Ghosts Aboard a Ship.
Police watchers “struck with an invisible shovel.”
A startling ghost story comes from Genoa, says a Milan message.
A brigantine called the Speme, lying in the harbour there, reported that the ship had been invaded on Saturday night by a turbulent troop of infernal spirits, who forthwith proceeded to demolish everything that was breakable on board.
There were only two old men, over 60, and a boy of 12 sleeping on the vessel at the time. They were suddenly awakened, they say, by a fearful clatter of chains in the hold, and all the plates and basins began to perform an eccentric dance. Before the occupants were able to ascertain what was going on they were nearly smothered by an incoming cataract of coal.
Again, at night the ‘spirits’ were again in the ascendant. Signor de Negri, a Genoese shipbuilder, who owns the brigantine, sent post haste for the Carabinieri, but the military police had scarce begun their night watch, loaded revolvers in hand, when they were hit on the head with an invisible shovel.
Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser, 26th October 1912.
Another paper calls the ship the Apeme and adds: The report adds that the spirits prolonged their pranks today in the presence of many witnesses, smashing and overturning everything in the vessel from stem to stern. Strabane Chronicle, 23rd November 1912.