CARROLL D. WRIGHT

 MR. CARROLL D. WRIGHT was United States Labor Commissioner and afterward President of Clarke College in Worcester, Mass. This is all that I knew about him, save that he had studied his problems statistically. I found by inquiry that Mrs. Chenoweth knew nothing about him and apparently had never even heard of him. His name was given in sittings connected with Professor James and the claim made that he and Professor James were personal friends. This turned out to be erroneous and the confusion seems to have been due to the fact that Professor James did know Chauncy Wright, a colleague in Harvard University. During several sittings various incidents identifying Mr. Carroll D. Wright together with his full name came through, but they were not striking enough to emphasize here. Finally the following incidents came that had more weight. But some that might have been excellent were not verifiable and I resorted to an experiment described below that came to better results.

 In one of my own experiments with the automatic, writing the following incident was very pertinent.

 C. W. places his bands on the table and says that he thought all the physical phenomena were easily explained by magnetic influence or simple fraud, but he has reversed that opinion. The subtle influence of spirit was not plain to himexcept as a factor in life. The communication with the dead was unsatisfactory in most instances, but he was not a psychologist, and so did not comprehend what was being done.

 I learned from the family what I did not previously know, that Mr. Wright had witnessed physical phenomena in his early days, having seen table tipping, which is hinted at here by the reference to "his hands on the table." But he was not satisfied with the results and gave up the subject as one in which conclusions could not be assured. He was not a psychologist. He was a religious believer and accepted the existence of spirit, but not communication with the dead. All this was unknown to Mrs. Chenoweth.

 He was stated to have carried a powder in his pocket as a simple remedy for stomach trouble and which he took at intervals before his death. This is not confirmed. On the contrary, it seems not to have been true. But it is possible that it is a distorted account of a later incident which also was not true in the form that it appears, but seems to have been a confused reference to what was true, namely, that he constantly used lithia tablets for stomach or other trouble. Then came the following.

 I see also a great pile of papers, some printed, and some compiled for printing and all in a stack on a table, a matter in which he was engaged at the time of his last illness. It looks like some work which was left him to do as a sort of referee. There is a large number of cases cited and instances named and figures and estimates given, and it is all before him for final summing up.

 Inquiry shows that Mr. Wright was engaged on the "Century Book of Facts" a short time before his death, having finished it in January and died in February. None of these facts were known by me or by Mrs. Chenoweth.

 Immediately after this came a reference to agriculture, to a new building apparently connected with it and allusions to various interests in which he was engaged besides "his particular chair," and then a reference to statistics which were, in fact, a special line of work with him. The allusion to agriculture, however, seemed to the family to have no meaning but one of them happened to remark that he was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Agricultural College in Massachusetts, and it is possible that it was this he was trying to say or mention, a view born out by the reference to' "varied interests." The statement that "in his school there was much to do with the soil, agriculture and the like" was not true of the college of which he was President, but it was true of the college of whose Board he was a member. An Aunt A was mentioned that no one recalls or recognizes, but the name Adams given almost immediately was that of one of his friends. He was said to have taken a trip to New York a short time before his death. Inquiry showed that this was true. A statement about the relative frequency of his going to Boston and New York was true but not evidential, as it might be expected. Reference to his preference for Harvard over Columbia has no evidential meaning if verifiable, as no one recognizes any special reason for the statement.

 He was said to have had two rooms for his work. This was true of the college, not his home, and then a reference to a "glass of water as if he frequently kept one near him as he worked." He did keep a glass of water near for a lithia tablet when he wanted it. Some one by the name of S., said to have been near him, and for the name Sarah, might refer to his father's second wife whose name was Sarah. His deceased sister's name was Sophia.

