The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-21
SCIENTIFIC F ST. BRINGS OUT FAKE
Blank Cards Of Committee Found To Have Been
 Switched By Woman
(Leased Wire to The Age-HeraId.)
 By HARLAN S. MILLER

NEW YORK, Oct. 2O.-Under the searching and skeptical scrutiny of science, ghostland has failed once more to produce spirit writing" or other signs of bona fide astral chum- miness with mere live humans.
 Mrs. Josie K. Stewart, efficient spiritualist of Cleveland, thus loses her most ambitious bid for the s2.- 500 offered by the scientific American to the favored son or daughter of the spooks who could convince that pub lication of the authenticy of any in stance of psychic phenomena.
 When she departed for the test, Mrs. Stewart was so confident of victory that she> was already planning how to spend the prize money, according to observers at the seance.
 J. Malcolm Bird, associate editor and officially designated by the scientific American to supervise serious hunt for spooks, announced Friday that there was nothing ghost ly or supernatural at Bayside, l.. l., Tuesday, about the way Mrs. stewart produced words on cards theoretical. ,ly blank, while group of scientists looked on.
 Her hand was merely quicker than the scientists eyes. She deftly sub stituted cards with writing on them for the blanks the committee had sup piled her, in the discreet words of MT. Bird:
 Mrs. Stewart undertook to produce, for the scientific American investi- Rating committed. independent spirit writings upon cards supplied by the committee. The sub committee in charge of Mrs. Stewards sittings finds that she has failed to do this. She has produced writings only on cards brought to the sitting by her and sub stituted by her for those supplied. by the committee. The subcommittee therefore rules that Mrs. Stewart has failed to produce any demonstrably genuine psychic phenomena, and that her claim to the scientific American award and to the committees further attention stands vacated"
 To defect the clever slight-of-hand of Mrs Stewart, who is pastor of the First Independent church at CleVe- land, methods worthy of detective story were employed.
 Birds theory is that Mrs. Stewart retained a few cards supplied by the committee at the earlier, unsuccess- ful seances She <then shopped until she found some which, so far as she could see, were identical in size and shade with the committees cards.
 Arriving at the Bayside seance with five of these cards in her possession, the pastor spiritualist was searched by hands not so thorough as had been those of the committees wives, who had "frisked" her at the other ses- eions. After the search, she wes out of the committees sight for mo- ment; then she appeared wearing mans oyercoat with large pockets.
 o O O
 Ten Cards Missing.
 A count of the cards afterwards revealed that 10 of those brought by the committee were gone. and that in Nheir places were five of different shade of white; slightly longer than the committee's and of different thickness These five bore the mys- terious writing.
 The five cards with the writing here from an eight to one-thirty-sec- ond of an inch longer than the fur nished cards; because the latter had carefully been trimmed down by the committee.
 Furthermore, Bird carefully meas ured the thickness of the cards with delicate micrometer, and found that there was a discrepancy of two-ten- thousandth of an inch.
 Examination of the writing showed that 1t had been done with tool in dubitably substantial and physical, and with a curious fluid or solid whose identity the examination did not ascertain.