psychology had been the recent prosecution. Of the true motive for that proceeding there could be no doubt. The pretence of public interests was transparent.” To a mere layman the words of this judicial Serjeant read very much like a reckless libel. Perhaps only a lawyer can properly appreciate them. “The object really sought was plain enough. It was not to punish Dr. Slade, but to discredit through him all psychological phenomena, the proof of whose existence was destruction to the doctrines of materialism.... Whether Dr. Slade was or was not guilty, the trial had had the unlooked-for effect [!] of directing the attention of the whole public to the fact that phenomena were asserted to exist... which swept away now and for ever _the dark and debasing doctrines of the materialists_.” After which, according to the same report, a Mr. Dunlop, with admirable gravity, whether sincere or ironical, expressed a high opinion of the judicial mind of the president! and said that he felt sure that if the appeal in the Slade case came before Mr. Serjeant Cox, he would give as dispassionate a decision as if he had had no previous knowledge of the circumstances!! For myself, as a mere unlearned layman, I can only ask in astonishment, Is this Serjeant Cox, with his indecent partizanship and wild personal imputations, fit to sit in judgment—I will not say on this Slade business—but on any case at all which requires impartiality and discretion? “The dark and debasing doctrines of the materialists”! Can anything be darker and more debasing in a so-called civilised time and country than this Spiritism has proved itself from the beginning until bow? I have yet to learn that the whole of its world of spirits, now for many years at the beck and call of countless mediums, professional and private, has ever dictated or written a single great sentence, revealed a single great truth—discovered a single important fact. Nothing but the dreamiest drivel, or delirium, the most wretched and imbecile juggling tricks, with all sorts of evasions, and deceptions and lies! Mr. Wallace himself, one of the few good men it has got hold of by some weak place in their minds, in his evidence for Slade said “that he attached no importance to the subject-matter of a message, but only to its being written intelligibly, the subject-matter seldom being of any value.” And for seldom he might fairly have said never. The truth is the truth, whether dark or bright, debasing or ennobling; but if we are called upon to consider a theory in these aspects, what, I ask again, can be more dark and debasing than this, that we live after death to rap and turn tables, play villainous snatches on light musical instruments, write badly-spelt balderdash, dictate ungrammatical imbecilities or lies, grasp hands and jog knees—all for the profit of showmen and the hysterical wonder of fools? Who would not prefer annihilation to such a degraded and idiotic immortality? Shakespeare, Bacon, Byron, Shelley,