The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-07-09
ACTS OF A WICKED GHOST
1T HYPNOTIzED AND MADE CRAZY
a WHOLE FAMILY.

have never heard any more surprising than
the following, for which Ralston L. Prime
ismy authority. Mr.. Prime is Virginian,
aud now lives in Chicago. shall try to
tell his story in his own words. He said:
sin 1878 a business deal put me in posses
sion of what was known as the 'Brinckley
place. in Prince George county, Maryland,
nine or ten miles from Nottingham. I
moved to it from Baltimore. The per-
manenoy of my residence lasted just eleven
days.
I'VE went there In May. When l say
we mean my wife, Mary Emily; my
boy, Marion r. my elderly maiden sister
Miss Cynthia Prime, and my brother. Rob
ert, then about % years old. My wife's
sister, Miss Julia c.. Riddell, Joined us
few days later. The mansion was a fine old
structure, splendidly built and of imposing
appearance, having a fronting OF 80 feet
and a depth of at least Go. From a large
entrance hall, occupying the middle of the
front half of the main floor, "a mahogany
rallied staircase, six feet wide, swept up
ward by q single curve to the floor above.
Left Of that hall were reception room and
dining room. All to the right was one
huge parlor. suitable only for stSte occa-
sions.
1.-THE head of the staircase on the second
floor was big interior space, front and rear
of which, and separated from it only by
portieres, were two large apartments, 20
by Is feet, which we proposed to use as
family parlor and sitting room. On each
side were four spacious bedrooms, those on
the right slightly diminished by straight
stairway, four feet wide, leading to the
third floor. A gallery on the third floor
surrounded the central space which was
covered by a skylight of glass. Twelve
bedrooms in suits opened from the gallery.
THE first thing to claim our attention
was the treacherous uncertainty of the first
or last steps-either up or down-of the
main stairway. That made itself apparent
the first day while we were moving in, and
there was much going from floor to floor.
One ascending the stairs would either,
catching his toe on the rise of the last step,
tumble forward, smashing anything he car
ried that would break, or he would raise his
foot high for a wholly imaginary final step,
and set 1t down on the floor with slam that
would jar the teeth loose. But going down
was worse, for the main floor would seem
to be eight inches higher or lower to the
sight than it really was, and the person de.
scending would in either case reach it with
a jolt that would seem to loosen the knee
caps and jam the spine and snap the neck
like whiplash.
Sometimes the mistake about the step
would occur at che top to the one going
down, and he would descend in a cyclonic
whirl OF arms and legs, sort of storm CEN
ter, emitting execratonal disturbances of
the atmosphere. Those things happened to
all of us. OF course we blamed ourselves,
and the light, and the strange steps; but
when we came to think it over we were all
sober, the light was exceptionally good and
the stairs were excellent. Yet we continued
to plunge and tumble, until we found our
only security, going up or down, was In
ataTtinO panfiOuslV Onfpu faaIipoS
way and counting the steps. There were
twenty one Of them.
"By the third day there was not one of
us who did not have one or two blaokened
eyes and a skinned nose from running
against the edges of hslf-opened doors.
We would see a door either tightly closed
or fully open, and prove the next moment,
by painful confusion, that it was really
standing midway. Then we got 20 going
around with one arm outstretched and bent
across the breast as guard; for, as my
wife said: "a door is liable to come out and
hit you at any moment right in the
middle Of the ROOM And an annoying
feature of this line of manifestations was
that our attention would be irresstlbly
claimed by noises, in apparently closed
closets, which would compel instant investi-
cation, with inevitably consequent personal
damage by the half open door. These
noises would seem to be the falling and
smashing OF caTslessly piled china and
glassware; but nothing was ever found
broken upon such occasions. Indeed, there
were many inexplicable noises of heavy OBJ
leots falling aud fragile things breaking,
always beyond the visual range of the
nearer; but we tried to attribute them to
our little army Of clumsy negro servants.
"On the fifth day my sister Cynthia,
emerging from the family psrlor in the
front Of the second floor, emitted an I'M
i
carpet between the parlOr door aud the
stairs, dragging with her the portiere she
had clutched in the moment of her fall.
After several minutes of restorative treat
ment had brought her to herself she said:
When drew back the portiere to step out
from the threshold, and my weight was al
ready following my advanced left foot, so
that l could not check my step l, saw or
seemed to see that the whole floor before
me had disappeared aud in its stead was
only huge, black, apparently bottomless
well or chasm. l could not stop myself
from, as 1 thought plunglng into il, and
seemed to fall to the center of the earth.
could not at first believe myself still alive
when you picked me up' My dear Gym
thia, l said, you are bilious, that is ALL
but within twenty-four hours realized
that X blliousness was the explanation we
all were bilious, for every one of us had the
horrifying experience of suddenly finding
ourselves, upon stepping out OF door, on
the verge of black abyss, into which we
could not prevent falling hesdlong. Mat
tiers reached such pass that we had TO arm
ourselves with sticks and tap the floors
before US as we walked TO find assurance for
our steps, like family OF blind folks.
"On the seventh day my wife's sister
Julia.-a most estimable but rather delicate
young lady-joined u.s. After her coming
things became worse. A chair upon which
person was about to sit down would be
suddenly discovered as merely a chair OF the
Imagination. but the discovery would not
be made until the sitter had gone sprawlinR
on the floor. In like manner any one Of US
was apt to be deceived by the apparent but
actually nou-existent table, which would be-
guile US into trying to put fragile things on
IT, only to see them drop to the floor and
break
But the most startling illusion of all was
the fire.. We all were in the garden on the
east side Of the house one evening after sun
down, discussing the planting of some orna-
mental shrubbery, when CHANGING to look
up l saw the windows of the northeast
corner room glowing with leeping flames
inside and blue smoke curling out above the
shghtly lowered upper sash OF one of them.
Evidently the house wes on fire. [
hos