Some have boldly hazarded the conjecture that Mrs Piper worked up the _dossiers_ of her sitters beforehand; inasmuch as she could easily obtain her facts in many ways; by reading private letters, for instance, or information derived from other mediums, or by employing private inquiry agents. These things are said to be habitually done by professional clairvoyants, by either going themselves or sending an agent in the capacity of, say, a book canvasser, to some town or district, and get all the information they can, to return some months later and give clairvoyant sittings. There is a belief, and it is possibly correct, that there is an organisation which gives and exchanges information thus obtained by the members of the Society. Perhaps this may account for the extraordinary good fortune of some spiritualists in obtaining "tests." Some sitters who went to Mrs Piper had visited other mediums previously. But one may be sure that all precautions were taken to ensure against her knowing the names of the sitters, so that she could not use any information, even if she had obtained any, in this way. Those best qualified to judge are convinced that her knowledge was not gained in this way, partly because of the precautions used and partly by reason of the information itself. As has been said, Mrs Piper was under the close scrutiny of Dr Hodgson for many years, and nothing of the kind has ever come to light. Also Dr Hodgson arranged beforehand her sittings for more than ten years, never telling her the names of the sitters, who in almost every instance were unknown to her by sight, and were without distinction introduced under the name of "Smith." She made so many correct statements at many individual sittings, and the proportion of successful sittings is so high, that it is very difficult to attribute fraud to her. About dates she appears to be very vague. She prefers to give Christian names to surnames, and of the former those in common use rather than those out of the way. As her descriptions of houses or places are generally failures, she seldom attempts them. Mrs Piper seems to be weakest, indeed, just where the so-called medium is most successful. Her strongest points are describing diseases, the character of the sitter, his idiosyncrasies, and the character of his friends, their sympathies, loves, hates, and relationships in general, unimportant incidents in their past histories, and so on. To retain such information in the memory is very difficult, and to obtain it by general means well-nigh impossible.