 Some of the most complex and detailed incidents were unrecognizable and so left the collective mass of evidence somewhat weak. I found from interrogation of the daughter, however, that some things were recognizable by her that Mrs. Wright did not recall or recognize. The consequence was that I resolved on an experiment that would be almost as good as cross reference. I found the daughter was willing to take some sittings. She was married and this shut off direct connections in the name. I arranged for sittings to be taken by a friend, not mentioning name, sex or relation to my work. I purposely arranged for the Starlight trance. Mrs. Chenoweth's regular work is done by this little control and it is oral, not automatic writing. I made the arrangements as if the sittings had no connection with this series of experiments and was to be away when the sittings were held. Mrs. Chenoweth had no hint of my interest in them. I arranged them as if they were for some stranger wholly unconnected with the present experiments and such was the impression that Mrs. Chenoweth had. The lady came on the appointed day, giving no name and conducting the sittings with as much care and prudence as any scientific man would desire. I had given directions on that point and indicated the method to be used in avoiding betrayal of identity or incidents by way of suggestion. The sequel showed that I hardly needed to give this advice, as she made an excellent sitter. The first two sittings show a repetition of some of the incidents which I received, reference was made to me in a way not usual with strangers at their sittings, Mr. Wright's name was almost given, and at a later sitting of my own the lady present was said to have been Carroll D. Wright's daughter, which was true, though this might have been inferred from statements of the sitter. The incidents, however, communicated at the daughter's sittings are, many of them, much better evidence of identity than any that I obtained.

 In close and pertinent connection with the statement about his intellectual habits was a rather long passage about his spending time at the seashore for both work and rest and social intercourse with important friends. This was true, though the details are not given in a manner to impress the skeptic with their cogency. Then came the statement amid some general talk that he "loved humanity and was interested in the problem," and then the statement that his life was spent in the city rather than the country or the seaside and that he went back and forth from one to the other. This was recognized as accurate, though we can hardly make it evidential. In a few minutes came a more striking possibility.

I see him with his clothes on; whether he passed away with his outer clothes, like coat and vest and those things. (Yes.) Anyway I see something put on him, I can't tell you. I feel clothes on and I feel some one going into my pockets, as though there is an effort to see what is in my pockets, for something. Do you know anything about that?.

(No.)

Did he pass away with his garments on?

(No.)

Well, I feel this, he was not taken sick was he, with his clothes on? (Well, he had them on when the doctor told him he had better go to bed.)

This was followed up with a sort of explanation of the connection between the idea of dying in his clothes and what was admitted by the sitter which may be explained in any way you please as subliminal talk. But the medium came at least near to hitting the idea admitted by the sitter after the main facts had been stated.

 The name Henry followed the reference and description of the child and it is not clear whether it has any important meaning or not. Certainly it was not evidentially related. It was indicated that he was outside the family and there was such a friend by that name outside the family, and there was good reason for mentioning him, but the record does not indicate with any assurance that he was meant. The next incident following some general statements about his interest in this subject that are not important has some specific interest.

 Now do you know anything about a little thing that looks like a case? There are several little compartments in it. You know I see almost like wood and little compartments, and up in those compartments are things that I can take up. You know they are little grains of something, like round flat things that if I dropped them they would drop down like peas or things like that, like little pebbles, but they are in compartments, as though they are things that he had worked over and had them to use for something. Do you know anything about this?

(Why I don't seem to recall. You mean connected with his work?)

Yes, they look like grains, you know, as though they are all separate; they are larger than grains of sand and they look something like little pills, you know.

(Yes.)

Little pills, only dark colors. If they were white I would call them globules, but they seem to be dark and brown and different colors and none of them are disks. You know disks?

(Yes.)

Well, they are in different compartments, as though here's a few, there's a few and there's a few, and I take them up. I don't put them together. I look at them, as though they are for a different purpose, but they come in a different part of his work.

(His life?)

His life. Did be ever study anything where he would have some of those little things in it? He was not a doctor himself was he?

(No.)

Well do you know if he ever knew a doctor who had these little things.;

(Yes, I think he was very fond of an uncle and studied with him.)

