Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-04-15
TIE WHITE LADY A
a Curious Story from Germany.
New York Herald.l

NNh ANih nNtaAusi
A strange story is making the rounds
of the German press, being an account
Of the appearance of the white lady,
who is supposed to make her appear
ance as a ghost at certain times to
announce the death of some member
of the Hohenzollern family. Very
recently the cable brought us the an
%nouncement of the death of the young
Prince Waldemar, of Prussia, the
third son of the Crown Prince of
Germany, and now we learn from an
account ~telegraphed by an English
correspondent from Berlin that the
mysterious lady in white made her
appearance on the eve of the young
princes death. ct may interest
those who happen to be learned in
Berlin legends to know" says the cor
respondent, that according to report
the white lady, whose visits always
precede the death of some member of
the royal family of Prussia, was seer
on the eve of Prince Waldemar's
death. A soldier on guard at the Old
Palace was the witness of the appari-
ton, and he in his fright fed to the
guard house, where he was at once
arrested for dessrting his post" No
further particulars are yet to hand,
and it will probably be found that the
sentinel had been listening to the
stories of the occasional appearance of
the mysterious lady just before he
mounted guard, and that the "appa-
rition" was something very human,
after all. Legendary history does,
however, tell us of many visits of the
white lady to the Hohenzollern castles
at Bayreuth, Ansbach and at Berlin.
She made a great stir about the COM
mencement of the present century on
the occasion of the French occupation
of Bayreuth, when she took great de
light in annoying the foes Of the
Hoh%enzollerns. She is also reported
to have paid visits to Napoleon l.,
when he resided in the old castle al
Bayreuth and a Bayreuth Margravc
was once so ungallant as to pitch a
white lady over the banisters of the
stairs, to find next morning that he
had manned one Of his female domes-
ties for life. The legend Of the APP
pearance of the woman in white as
a premOnitress of death, has long
been connected with the HOhenzollern
family history. Old Merriam declares
that she was frequently seen in the
Old Palace at Berlin in the years 1862
and 1868, and Stillingg the mystic, the
friend of Goethe, was a firm believer
in the phantom. The first appearance
of the white lady in Europe was in
1873, in the imperial castle at Vienna,
But the white lady, being a Hohenzol-
Tern spectre, the Hapsburg visitor
was in all probability an impoSter.
We are inclined all the more to this
belief, from the fact that the sentinel
to WHOM she appeared, tried the effect
Of his bayonet upon the phenomenon,
and there was a gentle rumor whis-
pered about Vienna at the time that
somebody had been wounded-some
lovely lady whose white dress shown
in the moonlit corridors. The Berlin
''apparition' will probably be found
to have a different explanation -
namely, hat the sentinel had already
been greatly excited in his mind by
the ghost stories he had heard, and
that his imagination was just in the
condition necessary to transform any.
futtering white into the phantom
form of the White Lady Of the Hohen-
zollerns.