Now I candidly confess that, up to a recent date, I had not given Spiritualists--qua spiritualists--credit for being a cheerful or convivial people. Though there exist upon the tablets of my memory recollections of certain enjoyable dinners, cosy teas, and charming petits soupers, eaten at the mahogany of believers in the modern mystery, yet these were purely exceptional events, oases in the desert of spiritualistic experiences. Generally speaking, the table, instead of groaning under its accumulated bounties, leapt about as if from the absence thereof; and the only adjuncts of the inhospitable mahogany were paper tubes for the spirit voices, handbells for the spirit hands, and occasional accordions and musical boxes for the delectation of harmonious ghosts. It was a "flow of soul" if not always a "feast of reason;" but, as regarded creature comforts, or any of the ordinary delights of mundane existence, a very Siberian desert. A grave subject of discussion (I am not, I assure you, indulging in a sepulchral pun) at the recent Liverpool Conference was how to feed mediums, and I fancy the preponderating opinion was that fasting was a cardinal virtue in their case--a regimen that had come to be in my mind, perhaps unfairly, associated with seances in general. I was glad, therefore, when I read in the columns of the _Medium_ the announcement of the spiritual picnic or "demonstration," at the People's Garden, Willesden. Still I wanted to see Spiritualists enjoy themselves in the "normal condition." I sympathized with the avowed object of the gathering, that the followers of the new creed should know one another, as surely the disciples of a common school ought to do. Armed, therefore, with a ticket, I proceeded, via the North London Railway, to the scene of action. It was not what we materialistic people should call a fine August day. It was cold and dull, and tried hard to rain; but it was far more in keeping with the character of the meeting than what Father Newman calls the "garish day" one looks for in mid-August. In the words of the circle the "conditions were excellent;" and as I journeyed on, reading my _Medium_ like a true believer, I marvelled to see, by the evidence of its advertisements, how the new creed had taken hold of a certain section, at all events, of society. Besides a dozen public mediums who paraded their varied attractions at terms ranging from _2s. 6d._ to _21s._, there were spiritualistic young men who put forward their creed as a qualification for clerkships--perhaps they had no other claim--spiritual lodging-house keepers, and even spiritual undertakers, all pervaded by what we may literally call a common esprit de corps.