The star. (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1874-1875, 1875-01-06


|has forgotten the famous Newburypori
ghost, which, though it did now and then
I"appear, delighted mainly in stone
throwing, and unseemly disturbances
generally. Has not the Deacon house
Ireverberated with the tread Of phantom
feet, and echoed the reyels of ghostly
visitors? So at least have we been ask
ed to believe. Rochester, New York, in
1S49, was the scene of similar exploits by
the returning spirit of murdered ped.
dler, whose extraordinary performances
in cellar at Hydesville, Wayne county,
was the talk OF the country for long
time. The peddlers temperance suf-
feed to make the name. and fame of the
celebrated Fox Sisters, and then the ex-
citement and the ghost went Oft together.
Early in the last year Ro chester be-
came again famous as O center OF mani
estations, when house occupied by a
Mrs. GascOigne was made the theater of
ghostly operations by the spirit, as was
asserted, of a deceased gentleman to
| whom she had been a housekeeper. For
few nights after his demise, "the still
| ness of death reigned."
| Scarcely an entire week had passed,
! however, when Mrs. Gascoigne's repose
was disturbed by ''the familiar foot
course, thought it was fancy, and tried
to compose herself TO sleep,,bu it was
no use. She distinctly heard the creak-
| ing OF the door of the room which had
| formerly been occupied by A., and pres
emily she was still further alarmed by
| the bed-slats, which seemdd to yield to
the pressure OF human body. Then she
heard what seemed to her like sounds
that would be produced by person en-
gagged in the act of putting on tight boots.
AS soon as the last stamp was given to
the floor noise was made as If some
body was ascending the stairs. On the
Following night the manifestations were
more varied. The chairs and tables in
the parlor were tossed about rather
freely, and at certain intervals ''a single
whistle, of an apparently human voice,
shrill and distinct" was heard by every
person in the house. One Of the Gas
coigne family positively asserted that
the form of the deceased gentleman ap-
peared to him as distinctly as if in life,
as he lay upon lounge. He Immediate
ly jumped up, and had just begun to pro-
pound a number of questions, when ''the
spectre, if such it were, soon disap-
cared"
In recalling these narratives from far
off as we'll as recent times, the writer has
appeared to come from respectable
sources. 1t is comfort to those of us
who have faith in common sense, and the
inexOraDle logic of cause and effect, to
know that the respectability and relia-
bility of a witness are not at all parallel,
or by any means dependent one upon the
other. 1t is worthy OF note that while in
this comparatively new country, free
from the cObwebS Of tradition which q
long history inevitably accumulates, SUI
pernaturalism and its phenomena are
growing into more prominent notice, in
England, the old home and seemingly nat
ural nursery OF superstition, the ghost is
fast dying out. He is waning with the
aristocracy, and disappearing with the
ancestral mansions. Time was, and not
so long ago either, when no English gen.
tleman would own a country seat without
ghost, any more than he would have toll
Grated a man servant without livery.
A London writer has aptly said that
most of this class of ghosts came over
with the Conqueror; many date from the
Wars Of the Roses, particularly those
venerable parties that haunt the old
manor houses in Yorkshire. Others,
more than one would suppose, date from
the Civil Wars, and some are even as
late as the Restoration; but any appari-
tions later than that are to be regarded
with distrust. The pale-laced lady, nit
ting by the window or gliding down the
stairs with the speck of blood on her
wrist, the beautiful child with the gold
Ell hair and the dead robin in her breast.
OF the shadowy, shrouded figure and the
beckoning hand, whatever form the le-
gend takes, SO it remains the same to-
day as three hundred years ago. Car-
endon, the grave historian, speaks Of
oh MI
DR.. johnson, on visiting a country man
sion asked, as soon as he had surveyed
it's exterior, whether there was ANY
ghost. we are told. All that has passed
away, and with the decline of the ancient
nobility the ghost of the castle is step
ping down and out.
But after all, perhaps, there is sense
in which men aud houses too are haunt
ed, in that sense so exactly expressed
in the words of our own inspired Long
fellow. when he sings:
All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses, through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their crfands glide
With feet tnat. make no sound upon the
The spirit world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, anu everywhere
Watts through these earthly mlsts and yapors
dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.
Nor is Lodgfelow alone among the
poets who have sung thus OF spirit land
with it's palpable influence on our nun.
dane affairs, though none Of them have
ever Introduced them to us in the guise
Of table turner's, invisible pianists, stone
throwers, or bell ringers. 1t will not be
easy either, spite of materialized hands,
! or even whole bodies, 10 reconcile the
world to this modern and ineXpressibiy
vulgar species Of the genus ghost.
L,E ~ u