"clairvoyance" which was undertaken with eyes bandaged. Alexis, as we know from contemporary accounts, was very particular as to the arrangement of the bandages, and frequently fidgeted with them. In any case, bandaging the eyes, as already said, is a fallacious test. But Alexis did more than play cards or read books with eyes bandaged. We are told that he frequently described the contents of sealed packets, which had been specially prepared beforehand as a test of his powers. Accounts of this marvel are fairly numerous, and the witnesses, whose names are given, were frequently persons whose position removed them from all suspicion of collusion. If we regard their evidence as insufficient to prove clairvoyance, it is on quite other grounds. Briefly, Alexis was a professional medium, who received large sums for his services; he had a probable confederate in his business manager, Marcillet; the'séances were not conducted under conditions favourable to exact observation— the room would be thronged with people, twenty or thirty at a time; Alexis could not satisfy all the tests propounded to him, and no doubt selected those which gave him his opportunity. Lastly, the accounts of the experiments which have come down to us are hasty and incomplete; we probably have in no case a full report of what took place. But by comparing reports by different observers of the same experiment, we find in one or two cases that the contents of the sealed packet could not be described when first presented. The secret would
