"I then arranged the apparatus so as to place a thin glass tumbler nearly full of water immediately over the fulcrum, as in Mr. Crookes' experiment, and again the index fell and oscillated on my fingers being put into the water. "Now if one person can thus, with a delicate apparatus like mine, cause the index, through electricity, to descend and ascend, it is not improbable that others, like Mr. Home, could show greater, or even different electrical power, as in Prof. Crookes' experiments. It is well known that all persons are not alike in their ability to be electrically excited. Many persons, myself among them, can light the gas with the end of the finger. Others cannot do it with any amount of shuffling over the carpet. "At any rate is it not much more sensible to believe that Mr. Home's experiments are to be thus explained than to attribute the results of his semi-mysterious attempts to spiritualism or psychic force?" 3. Rope-Tying and Holding Mediums. THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS. Ira Erastus and William Henry Davenport were born at Buffalo, N. Y., the former on Sept. 17, 1839, and the latter on February 1, 1841. Their father, Ira Davenport, was in the police detective department, and, it is alleged, invented the celebrated rope-tying feats after having seen the Indian jugglers of the West perform similar illusions. The usual stories about ghostly phenomena attending the childhood of mediums were told about the Davenport Brothers, but it was not until 1855 that they started on their tour of the United States, with their father as showman or spiritual lecturer. When the Civil War broke out, the Brothers, accompanied by Dr. J. B. Ferguson, formerly an Independent minister of Nashville, Tenn., in the capacity of lecturer, and a Mr. Palmer as general agent and manager, went to England to exhibit their mediumistic powers, following the example of D. D. Home. With the company also was a Buffalo boy named Fay, of German-American parentage, who had formerly acted as ticket-taker for the mediums. He discovered the secret of the rope-tying feat, and was an adept at the coat feat, so he was employed as an "under-study" in case of the illness of William Davenport, who was in rather delicate health. The Brothers Davenport at this period, aged respectively 25 and 23 years, had "long black curly hair, broad but not high foreheads, dark eyes, heavy eye-brows and moustaches, firm set lips, and a bright, keen look." Their first performance in England was given at the Concert Rooms, Hanover Square, London, and created intense excitement.