He then held the bits of paper between his right finger and thumb, and when he had picked up three or four of them, the medium said, "That is the one which contains your mother's maiden name." I have now forgotten the maiden name of the Senator's mother, though I think it was Dillard. The answer, however, was correct. Next, without asking me to write anything down, the medium thus addressed me: "I see the spirit of your mother's mother. Her name was Eliza Johnson, and she calls you 'my son,' and says, 'Tell Anne that immortality is the glorious truth of human life.' Anne was the name of her eldest child--your mother." If Senator Spencer was convinced that Dr. Schlesinger had told him the truth, I had the same kind of conviction in my case; for every word uttered was correct. I have never understood how this old man came to the results announced, nor have I ever seen any one who was able to explain his power. With the memory of my Modesto experiences fresh in mind, I decided, when I came upon Dr. Schlesinger in San Francisco, in 1893, to institute a series of daylight seances in the presence of some of the most distinguished citizens of San Francisco. As I was then a writer of the San Francisco _Daily Examiner_ staff I found rare opportunities for enlisting the men desired in the experiments. I was not then, nor am I now, in any manner affiliated with Spiritualists, nor do I set forth the facts of this narrative for the purpose of making converts to any theory of mind or matter. The manuscript from which this work is printed was written at the time of the matters recorded, on an order from the _Examiner_. Owing to the fact that Mayor Ellert afterwards regretted that he had allowed a seance to be held in his office, the _Examiner_ was induced to suppress the story, which now appears in detail for the first time. It should be borne in mind that all that follows was written at the time of the events described. CHAPTER II. THE "EXAMINER" SEANCE. That the reader may fully understand the origin of the experiments recorded in the narrative that follows, it is necessary to state again that I was a writer for the _Examiner_ in the autumn of 1893, and that I was on the alert for what newspaper men call "stories," or special articles--things a little outside of the ordinary run of news. Ambitious to arrange something of unusual interest, I approached Mr. Hearst and S. S. Chamberlain, who were in charge of the news department of the paper. I told them what I had seen Dr. Schlesinger do in Modesto, and outlined the plans that were afterwards carried out--seances at the office of Mayor Ellert and the Chief of Police, in the presence of prominent citizens. First, however, it was necessary for the editors to see the medium at their offices; for they feared there would be some failure, and that the citizens invited would be disgusted because of their loss of time in useless experiments.