Mr. Slade, the medium, was summoned before Mr. Flowers, at
Bow Street, on Monday, "for unlawfully using certain subtle craft and devices, to deceive and impose upon certain of her Majesty's subjects ;" and Mr. Slade and his manager, Mr. Simmons, were also summoned on a second charge, "for conspiring and com- bining together" to deceive the same persons, and to defraud them of their money. The summons was issued on the demand of Mr. Ray Lankester and Dr. Donkin. The whole day was occupied in hearing Professor Lankester's evidence, his cross- examination by the defendant's solicitor, Mr. Munton, being only just commenced, after which the hearing was adjourned to next Tuesday. Professor Lankester's evidence was given with great precision, and was to the effect that having detected Mr. Slade, as he believed, in writing secretly the messages which it is asserted that "the spirits" write with a crumb of slate-pencil, and then leading his visitor to suppose that they are written while he (the visitor) himself holds the slate close to the table,—which he effects by so making the sound of writing that it appears to come from the slate, whereas in reality it comes from another quarter,—he took his friend Dr. Donkin to witness the exposure of
the trick, and actually succeeded in snatching away from "the medium" a slate, then asserted to be clean, which really had a secretly-written message upon it. So far as the cross-examination had gone on Monday, it did not appear to have in the least shaken the evidence given by Professor Lankester.
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