If the claim of the spiritualists to having achieved the materialisation of the spirits of deceased persons were restricted to the mere ocular, oral, and tactile evidence of the dark _séance_, the theory of hallucination would account for much that is perplexing. But the problem becomes complicated when the spiritualists come forward with proof that their senses have not misled them. It is only a few months since that a young man in the north of England, on photographing his mother and sisters, was greatly startled to find his late father's face also on the plate. He had not made use of the camera, we are told, for eighteen months. Recently, too, a professional photographer in London was commissioned to photograph a grave which was surmounted by a beautiful basket of flowers. To his consternation, within the handle appeared the facial lineaments of the deceased. The earliest spirit photograph, as far as can be ascertained, dates from 1862, when an American photographer named Mumler, on developing a photograph of himself, discovered the likeness of a cousin who had been dead some dozen years previously. The case was investigated by Dr Mumler of Boston, who considered that many of the "spirit photographs" afterwards taken by Mumler were genuine, but that others were, in our modern phrase, indubitably faked. This was put down to Mumler's desire to cope with the unusual demand and satisfy his host of sitters. Mumler, after twelve years' experience, writing to Mr James Burns, says: "I have been investigated by the best photographers in America, and have their testimony in my favour, given under oath; I have been tried in a court of justice, and been honourably acquitted; and, lastly, I have the evidence of thousands of people who have had pictures taken, and recognised the likenesses of their spirit friends, many of whom never had a picture taken during life. I have been a humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, to place a link in the great chain of evidence that binds the two worlds together. Flowers, birds, and animals have frequently appeared upon the plates and one lady was delighted to recognise by her side her faithful old black retriever."