Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1877-12-26
A NEW ORLEANS GHOST STORY.
How Seven Bold Police Officers were
Handled by the Invisible Power.

HhHuieu Dy the Invisible POWGr.
New Orleans Letter to Cincinnati Commercial.
L must tell you New Orleans ghost
story which have just heard. In these
days ghosts have almost lost the power
to interest us, for we have become too
familiar with their cloudy faces, and
familiarly begeteth contempt. An orig
lnal ghost story is luxury, and a rare
luxury at that Now, [ think this one
is unique enough to excuse me for pre-
Stunning to relate it. There was an old
house on Melpomene street which no
body could live in. Many good folk had
attempted to take up their residence in
it, but none ever dwelt there more than
one night. Sometimes people would
send their furniture in the morning and
have the place fitted up, only to find
everything outraged and violently upset
in the afternoon. Carpets had been
torn from the floor and stuffed up the
chimney, or flung into the centre of the
room in selfish shape, mockingly sugges-
tive of corpse with it's hands crossed.
Invisible footsteps shook the floor with
laundering tread, and bolted doors open
ed mysteriously to the touch of invisi-
BILE hands. AS the years fitted by the
goblin of decay added himself to the
number of the haunters; the walls
crumbled and the floors yielded, and
grass, livid and ghastly-looking grass,
forced it's pale way between the chunks
of the planks in the parlor The win
dows fell into ruin and the wind entered
freely to play with the ghosts, and cried
wierdly in the vacant rooms. At last
the police authorities resolved to solve
the mystery of the house. sr4st t.r
Stephen Leary was then chief of DO
lice He visited the house one evening
accompanied by picked detachment
of six men, all armed with double-bar-
relied shot-guns double shotted. When
the seven entered the crumbling build
ing it was twilight. The chief ordered
he detachment to form a hollow square
in the middle of the old parlor, facing
outward, and he himself filed the centre
Of the square, lest the ghost might arise
in the midst and seize every man by the
back of the neck at the same time.
Now" quoth he, whencesoever it
may approach we can blow it back to
h without hurting each other"
And the hollow square remained sta
tionary in the position of : ready"
Then the clocks commenced to strike
the hours. There seemed to be at least
hundred clocks within hearing-each
one little faster Or little slower than
the rest. They told the time regularly
in hundred different keys, til it be-
came "the dead waste and middle. of
the night" One after another, all the
hundred clocks struck the hour Of
twelve. Then vast and awful silence
fell. The seven men brought up their
muskets to present" and stared wildly
in seven different directions. Da"H
Suddenly a gust of wind blew the
light out; and they heard it coming; an
invisible and irresistible force seemed
to burst up the flooring un Ter the feet
| of the policemen, and each one stimuli
taneously felt himself seized from below
and violently flung against the ceiling.
And yet the city would not pay the
bills Of the seven doctors who attended
the faithful men thus previously injured
"while in the discharge Of their duty"