The Coming of the Fairies

Though I was out of England at the time, I was able, even in Australia, to realize that the appearance of the first photographs in the _Strand Magazine_ had caused very great interest. The press comments were as a rule cautious but not unsympathetic. The old cry of "Fake! " was less conspicuous than I had expected, but for some years the press has been slowly widening its views upon psychic matters, and is not so inclined as of old to attribute every new manifestation to fraud. Some of the Yorkshire papers had made elaborate inquiries, and I am told that photographers for a considerable radius from the house were cross-questioned to find if they were accomplices. _Truth_, which is obsessed by the idea that the whole spiritualistic movement and everything connected with it is one huge, senseless conspiracy to deceive, concocted by knaves and accepted by fools, had the usual contemptuous and contemptible articles, which ended by a prayer to Elsie that she should finish her fun and let the public know how it really was done. The best of the critical attacks was in the _Westminster Gazette_, who sent a special commissioner to unravel the mystery, and published the result on January 12, 1921. By kind permission I reproduce the article:

DO FAIRIES EXIST?