852. I pass on to a case where an actual conversation goes on between the distant agent and the automatist, informing the automatist of matters which the agent - supraliminally or subliminally - wishes him to know. Evidentially it is not strong, for it depends upon a single memory, corroborated on one collateral point alone (although not invalidated upon any point); and the writer was not personally known to any of us. The date is also very remote. On the other hand, the reasons for the absence of corroboration seem satisfactory; and in my view at least the narrative offers internal evidence of honesty and care, while the incident is such as might stamp itself permanently on the mind.

(From Proceedings S.P.R., vol. ix. p. 48).

Mrs. Kirby wrote to me from Santa Cruz, California, August 13th, 1886, as follows:-

In 1850 I left New York for San Francisco. Spiritualism, in the sense in which that word is now used, had no existence. The facts and philosophy it covers were unknown, except partially to the very few readers of Swedenborg's cumbrous and involved theology.

Attention had been called to some rappings which had made themselves heard in a house in Rochester, N. Y., and there had been some violent demonstrations (breaking of windows, moving of furniture, and unlocking of locked drawers and doors) in the house of an orthodox clergyman somewhere in Connecticut.

In 1853 I was living on a ranche three miles from what is now the city of Santa Cruz. (It was but a village then, though they called it a town.) My family consisted of my husband, myself, and, in a certain sense, of a young English sailor, a healthy, kind-hearted, and very decent, though very ignorant fellow, whom my husband had employed to work on the ranche during the previous year. His name was Thomas Travers, and he had just made his mark (x) to a written agreement for another year's service. As it will be seen, I had no servant, but Tom stood ready to help me in any way he could. For instance, when, at intervals of weeks, visitors would make their appearance, he would immediately kill and clean some chickens for me. (If you wanted beef-steak in those days you could only have it by killing an ox. The nearest neighbours sometimes combined and took a quarter each).

On one occasion the two most intelligent men in town came out, a Dr. McLean and the Rev. - Dryden, and they presently asked me if I had a small table I could let them have (while I was busy, and my husband a mile off at his tannery), with which they could continue some strange experiments that had lately been made among our mutual friends in town. Spirits tipped the table, and they said sentences were spelled by the use of the alphabet. That A's and B's had in this way heard of their long since departed children, etc, etc.

I listened eagerly. I had left a large circle of friends at the East, and here was not one of the old kind: Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, Garrison, Purvis. A view of the entire bay of Monterey from my sitting-room window did not prevent me from longing continually for a little of the old sympathy. One of my most devoted friends had a few years since passed to the other shore; my young brother was there too. If I could establish communication with them, what a relief, what a pleasure it would be to me!

My smallest table was in size 3 1/2 ft- by 1 1/2 ft. My husband was willing to test the matter, and as we were given to understand that three or four persons together would be more likely to succeed than two (since magnetism or electricity was drawn from them by the invisibles to help in accomplishing their object), Mr. K. went out to Tom's shanty and asked him to come and sit at the table with us.

We had not held our hands one moment on the table before it tipped very decidedly, and I forthwith proceeded to repeat the alphabet. The doing so, however, struck me as worse than ridiculous; it was very unpleasant, too, and I observed that if spirits were present they could hear me say the letters in my mind as well as if they were uttered from my tongue.

"All right. Go ahead!" my husband replied, "we will sit and wait for results".

I did so, and the table tipped promptly to the letters, spelling out -

"Mary Howells".

As I knew no such person, I asked if she was a friend of Mr. K.'s? Answer: "No." Of Tom's? Answer: "Yes." A relation of his? Answer: "Sister." Are you married? I questioned. Answer: "No".

"Oh, don't let us waste any more time!" I exclaimed. "It's all falsehood and nonsense. Here is some one professing to be Tom's sister who says her name is Mary Howells, and that she is unmarried. If this were true, of course her name would be Travers".

Tom nodded aside to me and said in a low tone -

"Yes, mum. That's her name. Mary Howells".

He looked extremely confused and astonished.

" Why, what do you mean? " Mr. K. broke in; " your name is Travers, how can hers be Howells?"

"No, sir," Tom replied, looking down, "my name is Howells".

But Mr. K. insisted that it could not be. Had he not made his mark after the Travers only the other day? Five minutes were taken up in the attempt to convince Tom that he did not know his own name.

"You see, sir," he at length explained, "I ran away from a whale ship in San Francisco, and sailors is so scarce there I was afraid they would hunt me up and take me back, so I just took another name".

Hardly convinced now, Mr. K. advised him to drop the alias at once, assuring him that no one would molest him. This he did, and the second year following married, and he is now the father of twelve girls and three boys who bear the strangely discovered name.