A Ghost Story has caused considerable excitement at a village a short distance from here during the past few days. For a long period, some of the servants living at a farm-house have declared that they have heard strange noises in various rooms, but the jolly yeoman who occupies the place has laughed at ghosts and hobgoblins as things beneath his notice. The noises, however, increased to such an extent on Sunday that the domestics determined to call their employer out of church, which they accordingly did, much to his annoyance. One of the men declared that “the knocking and the thumping, the rumbling and shaking war zich as he niver heard on ‘afore,” and added that he would not continue to live in the house if the owner would give it to him. The incredulity of the farmer, however, was not to be shaken, and he declared that “Twas nothing but a Thorney earthquake;” whilst the yokels shook their shaggy heads and talked all sorts of twaddle about hidden wealth, unrevealed crimes, and ill-gotten gains. Schiller, the great German poet, says, “The Kingdom of the Ghosts is soon opened up,” and probably this new mystery will be solved ere long, by the revelations of some mischief maker who has been trying to find amusement by preying upon the weakness of those who are ignorant enough to believe in any absurdity.
Western Gazette, 15th May 1868.
District Intelligence.
Muchelney.
Ghostly Manifestations.
A ghost story has cropped up not a hundred miles from this village, which has set the country folk talking of undiscovered murders, unquiet spirits, concealed treasure, and other supernatural occurrences, as is their wont when anything that cannot be easily accounted for occurs. Mysterious noises have been heard for some time in a farm-house in the locality, and the domestics have been not a little frightened.
On Sunday last, the ghostly manifestations were more portentous than ever, and the worthy farmer, much to his annoyance, was called out of church. He, however, was proof against the belief in the supernatural, and laughed at the fears of the other inmates. Despite this disbelief, the noises continued – “The knocking and rumbling were dreadful, the walls shook, and the bells rang.”
The housekeeper is reported to have fainted several times. A neighbouring farmer who came in “turned quite pale,” and it made another’s “hair stand on end.”
We are assured by credible witnesses that the mysterious sounds continue, without any apparent cause. Perhaps the worthy yeoman, not being a “medium” of the Home stamp, would do well in having his house inspected by a competent judge of buildings and a watch set upon the movements of persons having access to his premises. A jury of twelve “good men and true” would not be a bad idea.
Langport and Somerton Herald, 16th May 1868.
Ghosts and Hobgoblins do not appear to have been entirely got rid of. At any rate, some invisible power has been at work again during the past week at a farm house in the parish of Muchelney, near this town. The matter was referred to several weeks ago, since which time there has been a lull. During the past few days, however, the “spiritual manifestations” have been very strong and frequent, and scores of persons have been attracted to the house and premises where the strange noises and queer doings have taken place. At least a dozen reports of the affair has reached us; some of which contain such startling statements that we can scarcely venture to publish them without making enquiries. One correspondent compares the noises heard to a volley of musketry and hard blows with a sledgehammer on a block of wood. Another says the doors have been opened and closed, and have moved to and fro frequently and rapidly, without any visible agency, whilst the windows have rattled violently, and at times the walls of the house appeared to shake. Other statements are to the effect that the inmates of the house have felt their beds shake and have had bolsters and pillows removed from under their heads; that the furniture has been moved about in various directions; and that the occupier of the house has given notice of his intention to leave it at once. Sundry suggestions have been thrown out as to the cause of all this hubbub; and an enquiry into the matter is talked of. It is possible that the mere suggestion of such a course will frighten the spirits away; should it do so, the public will not fail to draw a tolerably correct inference as to the cause of the disturbance.
Western Gazette, 12th June 1868.
Muchelney.
The Haunted House.
The Thorney ghost story has again cropped up. All kinds of reports are in circulation, some of them of the most exaggerated nature, and the affair has worked up the latent superstition in the minds of many of the inhabitants to a great pitch of excitement. Indeed, the most surprising part of the circumstance is, the amount of credulity in supernatural agency evinced, not only by the simple and uneducated rustics, but by persons in whom, from their education and position in life, it might reasonably be presumed superstition could not have existed.
We hear related, with ominous shakings of the head and fear stricken countenances, tales of a mysterious booming sound all over the house, as of the fall of a monster sledge hammer on a hollow body, the shaking of walls, the ringing of bells, the smashing of china, and the persevering refusal of the lid of a large furnace to remain in its proper position, the said cover showing a decided preference for bouncing off and cutting fantastic capers on the floor, all without any visible agency.
Others assert that the master and inmates of the house are shaken about and have their pillows pulled from under their heads during the night, and that the owner of the property has been communicated with by the tenant. Many other reports, “too numerous to mention,” are in circulation, and the “haunted farm house” has, for the past few days, becaome the centre of attraction to drovers of people from Langport and the surrounding villages, the crowd in front of the house being so great on more than one occasion as to necessitate the presence of the police.
This must be more annoying to the worthy farmer than the mysterious noises which are without doubt occasionally heard in his house, and which, if they are not the result of a trick, may be attributed to some singularity in the structure or the soil upon which it is erected, combined with atmospheric action. If the presence of the police has no deterrent influence, perhaps a careful examination by a scientific man would not fail to “scare away the ghost.”
Langport and Somerton Herald, 13th June 1868.
Langport. The Muchelney Affair.
We have received a long letter from “Enquirer” on this subject, but in consequence of the lateness of its arrival and the pressure upon our space, we are unable to find room for it this week. It shall appear in our next issue. Several other communications on the same subject shall also have attention. The noises have been heard again during the past few days.
Western Gazette, 19th June 1868.
Langport. Mysterious Occurrence.
“Spiritual manifestations,” equalling anything recorded in Dale Owen’s “Footfalls on the boundary of another world,” have taken place at a farm-house about two miles from Langport during the past week, if reports are true. Correspondents assert that the house is undoubtedly haunted; indeed, it appears from their statements that the invisible powers have everything their own way, for it is said that even the walls shake at times, while the doors and windows are opened and closed again very frequently in a most forcible manner. Beds shake so violently as to cause the inmates of the house to get up in the middle of the night; pillows and bolsters are taken from beneath the drowsy occupants of the said beds; noises, ranging from the report of many muskets to the distant boom of a field-piece, are heard in different parts of the house, and in short, the inmates have been horrified almost to death’s door. Those who don’t believe in ghosts, hobgoblins, or things being supernatural, will probably laugh at all this; but, however extraordinary it may appear, scores of persons attest the accuracy of the statements made above. At present the case is shrouded in mystery, notwithstanding sundry suggestions made by way of explanation. A large number of persons from Langport and from the neighbourhood have visited the house to hear the noises and to see the strange pranks. Most of them avow, without the slightest hesitation, that no human agency could do what they have heard and escape detection. Here is a grand field for Professor Home, Mr Howitt, and Emma Hardinge, and many others leaders of the spiritual tribe. If there be really anything true in the doctrines which they preach, they may make converts by the hundred in this neighbourhood, for scores of persons have become favourably disposed towards them in consequence of what has lately taken place at Muchelney.
West Somerset Free Press, 20th June 1868.
LANGPORT. The Muchelney “Manifestations” have ceased during the past week.
To the Editor.
Sir, – Presuming that you, in common with all right-minded persons, desire to elicit truth, will you allow me, through your paper, to throw out a suggestion or two which I think may help to make plain what, to most persons in this neighbourhood, has appeared very mysterious, and which has, by not a few, been set down as supernatural? I allude to the noises and motions which have taken place in a farm house in the parish of Muchelney.
When first I heard of them it was only from indefinite, flying rumours; and, knowing that exaggeration is very prevalent in most cases of rumour, especially when the marvellous is concerned, I took little notice, treating it as fancy, or, at most a trick. But when, about a week since, rumour’ s tongue wagged faster than ever, I took the first opportunity to make enquiry from reliable sources. I then found that the noises and motions were such as, to me, appeared easily explainable as electrical phenomena, and in no other way.
To this conclusion I was instantly led by the nature of the phenomena; and other circumstances, brought to my memory, at once confirmed me in the opinion, and accounted for the apparent anomaly that these phenomena should only have been noticed now. In the first place, the noises heard and described to me, I instantly recognised as electric raps, such as are heard when the electric spark is emitted; in other words, when it passes from the positive (or highly charged,) to the negative object. In fact, the sounds may be called miniature thunder; and I doubt not that, had it been dark, or the state of the individuals present such as to enable them to observe closely they would have seen the spark. Again, all the objects set in motion were metallic. I do not know the house, but I am told it is an old one; and we know that, in the fabric of old houses, oak is frequently found in large quantities, as is also iron, for the sake of durability and strength – qualities much more attended to in the buildings of former days than now. As to its being only just at this time and place that these manifestations have happened, I will give you a few hints that I think will help to clear up this apparent mystery.