[A little later after some non-evidential talk about the same incidents allusion was made to] a wooden box where they were in compartments before they were put into other smaller things, given out to the people.

 The very proximate character of this incident is clear in the daughter's note, which says: "He studied medicine with an uncle who was a physician and later was in a drug store for a time. There he was also called Doctor."

I think almost any one would recognize the description of a physician's case before it was admitted by the sitter and the coincidence would not naturally be guessed in the life of Carroll D. Wright, which the admission of the sitter makes characteristic of his early life. It refers as much to the identity of the uncle as to his own, though not adequate in either case to determine that identity.

This first sitting ended without any incident of more important note and in the second one, the next day, after the preliminary communications in getting adjustment, which were unevidential, and after an allusion to a lady who is recognizable as his mother-in-law, and the mention of an Elsie who was known, but without recognizable importance here, the following came at some length.

 Do you know anything about music that he would be interested in? I see a big sheet of music and I see all the notes and everything on it as if it were all printed, and I see him hold that in his hand. I don't know whether he made music, but there is something like tones, you know. He doesn't seem to do it with his hands so much as he does to sing. Do you know if he sang?

(Yes, he was very fond of singing.)

[Then followed considerable talk about his unfinished life with vague allusions to music before the ideas drifted into his general topic and then came the following.]

Well it seems as if he used to go somewhere where there was particular music sung. I can't tell you exactly, but I see people standing up several of them, more like a group of people who express together, you know, like a choir or a quartette or a group of people who express music, and I see him going where he was looking right up at them, you know, listening to them. Was he a church man? Did he go to church?

(Always.)

Well I see him as though looking at a choir where I hear them sing and that is one of the beautiful parts of the service, and he says, 'That is pretty good for me to say,' as though it meant something special when he said it, you understand.

(Yes that is very good.)

 Of this the daughter says. "My father was very fond of music and sang in the church choir for eight years or more." He seems then to have had the retirement from the choir symbolically indicated in the picture of his looking at the choir while he is also represented first as in it.

Allusion to a child and its being in church with him was not accurate. He had a deceased grandchild but they were never in church together while living. There followed an allusion to a woman with general description that could not be definitely identified for the reason that, so far as the account goes, it might refer either to a sister-in-law or a mother-in-law, both of whom are dead and the person alluded to was definitely indicated as deceased.

After the long effort to get the name beginning with E and ending with Elsie the following perfectly definite incident came.

I see a chair and it has no rockers, but it is rather big and round and very comfortable, and it is a chair. It is not a Morris chair. It has got a round sort of a seat to it, and I see this man. I am trying to connect everything with him now.

(Yes that is nice.)

And I see him come in and sit down in this chair. It is so comfortable. He throws back his head and sits there and rests. It seems as though I want to sit down and just gather myself a little bit, and as though I would rest before I go on to do something else, and this chair I think is in his own house, because I come right in. About the first place I go I sit down in that chair. It isn't up stairs; it is down stairs. I come in and sit down in that chair and rest. He had the funniest little habit of coming in and sitting down where he was, as though he wanted to take a minute to get adjusted and then he goes on and it is what he wants to do.

(Do you see any color in it?)

Yes, brown, you know.

(That is very good.)

 This was followed by reference to the associations of the chair and mention of the man's religious nature. The association would not be suggestive to those who did not know the man's habits. The daughter speaks of the incident in her note.

 A brown velour chair—rocking slightly on a stationary base was very big and round and fitted his length exactly. It stood last in the library beyond the wide hall, inside as one entered and when he came in he generally took off his hat and coat, bung them up in the big closet and then sat down to rest in his own chair. It was not a Morris chair, but the arms were solid and it came around at the side just as he liked. He would read and then put his head back and rest as though he were dreaming, but with every faculty alert and then after he would talk either of what he had been reading or of something suggested by it. His life was one of service to humanity and he was deeply spiritual and religious in the highest sense.

