present at this earliest farce of investigation. It was the forerunner of
many others which were like unto it, and gradually, in their stations in
various cities, the "Fox Sisters" drew to their seances nearly all of the
conspicuous persons of the time, who regarded the effects exhibited to
them in as many different lights as their minds and characters were
different.

Naturally enough, after this compliance with their desires, the "spirits"
directed that a public exhibition should be given. The largest hall in
Rochester was hired for the purpose.

And here the infamy of bringing forward two little girls to do the work of
base and vulgar charlatanism, appears in all its revolting character. The
eldest of the children was then but nine years old. Had she been dressed
in accordance with her tender age, it would have taken only very slight
observation to detect the secret of the "rappings." Those persons now
living, who were present at this and at other public exhibitions of
Spiritualism at that time, will easily remember that Margaret and
Catherine Fox appeared on a platform in long gowns, as if they had been
full-grown women. The dresses were expressly prepared by order of Mrs. Ann
Leah Fox Fish, the evil genius of these unfortunate victims. Without
these robes nothing whatever could have been done in the way of "spirit
rappings," under the matter-of-fact scrutiny of the public.

To carry out the delusion to the utmost, every detail touching these
earliest exhibitions was directed through "spirit rappings," even to the
insertion of grandiloquent notices in the newspapers.

In all of the "investigations" of the "rappings," at this or at any other
time, the attentive student will find somewhere a loop-hole of escape from
observation, an unguarded avenue of detection. In some of the principal
seances, described at great length by Leah, the conditions favorable to
fraud and illusion were so very obvious that they ought to have excited
derision in the veriest child.

The following passage in the report of a so-called investigation, is
pointed to by professional spiritualists as one of the best "evidences" of
the genuineness of Spiritualism:

"One of the committee placed one of his hands on the feet of the ladies
and the other on the floor, and though the feet were not moved, there was
a distinct jar of the floor."

Here, then, there were three operators and one investigator. The latter
puts his hand on the feet of the