In January last, this neighbourhood was sensibly affected by a violent motion of the earth, accompanied by a loud rumbling noise which led many to suppose that an explosion had taken place of great magnitude; and they feared that the Fenians had destroyed one of our arsenals. So violent was the motion, that doors were thrown open, the ware from the wash-stands in more than one bedroom was thrown down, clocks were stopped, and bells set ringing; and every person who felt or heard of it anxiously enquired what could be the cause. In the course of the day anintelligent man, by trade a mason, came into my house, and, speaking of the occurrence of the preceding night, said he felt satisfied it was an earthquake; adding, that underneath that part of Curry Rivel where the shock was most sensibly felt was a vein of very hard stone – he thought it was iron-stone – which no tool would penetrate, and that, in sinking a well, if they came upon it, they were obliged to leave the spot and go to another, as it was impossible to get through it. He said also that the vein ran south, and south-east from Curry Rivel, and he doubted not that it ran on and was connected with Italy. These remarks made me anxious to get tidings from Italy, as we conceived the shock arose from some extraordinary disturbance of Vesuvius. Accordingly the first telegram brought the intelligence that an immense eruption of Vesuvius had taken place, an old crater that had been quiescent for seventy -five years having re-opened, precisely at the time the shock was felt here.
Now this vein of what I believe to be magnetic ore passes in the direction of and (I think) under the farm house that has been visited with such unusual noises and motions. Thus, Sir, I believe there is a connection between the activity of Vesuvius at the present time and the electrical manifestations at this house, which stands on the brow of the dip where the rock goes down into Thorney moor, and at which place, I have no doubt, the magnetic ore is thrown up nearer the surface, thus offering special attraction to the electric current.
Since I have mentioned my opinion as to the cause of the phenomena in this house I have been told that in the hamlet of Thorney, where the house stands, are many trees which have been damaged by lightning in former years, thus shewing that there exists some attractive force in that locality.
I believe the unusually hot weather, which we have had of late, is due to the influence of the comet now known to be near the earth, these things combining to produce unusual electrical activity, hence the phenomena which have caused so much wonder and (to many) dismay. I have written this hoping that some scientific investigation may take place. We know that this comet was first known to be approaching our system by the disturbing influence that was evident to astronomers, and could not be accounted for on any other hypothesis. I think, therefore, it is not too much to assume that the unusual combination of Volcanic action and cometary influence, in conjunction with the magnetic ore, point to electricity as the cause of the phenomena at Thorney.
I am, Sir, your obedient Servant, ENQUIRER.
Western Gazette, 26th June 1868.
Langport.
The Muchelney ghost story has not yet entirely lost its hold here. The spirits have been comparatively quiet during the past few days, but there have been several manifestations. Sundry theories have been started to account for the strange sights and sounds which have been seen and heard in the old farmhouse, one of which attributes them to peculiarities of the structure and of the soil upon which it is built, aided by atmospheric influences. Another theory is that electricity is the moving force.
Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiseer, 1st July 1868.
Langport. The Muchelney “Manifestations.”
Several communications on this subject must stand over at present. The noises have been heard again during the past week.
Western Gazette, 3rd July 1868.
The Muchelney “Manifestations.”
To the Editor.
Sir, – I read in last week’s Western Gazette and Flying Post a singular document, being no less than an elaborately written article upon the haunted house at Muchelney. The writer signs himself “Enquirer,” evidently a misnomer, since his “mission” is unquestionably to enlighten the world. Feeling very much interested in the “theory” expounded, I write to put a few questions for my own information and guidance, having heard, like others, of the wonderful doings at the old farm house; and I may just add, by way of encouragement, that I am truly glad to see the question taken up by one who has evidently had a scientific training.
The various causes assigned by “Enquirer” as the agents combining to produce the movements and sounds in question are these: – (1) Electricity, the agent immediately producing the sounds, or “miniature thunder;” (2) a vein of magnetic ore, connecting the farm house at Muchelney with Mount Vesuvius in Italy; (3) the oak and iron contained in the building; (4) the approaching comet, paying particular attention, in consequence of these combinations, to the old farm house. Here we have some gigantic wonders, nothing less than a comet and a burning mountain playing, at great distances – from the far off ether and across the seas – upon the pots, pans, and kettles of a farm house in pleasant Somerset. I do not for a moment dispute the theory, nor do I give it credence, because I want facts upon which to build.
For instance, I have never studied the effect of cometary influence upon scullery utensils, although I am aware that the earth before now has passed through the tail of a comet without its inhabitants – the denizens of the earth, I mean – knowing anything about it at the time. It may or it may not make the weather hotter than usual, depending upon circumstances; but if heat has anything to do with it, how, in the name of wonder, do the people succeed in getting a saucepan to stay on the fire. If it be a different kind of heat that is required, pray what are the different kinds of heat and their characteristics?
Then a few details – for I confess my ignorance – would be useful in reference to the magnetic ore. How does it act when constituting a portion of the crust of the earth? Does it form a conductor, like our electric wires, right through the globe? Has the matter ever been tested? But, assuming that Muchelney and Vesuvius are really neighbours, is the latter an electric battery, and, if so, would discharges of electricity from that battery, along the assumed vein, through the earth, from Italy to England, cause such terrible earthquakes at Muchelney as those described? If not, what did it? Was there an earthquake all the way? But what, let me ask, about the connecting link? Does the vein of magnetic ore, as it is termed, really extend from Vesuvius to Muchelney, and pop up under the old farm house, with its mysterious oak timbers? “Enquirer” says he thinks so; some mason, fond of being original, said he had no doubt; but these vague generalities are not scientific facts – facts based upon strict investigation and experiment.
As for the telegram from Italy, which is said to have acted as a clincher to the mason’s supposition, an eruption of Vesuvius and a simultaneous shock of earthquake in the Muchelney district, which happened to be much more general than “Enquirer” supposes, does not prove that the phenomena witnessed at the old farm house are the products of the causes assigned.
Yours truly,
INVESTIGATOR.
June 30th, 1868.
To the Editor.
Sir, – Fortunately for the “ignoramuses” of this district, the “Thorney Ghost” story has met with an expositor. The “philosopher” of the Langport Herald has spoken, and the matter must now rest. Listen, ye credulous ones, in whose minds “latent superstition” has risen to a “great pitch of excitement,” ye “simple and uneducated rustics,” ye educated and respectable of society, who ought to know better (fie, fie) – listen to the voice of wisdom! Thus saith the local oracle – “If they,” the mysterious motions and sounds – the boomings, hammerings, smashings, pullings, knockings – “are not the result of a trick” – what then? why – “they may be attributed to some singularity in the structure of the soil upon which it (the house) is erected, combined with atmospheric action.” This decision, dear simple rustics, and men of education and position, is final. Never mind though you do not understand it; the dictum must be swallowed meekly, esle you will be called “superstitious” and “credulous,” two terrible bugbears!
You must not enquire, for instance – unless you wish to be sneered at – as to the possible existence of supernatural agency – that is, the agency of unseen intelligence. Very fortunately, the “Langport Philosopher” is able to take a telescopic view of Nature’s domain, and to examine microscopically, at the same time, all her secret springs; and by means of this knowledge (let us put no irreverent questions) he tells us, in effect, that supernatural agency, as explained, never has, and never can, evince itself through phenomena; in other words, that it does not exist (the entire Bible notwithstanding). Therefore, as a matter of necessity, it does not exist. It is of no consequence that the conclusion contains the precise terms, without addition, of the major proposition. We have here simply an illustration of the time-honoured reason “It isn’t.” Why? “Because it isn’t.” That, in the present instance, ought to put an end to all dispute.
But we are not asked for implicit faith upon a mere negation. We have a positive cause assigned, although, to be sure, faith must also here come into play, for, as the “oracle” very well knows, men of education, not to speak of simple-minded rustics, are entirely ignorant of that “singularity in the structure or the soil” which, when combined with “atmospheric action,” can excite a whole neighbourhood to wonder, and work up “latent superstition” in the manner described.
Agricultural chemistry, which deals with singularities of soil, fails, equally with other branches of science, to point out the singularity in question; and, scientific clodhoppers having neglected their duty, we are compelled to cast ourselves at the feet of this modern Gamaliel, exclaiming: – Lead us, O sage, within the Mystic Temple; show us Nature’s multitudinous laws, which are understood to be unalterable, like those of the Medes and Persians; teach us their every operation; and point out their impingement – upon the supernatural? nay – upon nothing; for thou alone knowest!
Thus may we become enlightened, and be enabled to throw off simple rusticism, credulity, and superstition – which, if I may mention another singularity, seems to be latent in the mind. By “superstition” is evidently meant, “belief in the supernatural.” That belief, according to our sage, is latent, hidden away with our other intuitions. Who placed it there, I wonder? And if there (vide the “Langport Philosopher”), and if an intuition, as would appear to be the case from the fact that there has been a “stirring” of this “latent” element in all ages and nations, being wide-spread in the race, – does this intuition exist without its correlative object? If belief and (allow me to say) testimony goes hand in hand pointing to supernatural agency as an incontrovertible fact, must we after all come to the conclusion that the object indicated is a myth, a no-entity? The “Langport Philosopher” says we must; therefore, I suppose, we must.
