A Playful Spook.
Not being able to support its terrestrial fame, a modest ghost whose weird pranks have created a big sensation in the neighbourhood of Islington, Liverpool, mysteriously vanished. Probably its conscience prompted its ethereal departure, for, besides bringing terror into the hearts of four girls who innocently went to reside under the same roof as itself, it kept the whole neighbourhood in a state of excitement, became responsible for the partial wreckage of what is now a deserted house, and got an unfortunate if violent psychological inquirer seven days’ imprisonment.
The spook evidently made its arrival a few days after the girls, three of whom are sisters named Moran, left their mother’s house and took up their residence at No. 99 Field-street, off Carver-street, Islington, about three weeks ago. The house is situated in the middle of a row of tall three-storied dwellings, each of whom has only one room through except on the ground floor, where there is a back scullery. Winding stairs lead from one floor to another.
The quartette left their habitation each morning at six o’clock to go to work in the neighbourhood, returning to dinner and to tea. Two days after taking the house they were greatly perplexed on returning home at midday to find a large mirror which had been left on the wall in one of the bedrooms lying face downwards on the kitchen floor. It was replaced, but at noon next day the girls trembled to see the looking-glass again hiding its face on the hearthrug.
Then other familiar objects in the house became possessed with evil spirits. When the door was opened some unseen influence closed it, sometimes slowly, sometimes with an elastic-like spring, frightening the girls terribly.
The ghost began to manifest itself in nocturnal visitations. Dreadful rumblings kept them awake through long dismal nights. At such times shadows flitted over the ceiling, and the girls hid their white faces under the blanket.
Two of the girls were sitting at the door engaged in reading just over a week ago when the apparition presented itself to one of them. The next-door neighbour, a working man, declares that not a pedestrian was within a hundred yards of the house, but the girls sprang out of the doorway with alarmed faces, shrieking, “The Ghost!” One of the girls declared that the phantom had passed in front of her.
Another of the girls states that she was scrubbing the stairs when a flat-iron, sans handle, which was first placed in the kitchen fire-grate, came tumbling inexplicably upon her from above. It was followed by the shuffling of feet.
A neighbour who came to the rescue was convinced that she saw the table spinning on one of its legs, and nothing could dispel her conviction that it was the cake-walk sprite.
At last the terrorised quartet removed their goods and chattels at midnight and went to live with a relative. Thousands of people came nightly to see the haunted house. Stones were hurled through the windows with the presumable object of making it uncomfortable for the ghost, until every one of the thirty-six panes in Field-street was smashed, but it is not believed yet that the ghost has been laid.
Uttoxeter Advertiser and Ashbourne Times, 5th October 1904.