General News. A CURIOUS case of somnambulism was published in the Echo newspaper, of last Saturday week. In bitterly cold weather a girl, walking in her sleep, left her room and wan dered through the streets to the police-station of the L divi sion, where she woke up and was much frightened. She was then conducted to her home. A NEWSPAPER BURLESQUE.—A journal called the Civilian published for circulation among clerks in the Civil Service, contains the following exaggerated narrative, drawn from the unhealthy imagination of the writer thereof, coupled perhaps with a few highly coloured facts :—“ Scene, a poorly-furnished room in the East-end of London. By the light of the moon which ever and anon breaks from behind a heavy mass of clouds, we can distinguish some fifteen to twenty people, the majority of whom are clustered round a large round table. They meet in silence, and take their accustomed places with out making any remark, or giving more than a furtive glance of mutual recognition. When they are all seated, they pro ceed to join in a strain of weird, unearthly music, which is followed by a few moments of solemn and impressive quiet. We have now time to notice the appearance of our fellov guests ; the majority are women,—nearly all, we should judge of a more or less unhealthy tone of mind and body, their complexions are sallow, their foreheads low, and their fingers lank and bony. Of the men, at least some two or three, we should say, have come like ourselves, from curiosity. The rest are characterised by much the same peculiarities as the women. A slight tremulous movement is observable in the hands of some of those who are seated round the table. One of the women slowly rises to her feet, and commences to move her arms and body about, as if she were wrestling with some unseen foe. Her tortuous and convulsive movements affect her companions in a remarkable manner; some of them stand up and go through a scries of strange and uncouth gestures. They all There is a wild seem as though they were “possessed." vacant look about their eyes which strikes the observer with horror. One begins to chatter in a quick, sharp, inconsequent manner; another pours forth a torrent of rhetorical gibberish; a third, a young girl of about seventeen years of age, rushes into the adjoining room and shrieks as though in the last agonies of death. The rest troop after her, yelling, whooping, and blaspheming in a most awful manner, and the noise and riot is kept up for some ten or fifteen minutes. At last the girl is exhausted, and lies foaming, breathless, and insensible on the floor, while the others return to the room they had left. It is impossible in words to give more than a very faint and in adequate sketch of this extraordinary performance ; the scene itself beggars description. From Shoreditch to Belgravia ! We have seen witchcraft lurking in the purlieus of the East ; let us see if it has met with any encouragement from people of a higher order of intelligence and culture. A party of eight, three ladies and five gentlemen, are seated round the dining room table of a West-end mansion. It is Sunday evening. Although the gas is lowered, you may distinguish, and pro bably recognise, the features of most of those present. Two of the ladics are of high rank, one being the wife of a quondam Cabinet Minister, the other a lady of title. Of the male mem bers of the company, one holds a distinguished position on the Bench, another is well known as a man of science, a third is among the most popular of writers of fiction, and the fourth is a physician of high—we may almost say, the highest—standing and repute. One other among the guest still remains to be described; it is the seeress, the witch. Possessed of more than ordinary beauty and intelligence, young, handsome, accomplished, and unmarried, she is yet of that peculiar abnormal constitution of body which would appear to be the unfailing characteristic of seeresses, witches, and “mediums’ in every age and country. She is somnambu listic, hysterical, subject to ecstatic visions, and the favourite 'case’ of her physician, who has for years been endeavour ing to discover the nature of her complaint. As we enter the room she is chaunting a mournful ditty, to which an accompaniment of raps is heard, proceeding apparently from the table. The song over, some questions are asked of the spirit whom this incantation is thought to have conjured up; and answers are clearly spelt out from the rappings and creakings of the table. The information thus obtained is not, perhaps, very valuable, nor the language in which it is conveyed very choice ; yet a new poem from Mr. Tennyson could not be more highly esteemed or more jealously scrutinised. And this is the nineteenth century the most critical and scientific, perhaps, in the whole history of man. With all our boasted philosophy, and after age of persecution, the witch is still a power among us. The instances we have given are but samples of hundreds that we might give—of hundreds that are almost daily occurring within a radius of ten miles from the Royal Exchange." THE DIALECTICAL SOCIETY.—Seventeen articles, by a member of the Dialectical Society, on the subject of Spirit ualism, have been published at different times in The Queen newspaper. There is plenty of internal evidence that the writer is a skilled medical practitioner, and here is a brief extract from his last article :—“ That these phenomena are real—that they are neither delusions nor impostures—has been ascertained, to the entire conviction of those who have been testing them and experimenting upon them for nearly a year. There are, of course, many great differences of opinion as to their source, their nature, and the manner in which the visible and audible effects are produced ; but all are satisfied that they exist, though almost all, if not all (and the writer of this especially), went into the investigation with entire scepticism, and confident that they would speedily discover and expose what they fully believed to be either a delusion or a fraud. We now come to deal with another class of phenomena, not physical merely, but which are controlled by intelligence ; not meaningless motions and sounds, but motions and sounds manifestly directed by some power, having mind, will, know ledge, wit, humour, and, indeed, most of the faculties of the human mind. It is mainly upon these that the Spiritist faith is built up. It is to these the Spiritualists point triumphantly and say, 'Admitting that nerve force has moved the table, and made the rappings, how could nerve force answer questions make sensible communications, and act in obedience to re quests or commands?' We believe there is as sufficient an answer to this, as to the purely physical phenomena of motion and sound, without calling in the aid of spirits of the dead. We believe it will be possible to show that all this may be more probably produced by the action of the influence of the minds of one or more of the living persons present, than by the spiritual hands and minds of the dead. The theory—for, as yet, it is little more—will involve some difficulties both in explanation and in maintenance ; but it will, we believe, be found to involve vastly less of difficulty, of contradiction, of