The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-23 00:00:00

A H.I UNTED HOUSE.

Since the middle of last October a very singular system
if persecution has been going on in Kensington, which
Las hitherto baffled all attempts to discover the author, or
the means by which the annoyance complained of is
effected. Some years ago it would have been put down to
a ghost, or perhaps to his Satanic Majesty himself, but
since the great spiritualistic bubble of the Brothers Daven-
port has burst, there is nothing left but to puzzle on till
the trick, clever as it may be, is found out. Unfortunately
in the present case, the trick, though clever, is becoming cruel
and heartless. In a small house, about twenty yards from the
main road, live an old lady, 84 years of age, and her daughter,
with one servant. They have lived in the same house for
nearly twenty years without any annoyance ; but for the last
few months they are being constantly startled by a sharp,
loud knocking upon the panel of the street door. Upon
opening tie door, however quickly, no sign of any one is
to be discovered. No sooner are the ladies quietly settled
again than rap-rap-rap ! comes upon the door,. and this
is repeated at irregular intervals throughout the evening.
For some time it was attributed to some young imps
of school-boys, who are always ready for mischief,
and but little notice was taken of it ; but the con-
tinuance of what was only annoying became at last a
serious nuisance. The most nimble efforts were made
Without success to " catch the offenders, but until a
few nights ago the attacks were so arranged as never to
take place in the presence of male visitors ; conse-
quently the ladies received much pity, but little sympathy,
from their friends. After a time they became nervous,
and at last really frightened. On Thursday evening a
gentleman the son of the old lady, called and found them
quite ill from nervous excitment and was comforting them
as well as he could, when a quick rap-rap-rap at the front
door made him jump up. In two seconds he was at the
door, rushed out, looking in every direction without dis-
covering a sound or a trace of a human being in any of the
adjacent roads. Then, for the first time, be was able to
understand what his mother and sister had suffered,
and set to work to examine the approaches to the door
inside and out, and to solve th
sooner had he gone back to the the mystery, if possible. No
a chair in the open doorway withdilling-room and placed
at big stick handy to
next " trounce " the perpetrator the time, and begun to
discuss what it was, than rap-rap-rap sent him flying out
into the street, to the astonishment ,
of passing cabman,
who must have thought a madman hact‘
just
oenreetse;roapmedlhctis,
keeper. This happened four or five times more
only ceased about a quarter to eleven. He
the police-station and had an officer put on special duty
opposite the house for the next day, and spent the follow-
ing) morning in calling upon the neighbours and carefully
examining the gardens and walls which abutted upon the
" haunted" house. Not a mark of any sort was to be
found, and he was quite convinced that by no imaginable
device could the door have been reached from any point
but right in front from the street. There is no cellar or
drain under the house. The more carefully the examination
was continued, the greater the mystery appeared. In the
evening he took a friend down with him, and two more of
his friends looked in later. The ladies were found in a
painful state of nervous fright, as the nuisance had already
been going on, and the maid-servant was crying. Alto-
gether it was a scene of misery. In the course of conver-
ration the following facts came out : It began on a Friday,
the 13th of October, and has never missed a Friday since
then. It has never been heard on Sunday, seldom on
Saturday. Never before the gas lamps are lit, never after
eleven. Just as all were talking at once, rap-rap-rap ! In
an instant all four gentlemen were in the front garden ;
the policeman was quietly standing opposite the door ;
the lady of the house opposite watching the door
from her portico, and another gentleman from the leads.
All declared that not a living creature had been near the
home for at least a quarter of an hour. The whole thing
seems inexplicable, and has created quite a sensation in the
neighbourhood. The cruel part of the trick is the effect
produced upon the venerable lady,. whose age makes a
change of, residence a serious difficulty, and whose nerves
are likely to give way altogether if some means are not
discovered to put a stop to the annoyance. The Palice are
doing their best to discover the plot, but hitherto without
success,—Herald.

