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"I won't say that that same is beyond the horizon of possibility," replied Mr Ewins. "Few things there are that one can't buy for hard cash, specially from lads who find it difficult enough to keep decent clothes on their backs, and fill their bellies. Money is an awful temptation to a young man in a place like this, where there is no end of theatres, and gardens, and cider-cellars, and casinos filled with bouncing young sluts, all sweet sap, and as pert as rice-buntings in May. Many a chap can no more steer clear of them, than a moth can keep away from a candle."

"And I tell you, most confidently, from what I know of men in such situations, that if you were to offer them money to divulge a secret, they would dash it in your face with

scorn.'

"I ain't going to try the experiment, Squire, so you needn't fly off the handle. Mind you, I am only putting a case in which I have no consarn; and it's time enough for you to look rumbustious when I ask you to put a finger in the pie."

I deemed it the correct thing to make apology for my warmth.

"Oh, darn apologies!" said the Yankee. "They're as useless as ricepaper bank-notes. I respect you, Squire Sinclair, I do, because you stick up for your countrymen; and I believe you are partly right, though it's a grand tree on which there is no rotten fruit. But it's not a question of bribing. It would seem that this gallows-bird Speedwell has got the heads of one or two young fellows connected with the public offices under his arm. They've been borrowing money from him, and he holds their bills; and from what I could gather-for he's clean too wideawake to speak out-he can do with them exactly what he pleases. One of these chaps is in the Board of Trade, where this investigation is likely to take place; and as he is a weak goney, Speed well thinks he can make him scout after everything that is going on."

I saw at once how the land lay. Poor wretched Littlewoo was now fairly in the fangs of this detestable Jewish miscreant. Already beggared in purse, he was to be stripped of the last rag of character, compelled to

become a criminal, and perhaps doomed to undergo a felon's shame and punishment. And this was to be the fate of the innocent lad I had known in Edinburgh-the darling of his fond old mother! God forgive those, thought I, who sent out so silly a sheep into the wilderness, where the wolf was certain to devour him!

"And what think you, Squire, of this neat little project of Speedwell's?" said Mr Ewins. "It ain't ill devised, I reckon, though it looks rayther ugly. When I hinted to him that the commissioners might take the liberty of locking their desks, he sniggered, and said something about double keys, which don't mend the matter nohow, in my apprehension."

"My opinion, Mr Ewins, can be very shortly expressed. A more nefarious proposal was never made by one man to another; and I am only surprised that you did not knock the scoundrel down!"

"Why, Squire; you see it was not altogether a proposal, but jest a kind of feeler like. Speedwell ain't the man to commit himself outright, though he did show a foot as cloven as a moose's. As to knockin' down, that's not my way. It's trying to the temper, and bad for the knuckles; and I somehow think that it's better to hear a chap out and say nothing, than to flare up as savage as a meat axe. I've contrived, don't you see, to make him show me his hand, which I calculate he wouldn't have done had I begun to holler like a bull-bat."

"Well, Mr Ewins; it is a happy thing to be able to control your temper. I presume, after this, you will give Mr Speedwell a wide berth?"

66

Quite the other way," said the Yankee; "I'll stick to him close, and ride him savagely whenever I can. He does understand the market right well, that's a fact; and now that he has given me a kind of hank over him, I'm not soft enough to let him go. I guess he'd be but too glad if I allowed him to slope. I've a kinder notion he was like to bite his tongue off when he thought over our talk; but I led him on the ice so cleverly, that he did not know where he was till he heerd it crack

under him. I've got my lasso over that mustang, and it's a pity if I don't make him snort before I slip the leather!"

So saying, the virtuous speculator finished his tumbler, and took his leave.

I own that I was less astonished at the villany which the American's narrative disclosed, than concerned for the fate of that unhappy LittleWOO. It was quite evident that he had not found courage to write to Mr Shearaway with a full confession of his folly, as I suggested, and as he had promised to do. He was still in the hands of the Jew, probably more deeply implicated than before; and, knowing as I did the extreme weakness of his character, I saw how easily he might be led, under the threat of ruin and exposure, to become an active accomplice of the villain by whom he was entangled. The danger appeared to me so imminent that I determined at once to sit down, and explain to Mr Shearaway what I knew of Littlewoo's embarrassments, making no allusion, of course, to anything beyond the pecuniary difficulty.

I was the more moved to this step, because my conscience smote me for having so long neglected the friends of my youth. I cannot reproach myself with any real lack of warmth of feelings, and can truly say that the lapse of years makes no change in my affection towards those from whom I have long been separated; but I never was, and I fear I never shall be, a regular or diligent correspondent. I suspect that is the way with most men who write much professionally. Correspondence often bores them, or interferes with more serious labour; and being in the habit of addressing themselves to the public, they reserve little for private confidants. At times, however, I have felt an irrepressible yearning to take up the pen, and tell some early friend, perhaps in New Zealand

or India, of my progress in life, my hopes, joys, cares, and sorrows, with all the unrestricted freedom of former intercourse. That is, in some measure, a renewal of the old pledge of friendship and of love; a token that the silver cord is yet unloosed, and the golden bowl unbroken.

