The New York herald., 1922-03-09
The Nova Scotia Ghost.


The Poltergeist of Antigonish is
one OF the most attractive things Of
the day. Ghosts are always popular
except among those whom they
haunt; so the noisy spook of the
Nova Scotia hills is being coddled,
so to speak. by the investigators.
ALEXANDER MACDONALD, the sturdy
farmer who has been driven from
his home by the poltergeist, probably
hopes that the ghost will fall in love
with DR.. PRINCE of the Institute OF
Scientific Research and go back to
the States with him. Winter life
north OF Halifax is hard enough
without having rough ghost at
your heels.
The poet CoLERIpeE, who dug
briefly into the subject of racke.y
ghosts, suggested that they were all
a delusion. the result of contagious
epidemic hallucination" among the
witnesses. But as DR.. PRINCE is ac-
companied by several newspaper
co 0ondents, born cynics and vac
with anti-hallucination vi
rae. there is no chance for delusiol
& the ghost returns to his tricks in
the Macdonald house Besides, there
lo delusion about having a mans
house set afire forty times. Perhaps
the poltergeist was not the incer7
ary; that is one OF the til which
DR.. PRINCE intends 70 find s.t
A most conscientiou
of ghost stories. ANDRE
allowing for imaginations, gauQa
all the other reasonable ways of ac-
counting for the poltergeist, came to
the conclusion that there remains
the chance that some agency Of an
unexplored nature Is, at least in GER
tain cases, actually at work" But
nobody has ever explained how fires
jumped out Of stoves, how dishes
were hurled from the kitchen shelf
to the yard or how furniture was
flung about a room. Nor has any
body explained why a ghost-assum-
ing that there are ghosts capable of
performing acts of physical force
should descend to such roughhouse
antics.
Rackety ghosts of all the ages have
been bit monotonous in their per-
formances. Whether among the. Chi
nese or the Indians. where the Jes-
uits observed the phenomena, or in
peaceful European towns where a
hundred scientists have studied the
strange happenings, the ghosts have
done little more than a drunken or
crazy person would do. In Amigo
nish, it is related, the poltergeist
braided the tails Of calves together
This suggests tactics employed in
the Scottish Border wars. Sherlock
Holmes would look for a Scottish
spook between the ages Of three and
ten centuries who was at odds with
the MacDonalds. The poltergeist is
well known in the Highlands, where
its influence, called taradh, is sup
posed to be due to the strong desires
Of some distant person.
1t is one thing to hear about a
noisy ghost and another thing 70
creep up and scientifically observe It.
The best ghosts, like the best poems.
are spontaneous. A ghost who views
the arrival Of company Of psychic
researchers must feel very much like
a business man who has an efficiency
expert walk in on him. He has been
getting along all right in his own
rude way, but the end of freedom
has come. Just as the efficiency ex-
pert begins to draw charts and spill
decimal points, SO the psychic engi-
neer sets traps with strings and
bells to catch the ghost. Just as the
business man grabs his hat and runs,
so the ghost is likely to utter one
last unearthly moan, clank his fet.
ters--if he belongs to the Gothic
period-and disappear amid a sui.
phurous odor.
Gold is where you find It, but
ghosts arc when you find 'em.
to- he hac Gr1v a,-k<z 4