HOW I KNOW THAT THE DEAD RETURN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 35, 6 March 1909, Page 4

HOW I KNOW THAT THE DEAD RETURN.

(By ,W. T. ,Stead.) The fortnightly Ileviuw publi-ln.- an article under the above heading, whirl) is described a* ;i moid <>i personal experience. Air, Slead h\ a.-uiny the reader lu imagine wnai w.uuld have iliotijiii[ if. u\viii»; io cunlinuuti> adverse uiiuN oj- .-iron;; ocean eiU'reiili, mtne of ilk- dM-uvercr,-i o| America had been able lu return lu the Old World. They have peopled Lite Xe\v Wur.d, mil m the ab-eiu-u ut' all. cominunicatio.i. with t.urope everyone Would have i-unclllded Ihey were ' dead. If after c< nlui'ie> their den-end-' anl» bad by im*an-> »)' wireless tele»raphy smtmh-d iu »emliii» «te s »ag<"> aero** the At km tie. such coininunu-a-tiuiH would have had U> contend with uxuclly the sum- i.icrcdnlily with which messages from llie dead are nveivcd . U>-day. Modern >piriuialism. Mr, Stead , contends, i> the equivalent lu Alarcuni's , discovery, and lie proceeds to de*cribe . (lie .which he has received j which have led him tu say thai he , knows llie dead return.

ins fiust KXI'KUIK.MI-;. His lir.-t experience. which eauie to | him tlirmig/i hi> own automatic hand-i writing, u'us preceded In* "ihtj appear- ! ance ot the decided in bodily lorni twice repeated u,i juKilmviii oi* u promise' iiiucle before death. This \va» followed up by the writing of milage*, attested iirst by an allusion t<> a peL name that seemed tu reduce the message to nonsense. and, mtoiullv, by recalling lo the memory of her friend with the utmost particularity of detail an- incident which that friend hud forgotten." Telepathy even from the. unconscious mind is, (Mr, (Stead points out, excluded in the case of messages which foretell events that had jiot happened, which Were not expected to happen, but which afterwards did happen as predicted. Of this' Mr. Stead gives two instances, the latter of which—a, prediction of death twelve times* repeated iu the course of as many .months—M regards as about the best authenticated case of a delLnite I prediction literally iullilled on record. I FOUR PROMISES FULFILLED.

The following is Mr. Stead's narrative | of hi* experience, with a fi iend who, kept her promises after death:—"She promised, in the first place, that *he w,ouUL use my liand, if slle. could, after death, to tell me iiow it fared with her on the other side. Jn the second place, she promised that, if she could, she would appear to one or more of her friends lo whom she could show herself. In the third place., she would come to be | photographed; and fourthly, ,>he would send l .me a message through a medium, authenticating the message, by counter* signing it with the simple mathematical figure of a cross within a circle. K.M. did all four.

"(1) She hay repeatedly written with my hand, appareiitly finding it just as easy to use niy hand now as she' did wlieu ©till iji the body.

"(2) Slit' has repeatedly appeared to two friends of Hli II!', Illle II WOlliail, til!-' other u num. .Slic. upi't-iiiL'tl once in 11 dining-room Jfn 11 of people. She passed unseen by any but lu>r friend, wlio declares that alio saw her distinctly. Oil another occasion she appeared in the street in broad daylight, walked ior a little distance, and then vanished. I may say that tier appearance was so original it would tie ditlieult to mistake Jier for anybody rise.

'"(3) Slie has been photographed at least hall'-a-dozen times after her death. All her portraits are plainly recognisable, but none of them are copies of any photographs taken in earth life. -"(■ i) There remains the icsi of a. message accompanied by the sign of a cross within a circle. 1 did not get this ior several months, I had almost given up all ho>pes, when one day a medium who was lunching with a friend of mine received it oil the lii'jt attempt she made at automatic writing. 'Tell William not to blame me for what I did. I could not help myself,' was the message. Then came a plainly but roughly drawn circle, and inside it the. cross. Xu one knew of our agreement as to the test hut myself. 1 did not know the medium, 1 was not present, nor was my friend expecting any message from K.M."