 The following interesting passage came after the allusion to the chair which we have just described.

I wonder if you know anything about some clothes. It looks to me like a black suit It is very, very dark and looks more like black than anything and I see him so—well I think it is fussy about handkerchiefs. I always want to be sure that I have some, some not one. You know what I mean.

(Yes.)

That I have got one here and one here. I want enough you know. And I see this suit, one that he had worn as if it were a suit for a special occasion, I can't tell you what, but it is one that he had worn in special ways and things he had done, as though he is put away in that. You know when his body is put away it is put away in a suit he had. It isn't like a new one or a robe or anything, but it is like a suit he had.

 The daughter replies to inquiry that "he was not fussy about anything but liked plenty of fresh handkerchiefs and had extra ones, as I suppose all men do in their pockets." Of the coat incident she says: "He wore his frock coat down town the last time he went in January, as it was his warmest one and he felt cold. It was washed and made all clean and neat before it was put on after his death. It was the coat he wore, of course when he lectured or dressed a little more than in a sack coat."

The next incident is perhaps quite as definite and regards his watch which the details will explain.

Well, let me see. There is a little black silk thing with a bit of gold on it. It looks more like a watch chain of black, you know.

(Little fob?)

Yes with a little bit of gold on it. It is very simple, very plain, but it is black and I know it is soft like silk.

(Yes.)

And he puts that right down here, you know, and on the end of it a watch. Do you know if he had one like that?

(Yes.)

Well, do you know his watch?

(Yes, perfectly.)

Well, I see this watch as though it was a good one and that he had some time and I like very much. I don't know as that is already given away, but if it isn't, you know just where that is going, as though it is saved for somebody till they get big enough for it.

(That is quite true.)

 The daughter's note is: "He had an old fashioned gold watch fob on a piece of silk ribbon. His watch was a special one he was very fond of. He carried it for many years and it was understood that it would go to his grandson named for him."

The next incident is a characteristic of more than usual interest, as it is one that it would be difficult to ascertain in any normal way.

 I see another little way. It goes along with his not liking the ceremonial and all that, but anything he dislikes is these. You know white things that go over beds, pillow shams? Well, those things bother him.

(That is very good, very true.)

I never heard any spirit say it before, but suddenly I see a bed, I see something like all fussed up: sometimes when he had to go away and sleep in other people's beds and it would be as though I like my own bed. If I could be at home in my own bed, no nonsense about shams. The very name is distasteful to him and all this lace business. He is thoroughly a man. He likes comfortable things and pretty things and all that, but give me a bed with pillows.

 The daughter's note on this incident is as follows. "He was impatient always of fuzzy things on beds and going about as much as he did, often spoke of lace spreads, etc., that bothered him."

The following incidents were evidently touched on in the automatic writing but not made clear enough for any possible recognition. Later still I brought the subject up for clearer identification and obtained some interesting data.

 There is another thing. It looks to me more like a growing vine. There is something growing around a building. I am not in the same building where I was before where I saw the boys, but I am off here to another building that is a detached place, you know, detached house.

(Yes.)

And there is a little vine like woodbine or ivy something that grows up all over it. It is very pretty. There are two posts like a driveway, and two big tall posts. They are made of stone. It is a pretty place, you know, but it is gravel. I hear a carriage grind on the gravel and I step out just inside these posts, and here is a detached building, one that looks more like a home and I go in there and I am received in there. I call it inside grounds where there are posts and a driveway and there is somebody there. I don't know who it is, but it seems like a man as big as he is, as though they are equals.

(Yes.)

Perhaps doing the same thing he is, only at another point, you understand. (Yes.)

Well he goes in here, but it is the funniest thing, as though this vine is all turned red like fall.

(Yes.)

As though the autumn and it is one of the last trips he made you know, with those autumn things around, pretty, beautiful but I feel asense of the end. You know I don't know why I feel it, but I feel it at that place. Do you know anything about that?

(Would that be his own home?)

