moment he was called to Edinburgh, and asked his friend, Professor
Oliver Lodge, of whom we have already spoken, to receive Mrs Piper in
his stead. Professor Lodge installed her in an hotel with her two little
girls who came with her. The same evening Mr Myers arrived, and took her
to his house next day.
Experiments at Cambridge began at once. This is what Mr Myers says about
them:--[10]
"I am convinced that Mrs Piper, on her arrival in England, brought with
her a very slender knowledge of English affairs or English people. The
servant who attended on her and on her two young children was chosen by
myself, and was a young woman from a country village whom I had full
reason to believe both trustworthy and also quite ignorant of my own or
my friends' affairs. For the most part I had myself not determined upon
the persons whom I would invite to sit with her. I chose these sitters
in great measure by chance; several of them were not resident in
Cambridge, and except in one or two cases, where anonymity would have
been hard to preserve, I brought them to her under false names,
sometimes introducing them only when the trance had already begun."
Professor Oliver Lodge in his turn invited Mrs Piper to come and give
sittings at his home in Liverpool. She went, and remained from 18th
December to 27th December 1889. During this time she gave at least two
sittings a day, which fatigued her much. Professor Lodge gave up for the
time all other work to study her. He enumerates at length all the
precautions he took to prevent fraud. He also declares that Mrs Piper,
who was perfectly aware of the watch kept upon her, never showed the
least displeasure, and thought it quite natural. He wondered whether, by
chance, she might not have among her luggage some book containing
biographies of men of the day, and asked permission to look through her
trunks. She consented with the best possible grace. But Professor Lodge
found nothing suspicious. Mrs Piper also handed over to be read the
greater number of the letters she received; they were not numerous;
about three a week. The servants in the house were all new; they knew
nothing of the family's private affairs, and thus could not inform the
medium about them. Besides, Mrs Piper never tried to question them. Mrs
Lodge, who was very sceptical at first, kept guard over her own speech,
so as not to give any scraps of information. The family Bible (on the
first pages of which, according to cu
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