newspaper editors, to whom it had been exhibited in Paris before she was presented to the Commission. But its members were nevertheless sceptical enough to require proof satisfactory to themselves, and desired to render the girl 'temporarily blind' (to use her father's words) by their own method; objecting that his velvet bandage might be so disarranged by the working of her facial muscles, as to allow her to see downwards beneath its lower edge, when the book was held in a suitable position. M. Pigeaire, however, objecting to this test, the Commissioners having satisfied themselves of the opacity of the bandage, stipulated only that the book should not be put into the girl's hands, to be held by herself wherever she wished, but should be placed opposite her eyes at any distance her father should desire. As he would not consent to this condition, the Commissioners, of course, declined to accept his daughter's performances as furnishing any valid evidence of clairvoyance. Though the bandage was opaque, the trick now became transparent; yet it had taken in peers, deputies, and George Sand; and only experts in such enquiries succeeded in discovering it.

The third case was brought forward by M. Teste, a well-known magnetiser of that date, who affirmed that every experienced mesmerist had witnessed the exercise of this faculty at least twenty times. Confident in his position, he offered to submit his clairvoyante (a young girl) to the experimentum crucisthe reading of print or writing enclosed in opaque boxes; stipulating only that the direction of the lines

should be previously indicated. Such a box was prepared and placed in the girl's hands, with the required indication. Being presently asked by M. Teste whether she would be able to read what was in the interior of the box, she answered Oui; and on his asking her how soon, she replied confidently dix minutes. She then turned the box about in her hands, and in doing so tore one of the bands that secured it. This being remarked upon, she made no further attempt of the same kind, but continued (as it appeared) to exert herself in fatiguing efforts to discern the concealed lines. Whole hours having thus passed, and M. Teste having asked his clairvoyante how many lines. there were in the box, she answered deur. He then pressed her to read, and she announced that she saw the word nous, and later the word sommes. As she then declared that she could read no more, the box was taken from her hands, and the girl was dismissed; and the box being then opened, the printed slip it contained was shown to M. Teste to have on it six lines of French poetry, in which neither of the words nous sommes occurred.

Of course this failure does not disprove any of M. Teste's assertions, either in regard to the same girl under other conditions, or in regard to other alleged clairvoyantes; but it fully justifies the allegation, that as this was a picked case, presented by himself, near the expiration of the third year during which M. Burdin's prize was open, with unhesitating confidence in the girl's success, his other reported cases, of which not one rests upon better authority than his own,

have not the least claim upon our acceptance. He seems to have been very easily satisfied; and it is clear that if he was not a consenting party, he was not adequately on his guard against the possibility of a furtive peep being taken by his clairvoyante into the interior of the box while it was being turned about in her hands, the method which Houdin avows himself to have practised in performing his second sight' trick, and by which, as I shall presently tell you, one of our own most noted advocates of the 'transcendental' was afterwards completely taken in.

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It was in 1844 that the clairvoyant Alexis came hither from Paris, with the reputation of extraordinary powers; and though these had not been submitted to the test of investigation by the French Academy of Medicine, it was confidently affirmed by the leading mesmerisers in this country, that there was nothing in the way of lucidity' that this youth. had not done and could not do. Not only had he divined the contents of sealed packets and thick wooden boxes, but he could give an exact account of the contents of any room in any house never before seen or heard of; he had described occurrences taking place at a distance, which, to the great surprise of the questioners (who expected something very different), were afterwards found to have transpired exactly as he had stated; he had revealed to persons anxious to recover important papers the unknown places of their lodgment; in fact, if all was true that was affirmed of him, the power for which he could claim credit would have been little less than omniscience-if only it

could have been commanded at will. But, by the admission of his best friends, it was extremely variable, coming in gushes or flashes; while, as he was often unable to see clearly at first, and had an unfortunate habit of 'thinking aloud,' he continually made a great many blunders before he arrived at anything like the truth.

Having myself settled in the neighbourhood of London just as Alexis came over, and having found my friend Dr. Forbes (then editor of the British and Foreign Medical Review) extremely interested in the enquiry into the reality of his asserted clairvoyant powers, I accompanied Dr. F., time after time, to public and private séances at which these powers were exhibited, though not adequately tested. So far from being at that time an opponent, I was much more nearly a believer; the weight of testimony seemed too strong to be overborne; and it was only after repeated experience of the numerous sources of fallacy which the keen-sightedness of Dr. Forbes enabled him to discern, that I became, like him, a sceptic as to the reality of Alexis's reputed clairvoyance. My scepticism was increased by seeing how, whilst he was 'thinking aloud' (according to his friends) but 'fishing' or 'pumping' (according to unbelievers), he was helped by the information he gleaned from the unconscious promptings of his questioners. And my confidence in testimony was greatly weakened, by finding that extraordinary successes were reported to have been obtained in some cases which Dr. Forbes and I regarded as utter failures, as well as in others.

in which it was clear to us that no adequate precautions had been taken to prevent the use of ordinary vision. For we satisfied ourselves that when he was going to read or to play cards with his eyes bandaged, it was his habit so to manœuvre, as to prevent the bandage from being drawn tight,-cela m'étouffe being his constant complaint, even when his nostrils were left perfectly free; and that when he could not see under its lower edge at first, he worked the muscles of his face until he displaced it sufficiently for his purpose. And thus we came to the conclusion that no test of his 'lucidity' could be of any value, which did not involve the reading of print or writing enclosed in perfectly opaque boxes or other envelopes, without the assistance of any response to his guesses. A test-séance of this kind having been arranged by Dr. Forbes at his own house, the general result (as admitted by M. Marcillet, the mesmeriser who accompanied Alexis) was utter failure; the only noteworthy exception being in a case in which, having selected the thinnest of the paper envelopes, Alexis correctly stated that the word within it consisted of three letters, without, however, being able to name them. And the value of even this very slight success was afterwards completely neutralised by the discovery, which I shall recount in connection with the case of the brother and successor of Alexis, that nothing else than ordinary vision was required to obtain it.

As M. Marcillet could not dispute the fairness with which the investigation was conducted, he could