The Murderer's Angry Skull

Because it’s always fun to see people who play silly buggers with other people’s body parts get a terrifying supernatural comeuppance, let’s look at the time someone stole the skull of a notorious murderer, and almost instantly regretted it.  Consider it a cautionary tale about the dangers of causing someone to rest in pieces.

The murder of Maria Marten is one of those sordid, non-mysterious crimes that nevertheless somehow gain immortal fame.  In 1827, a young man named William Corder, wishing to rid himself of Marten, who had been his lover, killed her and hid the body in a local landmark called the “Red Barn.”  After the corpse was discovered the following year, Corder became the immediate suspect.  He was arrested in London and eventually faced trial, conviction, and the gallows.  As far as is known, Corder’s spirit rested quietly for about fifty years, until someone took a regrettable interest in his skull.

The ghostly sequel to the “Red Barn Murder” was told by British author and ghost-hunter Robert Thurston Hopkins. Hopkins, you might say, literally grew up in the shadow of the infamous murder: He spent his boyhood within the old prison at Bury St. Edmunds, where his father F.C. Hopkins, a prison official, proudly kept a framed copy of Corder’s final confession.

A close friend of Hopkins’ father was one Dr. Kilner, who had a deeper, and far more morbid, interest in the Corder case.  He owned a book about the murder that was bound in Corder’s skin, as well as the murderer’s pickled scalp.  One would think that Kilner owned enough bits and pieces of the late Mr. Corder to satisfy even the most ghoulish tastes, but such was not the case: Corder’s skeleton then resided at the West Suffolk General Hospital, where for years it had been used as a sort of celebrity anatomy display, and Kilner longed to get his hands on the skull.  As he knew that the hospital would not part with its prize, the good doctor decided that his only option was to pinch the thing.

When Kilner sneaked into the hospital one night to do his bit of body-snatching, he lit three candles.  One immediately went out.  When he relit it, the other two went dark.  As he was removing Corder’s skull from the rest of the skeleton, the candles continued mysteriously snuffing themselves out.  One would think Kilner would realize he was being warned, but he blithely replaced Corder’s skull with a ringer he had picked up somewhere, and took his stolen treasure home.

Kilner lovingly polished the skull until it glowed like a gemstone, and placed it in an ebony box which he kept in a cabinet in his drawing room.  However, he was not entirely happy.  He felt a vague unease about his acquisition, which he tried to dismiss as merely his overactive imagination.

A few days after the skull became part of the Kilner household’s bric-a-brac, a servant told the doctor that a man had come to see him.  As it was after his surgery hours, Kilner was a bit irked by the disturbance.  When he asked if the caller was someone the servant recognized, she replied that he was a stranger.  “He is proper old-fashioned looking,” she remarked, “with a furry top hat and a blue overcoat with silver buttons.”

The doctor went to his surgery, asking the servant to follow him with a lamp.  As he entered the room, he caught a glimpse of a figure standing by the window, but when the servant came in with the lamp, the room was empty.

Kilner’s servant swore that she had escorted a man into the surgery.  She surmised that he changed his mind about seeing the doctor, and left.

Not long after this incident, Kilner happened to be looking out a window of his house when he saw a man standing on the lawn.  He was wearing a beaver hat and an old-fashioned blue overcoat.  Kilner went out to confront the man, but by then the figure had disappeared.

Kilner began to have the disconcerting feeling that he was constantly being followed by…something.  At night, he would hear doors mysteriously opening, and the sound of phantom footsteps throughout his house.  Outside his bedroom door, he heard loud breathing, spectral murmurings, and sobbing, accompanied by loud bangs coming from the drawing room.  He started to have dreams where he got the sense that he was being begged to do something.

In short, Kilner knew that he had made someone very unhappy.  And he had a good idea who it was.  William Corder, understandably enough, took great offense at being turned into home décor.

Kilner was now as anxious to return the skull as he had been to steal it.  However, the skull was so highly polished that the difference between it and the rest of the skeleton would be obvious, leading to some very uncomfortable questions.  He had no idea what to do.

One night, Kilner was awakened by a sound from downstairs.  When he lit a candle and looked down over the stairs, he saw a disembodied hand over the handle of the drawing room door.  This hand turned the knob and opened the door.  Then, from the drawing room, there came a sharp noise that sounded like a shotgun blast.  When Kilner ran downstairs to investigate, he was met by a huge gust of wind which blew out the candle, and nearly knocked him off his feet.  When he managed to relight the candle and enter the drawing room, he found that the box containing the skull had been shattered into bits.  Kilner was greeted by Corder’s skull resting in the open cabinet, grinning at him.

That was enough for Dr. Kilner.  Rather selfishly, he gifted the skull to F. C. Hopkins, who was idiot enough to accept it.  As Hopkins walked home with the skull (discreetly wrapped in a handkerchief,) he twisted his ankle and fell flat on the pavement just as a female acquaintance was passing by.  He dropped the skull, which cheerfully rolled at his friend’s feet.  The woman screamed and dashed off.

Hopkins’ life subsequently became very difficult.  His injured ankle kept him bedridden for a week.  His best horse fell into a pit and broke her back.  Both Hopkins and Kilner suffered a series of personal and financial disasters that left both men shattered in spirit. Hopkins finally wised up and did what Kilner should have done a long time before:  He took the skull to a churchyard near Bury St. Edmunds, where he bribed a grave-digger to give it a decent burial. Fortunately, Corder’s spirit seemed content with this compromise, and peace returned to the lives of everyone involved.

At the end of the younger Hopkins’ account of this episode in his 1953 book “Ghosts Over England,” he noted, “if ever you come across a tortoise-shell tinted skull in a japanned cash box, leave it severely alone.”

Excellent advice.  William Corder was clearly a ghost one does not want to cross.

America and Lake Cow Bacon

Because I always enjoy sharing those moments when History speeds down the freeway, skids on some ice, and crashes into a ditch, let us look back on the time when America very nearly became a nation of hippo-eaters.

Our little misadventure had its opening act during the 1884 World’s Fair in New Orleans.  As a gift, the Japanese delegation presented the city with some water hyacinths.  The people of New Orleans were so delighted by the plant’s lush green leaves and beautiful purple flowers that they planted it in every available corner, from public parks and ponds to private backyards.  The water hyacinths took to their new homes very well.  The plants grew.  And grew.  And grew.  In an outstanding example of “unintended consequences,” by 1910, the hyacinths were so ubiquitous they had become a public menace.  They choked rivers, lakes, and bayous, and sucked so much oxygen out of the water that fish were dying in droves.   The plants even began blocking the Gulf of Mexico.  The federal government went to war on the hyacinths: they chopped at them, poisoned them, crushed them, but to no avail.  The innocent-looking plants proved to be like the horror movie monsters who refuse to die.

America was simultaneously facing another massive problem: a lack of food.  Over the previous half-century, the country’s population had quickly tripled, to the point where cattle ranchers could not keep up with the demand for meat.  The citizens began to seriously wonder where their next meal was coming from.

These twin crises led Louisiana Congressman Robert Broussard to come up with a novel scheme to solve both problems simultaneously.  He recalled that four years earlier, a military scout named Frederick Russell Burnham, who had just spent some years in southern Africa, had made a proposal to bring African wild animals such as giraffes and antelopes to the U.S.  When Broussard and Burnham brought the idea to William Newton Irwin, head of the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Plant Industry, Irwin had one of those “Aha!” moments.  African hippos, he thought, would not only graze on water hyacinths, but provide a whole lot of steaks and burgers for his hungry nation.  America needed hippos!

