Maumee express. [volume] (Maumee City, Ohio) 1837-1838, 1837-04-08

IuafnseiS---Dut the laGIeS sung on The
Major was overcome by the unexpected
inefiicacy Of his violence, and had an ill-
ness which lasted more than three weeks.
The trick put upon him, may shortly be
described by the fact, that the female Choir
listers we're placed in an adjoining roonl--A
and that he only fred at their refleclions
thrown forward into that in which he
slept, by the effect of concave mirror.
Here the plain and well known laws Of
the reflection OF light, accounts for the
whole appearance. But, suppose the de-
ception had never been explained, what
reasoning could ever have satisfied the
man that the room was not in reality
haunted. II would have been one Of the
most conclusive ghost stories, that ever
was heard. Had he rose from the bed to
investigate, the ladies would merely have
withdrawn from before the mirror, and the
apparition would have vanished; and by
again resuming their place, as he laid
down, the vision would again have al.
peared before him.
The writer once knew young man.
who in sultry summer nights, rose from
his bed to- walk in his chamber. As he
rose he observed distinctly man on the
opposite side of the room. He was much
alarmed and stood still for moment, look
ing at the man, and then softly slipped
down behind the bed to watch his move
ments. AS he stopped, the man stooped;
when suddenly the young gentleman burst
into laugh, to find that he was watching
his own reflection in the looking GLASS;
A person of feebler courage, or of nervous
excitability, would have screamed "a ghost
and would have forever declared that he
could not discredit the evidence of his own
senses. As
We will mention another circumstance
to show how easily person may be de-
ceived, by an occurrence, which is capable
Of perfectly natural explanation. An
aged lady had long been sick, and was near
her death.
One afternoon as she was sitting in her
room with young lady, friend who was
her constant attendant, the whole room
seemed suddenly illuminated. The room
faced the east. The sun was far down in
the west, and could not shine into it,
What is that p said the aged lady. They
both looked, and beheld strange light
glttering upon the wall. Three success
sive times the mysterious illumination ap-
peared and vanished. A few moments af-
ter, some one of the family entering the
room, the aged lady remarked, have
just had warning, which tells me that
am very near my end-a truth which cer-
tainly did not need any supernatural attes.
taton.' Had the sick lady seen the vision
alone, there would have been no difficulty
in attribuling il to a disordered imagination.
But the young lady beheld it also, and she
was one not easily alarmed. There was
no way in which the occurrence could be
explained, and there it rested. The aged
lady felt perfectly satisfied, that she had
been warned to prepare for death, and she
made preparation accordingly, and in a
week or two she died. She left the world
entirely convinced that she had witnessed
IA supernatural vision. You might as we'll
have attempted to reason her out OF tho
belief of her own consciousness, as to have
reasoned away the reality of this appari-
ton. A week or two after her death, the
writer called at a house where some coll
lege students roomed, and found them anu
sing themselves, by casting reflections with
a large looking-glass into tn, houses of
the village. In an instant the whole mys-
terry of the apparition was explained
These young men had thrown reflection
three times into the room, and thus had
given it apparently a supernatural illumin.
alton.
Any one who is acquainted with the
wonderful powers Of veniriloquism, knows
that person may abuse that power, 10
ha - Al
are easily alarmed. A ventriloquist can,
without difficulty, cause unearthly sounds,
groanings, knockings, &C., to be heard in
different parts of the house, and he can be
all the time mooving about with the family,
an unsupported spectator. Many house
has been thus haunted, to the extreme ter
ror of its occupants, and to the great mirth
of the mischievous joker.
These principles will account for vast
number of those appearances, which seem
to be supernatural. The man who is un-
acquainted with these laws, thinks at once,
and very naturally, that there must be
ghostly agency in the production of effects
which to him are so unaccountaSle, and
ne is, therefore, to give the subject cool
We have, somewhere, met with another
account Illustrative of the same principle.
A ship was lying becaln,ed, one wa,
summer afternoon, in the middle of the At
antic. The atmosphere was clear, and
he sky serene, with the exception Of a Y
ew clouds floating in their ffeecy white
less. AS the officers of the ship were
reclining upon the quarter
|eck, and the sailors lolling in the listless-
Tess of calm at sea, whistling for the
Wind, all were surprised by seeing, far off
n the horizon, where the sky and all the