The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1869-01-13
OLD AND NEW.

All tellers of pet ghost stories firmly be-
ieve in their authenticity. This is an ad-
mitted fact. And all who fancy they have
seen disembodied spirits of spectral appari-
not under any delusion, mental or physical
The vision of head, which haunted tho
late Earl Grey, was said by many to have
been species of monohania or optical
deception; but when the head presented
itself to the eyes of other members of his
family that theory broke down.
The second Merquess of Londonderry,
better known as the celebrated statesman,
Lord Castlereagh, told at one of his wife's
supper parties in Paris, in 1916, the follow
ing supernatural tale, with the most perfect
gravity. Sir Walter Scott was amongst the
hearers, and often repeated it: Lord Cas-
tlereagh, when commanding in early life a
militia regiment in Ireland, was stationed
one night in large desolate country house.
His bed was at one end of a long, dilapidat-
ed room, while at the other extremity a
great fire of wood and turf had been pre-
pared within huge. gaping, old d-fashioned
night, he lay watching from his pillow the
gradual darkening of the embers on the
hearth, when suddenly they blazed up. and
o naked child stepped from amongst them
on the floor. The figure advanced slowly
towards him, rising in stature at every step,
until, On coming within two or three PAGES
of his bed, it had assumed the appearance
of q ghastly giant, pale as death, with
bleeding wound on the brow, and eyes glar-
ing with rage and despair. Lord Castle
reagh leaped from his bed, and confronted
the figure in an attitude of defiance. It
retreated before him, diminishing as it with
drew in the same manner that it had pre-
viously shot up and expanded. He followed
it pace by pace, until the original child-like
form disappeared in the embers
When Lord Londonderry died by his own
hand, in 1922, Sir Walter Scott g. i'd: "This
explains story he told me of his having
seen ghost, which I thought was very
extraordinary narrative from the lips of q
man OF so much calm sense and steadiness
of nerve. But, no doubt, he had been sub
iect to alterations of mind, which often
create such phantoms." We cannot see
how the suicide of Lord Londonderry ex-
plains the ghostly appearance Of so many
years before. Neither can we quite admit
the no doubt of habitual mental wanderings,
of which no evidence is offered, and none,
we believe, has ever been recorded The
marques bore through life the character of
one endowed with most unusual self posses
sion aud even temperament. The suicide,
in all probability, proceeded from some i'm
mediate excitement or incidental cause
rather than from any constitutional ten
dency. The most trustworthy chroniclers
of the day made no allusion to the latter
possibility. They attributed the act to the
harassing labors Of the late session, rs we'll
as to notifying reflections on his political
character. with which the daily and weekly
organs of public opinion, opposed to the Co
vernment, abounded. The coroners inquest
brought in a verdict Of insanity.
The supernatural appearance referred to
above may have been dream, rs it occur
red at night, when the narrator was in bed;
although Lord l.. declared he was awake.
We have heard o person of credibility say
he once dreamt he was asleep and dreaming:
that he awoke and dreamt again, taking up
the interrupted sequence of thought and
action, as if nothing had broken it, and still
under the conviction that he was asleep all
the time. It is beyond the scope of theory
or reasoning to account for dreams.
This ghostly child recalls another story of
a juvenile fetch, or wrath, or whatever the
proper term may be, lately told to the pre-
sent writer by friend, o senior of his own
standing, which presented itself to him o
long time ago in Wales, when he was fishing
in the river Usk. The teller of the tale is
essentially practical, rather than an imagi-
native or romantic individual, with nothing
dreamy or superstitious in his mental
or cerebral development. Strolling down
the bank on fine summers 8 day, rod in hand,
looking out for favorable spot in which
to try cast, he stopped at q place which
appeared inviting. The Usk abourds in
rocky islets. Opposite him, and near the
centre of the stream, was one of these,
rather elevated. On the other side, be-
tween the rock and the mainland, the cur
rent ran with much rapidity, and somewhat
turbidly, as if disturbed and intercepted by