Spooks who throw bricks.
The advent of “spooks” in St. Helens has made things lively there. The ghostly ones made their presence felt by mysterious stone-throwing. Folks near Kirkland-street have seen half-bricks, potatoes, cinders, and other things fly about in a most remarkable, indeed, striking manner. Detectives and police-constables have been unable to explain the mystery; and one officer, searching a back entry, had his helmet knocked off by half a brick.
Rhos Herald, 6th May 1905.
Stone-throwing “ghost” who defies the search of police.
St Helens, like several other towns at the present time, has a “haunted” locality, and the “unearthly visitation” takes the form of mysterious stone-throwing, which has defied the efforts of the police and others to satisfactorily solve. The stone-throwing has occurred nightly for about a week past, and crowds have assembled in the district, where the at present unaccountable occurrences have excited and alarmed the residents.
Kirkland-street – a somewhat populous neighbourhood – is the centre of the unwonted disturbance. The throwing of missiles, which have included stones, bricks, and potatoes, breaks out after darkness has set in, and special constables, who have been on duty about the place, have failed to locate their starting point.
One constable had his helmet knocked off by one of the missiles, and other persons have had equally narrow escapes of injury. The police and other reasonable beings are convinced that the “ghost” is not a spiritual visitant, but that someone in the flesh is playing a well-planned trick upon the neighbours, and, if the police can only lay hands upon him, he will be made to pay dearly for his ‘larks’.
Bournemouth Daily Echo, 6th May 1905.