Rome. From our own correspondent. Rome, March 28th.
Our latest novelty is a “haunted-house,” a house possessed with a legion of spirits, that knock about in all directions, and make the walls and ceilings shake, as if moved by an earthquake, subterranean rumblings are also heard by all the inmates, and even by the police, which is now in possession of the premises in order to discover the quantity and quality of the spirits. Every visible nook and corner of the house has been examined, including roof and cellars.
The walls have been hammered at, as it is thought, every inch of them; but as yet no sign of the authors of the joke have been discovered. One good result, however, has been obtained from the inspection. In one of the cellars, a mere dark hole, indeed, a poor wretched woman was found, lying naked on a heap of filth. From enquiry, it was learned that she had been shut up there for seven years! Naturally, she was reduced to an animal looking being instead of a human living creature, and yet the poor wretch had not entirely lost her senses; when she saw the police open her den, covering their noses as well as they could, she had still sufficient intelligence to cry: “At last! God has sent you to my relief!” And to think, she had found courage to wait and suffer seven years for that relief! To think that a human being could live seven years in that state. She had been kept in that den and filth by her brother and his wife, for the sake of a trifling annuity which she possessed. Had her brother killed her out and out, the annuity would have ceased; she was, consequently, allowed to breathe as long as she could on a dunghill, a dunghill even deprived of light an dair. How the frame resisted that pestilential inhalation for so many years is a mystery, as even the men, who discovered her, nearly fainted on opening the door.
Thanks, however to the spirits she was released. She was wrapped in sackcloth and carried to the nearest hospital. As to the spirits, however, they have not yet been found, though they continue to make themselves heard. We are curious to hear what form they will take when they are brought to light, if ever they assume a tangible form. Some think, they are coiners of false money – others, that they are prisoners laboring at making a subterranean issue for escape, as the house is not far from the Central Prisons – others again argue, that it may be the Tiber that causes the rumblings and shakings, as more than one house has already fallen since the Tiber works have begun.
The roots of old trees may also cause similar shakings and noises, but no one has yet thought of that possibility. In the meantime, the police is absolutely perplexed. Guards are placed before the door, and there is a daily inspection of the whole building, not forgetting the cellars, which are supposed to lead to an underground passage in communication with the prisons, as above-mentioned.
In any case, you must allow that a haunted-house in the year of Grace 1881 is a curiosity, and deserves a word of notice. I need not add that crowds of people are stationed in front of the house, in the hope of hearing and seeing something new. The lodgers are leaving the place en masse, so that soon the police will remain in sole possession of the premises.
American Register, 2nd April 1881.
A haunted house in Rome.
By Signor Bondi.
Great disturbances of an other-world character have occurred at a house in Rome; they were of such a nature that the police were called in, and all the newspapers in Rome have just been full of the subject for a fortnight. The haunted house is in Via Larga. On the first floor there is a newspaper printing office – that of La Frusta, a clerical journal. At the beginning of last month, in a little room at the top of the house, inhabited by two ladies, blows were heard, almost like the firing of guns, and the house shook as with an earthquake. Both the women were so surprised that they called in people living on the same flat, but nothing could be discovered. The blows continued in the presence of the fresh witnesses, and sounded as if coming from under the solid brick floor.
On the second day, at about five o’clock in the afternoon, the blows were renewed, but with more violence than on the previous occasion, so much so that a partition between two of the upper rooms was cracked to pieces. A highly respectable literary man in the room below, who had been disturbed by the noises, was appealed to, and he recommended that the police should be called in.
The police thoroughly searched not only the top of the house, but every part of it, including the cellars. They found nothing. Meanwhile the story went about Rome that the house was haunted; crowds assembled outside, and numerous visitors, including newspaper reporters, visited the room. The noises went on as loudly as ever in their presence, but no cause could be discovered. The women gave up the little haunted room, as they could not live in it any longer, and moved to another on the same flat.
The police, not knowing what to do, brought an engineer and an architect to examine the house. While one of them was ridiculing the idea of “spirits” the noises came again, and he and all present ran out of the room, fearing that the house would fall with the vibrations. They discovered one part of the wall of the room to be hollow; it was opened, and found to be part of a bricked-up chimney, but no clue was found to the origin of the noises. These usually began below the floor.
The floor was of solid brick, with no hollow space between it and the room beneath.
At a seance I had with a friend of mine, Signor T., the spirits recommended me to go to the house next day at ten o’clock, saying that it would be very difficult to get admission, but at that time spirit influence would aid me. Such crowds had been in th ehouse that by this time the police had given orders not to admit any one. Accordingly, at ten o’clock, I rang the bell of the haunted ‘flat,’ but received no answer. After waiting ten minutes, thinking about the spirit message, I heard footsteps on the stairs. Two gentlemen presented themselves, and rang the bell several times, till the door was opened, when one of the visitors announced himself to be an inspector of police, sent to make another examination. I followed them into the room, which they again searched without result, while they soundly ridiculed the idea of ‘spirits’. After they left, I explained to the women my belief in spiritual phenomena, and at last they gained sufficient confidence in me to listen to some talk about Spiritualism in the haunted room.
In the middle of the conversation blows from below made the floor vibrate, and one of the women ran out of the room. It occurred to me she might be the medium, and I begged her to return; but although she objected for the moment, she agreed to hold a seance the following day. Meanwhile the noises increased so much, that the police again occupied the haunted rooms and the apartments above and below. They remained there day and night, and the noises continued in their presence. The police, the architect, the engineer, and a score or so of scientific and clerical people, could not discover the cause of, or stop, the noises.
At last one of the Delegates of Public Security sent for the landlady, and charged her with knowing how the disturbances were made; it was high time, he told her, that they should be stopped. Curiously enough, she was the one who first gave information about them to the police. The woman complained to her husband about this treatment, and he brought an action against the Delegate for abuse of power; this action was pending when I left Rome a few days ago.
The Roman newspapers have been much exercised on the matter, and one of them, Il Bersagliere, admitted, in a very fair article, that all the scientific and other witnesses had failed to discover the source of the phenomena.
Spiritualist, 13th May 1881.