THE REPORT OF THE DIALECTICAL SOCIETY.
HMO& OF TIm SPEOTITOR:']
SIR, —Your correspondent, " A Member of the Sat-Committee," has. contributed an interesting item of information to the history of the proceedings of the Dialectical Society. I need not point out the singular complication introduced into the question by the knowledge that the " medium" or. " psychic " in the demonstra- tions at Dr. Edmunds's house was Mrs. Edmunds, while that gentleman himself remains a sceptic, and that Dr. Edmunds's. dining-room table manifested such singular peripatetic properties, either, as he states, "just after or just before he was present," but• never once in his presence. Dr. Edmunds has never, that I am, aware of (to use the language of your correspondent) " denied the phenomena," but has simply stated that after hearing " from truthful people narratives of the most extraordinary events," he believes they only require to be subjected to rigid scrutiny for all mystery connected with them to disappear.
My object in addressing you now is to call attention to a dis- crepancy between the statement of your correspondent and the Report of the Sub-Committee. The former states, "The medium on that occasion, as well as in all the forty experiments, made by sub-committee No. 1, was Mrs. Edmunds ;" while the Report says,. "The mediumship was that of members of your sub-committee„ persons of good social position and of unimpeachable integrity." It• is clear, therefore, putting the two statements together, that more' than one medium was present on some or all of the occasions. Will your correspondent let us, the outside public, still further into his confidence by giving us the names of this other medium or mediums, and supplying the omission in the published report, by specifying the members of the several sub-committees, who are the• vouchers for the genuineness of the phenomena? It would also• be interesting to know how the mediumship was manifested ; that. is, what part the medium or mediums took in the manifestation.. On all these points we are left in the dark by the published
P.S.—It is a curious circumstance connected with this singular dining-room table, that when measured by the sub-committee it gave 9 ft. 3 in. by 4 ft. 6 in. (p. 7), while Serjeant Cox (p. 102), found it to measure 12 ft. by 5 ft. Had it in the meantime elongated itself like Mr. Home?
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