It was not with any sinister design that the doctrine of spiritualism, or its practices, has been introduced into my narrative. It formed no portion of my original intention; but I found it impossible to refrain from giving publicity to documents that had been found of sufficient importance to attract the attention of the authorities. The spiritualist is able to take care of himself and his belief. Such communications might be used to a fearful and fatal purpose. The criminals engaged in the perpetration of a crime could, if such testimony was of any judicial weight, arrange a circle, produce the manifestations, or the similitude of manifestations, and direct attention to certain innocent parties, when suspicion would give time for the real culprits to escape. Every one knows how easy it is to work through the agency of a religious sentiment, and a very large class of people, habituated to the belief in spiritual revelations as inculcated by the spiritualists, receiving impressions in that way, would be hard to believe otherwise than as the spurious spirits asserted. Crime would thus become more dramatic, and the consequences of such interference on the part of a religious organization might lead to the overthrow of all the purposes and powers of civil authority. Happily, I am confident no such construction can be placed upon the operations and revelations of the authorized spiritualistic media. I do not know exactly what view they take of the knowledge presumed to be possessed by the murdered regarding the murderer. To reveal simply the name of the person, taking for granted that the power exists according to the doctrine of spiritualism, would be of no use, unless a train of circumstantial evidence could be intimated, by which the law could develop a legal connection between the accused and the crime. There have been several instances, in this country, in which testimonious ghosts have enacted important parts. Some of these are upon the public record; others in private circulation. There was a case some fifty years ago in Virginia, when, if I recollect correctly, the ghost of a Mr. Clapham met a man upon the path in the mountain, nearly opposite to the famous Point of Rocks, on the Potomac, and told him where his will could be found,—the absence of which had involved his widow in vexatious and tedious litigation. The will was found and the question of right established in her favor; and I myself have partaken of the hospitality of that generous lady in the years gone by, when peace and plenty abounded in those beautiful valleys. As a matter of curiosity, I will give in brief, a singular case that happened in Scotland, and which goes to establish my theory of the injustice that may be perpetrated by the assertions of persons using the simulated spiritualistic agency for the detection of crime. The Scotch rebellion of 1745 compelled a larger amount of vigilance in preventing its recurrence than it possibly had taken to subdue it