"It is needless to say that the mandolin did not belong to Eusapia, but was purchased by the experimenters, 'and,' said Mr. Barzini, 'it was a simple instrument incapable of fraud.' "

Again in the Annals of Psychical Science, we read (March number, 1907, p. 212), the account of a seance held under the direction of Prof. Lom-broso. Signor Mucchi, collaborator of la Stampa, speaks at length of the precautions taken to prevent all chicanery. "Moreover," he adds, "none of the most important phenomena produced could give rise to the least suspicion of trickery. They are all of such nature that one could not imitate them even by the most skillful sleight-of-hand."

. . . "One of the spectators was asked to take a mandolin that was in the room and to place it upon a table upon which there was no clay. This gentleman encountered, in his turn, mysterious hands which would and would not permit him to enter. Once he had seized the mandolin, he feared to see it snatched away and placed it quickly upon the inner table with the strings turned down.

"The mandolin was at once inexplicably raised and carried to the experimental table, where in full sight of all present, it played of itself: at first one string at a time, with a clear sound as though produced by the pick of a nail, then with all the strings as if a finger swept over them. One of us was asked to play the mandolin upon the fingers of Eusapia; the sound of the string corresponded to each touch, and if the gesture were badly made, the resultant sound was incomplete and strident.

"Finally, a hand which suddenly materialized seized the instrument by the neck and placed it upon the shoulder of the player, and there, close to his face, the strings vibrated and strummed, while the hand dissolved and disappeared once more."

Annals, July, 1907. Report of Dr. J. Venzano:

"I, myself, seized a hand during a seance at the home of Signor Avellino, in the month of June, 1901. It was a rather large hand of a masculine type. I grasped it firmly with the intention of holding it as long as possible. After a while, although I had increased the force of my grip, the hand slipped freely from mine in an instant, as if it had suddenly diminished in size."

We feel that the materialization of hands is now a proven fact.

Must we still answer objections?

I do not think it necessary, because the objections are inexhaustible, and their authors betray in their evident prejudice an absolute ignorance of the conditions controlling experiments. The records of experimenters have already met all of these objections.

Moreover, how can we reply to detractors who ever repeat, parrot-fashion, the same thing, answering not at all the very simple statements urged upon them, such as that made by William Crookes as many as forty years ago.

"I can only indicate here a few of the more striking facts, all of which, it would be well to remember, took place under conditions in which all deception was made impossible. It is absurd to attribute these results to trickery, for I will recall to my readers that what I here report did not occur in the home of a medium, but in my own house where it was quite impossible to prepare in advance for fraud of any kind. A medium walking about my dining-room, where I was seated with several other persons who watched her closely, could not fraudulently play an accordion that I held in my own hands with the keys down, or cause it to float about the room playing. She could not bring with her devices to stir the window curtains or raise the Venetian blinds eight feet: to tie a knot in a handkerchief and place it in a distant corner of the room: to sound the keys of a piano at a distance: to cause a card case to fly about the apartment: to raise a carafe and a goblet above the table: to make a coral necklace rise upon one end: to open a fan and fan the company, or to set in motion a pendulum enclosed in a glass case, solidly sealed to the wall."1

It is interesting to compare this testimony with the present-day words of Professor Morselli, spoken forty years later.

"Mr. Barzini and I have not found it difficult to hold and watch the hands of this woman: after a little practice, we succeeded in holding securely her four extremities. At the same time we watched her head (almost always visible) and paid attention to the phenomena. Not every one is able to accomplish this many-sided muscular tactile, and intellectual labor. But I am sure that each time I was charged with surveillance, Eusapia did not attempt, aside from one or two simple efforts, the famous trick of substitution of the hand (which, moreover, does not explain the twentieth part of the Paladinian phenomena): also she could not have stroked my brow, pulled my mustache, or played upon a trumpet by using her feet, as some critics have foolishly imagined!

1 Researches upon the Phenomena of Spiritualism, William Crookes.

"As for the rest the control used in spiritual seances is sometimes rather ridiculous: it wearies those who must exercise it and certainly prevents Eusapia from giving the new and spontaneous manifestations which might be very remarkable through her mediumship. I would prefer to have the medium free for the most extraordinary phenomena of materialization. I have had astounding results when Eusapia was bound upon a small bed, but who knows what energy she might manifest if she were left to the automatism of her subconscious self? All modification of habitual technique may be a check upon fraud, it is true, but it is also a hindrance and sometimes a complete preventive of mediumistic phenomena."

I believe that we have now established as a fact the reality of materialized forms, and shall deal in the following chapter with the phenomena of complete materializations.