Remarkable affair at Penrith.
Windows smashed and garden wrecked.
Looking for “a ghost.”
One of the most mysterious affairs which has been known in the district for a long time is under investigation at Penrith, at a cottage close to the Ballast Pit on the Carlisle Road, occupied by Mr Robert Douglas and his family. The first evidence of anything wrong was observed about six weeks ago when various vegetables and plants which had been growing in the garden were found torn up by the roots, and placed in an adjoining field. The plants were got back and re-planted, but no sooner was that done than they were again pulled up. The depredator seems to have extended his operations, for he not only pulled up the vegetables and flowers which had been re-planted, but also others in different parts of the garden. In addition, he or she, whoever it may be, took to breaking the fruit trees.
So long as the destroyer’s attention was confined to the garden Mr Douglas felt more annoyance than alarm. But later the windows in the house were all smashed, big stones being found in the bed rooms, while all round the house were to be seen pieces of glass, broken flower pots, tiles, and cobble stones. Mr Douglas and his family tried their best to find out how the damage had been done, but up to the present no clue has been discovered. The eldest daughter states that on one or two occasions she has seen a man whom she recognised, close to the house at the exact time some of the damage was done.
In the garden a good deal of destruction has been committed. Wallflower roots, rose trees, gooseberry and currant bushes have been pulled up, while the bloom has been knocked off the fruit trees, and branches broken. Growing peas, cabbages, and cucumber plants shared the same fate as the flowers, and the top light from the cucumber frame was found over the wall in a field.
One of the most singular features of the case is that whoever committed the damage reaped no benefit from it, for in no case were the things taken away. A garden hoe was lost about five weeks ago, but last week it was found in some long grass in an adjoining field, and on the end of the handle was fastened a bit of paper on which was the name “Jack” in badly formed letters. Later a bed of flower seeds, which were just coming through the ground, was completely spoiled, and several large stones were thrown on to it.
So things went on until twelve days ago, when the depradator changed his tactics and commenced to smash the windows in th ehouse. Immediately after the first pane of glass was broken Mr Douglas went out and got two men named Castlehow and Robinson to watch with him. They were all sitting together in the front sitting room discussing the business when another smash was heard. They ran out at once, and searched all about the house and its vicinity, but no trace of anyone could be discovered. They had only just got inside the house again when there was a third smash. They went out and renewed the search, but with no better result.
On Sunday week at 1-30 in the afternoon, while the family were in the front sitting room, two stones were thrown at the window. One knocked a small hole in the top corner of one of the higher lights, and the other, which followed close after, smashed the pane, sending the glass into the room. The window is now blocked up with a big piece of thick carpet.
The next window was broken last Sunday at about four o’clock in the afternoon. Mr Jameson and his son and two friends from Eamont Bridge were sitting in the front room talking to Mr and Mrs Douglas, and endeavouring to find some explanation of the mystery when a smash was heard at the back of the house, and on going out it was found that another pane of glass had been broken. They searched all around, but the window breaker could not be found. During the evening a large company of men went to the house and stayed until early morning watching, but beyond a knock at the door there was no disquieting occurrence. Probably the party wanted was frightened away by the knowledge that one of the watchers had armed himself with a naked sword.
On Saturday night Mrs Douglas and her two daughters went into the town shopping. As they reached the gate leading to their house a large stone was thrown from the opposite side of the road, and when they started to run another stone was thrown, which struck the back of the dress of the youngest child. No one could be found anywhere near the spot.
The most extraordinary part of the whole business is the story told by the eldest daughter, who is about twelve or thirteen years of age. She says the windows were all open about a fortnight ago, and it had been arranged that she should watch at one of the back ones while her mother kept a look out in the hen house in the front garden. She saw a man just over the wall and not more than a couple of yards from her. The man did not appear to notice her, but placed a piece of string and a knife on the top of the wall. She alleges that she heard him say, “The window is open; I’ll go in.” The girl was too frightened to stir or speak. The man got over the wall and went to the garden wicket, but the chain on it made a noise, which scared the fellow away. Such is the story of the daughter, who seems to be a very intelligent child.
The only water supply for the house. For some time the Millstone Eye has been closed up, thus forcing the Douglas family to drink the water from the rain water tank in the yard. Whether the stopping of the water is a part of this strange business about the house or not cannot be known, but it is singular that at the very spot where Mr Douglas gets his drinking water from a bag containing a dead cat was discovered.
The talk of the town yesterday was about “the ghost” and its vagaries. Whatever explanation of the affair can be found, something should be done quickly to clear up the mystery. Mr Douglas and his family are greatly harassed over it, and the destruction about the place is considerable. All round the house broken glass, flower pots, tiles, stones and other things are to be found scattered about. In the back bedroom a good deal of broken glass is lying about the floor, together with three large stones, while on the head of the bed itself is another large stone. All the stones here have been taken from the downstair window ledge.