Did he have a house like that?

(Yes.)

Did he have some vines growing there just inside the drive, like a drive in, and anything like woodbine?

(I think it was on the veranda.)

No, this is not the place. It isn't his home. It is away. Where did he come from when he came home, some trip he made.

(He went to Washington.)

I see a drive in and I see this vine and it is fall, you know. (Yes, it was.)

It is fall time, because the reason I see the vine is to show me the time, and it is all red, autumn colors, and I see him come home from there and die. Do you know what I mean?

(Yes.)

I come home weary. That is the end; that is the last trip. He is telling you he would do it all over again. That is what I see as though that was almost too much for him.

(That is true.)

 Having found a possible clue to the incident about the vine clad building I resolved to ask that Mr. Wright be given a chance to communicate and throw light on the matter. I therefore expressed the desire to have him, having had it strongly in mind the day before I put it directly and during the beginning of the sitting of December 19th, 1911. Apparently my desire was already known as the response was so prompt. The following is the record of what occurred, after I had expressed my wish to hear from him again.

 Well C. D. W. is here

(All right. He will remember describing or referring to a vine covered house. The family does not recall it and I wish more about it. If he can tell where it is and what it is used for I may be able to verify it.)

Was it a brick or stone house.

(He did not say and I do not know, or if he said I do not recall.)

He shows me a house in the South where he went not long before his passing where there were vines all about and where the effect was of green growing things about the place. It was there he was entertained I think and as he was recalling the past that picture came in vividly before him and may have been interpolated as a part of the communication.

(I understand and can he say what use the house had?)

It looks more like a building in which a part of the curriculum of the work was carried on. Do you know if he went to the South to speak to some educational workers where there was a set of buildings devoted to work.

(No, but I shall inquire, though I know of a meeting not long before his death.) In the South.

(That depends on the starting point and what [Writing began.] South of here and South of Worcester. (Yes.) But not far South. (No.)

I go with him in a southerly direction and see these buildings, a group of them and among them this one with the vines. You know how much he was interested in all growing things and particularly in many kinds of vines. Do you know this.

(No, I do not, and perhaps he can tell about the country about that building.)

I will see. There are many trees and I see it is not a city like N. Y. [New York]. You did not have N. Y. in mind did you?

(No I did not.)

For it is not N. Y. which I mean but instantly when I made the comparison I became aware of his interest in several N. Y. people and institutions but the place to which I refer is not so large or thickly settled and is not a hilly country but rather pretty and has some special interest for him as he must have gone there with a specific work in mind. It has buildings of common interest. I mean like a community of interests but I do not know whether it is a university or not. I should rather think it something of that kind. Wait a little until I can see. Do you know anything about a chapel where he went?

(No.)

I see a building which is like a church or chapel where there are many seats. I am inside and it is vacant, but it is a building used for audiences. Now he was entertained at a place. What is the W. for? Do you know?

(No, I do not but go on.) [Probably Washington.]

I see a large white house and it is so quiet and lovely about the place and there are people coming and going from other places but the house where he stays—is quiet. It is strange that you do not know about this place in the South where he was entertained and where all this description has a bearing. It may be a place of which you are not aware now, but it is there that I find the vine covered house and I see some water and boats. It looks like fresh water more as if it were a lake of some size. It is all a very beautiful place and surroundings, but it is entirely on account of engagements that he goes there for he always could be at home.

(Tell more about that water and, if you can, the name of it.)

I will do all I can, but I see several kinds of boats on it which leads me to the conclusion that it is used for all kinds of pleasure craft and dotted around the shores are houses and cottages and there are trees and hills back from it. It is most beautiful. Do you know if he went to a lake and was entertained there?

(No I do not, but you would clear the whole thing up by an initial of the name of the water.)

Yes I suppose so and I have no idea why it does not come. It may be that he is not in working order this afternoon. He is talking with W. J. They are as usual most talkative and interested in each other. Just now I see a long bridge. It is rather more than the ordinary length and is of wood with some girders high on each side and the water is so clear and the reflections are as perfect as the things themselves.

