both the medium's
hands; but as I before explained, the pressure on his wrist was from the
medium's left arm--the left hand of whom, by means of a very
accommodating crook in the elbow, was grasping the investigator's arm
where the medium's right hand was supposed to be.

From Boston the Allen boy went to Portland, Maine, where he succeeded
"astonishingly," till some gentleman applied the lampblack test to his
assumed mediumship, whereupon he "came to grief."

The following is copied from the "Portland Daily Press," of March 21.

"EXPOSED.--The 'wonderful' spiritual manifestations of the
'boy-medium,' Master Henry B. Allen, in charge of Doctor J. H.
Randall, of Boston, were brought to a sad end last evening by the
impertinent curiosity and wicked doings of some of the gentlemen
present at the seance at Congress Hall.

"As usual, one of the company present was selected to sit at the
side of the boy, and allowed his hand and arm to be held by both
hands of the boy while the manifestations were going on. The boy
seized hold of the gentleman's wrist with his left hand, and his
shoulder, or near it, with the right hand. The manifestations then
began, and among them was one trick of pulling the gentleman's
hair.

"Immediately after this trick was performed, the hand of the boy
was discovered to be very black--from lamp-black, of the best
quality, with which the gentleman had dressed his head on purpose
to detect whose was the 'spirit-hand' that pulled his hair. His
shirt-sleeve, upon which the boy immediately replaced his hand
after pulling his hair, was also black where the hand had been
placed. The gentleman stated the facts to the company present, and
the seance broke up. Dr. Randall refunded the fifty cents admission
fee to those present."

The spiritualists of the city were somewhat staggered by this expose,
but soon rallied as one of their number announced a new discovery in
spiritual science. Here it is, as stated by himself:

"Whatever the electrical or 'spirit-hand' touches, will inevitably be
transferred to the hand of the medium in every instance, unless
something occurs to prevent the full operation of the law by which this
result is produced. The spirit-hand being composed in part of the
magnetic elements drawn from the medium, when it is dissolved again, and
the magnetic fluid returns whence it came,