After the usual ceremonies Mr. Price and Mr. Hope went into the dark room, where the package was opened and the two top plates put into the carrier. Hope then took up the carrier, asking Price to wrap up the remaining plates, and it was at this moment that Price “saw him ... put the dark slide to his left breast-pocket, and take it out again (another one?) without any ‘talking’ or knocking.” I copy this sentence as printed, and it is curious to find the S.P.R., which is continually claiming from others the utmost exactness of statement, passing one which is so involved and unintelligible. However, it is certain that Mr. Price means that Hope at that moment changed the carriers, though he does not even tell us where the second carrier went to. Mr. Price had endeavoured to mark with some pricking instrument of his thumb the original carrier, but carriers are often of very hard wood, and he could not, one would think, have verified such a result, therefore the fact that no marks of pricks were found upon the carrier cannot be regarded very seriously. It is an instructive fact that the S.P.R. receives all these very loose tests without question or comment, while when the evidence is the other way, as in the case of Major Spencer, they are ready with the most extraordinary explanations rather than admit a positive result.
The couple then emerged from the dark room—I am omitting unessential and wearying details—and the photographs were duly taken with no exact record of the time of exposure, though Mr. Price roughly placed it at from eighteen to nineteen seconds. The point was really of great, and might have been, of vital importance. When the plates were developed one was normal of Price alone, and the other had a female extra looking over Price’s shoulder. This female face has the psychic arch and bears every sign to my eye, and to that of every spiritualist whom I have heard discuss it, of being true to type and a real Hope extra.
Mr. Price complimented the medium upon his success, carried off the plates, and then set himself to dictate an article which was duly printed in the “Proceedings” of the S.P.R. to show that the whole business was a swindle, that the plates had been changed, and that the extra had been on a plate which Hope had foisted upon Price by the device of changing the carriers in the dark room.
The points upon which Price relied in his charge may be taken in their order. They were:
1. That on the plate with the extra the X-ray marks of the Imperial Company were not present.
Experiments were at once undertaken by several investigators, including Dr. Cushman, of Washington, and Mr. Hewat McKenzie. They showed that with long exposures, such as Hope gave, the X-ray marks vanish, so that this test, as was admitted by the Imperial Company, ceases to be valid.
2. That he made marks upon the carrier, which were not found upon the carrier actually used.
These marks seem to have been mere pricks, and there is no independent evidence as to their existence.
3. That he saw Hope make a suspicious gesture in the dark room.
This would be more convincing if any indication could be given as to what became of the discarded carrier. In cross-examination Mr. Price weakened on the point.