Broussard enlisted another ally, Fritz Joubert Duquesne.  Duquesne was undoubtedly the liveliest member of our little band.  Like Burnham, he was an experienced scout and adventurer, but he also been at various times a con artist, a pimp, a photographer, a spy for the Germans, a botanist, and the star of a traveling show where he billed himself as “Captain Fritz Duquesne, adept and legendary hunter of African game.”  It was this last role that inspired Broussard to ask his help and advice.  (As a side note, during the Second Boer War, Duquesne and Burnham had been hired to assassinate each other, which gave the whole hippo project the pleasant feel of a family reunion.)

Broussard presented before Congress House Resolution 23261, which would allocate $250,000 to import hippos into Louisiana’s hyacinth-choked waterways.  He and his little team of experts testified about the joys of hippo breeding: they insisted that the creatures were naturally tame and born hyacinth-eaters.  Oh, and their meat was delicious--”a combination of pork and beef.”  Many members of Congress warmed to the whole scheme.  Newspapers around the country were delighted by the idea of a hippo in every pot.  The “New York Times” called the semi aquatic mammals “Lake Cow Bacon.”  Teddy Roosevelt publicly championed the plan.  As unlikely as Broussard’s proposal had initially seemed, it now looked like America really would become Hippo Nation.

Alas, Broussard had introduced the resolution too late for Congress to vote on it during the 1910 session.  At the same time, his band of hippo-enthusiasts quickly fell apart.  Irwin died suddenly, and Burnham was sent to Mexico to help protect copper mines endangered by the Mexican Revolution.  Broussard talked about reintroducing the bill, but, distracted by his ultimately successful campaign for the U.S. Senate--not to mention World War I--he never got around to reviving the plan before his death in 1918.  America’s brief infatuation with hippos soon died a natural death.

Louisiana has yet to find a really effective solution to the water hyacinth menace.  Although the state has spent tens of millions of dollars on herbicides, biological control agents, and simple brute force, the plants are as invasive and pesky as ever.

One doubts whether even an army of hippos could have conquered them.

The Skeleton's Revenge; Or, What Not to Do With Ancient Bones

I like a quiet life.  Therefore, if I should happen to run across a mysterious skeleton, I leave it strictly alone.  And if, for whatever reason, it should wind up in my house, I certainly don’t play silly buggers with the bones.  You avoid a lot of nasty surprises that way.  The wisdom of this course of action is illustrated in a cautionary tale that appeared in the July 1922 issue of “Occult Review.”  The author, Katherine Godefroi, heard the story directly from the doctor at the center of the incident.

Godefroi’s friend, whom she gave the pseudonym “Dr. Smith,” lived on some property adjacent to the ancient castle of Herstmonceux, in Surrey, England.  Godefroi described him as “very strong-minded, hard-headed, and extremely clever, and quite the last person in whose way one would think that anything supernatural would be likely to come.”

At the time our story opens, Smith had been married for two years.  His wife had a brother who was a medical student at St. George’s Hospital.

Like so much of the English countryside, Smith’s property boasted a number of archaeological relics.  He occasionally let parties conduct excavations on his land, and if they discovered any ancient treasures, they were allowed to keep them.  One morning, he received a letter from a London archaeological society, asking for permission for several of their members to examine a barrow which had never been opened.

The barrow was near Smith’s house, which initially made him reluctant to grant the request.  His wife was heavily pregnant with their first child, and he naturally did not want her disturbed.  In the end, however, he decided to permit the dig.  The three archaeologists arrived a week later.

At first, nothing was discovered in the barrow other than a few Roman coins.  However, on the second day, they uncovered a “most perfect specimen” of a man’s skeleton.  This fleshless body so impressed Dr. Smith that he told the men he could not resist keeping it for himself.  The visitors, naturally, agreed.  Smith set up the skeleton in his study, where it “remained a joy to his eyes for some weeks to come.”

To each his or her own, I guess.

Not long afterward, Mrs. Smith gave birth to a son.  Once she had recuperated, her brother came for a visit.  He was as delighted with the skeleton as Dr. Smith had been.  The young medical student was about to start a course of anatomy, so he asked his brother-in-law for permission to remove a little finger, for dissection purposes.  Smith agreed.

After two or three days of working on the finger, the brother-in-law noticed something odd.  His own little finger became increasingly painful.  It then gradually shrunk to the point where it was so withered, the digit had to be amputated.

Some months later, a friend of Dr. Smith, who was also a physician, came to call.  He, too, was dazzled by the ancient skeleton.  He was so enthralled, he begged to be allowed to take the skull home so he could examine it in detail.  Smith agreed, and the skull was given pride of place in the friend’s baggage.

Several days after acquiring the skull, Smith’s doctor friend was walking down a street when he tripped on a curb and landed with such force that he broke his jaw.  His face was so damaged that he had to keep his jaw in splints for over a month.  Before leaving the hospital, he ran into Smith’s brother-in-law, where he heard the sad tale of losing his finger after removing the corresponding bit of bone from the skeleton.

Smith’s friend was quite capable of putting two and two together.  He immediately returned the skull to Smith, thanking him for the loan, but suggesting that he now felt it was perhaps wisest to keep the skeleton together.  After hearing his friend’s story, Smith resolved not to make any more presents of the bones.  Smith had a small cupboard where he kept poisons used in medical prescriptions.  The cupboard was always locked, and the key was kept attached to his watch-chain.  He put the skull and finger bone in this cupboard until he could have them reattached to their rightful owner.

Several weeks later, a man came down from London to do this task.  When Smith unlocked the cupboard, he was deeply unnerved to see that the skull and finger were gone.  He was so rattled, he immediately telephoned the vicar.  It was clearly time to bring a little divine assistance into the situation.

Smith told the vicar everything that had happened.  After a brief discussion, they agreed that the wisest thing would be to rebury the skeleton.  The following day, the bones were reverently interred in the local churchyard, with the vicar saying a few prayers for the dead.

Godefroi added, “Since then nothing unusual has happened to Dr. Smith or to any of his friends.”

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This account of an Englishman’s night on the town that morphed into a Marx Brothers movie appeared in the “Daily Telegraph,” September 5, 1998:

A detective’s nephew who broke into an empty police station and dressed in a sergeant's uniform to run the front desk was cleared of burglary yesterday after a jury could not stop laughing. 

Simon Davey, 29, climbed through a lavatory window and staggered around Hailsham police station, East Sussex, after spending the night drinking at a darts competition. He had intended to report that he had not paid a taxi fare but when he found the station was unmanned he put on a sergeant's jacket and an inspector's cap and decided to be in charge of the desk, Lewes Crown Court was told.

A special constable who returned to the station spotted Davey and banged on the door. Davey opened it, rocked on his heels, and slurred "evenin' all." 

Davey, from Hailsham, was charged with burglary after a telephone wire, a broken part of an answering machine, and statement forms were found in his pockets. But the case was halted after Judge Richard Brown ordered that a tape of an interview between Davey and a detective be stopped because the jury kept laughing.

