Worship-Street.
A Ghost Story.
There never has been any satisfactory proof of the non-existence of a ghost, thought Dr Johnson, and so it appears thinks a very large and beef-eating portion of the population of our metropolis. In the great Lexicographer’s day the ghost most in fashion frequented Cock-lane, but, scared from that, we suppose by the stricter regulations about the purlieus of Newgate, she (the Cock-lane ghost, every one knows, was a lady, although she held her tongue) has shifted her quarters to the pastoral regions renowned for the adventures of “the Blind Beggar of Bethnal-green.”
The house suspected to be chosen for the unearthly gambols of the present ghostly disturber is that of Mr Robt. Wrightson – and very much to the annoyance of that gentleman is the suspicion. The rumour runs that some years ago – how many is not known, but we are afraid it must be some time in the days of King George the Third, a most pitiful and common-place date for a ghost story – a lady dwelt in Bethnal-green, and in Mr Wrightson’s house. So there is nothing improbable in the tale – nor, indeed, is the next part of it, which is, that the aforesaid lady, being deluded by the soft tongue of some perjured man, forgot the regulations of female etiquette so much as to augment the fers of the church for the baptism of her first-born before she troubled it with the ceremony of marriage. The remainder of the tale is like that in the pathetic ballad of “Miss Bailey;” she “hanged herself one Monday in her garters,” or took some other equally efficacious way of putting herself out of the world.
Not being of a placable turn, however, she vowed that, though dead, she never would rest quiet in the grave while her wrongs remained unredressed. A ghost’s word, we all know, has been taken for a thousand pounds; and in this case it might have been so taken most justly, if we may believe the rumour of the bailiwick, for all the green-men of Bethnal swear that the house never since has been still.
Ghosts formerly used to repel people, but now the other end of the magnet is turned, and they attract. The Anatomic Vivante in Pall-mall brings his crowds by day – the ghost of Bethnal-green was as successful in drawing company to Mr Wrightson’s at night. Very different, however, are the feelings of the two proprietors of the attractions, for Mr Wrightson’s very particularly angry at the attention paid to his dead body, and is as jealous as a Turk at the prying eyes she has drawn upon her movements. He appeared yesterday at Worship-street Office with a complaint against a young gentleman called Robert Shatley. He opened his case by stating that he had built several houses in Bethnal-green, in one of which he had lived for fifty years, and hoped to have died in quiet there but for this “goblin damned.”
Mr Osborne – Pray, Sir, how d you know it is damned?
Mr W. – I beg your pardon, Sir; I don’t think it is damned, for there is no such thing there at all, but one can’t keep their temper in the way I’m treated. Some one gave out I was haunted – and now night after night there comes a mob of five or six hundred people after dark to see the ghost kicking up her pranks. There they stay as if they were at a playhouse, calling out, “The ghost! the ghost! old Wrightson’s ghost! why don’t it come out?” And if a candle stirs in front of my house, they all begin to clap, and say “Silence, silence! hats off! down in front! here’s the blue lights.” Sir, flesh and blood can’t stand it. I don’t think ever a ghost were. But, last night, they were worse than ever, for a most terrible unruly mob came together, and they began to come over the railings, and kicked and knocked at my door, so that we were all terribly alarmed.
My wife fainted; my daughter got into hysterics; my whole family was thrown into confusion; my house, as one may say, hunted out of the windows; and we were obliged to call in the watch, one of whom secured this young man within my rails. “
This story was confirmed by several neighbours, who also identified the prisoner as being very riotous. When he was called on for his defence, Mr May, a professional gentleman (alias an attourney) stood forth. He said he had the honour to appear in this case as counsel for the defendant, a gentleman, juvenile in years, but highly respectable in connections. Indeed his father was known throughout the extensive regions of Whitechapel, and no more known than esteemed. But the most correct fathers will sometimes have sons who indulge in the levities of youth, we cannot put young heads on old shoulders. The young gentleman’s fancy was tickled with the idea of seeing a real-live ghost – and he certainly did venture, with a degree of indiscretion not altogether justifiable, to penetrate into the sanctities of Mr Wrightson’s domestic establishment. The fact must be avowed – it could neither be denied, in fact, nor justified in law. But still the difference was immense between youthful curiosity and burglarious, felonious, or even malicious, intention. Nothing of the latter sort could be fixed upon his client, and he furthermore hoped that Mr Wrightson would not think of pressing the case to a more serious conclusion.