When the vine clad house was mentioned in the automatic writing I had hoped that it would prove a good incident. But no member of the family recognized it as having any meaning at all. When it was thus repeated with more detail it still had no meaning for them. As he had lived in Washington a number of years I suspected the Smithsonian Institution, but found that he had no office in it and no associations with it. He had been entertained at the White House, but Ex-President Roosevelt did not recall any entertainment of the man in the fall of 1908 when Mr. Wright attended the meeting of the Carnegie Board of Trustees in Washington. I learned from the head of the Institution, however, that Mr. Wright had remained at the New Willard Hotel during that period and where the Board met, I believe in those days. The daughter, however, casually remarked that her father had been on the Board of the Hackley School at Tarrytown, New York. Inquiry immediately showed that it had vines over it and I then ascertained that Mr. Wright had attended the Board Meeting of this School in the fall of 1908 a few months before his death but did not attend the later meeting in January a few weeks before his death. I then visited the School and ascertained the truth of further incidents. The building is not covered with vines, as the communications might imply, but has a number of vines at different places on it and may some day be covered.' There is a little chapel near it in which Mr. Wright, according to the statement of the Principal, had talked to the boys. There is a building back of the main School edifice which resembles a laboratory very much but is the infirmary. The wooden bridge spoken of I could not find in my personal investigations, but the Principal writes me that there was such a bridge near the building, but that it was recently removed. There are stone posts at the entrance to the grounds, but there are no vines near them or near the entrance. These are near and behind the chapel and are a very large collection of them, very noticeable to one driving in and up to the School. From points on or near the ground Haverstraw Bay which is an enlargement of the Hudson River, can be seen with the mountains beyond, making an extraordinarily fine view. Pleasure boats are numerous on the shores during the summer season.

 The building is white stone and apparently the allusion to "W" had brought associations of Washington to Mr. Wright's mind and the White House where he had also been entertained by President Roosevelt. This also has vines on it. But the other incidents do not apply. The Hackley School stands in a fine wood of large trees on one of the high hills of the Hudson River. The indication that it was not hilly is therefore incorrect. But this is partly corrected when alluding to hills and trees in connection with the "lake," Haverstraw Bay. Whether the place should be described as hilly or not would depend on the amount and locality of the place gotten into the "mental picture" while communicating.

 The place was southwest from Boston, not "South." He was entertained at the place, but the principal does not recall definitely whether he was entertained there at the time of the last Board meeting which he attended in the fall before his death in February, though he says: "A rather unreliable memory on my part suggests the likelihood that his visit was in the fall of 1908." He adds also: "I am sure that he did spend the night here at sometime within a year or two before his death."

 The Board meetings were held in New York, and hence the pertinence of the immediate allusion to that city and friends there after saying that the building was not in New York but in the country.

 After, the long reference to the vine clad building and indication that it was associated with the end of his life, he turned to some incidents associated with the funeral and which are, of course, representative of posthumous, or what Mr. Myers called post-terrene knowledge.

There is another very sweet thing and it seems to be about his body. All over his casket, you know, everything is lovely there, but there is some thing all green, you know, like drapings of it. Funny thing but it is almost like laurel.

(Yes.)

Were you there?

(I was there.)

Do you know anything like some green that seems to be half draped. Whether it is laurel or smilax, it is something that is all green and it is draped in a way from his bier.

(Yes.)

And then I see a great big wreath, oh an immense one, that is so big, but it isn't green like the rest, it is red. (Yes.) Flowers in it but it is red, red, red, like red leaves and then here and there roses, I think.

(Yes.)

They look like roses to me. There is something else with that. You know they are mixed in little clusters here and there, I think. That is, from somebody special, this big wreath, you know.

(Yes.)

And then I see there was something of flowers, looks like a basket. Do they ever send baskets to funerals?

