A number of reports were thus obtained from men and women of unquestionable intelligence and acumen which, if they had been even approximately accurate, would have established the supernormality of Mr. Davey’s phenomena beyond any peradventure. But comparison of their reports with the known and recorded procedure which actually took place showed the most astonishing discrepancies. Omissions and distortions of the first importance were abundant and the experiments proved to the hilt that, for phenomena of this kind, the reports of untrained witnesses are, in general, not worth the paper they are written on. I wish that space permitted me to quote, in parallel columns, some of these Davey reports and some of those given by witnesses of photographic _séances_ so that my readers could see how very similar the circumstances are. But I must content myself with pointing out that whereas in the one case everything turned on whether the “medium” had any chance of substituting or tampering with _slates_, so in the other it is a matter of whether there has been any chance of substituting or tampering with _plates_. The reports of intelligent witnesses proved worthless in the one case, and it seems reasonable to suppose that they are no more valuable in the other. So, to anyone who thinks that in the mouth of two or three witnesses the genuineness of spirit photographs shall be established, I would say, “Go home and invest a few shillings in the _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, vols. iv. and viii.--it will be more profitable than the same amount laid out in photographic _séances_--and when you have carefully read their account of the Davey experiments in conjunction with Mr. Patrick’s paper, see whether your confidence in spirit photographs is as strong as ever!” I have drawn attention to these experiments of Mr. Davey elsewhere and I am sorry to be obliged to insist on their importance again. But until people learn that the reports of uninstructed observers--however acute in other respects--are utterly unreliable, the fraudulent medium will flourish and the unsuspecting public will be robbed and deceived. VII.--THE VALUE OF RECOGNITION (W. WHATELY SMITH)