The so-called “test” questions and other “evidential” conversations are, for the most part, a waste of time and the loss of an opportunity of obtaining useful information. Spirits are, after all, mere ordinary souls in an environment somewhat different from the human body and its mundane surroundings. They are as little likely as is any reasonable man or woman to trouble themselves with personating their fellow-souls at random. What are they to Hecuba, or Hecuba to them? When a spirit claims to be some specified disembodied soul the probabilities are greatly in favour of the claim being true; just as in common life people are found to be as a rule the persons they assert themselves to be. That some of the spirits in circumterrestrial space are, in a sense, vagabonds, without kith, kin or any specific identity connected with humanity, may well be the case, and is now and then a matter of observation; but this is not any reason why they should find any satisfaction in masquerading as Tom, Dick and Harry. There is probably some amusement to be extracted from personating a great figure of history, such as Julius Cæsar, Luther, Napoleon, Disraeli or Gladstone, and inducing both mediums and sitters to accept with reverence the pompous utterance of ridiculous banalities; and the history of Spiritualism shows that something of the kind does really happen now and then. But no evidence exists to show that the average sitter who seeks to speak with the average deceased relative or friend is ever duped by any impersonation of the latter. It may not always be possible to prove the genuineness of the communication to the satisfaction of an outside scoffer or critic. This, however, is not a need of the case. The sitter hears and knows for himself or herself at first-hand. What does it matter if outsiders who have not been present at the manifestations and merely hear of them at second-hand choose to evolve from their own inner consciousness the theory that the spirit interviewed was not the real “sainted Maria,” but was merely a mischievous “spook” or, more probably, the “fake” of some medium? The old proverb remains good, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof.” Any person of ordinary good sense is quite capable of distinguishing between sham and reality even when speaking with the dead is in question. * * * * *