Davey, who had no previous convictions, had said in an interview that he knew the layout of Hailsham police station because his uncle Alan used to be the acting detective inspector and he had attended his 50th birthday party there. 

He said he had drunk eight or 10 pints at the Eastbourne Darts Open before a friend called a taxi, which he realised half way home he could not pay for. The driver dropped him off and unable to find any police officers, he let himself in and searched the station for someone before accidentally breaking an answering machine on which he tried to leave a message. He put the bits in his pocket. 

He added: "I thought there are no police here, so I will be the policeman on duty.  I came downstairs and saw an inspector's hat so I put it on just in case there was another idiot like me that night and decided I would be on the front desk. 

"When I saw the officer I said ‘evenin' all.' He was a bit stunned and I was too because I ended up in handcuffs." 

After ordering the not guilty verdict, the judge told the jury: "If anybody ever tells you judges are not human or don't live in the real world you can now put them straight" 

He told Davey: "There are amusing factors to this story but whatever you were doing that night befuddled by drink your actions have caused a great deal of inconvenience and a lot of public expense. It's not the sort of conduct you should risk doing again. It may mean that you have to limit your alcoholic intake the next time you go down the Eastbourne Darts Open." 

Davey was bound over to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for two years. 

After the case he said he had been disowned by his parents and had not spoken to his uncle since the incident. 

"My family are very proud and this has caused an uproar. I feel embarrassed at what I did and because this has cost the taxpayer a lot of money." 

Davey's wife Heidi said she was angry with him, but that even the police officer who reported what had happened had been laughing about it.

Davey, who is out of work with a back injury, added: "I have not had a drink since that day and I am never going near a police station again.”

I do hope Davey’s family quickly developed a sense of humor and forgave him.  

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This brief cautionary teaches us what should be obvious: if you summon the Devil, be damn sure you want him to oblige.  The “Fort Lauderdale News,” October 9, 1965:

OKLAHOMA CITY. A teenage girl was determined to disappear with the devil last night, but she made it only as far as a hospital. 

Friends convinced Kathy Campbell, 14, that if she laid on a grave and called 10 times for "Lucifer," she would disappear, or "something would happen to her." So, police said, Miss Campbell and four companions went to a graveyard, where she carefully stretched out on a grave in the darkness and pleaded for Lucifer to appear. 

After 10 attempts, Lucifer did not show up. But when the girl got to her feet a large bird swooped down out of the darkness and struck her on the chest. 

She was taken to a hospital in a state of shock. She was released a few hours later.

The Fairy Thorn: A Cautionary Tale About Fortean Firewood

This week’s post will demonstrate a vital gardening tip:  Never, ever mess with a tree inhabited by fairies.  The Little Folk have ways of making you regret it.

Our story is set in Fintona, a village in County Tyrone, Ireland.  In late March 1950, the Fintona Golf Club received permission from one Raymond Browne-Lecky to do some landscaping on the golf course on his lands.  Among the changes he OK’d was to remove a thorn hedge that was in the way.  Unfortunately, the gardeners hired to do the job misinterpreted their instructions, and instead used a bulldozer to take down a 300-year-old “fairy thorn”--a tree revered in Ireland for its ancient supernatural associations. Fintonans were incensed at the desecration.  “The people in the village are in a rage over it,” Browne-Lecky told a reporter for the “Northern Whig.  “For my part, however, the hatchet is buried, because it was apparently a mistake.  I was not angry because of possible revenge from the fairies--I’m afraid I don’t believe in them.  But many people do, and that’s why the villagers are upset about it.”

It didn’t take long for the fairies to show their displeasure.  72-year-old pensioner James McAnespie took some of the bulldozed tree to use for firewood.  The “wee folk” evidently saw this as adding insult to injury.  As soon as McAnespie began burning the wood, things started to happen.  Mighty strange things.  He began to hear the sound of tinkling bells in his house.  Tiny figures the size of wasps began flying all around him which were impossible to catch.

On April 16, 1950, McAnespie used up the last of the wood, and--showing an astonishing inability to take a hint--set out to get more.  That night, his neighbors noticed that he had not returned home.  That was unusual, as he was normally in his house by 8 p.m. or so.  After they were unable to find him anywhere, the neighbors went to the police.  A search party was immediately organized.

The searchers went across the countryside, calling McAnespie’s name regularly, but without getting any reply.  Then, at 11:30 p.m., they found the missing man standing motionless on the exact spot where the fairy thorn had stood.  As they approached McAnespie, he came out of his seeming trance, and returned to the village with them.

The story he told was this:  He gathered sticks for firewood around the place where the fairy thorn had been bulldozed.  After tying them into a bundle, he began to go home.  However, when he walked over the spot where the tree had stood, he suddenly became unable to move or speak.  “I couldn’t even let go the rope,” he said.  “It was like as if I was riveted to the ground.”  He stood there helplessly for two hours, hearing bells ringing around his feet.  He saw a ditch all around him, and a big house with lights inside it.  He also saw two fairies--”wee fellows,” he called them.  In short, if Mr. McAnespie did not believe in fairies before, he certainly did now.  

After McAnespie died four years later, Irish papers carried brief death notices commenting that he was still remembered as “the man who was seized by the fairies.”

Mr. Craighead and the Lyke Wake: A Cautionary Tale

The old British custom of “lyke wake” consisted of keeping a night watch kept over the recently dead.  ("Lyke" is an archaic word for "corpse.")  It was usually a quite festive affair, where many people gathered for feasting and frivolity of various sorts.  This combination of dissolution and dissipation was, as you might imagine, the setting for any number of curious events.  One of the strangest “lyke wakes” on record was described by someone using the pen name “Taodunus” in the “Scots Magazine” for March 1, 1819.  This incident--very well known at the time--took place sometime in the middle of the 18th century.  The story is excellent corroboration for one of life’s top lessons: practical jokes involving corpses seldom turn out well.

Mr. William Craighead, author of a popular system of arithmetic, was parish schoolmaster of Monifieth, situated upon the estuary of the Tay, about six miles east from Dundee. It would appear that Mr. Craighead was then a young man, fond of a frolic, without being very scrupulous about the means, or calculating the consequences. There being a lyke wake in the neighbourhood, attended by a number of his acquaintances, according to the custom of the times, Craighead procured a confederate, with whom he concerted a plan to draw the watchers from the house, or at least from the room where the corpse lay. Having succeeded in this, he dexterously removed the dead body to an outer house, while his companion occupied the place of the corpse, in the bed where it had lain. It was agreed upon between the confederates, that when the company was re-assembled, Craighead was to join them, and at a concerted signal, the impostor was to rise, shrouded like the dead man, whilst the two were to enjoy the terror and alarm of their companions. 

Mr. Craighead came in, and after being sometime seated, the signal was made, but met no attention; he was rather surprised; it was repeated, and still neglected. Mr. Craighead, in his turn, now became alarmed; for he conceived it impossible that his companion could have fallen asleep in that situation; his uneasiness became insupportable; he went to the bed, and found his friend lifeless! 

