A Haunted House at the Thames.
For some days past (says the Thames Evening Star) rumours have reached us that certain very strange occurrences, or manifestations (as the Spiritists call them), have been going on during weeks and even months past, in a house on the Hape Creek. Of course we have a certain delicacy about mentioning the exact situation of the house in question, but, as it is probable that the whole affair will become a matter of public talk and comment in a short space of time now, delay in actual names and particulars cannot make much difference. This much we may say, however – that anyone visiting Greenaway’s battery will not be many minutes’ walk from the exact spot which the ghosts delight to honour.
The manner in which the ghosts, or spirits, or media, or whatever they may be, make their presence known, is of the most approved modern type. At the most unseasonable hours, particularly at night, they indulge in rappings of the loudest and most varied character. Cups and saucers are dislodged from shelf and flung violently about and across the room; the furniture – chairs and tables, above all – commit antics, and indulge in vagaries, threatening to dislocate their every joint. And even beds, in which people have been sleeping, or endeavouring to sleep, are hauled about without any apparent effort on the part of the hauler.
Efforts have not been wanting to discover the meaning of all this. Men have sat up at night with loaded pistols, but without attaining any definite or satisfactory results, though the knockings have been plainly heard by them on every side, and even in the short space which intervened between the places they were sitting in.
Daily Southern Cross, 12th September 1872.