Mr. Home, the medium, is at Rome, and was summoned
before the Papal police for practising magical arts on the 3rd of January, and went accompanied by a friend to the room of the Advocate Pasqualoni, where he was asked, " After you became a Catholic did you exercise your power as a medium ?" To which Mr. Home replied, " Neither before nor after did I exercise my power as a medium, inasmuch as it is not a power dependent on my will ; I could not use it." Signor Pasqualoni himself was gratified, it is said, by hearing the raps and seeing the table move during Mr. Home's interview with him. Mr. Home was ordered to leave Rome in three days. On the following day Mr. Severn, the British Consul, negotiated for him a somewhat precarious bargain with the Papal Government. Mr. Home was permitted to stay " on condition of his entering into an engagement, through Mr. Severn, to desist from all communication with the spiritual world during his stay in Rome." Considering the absolutely involuntary nature of Mr. Home's connection with that world, as just explained to the Papal police, Mr. Home's act in signing this agreement must have seemed to them somewhat rash. The spirits of the billions of departed spirits can scarcely have all signed the agree- ment too, and if any of them come unsolicited to him, the Roman police will scarcely take cognizance of the question which cf the parties re-opened the intercourse. Indeed, according to his own theory, you might almost as well enter into an engagement to open during three months no communication with your own con- science. But to him that may be no difficult matter, after all.
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