Window-Smashing Mystery.
Police and public puzzled at Copley.
Residents at Copley, a suburb of Halifax, are much perplexed over a mysterious smashing of windows. Since Christmas, almost daily, and in the daylight as well as in the darkness, the village inn and dwellings in the vicinity have suffered damage. The occupants, for a time, promptly had new panes of glass substituted for those demolished. Fresh damage, however, being experienced, they tired of their contest with their unknown competitor, and they are now blocking up the damaged windows with boards, pending some enlightenment being thrown on the mystery.
Stones, it is certain, are the means of destruction employed, for large ones have been found after the damage inside the buildings. The problem is as to where the missiles come from. Whilst the villagers have been keeping watch, and police officers have been assisting them in their vigil, stones have gone crash through the window panes without, as yet, any clue being discovered.
Some of them will have it that a ghost is playing pranks in their midst.
Leeds Mercury, 20th February 1907.
Window-Smashing Mania.
No light yet upon the Copley mystery.
There was a cessation of the mysterious stone-throwing at Copley, one of the Halifax suburbs, yesterday. Members of the borough police force, aided by villagers, were on watch, and they were immensely relieved when no repetition of the window-smashing was experienced.
That windows in one particular locality should, night after night, and day after day, be demolished whilst vigil was being kept, without any clue being obtained, had aroused a somewhat uncanny feeling.
This has not yet been dispelled, for yesterday’s immunity from attack may simply, it is feared, mean “the lull which precedes the storm.”
How to explain the mystery which, since Christmas, has perplexed the district, the villagers are entirely at a loss. One resident has been under suspicion, but he denies his ability to throw any light on the matter, and declares himself as anxious as anyone to unearth “the real offender.”
When discovered, if he ever is discovered, the culprit will fare badly at the hands of the villagers. They have the score against him, not only of the cost of repeatedly repaired window panes, but of a continuance of uncomfortable weeks, not to mention the inconvenience, in weather like the present, of having to endure patched-up windows. Calling in the glazier, for the time being, has been abandoned as a helpless contest with the unknown competitor, and there are few windows in the particular vicinity without stuffed rag or boarding to cover up damage done. What will happen if, as some of the villagers fear, some supernatural agency is at work, had better not be conjectured.
Leeds Mercury, 21st February 1907.
A Copley Scene.
The folks of Copley, a village on the outskirts of Halifax, are really beginning to wonder whether a ghost has settled in their midst, and if all that the local gossips say is accurate there is small blame to them for so mild and harmless a speculation.
The trouble began one afternoon soon after Christmas, when a window of the local Inn was smashed. Since then, the story goes, the inn and two adjoining houses have almost every day, at varying hours, been made the target for stones. At first the windows were replaced, but experience has taught both wisdom and economy, and now the practice is to substitute a board for the broken glass.
The missiles have been collected, and some of them are stones of a size that could hardly be hurled from a great distance. Still, despite careful watch and ward by police and others, no discovery of an offender has been made. On one occasion, indeed, a window was shattered under the very eyes of a policeman, but neither the stone nor the thrower was in sight.
The only cause for congratulation left to the villagers appears to be that these unpleasant attentions are confined to a very few houses. Yet if the mysterious proceedings continue much longer those on the watch for the source of the mischief must surely relinquish their efforts, and accept the supernatural explanation for the sake of their own credit as private detectives.
Brighouse News, 22nd February 1907.