Dion Boucicault, an Irish Dramatist and actor of prominence in America and equally so in Europe, entertained the Davenports at his home in London (1865) where he felt assured that the room could not contribute to fraudulent results. Twenty-three friends, men of rank and some prominence, among them clergymen and medical doctors, were in attendance. He did not report if any were believers, but it is inferred from his writing that none were. As in other cases, the utmost precaution was taken to render conditions most acceptable to the investigators, nevertheless, the usual manifestations took place and Mr. Boucicault wrote lengthy reports as to details, and as a conclusion to his report he wrote: “At the termination of the seance a general conversation took place on the subject of what we had heard and witnessed. Lord Bury suggested that the general opinion seemed to be that we should assure the Brothers Davenport and Mr. W. Fay, that after a very stringent trial and strict scrutiny of their proceedings, the gentlemen present could arrive at no other conclusion than that there was no trace of trickery in any form, and certainly there were neither confederates nor machinery and that all those who had witnessed the results would freely state in society in which they moved, that, so far as their investigations enabled them to form an opinion, the phenomena which had taken place in their presence were not the product of legerdemain. This suggestion was promptly acceded to by all present. “Some persons think that the requirement of darkness seems to infer trickery. Is not a dark chamber essential in the process of photography? And what would we reply to him who would say, ‘I believe photography to be a humbug--do it all in the light, and we will believe otherwise’? It is true that we know why darkness is necessary to the production of the sun-pictures; and if scientific men will subject these phenomena to analysis, we shall find out why darkness is essential to such manifestations. It is a subject which scientific men are not justified in treating with the neglect of contempt.--I am, etc., “Dion Boucicault.” Richard Francis Burton, eminent English traveller, writer, and translator of _The Arabian Nights_, wrote to Dr. Ferguson, Davenport Brothers’ lecturer and manager: “I have spent a great part of my life in oriental lands, and have seen there many magicians.... I have read and listened to every explanation of the Davenport ‘tricks’ hitherto placed before the English public, and, believe me, if anything would make me take that tremendous jump ‘from matter to spirit,’ it is the utter and complete unreason of the reasons by which the ‘manifestations’ are explained.”