His next change of life presented him in North Britain as a journalist, employed on a Scotch newspaper.

An unfortunate love affair was the means of depriving him of this new occupation.

He was recognised, soon afterwards, serving as assistant steward in one of the passenger steamers voyaging between Liverpool and New York.

Arrived in this last city, he obtained notoriety, of no very respectable kind, as a "medium" claiming powers of supernatural communication with the world of spirits.

When the imposture was ultimately discovered, he had gained money by his unworthy appeal to the meanly prosaic superstition of modern times.