1885.] 
Psychography. 145 
witness, at least, would have come forward to expose the 
fraud— an exposure which, in not a few quarters, would be 
exceedingly welcome. How, then, on the hypothesis of 
falsehood, do Spiritualists contrive to seal the lips of each 
succeeding spectator ? 
1 he next hypothesis is that the spectators, though not 
intentional deceivers, are self-deceived, and fancy that they 
see occurrences which never took place. Or they are pro- 
nounced to be incompetent, untrained observers. A moment’s 
reflection will show that this supposition cannot hold good. 
In the first place must be noted the extreme simplicity of 
the phenomena, there is nothing to excite any passion or 
emotion ; nothing to engage ear and eye, and thus draw off 
the attention of those present from what is being done, or 
rather from the manner in which it is effected. There is 
nothing that requires the trained observer or the scientific 
specialist. Were it a question turning on delicate speCtro- 
scopic or microscopic observations I should not for a moment 
accept the evidence of a non-specialist, however highly edu- 
cated, intelligent, and upright. But this is not the case : 
any sane man of common sense and fair moral character 
can decide as well as Professor E. Ray Lankester whether 
the slates used were clean before being tied together, — 
whether the medium had, or had not, the opportunity of 
tampering with them, — and whether, when untied, they were 
found covered with written matter. I repeat it that, to my 
apprehension, the most illustrious man of Science would 
have no advantage in making such observations. 
But I may be told that it is all clever jugglery. Jugglers 
can certainly do very surprising things, and they are in these 
days a prosperous and influential class, whose honour and 
reputation the Law appraises at a high figure. But I may 
at least, without fear of an aCtion for libel, assert that their 
power has its limits. 
No juggler has as yet reproduced the phenomena of 
“ Psychography” as above described, and under test condi- 
tions. If Maskelyne and Cooke will, like Eglinton, sit 
down at an ordinary table, and, without apparatus of any 
kind, produce intelligible writing between two locked slates, 
which never pass into their hands at all, and which they 
thus have no opportunity of manipulating, we may then 
with a show of reason refer this matter to jugglery. 
But let us examine this part of the subject a little more 
closely. How can jugglery be conceived as possibly pro- 
ducing the results described ? It may be said that the 
writing pre-exists on the slates before they are tied together, 
