e waited patiently an hour and twenty minutes, while the slates were in
the Medium's lap.

By the advice of the Medium, in order to eliminate any possible
antagonism, we divided our numbers, and only one or two of us at a time
sat with her. On one occasion writing did appear on the slates, after
the slates had been held by both hands of the Medium for a long time in
concealment under the table, but to neither of the two sitters did the
screw appear to be by any means as tightly fastened after the writing as
before; nor did the writing of two or three illegible words seem beyond
the resources of very humble legerdemain; in fact, no legerdemain was
needed, after a surreptitious loosening of the screw which, considering
the state of the frame of the slate, could have been readily effected.

From some cause or other the atmosphere of Philadelphia is not favorable
to this mode of Spiritual manifestation. With the exception of the
Medium just alluded to, not a single Professional Independent Slate
Writing Medium was known to us at that time in this city, nor is there
one resident here even at this present writing, as far as we know.

We were, therefore, obliged to send for one to New York. With this
Medium, Dr. Henry Slade, we had a number of sittings, and, however
wonderful may have been the manifestations of his Mediumship in the
past, or elsewhere, we were forced to the conclusion that the character
of those which passed under our observation was fraudulent throughout.
There was really no need of any elaborate method of investigation; close
observation was all that was required.

At the risk of appearing inconsequent by mentioning that first which in
point of time came last, we must premise that in our investigations
with this Medium we early discovered the character of the writing to be
twofold, and the difference between the two styles to be striking. In
one case the communication written on the slate by the Spirits was
general in its tone, legible in its chirography, and usually covered
much of the surface of the slate, punctuation being attended to, the
_i's_ dotted, and the _t's_ crossed. In the second, when the
communication was in answer to a question addressed to a Spirit the
writing was clumsy, rude, scarcely legible, abrupt in terms, and
sometimes very vague in substance. In short, one bore the marks of
deliberation and the other of haste. This difference we found to be due
to the different conditions under wh