The Washington herald., 1913-09-30
CCopyright. lgl5. by A. D. Jacolsou.l

Copyright 1915. BY A. d. JacotsouJ
London's next Lord Mayor. who will
succeed Sir David Burnett. who retires
in November, will be Sir Thomas Van
Sittart Bowater. head of a firm of paper
dealers in Queen Victoria Street. That
Sir Thomas will prove a popular Chief
Executive is being vouched by all who
know him. No man in the city has a
greater circle Of friends. II was in 1899
that Sir Thomas entered the corporation
as a Common Councilman, being knlghted
when he served as Sheriff in the May
orally Of Sir Walter Vaughan Morgan in
l905-Is06. Sir Thomas, by the way. is the
donor Of the busts of King Edward and
Queen Alexandra in the Guildhall Art
Gallery.
The late Lady Hambleden, who was a
personal friend of Queen Victoria, and a
widow OF the late Mr.. W. H. Smith, the
publisher. was offered a peerage by that
Queen on the death of her husband in
1891 The Queen wrote a letter to her.
addressing her as dear Mrs. Smith"
and explaining that she wished to give
a public mark OF my deep sense OF the
services which her husband rendered to
me and to his country"
The honor bestowed upon Lady Ham
bleden calls to mind the names OF other
women who received peerages as a COM
pliment to their husbands. The only liv-
ing instance is now Baroness Macdonald
Of Earnscliffe. The wife OF Disraeli be-
came VIscountess Beaconsfield, and il
was after her death that her husband
was raised to the peerage. Chatham. on
the other hand, accepted the title of Earl
of Chatham in the lifetime OF his wife,
who had been made Baroness Chatham
in her own right many years before.
The case OF Lady Scott, widow OF the
Of the late Lady Havelock, widow OF the
brave defender of Lucknow.
The rector OF Asfordsby claims TO have
'1aid" troublesome ghost by the pomp
and ceremony Of solemn exorcism. Arch
bishop Thomson once accomplished the
same feat in a very much simpler man.
ner. Staying at a country house with
traditions of a family ghost, he was put
up for the night in the ''hanted cham
ber." In the morning his hosts were
anxious to know IL he had seen anything.
"Oh. yes" he replied, about Il O'Clock
I heard a knock at the door. I said
Come in" And did he Gomez" Yes.
an old. lsallow-looking man." THAT is
our ghost What did you do?'' Il got
out of bed and asked il he belonged to
the house. He nodded assent. 1 asked
If he were a parishoner. He nodded
again. Then said, I am anxious to
build some new schools; will you give me
a subscription He disappeared, and I
saw no more of him"
The above story of the haunted vicar
age that has been discussed so volubly
in the British press reminds one OF the
famous haunted house in Berkeley Square,
London, and which was the subject of
innumerable stories in the early '70s of
the last century, and was vouched for
by the late Bishop Thurwall. Bishop
Wilberforce also exercised a ghost in the
drawing-room of a Kensington house in
the traditional manner. with bell, book.
and candle" And since this contact
with church dignitaries, both of these
houses have resumed their normal and
nonghostly character.
Perhaps because ghosts are out OF fash
ion, we have heard nothing Of late con-
cerning the phantoms which were for
merly alleged to haunt the House of
Commons. The most famous and sinis-
ter of these was the one called after
big Ben" which is said to appear when
ever a death is about to occur In the
BrltlSn royal IaIlly. SeNtrdi PSAsOhS
averred that they saw Big Ben on the
evenings preceding the deaths of the
prince consort, Princess Alice, and the
Duke of Clarence. Each of these appear
ances was on the thirteenth Of theI
month at midnight, and it is solemnly as
serted that on each occasion the CLOCK
struck thirteen times.
The most orthodox ghost Of st.
Stephens, however, is a dismal-looking
female figure, dressed in a dirty, white,
shadowy gown. and is to be seen on GER
tain foggy nights when, beginning at the
western end of the terrace, 1t marches
slowly to the other extremity, where,
with a dismal howl. it disappears into
the water. 1t is supposed to be the re-
mains of militant charwoman.
Hampton Court Palace, like the Houses
Of Parliament, also has many ghosts OF
which II is rather proud. There is. for
instance, the ghost of Mistress She'll
Penn, who was King Edward Wis nurse,
and died in the palace in 1862. She was
last seen in 1856, when her tall, gaunt |
form, dressed in a long gray robe, fright