The Slade prosecution has dragged through another week, but from
Mr. Flowers's remarks as to the only kind of evidence which he would admit for the defence, we should hope that it is near an end. He declared that he could admit no evidence which did not bear on the specific charges, but only tended to prove that wonderful things which could not be accounted for had been done in Mr. Slade's presence on other occasions than• that to which these charges referred. This is quite as it should be, and as we urged last week, but it is perhaps a little hard that the right principle should be applied to the defence, when evidence (like Mr. Maskelyne's) was admitted for the prosecution which has absolutely no bearing either on the particular charge of fraud or on the offence under the Vagrant Act. The evidence taken last Friday and Saturday was of no great importance, except as proving that one witness (Mr. R. H. Hutton) who bad applied the right test,—the test of a locked slate,—to exclude all chance of conjuring, was compelled in common honesty to admit that though that test failed, he was at the moment so impressed by other performances which were probably quite within a mere juggler's capacity, as to recur to the sup- position that he was witnessing genuine phenomena, like those examined by Professor Barrett. The admission was more credit- able to Mr. Hutton's candour than to his observation.
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