The possibility of Sir Charles Selwyn's elevation to the
judicial bench is creating some interest in the University
of Cambridge. The friends of Mr. Beresford-Hope,
of
Trinity College, have already commenced an active can-
vass on his behalf. Mr. Hope now sits for Stoke-upon-
Trent, but looks upon that seat as having become unte-
nable in consequence of the great extension of the franchise
which has been made. As usual, a host of names are
" freely mentioned " as possible, or rather as impos-
sible, candidates. For instance, to say nothing of
the abstirdity of the idea of a Liberal being returned
for the University, is it probable that either Mr. Childers,
M.P. for Pontefract, the Marquis of Hartington, M.P.
for North Lancashire, or Mr. E. P. Bouverie, M.P. for
Kilmarnock, is likely to resign in order to run the gauntlet
of such a hopeless contest ? Or, to take the Conservative
side, would Lord John Manners leave his seat in North
Leicestershire, or Lord Robert Montagu throw up Hunt-
ingdonshire, in order to sit for this eminent constituency?
Yet all these have been " freely mentioned," in company
with Sir Edmund Lacon, now M.P. for Yarmouth.

Mr. Digby Seymour, Q.C., has issued an appeal to the
Irish residents in the metropolis to sign the loyal address
to her 3lajesty, copies of which lie for signature at
several places in London. It expresses three sentiments:
Indignation at the Clerkenwell outrage ; fidelity to her
Majesty's throne and person ; and determination to sup-
port the Government against any treasonable disturbance
of the public peace. From the language of the learned
gentleman's appeal it would seem that his countrymen
in London have hitherto not been very hearty in signing
the address.

Having received many complaints relating to burial
societies, Mr. Tidd Pratt has issued a caution, warning
subscribers and others to look well into the basis of such
associations before having anything to do with them. The
registrar of friendly societies shews, by tables, the enor-
mous cost of managing burial societies, and the unsatisfac-
tory state of the finances of many of them. He takes the
ten principal ones, and from the statistics which
he adduces it appears that they contain 486,612
members, the gross receipts for the year amounting
to £94,323. The expenses of the management cost
no less than £36,301, and the payment for death or sick-
ness to £64,386, making the total of expenditure £100,687,
or £6,364 over the receipts.

Mr. Pratt also gives us a more detailed account of these
societies. The management of the first, the St. Patrick,
of Liverpool, costs nearly half the receipts, which latter
amounted to £33,270. Yet in management £16,550 was
expended, and £20,327 was paid by way of burial fees.
But the most extravagant in the way of management
appears to have been the Victoria Legal, of Birmingham,
which spent out of £1,764 received from subscriptions, the
enormous sum of £1,126, while the sick received only £376,
or one pound for every three expended for managing the
affairs of the society. Yet this society and the United
Brothers, of Preston, are the only ones out of the ten in
which the receipts exceeded the expenditure. The Royal
Liver, of Liverpool, is not included in the ten, but as its
members are supposed to number 400,000, the fact may be
interesting that for every pound given for the directbenefit
of the members 15s. ld. is being expended by way of
management. Mr. Pratt suggests that to insure in the
Post Office would be much safer than in these associations
We believe that the announcement that Bishop
Hobhouse will take charge of the diocese of Lichfield
during the temporary absence of Bishop Selwyn is pre-
mature. Bishop Hobhouse will enter early in March on
regular residence at his incumbency of Beech-hill, near
Reading, and other arrangements are being made for the
performance of episcopal functions in Lichfield diocese
during Dr. Selwyn's absence, in which more than one
bishop will take part.—Heraid.

THE BISHOP OF CAPETOWN.—During the last
few days the Bishop of Capetown has been engaged in
addressing numerously attended meetings in different parts
of Berkshire, on the state and prospects of the Church
in South Africa. The bishop has in the several towns re-
ceived promises of annual subscriptions from many per-
sons, and the collections have been liberal.
FLOODS IN BERKSHIRE AND OXFORDSHIRE.—
.ihe late heavy rains have caused the rivers to overflow
their banks, a very considerable breadth of laud is
already under water, and there is every prospect that the
flooding will extend. The lowlands in the neighbourhood
of Twyford and Wokingham are submerged, the river
London having risen rapidly. The Thames meadows
are also flooded, and in many parts of the valley
through which the Kennet and Avon Canal runs
from Reading to Hungerford both arable and grass
lands are covered with water. On a number of farms out-
door labour is at a complete standstill, and much distress
would prevail but for the charitable acts of some of the
employers, aided by the clergy and others in the different
parishes. The meadows round Oxford, and, in fact, the
upper valley of the Thames, the banks of the Cherwell,
and tributary streams, have been more or less under
water for several days, owing to the repeated rains, and a
vast expanse of low-lying ground has been completely sub
merged.
- -

