The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1901-08-30
"HOL|ED' THE GHOST
Remarkable Story of Perth
Amboy's Great Ex-
citement.

The New York Evening Sun" has a
story of a remarkable ghost in Perth
Amboy The story is:-
For several years John Marko, a Hun
garian laborer lived in two-story tene-
ment in Mechanic street, near Washing
ton street. He lived as "a just and hard
working man should. Three months ago
he died There was nothing left behind
which might have been expected to tempt
him to come back. But he came back.
He came back early and often.
Marko's ghost at first attracted atten-
tion by low, but strenuous moans The
departed laborer had a peculiar voice and
even in means it could be distinguished
from any other voice that the neighbor-
hood had ever known. The first time
those means were heard everybody in
the neighborhood knew that Marko had
come back because something in the place
+ to which he had gone did not suit him.
For a time the popular feeling on the sub
ject was altogether negative. That is to
say, nobody expressed an overwhelming
desire to live in the home of the late
Marko. AS one little girl of the neigh
borhood said to an earnest investigator:
Everybody says I think 1 let somebody
else live there yet.'"
But two weeks ago last Sunday night
matters came to a crisis. The tenement
is double house. There are four apart
ments in the building, and Gene MatlocK.
brother-in-law to the ghost, lives in the up
stairs fiat on the other side of the dou-
bic house. A week ago Sunday, when
Mrs. Matlock was in shed at the back
of the yard, Gene started across the yard
to speak to her. He was grabbed by the
throat and thrown fiat upon his back. lic
shouted for help as he fell, half strangled.
Mrs. Matlock came from the shed and
saw him lying before her with a shadowy
figure kneeling on him. She ran into the
house, took kettle of hot water from the
stove and went back again. She found
Gene and the Thing wrestling around all
over the yard
What is the matter? Get off my hus-
band or 1 will scald you to DEATH she
cried in Hungarian
The face of the Thing which was kneel-
ing on Matlock's chest was turned toward
her for moment. She recognized the
countenance of her departed brother. He
said nothing that either she or her hus-
band could understand, and because, as
Mrs. Matlock painstakngly explained to
a "Sun'' reporter tonight, she loved a
livehusband a great deal more than q
dead brother, she waited until the ghost
was uppermost and then tipped out
pint of hot water on his back. The Thing
fled, shrieking, up to the the back door
of the fat, which the late Marko had
occupied, and passed in without opening
the door, At least that is the story Mat
lock and his wife told to the Sun man.
II tell you," asserted Matlock, with no
apparena sign of anything but the utmost
sincerity -'Marko, and see him dead
and in the grave, he come up and grab
me by my throat My wife she get the
water and make him hot on his back and
he cry and get the hell out. He go into
the door on the riht side hand and the
door no open when he go through. hope
7 am dead tonight If lie.''
"That's right said Mrs Matlock,
calmly.
..Are you sure" asked the reporter,
'that 1t wasn't a tramp or somebody
who was sneaking around the yard?''
Both the Matlocks laughed scornfully.
The very idea was preposterous, they
said, with many shakes of the head and
grunts of disapprovaL Gene Matlock.
was inclined to be indignant that his
Judgment in the matter could be doubted.
He told how a few nights after the fight
in the back yard he and four friends
were playing cards in the kitchen Of his
fiat and there came a rapping at the
door.
Come in.' he said.
No one came in, but the rapplng con-
tinued.