Haunted House in Cathays.
Councillor Henry White Theorises and urges scientific investigation.
“Evening Express” special.
Verily, there are more mysteries in this world than are dreamt of in our philosophy. This is a fact which, I believe, some other person has previously remarked. Admitting that it is so in the natural order, how much more is it in the supernatural? The impregnable rock of Holy Scripture sanctions everything that is mysterious and uncanny. The veneration of relics! What about the healing properties of the “bones of Elisha”? Holy places and wells always have been – in Biblical times and in these – and so with miracles, as they happened in the old time, it is, to use Newman’s phrase, “antecedently probable” that they may happen again.
By the same reasoning – since the spiritual manifestations were quite common in Scriptural times – what is to hinder their appearance now? In other words, if we have had the ghosts we may have them again; and, by the same token, who can say otherwise? Ghosts were never popular – jests and gibes have ever been hurled at their devoted heads by an irreverent and unbelieving world.
This unusual line of thought was suggested by an important communication made to an “Evening Express” man by a Cardiff county councillor who has an open mind, if not an inclination, to believe in things he has not seen with his own eyes, provided always that the witnesses are witnesses of truth, that the evidence is above suspicion, and that the phenomenon deposed to has the quality of verisimilitude. “And who is the county councillor?” Not Alderman R. Cory, the believing; not Mr A. Good, the mystic; but (mirabile dictu!) Mr Henry White, the logical, clear-headed lawyer, the Shakespearean scholar, the acute thinker, exact in all his ways, who never makes an error in speech or a flaw in grammatical construction.
Mr Henry White solemnly buttonholed our representative upon a matter which had “long been upon his mind,” and said he would like to have a word upon the “aforesaid” matter. The time was convenient, the place of interview handy – Mr White’s sanctum in St Mary-street. With solemn mien the councillor pointed to a chair, and, speaking in his best legal style and in a weird tone of voice that sat upon him well, he said: –
“I own several cottages in Merthyr-street, Cathays, two of which are now vacant, viz., Nos. 15 and 17. On Saturday last a young girl named Stephens came to me and said her father was desirous of taking a house. I proceeded to make the usual inquiries as to the prospective tenant, and I elicited the fact that her father is now engaged with Messrs Valentine Trayes and Co., timber merchants, of Cardiff. I asked Miss Stephens where her parents resided, and she named another house in the immediate neighbourhood. She further informed me that her parents had only resided in the house as from the preceding Monday, which rather astonished me, and I then asked the very pertinent question as to why her parents desired so quickly to remove to another house. She gave an astounding answer -that the house in question was haunted. I was naturally astonished.
I asked her to inform me as to the character of the supernatural manifestations, to which she replied that they consisted of a series of knocks, which were heard in the wall dividing the front bedroom from the second bedroom, and the aforesaid knocks followed immediately after her parents had retired to rest. She further said that they first heard a series of knocks, followed by a single knock. I suggested that if the house were haunted, it was evidently by the spirit of some deceased person, who desired to at once set up a code of signals, in order to communicate with the outer world. I then suggested to Miss Stephens that the neighbours on either side might possibly have been playing a joke, but that she indignantly repudiated, saying that the neighbours in both houses had been questioned, and they positively stated that they had not been the cause of the noises referred to.
She repeated that the knocks were loud and distinct, and that they could not be accounted for by any natural means. I further asked her if she had made any inquiries as to the antecedents of the persons living in the house in question, and she said her parents had been informed that at one time a woman who lived in the house either poisoned herself or some other person. I suggested that in the circumstances the matter should certainly be further investigated, but she seemed to have a horror of pursuing the subject, and added that her parents were anxious to quit the house as soon as possible. Hence her application. I told Miss Stephens that if her father would bring me, as a matter of business, a reference from his present employers I should be very pleased to further entertain his application for the house. I should add, in conclusion, that Miss Stephens appeared to be a girl of from eighteen to twenty; that she is very intelligent, and that she certainly seemed to be impressed with the truth of her representations to me.”
Mr White delievered himself of the above solemnly and impressively, as if on oath, in the form of the statute in that case made and provided. He then enlarged upon the theme, just as a Spiritualist might do. “Look here, ” he said, “when you have the evidence of men of high culture like Serjeant Cox and others who affirm belief in spiritual manifestation it requires a somewhat courageous man to say they are absolutely wrong to demonstration. Take the case of the witch of Endor, who called up Samuel for Saul?”
“But can these things be done now, councillor? I mean, is it possible to raise spirits now – in Cardiff, say?” Mr White, speaking now in a more confidential tone, said there was a book called the “Medium,” and a lot of other volumes, giving all information about the matter, and his idea as a preliminary step was that each of a party of friends associated with a common object should take one of these books and thoroughly digest its contents and make notes upon it. Then a conference should be held, notes compared, and views interchanged, and, finally, it should be detemrined to pursue a course of systematic investigation, the whole thing to be followed up, if possible, to some real conclusion. The movement, of course, should be set on foot with the mutual compact or declaration that the whole of the investigations be thoroughly honest, conscientious, and honourable.
“The mayor’s parlour would be a nice place to meet in?” suggested the “Express” man, whose thoughts were running on material spirits. The councillor thawed and smiled, and it was the only time he had shown any visible signs of hilarity during the interview. He rejoined: “I fear that, although it is highly probable one may come into contact with spirits there, their original form and condition would undergo such a transformation as not to warrant one in pursuing the investigation – the authority not being wholly trustworthy.”
A visit to the haunted house confirmed all that Mr White had said. The manifestations are heard only at the stroke of twelve (midnight). The present tenants have been in the house a fortnight, those before them a month, and the people before that only a week. They all heard the noises. The ghost has never been seen. Had the story been concocted it would have been seen many times. But the noises are there still, and, whatever the cause, the phenomenon opens up a field of inquiry for the Psychological Society.
The witnesses are trustworthy; the evidence is above reproach; such manifestations, with our knowledge of the past, are antecedently probable; and, if a man may not believe in ghosts because he has not seen them, upon what ground can be blamed for refusing to accept a lot of other things which also he has not seen?
Evening Express, August 1st 1900.