Mr. Craighead's feelings, as may well be imagined, now entirely overpowered him, and the dreadful fact was disclosed; their agitation was extreme, and it was far from being alleviated when every attempt to restore animation to the thoughtless young man proved abortive. As soon as their confusion would permit, an inquiry was made after the original corpse, and Mr. Craighead and another went to fetch it in, but it was not to be found. The alarm and consternation of the company was now redoubled; for some time, a few suspected that some hardy fellow among them had been attempting a Rowland for an Oliver; but when every knowledge of it was most solemnly denied by all present, their situation can be more easily imagined than described; that of Mr. Craighead was little short of distraction; daylight came without relieving their agitation; no trace of the corpse could be discovered, and Mr. Craighead was accused as the primum mobile of all that had happened; he was incapable of sleeping, and wandered several days and nights in search of the body, which was discovered in the parish of Tealing, deposited in a field about six miles distant from the place from whence it was removed.

It is related, that this extraordinary affair had a strong and lasting effect upon Mr. Craighead's mind and conduct; that he immediately became serious and thoughtful, and ever after conducted himself with great prudence and sobriety.  

Such are the particulars of a story, which, however incredible it may appear, I have heard currently reported by many different people, who had no opportunity of hearing it from each other. Since I began to write this paper, I inquired at an acquaintance if he ever heard the story, just mentioning Mr Craighead's name, and the particulars were again repeated to me, such as they were impressed upon my memory twenty or thirty years ago. There seems to be very little difficulty in accounting for the death of the young man, without any supernatural interference; for a combination of compunction and terror might have seized him, (after taking the place evacuated by the corpse,) sufficient to suspend all the functions of life; but the disappearance of the other dead body does not seem to me capable of being accounted for by any natural cause; for it is by no means probable that any present would have had the hardiness to remove it to such a distance, and also subsequent firmness to keep their own secret; we must, therefore, give credence to the agency of some superior being, or disbelieve the matter at once.

An Experiment With Crystal-Gazing; Or, The Man Who Learned Too Much

"The Crystal Ball," John William Waterhouse

There have been many cautionary tales about the hazards involved with trying to see into the future, or using the paranormal to gain knowledge of any sort.  The odds are very good that, if you are successful, you will find out much more than you really wanted to know.  Some people learn the hard way that there truly is such a thing as “too much information.”  The following story, told by a Dr. Edmond Waller, is a perfect example.  It was published in the “Annals of Psychical Science” in May 1905.

Two summers ago, my father ordered from London an object known under the name of a Crystal-Gazing Ball. He and his family left Paris on a visit to our country seat before the object arrived. It was I who received the packet from London; it came a few days after the departure of the household, just as I was on the point of setting out to rejoin my parents. I brought the crystal with me and after dinner all of us--father, mother, sister, friends, and even domestics--tried to see what the glass ball could show us: the only result was tired eyes, we could see nothing. On the evening of the following day one of the servants, a faithful old woman who had been in our service for years, as soon as she looked into the crystal (we had resumed our experiments of the preceding night) turned very pale; we asked her what she saw? “A coffin!” she replied. A few weeks afterwards her brother, a young fellow of twenty-three years of age, died of typhoid fever; he was apparently in good health at the moment of our experiment. For several evenings in succession we tried the crystal, but with the exception of the above incident we saw absolutely nothing; finally the crystal was put away in a corner and neglected by everyone.

A few months later, I went one day to see my parents in Paris. I felt suddenly a strong desire to possess the crystal, and I asked my mother to allow me to take it away with me. The next evening for forty-five minutes I conscientiously tried, but could see absolutely nothing. I worked--if I may use that word--with the crystal for nearly three weeks, without any better success. I lost my fervour, or rather I became tired of my repeated failures, and I put the object, which had given me so little satisfaction in the bottom of a drawer, with the fixed determination never again to tire my eyes and waste my time with such an uninteresting article.

However, one afternoon a few months later a curious morbid sensation seized me. I went home much earlier than usual in hopes that a good night's rest might restore me to my normal state of mind. I went to bed, but it was impossible to sleep; and, moreover, I could not help thinking of the crystal. After several hours of insomnia, I got up and, somewhat hesitatingly, I opened the drawer in which the crystal lay. I took it out and put it on the table in the dining-room; I sat down in front of it, and scarcely had I put my hands on the table and raised my eyes, when I saw one of my friends in the crystal. Only her bust appeared; the likeness was striking, and yet on the face there was something which I saw in that crystal, which I had never seen on my friend's face. It was not so much the features which were different, it was something more profound; I will not enlarge on this point, but will leave the reader to draw his own deductions. This experience left me sad and happy at the same time; happy, because I had at last seen something in the crystal; sad, because of that curious expression on my friend's face.

For the sake of the relation it bears to this history, I ought to say that the young woman who happens to be its heroine had been for me, but a few years previously, a young girl for whom I had felt more than simple admiration. She was one of those whom the vilest of us respect; an atmosphere of purity surrounded her. She was for me what a woman ought to be in the finest sense of the word. I used to see her and her mother frequently. We were suddenly separated, to my great grief. We corresponded with one another for a few months; but little by little--I ought to confess it was my own fault--our correspondence became rarer, and finally ceased altogether. Two years had gone by when one day I heard of the marriage of my friend; she was now Madame D. She and her husband came to Paris on their honeymoon. Madame D. brought her husband to see me; he was one of those men one often sees among English officers, a fine athlete, a big, impulsive, generous-hearted man. From the very first moment a great--a very great--friendship sprang up between that man and myself. I often saw the young couple together, but I saw D. more often still. Unfortunately, my friend was obliged to leave with his regiment, which was ordered to the Transvaal. As one of his wife's oldest friends, and possessing the greatest confidence in me, D. asked me if, during his absence, I would watch over his wife,—the being he loved more than all else on earth. This was an indescribable joy to me, first of all to be able to protect this young woman against the insolences of life in a great city, a life for which she was unfit, for she was morally too beautiful to be able to see the hideousness of the masses surrounding her; secondly, it was a proof of the confidence her husband had in me. Most unfortunately I was unable to fulfill my promise of protection; for, soon after her husband's departure, Madame D. was obliged to accompany her mother to America. I wrote to her three times but received no answer to my letters. It was the crystal, which served to bring us into touch with one another again. And now, having given these few, I think necessary details concerning my two friends, I will return to the evening following the one when I saw my friend's face in the crystal.

I felt extremely fatigued that day, and again went home very early. Notwithstanding my fatigue, I took up the crystal and gazed into it for a good quarter of an hour, but without the smallest result. My eyes were positively in a state of congestion, when at last I threw myself on my bed, and quickly dropped off to sleep. In a few hours I awoke, surprised to find myself in that position. I got up, sat down in front of the crystal, and instantly I saw the silhouette of my friend side by side with that of a man; the latter was less distinct than my friend, they were both surrounded by trees and people. I closed my eyes for a second, opened them and looked again into the crystal; this time I distinctly saw Mme. D. and the man who was with her--a man whom I had never seen before--as well as the paddock of the racecourse at Longchamps, with all the customary surroundings of this race-course during a meeting.