It is only “poor human reason” that rebels; and by-and-bye, perhaps, we shall become humble, and believe what we are taught without asking questions. We should be only rebelling against the new light were we to turn round and say: Sage, do you repudiate that book of hoary antiquity from which, taking away the supernatural, you annihilate the substance and the life? If not, then why denounce supernatural agency as if it were impossible, and those who believe in it as credulous and superstitious? If not impossible per se, then why not in any given case – without saying so many stupid things – simply show that the facts under notice do not come under the category of the supernatural? In my way of thinking, this would be a straight-forward course; but philosophers, we know, are not like other men.
Never mind, ye country bumpkins, ye clodhoppers, ye simple, uneducated rustics – nay, ye educated but credulous men; light is breaking all around and the day is at hand. Already it shines in refulgent splendour over Langport, and it is simply for you to open your eyes and behold it. Blessed light! and the “Langport Philosopher” is its herald. He comes forth to educate the masses, and is clothed, like all truly great ones, with humility. Listen; he suggests a problem: “If the police has no deterrent influence, perhaps a careful examination by a scientific man would not fail to ‘scare away the ghost.'” Modest creature! Who so scientific as himself, and, therefore, who better able than he to investigate the matter and bring out something wonderful! Let us hope that examination will in future precede decision; and that we may not have a second illustration of the conduct, proverbialised, of “the wise man and the fool.”
Yours, &c.,
RUSTICUS.
June 24th, 1868.
Western Gazette, 10th July 1868.
The Muchelney Manifestations.
To the Editor
Sir, I have read with considerable amusement a letter signed “Enquirer,” that appeared in your last issue, respecting the phenomena or “manifestations” which have recently been witnessed at the quiet little village of Muchelney, near Langport, in Somersetshire. The nom de plume is evidently a misnomer, for, instead of enquiring, your correspondent cooly assumes and asserts, and that, too, in the most absurd and unreasonable style. The long epistle may be reduced to the following, which I humbly suggest would more nearly convery the meaning of the writer, and be rather more pithy:-
There have been some unusual noises and peculiar appearances at Muchelney lately. The ignoramuses of this neighbourhood are terrified, and seem to fancy that there is some Glendower about who can “call spirits from the vasty deep,” or, still worse, that someone has followed the example of Dr Faustus and sold himself to – Mephistopheles, so as to enable him the more readily to get possession of his fair enamorata. But I, who soar aloft on wings of philosophic thought, know all about these things. List, eh ye who are ignorant of the sciences. ‘Tis as plain as a pickestaff. I have a mission, like Mrs Jellaby, of “Bleak House,” but I am not going abroad to educate the savages while you who live so near my doors are still in darkness – mental, moral, and spiritual. Know, then, oh dullards, there is a large electric battery in the centre of this little globe which we inhabit, and there are certain portions of the earth’s crust which are better conductors of electricity than others, ironstone amongst the number. A bed of this stone, which is connected with the great battery, crops up under the haunted house and this has caused the crocks and pots to leap about, the funace cover to jump off, the timber to crack and creak, &c., by bringing more than the proper quantity of electricity into the house. The force which is generated in the bowels of the earth must find vent somewhere. The heat has recently come out at Vesuvius, and now the electricity is being discharged at Muchelney. Then, again, you must know that there is a comet about somewhere, and comets do strange things. Some folks say they cause wars, plagues, murders, and all sorts of evil. But, to be brief, here is the grand climax – “I think, therefore, it is not too much to assume that the unusual combination of volcanic action and cometary influence, in conjunction with magnetic ore, point to electricity as the cause of the phenomena at Thorney.”
What a hodge-podge! The witches’ mixture in the cave scene of Macbeth is quite simple in comparison. The logic of the letter is about as sound as that which, some years ago, afforded my shcoolfellows and myself so much fun, when, in a juvenile discussion class, we used to prove, to our entire satisfaction, that a horse chesnut was a chesnut horse, or that a fish pie was a pigeon pie, by some such irrefutable reasoning as this – “A fish pie may be a Jack pie, a Jack pie is a John pie, and a John pie is a pie John.” It is very easy to say a thing may be and then to argue as though it really was; but it is another matter to prove an assertion. However, the oracle has spoken. Let no irreverent word be uttered. All this looks very well, and may have passed unchallenged had it been uttered to a small circle of country bumpkins, but to send such nonsense to a paper with a large circulation is most unpardonable presumption. Just look at your letter again, oh modern Galileo.
Have you taken the trouble to verify your statements? Do you really know all that you would have us believe? Are you so well acquainted with electricity, geology, and astronomy as to be able to explain to us poor benighted beings thus briefly that which has puzzled us so long, and thus to solve problems which even the giant minds of our Faradays and Tyndalls have left unanswered? To be explicit. Does ironstone really crop up at Muchelney, and, even if it does, is it connected with Vesuvius or with the central fires? If so, is electricity generated there? Bah!
Those who know most of the sciences can answer these questions best; but even I, sir, unskilled in science though I am, have no hesitation is saying that “Enquirer’s” theory is simply absurd, and that his assumptions are without the slightest foundation. I know enough of the geology of Somerset to say that ironstone does not crop up at Muchelney or Curry Rivel, both of which places are on the lias. Some portions of this system certainly do produce iron, but the nearest approach to it in the neighbourhood of Muchelney is the marlstone which underlies the upper lias at Burrow. The balderdash about the connection with Vesuvius is too nonsensical to require a reply. The youngest schoolboy who has taken his first course of lessons in geology, or merely looked for a few minutes at one of the preliminary diagrams used to illustrate the order of the rocks, may well laugh at it.
If the phenomena could be accounted for as “Enquirer” assumes, how is it that similar disturbances have not taken place in the great ironstone districts of the north, and how is it that hundreds of similar cases could be mentioned without one of the causes referred to being within the range of probability? The tattle about trees which have been struck by lightning is worthless. If a storm happened to burst at Muchelney, of course the high trees there would suffer, but have trees been struck there when those in the immediate neighbourhood have been scatheless. The comet too, has had a hand in this affair. Well, it is just as likely as the other assumptions.
The letter is sheer nonsense, and affords another illustration of Pope’s line “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” I am not a spiritualist, nor can I for an instant countenance the humbug which has been passed off as “spiritual manifestations.” But I venture to call “Enquirer’s” attention to a couple of lines from Shakespeare, the lesson inculcated being one that I have long since learnt, and one that I fancy may be worthy of his attention, to wit:
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
I am, Sir,
Yours respectfully, TRUTHSEEKER.
June 29, 1868.
Western Gazette, 17th July 1868.
A “Haunted House” in Somersetshire.
The haunted house at Muchelney is one of those extraordinary cases which puzzle the scientific, furnish food to the superstitious, and excite the sneers of the supercilious and would-be-knowing. The farmhouse, an old substantial one, stands alone at the entrance to the village of Muchelney, about three miles from Langport. Its only occupants are Mr. Traves, his housekeeper, and a young servant girl. Soon after Christmas last a slight shock of an earthquake, as supposed, was felt in the neighbourhood, and since then the farmhouse has been the scene from time to time of the noises and “manifestations” before described in these columns. The most common form is noise resembling at first the running of fingers over a hollow partition, or as if passing rapidly upstairs, and always ending abruptly with a kind of discharge, as loud as that of a rifle, but with no reverberation whatever – merely a dead thud – often followed successively kept up at intervals for days together, and then becoming silent for weeks. For some time the tin cover of a copper in the kitchen was wont to be thrown violently off upon the floor, and the bells about the house to be set ringing. But these are at present quiet, and the newest manifestation is in one of the passages, where a clock stands, with a table near, against the wall, and over it some bridle bits hung upon nails. About a fortnight since, during Mr. Traves’s absence in the hayfield, the housekeeper and servants were terribly alarmed by the table being suddenly turned violently upside down, and the bits thrown off the nails upon which they were hung. The females immediately summoned Mr. Traves, who came in, and expressing his determination to judge for himself, took a seat near the table and watched. He had not been seated five minutes ere the table was again suddenly dragged, as it were, along the floor, and dashed down. We plainly saw the breakage which resulted, and heard the story from Mr. Traves’ own mouth. It was only one of several stories of an equally startling nature. The mysterious part is that the walls are entirely unshaken and the floors undisturbed.
—Pulman’s Weekly News.
Wolverhampton Chronicle and Staffordshire Advertiser, 29th July 1868.
In our third page will be found a full account of a visit which we have paid to the scene of the Muchelney disturbances, and we commend the narrative to the careful attention of every student of natural philosophy who, while uninfluenced by superstition, is not tied to any rigid theory as to what is possible and what is impossible. – We intended to have given, this week, the first of a series of articles descriptive of a visit to Paris, but our remarks on the Muchelney phenomena occupy so much space, that we are compelled to defer its publication until next Friday.
The Muchelney Disturbances.
Our readers will remember that, during the last two or three months, our paper has contained, almost weekly, accounts of some mysterious disturbances that have taken place, at irregular intervals, at the house of Mr. Travis, a farmer at Thorney, a small hamlet situated between Muchelney and Kingsbury Episcopi, about two and half miles from the town of Langport. The eye and ear witnesses to these strange manifestations were so numerous, intelligent, and respectable, that we found it difficult, even in our most sceptical moments, either to disbelieve their statements, or to regard them as the victims of an elaborate hoax. Thinking, however, that, on so extraordinary a subject, the evidence of our own senses would be more satisfactory than the statements of any number of witnesses, we sought permission to investigate the affair for ourselves.
