Kansas City, and was buried in the old cemetery at Westport. Am I right?”

Senator Spencer turned pale and said: “That is absolutely correct. Which one of the pellets bears her name?”

He then held the bits of paper between his right finger and thumb, and when he had picked up three or four of them, the medium said, “That is the one which contains your mother’s maiden name.”

I have now forgotten the maiden name of the Senator’s mother, though I think it was Dillard. The answer, however, was correct.

Next, without asking me to write anything down, the medium thus addressed me: “I see the spirit of your mother’s mother. Her name was Eliza Johnson, and she calls you ‘my son,’ and says, ‘Tell Anne that immortality is the glorious truth of human life.’ Anne was the name of her eldest child—your mother.”

If Senator Spencer was convinced that Dr. Schlesinger had told him the truth, I had the same kind of conviction in my case; for every word uttered was correct. I have never understood how this old man came to the results announced, nor have I ever seen any one who was able to explain his power.

With the memory of my Modesto experiences fresh in mind, I decided, when I came upon Dr. Schlesinger in San Francisco, in 1893, to institute a series of daylight seances in the presence of some of the most distinguished citizens of San Francisco. As I was then a writer of the San Francisco Daily Examiner staff I found rare opportunities for enlisting the men desired in the experiments. I was not then, nor am I now, in any manner affiliated with Spiritualists, nor do I set forth the facts of this narrative for the purpose of making converts to any theory of mind or matter.

The manuscript from which this work is printed was written at the time of the matters recorded, on an order from the Examiner. Owing to the fact that Mayor Ellert afterwards regretted that he had allowed a seance to be held in his office, the Examiner was induced to suppress the story, which now appears in detail for the first time. It should be borne in mind that all that follows was written at the time of the events described.

CHAPTER II.

THE “EXAMINER” SEANCE.

That the reader may fully understand the origin of the experiments recorded in the narrative that follows, it is necessary to state again that I was a writer for the Examiner in the autumn of 1893, and that I was on the alert for what newspaper men call “stories,” or special articles—things a little outside of the ordinary run of news.

Ambitious to arrange something of unusual interest, I approached Mr. Hearst and S. S. Chamberlain, who were in charge of the news department of the paper. I told them what I had seen Dr. Schlesinger do in Modesto, and outlined the plans that were afterwards carried out—seances at the office of Mayor Ellert and the Chief of Police, in the presence of prominent citizens. First, however, it was necessary for the editors to see the medium at their offices; for they feared there would be some failure, and that the citizens invited would be disgusted because of their loss of time in useless experiments.

For these reasons, therefore, the first sittings were at the editorial offices of the Examiner, where the editors were as much puzzled as anybody else. They were at once convinced that, however he performed his feats, Dr. Schlesinger was at least not a bungling master of the black art. Several intelligent observers were present, among them one or two of the brightest newspaper men in the city. The experiments were not only carefully noted, but they were viewed with grave suspicion. They were, however, wholly informal and merely preliminary to the more important and prolonged seances that followed at the office of the Mayor of the city, and later at the office of and in the presence of the city’s Chief of Police. A few facts concerning the occurrences at the Examiner office are given that the reader may have the full benefit of the story.

One of the investigators (Managing Editor A. B. Henderson) wrote a number of names on slips of paper, before Dr. Schlesinger arrived. They were not seen or known to any one save the person that prepared them, and the slips on which they were written were carefully folded and clasped in a bundle, by a rubber band or elastic. Great pains was taken by Mr. Henderson to prevent the medium from handling or seeing the slips. Without seeing the writing, Dr. Schlesinger at once gave the names correctly. One of them was that of Thaddeus Stevens, the eminent Pennsylvanian; and when the folded slip on which his name was written was touched by Mr. Henderson, the medium said: “That is the name of Thaddeus Stevens, who knew you well. He calls you Alexander, and sends you his love.”

Then the name of the sitter’s deceased uncle was properly announced, though it had not been written on any of the slips. Correct information was also given concerning the uncle’s religion while “in the flesh.”

S. S. Chamberlain, now Managing Editor of the Philadelphia North American, (then News Editor of the Examiner) was one of the investigators. He wrote down, on separate slips of paper, the names of many living and dead persons, but, contrary to the medium’s request, he did not write the names of persons he had ever known. In a few moments Dr. Schlesinger read the names correctly while the slips were beyond his reach, and firmly clasped in Chamberlain’s hand. They were of such persons as John Ruskin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Shakespeare, Longfellow, etc.

A faithful report of all that occurred was submitted to the managing editor of the paper, who at once decided that a series of similar experiments, conducted at the office of the Mayor of the city and others, in broad daylight, would make the basis for some interesting Sunday specials. Under his instructions I arranged the seances, and was present at all of them. I subsequently wrote a faithful account of what occurred, but the articles were rejected by the editor of the Sunday Examiner for personal reasons. This volume embraces the substance of what was then prepared.

CHAPTER III.

SOME STARTLING DAYLIGHT SEANCES.

It was on September 4, 1893, that a number of the most prominent citizens of San Francisco held a daylight seance (at high noon) at the office of Mayor Ellert. The company had assembled in response to the Examiner’s invitation, and all of the witnesses had agreed in advance to observe everything closely and write an absolutely fair account of what they saw, adding any theory or explanation that seemed sufficient to account for the phenomena.

It is as well to say that is was a mirthful assembly at the outset, and the newspaper man who had arranged for the experiments was the butt of many little jokes. The idea that the medium could do anything more than a little clever juggling seemed farthest from anybody’s thoughts.

Dr. Louis Schlesinger, then a man about sixty-one years of age, was the spiritualist medium who said he could convince all present that the dead return, and that he could hold communion with the living. The following spectators were present, and the written reports of some of them are given in full in the subjoined narrative: Mayor Levi R. Ellert,