Although at that time I often went to races, my many social duties made it almost impossible for me to be present at the Race Meeting to take place on the Sunday following the evening in question, and, most certainly, if it had not been for the crystal I should never have postponed several important rendez-vous in order to go to the races that Sunday. I was unable to be present at the first two races; but one of my uncles had a horse running in the third, and for various reasons I was rather interested in this trial, so I did my utmost to arrive in time for it. I arrived at the gate of the weighing yard just as the bell rang announcing the start. I rushed to the winning post, thinking little of the crystal which was the cause of my presence at the Course and still less of the visions I had seen in it. As I came up to the stand, a little to the left of the President's box, how great was my stupefaction to see (1) Madame D. and (2) to recognise beside her, for the second time in my life, and for the first time in flesh and blood, the man of my crystal! I saw absolutely nothing of the race; after my first moment of astonishment, in spite of every convenance, I drew near to Madame D. and the individual accompanying her; but I had been seen, and they both avoided me in so marked a manner that I dared not insist. I took a chair and sat down. I felt suddenly cold all over, I saw nothing, heard nothing; it was only several minutes later that one of my friends, with a formidable slap on the shoulder, succeeded in arousing me out of the state of lethargy, into which I had fallen. Believing I was ill, and telling me I was positively livid, he tried to insist upon my leaving the race-course and taking me home. But a profound fascination held me to the spot, and, like a hound on the track, I followed the two individuals of my crystal. Thoroughly upset, when the meeting was over, I took a cab and drove to the Hotel where Mme. D., her husband and her mother generally stayed when in Paris. I left a letter imploring my friend to grant me an interview as soon as possible. For a reply, she sent me a short note, in which she told me I would see her soon, underlining the words "you don't know all.” For seven months I did everything in my power to obtain an interview with her. Finally, I was told at the Hotel that Madame D. had gone to the south of France.

Meanwhile I had continued my experiments with the crystal, though more or less intermittingly. Several times I saw therein Mme. D., her husband, the individual whom I had seen with her at Longchamps, war scenes in the Transvaal, but there was nothing very precise in my visions.

Seven days after I heard of Mme. D.'s departure to the Riviera, I saw the following vision in the crystal : Madame D. accompanied by a man--not the one of whom I have been speaking, but a totally different individual. I saw them take a cab, and the following scene unrolled itself in the clearest fashion before my eyes, just as though I were sitting in an orchestral stall at a theatre:

The streets were dirty, the cab was an ordinary one, and went in the direction of, and stopped in front of, a well-known restaurant close to the Opera. The two occupants got out of the cab, entered the restaurant, walked down a long corridor, went upstairs, turned to the left, and were shown into a private room by a head waiter. I saw everything, furniture and other utensils, very clearly. The man who accompanied Mme. D. left her alone in the room and followed the waiter; then it was that I had a sensation of speaking with Mme. D. as though I were really present with her. Simultaneously with this sensation, the scene disappeared and there was nothing before me save the crystal ball.

Two days afterwards I had a great surprise. Whilst I was attending to a patient, the domestic came into the room and handed me a card. It was D., who I thought was still in the Transvaal. He was in a hurry and could not wait to see me; he fixed a rendez-vous for afternoon tea in a shop in the Rue Caumartin. It was with a certain emotion that I went to the spot agreed upon. My friend was alone. While shaking hands he told me he had been wounded and sent home; he said he had refrained from telegraphing in order to give us a surprise, and he thanked me at the same time for the proof of friendship I had given him in taking such a brotherly interest in his wife. A more disagreeable sensation than mine at that moment it would be impossible to imagine, with my friend's big, honest eyes fixed upon me, , feeling myself grow paler and paler beneath his regard, and unable to mutter a word! What would he imagine ? The situation was not rendered any pleasanter by Mme. D.'s sudden appearance on the scene. She came hurriedly towards us, shook me warmly by the hand and made me understand by her looks that she wanted me to tell little, and that little falsehood.

At that moment, a double reasoning rose within me: Ought I to consider the day at Longchamps as black as I had painted it? And as for the scene in the private room, could not a crystal have lied ? and was it not only my pessimistic nature, which had made me see evil where none existed ? If such were the case, my strict duty was to think no longer of my past fancies and suspicions, and especially to refrain from speaking of them to D. On the other hand, I could not understand Mme. D.'s conduct, and, without knowing why, I could not help believing what the crystal had suggested to me; it was with the greatest difficulty, that I was able to pass the following half-hour with D. and his wife without making any allusion to the crystal. Our conversation was in fact very troubled and disjointed; there was something disagreeable in the air, so to speak.

I arranged to meet D. again the next day and to dine with him and his wife; but when the moment came, I felt in such a bad mood that, fearing my gloomy countenance might mar the evening, I begged my friends to excuse me. I went home early in a state of excessive and unaccountable excitement. Instead of dining, I took my crystal, sat down in front of it and gazed at it. For several minutes I saw nothing, then all at once and very clearly I saw Mme. D. with the same individual who, in the previous vision, had accompanied her to the restaurant. For the second time the crystal made me a spectator of the scene in the private room, with this difference: I remained until Mme. D. and her restaurant friend left the building; I saw the man lead the woman to a private carriage, and without hearing a word, unable to explain how the phenomenon was produced, I understood that he fixed a rendez-vous with Mme. D. at a spot which was unknown to me, and that he would return on Wednesday at the same hour and at the same restaurant. I understood that the order had been given for the same room to be kept for them. Everything was so clear, that I had not the slightest doubt but that I was gazing at a reality--for several minutes I was thoroughly convinced of it.

At four o'clock on the following afternoon D. came to see me. Almost at once the conversation turned upon delicate ground--his wife. Was it the expression of my face, my manner of acting, which made him suspicious  I cannot say, but, suddenly and abruptly, my friend demanded a concise and precise account of my state of mind concerning himself and his wife. Without stopping to think, and convinced somehow that I had to tell him everything, I explained all to him.

Bitter words followed, and it was only out of respect for the spot we were at, that we refrained from committing violent acts--acts which we would certainly have regretted. I loved the man more than ever, I was jealous of his stubbornness and, for his own sake, I was now determined not to permit him to live any longer in his fool's paradise.

As for his wife, I could not help feeling a great pity for her and doing all in my power to prevent her from falling any lower. I implored my friend to watch very closely the people with whom she came in contact. After a few more or less flattering epithets--which might be summed up very simply in his looking upon me as a fool--D. made me promise to go to the theatre with him and afterwards to sup in the very same private room where, according to the crystal, his wife was to be. I accepted without any hesitation, convinced that my friend was right, that all would be for the best, and that henceforth my little glass ball would but serve as letter-weight and nothing more. I had not felt so happy for a long time.

We were punctual at our rendez-vous; we passed a most agreeable evening, criticising rather the crystal and my mild folly than the spectacle at which we were present. We went straight from the theatre to the restaurant, where the crystal was going to be definitely, once and for all, condemned as a liar of liars. We arrived at the restaurant at twenty minutes past twelve. The room which my friend had reserved resembled very little the room I had seen in the crystal. We were overflowing with good humour and light-heartedness; we sat down to supper and threw far away-ah ! far away-every thought of the crystal and its manifestations. We spoke of things which had nothing whatever in common with the cause of our tête-à-tête in that private room. Half an hour passed by, when all at once, without any reason, what seemed like a hallucination to my friend and myself seized hold of me; my gaiety disappeared and I could scarcely articulate a single word. A few minutes passed in this way, when, suddenly, my friend and I recognised the voice of Mme. D. I knew not what to think, much less what to say. D. rushed out of the room like a madman. I followed him as quickly as I could, but not quickly enough to prevent a catastrophe. D. sprang upon the individual who had been so faithfully reproduced by the crystal, and only released his hold of him at the door of the restaurant. The man was in a sorry state; he disappeared immediately--probably to avoid any further scandal.

