TWO INQUIRERS IXTO SPIRITUALISM 343 



door. Then after a period varying from one to two minutes, 

 you would have heard the medium knock, and on opening the 

 door would have found him outside the sack with his hands 

 handcuffed behind his back as before — the mouth- of the sack 

 being wide open, and all the knots and seals intact. This 

 performance the medium would repeat any number of times. 

 Having seen him do this I was completely baffled (as I was 

 with Williams), and so would you have been unless you can 

 suggest ' how it was done,' and unless I add, what I do now, 

 that I persuaded this man to explain the trick." 



In reply to this I pointed out that the " sack " and hand- 

 cuff trick involved only one essential operation, that of quickly 

 slipping his hands in and out of the handcuffs, and that this 

 was probably done partly by a natural mobility of the bones 

 of the wrists and hands, partly by induced suppleness by long 

 practice. That being done while being put into the sack 

 inside the cabinet when the movement of his arms would not 

 be noticed, he had only to insert one or two fingers in the 

 neck of the sack while it was being tied, and all the rest was 

 easy. Nothing was needed or done but to slip out of the hand- 

 cuffs and slip off the string tied around the neck of the sack. 



In the case of Williams, solid objects were moved which 

 were a long way from the medium, and two self-moving 

 objects — a luminous hand, and a head and face with movable 

 features, were produced and seen by all while the medium 

 was held and one of the party looked on outside the circle. 

 And I asked him what became of these solid objects after- 

 wards? 



In his reply he said I was substantially right about the way 

 the " sack " trick was done. Also, that several vears afterwards 

 Darwin wrote to him that Williams had been detected by some 

 one striking a light ! He therefore felt quite justified in dis- 

 believing all he had once thought so convincing. 



Thus ended our correspondence on this subject; and, I sup- 

 pose, as a kind of amende honorable, my correspondent asked 

 me, the next year, to allow him to have a photograph of myself 

 for a forthcoming book of his on the Darwinian theory ! This 

 I declined with thanks. 