This was promptly and courteously granted, and, at seven o’clock last Friday evening, we, in the company of three friends, arrived at “the haunted house,” as the scene of the strange phenomena in question is familiarly called. Mr Travis – a jolly, comfortable-looking yeoman, apparently of the modern school – met us on the lawn and gave us a hearty greeting. As we crossed the threshold,and were in the very act of asking whether anything had been seen or heard lately, we were startled by a series of three or four sharp, vigorous raps. The sound, proceeding apparently from the middle of the house, was like that which would be produced by striking a hard table very rapidly with a small hammer. Our surprise at this singular greeting having been duly expressed, our host descrieed to us the phenomena that had immediately preceded our arrival.
He said that, a short time previously, he, and a relative of his – a gentleman from the neighbourhood of Glastonbury, were on the farm premises at a considerable distance from the house, when they heard what they thought was a vehicle approaching rapidly. Thinking it might be a trap containing our party, which they were then expecting, they hurried back to the house, and found that the noise they had heard was caused by the violent shaking, by some invisible agency, of the door which opens out of the kitchen into the passage. Soon after these motions had ceased, the house bells began to ring gently, and the ringing was succeeded by knockings similar to those which greeted us as, a few minutes afterwards, we entered the house.
Mr Travis’s household consists of himself, his housekeeper (Mrs. Hawker), Miss Travis (a relative), and a maid servant. These were all present on Friday evening, as well as Mr. Kiddle – the gentleman to whom we have before referred. The arrangements of the ground-floor apartments are as follow: – The front door opens into a wide passage, having a large sitting-room on the right, and a smaller one on the left, of a person entering. Immediately opposite the door of the larger room, the passage turns sharp to the left, and terminates at the kitchen door. The total distance from the front-door, round the right-angle formed by the passage, to the kitchen door, is probably not much more than eight or nine yards. Another door opens out of the kitchen into a back court, which, in its turn, communicates with the farm premises.
One of our party was a believer in spiritualism; and as he thought that, if the disturbances were due to spiritual agency, a sitting, or seance, might be the means of obtaining some explanation of them, we formed a circle and impatiently awaited the result. That proved to be nothing. No sign of such movements as we have seen in other tables under similar circumstances was observed, and we presently gave up the sitting in despair. Our spiritualist friend attributed this failure to the fact that there was no “medium” among the sitters.
For an hour or more after our arrival, we listened in vain for more knockings; but, soon after eight o’clock, we heard a number of raps proceeding apparently from the kitchen. We at once ran into that room and found the servant there. She said the noise had proceeded from the direction of a deal table which was standing opposite the back door. As the girl was in the kitchen alone at this time, it would have been easy for her to produce the sounds we heard; and, if nothing more had ever been seen or heard than such knockings, under similar circumstances, we confess we should be strongly disposed to suspect the girl of being at the bottom of the affair. But, after what we saw later in the evening, and what has been described to us by Mr. Travis and a number of other reliable witnesses, we find it impossible to accept this explanation of the mystery.
We had not left the kitchen long when we heard, from the same direction, a noise as of a heavy table being dragged over a stone floor. Again we ran into the kitchen, and found that one end of the deal table before-mentioned had been moved about a foot from the wall. The housekeeper was in the act of stepping out of the back door, and, on seeing us running into the kitchen, she said – “Oh! it is nothing this time. I believe I must have dragged the table with my dress, for it moved as I passed the corner.” The servant, who was at the other end of the kitchen, declared, however, that her mistress was mistaken. She was certain, she said, that her dress did not touch the table, as she was looking in that direction when the lady walked towards the door. She asserted, moreover, and in this statement she was supported by the other inmates of the house, that the table had several times before moved away from the wall in the same manner.
Not feeling quite satisfied, we requested Mrs. Hawker to pass the table again, dragging her dress against the corner as roughly as she could. This she did repeatedly, but found it impossible to move the table, which contained two heavy drawers, without actually lifting it with her hand, or pressing her side firmly against it. As both Mrs. Hawker and the girl were certainly present when the table moved, our sceptical readers will, of course, credit them with a trick. The strangest part of the evening’s business, however, was yet to come.
We were standing at the front-door, chatting about what we had seen (all the inmates of the house, except the servant, being either with us or in the larger sitting-room) when we heard a great noise in the kitchen, as of something heavy being thrown violently upon the ground. Within three seconds the whole of our party were at the kitchen back-door, looking in amazement upon the table to which we have before referred. It was lying across the door-way upside down, with its legs sticking bolt upright in the air. We were fairly on the spot when the servant, who had been into the barton, and had, she said, heard the noise while there, made her appearance at the opposite side of the court, running towards the door. We placed the table in its normal position, and made a careful examination of the locality, without discovering anything in the slightest degree suspicious.
One more piece of furniture-tumbling completed the evening’s performance. On one side of the passage, and within two or three feet of the kitchen door, there stood a mahogany table, perhaps three feet long and two feet wide. Mr. Travis had described to us, early in the evening, a number of extraordinary gymnastic feats which this piece of furniture had performed at different times. Indeed, it bore the marks of very violent usage. The top was split from end to end, and pieces of veneer were missing in various places along the edges. At nine o’clock, several of Mr. Travis’s labourers were in the kitchen, taking their supper. The passage door was wide open, so that they could see the table, and the clock which stood near it. At the opposite end of the passage, the door of the large sitting-room, in which several persons were talking, was also wide open. The distance from one door to the other cannot greatly exceed 15 feet. One of our party had just left for Langport, and the rest of us were at the front door with Mr. Travis, preparing to leave, when we were startled by a noise very much like, but far louder than, that which accompanied the falling of the kitchen table. This time, moreover, it was accompanied by a shrill scream. We were within four or five paces of the spot from which these sounds proceeded (the inner passage), and were there in a twinkling.
The mahogany table, in two or three pieces, was lying close to, indeed almost within, the kitchen doorway, in full sight of the men who were at supper. The servant, pale and breathless, with her hand pressed upon her side, was lying back upon the stairs, which leads out of the passage opposite the clock, and is therefore within a few inches of a straight line with the entrance passage in which we were standing when the crash occurred. We picked up the pieces of the table and propped them up against the side of the passage as well as we could, and then made inquiries. One of the men, who sat opposite the passage door, said he saw the table rear up at one end before being dashed violently on the floor; and the girl said that, as she was passing, either the table, or one of the pieces of it, struck her on the side, and threw her into the staircase in the position in which we had found her. If her fright was assumed, all we can say is – that she is an inimitable actor. We noticed that, when passing the remains of the table some time afterwards, she unconsciously put out her hand towards it, as if to protect herself from another surprise.
This grand smash of the mahogany table was the last act of the evening up to ten o’clock, when we left.
It may not be amiss to recapitulate the various manifestations which occurred while we were present, and to see which of them (if any) might have been caused by trickery. They were as follow:-
1.- The knocking on our arrival. – As we were not fairly in the house when this occurred, and have no idea whence the sound came and where the inmates were at the time, we may pass this over.
2. – The knocking in the neighbourhood of the kitchen table. – In this case, the servant was alone in the kitchen, and certainly may have caused the noise.
3. – The movement of the kitchen table. – This occurred when both Mrs. Hawker and the girl were present, and may have been the result of either accident or design, though we cannot see how it could have resulted from the former.
4. – The overturning of the kitchen table. – This was the only occurrence at which nobody was present. It was, we believe, utterly impossible that the girl could have cuased the upset with her hands, and then escaped to the spot at which we first saw her, before our arrival. If she did play any trick, moreover, she played it, in this case, at the imminent risk of detection, for the table was visible from the farm premises on one side, and (through a window) from the inner passage on the other, and some of our party or of the other inmates were in the passage well nigh every minute.
5. – The overturning and smashing of the passage table. – Here the girl was present, but it is inconceivable that she should have ventured on such an act of violence as the destruction of a table in a place where she was overlooked from both ends of the passage. We doubt, moreover, whether, by the exertion of her utmost strength, she could have caused so much noise and destruction. The effect of this last smash was, indeed, to render one of our party exceedingly nervous, and to cause him to declare to Mr. Travis that he would not sleep int he house a single night for £1000.
We do not assert that it would be utterly impossible for a skilled conjurer to produce by mechanical means all the effects we have described. Were ours the only evidence bearing on the case, we do not know that we should greatly blame our readers for remaining sceptical. It is only when the accumulated evidence of Mr. Travis and his household, and of scores of other responsible witnesses, is viewed together, that the impossibility of accounting for all the phenomena by the hoax theory becomes apparent. We will give, as briefly as we can, an account of what has been seen and heard by others, and we may add that the versions of the different witnesses are perfectly consistent with each other.