SPIRITS PI10T001UPIIEI). Mr. Stead tells the story of how he ! obtained a photograph of a Hoer commandant i-.i London of whose existence | either in this world or the next lie was totally unaware. Mr. St«ad says: "Let me disarm any sceptical reader by admitting that nothing is more easy than to fake bogus spirit photographs, and, further, that an expert, conjurer can almost always cheat the. most vigilant observer. The use of marked plates, which I handle, expose, and develop myself, no doubt affords sonic protection against fraud. But my belief in the authenticity l of spirit photographs rests upon a far lirmcr basis than the fallible vigilance of the experimenter." That evidence is tile identification liy at least three persons of the portrait of an invisible person produced by the photographer, who had no means of knowing of the existence of any such person. A PEKSOXAL CONFESSION OF

1 FAITH. | Mr. Stead concludes his article as fol- ' Iowa:—"Ohio last word. For the last lifteen years I have been convinced by 1 the pressure of a continually aeeunni--1 a,ting mass of first-hand evidence of the truth of tine persistence of personality after death, and the possibility of intercourse with the departed. But I always said. 'I will wait until someone in my own family has passed beyond the grave before 1 filially declare, my conviction Oil this subject.' Twelve months ago this month of December I saw my eldest son. whom 1 had trained in the fond hope that he would be my successor, dim at the early age of thirty-three. The tie. between us was of the closest. No o.nfi could deceive me by fabricated spurious messages from my beloved son. Twelve. mouths have now passed, in almost every week of which I have been cheered and comforted by' messages from my boy, who is nearer and dearer to line than over before. The preceding twelve months 1 had been much abroad. 1 heard loss frequently from him in that year than I have heard from him since ho passed out of our sight. T have not taken his communications by my own hand. I knew him so well that what I wrote might have been (lie unconscious echoes of converse in the past, He has communicated 1 with me through the hands of .two slight acquaintances, ami they haw been one ami all as clearly stamped with the impress of his own character anil mode of thought as any of tile loiters lie wrote to me during his -ojonrn on earth. After this I can ilmilii no .more. For me the problem >s solved, the truth is established, and 1 am glad to have this opportunity of testitviug publielv lo all the world that, so jar as 1 am concerned, doubt on this subject is henceforth impossible."

Australia ha s 217,00u more men thau women. Sicily lost (iO.OUU lives in au earthquake iu lttlW. I lie hottest region on earth is along the I'crsian Ciull. Nearly one-half of the world's breweries -belong to Uermawy, II straightened out, an ounce of ; Spider-web would extend 350 miles. i"a inula has received over .")UO,OUU immigrants within the last ten years. "When hit by a bullet, a tiger roars until dead, while a tigress die s - silently. The exposed parts of nearly all A;lainic liters are repainted after every, trip. 4 |

Over •.C 400,001) were spent in Xc-v York on the recent Xew Year's Kve festivities. About one-liftli of an aere of timber is standing to every inhabitant of the world. la one hundred crimes, on an average, forty-eight are eommiUed by habitual criminals. Malaria is a fatal seourge in manv parts of Sicily. England produces twice as mucll coal Us tile United Slates. -Japan has .">.000.000 more inhabitants than the British He&. Bananas and potatoes are almost identical in chemical composition. fxmdon dniilis. on an average, 1000, gallons of water to one of milk. I A blind chameleon censes to change its color, and remains a blackish hue. Of birds. I hi! swan lives longest, in extreme cases reaching the age of 900. [ Of the 117.000,000 people in Kussia, about 100.000.000 are peasants. I Coal consumption per head is greater in England than in any other country. The blood thrown out bv the heart travels at (lie rate of seven miles an hour. The sanu* amount of mercury that would kill a lmnuin being would have little effect on a dog. The light of the North Star is estimated to be IDO times stronger than thiit of the sun. The Chinese have an academy of manners that prescribes etiquette for the whole Kmpire. In India there are nearly 20.000.000 widows. . ,