a few minutes the slate pencil
is placed on the slate; no offer is made of showing both sides, which
would be quite needless, since the side which is exposed is perfectly
clean, and it is on that side which the Spirits are expected to write;
the slate is kept almost constantly and wholly in full view and but very
slightly inserted beneath the table. After an interval of waiting,
during which, by constantly looking at the slate as though impatient for
the writing to begin, whereby his sitters become accustomed to the
appearance and disappearance of the slate, the Medium reaches for a
second slate, ostentatiously washes both sides, lays it on the table,
removes the pencil from the first slate to the second, and places over
it the first slate with its prepared message, face downward, and the
trick is done. The two slates are held for a minute under the table, and
are then held to the ear or on the shoulder of the sitter on the
Medium's right hand--never to any other sitter, since to do so would
reveal the scratching of the Medium's finger-nail on the rim of the
slate, whereby the writing of the pencil within the slates is
counterfeited. I have distinctly, three or four times, watched the
motion of the Medium's finger while thus scratching; as I sat facing the
window the fingers which held the slate and made the fictitious writing
were sharply outlined against the light. And here let me say that he who
sits on the Medium's left hand, the side to which he turns almost his
full back, has the best position for observation. He told me many times
that he did not like to have three sitters, but much preferred only two;
at the third side, when unoccupied, wonderful manifestations occur,
such as a chair's elevation, or being thrown down, or the appearance of
the unsupported slate, etc. These manifestations are executed by the
Medium's foot, and lest its motions under the table should be detected,
the longitudinal cracks where the two table-leaves join, were carefully
stuffed with paper, although, to be sure, he once explained to me the
presence of this paper as necessary to keep 'the electricity from
flowing through.'

Although Dr. Slade had agreed verbally in New York that the last seance
of the series should be in the presence of all the Commission, he flatly
refused, when in Philadelphia, to hold any in the presence of more than
three at a time.

On one occasion, when the Medium was very sure of his sitters, he placed
the prep