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186 , electricity, pneumatics, or anything else, it would baffle the most accomplished in any of those branches of science to form even an approximate idea of his modus operandi.

Mr. H. W. S. was probably at least as good an observer as the great majority of those who have testiﬁed to marvels performed by spirit mediums. And he had, as we have seen, a great advantage over the ordinary Spiritualist, inasmuch as he knew that there was nothing occult or inexplicable in the business. But yet the performance, as described by him, might well seem to require the aid of magic; and indeed the distinguished naturalist, Dr. A. R. Wallace, has selected the events of this'séance, with others, as being inexplicable by conjuring. So they are, if the account quoted accurately described what took place. But they seem inexplicable only because the account is highly condensed, and in the process of condensation the recorder has omitted—as Davey intended that he should omit—much that would have given a clue to the deception practised. Thus in his account of experiment (a) Mr. H. W. S. admits "the lapse of a few minutes" between his placing the key of the locked slate in his pocket and the sound of writing. He is even so a better recorder than many, who would have failed to record the interval at all. But he omits all that happened in that interval as irrelevant. He does so, no doubt, because of two assumptions, neither of which was justified: (1) that he had the slate under observation the whole time; (2) that the message was actually written at the moment when the sound