebrated naturalist whose friend 

 was recounting to him a miraculous shower of frogs 

 from the sky. " It is fortunate," said he, " that you 

 have seen it, for now I can believe it. If I had seen 



