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PSYCHISM Analysis of Things Existing ESSAYS BY PAUL GIBIER, M. D. Director of the New York Pasteur Institute.

This case was communicated to us by M. Le- merle, captain in command of one of the steam- ships of the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique. After having related the fact, on board of the steamer La Fayette, while making a voyage to the West Indies, in 1888, he confirmed his statement by two letters, the first one written October 2d, 1888, and the second December 20th, of the same year, after a visit paid to his father, who was the "percipient" in the observation we are about to relate.

M. Lemerle, Sr., is also a sailor. In 1870 he commanded a brig, which was on the home trip from Carrara, loaded with marble, consigned to Rouen.

The brig was slowly sailing along the coast of Portugal in a rather heavy sea, when one day, as he was on the deck of his vessel, M. Lemerle, Sr., suddenly saw beside him his brother, also a sailor and sea-captain. This brother, we were told, was not on very good terms with him, and no accurate knowledge of his whereabouts was kept, he was supposed to be somewhere at sea, but that was all that was known of him just then.

The captain was not thinking of his brother at the time, and, though he had never experienced such a thing before, concluded that it was an apparition.

This apparition, moreover, haunted him several succeeding days, and followed him on the bridge and on deck, in his state-room, and even accompanied him at table, though invisible to all others.

We will give Captain Lemerle's own words :

"Much disturbed by this occurrence, my father stopped at Belle Isle, and from there telegraphed my mother, asking If anything had happened at home. (Owing to the absence of precise dates and the rules of the telegraph office (Government's), we could not make Inquiries as to the telegrams here mentioned )

*'The answer given was, that a great misfortune had occurred to the family. My uncle Toussalnt, father's brother, the same whose image had so vividly appeared a few days before, had been carried overboard while in command of a ship on the Atlantic.

"It was the only time that my father observed a phenomenon of this kind."

In his second letter M. Lemerle, who was about to assume a position in the Antilles, wrote in answer to some questions which we had asked of his father on certain points regarding the apparition:

“Before leaving France I consulted my father or the subject of the vision which he had some years ago. "There is absolutely nothing to be modified in what I told you on board the steamship "La Fayette."

"My father was unable to say exactly whether the presentment of his brother appeared material or not; his memory, owing to advanced age, is becoming defective.

Yours, etc., F. Lemerle,

"Captain in Command of Steamships for the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique."