A dancing dish sensation.
Mysterious agency working havoc among the crockery ware.
Some odd manifestations.
(Philadelphia “Record.”)
A most curious state of affairs exists at present in the household of F.D. Worley at Gwynedd, Montgomery County. Mr Worley lives in a large frame house adjacent to the Gwynedd tunnel on the Bethlehem branch of the Reading Railroad. For several days past his china and crockery have been hopping around the house and mysteriously hurling themselves through the windows. The residents of the vicinity are in a great state of alarm and declare that the house is bewitched. The scene of the commotion is visited daily by crowds of people.
The phenomenon was first noticed on Friday last, when Mrs Worley found that about 50 out of 250 jars of preserves on a shelf in the cellar had fallen to the floor and broken. She naturally attributed this to the “working” of the preserves. She gathered up what jars had not been broken, intending to reheat them, but when they had been placed on the kitchen table several more tumbled over and fell to the floor. One of the jars burst in the hands of her daughter, who was literally covered with the contents, which were scattered in all directions with great force.
During the days following it was no unusual thing to see a pitcher tumble out from the cupboard on the floor, or a mantel vase topple over. Similar freaks on the part of earthen and glassware were constantly going on. On Wednesday last a most alarming situation existed and Mrs Worley was prostrated with fright. Every looking glass and picture frame in the house was broken as if pierced in the centre by some hard, blunt point. During the day the antics of the glassware took a most violent form. Several members of the family were in the yard when a salt-cellar which had been placed on the side-board suddenly bounded through the air, and then flew through the window, making a round hole in the pane like that of a cannon-ball. The salt-cellar was found at the extreme end of the yard, a distance of about 100 feet.
This episode was followed by a freak of the mustard pot, which bounded from the table and shot through another window into the yard. The soup tureen, a large and heavy piece of earthenware, is said to have acted in pretty much the same way. It was thrown into the air and broken, and one of the fragments passed through the window into the yard. In its peculiar flight every article made its egress by a different window.
Among the visitors on Wednesday night was William Boyer, a neighbour, who after a teacup had fallen once from a table replaced it only to see it fall again and break into many fragments. A messenger in the employ of Reading Railroad also visited the house and observed a glass dish which he placed on the table fall to the floor. Two sons of Mr Worley while playing with a catsup bottle, laid it on the floor in the rear part of the house. It fell over, and one of the lads replaced it on its bottom. When they next looked for it they found it broken and the fragments lying against the wall some distance away.
Yesterday the annoyance had somewhat subsided, the only unruly piece of household furniture being a lamp globe which fell from the bracket in the wall on the second floor. Mr Worley has had all his crockery moved into the yard, and comparative quiet has been restored. The house contained a great deal of this fragile ware, but at present not a single set of dishes remains complete.
Hamilton Daily Times, 4th October 1886.