The house stands quite alone, about fifty yards from the road and 200 yards from the railway. All around it are fields, so that it should not be difficult to capture the person who has caused such a stir, even if it is the man whom the daughter says she has seen about the house wearing slippers.
The party of between 30 and 40 who went out on Sunday night stayed until 2-30 yesterday morning, and as they were leaving they heard another bang at the back of the house, but could find no person about.
Penrith Observer, 7th June 1898.+_
Strange Proceedings Near Penrith.
A mischievous “ghost.”
There is much talk in Penrith about the doings of mysterious person who has been locally termed “the ghost.” The annoyance began six weeks ago, when Mr Robert Douglas, who lives at the Ballast Pit Cottage, about a mile from the town on the Carlisle road, found all the cabbage plants in his garden all torn up. Then a lot of peas and a bed of flower seeds that were just showing were destroyed, while all the bloom was knocked off the fruit trees and some branches broken, these being thrown over a wall.
Subsequently every other part of the garden was visited, but though Douglas watched night after night no clue could be found to the offender. Then the windows began to get broken in a mysterious manner, until the whole of those at the rear of the premises had gone. The eldest daughter asserts that she has a seen a man about, but there is no corroboration.
On Saturday some of the members of the Urban Council, who own the property, went to the cottage, without helping to a solution. On Sunday four men were sitting in the front room with Douglas and his wife when a stone came crashing through the window. The company rushed out, but could see nobody about. A cat in a bag was found in a dub from which the water supply is obtained, and on the garrden hoe, which was lying in some long grass, was a card bearing the word “Jack.”
On Saturday the wife and daughter alleged that they had been pelted with stones on their way back from Penrith, and one of the younger girls had a stone mark on her jacket. On Sunday night about 40 men and youths, led by Mr Barker, billposter, who was armed with a sword, kept watch, and they stopped until 2-30 next morning. As they were leaving they heard a bang at the back door, but could find nothing.
Cumberland and Westmorland Herald, 11th June 1898.
More human than supernatural.
The fantastic doings and grotesque vagaries of the Penrith “ghost,” which has been perpetrating a series of ridiculous pranks in the neighbourhood of the Ballast Pit Cottage, are almost too foolish to devote any space to their chronicling, unless it is to hold this nonsense up to ridicule, but owing to the fact that the town is filled with a certain amount of awe-struck wonderment, and the susceptibilities of the ignorant are always ready to be appealed to by evidences, however vague and untenable, of the existence of the supernatural, we feel it a public duty to prick this burlesque bubble and let the wind out of it.
The whole foolish business has held the town up to ridicule all over the country, and even the London dailies are chuckling over the superstitions of the natives of darkest Cumberland. We have more respect for ghosts in genearl than to place any faith in a visitation of broken windows and ruined garden produce as being the work of anyone but a very foolish person indeed, and we are glad that the suspicions of the majority of people received confirmation on Thursday evening.
On the night in question three men – Messrs. Lowthian Wilson, George Storey, and William Bowman – were amusing themselves by keeping a look-out at the scene of the ghostly visitation, and whilst quietly watching over the wall, they assert someone left the cottage and commenced pulling wallflowers up by the roots and damaging the tops of rose trees. The men afterwards informed the Penrith police.
Straws always indicate which way the stream runs, and this fact seems to point to an easy solution of this particular ghost farce. We would recommend as an antidote to any further tomfoolery of this kind a good application of the birch, which would perhaps put a stop to any future visits from unearthly spooks with a taste for window-breaking.
Cumberland and westmorland Herald, 11th June 1898.
Ghosts are like troubles, they never come singly, and whilst Kirkby Stephen has been set wondering what has become of its vanishing desk, Penrith, with a healthy desire not to be outdone by the Westmorland town, has generated a ghost of a particularly depraved taste. It has upset all our old preconceived ideas about ghosts. Ever since the halcyon days of early youth when fays and elves, pixies and sprites, gnomes and naiads peopled the clean-swept spaces under the beeches, played at hide-and-seek amongst the mushrooms in pollen-laden meadows under the lightof a big yellow moon, or paid their court to queen Mab on her thrown beneath a canopy of nodding foxgloves – ever since the days when these dear delightful things were rudely knocked on the head by the rough hand of an unimaginative experience, I have clung persistently to ghosts as the only romantic thing left to us, and I have cherished it as one of my pet illusions that a ghost was an intangible something of spectral appearance with nothing in its inside to prevent one reading a newspaper through it. I have held pertinaciously to the idea that ghosts in general do nothing but loaf round moonlit avenues, with wan, sad faces, long bony shadowy fingers beckoning alluringly to the wayfarer, with legs a dissolving view of misty nothingness. I have been led to vary the entertainment at times to by granting to ghosts the power to wander aimlessly round deserted corridors as headless shapes with their heads tucked under their arms, or carried by long flowing hair for convenience.
