938 A. The chief sources of information as to D. D. Home's life and experiences are the following works: -

Incidents in my Life, by D. D. Home (1st edition, London, 1863; 2nd edition, 1864; second series, 1872).

1 Mr. Podmore's argument is here abbreviated.

D. D. Home: His Life and Mission, by Madame Dunglas Home (London, 1888).

The Gift of D. D. Home, by Madame Dunglas Home (London, 1890).

Report on Spiritualism of the Committee of the London Dialectical Society (London, 1871). This contains the evidence of the Master of Lindsay, - now Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, - and others.

Experiences in Spiritualism with Mr. D. D. Home, by Viscount Adare (now Lord Dunraven; privately printed).

Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism, by William Crookes, F.R.S. Reprinted from the Quarterly Journal of Science (London, 1874).

Notes of Stances with D. D. Home, by William Crookes, F.R.S. (Proceedings S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 98).

See also a review by Professor Barrett and the present writer of Madame Home's first book, D. D. Home; His Life and Mission, in the Journal S.P.R., vol. iv. pp. 101-136; a briefer review of her second book, The Gift of D. D. Home, in the Journal S.P.R., vol. iv. p. 249; and a note on "The Character of D. D. Home" in the Journal S.P.R., vol. vi. p. 176; also an article by Mr. Hamilton Aide, "Was I hypnotised?" in the Nineteenth Century for April 1890.

938 B. I give here a brief summary of the review by Professor Barrett and myself of D. D. Home: His Life and Mission, just referred to.

Shortly after the book was published I met Madame Home in Paris, and she allowed me to examine the original letters of more than a hundred of her correspondents and compare them with the extracts and translations printed in the book, where I found that they were correctly reproduced. Our second aim was to acquire further evidence, either for or against the validity of Home's claims. Several fresh cases confirmatory of those given by Madame Home were obtained and printed in full in our review (pp. 122-136). The evidential value of Home's own narrative, Incidents in my Life, was much increased by a letter written to me by Mr. W. M. Wilkinson, the well-known solicitor, of 44 Lincoln's Inn Fields, stating that he had written nearly the whole of the book, - Home staying with him in his house, producing all the letters and documents, and giving him the necessary information; while the preface to the second series of Incidents, dealing with Sir David Brewster, was written by Mr. Wilkinson from information given him by Dr. Robert Chambers, to whom the proofs of the whole work were submitted.

Dr. Chambers also wrote the introduction and concluding chapter of the first series.

There is thus a considerable body of evidence as to Home, which enables us to discuss the three questions: (1) Was he ever convicted of fraud? (2) Did he satisfy any trained observer in a series of experiments selected by the observer and not by himself? (3) Were the phenomena entirely beyond the known scope of the conjurer's art?

With regard to (1), Mr. Robert Browning told us the circumstances which mainly led to the opinion of Home which he expressed in Mr. Sludge the Medium. A lady had repeated to him a statement made to her by a lady and gentleman that they had found Home experimenting with phosphorus on the production of "spirit-lights." This evidence, then, came to us at third-hand; the incident had occurred nearly forty years before, and it was impossible to learn more of it, since all the witnesses were dead and had left no written record.

We received one first-hand account, from a gentleman of character and ability, of a seance given in very poor light, where a small "spirit hand" - visible to all the sitters - appeared, and moved about. It seemed to him that he could see slight movements in the shoulder or upper part of Home's arm corresponding with the movements of the "spirit hand." Afterwards, "the movements of both plainly corresponded, and at length ... I saw continuous connection in the upper outline of Home's arm and the thing, whatever it was, that supported the 'spirit hand.'" The sitting took place in 1855, but the account was not written until 1889. It is printed in full in our review (op. cit. p. 120).

There is also a frequently repeated story that Home was found in France to be using a stuffed hand; our inquiries into this tended to show that the story was a fabrication.

The most serious blot on Home's character was that revealed by the Lyon case. He had sittings with Mrs. Lyon, at which communications were given purporting to come from her deceased husband, and urging her to adopt Home as her son and give him £700 a year. An admitted letter from her to Home, in which she said that she presented him with £24,000 "as an entirely free gift," was stated by her at the trial to have been written at Home's dictation and under "magnetic influence." The strongest evidence against Home was furnished by memorandum books, in his own writing, containing accounts of his experiences with her, and communications in the form of a dialogue between her and her husband, in which Home was alluded to as "our beloved son." Of Mrs. Lyon, the judge observed that "Reliance cannot be placed on her testimony;" but there was much evidence besides hers to show that Home worked on her mind by spiritualistic devices, especially by suggesting communications from her husband, and the Court held that such transactions as those in question could not be upheld "unless the Court is quite satisfied that they are acts of pure volition uninfluenced." Such proof not being forthcoming, the case was decided against Home. (A review of the evidence in this case was furnished us by Mr. H. Arthur Smith, and is printed in our article, p. 117).