The disturbances commenced in Easter week, and have continued at irregular intervals ever since. Sometimes nothing is heard for several days, and in one instance, we believe, Mr. Travis had a fortnight’s peace. But any long interval of quiet seems to be always dearly bought, for the agents that produce the rows appear to return like “giants refreshed,” and to make up, by greater activity than ever, for their loss of time. During the first week or two, Mr. Travis heard none of the knockings himself. They were heard in the daytime, during his absence from home; and when his housekeeper and servant complained to him, on his return in the evening, of the disturbances to which they had been subjected, he laughed at them, believing them to be the victims of some hoax or delusion. At last, he heard the noises himself, and was soon satisfied that there was neither delusion nor hoax in the case.
The noises are not confined to any particular part of the house, but appear to proceed, at different times, from every corner of every room, upstairs and down. It is not always easy to tell where they do proceed from, for they appear to possess the peculiarities of a ventriloquist’s voice. If the hearer runs to the spot from which he fancies the sound proceeds, he not unfrequently finds, unless it has ceased in the meantime, that he appears to have changed places with it. Another peculiarity about the sounds is, that the dogs take little or no notice of them. Mr. Travis has dogs which, he says, rouse the whole family with their barking if they hear the slightest footstep in or near the house by night. But they have seldom indicated that they even so much as hear the very loudest of the knockings, whether by night or by day.
The knockings vary as much in loudness as in locality. At one time, they are like a regular, gentle knocking, travelling round and round the room; at another time, they can be compared only to the beating of the floors with mallets or to a volley of musketry. On some occasions, the noises have been terrific. The people of the village have heard them as they sat in their own homes, and have turned out and surrounded the house, listening to the unearthly row for hours together. The number of excited persons who have thus assembled has sometimes been so great that the presence of the police has been rendered necessary. One day, Mr. Travis cleared the house and locked the doors, stationing a policeman at the back, and watching the front himself. To use Mr. Travis’s own words, fifty men with mallets could not have caused the awful row which was heard while the house was thus watched, for the loudest knockings appeared to proceed from every part of the house almost simultaneously.
But, as was proved during our visit, the manifestations are not confined to noises. The metal cover of the furnace in the kitchen has been several times thrown off and dashed violently against the floor. A number of bits which were hanging over the mahogany table whose end we witnessed were once thrown off their nails and scattered about the passage; and the table itself was, in Mr. Travis’s presence, violently overturned, just as it was during our visit. At three o’clock one morning, Mr. Travis was awoke by knockings of the ordinary kind upon the wall of his bedroom. They gradually increased in force, and terminated with a tremendous blow which dashed open the door. Except in the case of the tables, no damage appears to have been done amid the most violent of the manifestations. After a period of unusually high jinks, a little fine white dust, such as might be supposed to have fallen from a whitewashed wall or ceiling, has been noticed in some of the rooms; and, in one case, a number of flat irons were so nearly shaken off a shelf in the kitchen that it was thought desirable to remove them.
Many persons will, no doubt, wonder that anybody can be found to live amid such infernal revelry. The truth is – one soon gets accustomed even to such disturbances as these. Mr. Travis and his family are evidently conscious that they run no risk of serious bodily injury, and they have come to look upon the phenomena as simple nuisances. The females confess, indeed, that they feel somewhat nervous when, after a few days’ cessation, the noises begin again suddenly; but they plead guilt to no other emotion. The men employed on the farm appear to be on very easy terms with the unknown agencies, and, on the recommencement of the noises after an interval of silence, they are heard to remark – “There’s the old un again”! or words to that effect. Their appetites were evidently unaffected by the destruction of the table on Friday night. Their anxiety appears to be confined to any possible bad effects that my be produced on the cider. Mr. Travis says that one of them told him he didn’t care if “they” (the spirits, or whoever else the agents may be,) would only leave the casks alone, and not pull out the corks.
So much for the facts. By this time, our readers are, no doubt, anxious to hear on what theory we account for them, and will, perhaps, be disappointed to hear that we have formed no theory at all. Such, however, is the case. We should like some scientific man to observe the phenomena for himself, and then tell us, if he can, how they are to be accounted for. Unfortunately, we have few really scientific men. We have plenty of so-called philosophers, who construct their theories first, and then endeavour to make the facts fit into them, instead of carefully ascertaining the facts first, and deducing a theory from them afterwards. Of course, a great philosopher cannot be expected to investigate a “trumpery ghost story” or a “silly haunted-house tale.” He knows that it is impossible for a table to move without hands, and it would, therefore, be only a waste of his valuable time to inquire whether a table has ever done so or not. This, we fear, is the view which too many of our all-knowing savans will take of the Muchelney business. But is such a view truly philosophical? Do we know everything yet? Are there no natural laws or forces yet to be discovered? – no exceptions, or apparent exceptions, to the operation of known laws to be determined? And, unless our knowledge of Nature and her marvellous doings is perfect, by what right do we set bounds to the possible, and pooh-pooh everything which appears to our weak vision to transgress those limits? Is it not equally true of the physical creation as it is of the moral world that
“Tis but a part we see, and not the whole”?
In view of the marvellous discoveries of late years, a cautious man will be very chary about using the word “impossible.” A great French astronomer once said that no true philosopher would ever use it except with reference to the exact sciences. We may safely assert that it is impossible that one and one can ever make three, or that the three angles of a triangle can ever make more or less than two right-angles; but, once clear of mathematics, we can never be safe in using the word “impossible.” We borrow an illustration.
Christopher Columbus has just returned to Europe from the long and perilous voyage which has revealed a New World to the wondering nations of the Eastern Hemisphere. As he lands from the crazy cock-boat which he dignifies by the name of “ship,” and looks back upon the weary waste of waters whose billows have had him for a plaything during so many long months, a seer, looking forward across three centuries and a half of progress, steps up to him, and tells him that, ina far-off future, ships, unaided by sails and in defiance of winds and tides, will regularly cross the great ocean on which he has been so long afloat in nine or ten days, and with all the certainty and punctuality with which a short land journey may be performed on a good road. Still more marvellous! The prophet assures him that, at a rather later period, one man shall stand on the western shore of Europe and another on the eastern shore of the New World, and that these two shall converse with each other across the mighty gulf of storm and fog as intelligibly and almost as rapidly as if they stood face to face. What says the discoverer of America to these bold predictions? He exclaims – “Impossible! The man is mad. Seize him”!
And would not Columbus have been perfectly justified in regarding such a prediction as an evidence of insanity? His knowledge of the forces and laws of nature was extremely limited, and anything that appeared to him contrary to the teachings of his little experience would necessarily be declared impossible. There is less excuse for us if we, reasoning from our own more extended, but still imperfect, experience, declare anything to be beyond the bounds of possibility. A generation that sees two men on opposite sides of the globe conversing with each other by means of a ubiquitous agent that is known only by its effects, can surely believe in almost anything except the incorrectness of the multiplication table.
In Mr. Dale Owen’s remarkable work entitled Footfalls on the Boundaries of Another World will be found accounts of a number of cases similar to that which we have described. It is impossible to explain these away except on the theory that, in each instance, a number of persons of intelligence and respectability combined to palm off upon the world a silly fiction. One of the cases mentioned is that of John Wesley’s father’s house, which, if we are to believe John Wesley, his brother and sister, and other equally reliable witnesses, was, for several weeks, the scene of disturbances very similar to those at Muchelney. If we understand Dale Owen, the object of his work is to trace these and similar phenomena to spiritual causes. We do not wish it to be understood, because we have mentioned his book, that we necessarily accept his theory. As we before said, we have no well-defined theory on the subject; but we are convinced that there is no trickery in this case, that the phenomena are due to causes of which Science has, as yet, taught us nothing, and that we should act in an unphilosophical spirit if we rejected the evidence of our own and others’ senses because of its apparent inconsistency with the little which we happen to know of Nature’s laws.
Western Gazette, 31st July 1868.
Pulman’s News of yesterday says: – The mysterious “manifestations” in the farm house occupied by Mr Traves, at Muchelney, to which we have so often directed the attention of our readers, have during the past week been strongly marked, and that, too, in the presence of numerous intelligent people who have carefully but vainly endeavoured to elucidate the mystery. The unanimous testimony is that, whatever the cause, there are no grounds whatever for the suspicion of trickery and collusion. Mr Traves himself, we would stake our reputation, is too respectable and too honourable a man to be a party to any trickery. The two ladies, his relatives, are totally above anything of the kind. The servant, an intelligent-looking girl, is often not in the house when the mysterious noises are heard and the furniture is knocked about. Moreover, these things happen in broad daylight – rarely by night – and often in the presence of several people who could not fail to detect collusion, and whose testimony is in all cases exactly similar. We feel most thoroughly convinced of the good faith of the entire household, and should not once refer to it but for the satisfaction of those distant readers who, being personally strangers, perhaps not unnaturally are suspicious of the bona fide nature of the marvellous things about which they have read.
