ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS 119 



and Edgar Dawson, an old personal friend, rose 

 together so as to defeat any evil influence. Within 

 six months Matthew Arnold died suddenly of heart 

 disease, Edgar Seebohm was murdered in New York, 

 and within the year Edgar Dawson was drowned in 

 the Quetta in Torres Straits on his way home 

 from Australia. We should have taken little notice 

 of the slight sensation caused by the alarm of a 

 certain lady at the dinner in question, which 

 occurred at Birnam Hall, but for the fact that she 

 was so much upset by the prospect of some impend- 

 ing calamity, and constantly referred to it after- 

 wards. The last time she had sat down to dinner 

 with thirteen guests the first person to rise had died 

 shortly afterwards, and nothing would induce her 

 to think that a similar catastrophe would not hap- 

 pen. Unfortunately she was right in her surmise. 

 The whole thing may have been pure coincidence, 

 but it was certainly very curious. That it should 

 happen again, and in this case with three apparently 

 healthy men, was all the more extraordinary. 



Beyond the undoubted existence of such a thing 

 as " psychic force," which I think is now abund- 

 antly proved in the case of such a wonderful 

 exponent as Eusapia Palladino, a woman who can 

 slam shutters and knock over tables at a distance 

 in broad daylight in a room which she has just 

 entered for the first time, the exhibitions of so- 

 called " mediums " are, as a rule, easily explained, 

 or of so trivial a nature as to be devoid of interest, 

 but some of these people who profess to see into the 

 future do make remarkably good guesses, or what- 

 ever we like to call them, as to what will occur. 

 In January 191^, I went with my wife to see one of 



