A ghost at Broken Hill.
Bed dancing in mid air.
Strange knockings heard.
Questions answered by taps. Tenant tells the story. (From The Barrier Miner.)
As reported in the Last Edition of The Miner on Wednesday, the house occupied by Mr William Richard Roberts, in Gaffney-street, Railway Town, has become an object of much attention by residents of the city because of a story which has gained currency that frequent mysterious knockings have been heard by the inmates.
On Thursday a “Miner” reporter interviewed Mrs Roberts, wife of Mr W. R. Roberts, at her home. It is a four roomed wood-and-iron house, situated at 81 Gaffney-street, Railway Town. The story told by Mrs Roberts is a remarkable one, and more remarkable still is the belief of some members of the Roberts family that the knockings are caused by the spirits of one of the departed members of the family.
Although the knockings have been heard for the past three weeks, nothing has yet been found in or near the house which gives any clue as to the means by which the knockings are produced. There is nothing imaginative about the knockings at all. They have been so loud at times as to attract the attention of people who live many hundreds of yards away from Mr Roberts’s residence. Many theories have been advanced as to the cause of the knockings, but they are all said to have been tested, and still the knockings go on when the “spirit” is in the mood. When the reporter had explained that the object of his visit was to get a story from her concerning the mysterious happenings in the house, Mrs Roberts said:-
“I suppose you have heard, as I have heard outside, that there is something to be seen. Well, there is not anything which we could see that would give us a clue to the agency which is causing us so much annoyance. I will begin from the first we know of the mystery. About three weeks ago, on a Sunday night after I and my husband had gone to bed, one of my sons, who had just previously arrived home from the city, called out and asked me if I was walking about the house. I replied that I had been in bed since he came home. My son then said, ‘Well, there’s someone walking along the passage.’ My husband got out of bed and had a look round, but could see nothing. My son was ahead of him. Very suddenly there came a violent knocking from the back bedroom. We all entered the room, and the knocking continued, and gradually became louder.
My husband said that there must be an iguana or something of the sort inside the wall. He pulled the wood-work to pieces, but found nothing. He even went to the length of pulling down the whole of the wall where the knocking came from, but without finding anything that would explain the noise. My own opinion was that there was a battery of some kind concealed in the wall, but my husband could find no trace of any wires or anything one would expect to find if some electrical appliance was being used.”
One of the Miss Roberts here interjected:- “It is so funny. The knocking comes four nights running, and then goes away for four nights. It is lovely to talk to. It will answer by knocking any questions you like to put to it.”
“That is providing that the question you ask is one that can be answered by knocking,” said the reporter, and Miss Roberts replied: – “Well, you see, we only ask it questions that can be answered by knocks, such as the ages of persons, and such things.” Mrs Roberts continued the story: – “We have had all the boards down in the room, and can find nothing suggesting any solution of the mystery. Only one really startling thing has occurred during the time we have been annoyed by this knocking. One of my sons was on a stretcher in the room while the knocking was going on, and he was thrown off it three times. Then another dreadful thing happened last Sunday night. We were all in bed, and when it was nearly midnight we heard a terrible crash in the room where we had before heard all the knocking. My husband said, ‘That’s the side of the house knocked in’, and that is just what it sounded like. We ran into the room. We saw the bed on which my son had been sleeping dancing about in mid-air, and then by some unseen agency it was hurled to the other side of the room, a distance of about 12 ft. The bedding and blankets were underneath, and the bed was upside down. My son was not hurt, as he got off the bed before it was taken up in the air.”
Miss Roberts again interrupted to say: “When it first comes it makes a scratching noise, and then a gentle tapping begins to attract attention. If we do not take any notice of it, it appears to get very angry, and beats the wall terribly hard. We ask it all kinds of questions, and it answers them correctly. We have had total strangers to us in the house, and it has told them their ages and answered other questions that can be answered by knocking. It also answers ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ by giving two knocks for ‘No’ and three for ‘Yes’. It will tell anyone anything they want to know. It is lovely talking to it. If it is a trick, as the policeman who came says, then it is a very clever one. If they came here any night that the knocking is going on they will not find any wires.”
“Has anyone suggested that wires are being used to produce the knocking?” the reporter asked. “They have suggested all kinds of things,” replied Mrs Roberts, “but none of the things suggested have cleared up the mystery. It is a complete mystery to us, and a jolly annoying and distressing one. We cannot get any sleep at night for the knocking.”
“Have you any theory, Mrs Roberts?” ventured the reporter. “Yes I have, but I am not going to discuss it any more.” Then your theory is no ordinary one? – “Yes, it is a very ordinary one. There will be a warm time in store for the person or persons responsible. I think it is someone using a very strong battery and trying to frighten us. If they are trying to frighten me now they can knock on. I was very frightened as a girl, and I am not going to be frightened now. None of us are frightened of the knocking or the ghost that cannot be seen, if you like to call it such.”
“The only thing that worries me,” Mrs Roberts added, “Is that my baby boy, who was a fine boy, is getting so thin with the frights he is getting. The noise it makes is cruel, and even the neighbours are not able to sleep for it.”
Miss Roberts said:” People say it is rot, but it is not. It could not know all the things it knows, if it was not some extraordinarily wonderful thing. It knows everything about people who came here and were absolute strangers to us. If it is a human being I would like to meet him, as he must be a walking encyclopaedia.”
“Are you a believer in spiritualism, Mrs Roberts?” asked the reporter. “No, indeed I am not,” replied Mrs Roberts. “There is nothing on God’s earth that will make me believe in spirits coming back and all that rot. My husband says it is the spirit of my dead mother, and the girls think the same: but I am not having any of that. I am going to stick it out until I find out what it is. Some nights when the knocking is going on I go in and sing about the spirits of Heaven and all the rest of it, and “throw off” at the knocking. The knocks then get louder and louder, as if it is wild at me making fun of it. I am not frightened, and have not felt frightened at any time.”
When was the last you heard the knocking? – “It was dreadfully bad on Sunday night last, and we had another lot of knocking on Tuesday night.”
“Yes,” cut in MIss Roberts, “on Tuesday night Dad was asking it for the winners of the Onkaparinga races. It told him all the winners. It cannot talk, and instead of giving the names of the horses it knocked off the racing numbers of them. One morning it told us we were going to have six deaths in our family. That was at 6 o’clock in the morning and at 10 o’clock we got a wire telling us of one relative’s death. We have had three since it told us this. If it is a trick I will congratulate him on his cleverness.” Mrs Roberts continued: “We would have said nothing to the police only that so many people were wanting to come into the house at night. They became more annoying to us than the knocking. The noise is always in the same place. If we do not take any notice of it, it gets terribly wild and nearly knocks the wall down. When we sit down and talk to it, it becomes very quiet and the knocking is just like the knocking of a gentle hand.”
Miss Roberts continued: “I believe it is a spirit, so does father and another sister. If it is a trick I hope whoever is responsible is found out. I do not believe it is a trick, but a spirit.”
A neighbour said: “I have been in the house when the knocking has been going on. I was there when the boy is said to have fallen out of bed. The bed did not move on that occasion at all. The knocking is so loud that it keeps me awake. It can be heard hundreds of yards away. I was there the night that the policeman was in th ehouse. There was no knocking that night, and I do not expect there will be any knocking at all on each occasion the police visit the house.”
Murray Pioneer and Australian River Record, 25th April 1919.
Distress at Broken Hill.
There is no change in the situation at Broken Hill, where distress is beginning to make itself felt.
Daily Standard (Brisbane), 9th June 1919.