I have witnessed the performances of sundry other medi_ums_--I hate to write the word!--always with the same net result. That is to say, the strictly physical phenomena witnessed were in very many cases--not in all--utterly unaccountable and incomprehensible. The statement that the performances of many masters of legerdemain are also unaccountable and incomprehensible appears to me, while I fully admit the truth of it, to be of very little value. The phenomena produced by these professors are in almost every case totally different in kind, and are in every case placed in a wholly different category by the fact that the performers of them have the assistance of tools and means--the highly-skilled preparation and combination of which constitute a very important (if not the most essential) part of their professional equipment--and of the resources of their own prepared _locale_. Furthermore, I cannot forget the testimony of that “prince of conjurors,” Bosco, to the effect that the phenomena, which I declared to him I had seen, were entirely unachievable by any of the resources of his art. Above all I have the certain knowledge (resting not only on my own very perfect recollection, but on the unvarying testimony of the two other persons engaged in the experiment) that a table did move much and violently, as recorded above, while wholly and certainly untouched by any human hands or persons, and uncommunicated with--if I may use such an expression--save by the minds of the operators. The net conclusion, therefore, of my rather extensive experience in the matter is, that as regards phenomena purely physical, such have been and are frequently produced by the practisers of “animal magnetism”--or by whatever name it may be preferred to call it--of a nature wholly inexplicable by any of the theories or suggestions which have been adduced for the explanation of them. With regard to _non-physical_ phenomena--that is to say, such as imply the abnormal exercise of intelligences, whether incarnate or disembodied, outside the intelligence of the individual experimenting--I have to testify that I have _heard_ from many highly credible persons the statement of their own experience of such communication with intelligences other than their own. And I have heard such statements immediately on the occurrence of the facts. But I have never in my own person received or been made the subject of any such. INDEX. A. Abbaye-aux-Bois, at the, 271, 273 Abingdon Road, pedestrian feat on, 218 Academical career, my, a failure, 216 Acheron pavement, 226 Adventure on the Danube, 312, 313 Advertising, modern, 45 Alabama, Miss Wright’s property in, 153 Alban Hall, I matriculate at, 191 as it was under Whately, 192 membership of, disastrous to me, 211 cause of my quitting it, 211 Ale _versus_ claret, 46 Alexis; thought-reader of Paris, 393 Alleghany Mountains, beauty of, 165 American stabbed at Naples, 12