A Haunted House in Rome.
The Chronicle correspondent, telegraphing from Rome on Sunday, says: – Much excitement has been aroused in Rome during the last few days over an alleged haunted house in the Viale della Regina, inhabited for years past by an old couple and their sons. Nothing abnormal occurred until the present week, when heavy thuds began to proceed from the walls of the room, as though struck by some invisible hands. Then ornaments were dashed with great force to the ground, and smashed into fragments. It is said in the newspapers that the youngest son, aged fifteen, had scarcely retired to rest last night when he was dragged by the feet around the room by these unseen influences, which afterwards extended their plan of operations to the portress’s lodge, hurling a flatiron at the unfortunate woman’s head, in the presence of several friends.
Two carabineers attracted to the house by the cries of the inmates proceeded to the boy’s bedroom and set about investigating the bed, upon touching which they received so severe an electric shock that both are still suffering from the effects. The phenomena then ceased for the night; but to-day the house has been visited by hundreds, and such as gained admission testify to having witnessed an incessant dance of candles, while flatirons, fresh figs, oil-cans, and pepper boxes played at leap-frog round the apartment.
Finally, a cooked joint is said to have issued forth from a meat safe, and after having been chased round the room several times to have sought refuge under a clothes press. A commission of investigation has been appointed, and the enchanted dwelling continues surrounded by an enormous crowd.
Chard and Ilminster News, 20th September 1902.
(from the London Daily Chronicle, 15th September 1902)
If any city on earth deserves to have a haunted house it is surely Rome, standing as it does upon the dust of six-and-twenty centuries of conflict and empire, crime and sanctity. And Rome has its haunted house. There is no deception about it, for the haunting was done in the usual futile way. The boy who was dragged round the room by unseen influences we might suspect of exaggeration or mistake, for such things happen in modified form to naughty boys with choleric fathers.
But when scores of interested people see flat irons and figs playing leap-frog around a humble apartment, while an incessant dance of candles proceeds, one can but conclude that the testimony is as true as that of the funny uncle who states that he can see a bun dance upon the hospitable board.
A commission is to inquire; but the experience of two caribineers who tried to arrest the phenomena will probably suggest a clue. They were disabled by an electric shock. It may be tramcars or telephones, or it may be Vesuvius. We cannot be so unjust to the great dead as to suspect them of an interest in flat-irons.
Henley Advertiser, 27th September 1902.