ved other long messages, written
with some care and more or less filling the side of the slate, the
agency employed was adroit substitution, generally effected when the
Medium supposed that the attention of his sitters was engrossed with an
answer just received to a question addressed to the Spirits. Prepared
slates resting against the leg of the table behind him were substituted
for those which but a moment before he had ostentatiously washed on
both sides and laid on the table in front of him. The handwriting of
these long messages bore an unmistakable similarity to the Medium's own.

When a question is written on the slate by a sitter, equal dexterity to
that used in substituting the prepared slate, or even greater, is
demanded of the Medium, in reading the question and in writing the
answer.

The question is written by the sitter out of sight of the Medium, to
whom the slate, face downward, is handed over and a piece of pencil
placed on it.

The task now before the Medium is first to secure the fragment of pencil
and to hold it while the slate is surreptitiously turned over and the
question read, then the slate is turned back again and the answer
written.

Every step in the process we have distinctly seen. In order to seize the
fragment of pencil without awakening suspicion, while holding the slate
under the table, the slate is constantly brought out to see whether or
not the Spirits have written an answer. By this manoeuvre a double end
is attained: First, it creates an atmosphere of expectation, and the
sitters grow accustomed to a good deal of motion in the Medium's arm
that holds the slate; and secondly, by these repeated motions the pencil
(which, having been cut out from a slate pencil enclosed in wood, is
square, and does not roll about awkwardly), is moved by the successive
jerks toward the hand which holds the slate, and is gradually brought up
to within grasping distance. The forefinger is then passed over the
frame of the slate, and it and the thumb seize and hold the pencil, and
under cover of some violent convulsive spasms the slate is turned over
and the question read. At this point it is that the Medium shows his
nerve: it is the critical instant, the only one when his eyes are not
fastened on his visitors. On one occasion, when the question was written
somewhat illegibly in a back hand, with a very light stroke, and close
to the upper edge of the slate, the Medium had to look at it three
several