'How many are living?' Six strokes. 'How many
are dead?' A single stroke. _She had lost a child._

"Then she asked, 'Are you a man?' No answer. 'Are you a spirit?'
It rapped. 'May my neighbors hear, if I call them?' It rapped
again.

"Thereupon she asked her husband to call her neighbor, a Mrs.
Redfield, who came in laughing. But her cheer was soon changed.
The answers to her inquiries were as prompt and pertinent, as they
had been to those of Mrs. Fox. She was struck with awe; and when,
in reply to a question about the number of her children, by
rapping four, instead of three, as she expected, it reminded her
of a little daughter, Mary, whom she had recently lost, the mother
burst into tears."

We have introduced this narrative thus at length not only because it is
interesting in itself, but because it is of special interest that all the
particulars of the origin, or beginning, of such a movement as this,
should be well understood. The following paragraph will explain how it
came to be called "The Rochester Knockings," under which name it first
became widely known. It is from the "Report of the 37th Anniversary of
Modern Spiritualism," held in Brooklyn, N. Y., March 31, 1885, and
reported in the _Banner of Light_, the 25th of the following month:--

"After a song by J. T. Lillie, Mrs. Leah Fox Underhill, the elder
of the three Fox sisters (who was on our platform), was requested
to speak. Mrs. Underhill said that she was not a public speaker,
but would answer any questions from the audience, and in response
to these questions told in a graphic manner how the spirits came
to their humble home in Hydesville, in 1848; how on the 31st of
March the first intelligent communication from the spirit world
came through the raps; how the family had been annoyed by the
manifestations, and by the notoriety that followed; how the
younger sisters, Catherine and Margaret, were taken to Rochester,
where she lived, by their mother, hoping that this great and
apparent calamity might pass from them; how their father and
mother prayed that this cup might be taken away, but the phenomena
became more marked and violent; how in the morning they would find
four coffins drawn with an artistic hand on the door of the
dining-room of her home in Rochester, of different sizes,
approximating to the ages and sizes of the fam