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Eusapia Palladino

Sir,—As your reviewer, in noticing the new and enlarged edition of my book on "Miracles and Modern Spiritualism," has confined his remarks to my record of Prof. Oliver Lodge's experiences with Eusapia Palladino, perhaps you will permit me to state that the whole body of the work was printed before that medium came to Cambridge; and, further, that I consider the Cambridge experiments, so far as they are recorded, only prove that Eusapia might have deceived, not that she actually and consciously did so. And even if she did cheat at Cambridge, that fact in no way gets rid of the genuine phenomena previously witnessed and tested by a large number of eminent men of science. In a letter dated Nov. 2, 1895, and printed in Light last Saturday, Prof. Lodge says:—"Eusapia has shown that she employs artifice and deceives; so much is certain. She has just as certainly shown that she can cause genuine phenomena. That is my opinion." Professor Richet, who has had a far more extended experience with the medium than any of the Cambridge observers, in a long letter to Mr. Myers, published in the "Journal of the Society for Physical Research" of December last, declares that nothing new was proved at Cambridge, that all the signs of fraud were known to himself and all the other Continental observers, and that this knowledge was communicated to Messrs. Lodge and Myers. Yet, in spite of this knowledge, both these gentlemen were convinced that the phenomena witnessed by them in France were genuine, as also are Professor Richet and Professor Chiaia, of Naples, who has investigated the phenomena occurring with Eusapia for ten years. Thirty years' experience of analogous phenomena, with many mediums and under the most varied conditions, leads me to accept confidently the conclusions of those inquirers who have devoted the most time and thought to the investigation.

Jan. 22.
Alfred R. Wallace.