Evening star., 1900-09-24
THE GHOSTS OF LONDON.
Houses That Have Been Haunted fo
Centuries.


newspapers. countless stories could be told
of alleged hauntings Of the type which Is at
the present juncture titillating West Ken
sington nerves. and giving the police deal
of extra point duty in Edith Walk. Never
theless, the haunted houses in London
which have achieved anything more than
merely transitory and vulgar notice appear
to be but few and far between; while of
duly authenticated ghostly visitations the
metropolis can boast practically NIL or
don ghost story, the notorious Cock Lane
affair of the last century, was bogus
spirit altogether.
has heard how cunning Fanny" with her
mysterious knockings, contrived to hoax
the wonder-loving Londoners, until at
length the cheat was discovered and its
chief contriver brought to condign punish
ment. DR.. johnson, at the head OF body
of servants. solemnly investigated the
affair, sitting up through the night of Feb
ruary Z. 1902, in the vault of St. Johns
Church Clerkenwell. and Goldsmith wrote
pamphlet on the subject for which New
berry paid him guineas. The whole was
plot devised by one Parsons, the parish
clerk of ST. Sepulchre's, and carried out by
his daughter, a girl of twelve, the object
being to malign gentleman Of Norfolk
who had sued him for debt. This gentle
wife's sister as mistress (the marriage
being forbidden by law, and had brought
her to lodge with Parsons, from whom he
had removed her to other lodgings. where
she had died suddenly of smallpox. Par
sons object was to obtain the ghosts decla-
ration that she had been poisoned by his
Parson's) creditor. The knave was subse-
quently tried and sentenced to the pillOry
and one years Imprisonment, but even after
the exposure the London mob still believed
In the Cock Lane ghost, and freely SUBJ
scribed for a testimonial to it's origina tor.
The Tower of London, which ought to be
haunted If any place Is, once boasted an
awe-inspiring specter that assumed the
shape Of bear. Before the burning of the
armories there was a paved yard in front
Of the Jewel House, from which a gloomy
and ghost-lke doorway led down a flight
Of stairs to the mint Strange noises used
to be heard in this gloomy corner: and on
dark night in January, 1916, the sentry saw
hgure like a bear cross the pavement and
disappear down the steps. This SO terrified
him that he FELL and in a few hours, after
having recovered sufficiently to tell his
tale. he died, This unfortunate affair,
which was fully Investigated by an official
inquiry, is believed to have arisen from
phantasmagoria, and the governor doubled
the sentry, and used such energetic pre-
cautions that no more ghosts haunted the
tower from that time. The soldier bore a
high character for bravery and gnod con-
duct, and the affair created considerable
stir at the period.
The most famous modern example of how
stories OF this kind can be manufactured,
even in our day, out of hearsay and third
house insBerkeley Square, which seems to
have received its popularity and fame from
being identified through some accidental
circumstance as the scene of a similar
story in Temple Bar for 1868 by Miss
Broughton of a. house, in the country. The
house in question belonged to an eccentric
gentleman. he was in good circumstances
but chose to spend no money on it, For
many years soap, paint and whitewash were
never used, and then by degrees began the
most outrageous stories of servants and
sleeping a night in one particular room
while some imaginative individual was so
carried away with unwholesome excite
ment that he stated that the very party
found saturated with electric horrorr'
That mysterious noises Were heard at night
by the neighbors, thus giving rise to the
apprehension that the house was being used
by gang of coiners, is probably true for
1t subsequently appeared that the occu-
pants eccentricity took the form of wan
der1nS up and down the staircases and pas
sages during the small hours.
The lease had still! six years to run when
the unfortunate gentleman died, whereupon
the action of his sister, to whom the prom
erty passed, In refusing either to let the
house or live In 1t herself, caused the ghost
stories concerning it to be circulated more
freely than ever. Finally this lady sold
the lease and the house passing to skep-
tical firm of house agents, the exterior and
interior were put into a thorough state of
repair Tenants were then speedily forth
coming, and these needless to saw
neither saw nor heard anything abnormal
the haunted reputation soon became a
thing Of the past. The manner in which
the series of outrageous spook stories had
grown to be connected with 1t was yery
cleverly and indefatigab,y exposed by the
correspondents of Notes and Queries. Only
one point remained to be cleared up when
the house was renovated, viz, whether 1t
had possessed the reputation of being
haunted before the eccentric gentleman's
tenancy Fortunately the butler of the pre-
vious occupier was discovered, and he SOL
emnly stated that during the years he had
been in the house. often alone, and at all
hours, he had never seen any bigger
ghost than himseik" The moral, if any, is
keep the exterior of your house in good
repair, otherwise a ghost may be appro-
priated to you with as little show of evi-
dence, authority or justification as is the
case of the so-cal!ed Berkeley Square mys-
terry. The house was quite the London
ghost sensation of the Seventies though
it is said certain house in Sloane street
then possessed. and may still possess, a far
more substantial horror, an apparition
which could squeeze you as If in an iron
wise.
One of the first cases of a haunted house
which the Society for Psychical Research
was asked to investigate was situated in
Chelsea, where an artists studio was the
scene of weird visitations. An apparition
was seen by the artist in broad daylight
and appeared to him constantly during his
were such as to preclude all possibility of
deception, and the figure itself was SO dis
tinct and lifeiike that he succeeded in pro-
ducing atportrait of 1t. A rough sketch of
this portrait. which is now in possession of
the society, represents a young man Of
about twenty-five, with the right arm torn
away from the shoulder and a strangely
mournfm, pleading expression In the eyes
The society examined the house and found
that its then tenant who had replaced the
artist. had seen nothing.
1t was discovered, however, that a dis
tressing suicide had taken place in the
house shortly after it had been built (and
about forty years before the date of the
vision alleged to have been seen by the
artist, but 1t did not seem possible to con-
meet this in any way with the latter And
there the matter ended This is the last
bona fide case of a London haunted house
which we have been able to trace. The
West Kensington one reads spuriously, as
though the reputation had really originated
in the tempting target which a long empty
and derelict-looking house always offers to
the stone-throwing propensities of the
small boys of the neighborhood. Neverthe-
less. it Is only fair to add that, according
to some accounts, this unfortunate villa
has suffered Its uncanny distinction for
some sixteen years past.
----> O>-
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