xxxvii] SPIRITUALISTIC EXPERIENCES 345 



watches were handed to me through the curtain, and were 

 claimed by the two persons who sat by the medium. The 

 small tambourine, about ten inches diameter, was pushed 

 through the curtain and fell on the floor. These objects 

 came through different parts of the curtain, but left no holes 

 as could be seen at the time, and was proved by a close 

 examination afterwards. More marvellous still (if that be 

 possible), a waistcoat was handed to me over the curtain, 

 which proved to be the medium's, though his coat was left 

 on and his hands had been held by his companion all the 

 time ; also about a score of people were looking on all the 

 time in a well-lighted room. These things seem impossible, 

 but they are, nevertheless, facts. 



Before passing on from my Washington friends, I wish to 

 give one curious test which occurred to General Lippitt 

 recently, and an account of which he sent to me in February, 

 1894. In his early life he had lived in Paris, and had become 

 acquainted with several members of the Bonaparte family, 

 and had rendered some services to them. This was only 

 known to himself, but it accounted (to him) for the fact that 

 he had, through different mediums, received messages from 

 some of them, and from Napoleon III. In August, 1893, he 

 had seances with a medium previously unknown to him, and 

 received on a slate under test conditions a long message in 

 French, purporting to come from Napoleon III., and to give 

 his last dying thoughts. A facsimile of this is given in a 

 Chicago paper, and is written as if it were an ordinary prose 

 message ; but on copying it out I found that it was in rhyme, 

 and, so far as I could judge, very forcible, and even pathetic 

 verse. I therefore sent a copy of it to Mr. F. Myers, asking 

 him what he thought of it, and whether it was correctly 

 written. In reply he told me that he had paid special atten- 

 tion to the rules of French poetry, and that this was correct 

 verse such as no one but a Frenchman could have written. 

 General Lippitt, who was a good French scholar, observes 

 that there is only one error in it — the omission of the final 

 " e " in the word profonde near the end, which is doubtless an 

 oversight, when all the other refinements of the language, as 