It was with such a feeling as that, that I began to write to Mr Shearaway; for after having said all that was needful regarding the main subject of my letter, I gave my old friend and master a full account-I suspect, at unmerciful length-of what I had seen and done, and of my present prospects. I certainly had no expectation of receiving a reply in a corresponding strain; for a Writer to the Signet in large practice has daily to indite so many epistles for the modest remuneration of three-andfourpence and six-and-eight pence each, that he may well stand excused if he declines to imitate the example of Horace Walpole, and waives the chance of posthumous fame accruing from the smartness of his letters. However, I was wrong. Mr Shearaway, who, as I have stated throughout, was a first-rate fellow-as kind a soul indeed as ever graced an honourable profession-seemed for once to have pitched aside his papers, and covered more than four sides of creamlaid quarto with the well-known characters which, many a time, I had transcribed into the letter-book. It is strange how old associations continue to affect us. The time had been when a letter addressed by Mr Shearaway to myself would have been opened with some awe and solicitude; and when I found upon my table a letter with the well-remembered superscription, something of the same feeling came over me, notwithstanding the change in our relationship. But as Mr Shearaway's communication had an important effect upon my fortunes, I must take the liberty of postponing it for the initiative of another chapter.

Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.

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THERE is no popular adage less understood than this. With an illsuppressed irritation at any expression of scepticism respecting things said to have been seen, a narrator asks whether or not he may believe the evidence of his own senses? That argument seems to him final; and it often happens that his opponent, evading, instead of meeting it, retorts: No; the evidence of the senses is not to be trusted, when they report anything so absurd as that. I would not believe such a thing if I were to see it-the absurdity is too glaring."

Both are wrong. Seeing is be lieving; and he that distrusts the evidence of his own sight, will find a difficulty in bringing forward evidence more convincing. The fallacy lies in confounding vision with inference,-in supposing that facts are seen which are only inferred. There can be no mistake in trusting to the evidence of sense, as far as that goes. The mistake is in supposing it to go much further than it does. It is one thing to believe what you have seen, and another to believe that you have seen all there was to be seen.

The fallacy is widely spread and very injurious-so injurious and ɛo unsuspected by the mass of mankind, that we are tempted to consider its

VOL. LXXXVIII.-NO. DXL.

operation in the formation of opinions, and especially in the acceptance of that ignoble and debasing superstition which, under the names of "Spiritualism," "Spirit-Rapping," and "Table-Turning," disgraces Europe of the present day.

In vain have charlatans been exposed, and dupes ridiculed; in vain have science and common sense argued against a credulity pardonable only in a savage-deplorable in a cultivated intellect. So strong is the fascination, and so delusive the fallacy, that scheming Americans and cunning girls are able to find fresh converts every day. Argument and ridicule never reach these converts. They are prepared for both. They know their statements are strange -stranger than fiction; but they also know their own sincerity, and remember that they too were once incredulous. The fallibility of the human intellect is so notorious, that they may be excused if they decline to accept its verdict against the evidence of their own senses. They are certain that they have seen what they relate; and no argument can make them swerve from their position. If argument prove the phenomenon to be "impossible," then they have seen the impossible. prefer their senses to your arguments. 2 D

They

Here, then, is the stronghold of honest conviction. Setting aside many of the concurrent causes which help to spread the belief in Spiritualism, such as painful feebleness of mind, a timorous curiosity about the unseen, and a delight in the marvellous, we will consider the one cause which most decisively operates with candid minds-namely, the irresistible evidence of the senses.

It was a pleasant artifice of the poet, when he exclaimed :

"Se tu se 'or, lettore, a creder lento, Ciò ch' io dirò, non sarà maraviglia, Che io, che 'l vidi, appena il mi consento."

But when Treviranus said the same to Coleridge ("I have seen what I would not have believed on your testimony, and what I cannot therefore expect you to believe upon mine"), not as a pleasant turn, but as a trial of credulity, Coleridge should have answered: 66 And pray, sir, what did you see? Let me hear all the facts which came under your immediate observation, and I shall throw no doubt on them; but if you mingle inferences respecting facts not directly observed, you must allow me to exercise due caution before admitting them. I am not in the least disposed to doubt what you saw; but only to doubt your interpretation of what you saw."

It is one of the commonest mistakes to suppose, and assert, that some fact has been seen, which was not seen at all, and often could not have been seen; the fact being simply inferred. This is the meaning of Cullen's epigram: "There are more false facts than false theories current." A witness may swear that he saw defendant knock the plaintiff down; it is a fact which admits of being seen, and may be testified to completely. But should the fact, sworn to, be only a little more complicated, and some of its constituent elements lie beyond the field of vision, the testimony becomes proportionately fallible. For example, we cannot accept the evidence that witness saw defendant going to knock the plaintiff down; that is pure inference; it may be the natural interpretation every man would put upon what was seen, but it may

nevertheless be wholly erroneous, no such intention having existed in the defendant's mind.

