“In the Autumn of 1881 or 82, Henry Slade, the famous Spirit medium, came to Philadelphia and took quarters at the Colonade Hotel, where he opened a room, in which to hold seances. At that time I was instructor of Mathematics in the Pennsylvania Military College at Chester, Pa. Reading the announcement of Slade’s seances in a Philadelphia paper, I wrote to him, and made an appointment for myself and Capt. R. K. Carter, to be present at one of them. Capt. Carter was at that time our instructor in Civil Engineering. Reaching the Colonade at the appointed time, we were ushered into Slade’s presence, in a room, bare of furniture, save a rather long table and several chairs, placed in the center of the room, while at the side and just back of where Slade was to sit, was a smaller table on which were piled a number of ordinary looking school slates, of various sizes. The center table had no cloth on it. Several small articles were on the mantelpiece, such as a smoker might use, viz.: a match box, etc.
“According to my recollection, Slade was rather tall and slim, and of an ingratiating presence. He was expecting us and at once placed me at a long table.
“The seance began, with Slade holding two slates of rather large size, and showing all their surfaces devoid of writing, placed them on the top of the table, and while rubbing their surfaces kept up a running fire of conversation. He then told us to place our hands on the table as near the center as possible with our little fingers touching. Slade placed the slates together, and after a moment or two separated them, saying he had forgotten to put a piece of pencil between. This he did, and holding them together placed them under the table with one hand, while he placed the other on the table so that his fingers touched our hands. This position was held for several minutes, when he said he would see if he had gotten any results. Bringing the slates from under the table he laid them on top and after a moment told Capt. Carter to look at them. Following this direction, Capt. Carter separated them, when one was found to have its entire surface covered with writing. This message, according to Slade, came from a man who had just died. (Notice of the man’s death had been published in the morning paper.) The message was signed with the full name, but as neither Capt. Carter nor I knew the man, we could not affirm or deny the correctness of the handwriting, nor the truth of the signature.
“Capt. Carter asked Slade if he might copy the message, but Slade demurred, saying he did not know if the Spirits would like the message copied. I found it difficult to account for the reticence of the Spirit or Spirits since the message had been written for our information. Its purport was, as far as I can recall, that everything was very glorious in the Spirit World, and that he, the writer, was very happy. There was nothing in the message that was above the mentality of Slade or that was, in any sense, descriptive of Spirit Life. All was vague and unsatisfactory, where real information was desired.
“During this demonstration and indeed throughout the entire seance, Slade sat sidewise to the table, his left hand resting generally on its top and his right hand free. Several short messages were next produced on a small slate held by Slade, under the table, and out of sight, a short piece of slate pencil always being placed on the upper surface of the slate. Two points were made very emphatic by Slade. First, that the piece of pencil was always found just at the end of the last word of the message, and second, that the messages were found on the upper side of the slate, which according to Slade was held close against the under surface of the table top. However, as we could not see the slate when placed under the table, since we were reaching as far as we could to get our hands on the center of its top, and the slate was only shown to us when being brought from under its surface, it would have been an easy thing to lower the slate after placing it under the table and writing with a single finger of Slade’s right hand, then bringing the slate to the under surface of the table, bring it slowly into sight.
“Once when the small slate was laid on top of the table the sound of writing was distinctly heard. During this time Slade had both hands on the upper surface of the table and in full sight. This was quite startling at the time, but later I discovered how to produce this sound of writing myself and without the aid of Spirits.
“Once, while we were having our attention directed to a slate held by Slade, the unoccupied chair on the side opposite to Slade and almost at the side of Capt. Carter, suddenly rose so that its seat struck the under side of the table, and then fell back with quite a thud.
“Another telling effect was carried out, when Slade gave me one of the small slates telling me to hold it under the table. I did so and felt it suddenly snatched from my hand (I was holding it with one hand, my other hand was on the top of the table) and carried with a scraping noise to the very end of the table and there it rose above the surface enough to disclose about a third or possibly a half its length. Then it was carried swiftly back and put in my hand.
“This concluded the first seance; when Slade, after a moment, said he thought that was all he could get at the time.
“On our second visit I need recount but three effects: First, difference in the method of obtaining writing on the large slates which began the seance, as in the first visit. Slade showed one slate and cleaned it thoroughly, then while keeping up a running fire of conversation, he casually reached to the small table, spoken of as having several piles of slates on it, and taking one as though at hazard, placed it flat on the big table. Rubbed its upper surface with his fingers, and placed a piece of pencil on it, held it under the table. After a pause he brought it out and taking the upper slate off the under, showed both surfaces without writing. He remarked that perhaps a different piece of pencil would be better and he placed another pencil on the upper surface of the top slate and then placed the lower slate over it, without at any time having shown its under surface. This surface was found covered with writing, the purport of which I do not now recall.