Remarkable Credulity
A Horwich joiner and builder, named Christopher Riley, died a fortnight ago from blood-poisoning caused by inhalation of foul sewer gases, and since the burial it is freely stated that his house is haunted.
The housewife declares positively that the spirit of the dead man has repeatedly appeared, and she called in the Rev. E. Oldfield to lay the ghost.
The woman’s story was corroborated by an old man of 65, who has heard sounds of falling crockery and heavy tools at all hours of the night.
A big, strapping bricksetter was so startled that he refused to sleep in the house a second night for a pension.
Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 19th May 1888.