In our article of July 21st, we described the phenomena most generally manifested – the knockings upon the walls, the hammerings as if upon floors or tables – the flinging off of the cover of the furnace – the violent overturning of tables, and so forth. A few days ago, as we stated last week, a table in the passage was upset, and some bridle bits were shot off from the pegs upon which they were hung. Since then the same table has been again upset and broken to pieces – in open day and in the presence of several persons, one of whom was a writer in a contemporary who had previously witnessed, and thus describes, the strange affair in the kitchen:-
“We had not left the kitchen long when we heard, from the same direction, a noise as of a heavy table being dragged over a stone floor. Again we ran into the kitchen, and found that one end of the deal table before mentioned had been moved about a foot from the wall. The housekeeper was in the act of stepping out of the back door, and, on seeing us running into the kitchen, she said – ‘Oh! it is nothing this time. I believe I must have dragged the table with my dress, for it moved as I passed the corner.’ The servant, who was at the other end of the kitchen, declared however, that her mistress was mistaken. She was certain, she said, that her dress did not touch the table, as she was looking in that direction when the lady walked towards the door. She asserted, moreover, and in this statement she was supported by the other inmates of the house, that the table had several times before moved away from the wall in the same manner. Not feeling quite satisfied, we requested Mrs. Hawler to pass the table again, dragging her dress against the corner as roughly as she could. This she did repeatedly, but found it impossible to move the table, which contained two heavy drawers, without actually lifting it up with her hand, or pressing her side firmly against it. As both Mrs Hawker and the girl were certainly present when the table moved, our sceptical readers will, of course, credit them with a trick.
The strangest part of the evening’s business, however, was yet to come. We were standing at the front door, chatting about what we had seen (all the inmates of the house, except the servant, being either with us or in the larger sitting room) wehn we heard a great noise in the kitchen, as of something heavy been thrown violently upon the ground. Within three seconds the whole of our party were at the kitchen back door, looking in amazement upon the table to which we have before referred. It was lying across the doorway upside down, with its legs sticking bolt upright in the air. We were fairly on the spot when the servant, who had been in the barton, and had, she said, heard the noise while there, made her appearance at the opposite side of the court, running towards the door. We placed the table in its normal position, and made a careful examination of the locality, without discovering anything in the slightest degree suspicious.”
At our third visit to the farm on Thursday last we saw the broken table and heard from Mr Traves a similar version to the foregoing, along with something else, to be related presently. Unfortunately, we have not ourselves heard the agency – whatever it may be – in full work, but we most fully rely, after careful inquiry, upon the truthfulness of those who relate their own experiences. The writer just referred to, more lucky than ourselves, and evidently not a man to be imposed upon, goes on to say:-
“The knockings vary as much in loudness as in locality. At one time they are like a regular, gentle knocking, travelling round and round the room. At another time, they can be compared only to the beating of the floors with mallets or to a volley of musketry. On some occasions the noises have been terrific. The people of the village have heard them as they sat in their own homes, and have turned out and surrounded the house, listening to the unearthly row for hours together. The number of excited persons who have thus assembled has sometimes been so great that the presence of the police has been rendered necessary. One day Mr Traves cleared the house and locked the doors, stationing a policeman at the back and watching the front himself. To use Mr Trave’s own words, fifty me with mallets could not have caused the awful row which was heard while the house was thus watched, for the loudest knockings appeared to proceed from every part of the house almost simultaneously.”
We have been told the same thing by fifty people. A strange feature in the affair is the character of the noises. They produce no reverberation, as actual hammering would, and do not visibly shake the walls in the least – not so much as to fracture the plaster, although, sometimes, minute scales of whitewash are picked up about the floors. Mr Traves one day tried the experiment of firing a gun at the doorway, and the report reverberated through every room and passage producing a totally different effect from that of the mysterious noises which would appear to be the echoes of some primary percussions.
It was, we believe Mr Traves said, on Tuesday evening when a new phenomenon was observed in the dining-room – a large room at the end of the entrance passage where the passage to the kitchen shoots off at right angles – the clock standing against the wall just within that angle, and by its side the table before referred to as having been broken in pieces. Miss Hawker, while sitting in the dining-room, suddenly felt herself pushed, as it were, out of her chair. She jumped up, and the chair fell completely over. She had felt this once before, some weeks ago, but considered that it might have been caused by some movement of her own. This time, however, she was convinced that such could not be the case, for in a few seconds one of the empty arm chairs suddenly performed a similar somersault. The servant was then in the kitchen. This is the “something else” to which we referred above – for chairs, hitherto, have not been affected at all in an equal degree to tables.
Bristol Daily Post, 5th August 1868.
The Muchelney Disturbances. To the Editor.
Sir, I was glad to see in your last impression that you had taken in had that all absorbing, but mysterious affair at Muchelney; but I could have wished that you had spoken manfully when unable to find from any known laws the course of such manifestations; that you had boldy stated that the manifestations were the result of a law with which man was unable to grapple, viz., the law of “spirit and matter.” I was glad to see that you made honourable mention of “Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World,” the world of spirits. There is a spirit world, and we must deny ourselves if we attempt for one moment to repudiate the thought. The Christian world dare not do so; every child of God knows full well that it is a power apart from himself by which he is enabled to worship God in spirit and in truth. We are said to return to God in gratitude, prayer, and praise that which we recieve of grace, daily, at his hand.
The two subjects are to me equally simple, but mysterious; the one being operative alike in matter as the other – the one evil, the other good. How these are brought to bear upon matter I do not preseume to attempt to explain. We see its manifestation as well when the plaster from a wall is torn from its hold and flung to the winds, as when we see a poor illiterate man, who knows not letters, become learned! I have seen these manifestations in their vaired aspects on man for evil as well as for good. We may not be able to explain this, although we are bound to admit it; and when we do so we say, such a one is a good man, but the other is evil.
We here bend to our sense of vision, and why not when we see tables and chairs hurled about the room; the one is as much a mystery as the other. They are facts which no one dare deny. The sceptic may sneer, which he does, and has done from all time; he takes the liberty to sneer at the humble man when he attempts to commune with his God and is so favoured. This is a mystery; and surely he may be allowed to laugh at the other manifestations, of which, in your paper of last week, you gave a detailed account. I am not an enthusiast, but I allow my reason to come into play when my sight and hearing is acted upon; and if I cannot account for what I see and hear by any known law, physical or organic, I am called upon to reason upon what I see and hear. I have, therefore, come to the conclusion that there is a spirit world.
A MEMBER OF CHRIST’S MYSTIC BODY.
Western Gazette, 7th August 1868.
The “Sperrits” in Zomerset.
The mysterious manifestations in connection with chairs, tables, and other objects ontinue with even increased vigour and mystery at the house of Mr. Traves, Muchelney, near Crewkerne, Somerset. Pulman’s Weekly News records the complete smashing of the heavy kitchen table and freaks of other articles of furniture, as well as noises as if 50 mallets were hard at work inside the house. The respectability of all the persons about the house, and the impossibility of their participating in any trick is strongly guaranteed, but it happens that as yet no visitor has been fortunate enough to be an immediate witness of the moving and breaking of furniture, although some astounding “manifestations” came off just as the backs of some of them were for a moment turned. Upset chairs and broken tables were there to testify to the “manifestations,” at least as conclusively as the brick in the chimney which Jack Cade cited as an unimpeachable witness of his assertions. Pulman will not say that the “sperrits” have a hand in it, but he scouts the idea of any possibility of trickery. As a safe middle course he throws out the following valuable scientific suggestion: – “It would, we think, be worth while to try a simple experiment of this kind – Isolate the next table discovered cutting capers. A thick glass shard from a broken wine bottle placed under each leg would do that business if electricity be the agent. A trench dug in the yard on the south side of the house might be found to intercept the current should the agent be the same. Then, the hearer of the “noises” might apply his ear to the ground, and mayhap thereby make some discovery. At all events, these things, and others like them, could not possibly do harm, and peradventure might result in some clue to what at present is mysterious.”
Liverpool Mercury, 7th August 1868.
The Haunted House.
We are asked to insert the following: – Sir,- A batch of old maidens here have taken it into their heads that the mysterious noises and other manifestations at Mr Traves’s house result from the artifices of the servant girl. I can speak positively that the girl is too young, too artless, and too honest to be a party to any trickery whatever.
Yours, &c., TRUTH.
Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser, 5th Augsut, 1868.
The Muchelney Disturbances.
To the Editor.
Sir, – When I read your very clear and unprejudiced account of the mysterious disturbances at Muchelney, I hoped it would conduce to an attempt, on the part of some one who might be better able than the majority of us to form some theory as to their cause, to explain the secret of the remarkable phenomena. I was, I confess, not a little disappointed on unfolding your last impression, to find that it contained no further notice of the matter than a somewhat rambling effusion from “A Member of Christ’s Mystic Body,” whose letter, so far from throwing any light on the very strange affair to which it refers, is, indeed, a small mystery in itself.
Your correspondent finds fault with you in not “boldly stating that the manifestations were the result of a law with which man was unable to grapple, viz., the law of spirit and matter.” If I understood you aright, sir, your motive in abstaining from referring the “manifestations” to spiritual agency was not any want of boldness – “courage of your opinions,” as our neighbours whom ou have recently visited would say – but simply because you were disposed to attribute them not to any supernatural cause, but, in the absence of trickery and deception, to some hidden force in nature which has as yet escaped the researches of our philosophers and men of science.
