I have heard many persons affirm that they perceived hands that touched them in _full light_. I never had this experience, but I can testify that during eight or ten sittings I and five or six persons who assisted me felt these hands perfectly; and among these hands were those belonging to a small child, and _certainly_ no small child was in the house; these baby hands were soothing and caressing. Our medium was still Madam L. B., who, during the _seance_, was held down tightly on a sofa by Madam P., whose scrupulous attention may be relied on where _science_ is at stake, for all our experimentations of this sort were in the dark. Several times the small baby hands were put in my sleeve, and seemed to take pleasure in pulling off my cuffs and taking them to other persons in the room. My eyeglass was also taken by the infantile fingers and carried to one of the circle.[87] CLASS X.—_Direct writing._ This is the expression we employ to designate a writing not produced by any person present, and Mr. Crookes gives the following description of this phenomenon: “I have often received words and messages written on paper (on which I had made private marks) under the most severe conditions of control; and I have heard, in the dark, the noise of the pencil moving across the paper. The precautions previously taken by me were so strict that my mind is perfectly convinced, as if the characters of the writing were formed under my own eyes. “But, as space will not permit me to enter into complete details, I shall simply choose two cases in which my eyes as well as my ears were witnesses of the operation. “The first case I shall cite took place, it is true, in _dark seance_, but the result was none the less satisfactory. “I was seated near the medium, Miss Fox, and there were only two persons present, my wife and a relative of ours; I held both hands of the medium in one of mine, while her feet were on top of my own. There was paper before us on the table and my hand held the pencil. “A luminous hand descended from above, and, after hovering near me for a few seconds, took the pencil from my hand, writing rapidly on the paper, threw the pencil over our heads and gradually faded in obscurity. “The second case may be considered and registered as a discovery. A good discovery is often more convincing than the most successful experiment. “This occurred in the light of my own room, in the presence of Mr. Home and a few friends. Different circumstances, unnecessary to enumerate here, had shown that evening that _the psychic power was very strong_. I expressed the desire of witnessing the production of a real written message, similar to that I had one of my friends mention a short time before. At the instant this wish was uttered an alphabetical communication was given which read, ‘_We will try_.’