The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-08-31
A SURE-ENOUGH GHOST
EVEN sKEPTICs BELIEVE STORY OF
THIS UNPLEASANT sPECTER.
Mr.. WILDWOOD Reade's Account of Phe-
nomenOn i'm Island on West Coast
of Africa-Many Victims.
Washington Post.

w dclAiiSlOn IOcl.
If there is any one thing in which hu-
manity manifests a deep and lasting inter-
est it is that which affects the question of
"the hereafter" the realm from whose
bourne no traveller returns" When the
worldly man, the materialist, hears through
some believing friend of the doings Of
some society for psychic research he is apt
TO say of their alleged achievements: That
is all well enough, but you will have a
hard time convincing others that what you
say is true until you can bring forward
some unbelieving person like myself, who
has actually seen a spirit. or cite me to
some we'll authenticated ghost story in Sc
rious and materialistic literature.
Such is the feeling of the materialist in
the matter. He is every bit as anxious to
learn all that is to be learned of the "un-
known country" as the member of the
society for psychic research, the only diff
ference being that it takes very little to
convince the latter, and something more
than mere assertion to convert the for
mer. There exists one we'll established and
authentic ghost narrative in the serious
and substantial literature of the nineteenth
century.
The serious man, 1.-The man Of little
faith" is well aware of the existence of
a vast sea Of psychological, religious,
spiritualistic and society literature in
which the life after death. spirits. in short,
everything pertaining to the unknown
world is asserted and reiterated again and
again in every imaginable form. and in
the most positive manner, but this does
not interest him. If such things have hap
nonad and do hannah uhvr thon iS it that
he never encounters anything concerning
ghosts in works such as Darwin's De
scent of Man." Winchel's Walks and
Talks in the Geological Field" Froude's
History of England" 'rBismarck's Mem
oirs," ETC., works covering a very wide
field and treating a vast number of sub
jects, but alike in one respect that they
were all written in the same spirit of
modern skepticism and disbelief in all that
passed current for facts in the Middle
Ages.
ONE AUTHENTIC GHOST STORY
Yet in one-only one-work of modern
skeptical literature are spirits described,
stated as facts, and otherwise treated as
though they were as actual and real as
rocks, trees or animals. That work is
Savage Africa, written by Mr.. Winwood
Reade, and believers in the supernatural
may take all the more comfort to them
selves when they come to reflect that
Reade was of the same school of skeptical
and calculating materialists as Darwin,
Huxley and Lyell. Nor is the matter in
question something concerning the beliefs
of certain African tribes. 1t is a thing
affecting a number of white men, educated
in the same school of thought as Reade
and Darwin, and who were witnesses of
the phenomena which Reade not only re-
lates, but upon which he comments in the
greatest seriousness. The case referred
to, which occupies an entire chapter in
Mr.. Reades work, is as follows:
Sierra Leone is the name of one of the
British possessions on the most unhealthy
section of the globe, the west coast of
Africa. On a certain very malarious part
of the coast of Sierra Leone is situated
Macarthy's island, which for many years,
up until about 1870, was the seat of a very
important English trading post. About the
beginning of the year 1860 a certain DR..
Beale, the post physician and surgeon at
tached at this point, fell i'll of malarial
fever. Realizing that he could not recover,
he notified MIR. Savage, the trader at the
post, of his condition, whereupon the latter
wrote a letter to the firm in Bristol, Eng
land, owning and operating the factories
on the island, stating the Doctors condi-
ton and requesting thai another physi-
clan be sent out to relieve him. The firm
responded, sending a certain DR.. Camp
bell, who arrived on the island on the ship
Dover on the day Beale died.
DIR. Beale had an assistant, a young ply
stefan named Trestrail, who on the day of
his superior's death set about writing an
official report of the case. This he never
finished. He was suddenly overcome by a
virulent attack of malaria and died, de-
claring he had seen Beale, before he could
finish the official statement. Reade saw
the account of Beale'S death that Tres
trail tried 10 write, and describes il as run
ming along smoothly for several pages. I'M
til finally serious omissions begin to occur
and the writing grows fainter and fainter.
until it finally stops altogether. Moreover.
the ~handwriting of the last four pages of
the account were so jagged and irregular
that it was easy to see that the writer had
been seized by a chill or sudden palsy while
writing 1t.
BEALE'S GHOST SEEN AGAIN.
This was the beginning. Three days later
DR.. Campbell came to Mr.. Savage and
asked that his quarters be changed, he hav-
ing until then occupied the house formerly
enanted by BeaIe and TrestraiI, in which
both had died. AT the same time Savage
saw that Campbell was looking unusually
pale and unwell; far different, in fact, from
the condition in which he appeared the day
he arrived. and asked him if anything was
wrong. Campbell replied:
81 have seen Beale. and he told me that
/ would never see my wife and children
again" Campbell was so positive in all
that he said that Savage, who was very
much puzzled over his strange assertions,
could not talk him out of the notion that
he. too. was soon to die. Campbell sat
down that day TO write the official report OF
the death of Trcstrail, and, like the former,
died before he had finished IL.
With the passing of Campbell, the COM
pany sent to the island two physicians in
stead Of one, so that If one fell i'll the other
could take his place. These were Drs. Brad
shaw and Hinds, who on moving into the
house formerly occupied by Beale, Tres
trail and Campbell were not troubled with
anything supernatural for several months
after their arrival Suddenly one night
while they were sitting talking with Saw.
! age. one of the soldiers doing picket duty