“That there is a spirit world” – the conclusion to which “A Member of Christ’s Mystic Body” says he has come by “allowing his reason to come into play when his sight and hearing is acted upon” – I am certainly not Sadducee enough to deny; but that the members thereof are wont to manifest themselves by “tearing the plaster from a wall from its hold and flinging it to the winds,” smashing furniture, or cutting other equally undignified and apparently purposeless capers, I admit I should find it rather hard to believe, unless convinced by stronger evidence than has yet come under my notice. A readiness to attribute to spiritual agency all that appears marvellous or incomprehensible is one of the distinguishing marks of a barbarous and unenlightened age. The discovery of gunpowder, the invention of the art of printing, and many other things equally familiar to us now, were, in the times in which they occurred, set down without hesitation as having been accomplished by diabolic aid. What would have been said of our wonderful applications of steam, galvanism, and electricity, had their discoverers lived four or five centuries ago? And are the Muchelney disturbances much more strange than these? True it is, that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.
I agree with you, sir, that these curious phenomena are worthy of being investigated by some really able and enlightened man of science – one, could such be found willing, who would bring to bear upon the subject that genius, and that earnestness in the pursuit of light and truth, which characterized a Faraday and a Brewster. An inquiry by such a one, although of course it might fail to fathom the depths of the mystery, would, I hope and believe, result in something far more useful and practical than the curious epistle of “A Member of Christ’s Mystic Body.”
I am, sir, yours very truly,
E TENEBRIS LUX.
August 10th, 1868.
Dear Sir, – Will you kindly allow me space to endorse the sentiments expressed in your last week’s impression by a “Member of Christ’s Mystic Body” and I think sir, with an open bible in his hand, he could come to no other conclusion, than that “there is a spirit world.”
I certainly think, with one of our eminent poets, that “millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth unseen.” To my mind, Mr. Editor, it is clear that God has in all ages of the world summoned to his assistance a rash variety of agents, human, and angelic, to further the great interests embodied in the principal of his moral and righteous government. And while I admire the example given by the Bereans, I pity our modern Sadduces, who unblushingly deny the existence of angels, and spirits, or souls of departed men. [… much wittering…] Where is the man who dares, or that can, upon philosophical principles, define the manner and mode of the spirit’s operation? I beg to submit that God may, for wise purposes, permit, nay, commission, one of his spirits to haunt an earthly dwelling. This one, among many other lessons, I am anxious the people should learn that “there is a spirit world.”
Yours truly,
O.P.
Somerton, Aug. 11, 1868
Western Gazette, 14th August 1868.
The Ghost – Another newspaper correspondent has paid a visit to the haunted house at Muchelney, and comes home puzzled. Pieces of furniture were knocked about violently, but never was there a fair, full of them before the visitor. At one time the maid servant was discovered “panting” just after a heavy mahogany table had been smashed, with one of the pieces of which she complained of having been struck in the side. This same table had kicked up a hobbery before, and that time the HOUSEKEEPER was near it! “Oh! It’s nothing THIS TIME. I believe I must have dragged the table with my dress!” she said. To us the whole thing seems a transparent and impudent sham. Do maid servants who are struck in the side by flung pieces of infernal tables go quietly to lay the supper cloth without declaring they “won’t bide another minute in the house?” Do housekeepers generally wear long gowns of a texture sufficiently strong to drag heavy articles of furniture at their tails? Are farm labourers such a stolid, fearless race that they sit at their cider, or to go quietly to work at all hours in the place which has the reputation of being inhabited by the Devil? We are reminded that “There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.” Exactly so, and one of these is the existence of an unusually large number of GULLS far away from the sea coast of Somersetshire.
Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser, 12th August 1868.
The Muchelny Disturbances.
To the Editor.
Sir, – Some days after reading the minute account of the Muchelney disturbances given in your paper, I was induced to visit the house in which they occurred. Unfortunately (for myself) they had ceased for about ten days previously; but I came away not the less convinced of the extreme improbability – to say the least – of their being the result of any kind of machinery. Their long continuance, the intelligence and respectable position of Mr. Travis, the inadequacy, in such a house, of any conceivable means to effect results so extraordinary must compel every unprejudiced mind to dismiss the idea of attributing them to an organised plan of deception. It remains, then, to be decided whether these and similar phenomena are natural or preternatural. There are many, I am aware, who would reject as absurd this alternative, and who hold that all forces are confined within the sphere of what we call “nature;” which means that everything is governed by laws proceeding from its own essence, whose action can only be changed by other natural forces.
It would be ridiculous for me to attempt to solve this problem, which seems to me to be the great question of the present day, and which, in its application to philosophy, politics, religion, and science, divides the intellectual world into two grand opposing parties, quite irrespective of minor divisions. But when facts such as those which have occurred at Muchelney force themselves upon my belief with all the strength which human testimony can give them, I am obliged to acknowledged the existence of preternatural agencies, unless I admit that matter, naturally inert, can sometimes be endowed with spontaneous motion; that the laws of gravity can be disturbed without external force; that loud and continued noises can be heard without the necessary conditions of sound. to admit the latter hypothesis is to make the world a chaos, and to set at nought the primary laws of the human intellect.
You have said that such phenomena may yet be found to proceed from some unknown natural cause, and have exemplified your supposition by the modern inventions of the steam-engine and electric wire, etc. But I cannot see the analogy between the two. The latter are only the development and application of previously known natural forces; the phenomena in question are in direct opposition to general experience. The former are based upon the uniformity of natural laws, the latter set that uniformity at defiance. It may be urged that many phenomena, such as eclipses, were regarded in former times with a mysterious awe, similar to that with which we moderns regard such manifestations as those which have occurred at Muchelney; and that, as in the former case, so in the latter, the case ought to be attributed to a law of nature.
But there are subjective and objective differences to be remarked. Subjective, in the character of the witnesses. Men, now-a-days, even the illiterate, are not prone, as our forefathers were, to ascribe the unknown to the marvellous, simply because it is the unknown. Modern science has compeltely changed the habits of thought even of those who are ignorant of its discoveries, adn men will never class under the category of the supernatural what can possibly be attributed to natural causes. And there is this objective difference: the phenomena which amazed or terrified our ancestors were exhibited in regions at an immense distance from the spectators, and of which they knew next to nothing. Those which are perplexing to us are in our immediate vicinity; we can see them, hear them, touch them. We can only arrive at natural truths by experience, and experience is derived from the right use of our senses.
When, therefore, under circumstances in which all my senses have full play, I find my commonest experiences contradicted, to what can I assign that contradiction but to some forces which lie beyond the control of natural laws? With your permission I will state next week my opinion as to the nature of these forces. In the meantime, let me express a hope that every recurrence of the “Muchelney disturbances” will be duly notified in your paper; and let me pay a tribute to the courtesy with which Mr. Travis permits himself and his house to be examined by inquiring strangers.
I remain, sir,
Your obedient servant,
W.C.B.O.
Western Gazette, 21st August 1868.
The Muchelney Mystery
Appears to be as far from solution as ever. Theories innumerable have been started, but one by one they have been demolished. Electricity was set down as the cause of the noises by a rather numerous party, but Mr Hooker, of London, who has for many years been known throughout the West of England for his most able expositions of electrical phenomena, after a careful investigation of the house and neighbourhood, scouts the idea of electricity having anything to do with the matter. The peculiar geological structure of the district, and the situation of the house upon one of the lias dips, was then alleged to be to some extent the cause, but this has also been set aside.
On Saturday last, C. Moore, Esq, of Bath, a gentleman who is well known as a most successful geologist, visited Mr Travis’s house, in company with Walter Long, Esq., lord of the manor of Muchelney, and principal landowner of the neighbourhood, the Rev. T. Hugo, of West Hackney, and W.W. Munckton, Esq., coroner for West Somerset, all of whom have had considerable experience in the scientific world. After carefully examining the house and hearing the statements of the inmates, the gentlemen named made a careful inspection of the geological formation of the neighbourhood, especially in the deep cutting, and the result of their investigations was that they were all perfectly satisfied that the noises could not be accounted for by any known law.
Mr Leng, who is the owner of the farm occupied by Mr Travis, being anxious to have the matter cleared up, has paid several visits to the house, each of which has been of considerable duration. It may be interesting to some persons to know that the district immediately surrounding the house lies on blue clay, which rests on gravel drift, without any sign of mineral except mundic. The house stands on the natural formation, and is not in any way connected with the peat of the moors.
Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser, 9th September 1868.
The Haunted House.
