From Hensleigh Wedgwood to G. H. Darwin 15 June 1874

My dear George

If you are inclined to see the question of an agency exterior to that of the medium put to the proof in the most decisive manner you should go and see M^rs Fay 2 Vernon Place Bloomsbury. She has a light and a dark séance, & you might go away at the end of the first, which w^d not take above half an hour. Her fee is 10/- s for the two, but I do not know whether she divides it or not. Her peculiarity is that she proposes one definite feat after another and exhibits it with the certainty of the regular conjurors under conditions which make the impossibility of her doing the thing herself evident to the entire audience. She sits isolated in a corner of the room, her hands tied behind her by members of the audience and then tied to a staple in the wall by strips of cotton. Then her neck is tied back to another staple in the same way so that she cannot move her head an inch forwards. Her feet are also tied together and the cord held taut by one of the audience. When a feat is to be performed the necessary implements are placed upon her lap or on a chair by her side & then her husband lifts up a curtain to the height of about 5 feet which shuts her off from the audience while he himself remains in full view, so that he can give no possible assistance   In a few seconds she calls out, the curtain is lowered and some piece of handywork is found performed plainly beyond her power under the conditions. In one case for instance a piece of board with a hammer and nail are placed on a chair by her. The curtain is drawn up, and you immediately hear some one hammering away: Presently the hammer and the board with the nail firmly fixed in it are thrown on the ground (I think over the curtain); the curtain is let down & M^rs Fay seen with the chair upon her lap   In another a ring borrowed from one of the audience is fastened on her nose, & so on.

I was amused to meet there Lynn’s manager. The coat trick of Maskelyn & of Döbler agrees so exactly with these that I strongly suspect it is done in the same way in spite of their protestations to the contrary.

Your affect^e| H Wedgwood