A Haunted House.
The Greenock correspondent of the North British Mail says, “It will scarcely be credited, but it is not the less true, that a rumour is afloat that a garret house in a comparatively new tenement in Back walks [Eastern end of Regent Street] or Regent street is haunted; and woman and children with long elongated faces, tell the most incredulous stories about the supernatural cantrips which have been played off in the house in question.
The occupant is said to be the wife of a seaman who is alleged to have been first disturbed by certain mysterious moanings and the sounds of furniture being moved about in her house. One night she is said to have seen a tall, ill clad man, with rough, dirty boots, glide past her affrighted vision, between her and the moonlight, which shone in by the window, followed immediately by a second spectral figure, having the appearance of a gentleman.
Chairs and tables are said to have been found in the morning warped about in the most mysterious way by a rope used for hanging clothes on. A seafaring neighbour, on hearing that the chairs were habituated to moving about at solemn midnight, is said to have offered his services to put the quietus upon this unaccountable dance of furniture by tying up the chairs with the aforesaid rope, and in such a fashion, too, that no ghost but a nautical ghost could unfasten the same. This was done, and lo! the following morning found the knots, but not the mystery unravelled.
The poor woman has actually been frightened, both out of her composure and her house, going at night to sleep with a friend in another part of the town, leaving the ghosts in undisturbed possession of the house. We fear that some one must be playing tricks in the locality in question, and if so, it is a pity but steps were taken to have the real ghost or ghosts brought before the police magistrate.
Armagh Guardian, 8th October 1858.