Note 135 — Chapter XIV

Independently of the fact that "Dr. Phinuit" is as obviously untrustworthy as Mrs. Piper in her natural state is apparently the reverse, the inquiries which have been made have entirely failed to corroborate the accounts, in themselves not always concordant, which "Dr. Phinuit" has given of his birth, his education, and other circumstances in his "earth-life." His knowledge of his native language is confined to a few simple phrases and a slight accent, frequently found useful in disguising a bad shot at a proper name; and the careful investigations conducted by Dr. Hodgson into Mrs. Piper's antecedents as a "medium" have made it almost certain that "Dr. Phinuit" is an invention, borrowed from the person through whose agency Mrs. Piper first became entranced, and who purported himself to be controlled by a French doctor named Albert Finnett (pronounced Finné). It should be added that "Dr. Phinuit" possesses apparently no knowledge of the medical names of drugs, nor any more intimate acquaintance with their properties than could be gathered from a manual of domestic medicine. (Vol. viii. pp. 47, 50, 51, etc.)