546 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[January 11,1973. 
sat round the table for two hours without anythin un¬ 
usual occurring-. 
The next day he went with a friend to a second seance , 
held in a small drawing-room, where arrangements had 
been made for excluding the light. The floor and walls 
were scrutinized and sounded, the felt for dai’kening the 
w indows, the chairs and the small round table examined, 
but nothing was found. There were two mediums pre¬ 
sent, and the two friends sat in the dark, clasping a hand 
and pressing a foot and knee of a medium on each side. 
1 resen fly one of them felt something hard pressing 
against the back of his head. Saying nothing, he leaned 
his head backwards, when the substance seemed to yield 
and slide softly over the hair. Suddenly grasping at it 
with his left hand, he still held the medium with the 
light, while the other visitor struck a lucifcr 5 there was a 
sound of something falling, and one of the chairs was 
seen lying on the table, but nothing else. They again 
sat down together for some time, without any further 
surprise, although in spite of a warning that the spirits 
would drop anything they were holding, wherever they 
might be, a match was unexpectedly ignited by one of 
the -visitors. Daylight w r as then admitted and the room 
seaiched and researched, nothing abnormal being* found. 
Rut the furniture now became quite lively, and this in 
broad daylight. A chair jumped three or four yards 
acioss the carpet, and there were other similar occur- 
rencea, but nothing so satisfactory as the fall of the chair 
on the table, as in that case they had fast hold of the 
mediums, w 7 ho now were moving about the room, while 
everything seemed to happen just as the visitors were 
not looking, and one ot the mediums wars somewhere 
behind them. 
The third stance was held in the evening at the house 
ot a celebrated professional medium, in this case a lady, 
v ho, ha > ing been left some money, has retired from public 
practice. Scarcely had the medium’s fingers touched 
the small table round vdiich they sat, when it began to 
play all manner of antics under the influence of “ John 
Ring, her well-known familiar. ’ But the lady’s fin°-ers 
weie strong, and there was a difficulty and delicacy in 
clearing away the folds of her dress, which left the ex¬ 
periment unsatisfactory. What was sought was decided 
raps and motion, absolutely without contact, and this was 
not obtained, although several attempts w T ere made. An 
alphabet of printed, letters was now produced and the 
visitor desired to think of a name and pass a pencil alon°- 
the line of letters. The raps came at the right letters! 
but it was thought that possibly there might uncon¬ 
sciously have been something in the manner in which 
the pencil was passed along sufficient to give the clue. 
Another name was thought of and a paper and pencil 
put under the table ; presently afterwards the paper was 
picked up with some markings upon it, the beginning 
and end of which consisted of the first and last letters of 
the name thought of, but the remainder was illegible. 
1 he performance was concluded by the “spirit” inti¬ 
mating that they were taking all the magnetism out of 
him, and wishing them good night in a series of raps, 
beginning loudly and gradually dying away into an ap- 
p irent distance. 
A" fke fourth seance Mr. Home was present, and as it 
a* peers to have been the most remarkable of the series 
we quote the words of the visitor “ There were nine 
persons present, including Mr. D. Home and Miss Fox 
the well-known American medium. We formally 
searched the room and examined the furniture before we 
sat down at the table, which measured 4 ft. 0 in. by 6 ft. 
4 in. The room was at first well-lighted from a gas- 
burner overhead. On the table was an accordion, which 
we took to pieces and tried, and found to be in every 
respect an ordinary instrument; a light lath about two 
feet long, a small brass hand-bell, matches, paper (which 
we marked), pencils, and two spirit lamps. AVb sat 
down, and almost immediately loud raps appeared to 
come from the table and floor. Miss Fox then got up 
and -went to the door of the room, inviting us to stand 
by her and to hold her hands, which we did, when loud 
thumps seemed to come from the panels as if done with 
the fist. These were repeated at our request a desired 
number of times. To give a detailed account of every¬ 
thing which occurred would need more space than we 
can now spare. Suffice it to say, that the table was 
made light and heavy at our wish, that it moved in every 
direction, that there were vibrations of the floor and of 
our chairs, that on Mr. Home holding the accordion 
under the table in his right hand and by the end fur¬ 
thest from the keys, it played a distinct tune, Mr. 
Home’s left hand being on the table and his feet so 
raised as to be visible. All other hands were on the 
table. At the same time, and under the same conditions, 
a small hand-bell was wrung in different parts of the 
space beneath the table. The gas w r as now turned out 
and the two spirit-lamps lit; these gave a fair light. 
The raps became louder, and, in the usual method, di¬ 
rected us to take a leaf out of the table. This was 
done, when the table appeared to float up about eight 
inches off the floor, settling down again in a gentle 
swaying manner. The thin wooden lath lying on the 
cloth was seen by the whole party to be in motion. It 
tilted up sidew r ays and endways, and then seemed to float 
backwards and forwards. Holding our hand three 
inches, as near as we could guess, above the cloth, the 
lath rose three times ; the last time it touched our hand, 
and directly afterwards the table jumped and shook vio¬ 
lently, and loud raps seemed to come from all parts of 
it and of the floor. The spirit-lamps were now put out, 
and what light there was from a low fire only just 
enabled us to see white paper on the table and each 
other’s positions. Presently, Mr. Home’s and Miss Fox’s 
hands and feet being in strict custody, we felt the ac¬ 
cordion pressing against our knees. We put our hand 
under the table, when the instrument appeared to be 
moving round, till its wooden base was placed between 
our fingers. In that position we held it with its keys 
downwards; it seemed to be pushed up towards our 
hand and played a few bars. It then stopped, and pre¬ 
sently we felt the bell thrust between the fingers of the 
same hand. Almost immediately a flower or sprig was 
put into our fingers, but as we were already holding- 
in one hand the accordion and the bell, the sprig was 
dropped. It was picked up and again put into our 
fingers, and as we received it we felt distinctly the touch 
of a large thumb and finger. We did not let it drop 
this time, and there was immediately a succession of 
raps of a loud and jubilant nature. They seemed to 
come from the table in our immediate vicinity. A match 
was now struck, and we drew our tired hand from under 
the table, displaying the accordion, the bell, and the 
sprig. This was the end of the seance , for the ‘ spirit * 
would do no more. In the account of it we have omitted 
several experiments about which we cannot speak de¬ 
cidedly. We tried every test we could think of. A sub¬ 
dued light, darkened as the evening went on, was one of 
the conditions we were obliged to comply with, and 
while the accordion was in our hand we were desired to 
sit passive, though,' as we stated, the hands and feet of 
the ‘ mediums ’ -were in strict custody. Mr. Home 
seemed to wish to conceal nothing, and gave us every 
opportunity, consistent with the above conditions, for 
satisfying our scepticism. A r et we need hardly say that 
we w r ere unable to satisfy it. By his request we got 
under the table with a lamp a great many times, insisted 
always on seeing his hands and feet, or on having them as 
well as those of Miss Fox held firmly. As to the hand 
with which Mr. Home held the accordion under the 
table, all we know is that on one of our sub-mahogany 
expeditions with the spirit-lamp, we saw that hand quite 
still, and saw the accordion moving up and down and 
playing music. We heard the key-notes, but the posi¬ 
tion of the instrument prevented our seeing the keys 
moving, if they did move. There was nothing during 
