walked out
at Petersburg."

Here is a message from George W. Gage, with some of the questions which
he answered:

"[How do you like your new home?] First rate. I likes--heigho!--I
likes to come here, for they clears all the truck away before you
get round, and fix up so you can talk right off. [Wasn't you a
medium?] No, Sir; I wasn't afraid, though; nor my mother ain't,
either. Oh, I knew about it; I knew before I come to die, about it.
My mother told me about it. I knew I'd be a woman when I come here,
too. [Did you?] Yes, sir; my mother told me, and said I musn't be
afraid. Oh, I don't likes that, but I likes to come.

"I forgot, Sir; my mother's deaf, and always had to holler. That
gentleman says folks ain't deaf here."

The observable points are first that he seems to have excused his
"hollering" by the habits consequent upon his mother's deafness. The
"hollering" consisted of unusually heavy thumping, I suppose. But the
second point is of far greater interest. George intimates that he has
changed his "sect," and become a woman! For this important alteration
his good mother had prepared his mind. This style of thing will not seem
so strange if we consider that some men become old women before they
die!

Here is another case of feminification and restitution combined. Hans
Von Vleet has become a vrow--what you may call a female Dutchman! It has
always been claimed that women are purer and better than men; and
accordingly we see that as soon as Hans became a woman he insisted on
his widow's returning to a Jew two thousand dollars that naughty Hans
had "Christianed" the poor Hebrew out of. But let Hans tell his own
story:

"I was Hans Von Vleet ven I vas here. I vas Von Vleet here; I is
one vrow now. I is one vrow ven I comes back; I vas no vrow ven I
vas here (alluding to the fact that he was temporarily occupying
the form of our medium.) I wish you to know that I first live in
Harlem, State of New York. Ven I vos here, I take something I had
no right to take, something that no belongs to me. I takes
something; I takes two thousand dollars that was no my own; that's
what I come back to say about. I first have some dealings with one
Jew; that's what you call him. He likes to Jew me, and I likes to
Christian him. I belongs to the Dutch Reform Church. (Do you think
you were a good member?) Vell, I vas. I