Almost without saying a word to each other, D. and I separated. He went to his hotel; and I, acting on his wish, looked after his wife.

The consequence of this drama was the separation of the husband and wife and, for me, the loss of the man for whom I had such a deep friendship. Quite recently and indirectly I learned that Mme. D. was confined in an asylum.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

I’ve posted a number of Halloween cautionary tales on this blog, but I doubt I’ve shared a weirder one than this.  From the “Cork Mercantile Chronicle,” November 22, 1802, via Newspapers.com:

The sports of Halloween have been described by the fascinating Burns, but, whether in a way to deter from indulging in them, admits of a doubt.  That they have, in more than one instance, terminated lately, we have heard that they did so, in one instance, and that so late as last week we know--We give the following particulars from authority, and our informant trusts that they will prove a warning to inconsiderate youth to betake themselves to amusements more rational, and less likely to be attended with unpleasant consequences to themselves:

The ceremony of sowing hempseed on Halloween, is known to most of our readers.  A young girl of the name of Mabel Carr, servant to Mr. Mathewson, type-founder, would needs have her Halloween on Monday week; and, notwithstanding the earnest remonstrances of her master, who represented the impropriety and absurdity of prying into the secrets of futurity, she would not be dissuaded from sowing her hempseed on that night.  About ten o’clock she accordingly went into the foundry alone, with a light in her hand, which she placed on one of the tables while she performed her incantations.  She walked through the shop several times pronouncing aloud the words used on such occasions and so anxious was she to see something, as she termed it, that having seen nothing, she gathered up the seed to sow it a second time.  In the course of this second sowing, according to her own account, a tall meagre figure presented itself to her imagination!  She shrieked aloud, and ran immediately into the house, all the doors being open.  After relating all that she had seen, she went to bed, placing the Bible under her head!  She rose on Tuesday, and went through the labours of the day in apparent good health; but in the evening appeared somewhat timid.  She, however, had her supper, as usual, and went to bed, without any symptoms of fear.  Next morning she was called, but did not answer; again was called, but still no answer.  A daughter of Mr. Mathewson’s then rose, went to her, and found that she was very sick, and that she had been so during part of the night.  Tea was ordered for her, but before it could be prepared, she was seized with a stupor; the pulse became sunk, and breathing difficult, and the hands swollen and blackish.  A Medical Gentleman was instantly called.  He said, it was an attack of an apoplexy which she could not survive more than ten minutes; and in rather less than that time she expired, the blood bursting from her nose, mouth, etc.  The surgeon, on being informed of the transactions of Monday night, was clearly of opinion, that the impression made on her imagination by the fancied apparition was the cause of this fatal catastrophe.

We have given the particulars of this unfortunate affair so minutely, because reports, injurious to a very worthy man, have gone abroad on the subject.  It has been stated that one of Mr. Mathewson’s men concealed himself in the foundery, to alarm the girl during her foolish probation.  It is false.  Mr. M.’s people leave off work at eight o’clock; this happened at ten; and there was not a soul within the shop but herself.  It has been further stated, that she fell into a faint on the appearance of the fancied spectre, and was left to die in that situation.  It will be seen, from the above authentic statement, that this is an absolute falsehood, and a most malicious one.

So, however, you celebrate Halloween this year, avoid the hempseed.  Unless, of course, you want to see something.

And now that I think of it, if you read this blog, you probably do.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

Today's news item is a helpful reminder of the sort of thing that happens when you mess with fairies. The "Boston Globe," April 5, 1926:

Dublin, April 4. People of the Irish Free State who were rejoicing recently at the reported return of the traditional fairies around about Milltown, a pastoral village district in County Monaghan, now are beginning to worry because the fairy bush used by the little folk for their nightly revels, has been hewn down by some person as yet unknown.

County Monaghan borders on Ulster, and the residents went to bed to the tunes of strange, sweet music. They rejoiced and slept happily, because the fairies were back, and Irish fairy tales took on a look of a productive industry once more. Plenty of citizens almost forgave the Government in their enthusiasm, and William Butler Yeats, who had long been looking melancholy, began to smile. The Abbey Theatre, which floated into existence on folklore and fairies, began to feel its national destiny was going to be fulfilled.

When hearts were beating high and the farmer who owned the site of the fairy revels was hoping the government would lower his taxes because he was supporting a national institution, the bush was destroyed. Some person went out and cut down the fairy bush, leaving nothing but the stump to welcome the revelers.

Since then, the nights around Milltown have been filled with lonely wailings and heart-rendering cries of the bereft fairies are heard over mountain and valley. Where, before all was peaceful and happy, now is alarm and fear, because it is well-known that angry fairies are desperate enemies. Their favorite vengeance is the kidnapping of infants from cradles, replacing their captives with puny and delicate fairy children known as changelings. The mothers of the neighborhood now keep a large shovel near their babies' cradles, because it is well-known that a hot shovel used as a seat for the changelings will exorcise the impostor and bring back the child held captive.

There is evidence that the fairies already are starting a vendetta. The other day a farmers horse was found in the river that runs by the fairy field, and two men who sat out during the night listening to the fairies wailing tell how, in the moonlight, the horse galloped past them in the direction of the river and on its back was what they described as a wee man dressed in red.

The people hope that some means will be found to placate the wrathful fairy folk and again bring their sweet music to the fairy fields of Ireland. All are agreed that if the Government is really efficient it will save Ireland's oldest Industry.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

The "Charlotte News," August 18, 1902:

Vincennes, Ind.,. Aug. 17. George Flowers, a young farmer, bought a strip of land at Sand Ridge, near this place, on which was located the oldest cemetery in this section.

The cemetery was surrounded by a grove and contained 300 headstones. Flowers removed the headstones, throwing some of them into the Embarrass river and with the others built a foundation for his house. He plowed the cemetery and planted it with melons and potatoes.

Although similar crops on the rest of the farm grew in abundance the cemetery crop has been eaten up by a strange bug.

Flowers' house seems to be haunted. For several nights past, it is alleged, the building has shaken violently. Flowers, his wife and two children are distracted with fear, and have fled from the place.

People having relatives buried threaten to prosecute Flowers for obliterating the graves without giving them notice. His brother and sister and two children lie buried in the devastated cemetery.

Flowers secured the money from his father, Frank Flowers, in Colorado Springs, to buy the farm. Today lightning struck; the barn on Flowers' place and burned stock and building.

Everyone who is surprised by that turn of events, raise your hands.

The Dead Pig War

Via historic-uk.com

It is, of course, common knowledge that one of the precipitating factors of World War I was the murder of Franz Ferdinand and his wife. However, it is largely forgotten that another cold-blooded assassination very nearly sparked an armed conflict between America and Great Britain.

This week, let us remember the Great Dead Pig War of 1859.

The main stage for our little drama was San Juan Island, just off the coast of Washington state. The Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 granted 160 acres of the island to any white male citizen over the age of 21. One of the men taking advantage of this bounty was one Lyman Cutler. Cutler's efforts to prospect for gold in California had ended in failure, and he saw San Juan as his second chance to strike it rich on the West Coast.