In like manner, when a man avers that he has "seen a ghost," he is passing far beyond the limits of visible fact, into that of inference. He saw something which he supposed to be a ghost. But we have a right to ask him if he knows what a ghost is, that he can thus readily recognise one?-and what proof does he offer that what he saw was not something else? If he were to assert that he had seen an aerolite, we should ask him for all the details of the thing seen, and why from these he inferred it to be an aërolite. We cannot be less circumspect when he pretends to have seen a ghost.

The facts seen in table-turning are credible enough. It is a mistake to suppose that our doubts fall on them; our doubts fall on the facts not seen, but inferred; because it is these, and these alone, which make spirit-rapping and table-turning mysterious. What an honest man tells me he saw, I will believe he saw, if it comes within the possibilities of vision; my scepticism begins when he ceases to narrate what he actually saw, and substitutes his interpretation of it. Thus the table moves, and raps are heard, without any agency visible to the spectator. This fact is by no means incredible. There are many phenomena witnessed, of which the causes are completely hidden from us; and little as we may be able to explain how a table can rock, or run about the room, when we cannot detect the agency by which it is moved, this is no ground for denying the fact. But spiritualists make an enormous mistake: they suppose that because they can detect no person present moving the table, or producing the raps, it is thereby proved that no person did these things; because they are wholly unable to explain how the things were produced, "it is evident that no physical causes could have produced them." This childish logic is paraded by men of talent and culture, who appeal to the respectability of the witnesses they call to testify to the facts! They do not understand that the facts which they have witnessed are

very simple, very credible, and would be intelligible to a child, if other facts which are now concealed were once made visible. Nothing is more inexplicable than a good conjuring trick; nothing is more intelligible when the trick is explained. There is some one detail which we do not observe, either because the conjuror has successfully diverted our attention, or because he has been quick enough to baffle us; and this one detail makes the whole mysterious. If we are to accept the narratives of respectable witnesses as guarantees of the truth of Spiritualism, or if we are to trust the evidence of our own senses as irresistible proofs of the truth of any inferences we may make respecting them, there will be no limit to credulity: Robert Houdin and Bosco will be high priests, with supernatural powers.

Not long ago the following marvellous phenomena were witnessed by hundreds of respectable people. In the centre of a public garden there was a large boat with globular silken sails. Into this boat four persons were invited. At a given signal this boat, with the four sitters, rose from the ground, nobody hoisting it, nobody touching it; upwards it rose, above the house-tops, and finally sailed through the air towards the coast of France. Beside this, the narratives of rocking tables are trifles. Yet this was seen in open daylight by hundreds of spectators. If the spiritualist logic is to be followed, we may prove that this boat was raised in the air by spiritual agency, because no physical means could have raised it, no one touched the boat, no one could have touched it;" long after the boat was beyond human reach, it continued to rise higher and higher. To those who are acquainted with balloons, this phenomenon is no marvel; to those who understand why the lighter gas, contained within the silken sails, must be pushed upwards by the heavier air, and in pushing upwards must drag the boat after it, the phenomenon is intelligible. But supposing the spectators all ignorant of these things, they would of course omit all mention of them in their narrative, and thereby the narrative would assume a mar

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vellous air. They would narrate truly all that they saw; but they would not truly narrate all that was

to be seen.

We may thus understand how an honest witness may narrate truly all the facts which came under his observation in a spiritual séance, and may omit other facts, which, had he observed them, would explain the whole mystery. When we hear marvels narrated which contradict universal experience and physical laws, we may be certain that the narrator omits something which would remove the contradiction. His mistake lies in supposing that because he could see no more than he relates, there was no more to be seen. Every séance at a juggler's should warn him against such a mistake.

There is probably not a single convert who does not assure his listeners that he began by being incredulous of the facts narrated by spiritualists. Like other people he thought "the whole thing a transparent humbug." He derided the credulity of believers; but, sceptical though he was, he had enough candour to admit the facts if they could be proved. He went as a scoffer, and returned a convert : facts vanquished him he could not distrust the evidence of his senses. This is what we read in every book, pamphlet, and article; and, reading it, we are forced to infer that the scepticism was as childish and irrational as the credulity, since the scepticism and the credulity both confounded visible fact with what was mere inference. This is the weak point of the cuirass. A man is asked to witness " facts," which he already classes in his mind as "fictions." He joins an assembly of friends and respectable people, and finds them all grave and calmly convinced. The tone of conversation is so serious, that he has misgivings respecting his original hypothesis of the "whole thing being humbug." He hears marvels related with intense sincerity. He is induced to join the circle. All seems fair and unsuspicious (it would be an absurd trick which looked suspicious), and even the darkness of the room (when darkness is needed) is so plausibly accounted for, that misgivings dis

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