Some years ago I attended a series of seances in Liverpool. Nearly all the family were mediums of some sort. I was at this time very enthusiastic in my investigations. Consequently, the following incident was not lost upon me. One evening the circle met, with the usual members. Shortly after the circle was formed, the daughter of the house went into the trance state. There were several controls, one of whom professed to be a man who, the day before, had been injured on board one of Lambert & Holt’s steamers, which lay in the Bramley Moore Dock. The “spirit” described the accident, how he was injured, and that he was carried to the hospital, and had “passed away.” Owing to the suddenness of his death, he wished us to communicate with his family, and desired the circle to pray for him, etc. As near as I can recollect, when asked for further particulars, name, family, there was no definite reply. The medium quivered, and a new control had taken possession of her. I, however, neither doubted the _bona-fides_ of the spirit nor the medium. I was especially interested in this control. I thought this time I had obtained a test of spirit identity. But alas for the imperfection of human hopes, I was doomed to disappointment. I clung to the idea the spirit would come back again, and when he got “more power,” we would get the particulars he wanted to give us. He did not come back--and no wonder. Four months subsequently, I met the real Simon Pure in the flesh. To explain more fully: On the day previous to the seance mentioned, I was on board the newly-arrived steamer in question. The lumpers were getting out the cargo. This man had been working on the top of the cargo in the main hold “hooking on.” I paid no particular attention at the time to him, but an hour after I heard a great outcry, and saw a rush of men to the main hold. When I turned back and got there, I found this man senseless and bleeding. The hooks had slipped off a bale while easing out some cargo. One of them had caught the poor fellow in the mouth, and had torn up his cheek almost to the right ear. He was to all appearance dying. I temporarily dressed his face, and the stevedore had him put on a stretcher and sent to the hospital. _I did not know his name or the hospital to which he was removed._ That day and the next the whole scene was vividly impressed on my mind. Hence that night the circumstances at the seance seem to me to be quite natural. Everything advanced was wonderfully apposite and convincing. It was not till I saw the man, and conversed with him, that my so-called test of spirit identity resolved itself into so much thought or mind reading, so that, even presuming the medium or sensitive was controlled by “a spirit,” there can be no doubt the source of the spirit’s information was purely mundane. AUTOMATIC AND PLANCHETTE WRITING,