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Notices of Books. 407 
house, and tested the phenomena in every way his ingenuity 
could devise. Dr. Carpenter was recently offered the same 
facilities with this lady and her sister, but as usual had only one 
sitting. Yet he thinks it fair and courteous to make diredt ac- 
cusations of imposture against both these ladies. He revives 
the absurd and utterly insufficient theory that the “ raps ” are 
produced by u a jerking or snapping adtion of particular tendons 
of either the ankles, knees, or toes.” The utter childishness of 
this explanation is manifest to anyone who has heard the sounds 
through any good medium. They vary from delicate tickings to 
noises like thumpings with the fist, slappings with the hand, and 
blows with a hammer. They are often heard loudly on the 
ceiling or on a carpetted floor, and heard as well as felt on the 
backs or seats of chairs quite out of reach of the medium. One 
of the sceptical committees in America tested the Misses Fox by 
placing them barefooted on pillows, when the “ raps ” were 
heard as distinctly as before on the floor and walls of the room. 
Mr. Crookes states that he has heard them on the floor, walls, 
&c., when Miss Fox was suspended in a swing from the ceiling, 
and has felt them on his own shoulder. He has also heard them 
on a sheet of paper suspended from one corner by a thread held 
between the medium’s fingers. A similar experiment was tried 
successfully by the Dialectical Committee (“ Report,” p. 383). 
At a meeting of the same committee raps were heard on a book 
while in the pocket of a very sceptical member ; the book was 
placed on the table, and raps again heard ; it was then held by 
two members supported on ivory paper knives, when still raps 
were heard upon it (“ Report,” p. 386). 
Again, there is the evidence of Professor Barrett, an experi- 
enced physicist, who entered on this enquiry a complete sceptic. 
He tells us that he examined the raps or knockings occurring in 
the presence of a child ten years of age — that in full sunlight, 
when every precaution to prevent deception had been taken — - 
still the raps would occur in different parts of the room, entirely 
out of reach of the child, whose hands and feet were sometimes 
closely watched, at other times held. The phenomena have been 
tested in every way that the ingenuity of sceptical friends could 
devise; and as Professor Barrett is well acquainted with Dr. 
Carpenter’s writings on the subjedt and the explanations he 
gives, we have here another proof of the utter worthlessness of 
these explanations in presence of the fadts themselves. 
The Honourable R. D. Owen has heard, in the presence of 
Miss Fox, blows as if made by a strong man using a heavy 
bludgeon with all his force, blows such as would have killed a 
man or broken an ordinary table to pieces ; while on another 
occasion the sounds resembled what would be produced by a 
falling cannon-ball, and shook the house (“ Debateable Land,” 
p. 275); and Dr. Carpenter would really have us believe that all 
these wonderfully varied sounds under all these test conditions are 
produced by u snapping tendons,” 