The eloquence of the Learned Gentleman had a manifest effect on the countenance of the prosecutor . The sternness of his countenance relaxed, and the worthy Magistrate himself appeared to feel that ghost-hunting was in some sort a venial misdemeanor in so young a person.
His Worship, however, summed up the case with great impartiality. He said it was highly necessary to protect the domestic tranquility of the Wrightson family from external violation – that the pretence of looking for ghosts, male or female, would not be taken in law to justify a trespass; but on the other hand, as it was most manifest that the offence of the defendant was not prompted by any motive of higher criminality than youthful levity, it would be sufficient to take the recognizance of the prisoner’s father, that his son should keep the peace towards all and singular his Majesty’s subjects. This ceremony being soon gone through, the young gentleman was discharged; and at the same time the Magistrate ordered the officers of his establishment to protect Mr Wrightson and his family from further annoyance.
Globe, 2nd September 1825.
A Ghost.
To the Editor of The Courier.
Sir – The inhabitants of Bethnal-green have been lately disturbed by the unruly tricks of a Ghost, that nightly disturbs the inhabitants by its uproar. It is an audible, not a visible goblin, and was described by an ear-witness as making a noise equal to the upsetting of a cart-load of paving stones, and as shifting the scene of its operations from the garret to the cellar, as seemed convenient to his ghostship. Now, though this is something more than a box, et praeteria nihil, yet we cannot but congratulate the believers in spirits, that visitants from the other world are content now to intrude upon the auricular organ only, wisely keeping out of sight of a world where living skeletons have usurped their place. The marvellous may be as successfully communicated through the tympanum of the ear, as through the retina of the eye, and as the latter is so often gratified with deformities and monstrosity, it stands to reason, that supernaturalists run a better chance of confining themselves to proving the existence of ghosts by the impressions of sound.
Convinced we are, that that respectable conclave who interrogated the Cock-lane Ghost, among whom appears the name of Doctor Samuel Johnson, would never have condescended to honour by their presence, any visible or palpable representative of the dead; but the scratchings and thumpings were so mystical and modest an announcement, that they obeyed the summons of the spirit, so far as to descend into the vault of the church, where it had appointed a rendezvous. I do not know whether any one will be inclined to follow the worthy Doctor’s example, in seeking a rencontre with the Bethnal-green Ghost.
It is said he has already driven away the occupier of the house, and shrewd suspicions of unheard of murders are murmured among the crowd, who nightly assemble round the house. The floors have been raised to detect his secret haunts; but, as if affronted at being identified with corporeal beings, of so despicable a nature as rats, he has redoubled his crashing efforts. Now, if the ghost really means to turn informer, we cannot but regret that he does not appear at once before Sir. R. Birnie, who could stun him at once by the formidable question, “Who are you?” and make no ceremony of turning him out if he continued his deafening noises.
At all events, we think the worthy Magistrate ought to take some measures to lay the bad spirit, whose object appears rather to be a connivance with pickpockets and rioters, than any conspiracy to blast the character of Mr. Wrightson, the ghost-evicted owner of the house in question. We would not extend the limits of the Police to vagrants from the other world (that being the ultima thule to which the law banishes misdoers, leaving it to the Clergy to deal with them after they have cleared the fatal drop); but we conclude, that when the peace of a neighbourhood is disturbed by a treaty between terrestrial villains and a nominal agent from the grave, that it becomes the duty of the civil officers to abate the nuisance by dispersing the former, if they cannot eradicate the superstition by detecting the latter.
Sept. 10. VICINUS.
London Courier and Evening Gazette, 13th September 1825.
Worship-Street.