Mr Hooker, late of Wellington, whose name has been mentioned in connection with the investigations respecting the doings at Mr. Travis’s residence, has written a long letter to a contemporary, in which he recapitulates the various exaggerated stories which have been set afloat, and shows how materially they have been altered upon enquiry. After stating that he has committed himself to no positive opinion about the Muchelney mystery, he says:- In conclusion I may make a negative statement; to whatever cause these phenomena may be due, I am quite satisfied they are not due to the distant throbbings of Vesuvius – nor to the magnetic iron stone cropping up just under the farm house – nor to lunar perturbation; that neither astronomy, nor geology, nor chemistry, nor electricity will ever be found to give any clue to the mystery! The explanation must be sought in some of the occult sciences, and occult it is best they should remain, for if, after all, it should be accounted for upon any but scientific principles, there are people in the world who would be wicked enough to laugh, and most people think ’tis not pleasant to be laughed at; only
“When next the tables walk about
May I be there to see.”
Shepton Mallet Journal, 9th October 1868.
Earthquakes across the south west reported in Western Gazette 10th January 1868 (from 4th January) and 6th November 1868 (from 30th November).
Included:
Muchelney. – Mr Traves of this village, was awoke by the rattling of his lamp and windows. The bed on which he was lying shook violently.
Taunton Courier, 8th January 1868.
Electricity.
A highly-interesting lecture was delivered on Friday night by Mr Hooker, of Wellington, at the Parade Assembly Rooms, in connexion with the Young Men’s Christian Association, Dr Gillett presiding. […] Mr Hooker then exposed the quackery of “spiritualism,” in a very clear and satisfactory manner. The “spirit” was invoked, which gave the most extravagant answers, even to the assertion that the moon was made of green cheese and the inhabitants thereof were nothing but mites!
The medical electric quackery also came in for a share of the lecturer’s sarcasm, the application of which has proved to be of service in the case of laudanum poisoning, when it acted as a powerful emetic after those ordinarily applied had signally failed, when the life of the patient was doubtless preserved by its means.
With regard to the Muchelney “mystery,” his idea was that it was thoroughly understood by the servant girl, as the noises had ceased since her absence. […]
Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser, 17th March 1869.
Reports of Progress.
Our readers will remember the case of the haunted house at Muchelney, near Yeovil, which we had so much to say about upwards of a year ago. We have made inquiries as to the result of the disturbances, and learn that a maid-servant soon left the house, when the disturbances entirely ceased. She seems to have been a medium, and that her powers were developed in association with other influences centred in that place. Such an explanation will account for similar phenomena not occurring to the girl at other places where the proper requisites do not exist.
p.481 in Human Nature, October 1870 (no. 43).
Wholesale Robbery at Tintinhull.
On Friday last, before G. Harbin, Esq., Fanny Palmer, a young woman, a native of Axminster, was charged with stealing £46 19s [c.£5,400 today] in money, two bed sheets, one pillow case, and various articles of wearing apparel, the property of Mr Sprackett, of Tintinhull. Mrs Sprackett, wife of prosecutor, said prisoner entered her service as a domestic servant on January 6th, and left on Monday, the 15th, stating that she was unable to do the work allotted to her.
Shortly after prisoner had left, witness went to her wardrobe, and found that it had been ransacked, and several articles, together with a large sum of money, stolen. There were several pieces of silver lying on the floor, and a purse with several sovereigns in it had been left behind. The articles produced in Court, by PC Pitfield, of Bridport, and PS Plyer, of Chard, were identified. PC Pitfield proved obtaining a search warrant, and going to Dorset House, Bridport, where prisoner was living as cook. On searching prisoner’s box, he found three pairs of cotton stockings, marked with Mrs Sprackett’s initials, and other articles; also £46 19s in gold and silver, tied up in a white bag. He then took her into custody.
P.S. Plyer deposed to searching the house of a widow named Ann Warman, at Chard, where prison had stopped after leaving Mrs Sprackett’s service, and to finding two sheets, two chemises, and a bolster cloth, which he now produced. Ann Warman stated that prisoner gave her the articles found in her house by PS Plyer, and said that they had been given to her.
Prisoner pleaded “Not guilty,” adding that the things and the money were hers. She was committed for trial. It appears that Palmer was a domestic servant at Muchelney, two or three years ago, when, it may be remembered, various mysterious disturbances occurred there; and it is thought not improbable that she had something to do with these “spiritual” manifestations.
Western Gazette, 9th February 1872.
Yeovil. A Married Lady’s Stocking.
At the Half-way-house Farm, near Tintinhull, resides a prosperous and well-to-do tiller of the soil, named Wm. Sprackett, with his lawful spouse, Mrs Wm. Sprackett. The lady, it would seem, during late years, whether by an economical usage of what, according to the female glossary, is known as pin money, or successful seasons in the matter of ducks and chicken – (the acknowledged perquisites of the helpmate of the agriculturist) – had contrived to make for herself a very tidy stocking. “Making a stocking” amongst the ladies, we believe, signifies in more masculine language, “laying by for a rainy day,” the saying deriving its significance from the fact that a stocking plays the part of the purpose, and is the receptacle of the £.s.d. It is further, we are told, the custom for the ladies, who have achieved this very desirable object, to “keep it to themselves,” or rather to allow their lords and masters to remain in ignorance of the circumstance, possibly with the ulterior object of some day affording him a pleasant little surprise or by the assertion of that independence which the ownership of a stocking conveys, ringing about, in some degree, the fulfilment of women’s rights. Upon that we will not speculate, but it would seem that the good man of Half-way-house was in blissful ignorance of the fact that there was a stocking in the house.
On the 14th of January a Miss Fanny Palmer, described as a rather good looking young person, and a native of Axminster, apeared upon the scenes in the character of a maid-of-all-work. Whether or not, Miss Palmer, blessed with sharper eyes than Mr Sprackett, unravelled the mystery of the stocking, we know not: the reader must judge from what follows. Shortly after Miss Palmer had been in the service of Mrs Sprackett, that lady discovered that some articles of her wearing apparel were missing. She had occasion to go to her wardrobe next day, after the prisoner had quitted the house on her own accord, and she then found that the key of the wardrobe was missing from the other keys. The wardrobe was broken open in her presence, and she discovered that a large sum of money, which from time to time for several years past she had placed there in gold and silver, was gone. She could not tell the exact amount. It might be £100 or it might be more. She put the gold apart from the silver, in purses and boxes. She saw the money in the wardrobe after the prisoner came into her service.
Police-sergeant Pitfield, stationed at Bridport, stated that in consequence of information he received of the robbery, he went to Dorest-house, where the prisoner was living as cook, on the 26th January, and, having a warrant, he searched the prisoner’s boxes and a small desk, in which he found £46 19s in gold and silver, and also articles of wearing apparel. The apparel was identified by Mrs Sprackett as hers. Police-sergeant Bryer, of the borough police, Chard, stated that in consequence of information he went to the house of Ann Warman, in Chard. There the prisoner had lodged for a day or two, and he there found some articles of wearing apparel, which Mrs Sprackett claimed as hers. The prisoner was brought before George Harbin, Esq., on Friday, at the County Police-office, and committed for trial.
Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser, 14th February 1872.
Fanny Palmer, 24, servant, was indicted for stealing £46 19s, a portion of a black quilted petticoat, and other articles of dress, the property of William Sprackett, at Tintinhull, on the 13th January. Mr Pendarves prosecuted; Mr Hooper defended the prisoner. [..] The jury found the prisoner guilty, and she was sentenced to nine months’ hard labour.
Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser, 27th March 1872.
I wrote out the song at length and then lost it
1921
The Thorney Mystery.
In your last issue, under the heading of “Muchelney Legends,” reference was made to the “rappings” at a house at Thorney, which occurred some half-century since. In another part of the same paper there was an account of some strange doings in North London, where, “The occupants say, weird occurrences are taking place. Loud explosions have been heard, lumps of coal fly in all directions, plates rattle, and tables and chairs go jazzing about the room.”
It happens that I was a member of a small party who went to Thorney to investigate the said “rappings,” which had several features in common with the recent doings in London referred to above. The Thorney matter had been fully reported in the local papers, and, as the occupier of the house was greatly puzzled about what had taken place, he readily assented to a proposed investigation. This was carried out by the editor of a Somerset paper, who was accompanied by a Scotch journalist, a local scientific man who had become interested in the matter, and a few personal friends.
When the party reached the farm-house, and knocked at the front door, they were greeted with a trifling performance, in the way of a number of violent raps on the back of the door, a few minutes before it was opened for their admission. This appeared to be a most auspicious commencement of the proceedings, and excited great expectations; but, alas! they were doomed to disappointment, for nothing more in that line followed.
The visitors were most cordially received by the occupier, and were assured that no member of the household had been responsible for the noise, and that not one of the inmates had been near the door at the time. The door was most carefully examined, but without any discovery being made. Members of the family gave a full account of the disturbances by which they had been annoyed, free access was given to the various rooms, and all questions were readily answered. Indeed, every effort was made to solve the problem, but all in vain, and the visitors retired without being one whit the wiser than when they arrived.
Soon afterwards, however, the noises ceased, and, if I remember rightly, it transpired that the peace and quietness had followed on the departure of a young servant girl. So here, again, there is something in common with the affair in North London, for the newspaper report intimates that “a curious feature of the trouble is that nothing unusual takes place while a twelve-year-old schoolboy… is away from the house.” – West Somerset.
Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser, 2nd March 1921.