An American Ghost Story.
The Cock-lane ghost has made its appearance at Amherst, Nova Scotia, to the excessive wonderment of the inhabitants, who could scarcely be expected to recognise their visitor offhand, and detect the staleness of its playful tricks. In Cock-lane the ghost was more than suspected of collusion with a servant-girl, and with a servant-girl it seems to be on terms of intimacy now.
At any rate, peace and quietness reigned, undisturbed by supernatural phenomena, in the dining-saloon of Mr John W White until Miss Esther Cox entered that establishment as a “help.” With her came the ghost, whose first exercise was to open the oven door and shut it again with a bang, in obvious contravention of all rules for good baking. Mr White naturally resented this, and endeavoured to coerce the refractory piece of iron by means of an extra fastening; but lo! the door flew off its hinges, and fell with a clatter at the feet of Miss Cox.
In the midst of the consternation thus caused, a gentleman described as “hitherto one of the most incredulous of Amherstians,” appeared, and, with Mr and Mrs White, formed a committee of investigation. The door was replaced, refastened, and closely watched; but the watchers failed utterly to discover the means whereby, for the second time, it broke loose.
Then rappings were heard on the floor, and questions answered. “Who are you anyway – the devil?” queried bold Mr Rogers, and three loud raps gave what was taken as an affirmative reply. “Are you after Miss Cox?” Again three raps answered. “Yes;” upon which the ‘incredulous’ Amherstian waxed bolder, and said, “You want me, too?” This time only one rap followed, and was understood to mean that the company of Mr Rogers was not required, at all events, just then.
Of course the fame of these mysterious doings soon spread, and we must say for the Ghost that it did not disappoint expectations. Mr White’s furniture began to move about in an alarming manner. Boxes and buckets shot across the floor untouched by human hands, and a chest of tea actually followed Miss Cox out of the shop, and might have gone further had it not got jammed.
Next the young lady’s pillows took to gambolling round her head instead of softly sustaining it, and two hats placed on the bed as she lay “rolled up in the quilts” performed a lively dance in presence of nine witnesses. At last the Ghost took to writing most improper things on the walls, doing so invariably in the dark, and when Miss Cox was by.
On one of these occasions a gentleman of an enquiring mind suddenly struck a match and exhibited Miss Cox acting as substitute for the disembodied scribe, whose stock of bad language had, perhaps, run out.
Since then Amherstian incredulity has largely increased, but the latest scientific phase of the matter shows up Miss Cox as an involuntary agent of the spirit which haunts her. Mr White, her master, supports this view, and declares his solemn belief that the girl is “chockfull of electricity.”
Huddersfield Chronicle, 11th January 1879.
Spiritual phenomena in Nova Scotia.
From time to time particulars have been sent to us from Nova Scotia about spiritual disturbances in a house there, differing in no way from the generality of such phenomena. But of late they would seem to have grown stronger, as set forth in the following summary from last Tuesday’s Evening Standard:-
“Few people in the present day remember anything about the Deil of Badarroch, although his doings were at one time the cause of no little talk. His operations were carried on at a farmhouse in the North of Scotland, and took the form of making crockery jump off the shelves, peats fly out of the stack at the unsuspecting passer by, and various other articles perform strange and unaccountable evolutions. Ministers were called in, and prayed long and loud with a view of exorcising the evil spirit which every one believed to be responsible for this unnatural state of affairs; but prayers availed nothing with the author of the mideeds, and even the ministers became targets for peats and other missiles. Wise men were called in to explain the phenomena, but their cause remains unexplained to the present day.
A similar state of things to that which was witnessed at Badarroch is exciting a whole country-side in Nova Scotia. In this case, a girl, Esther Cox by name, is the object of the evil spirit’s attentions – taking it for granted that the general belief on the subject may be accepted – and of course she has been interviewed. The reporter states that while Esther was standing washing dishes a glass tumbler came down with a crash, and shortly afterwards the rim bounced up and went flying over her head. Esther, it is said, could not have caused these acts, and no one else was in the room.
Other articles pitched themselves or were pitched at her from a distance of fifteen feet or so, and struck her .A bath brick and a scale of weights then commenced to misbehave themselves, and finally the crockery and furniture generally commenced to move about in a frantic manner, and to forget, apparently, their ordinary functions, or at any rate to object to perform them. The most serious part of the business, however, was the conduct of what is described as a vicious jack-knife, which, inspired with a sudden hatred of Esther, who had, perhaps, rubbed it the wrong way in cleaning it, twice attacked her and stabbed her in the back, drawing blood. Surely never was jack-knife before guilty of such atrocious behaviour, and the acts became none the less unaccountable when it is considered that before making these cowardly and unprovoked attacks it had to open itself.
The household gods generally, if we are to credit the newspaper reports of the affair, have been converted into household devils, and all this to annoy poor Esther Cox. When such deeds are done – when furniture is suddenly endued with life and motion, and a jack-knife develops vicious propensities, for which, unfortunately, the law as at present constituted proides no adequate punishement, the feats of Spiritualism become tame in comparison.”
Spiritualist, 13th June 1879