(Yes.)

Well this is a tall thing. I don't know whether it is a basket or what it is, but it is hanging from here and a ribbon on it. It really is a basket, a basket of flowers. It seems as though that is from one person. The wreath is from more. It is from several, and the basket is from one. Funniest thing: And you don't seem to remember it.

(There were many baskets, of course, many things.)

Of course. A man like that would have. Wait till I see something. (Was there anything else over the casket that you see?)

Do you mean a banner? Was that what you meant? (Anything like that.)

Yes, there is something. I don't mean a flag and I don't know whether you mean a flag or not. There are two or three things. There is something like a spearhead that this thing is on. It might be a cross, but it is silk or satin. It is shiny and is not red, white and blue flag. It is some other color, and I should think that is a thing that he belonged to, as though it came like you might have college colors or a banner that belonged to some particular organization that he was in.

(Yes.)

That is what I see; like there is something there with blue or purple: it is like that, but a little gold around it too, and this spearhead thing. Do you know anything about it? I think there was a flag there all right; but that is not what I see. I see these other things first. I think there is a flag, but it is off the other way. I am not looking at that at all. Then I see a man who is saying something, as though it is a eulogy. That is the thing you say about him.

(Yes.)

Well, do you know a tall, slim, oldish man with a quiet nice face and gray hair, but very quiet and dignified, who said something about him? (Yes.)

Wasn't that the man who stood up there. (Yes.) And he has a very beautiful quiet voice. This man was a friend of years. They didn't go into any extended eulogy. You know it was that came after, but this time it was a short one. You know that is what he would prefer.

The daughter's notes show that this passage contains very striking coincidences, perhaps of an unusually important kind.

 "My mother's wreath of red calyx leaves was on the casket and all about were others, baskets, wreaths and flowers of all kinds and pieces. I think there was laurel and evergreen at the church.

 "At the church, the four banners formed an unusual decoration. Over the casket was the silk flag. At either side of the pulpit stood these flags or banners, each on a stick with the end forming a spearpoint. The flag of the Loyal Legion of Honor, the flag of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and I think the others. They were of silk and were most effective. These precious banners were in charge of some one sent by the Loyal Legion of Honor who never allowed them to leave his sight."

 There followed this a reference to the name Charles which is that of one of his dearest friends, and then an attempt to give his own name. I shall not quote it in full as it is too long, but suffice to say that the "W" came easily enough and the last letter "t." He was referred to as Doctor, but distinguishing this from a physician by saying he "was not a pill doctor."

 There were many other incidents of great evidential interest that were given. They would require too much space to present them, and it is hard to tell whether they are more or less cogent than such as I 'have given. One long set of messages evidently referred to Senator George F. Hoar who was the life long friend of Mr. Wright and who urgently advised him to go to Clark College. Mr. Wright's name was given in full and the pet name by which he called his daughter. A little bag which he had used in his early life was rather minutely described. Several names of relatives were given and more especially important were references to persons and incidents about which members of the family had to inquire among remote relatives for confirmation.

 The facts that Clark College was not far—about 35 miles from the home of Mrs. Chenoweth and that Mr. Wright was so well known to the general public enable doubters to raise the suspicion that at least some of the facts about him would either be public property or be easily acquired in various ways. This is true of the most general incidents connecting him with Clark College. But I have laid no stress on such facts and confined the interest to those little private incidents in his life that could not be obtained casually and many of them impossible without an elaborate detective system which Mrs. Chenoweth, even if she were disposed, which she is not, could not conduct with manifold times the means at her disposal. Readers need have no scruples on this point. But readers must remember that at the sittings of the daughter there was no opportunity to know who was present or that the same personality was wanted to communicate that came to me. You may very well assume a spontaneously worked up product for me, though there was no reason for doing so, as I had no personal relations with the man. In any case you can only speak of subconscious work as conscious fraud will be given no consideration by me.