SPIRITUALISTIC EXPERIENCES 349 



and spiritualists in England, I will give a case of the strange 

 phenomenon called the " double/' so well authenticated and so 

 instructive as to deserve to be here recorded. About the year 

 1874, Mr. Pengelly, of Torquay, had sent me his very inter- 

 esting critical article, "Is it a Fact?" in which, to my great 

 surprise, I found an anecdote describing the strange appear- 

 ance of the doubles of several persons to a friend of his 

 (apparently), as he says he can vouch for it. When, as 

 narrated in Chapter xxvi., we dined together at Glasgow, I 

 took the opportunity of asking him privately whether I was 

 right in my conjecture that the person to whom the event 

 happened was himself, thinly disguised under the pseudonym, 

 Mr. Hazelwood (Pengelly meaning in Cornish the head of the 

 hazel-grove). He replied, "You are right;" which led me to 

 read it again with still greater interest. 



In 1883, thinking the case would be one suited for the 

 Psychical Research Society, I sent the paper to my friend, 

 F. W. H. Myers, telling him what Mr. Pengelly had told me ; 

 and Miss Pengelly has allowed me to copy a letter from Mr. 

 Myers to her father, thanking him for the additional informa- 

 tion he had received about the case, and saying, that as the 

 distance at which the figures were seen was so small " It is 

 almost inconceivable that you could have mistaken other 

 persons for your own family at that distance, especially as 

 the train must have been almost or quite at a standstill." But 

 he did not publish the case, and it was probably, among the 

 mass of other matter, forgotten. I now give the story as it 

 occurs in Mr. Pengelly 's paper, " Is it a Fact? " (p. 32.) 



" The following case, for which I can vouch, may serve 

 to illustrate this. 1 It will be found to be supported by both 

 personal and circumstantial evidence.: — Mr. Hazekvood, of 

 Torquay, having a few years since to go to Dawlish, informed 

 his wife that he should return by the train due at Torre 

 Station at a certain hour, and suggested that she might, with 

 their two children, walk up to meet him, which she agreed to 

 do. On the return journey there was in the same carriage 



1 The disbelief in witchcraft, notwithstanding the mass of good testi- 

 mony supporting it. 



