It was on in London, under Vice-Chancellor Gifford, from April 21 to May 1, 1868. Sir A. C. Doyle seems to regard Mrs. Lyon's affidavit as waste-paper. She swears that Home brought a fictitious message from her dead husband, ordering her to adopt Daniel and endow him, and she gave him at once £26,000. She swears that, when Home's birthday came round, another fictitious message ordered her to give Daniel a further fat cheque, and she gave him £6,798. Sir A. C. Doyle may set aside all this as "lies," because he is determined to have at least one snow-white medium in the nineteenth century, and his cause cannot afford to lose Home's miracles. But when he and other writers say that Home was acquitted of dishonourable conduct, they are, if they have read Gifford's decree, saying the exact opposite of the truth. It is enough to mention that Vice-Chancellor Gifford decided that "the gifts and deeds are _fraudulent_ and void," and he added:-- The system [Spiritualism], as presented by the evidence, is mischievous nonsense--well calculated on the one hand to delude the vain, the weak, the foolish, and the superstitious; and on the other to assist the projects of _the needy and the adventurer_. Beyond all doubt there is plain law enough and plain sense enough to forbid and prevent the retention of _acquisitions such as these_ by any medium, whether with or without a strange gift. That is the official judgment which Spiritualists constantly represent as acquitting Home of fraud! This man, scornfully lashed as a greedy impostor from the British Bench, is the snow-white medium recommended to the public by Sir A. C. Doyle, Sir W. Barrett, Sir W. Crookes, and Sir O. Lodge. Sir Arthur adds in his _Vital Message_ (p. 55) that "the genuineness of his psychic powers has never been seriously questioned." That statement is hardly less astounding. Home's performances, which we will examine in the third chapter, were regarded by the overwhelming majority of the cultivated people of his time as trickery of the most sordid description from beginning to end. Has Sir A. C. Doyle never heard of Browning's "Sludge"? It expressed the opinion of nearly all London.