The Northern Pacific farmer. [volume] (Wadena, Minn.) 1878-1885, 1880-07-15
THE SPEED OF GHOSTS.
Some Scientific Reflections on the
Rate OF Travel of Disembodied Spir-
it's.
New York Times.

New York Times.
A very large proportion of ghost
stories, when they come to be care
fully examined, prove to have no
more basis Of truth than an average
Tribune political table. There is, how
ever, one variety of ghost story which
claims respectful attention. 1t usually
runs as follows: A person sitting alone
in his room suddenly sees the appari-
ton of an absent friend. He notes the
precise time, and few days later learns
that the absent friend died at that exact
hour and minute. Incidents of this
kind have happened SO many persons of
such unimpeachable veracity that it is
very difficult to doubt them. They
have happened too often to be explain
ed as singular condolences; and unless
we boldly assume that in all cases the
persons thus visited by alleged ghosts
were either deceived or deceivers, we
must admit that this particular type of
ghost story is worthy of belief.
There is one remarkable feature in
all this apparition of ghosts who are
understood to come straight from the
deathbed of their bodies to visit their
distant and surviving friends. They APP
parently make no allowance for differ
ences Of longitude. A ghost, for ex-
York at, say 8 o'clock on the night of
the 10th of June, and the person SUBJ
sequently learns that the ghost in ques-
ton left it's body in London at 9 O'Clock
on the same night. Now, in point
of fact, when it is 8 o'clock P. NJ. in
London it is about o'clock P. M. in
this city, and when it is 8 o'clock P. NJ.
in New York it is about o'clock A. NJ.
in London. It is hence evident that
when the ghost Of a person who died in
London at o'clock in the evening by
London time presents himself here at
8 o'clock by New York time, that ghost
has apparently been about five hours
in crossing the Atlantic. If he had
made the journey at the electric rate of
speed at which ghosts are popularity be-
lieved to travel, he would have arrived
here at 4 o'clock in the afternoon by
our time. AS he did not, it is clear that
his rate of travel is precisely that of
the earth's revolution on it's axis. In
other words the ghost has not travelled
at all, but has simply poised himself in
the London atmosphere and waited un-
til New York came around. This is
fact, the Importance Of which can not
be overestimated by students of ghosts
and their habits.
A careful examination of all the
authenticated ghost stories ofthe pecu-
liar type now under discussion will show
that in every instance the ghost came
from the east. Persons in England have
seen the ghosts Of friends who died in
India or China, and persons in America
have seen the ghosts who died on the
Atlantic ocean or in Europe. In no in
stance has ghost arrived in London in
hot haste from the United States, or has
New York man ever been visited by
the ghost of a Chicago friend. 1t seems
to be the invariable rule that new
ghost never travels in easterly direc-
ton. The ghost may have to lay
course to the northwest or the south
| west; but no matter how much northing
or southing he makes, he always ap-
pears at a point west of that from which
he started
We are now in a position to combine
what We know Of the direction and the
rate of speed Of ghosts, and to deduoe
the imortant law that ghosts have the
| power of moving in a nOrtherly or
southerly direction, but that while they
have an apparent motion from east to
west coincident with the apparent mo-
ton Of the sun, they cannot by any mo-
| ton of their own change their longitude
The new-made London ghost, if he de-
sires to visit New York friend, follows
the meridian of London in the direction
of the equator at a speed so great as to
be inappreciable, and having reached
the latitude of New York, poises HIM
self in air, and when the revolution of
the earth brings New York under his feet
quitely drops into his friends room. We
have here the first well-established
ghost law that has ever been formulate
ed, and we have a firm basis of facts for
its support in the shape of the only
authenticated class of ghost stories.
We may go even further and deduce
| the hardly less important law that the
period during which the new ghost
can thus hover near the earth is less
than twenty-four hours. If the London
ghost could remain as long as he chose
watching the earth revolve and select
ing his own time for dropping in on his
friends, there would be an end to the
interesting appearance of ghosts at the
precise time of their escape from their
bodies. The ghost that appears at the
precise time, by the watch, at which the
melancholy event took place. We are
thus compelled to remove to some dis
tant sphere between which and the
earth there is no regular and easy COM
munication.
| These facts are submitted as the be-
of of Ghost I'D