shaken up, the doctor proceeded to name the contents of each paper as it was drawn out. Occasionally he made a mistake, but in nearly every instance succeeded at the first or second trial. He first separated the living from the dead, without opening the slips, and sometimes not even touching them; then proceeded to give the names. Afterward, upon writing place and cause of death, age, occupation, etc., upon other slips, the same result followed. Some of the names submitted by me were peculiar, and I believe known to no one else in this city, yet they were announced—read off, as it were—with but little hesitation and generally exactly as written. The same thing occurred as to the diseases and places of death.

JUDGE ROBERT FERRAL.

“During this manifestation of his power Dr. Schlesinger simply formed a circle or chain of hands, connecting with himself, frequently tapped the table, and appealed to an unseen ‘guide’ for his information. Raps were said to have been heard also, but of this I cannot bear testimony.

“How was this done? By mesmerism? No; for there was nothing in the nature of sleep or putting to sleep. Mind-reading? Possibly; although some of the slips of paper were read correctly when the contents were for the time forgotten and unknown to myself. Hypnotism? Don’t know, having but a faint idea how far these phenomena extend. By sharpness of sight, trickery, sleight of hand? I cannot answer, at least for the present, remaining, as before, an agnostic on these matters; unable to give an intelligent explanation, but at the same time not disposed to jeer or scoff at what I do not understand. Respectfully,

“Robert Ferral.”

September 5, 1893.

DR. BUNKER’S NARRATIVE.

The following is Dr. R. E. Bunker’s account, written at his old office, No. 802 Kearny Street, just after the seances and while he was still in charge of the City Receiving Hospital:—

“I saw Dr. Schlesinger in company with the other gentlemen named, and I saw wonderful things which I am wholly unable to explain. The phenomena, manifestations, or things that occur in the medium’s presence are not only interesting, but marvelous. I went possessed of something like eight or ten slips of paper, on each of which I had previously written (at my office) a name of some person I had known—some living, some dead. Not a soul ever saw the slips, for I was alone when I wrote the names. Furthermore, they were so folded that no one could possibly have read a single name. Dr. Schlesinger at once picked out the names of living and dead persons, while the slips were held between my fingers and when I did not know what person’s name was on the particular slip that I held. He pronounced every name correctly while I held the pellet, or as it lay untouched on his table.

“To say that what he did was by the aid of wires or batteries would be to impart to wires and batteries more intelligence than the greatest philosophers have ever possessed. This is no explanation; nor has any one ever been able to explain to me how these things were done. I do not believe it was mind-reading (a term that conveys no intelligent idea to me anyhow), for I did not know the name on the slip under question—not until I afterwards unfolded it and corroborated the Doctor’s readings. You understand that the entire bunch had been thoroughly shuffled in a hat before any slip was picked up.

“To come to specific instances, let me give a few cases as they occurred. On one slip I had written my mother’s maiden name, which was not known to anybody in San Francisco. It was placed among eight or ten other names of women—some married, some unmarried, some wholly fictitious. All slips were folded alike and placed in a hat under the table, which I held in my hands. Dr. Schlesinger asked me to pick out the pellets, one at a time and hold them between my finger and thumb. He would say, ‘That is not the name, throw it aside;’ and so on, until he hesitated at one pellet and said, ‘That is your mother’s maiden name; it is Emily J. Laumann.’

“The answer was correct, and in a similar manner he read other names and told me all about the persons. I had written the name of Dick Foster on one slip. Foster had died of consumption at the old Bella Union Theater, on June 21st. The medium did not read his name, but wrote a message backwards—that is, from left to right—very rapidly, and when I held it up to the light with the written surface from me, I could read the following:—

“This was a puzzling thing, and I should like for some one to explain how it was done, if there was not communication with some invisible intelligence. In regard to Foster’s name it should be said that the medium had not seen nor heard it, and that his hand flew over the paper very fast while he wrote the backward message. So far as I could see, Dr. Schlesinger was quite deaf and near-sighted. He was an old man of heavy weight and clumsy fingers. His manner was that of a devout believer in the genuineness of his theory. If any one can explain to me how these things were done, he will interest me far more than Dr. Schlesinger did, and it should be said that my attention to what he did was held without interruption from the start. There were several other like tests wherein he read for me other names by a process equally startling, making one feel that he had marvelous powers.

“R. E. Bunker, M. D.”

WHAT MR. BONNET SAW.

Theodore F. Bonnet, who was a reporter for the Daily Report at the time of the seance at the Mayor’s office, was a guest of the author during the seance. Mr. Bonnet, who is now editor and owner of Town Talk, an influential weekly newspaper, wrote the following account of what he saw and handed it to the author just after the seance:—

“After witnessing the efforts of Dr. Schlesinger as a medium, one cannot but be impressed by his marvelous powers of divination. They are impossible of explanation on any hypothesis calculated to reduce his work to the vulgar plane of legerdemain. Yet the manifestations, as he is pleased to call his marvelous, puzzling and apparently supernatural revelations concerning matters with which he could not become familiar under ordinary circumstances, are after all, unsatisfactory to the person engaged in testing his power. I must give him credit, however, for having startled me by one message. I had written on small slips of paper, which were then carefully folded—all this an hour or more before the meeting. One of the names was Joseph Touhill, an Oakland burglar, who had been killed by a policeman who caught him robbing a saloon. I had known Touhill, and had been quite friendly with him in late years, but had never suspected that he was of the Jekyll and Hyde species. The medium did not at once direct me to the piece of paper on which Touhill’s name was written, but afterwards he suddenly said: