The coming and going of Ann O’Delia Diss Debar are mysteries for there is no record of her birth and no trace of her death, but the “in between time” furnished material enough for an entire book rather than a single chapter, and gave her sufficient opportunity to have it said of her that she was “one of the most extraordinary fake mediums and mystery swindlers the world has ever known.” Some even have classed her among the ten most prominent and dangerous female criminals of the world, and her repertoire is claimed to have run the full gamut from petty confidence games to elaborately contrived schemes aimed at the magnates of Wall Street. According to report she did not hesitate to victimize the innocent and the mentally unsound and left behind her a trail of sorrow, depleted pocket-books, and impaired morals that has seldom been equaled. Like many master criminals she escaped punishment for a time but in the end fell into the toils of the law and served time both here and in England. The marvellous tact with which she devoted her great powers to the purposes of self aggrandizement and profit is without parallel, and for cunning knavery, Cagliostro, by comparison, seems to have been an amateur. It is alleged that her crimes ranged from the smallest to the largest with morals as low as one can imagine in a human being while, worst of all, she flaunted this viciousness openly, making no effort whatever to cloak her degeneracy. Nevertheless her name stands among the half score or more in the front ranks of the history of Spiritualism and with Daniel Dunglas Home shares the palm for the successful manipulation of big schemes. It was not unusual for her to make deals that ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and though the two were early in the mediumistic field, I believe that to this day they have had no peer in this respect. Possibly all other mediums combined could not have aggregated the amount of money obtained by these two. Whether Home outbids Diss Debar for preëminence as to gain it is hard to say but it is certain that he “could not hold a candle” to her versatility. Both appear to have had the advantage of being scholastic, and well versed in historic lore and the classics, which gave them great prestige with cultured people, opening the doors to the social life of the “upper-ten,” and bringing within their reach people of wealth as well as scholars and scientists, all of whom were apparently perfectly willing to be deceived, and to unwittingly aid in making the careers of these two adventurers “howling successes” up to the time of their undoing in the courts.