ECONO3IY IN GAS. —A new and economical
method of manufacturing gas from bitumen has been in
course of trial for the past 14 days at the Royal Arsenal
Gasworks, Woolwich. The trials and experiments carried
out were of a very interesting and useful nature, and the
system promises to be of great advantage to the public.
The trials were ordered to take place by her Majesty's
Secretary of State for War, with a view, as suggested by
Captain the ' Hon. Arthur Cochrane, C. 8., of 'increasing
the illuminating power of gas. The experiments consisted
in extracting gas from bitumen alone, and also with a
mixture of Durham coals, at the various rates of from sto
25 per cent. The gas thus produced showed on the disc,
from a single burner, an illuminating power equal to 15
standard spermaceti candles, the bitumen giving off its
gas with much greater rapidity than the coals. The bitu-
men was also tested for fuel and heating purposes, and
was pronounced to be a safe resource for investment of
capital in case of a failure, as anticipated, of the Scotch
and Weit of t ngland coal mines. The bitumen was like-
wise tested in all the various ways most suited to gas
purposes with satisfactory results. . A report has been
accordingly made to Sir John Pakington, and 200 tons of
bitumen. have been ordered by the War Department for
the use of the Royal Arsenal Gasworks. The trials were
made by Mr. Wallace, supet;intendent, by order, at the
request of Captain the Hon. Arthur Cochrane, of the
Steam Reserve at Sheerness.

BURGLARY AND MURDER. —A crime, rem-trkable
alike for the boldness of its perpetrators and for the
rapidity. of its accomplishment, was committed in Bir-
mingham on Tuesday evening. For some time a maiden
lady, named Melbourne, has resided alone in a house in
Heneage-street, and was known to be possessed of con-
siderable property. It was also well known that
about this time she receives large amounts of money,
as interest upon funds invested in various ways. For-
merly a brother resided in the house with Miss Melbourne,
but he died, and since then she lived alone. About six
o'clock a woman, who chanced to be in a shed adjoining
Miss Melbourne's residence, saw three men cross a
wall and enter the house. The woman, hearing some
noise inside the house, hastened to tell her husband of
what she had seen, and he communicated directly with the
police. A constable went at once to the house, and was
startled, on entering, to find Miss Melbourne lying dead
on the floor. Her body was still warm. From the marks
which were seen about her throat, it was evident that she
had been strangled. The furniture was found to have
been tossed about, and boxes were broken open, as if
money had been the object of search. Three men, who
are known to reside in the neighbourhood, are suspected.
They answer to the description of the men who were seen
crossing the wall. It is not at present possible to say
whether any money, or how much, was taken by the
murderers.

SCENE AT A PARISH CHURCH• On Sunday an

extraordinary, and happily very uncommon scene was
enacted at the parish church of St. Nicholas. William Bur-
rage, carpenter, and Esther Smith, spinster, both of
Brighton, having been duly " asked in church" on three
consecutive Sundays, repaired, accompanied by the " best
man" and a bridesmaid, in a cab to the sacred edifice at
eight o'clock on the morning named, to be " joined to-
gether in holymatrimony," several other "happy couples"
having previously been " made one." Unfortunately—
or, rather, fortunately for the would-be bridegroom—the
Rev. J. D. Trigge, the officiating curate on the occasion,
had been previously put in possession of some curious par-
ticulars, and on William and Esther presenting them.
selves, the rev. gentleman was induced to ask the former
if he was not already a married man. A negative reply
being given, William was at once introduced to a female,
he mother of four children, and asked if that was not
his wife. The factbeing still denied, certain " marriag line"
were produced, proving beyond all possibility of doubt,
that the mother of four children alluded to was none other
thanindulgeMrs,
n
aWfaiillniatiningl3fiurragt, bute.thelcThe
eitnet er
nnadte4li
onber if dteh
edeied
pnroe
sent, not in the secret,
may be imagined. Of course
the marriage was prohibited, and the parties left
the church ; and Mrs. Burrage having swooned on
reaching the open air, her devoted husband, who
was said to have resided with her until a very
recent period, immediately procured a glass of water
with which he proceeded to bathe the face of his " bette;
half." In the meanwhile, Miss Esther Smith had regained
the cab, and sat admiring the attentions paid by William
to his wife from the window of the vehicle. Mrs. Burrage
shortly revived, awl left in the company of some f •
rienGs,
while Mr. Burrage made the best of his way out of the
churchyard, amid the hootings of a considerable crowd
who had assemble I, and who followed him for some
distance.--Brighton Examiner.