Mischievous Ghost.
The inhabitants of Baythorpe-lane, near Chesterfield, and its vicinity, have during the last week, been almost frightened “out of their seven senses,” by what they declared to be supernatural doings. Horrible were the tales related, and most extraordinary the freaks of the ghost; it sometimes amused itself by entering houses by an invisible aperture in the shape of a brickbat, and after having performed various convolutions quietly retired via the chimney; at others it descended by the same sooty pathway in the guise of a large stone, and precipitated itself through the floor, leaving no apparent opening; and on another occasion it infused itself into the paving-stones of the floor of one of the cottages, which suddenly raised themselves half way to the ceiling, as if determined to be trodden under foot no longer, then, changing their determination, they seemed to forswear ambition, and, rapidly descending, quietly resettled themselves in their former stations; the ill-bred sprite w as also charged with having discourteously saluted several chance passengers in the lane with a shower of missiles, and it seemed a point settled, that human means could have nothing to do with such extraordinary events.
Various wise people forthwith looked sage, and exclaimed that all these portents bespoke “an alarming crisis” being at hand. At length, to the utter destruction of the wonderful and the mysterious, a woman, living in the lane, was seen to come to her own door and throw a brickbat, accompanying the act with a horrid scream. She was apprehended and taken before the magistrates at the Town-hall, yesterday fortnight, and was convicted in a fine of 7s. and costs for throwing stones at passengers on the highway. – Derbyshire Courier.
Hull Packet, 16th November 1830.