I went to America on a professional engagement in October, 1884. Some months beforehand a very liberal offer had been made me by the Spiritualists of Great Britain to write my experiences for the English press, but I declined to do so until I could add my American notes to them. I had corresponded (as I have shown) with the _Banner of Light_ in New York; and what I had heard of Spiritualism in America had made me curious to witness it. But I was determined to test it on a strictly private plan. I said to myself: "I have seen and heard pretty nearly all there is to be seen and heard on the subject in England, but, with one or two exceptions, I have never sat at any _séance_ where I was not known. Now I am going to visit a strange country where, in a matter like Spiritualism, I can conceal my identity, so as to afford the media no clue to my surroundings or the names of my deceased friends." I sailed for America quite determined to pursue a strictly secret investigation, and with that end in view I never mentioned the subject to anyone. I had a few days holiday in New York before proceeding to Boston, where my work opened, and I stayed at one of the largest hotels in the city. I landed on Sunday morning, and on Monday evening I resolved to make my first venture. Had I been a visitor in London, I should have had to search out the right sort of people, and make a dozen inquiries before I heard where the media were hiding themselves from dread of the law; but they order such things better on the other side of the Atlantic. People are allowed to hold their private opinions and their private religion there without being swooped down upon and clapped into prison for rogues and vagabonds. Whatever the views of the majority may be, upon this subject or any other (and Heaven knows I would have each man strong enough to cling to his opinion, and brave enough to acknowledge it before the world), I think it is a discredit to a civilized country to allow old laws, that were made when we were little better than savages, to remain in force at the present day. We are far too much over-ridden by a paternal Government, which has grown so blind and senile that it swallows camels while it is straining after a gnat.