But the ghost discovered at Penrith has upset much of my theorising. The Thing seems to be the very essence of depravity, with a strongly-developed taste for throwing stones and grubbing onion beds in other people’s gardens, destroying fruit trees, and making work for the glazier. It is the most common-place ghost I ever heard of; it has not an atom of romance in its ghostly soul. A ghost that confines its attention to onion-beds isn’t even funny. It has no imagination, and a ghost without that ought to be promptly locked up. A good healthy ghost, which has been properly educated and decently brought up, has it in its power to make Penrith very famous as a tourists’ resort, if, for instance, it had some sense of the fitness of things, and could be induced to leave the prosaic surroundings of the Ballast Pit and do a moonlight flit to the more immediate neighbourhood of the old crumbling ruins of Penrith Castle. It might in time be able to pass muster as an old-time baron, or even a king if it is careful about its personal appearance. There is really a good opening in Penrith for a ghost that knows its business and has some notion about effect.
I haven’t the slightest patience with the present specimen, nor with the misguided people who spent the silent watches of the night in trying to lay it. I have a certain amount of admiration for the gentleman who carried the sword and led his untrained hordes in quest of the supernatural, simply because a sword is just the sort of weapon one would naturally expect a ghost of this kind to fight shy of. At the same time a good hazel stick would have been more useful even if it did not look so imposing.
The whole thing has been a great farce from beginning to end, and the simple fact that a large number of people could be beguiled into prowling about all night in order to catch a ghost goes a long way to show that the dawn of intelligence is yet a considerably long way below the horizon. The next time they go on a ghost hunt I should very strongly advise them to carry some salt to put on its tail in the event of their being successful.
I trust this supernatural visitant will by this time have seen the folly of its ways, and that residents in the neighbourhood may now go to bed int he sweet and restful conviction that the ghost won’t trouble them any more with an occult and mysteirous demonstration of window-breaking extraordinary.
Cumberland and Westmorland Herald, 11th June 1898.
A ghost, of the proper Cock-lane type, has recently been conducting business at Penrith in the liveliest style. His attentions have been confined to one house, standing alone on the outskirts of the town, and occupied by a family named Douglas. He began by devastating the garden in the dark – tearing up plants, mutilating fruit trees, spoiling flower beds, and cutting off the water supply. This was weeks ago.
The natural course in such circumstances would have been to call in the police: but so far as appears the persecuted family bore the affliction as something inconvenient but mysterious, and perhaps supernatural. The ghost, as might have been foreseen, gained courage, and took to smashing the Douglas windows in broad daylight. Last week the house looked like a place that had been bombarded; and the ghost was still at work. Numbers of people came together to wait for him – inside the house. They did not catch him. It does not seem to have occurred to anyone that the most probable way of effecting his capture was to establish, as secretly as possible, a cordon of watchers, outside the house.
Public opinion in Penrith declares emphatically that something ought to be done to solve the mystery. Yea; but at this rate by the time the right thing is done the ghost will have had his game out, and will retire undiscovered, if he is as wise as he is wily.
Westmorland Gazette, 11th June 1898.
The Penrith “Ghost.”
Inquiries made at the Ballast Pit Cottage yesterday showed that the vagaries of the mysterious individual now known in Penrith as the “ghost” have during the week been confined to the destruction of plants, varied occasionally by the placing of cobble stones in the garden pathway, and in the middle of the kitchen floor.
Last night about 10-30 a Penrith gentleman was sitting in the house with Mr Douglas, his wife, and two children, as well as two men, named Bowman and Wilson, when a large stone came with a crash against the door immediately in front of which the gentleman was sitting. The men at once went out, and after a good deal of trouble they perceived in the field next to the front garden footprints, which they traced to the wall, and thence swinwise across the next grass field on to the road.
Notwithstanding the contradictory evidence, the police and the Urban District Council officials hold a definite opinion on the matter so far as the proceedings previous to yesterday are concerned.
Penrith Observer, 14th June 1898.
The Penrith “Ghost.”
Inquiries made yesterday show that, although suspicions are entertained, the mystery about the damage done at the Ballast Pit Cottage, about a mile from Penrith, has not been cleared up. Men have been employed to watch the place day and night, but they have not yet succeeded in finding the mischief-maker. Some curious stories have been in circulation, but on being looked into have not enabled the clue to be carried far.
Carlisle Journal, 14th June 1898.