It was a still earlier fraud, Gordon, who began this trick of mounting furniture in the dark and saying that the spirits bore him up; but the "evidence" is not worth glancing at. One might as well ask us to examine seriously the evidence for the "elongation" of Herne, Peters, Morse, and all the other impostors of the time, or for the spiritual transit of Mrs. Guppy and Dr. Monck. Let us rather see what sort of evidence is furnished in recent times. It appears that the spirits no longer levitate the mediums themselves. Although the power is said to be developing as time goes on, the age of these impressive floatings round pitch-dark rooms is over. The only instance I have read in the last twenty years is that of Ofelia Corralès, of Costa Rica, who unfortunately fell off the stool she was standing on. We have now to be content with the levitation of tables and the dragging of furniture towards the medium. Again let us, in order not to waste time, address ourselves at once to the classical case of Eusapia Palladino. Your common or garden medium, with his uncritical audience, has a dozen ways of tilting and lifting tables and pulling furniture about the room. To press on with the hands or thumbs (with four fingers "above the table" to edify the audience) and lift with the knees is easy. The same thing can be done by pressure against the inside of the legs of the table. The foot is still more useful, for the table is generally light. A confederate is even more useful. The more artistic medium wears a ring with a slot in it, and has a strong pin in the table. While his hands seem to be spread out above the table, he catches the head of the pin in the slot of his ring, and--the miracle occurs. Other mediums have leather cuffs inside their sleeves, with a dark piece of iron or a hook projecting to catch the edge of the table. But we will take Palladino, who was examined by scores of scientific men, many of whom to this day believe that at least a large part of her "phenomena" were genuine. The average man hesitates immediately when he hears that _everybody_ admits that part of her performances were fraudulent. She was a "grey" medium, Sir A. C. Doyle says. But he, and so many others, assure you at once that this is quite natural. She had real mediumistic powers; but these decay after a time, while the public still clamours for miracles, and the poor medium is strongly tempted to cheat. I have already said that Sir Arthur is here even more inaccurate than he usually is. He says that she was "quite honest" for the first fifteen years, as any person who studies her record will admit. Let us briefly study it.