with his congregation. On leaving the platform
he mingled among them, and I noticed
that they were all anxious to shake him by the
hand. I have seen the same anxiety displayed
to shake hands and converse with a pet parson,
or a popular actor. In my hearing, several
ladies expressed a wish to speak to Mr. Home
"just one word," and I heard a gentleman,
leading up a sad-eyed wistful-looking lady, ask
Mr. Home to "settle with her." Settle what?
My impression was that the lady was anxious
to consult the spirits. Mr. Home promised
to settle with her another time. Women
thronged round him as if they were anxious "to
touch the hem of his garment." I make no
doubt whatever that some of them regarded
him as a medium between themselves and
Heaven.

Now what is the doctrine which Mr. Home
propounds, and all these people subscribe to as
a new article of faith? Boldly, this—that
spiritualism founded upon table-rapping, rope-
tying, and banjo-playing in a cupboard, is a
means of man's salvation! These are Mr. Home's
own words. The apostles of the faith are now
going about holding meetings with the
evangelical purpose of bringing the working classes
to a knowledge of God through Mr. Home,
Mrs. Marshall, the Davenport Brothers, and
Mr. and Mrs. Wallace! These are the mediators
under the new dispensation. And we are asked to
believe in them on the evidence of their miracles.
But why not believe in Mr. Addison, who is a
greater miracle worker than any of them? I have
just visited this gentleman at his own house, and
have witnessed signs and wonders of the most
marvellous description. I handcuffed him and
secured him like a spread eagle to two staples
placed at the extremities of a cabinet. In one
minute he released himself. I locked him in a
box, which I afterwards corded and sealed. In
two minutes he was out of the box, and the box
still remained locked and corded. I bound him,
tied him in a sack, and put him into a cupboard.
In less than three minutes, on the door being
opened, I found him unbound, with the sack still
tied up in his hand. He turned off the gas, and
on stretching out my hand, I felt him floating in
the air. When he returned to the floor, he
lighted the gas by touching it with his finger.
He said I could do this. I tried, and the
moment I touched the gas-burner the flames
sprang forth.

When Mr. Addison first gave an exhibition
of his miracles, he was hailed by the spiritualists
as "a medium with powers more advanced than
anything yet heard of in modern times." He
was asked to become an apostle, and one
enterprising person offered him ten pounds a night
for three months to give séances. Mr. Addison,
however, preferred to expose rather than aid
the pretensions of the spiritualists, and in their
wrath and disappointment they call him an
impostor. On which side does the imposture lie?

I may mention that the means by which Mr.
Addison works his miracles are exceedingly
ingenious. When he shows you how the trick is
done, you are as much astonished at the
subtlety of the contrivance as at the effect it
produces.

STUCK FAST.

ABOUT a year after my scaffold accident,*
I goes home one night, and Mrs. Burge—that's
our nex'-room neighbour—shows me something
wrapped up in flannel, all pink and creasy, and
very snuffly, as though it wanted its nose
blowing; which couldn't be expected, for it
hadn't got any to signify.

* See page 65 of the present volume.

"Ain't it a little beauty?" she says.

Well, I couldn't see as it was; but I didn't
like to say so, for I knew my wife Polly had
been rather reckoning on what she said we
ought to have had more'n a year ago; so I
didn't like to disappoint her, for I knew she
lay listenin' in the nex' room.

Polly always said there never was such a
baby as that one; and somehow it was taking to
see how her face used to light up all over smiles
when she thought I warn't looking; and I
knew it was all on account of the little un.
She never said she felt dull now; and when at
home of a night I used to think how my mates
would laugh to see me a-handling the little
thing that was allus being pushed into my face
to kiss; when I'm blest if ever I see such a
voracious un in my life: it would hang on to
you—nose, lip, anywheres—in a minute.

One day, when it was about nine months old,
it was taken all of a sudden like with a fit.
Polly screamed to me to run for the doctor; for
it happened that I was on the club that week, and
at home with a bad hand. I run for him, and he
soon come; and then there was a warm bath
and medicine; but afterwards, when I saw the
little thing lying on Polly's lap so still and
quiet, and with a dull film forming over its eyes,
I felt that something was coming, though I
dared not tell her; and about twelve o'clock
the little thing suddenly started, stared wildly
an instant, and then it was all over.

My hand warn't bad any more that week;
for it took all my time to try and cheer up
my poor heartbroken lass. She did take on
dreadful, night and day, night and day, till we
buried it; and then she seemed to take quite a
change, and begged of me to forgive what she
called her selfishness, and wiped her eyes once for
all, as she said, and talked about all being for the
best. But she didn't know that I lay awake of a
night, feeling her cry silently till the pillow was
soaked with tears.

We buried the little one on the Sunday, and
on the Monday morning I was clapped on to
a job that I didn't much relish, for it was the
rebricking of a sewer that ran down one of
the main streets, quite fifty feet underground.

Arter two years in London I'd seen some
change, but this was my first visit to the
bowels of the earth. I'd worked on drains