Ghost Stories. – John Capon, of No. 15, King-street, Drury-lane; Thomas Jones, occupying the “three-pair back room” of the same tenement; and John Arnold, of No. 7, Monmouth-street, three wandering melodists, were brought before Mr. Twyford, by Gooding, a conductor of Bow-street patrol, on the complaint of Mr. Wrightson, a gentleman of considerable property residing in Bethnal-green, to whose especial annoyance they were contributing on Tuesday evening, by their professional exertions, in selling in his immediate neighbourhood the following “full, true, and particular account of a strange and extraordinary ghost,” which is said to have made his house the scene of its vagaries:-
“Strange and Extraordinary Ghost in Bethnal-Green-Road. – The house of a respectable gentleman, near the Salmon and Ball, in the Bethnal-green-road, has for the last month excited the greatest consternation in the neighbourhood by a report that the ghost of a female is to be seen every night between eleven and one, and which has drawn immense multitudes together to witness this singular personage. Report states that the bells in the house and the knocker at the door are continually in motion during the above time, and such has been the harrassed state of the inmates of the house, that they have been compelled to guard the premises. Whatever may be the cause of this nocturnal visitor thus disturbing the inhabitants of this quarter, we are at a loss to conjecture, although it is stated that a Rev. Divine has attended, and had some conversation with her ghostship, but not sufficient to fathom the cause of her disquietude. Many conjectures are formed, and many who have witnessed this strange proceeding form their own idea; but we trust ere long, by the assistance of the pious individual, to unravel this business, and lay before our friends the real cause of this unexpected and sudden alarm.”
This elegant production of the far-famed manufacturer of ballads and wonderful stories in Great St. Andrew’s-street, Seven Dials, the three prisoners were recommending to the notice of the public, with the addition from the stores of their own imaginations of some interesting particulars about three ladies who were thrown into fits at the appearance of the ghost, and the pence were tumbling into their pockets thick and fast, when they met with a disagreeable customer, in the person of Gooding the officer, who possessed himself of their whole stock in trade, without paying them for it, and procured them a night’s lodging in the watch-house, preparatory to their introduction to the Magistrate yesterday.
The Magistrate first felt inclined to view the offence as a trivial occurrence, and was about to dismiss the men on their promising not to renew the annoyance, the place at which they had been apprehended being at a considerable distance from Mr. Wrightson’s who, he said, might indict them for libel.
Mr. Wrightson said he had lived all his life at that place, which was his freehold property, and had cost 2,000l.; but the annoyance to which he and his family had lately been subjected, was intolerable. He could not go out of his house without being followed by the boys of the neighbourhood inquiring after the ghost.
Other inhabitants of the place stated the great annoyance to which the whole neighbourhood was exposed by the proceedings.
Mr. Twyford then finding the affair more serious than he had expected, ordered the three men to find bail to keep the peace, and in default thereof they were committed.
Globe, 6th October 1825.
Miss Bailey In Bethnal Green!
Who could have possibly conceived that our Reporter’s account of the posthumous vagaries of the “unfortunate Miss Bailey” should have been conceived to be meant as a round-about attack on the character of the living Mr Wrightson? That gentleman is the owner of the house which vulgar credulity had supposed to be haunted; and he lives, surrounded by an amiable wife and children, in the exercise of a benevolent disposition and in the possession of an honourable character and reputation.
There are people, it seems, who cannot and will not understand a joke, and who gravely construe into dark surmises against an unimpeachable individual, the ridicule levelled at popular superstition. Our Reporter, who heard the absurd stories that circulated among the ignorant mob, thought he could not render a better or more effectual service to the gentleman who suffered annoyance from their folly, than by placing that folly in the most ridiculous point of view; and we doubt not he judged right. When the populace saw their absurdities drest out in their proper colours, they could not but be ashamed of them, and we dare say they have been perfectly laughed out of their superstitious terrors.
That Mr Wrightson ever had, at any time, any female dwelling in his house delivered of an illegitimate child, or who committed suicide, from that or any other cause, is an idea utterly destitute of all foundation; but that a mob of 500 or 1000 of the lowest orders of the people congregated before his house, uttering abusive and obscene expressions, and relating monstrous and incredible fictions, is unfortunately too true.
Noises were probably heard in the house, cracks in the wall, or scrambling of rats behind the wainscoat, such as every person must have heard a hundred times in a hundred different houses; and these are converted by superstitious fancy into the awful visitations of a disembodied spirit – and that spirit (as in the case of the Cock-lane Ghost) must needs be a female – and the female must needs have hanged herself, and what cause so natural for her suicide as an unfortunate amour? Such is the origin of most such tales; and grave reasoning will not soon persuade the ignorant out of their belief in them; but the lowest and most besotted of the vulgar cannot resist the force of laughter; and, therefore, we must repeat, that our Reporter could not have served Mr Wrightson more effectually than by turning the whole story into ridicule.
New Times (London), 10th September 1825.