Although he didn't know it at the time, when Cutler arrived on the island in April 1859, he was walking into an international hornet's nest. Both the United States and Great Britain were claiming San Juan as their territory, which was seen as a vital military strategic point. This led to a very irritable state of affairs between American settlers and the British Hudson Bay Company, who ran a sheep ranch on the island. Cutler, as well as most of the Americans on the island, were also unaware that legally, the Donation Land Claim Act did not apply to disputed areas such as San Juan. They may have believed they were rightful landowners, but, in reality, they were just squatters.

The land claimed by Cutler just happened to be in the middle of an area used by the Bay Company as a sheep run. Resenting this latest example of what they saw as brazenly illegal encroachment by the Americans, the Company opted to simply ignore Cutler's presence and continue to use the land as they pleased.

Matters reached the crisis point on June 15, 1859, when Cutler was greeted by the sight of a pig owned by Bay Company employee Charles Griffin merrily foraging through the settler's potato patch. This was hardly the first time his garden had been raided by Griffin's pigs, and for Cutler, this was the last straw. He grabbed his rifle and shot the intruder dead.

The Bay Company was as thoroughly sick of the sight of Cutler as he was of them. They indignantly demanded $100 from him as compensation. Cutler told them to pound sand. The British called for Cutler's arrest. Insults and threats began to fly from both sides. It was a perilous moment in the relations between their two countries. It was a situation that called for an objective mediator, a calming presence offering clear thinking and exquisite tact.

Instead, what everyone got was General William S. Harney.

Harney was the commander of the U.S. Army's Oregon Department. When he arrived on the island a few weeks later, the Pig Assassination was at the top of the many complaints the American residents leveled against the British. Harney was a protege of Andrew Jackson, and fully shared his mentor's hot temper, impulsive nature, and fiery antipathy towards the British. He saw the incident as a perfect opportunity to settle a number of scores. He summoned a detachment of infantrymen from Fort Bellingham, led by the equally hotheaded Captain George Pickett. Harney and Pickett made it clear they were out to teach the Bay Company a lesson. "We'll make a Bunker Hill out of it," Pickett boasted. They considered San Juan to be American territory, under American laws, and they dared the British to make something of it.

The British did. They retaliated by sending three warships to the island, with guns pointed squarely at the American camp.

Both nations entered into a game of "chicken." The Americans responded to these ships by bringing in artillery and an additional 400 soldiers. The British answered this with two more warships. Fortunately, everyone lacked any higher authority to go any further, so they held off on actually firing any shots. The British Rear Admiral Robert Baynes moaned that he could not believe the two nations were going to war "over a squabble about a pig." Both sides merely stared each other down uneasily, hoping that their own show of force would intimidate the other into backing down.

This uncomfortable standoff lasted until September, when word of the conflict finally reached the American President, James Buchanan. He sent to San Juan General Winfeld Scott, a man with a reputation for wisely managing sticky diplomatic situations.

It was a wise move. Scott managed to negotiate a joint occupation of the island. Each nation had 100 of their troops occupying different ends of the island, with the tacit agreement to just stay well out of each other's way.

Once the provocative influences of Harney and Pickett had been removed, peace gradually returned to San Juan, with the representatives from both nations learning to live in harmony with each other. In 1872, the long-simmering issue of who owned the island was finally resolved, with the United States legally securing the territory.

What became of Griffin's other pigs seems to be lost to history. One would think the very least they deserved was a memorial statue.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

When you come across the phrase "amateur hypnotist" in the old papers, you know you're on to something good. From the "Sedalia Democrat," April 28, 1902:

A family of seven is lying in a comatose condition in the town of Ticona, Ill., as the result of the work of an amateur hypnotist who for four days and nights has been trying unsuccessfully to restore his victims to consciousness.

A Lasalle, Ill., dispatch of the 26th says: The subjects are Rudolph Bartig, his wife and five children. The mesmerist is Leo Lenzer, a youth who lives near them. Neighbors, attracted by the quietude about the Bartig home, made an investigation today which resulted in a confession by Lenzer. He admitted that early in the week he had put the family in a hypnotic state and had lost control of his subjects. Since then, he said, he has spent most of the time in the house trying in vain to lift the spell under which they rest.

The strain has brought him to the verge of nervous prostration. At his earnest request no physician is allowed to interfere with the Bartigs. Their condition as to pulse and heart is all right.

Tonight Lenzer succeeded in partly arousing two of the children and he promises to awaken the other members of the family when he shall have regained his nerve.

I couldn't find any follow-ups to this story, so for all I know the Bartigs are still having a nice long nap.

Hopefully Lenzer took up less hazardous hobbies, but he strikes me as one of those types who goes through life Attracting Incident.

Elliott O'Donnell's Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Halloween; Or, How Not to Hunt For Ghosts

"Illustrated Police News," December 28, 1872

In his book "Haunted Churches," famed "ghost hunter" Elliott O'Donnell related his experience with trying to chase down the spirit of an ancient nun: an expedition that wound up going down the toilet, in every sense of the phrase.

Let this be a cautionary tale for anyone who goes searching for spooks this Halloween.

A few miles from Hitchin, in a wood on the summit of a hill, are the ruins of Minsden church, at one time a chapel of ease, said to have given shelter to many a passing pilgrim. Tradition associates it with Alice Perrers, mistress of Edward III and Lady of Hitchin Manor, who is credited with stealing her royal lover's rings when he was on his death-bed and powerless to prevent her. In the seventeenth century it witnessed the marriage of Sir John Barrington, Bart., to Susan Draper.

After that time nothing of any note seems to have happened there, and, about 1738, it became so dilapidated that pieces of masonry and plaster not infrequently fell on the clergy and congregation, to the consternation of both.

Probably, soon after that date it was abandoned, some say on account of widespread rumours of its being haunted by the ghost of a nun, alleged to have been murdered during the reign of Henry VIII, when a convent was either attached to the church or occupied its site.

I first heard of the reputed haunting through a photographer living in the neighbourhood of Minsden, who sent me a photograph taken, he said, in broad daylight at the ruins. The chief interest in the photograph lay in what resembled the shadowy form of a nun. The photographer did not claim he had photographed a ghost, he merely called my attention to the shadowy form and implied he could not account for it. He referred to a local belief in the haunting of the spot by the phantom of a murdered nun, and suggested that we should visit the ruins; he would ask a few of his friends to accompany us and I could invite a few of mine. It was October, and, at my suggestion, we chose for the date of our visit to the ruins All Hallows E'en, that being one of the nights in the year when denizens of the spirit world are popularly believed to be in closest touch with the material inhabitants of this plane. Also, since All Hallows E'en is one of the occasions when the working of certain spells is deemed likely to produce interesting results, I asked a lady, who is well versed in such things, to be one of the party. Others I invited were H. V. Morton, the well-known author, Wyndham Lewis, "Beachcomber," and R. Blumenfelt, son of the Editor of The Daily Express.

When I arrived at King's Cross I saw a crowd of people collected in front of the Ladies' Waiting Room. Intuition warned me of the reason, and when I cautiously elbowed my way through the gaping throng, I perceived, as I had anticipated, my mediumistic friend, clad--and this I had not anticipated--in orthodox witch's costume, namely, high cap, cloak, gown covered with demons and black cats and, of course, in one hand, a broomstick. The picture was startling enough, and the expressions on the faces of the spectators were a study. While some showed wonder and others amusement, a few looked positively scared; probably they thought she was the escaped inmate of some home for the mentally defective.

