There is a ghost, and, what is more remakable, a noisy ghost, playing high jinks in a house in the Avenue de Saxe, at Lyons. It is not often that a rowdy specimen of the supernatural species exercises the vigilance of the suburban or city policeman. Ghosts, or rather ghosts of which we have heard, are generally of stealthy habits. They appear and disappear, leaving a glimmer of light behind them, and often not that; but they are seldom noisy. Queer noises have doubtless been heard in haunted houses before now, but not noises of the vehemence that are startling the neighbourhood of Lyons.
The very planks and windows of the haunted house in Lyons, we are told, “quake and shake,” even to the extent of being heard by the outside public who nightly throng the scene of the ghostly operations. Truly a most unconventional ghost is this disturber of the peace of Lyons. It does but resemble the ghostly tribe in one thing. It chooses the witching hour of night – when ghosts do walk and dogs do bay the moon – for his operations. However, the Lyons ghost, like most modern shades, promises to have a bad time of it. The sceptical policeman of the nineteenth century is after it, and as the noisy frequenter of the Avenue de Saxe ceased its weird operations while the inspector was on the spot, ’tis clear it shares the street urchin’s respect for an official uniform.
The Lyons ghost really might have indulged in day and not nocturnal pranks, and afforded the day policeman the rare opportunity of running a ghost in. It cannot plead that darkness was necessary for its work, or argue, as could a conventional ghost, that it could not make its presence known by day. The Lyons ghost does not show itself. It could surely rap just as well by day as by night. It is clearly a poor thing, this Lyons ghost, and will doubtless be quickly laid low.
Bristol Times and Mirror, 26th May 1890.
A Haunted House.
A house in the Avenue de Saxe at Lyons, says a Paris correspondent, is just now exercising the minds of the more superstitious section of the inhabitants to an extraordinary extent. Every evening large crowds take up a position in front of the building, which they contemplate with curiosity not unmingled with awe, and its tenants are leading anything but a happy life.
The house is acquiring rapidly a reputation for being haunted, or, as the people call it, “enchanted,” since at intervals the sounds of mysterious rappings and tappings – which at last grow so strong as to cause the very planks and windows to shake – penetrate even to the ears of the outside public. The police have overhauled the place, peeped into all the cupboards, tried the ceilings and walls, and put the furniture into a general state of confusion without arriving at any solution of the mystery, though there was some method in the antics of the “ghost,” who treated himself to a spell of rest while the inspector was on the spot.
Nothing daunted, however, the police are continuing their efforts actively, and as they are determined to detect the author of this grim joke it is probable that the worthy Lyonnais will soon be initiated into the mysteries of the maison enchantee.
Staffordshire Chronicle, 31st May 1890.
A correspondent of one of the London papers, writing from Paris, mentioned lately that the police in that city [sic] are at present trying to clear up a mystery which differs in kind from the ordinary mysteries of Paris. There is no Madame Rouget in question, no miraculous disappearances which baffle all explanation. It is not a matter of murder or of suicide; it is simply the loud and prolonged rappings in a haunted house that require elucidation. Apparently there is “no deception” as the conjurers say, about this ghostly manifestion. The noise is pro bono publico, and can be heard distinctly at the other side of the street.
As human nature is superstitious to the core, it is not to be wondered that large crowds collect nightly to gratify their curiosity and test th ematter by the sensible and true avouch of their own ears. The police, it seems, have not discovered any clue as to how these noises are produced, but it is a noticeable fact that when the officers of justice are in possession, quietness is restored; not a mouse stirs, nor is there any movement amongst the articles of household furniture. Perhaps, like the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, the spirit is offended, and hence he stalks away; or, if there are more spirits than one at work, possibly they have a wholesome dread of the police, and when they remember Mitchelstown sensibly abandon their antics and retire into thin air.
In this materialistic age no person who values a reputation for common sense alludes to the subject of ghosts, except as a matter for jest, or to prove the absurd credulity of human beings. Yet, in former times, such eminently sensible men as Milton and Dr Johnson took an opposite view. The great lexicographer firmly believed in the miraculous, and would probably have been extremely rude to anyone who questioned the faith that was in him. Milton’s sonnet, commencing – Methought I saw my late espoused wife Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave, is well known, and gives a clue to the poet’s opinions.
Even at the present day the sensible persons and the disbelievers may not be in the majority, for many people have a secret faith in table-rapping, mediums, second-sight, and such phenomena, though they prefer leaving matters of this kind alone, and scrupulously avoid speaking about them.
On one point, however, we may rest assured, when a spirit raps at a high pressure, and removes furniture as in the Paris case, it is no evil spirit but rather a benevolent one, desirous of confering a benefit on the caretaker by enabling him to solve the modern difficulty – How to live without paying rent.
Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 31st May 1890.