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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
“ quite still,” but as we are dealing with this peculiar “ Psychic 
Force” we refrain and pass on. 
The accordion then proceeded to greater lengths, and, after 
some preliminary note sounding, played a “ simple air,” and 
later on “ played chords and runs, and afterwards a well-known, 
sweet, and plaintive melody, which it executed perfectly, in a 
very beautiful manner ” ! and during this performance, it being 
now Mr. Crookes’ turn, he felt Mr. Home’s arm and hand, and 
again, of course, “ he was not moving a muscle.” Mr. Crookes 
seems to have had a lurking suspicion that the gifted Mr. 
Home was capable of playing the accordion with his boots, for 
he states that during these performances he had Mr. Home’s 
feet held, no doubt by his obliging assistant. Mr. Crookes 
again was apparently so impressed by the cares of mounting 
guard over Mr. Home’s person, and so enthralled by the abun- 
dant music the accordion poured forth, that it never occurred 
to him to notice whether the keys were depressed or not ; and 
yet, to most people gifted with a little common sense, it would 
be obvious that if the keys were not pressed down, it was im- 
possible for the music really to have come from the accordion, 
and its true source must have been looked for elsewhere. One 
who risks his scientific reputation on such carelessly performed 
experiments as these will, we can readily credit, believe any- 
thing ; and so we are not surprised to read that “ Mr. Home 
actually let go the accordion, and removed his hand quite out 
of the cage, and placed it in the hand of the person next him, 
the instrument then continuing to play whilst no one was 
touching it! And this even is surpassed by the next para- 
graph, the meaning of the first words of which, we are bound 
to confess, has completely baffled us. “ The accordion was now 
again taken , without any visible touch, from Mr. Home’s hand, 
which he removed from it entirely ; I and two of the others 
present not only seeing his released hand, but the accordion 
also floating about with no visible support inside the cage 
and this “ was repeated a second time after a short interval.” 
(The italics are our own.) Now, what are we to understand by 
the words “the accordion was now again taken”? Taken by 
whom ? — by what ? The whole paragraph is the most wonder- 
ful one it has ever been our lot to read, especially when we con- 
sider it is written by a “scientific investigator.” The one 
redeeming feature about it is, that at last we have reached the 
limits of Dr. Huggins’ credulity ; he writes to say that he did 
not see the accordion freely suspended in air, and at the same 
time he continues, “ I express no opinion as to the cause of th§ 
phenomena which took place.” We hope he will pardon us for 
saying so, but it would have been better for his scientific repu- 
tation had he made use of this same caution at the beginning, 
and not at the end, of these pseudo-scientific experiments. 