Of my three friends, Morton, Wyndham Lewis and Blumenfelt there was not a sign. Indeed, I did not see them till I had bundled the witch into a third-class compartment, much to the consternation of a female occupant, who at once flew out of it. I then caught sight of them stealing surreptitiously into a first-class compartment, as far away from us as possible.

The Hitchin photographer lived with two very proper, elderly female relatives, and when they caught sight of the witch, standing beside me in the doorway, they were immeasurably shocked. "Who is this person?" they demanded. "She must not enter this house." And when I endeavoured to explain why she had come, their indignation grew. "Tom," one of them exclaimed, turning to the photographer, who cowered against the wall, looking extremely sheepish and uncomfortable, "Tom, you never told us a person dressed like this was coming. It's a scandal. What would your dear father, aye, and grandfather say? Why, they never missed a Sunday at chapel in their lives. The mere thought of a woman in such an attire as this," pointing at the witch, who maintained an imperturbability that suggested she was not altogether unaccustomed to such harangues, "coming to the house is enough to make them turn in their graves. Tell her to go away at once." Tom making no response, I had to intervene, and after much pleading obtained permission for the witch to sit with us in Tom's studio till it was time for us to go to the haunted ruins, on the condition, however, that, after leaving the house then, she was never to set foot in it again.

The ruins were several miles distant, and it was well-nigh midnight when we arrived there. As we drew near to the wood, there was a ghostly rustling of leaves, which made the more nervous of the party clutch hold of one another, followed by a buzzing and whirling, as a number of birds, scared at our approach, left their homes in the ivy-clad ruins of the church and flew frantically away.

I had brought with me a variety of articles necessary for the working of the spells, and I proposed that, while the witch muttered appropriate incantations, Messrs. Morton, Wyndham Lewis and Blumenfelt should try their luck with hempseed and apples.

Most All Hallow E'en keepers know the hempseed spell. Walking alone in the dark one has to scatter hempseed over the left shoulder, drawing mould over it afterwards with a hoe or other instrument, and repeating, as one does so, these words: 

Hempseed I sow, yes, hempseed I hoe;
Oh, those who's to meet me come after me and mow.

And then, if the Powers that govern the Unknown ordain it, one hears footsteps in one's rear and, on turning fearfully around, sees the immaterial counter-part of whoever is to come into one's life within the next twelve months and affect it most. If you are destined to die during that period, you see a skeleton. All this may sound just fanciful and old world, superstitious tripe: but, nevertheless, I have known occasions when something quite unexpected and unquestionably superphysical has happened. On this particular occasion, when asked if they would separate and, alone, amid the gloom and shadows of the trees, put the spell to the test, Messrs. Morton, Wyndham Lewis and Blumenfelt answered in the negative, a very decided negative; they much preferred remaining together.

The witch did her best to persuade the ghost to manifest itself. Seated on the damp soil she crooned, and incanted, and moaned, there was a note of occasional real misery in the last; but the other world remained obdurate, it would not come at her calling, and perhaps it was just as well, because some of the party might, I think, have been more than a wee bit startled; at least I gathered so from their close proximity to one another and from what, every now and then, sounded suspiciously like the chattering of teeth, though the cold--and out there it was cold--might have had something to do with the last.

Our pulses gave a sudden jump when one of the party exclaimed: "What's that?" We looked, and for a few seconds I thought that the witch's endeavours had at last succeeded in bringing the superphysical, but investigation proved it was only the ghostly effect of the moonlight on one of the ivy-clad ruin arches. We were discussing our disappointment, "professed" disappointment, I fancy, on the part of several, when from afar came a sound like the report of a firearm. "A strange hour and season for anyone to be out shooting," someone observed, and we thought no more about it.

As it was now about four o'clock, the chance of the ghost appearing seemed so remote that we set out on our homeward journey.

And now came our only real thrill. It was a still, grey, chilly morning. There had been a slight fog rising from the damp ground during the night, and it was now so thick that those of our party who were in front, myself among them, could not see the witch and photographer, who were trudging along some little distance in the rear. Through the mist the black shades of trees and hedges stood out faintly. We were hastening, thinking longingly of breakfast and a cheery fire, when suddenly dark figures sprang out from seemingly nowhere, and peremptory tones commanded us to halt. They were policemen, four of them, who in the mist--my eyes, no doubt, were strained by hours of high nerve tension vigil--appeared magnified into giants. They asked what we were doing, tramping a lonely highway at that unearthly hour, and when I said: "Looking for a ghost," the leader of them responded nastily: "That's a good 'un. You don't expect us to swallow that." He went on to inform us that the booking office at Wellyn railway station had been broken into during the night and the official in charge of it fired at, which explained the report of firearms we had heard.

He was about to search us, and I was feeling somewhat anxious, because one of our party had, I knew, a revolver on him, when I was seized with a sudden inspiration. "Do you know Mr.--?" I said, naming the local photographer.

"Very well," the Sergeant replied, "but he's not here."

"No," I answered, "but he's following with a lady, clad as a witch, and one or two other people. Do you not know last night was All Hallow's E'en, when the dead from cross-roads and cemeteries are permitted to mingle once more with the living? We came hoping to see the ghost of the nun that rumour alleges haunts the ruins of Minsden church. Haven't you heard of her?"

"Now I come to think of it," the Sergeant said, "I 'ave 'eard of the party, but I don't pay any attention to tales of that sort. You'll all 'ave to come along to the Police Station and answer such questions as may be put to you."

Grunts and ejaculations of dismay came from Morton, Wyndham Lewis and Blumenfelt, who had hitherto been dumb, too overcome, so I imagined, with the horror of the situation to speak.

Now the appalling thoughts of not getting to their respective newspaper headquarters in time loosened their tongue strings, nor did I feel too happy, for I was cold and shivering and wanted a hot drink very badly.

To my infinite relief, however, at this very critical moment, there loomed into view the witch, photographer and the rest of the party, who were all local. On hearing them corroborate my story, the Police Sergeant capitulated, and all ended well, at least so far as concerned that little incident; but there was some bother when we got back to the photographer's house and tried to smuggle in the witch. One of Tom's elderly relatives hearing us, and making sure we were burglars, or the house was on fire, started to scream, and it took desperate efforts on Tom's part to calm her. Fortunately, she was far too frightened to come out of her bedroom, or she must have seen the witch.

Our train back to London did not arrive for nearly two hours, and all that time we sat huddled together in the dreary room, in momentary dread of one or other of Tom's aged relatives descending on us. To render the situation more embarrassing and alarming, the witch, doubtless affected by sitting on the cold ground for so long, had to retire with sudden haste to the toilet which, as bad luck would have it, was upstairs, next to one of the aged relative's bedrooms. She contrived to get there without attracting attention but, on leaving the place, in her anxiety to catch the train, she slipped, and descending amid an avalanche of paper parcels, landed on the floor with a terrific crash. This was altogether too much for Messrs. Morton, Wyndham Lewis and Blumenfelt. They decamped pell-mell, meanly leaving me to grab hold of the witch and drag her and her many parcels to the station.

So ended my first visit to the haunted church of Minsden.

On the bright side, I'm sure O'Donnell could not possibly have seen any Halloween ghost or goblin that was nearly as terrifying as his photographer friend's little old aunties.