the Spirits.  The Medium this time had on her table a new slate, a larger one, one which she said had belonged to the celebrated Slade who had himself received messages on it.  She said her old slate was broken, which was probably true; when I had last seen it it was in a battered condition.  She asked if it would make any difference to me if she used the new slate.  The only apparent difference between the slates was that this one was larger and did not close with a screw, therefore, thought I, more easily manipulated; consequently I did not withhold my consent.  I wrote upon a slip of paper my question, “Will Dr. H. advise me what to do for Juliet (an old colored patient)?” I folded over the slip of paper five times, put it in the slate with a small stub of pencil, and down the slates went into the lap of the Medium where I could see them, lying plainly reflected in my little mirror which I had slipped out of my pocket and laid across my knees at the proper angle of reflection.

Mrs. Patterson first wrote a letter-sheet full of alleged Spirit communications, and handed them to me across the table for perusal.  I took the sheet with one hand and while ostensibly scanning the written page, with the other hand I carefully adjusted my little mirror, on which my downcast and watchful eyes were fixed, when lo! in the mirror I beheld a hand, closely resembling that of the Medium, stealthily insert its fingers between the leaves of the slate, take out the little slip, unfold and again fold it, grasp the little pencil, which had rolled to the front while the slate was tilted that way, and with rapid but noiseless motion (had there been the least noise from the pencil, it would have been drowned by the fit of coughing, which, at that instant, seized the Medium) write across the slate from left to right, a few lines; then the leaves of the slate were closed, the little pencil laid on the top, and, over all, two hands were folded as if in benediction.  The woman opposite me, to whom the hands belonged (unless they were Spirit hands) sat with uplifted eyes, a calm expression of innocence upon her face.  After holding the slates so for a moment or two, and after calling to the Spirit friends “to come and please write in the slate,” she produced them, saying, “It has come!”

Of course, I did all I could to master my indignation, which, at that moment, was extreme, and quietly opening the slates, I read the message pretending to have come from high authority, “The channels are obstructed, give Arsenic, Bryonia and Pulsatilla in succeeding doses, an hour apart!” The last words were somewhat illegible, and Mrs. Patterson suggested another trial; she thought the Spirits would write it plainer.  Again the slates went down; again I saw the hand at work as before.  This second time the hurriedly written message was not much plainer than the first.  Mrs. Patterson, who was better versed in deciphering Spirit dispatches than I, offered