TRUE GHOST STORIES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 49, 26 February 1916, Page 18

TRUE GHOST STORIES.

TOLD IN A LONDON CLUB. THE TVTATff WHO WAS HANGED. THE APPAPJTIOX AND THE DOG. It was the Christmas (1915) gathering of the International <Jlud for Fbvchieal Keacarch. The members, who are well known in Society and the professions, gathered round the bright little tea-tables and the blazing tires in a room overlooking Piccadilly and told ghost stories—stones of extraordinary happenings, ol weird hauntings, and of things strange and most unaccountable. Lady Muir Mackenzie related that of a missionary in. Mauritius who was known to Sir Harry Johnston. He had managed to convert one of the native chiefs, and after a time left for Australia. One day there was a knock at the door, and to his surprise in walked the chief, who begged him to read the Communion Service and certain prayers. It was not until the chief left that he began to wonder how ho could have got there. He wrote to his friends in Mauritius, and they i-eplied that after he left ttie chief went to the had, was arrested, and was hanged on the same day as that on which his ghost appeared to him in Australia. A DAYLIGHT GHOST. Most of the ghosts of which we heard were eeen at night, but Mrs Irwin described a daylight ghost. Her grandfather, she said, had an old farmhouse in Worcestershire. Near it was the manor house, In which lived Captain Preedy and his sister. Miss Preedy disliked the lady whom her brother married, and some time after her death sardonic laughter used to be heard in various parts of the house. The servants began to complain that someone pulled the clothes off their beds at night, and after a while Miss Preedy herself was seen in broad daylight, dressed as she used to dress in life, with a mob cap and lace round her shoulders. When the ghost approached Mrs. Preedy on the stairs or in the rooms it had the disagreeable habit of bursting out laughing. Sometimes it would be seen looking out of a bedroom window, and it was in this position that Mrs. Irwin herself saw it. A clergyman was called in to lay the ghost, but his ministrations had no effect. The ghost continued to haunt the old manor-house until Mrs. Preedy left. "That shows," remarked Mian Scatcherd, who presided over ■ the gathering, "that, as Mr. Stead has said to mc since he passed over," hatred as well as love is a compelling force in psychic phenomena." THE GHOST WITH RED HATR A haunted house in. Bristol was the subject of a story by ilrl Elliott O'Donnell. ' For many yeare the house stood empty. -Mr. O'Donnell injsrviewed the family who once lived there, and they told him that one of the phenomena was that of a servant with flaming red hair, whom three members of the house had seen in the kitchen. A friend visited the house with him one night, but they were disappointed; nothing was seen. Three nights later Mr. O'Donnell went to the house alone with a dog. After waiting for some time he heard footsteps coming up the stairs of the empty house, and saw a big whitish light. As the footsteps came nearer he saw first the head of a woman, and then the rest of her body. The figure corresponded exactly with that which had been seen by the former occupants of •the house—just an ordinary-looking servant with very red hair. The figure passed lira very slowly, went upstairs, and vanished. His dog wa3 very uneasy all the time, and he himself confessed to a feeling of panic. GHOST WITHOUT A HEAD. An Indian experience of a headless man was given by Sirs. Buck. "It was race week," she said, "in a large military station in the north of India. My father and mother having a great number of guests, it made it neceasary for my sister and I to share the same room, our beds being placed two feet apart. "One night we came home very late from a ball. To my horror, as I lay in bed, not knowing whether my sister was asleep or awake, and being "too terrified to speak, I heard a sort of uneven footstep crossing the room, and I was just able to define an awful sort of hunchback figure coming from the bathroom towards our beds. It was like a pair of legs and a great hump, which, arriving at the foot of the beds, came gradually up the narrow opening between them."

llrs. Buck got more and more terrified, but presently the awful figure disappeared, and she was relieved to hear her sister ask if she had seen anything. Her sister had been lying awake and seeing it too, but was also unable to speak.

At breakfast next morning, while relating their experience, they noticed two of the servants exchanging glances. Their father wanted to brush the story aside as rubbish, but it soon appeared that the servants knew all about the ghost and had seen it frequently. It was that of a man who had had his head hacked off by an enemy, and his ghost still haunted the house and went about without a head, filling the bath at night and doing other work.to which in life he,had been accustomed. GHOSTS EXPLAINED. In the smoking-room, after the stories had been told, one or two members remained to find an explanation of the phenomena. One of them recalled a story which left a great impression on F. W. H. Myers. It was that of a citizen of London, well known to his friend Edmund Gurney, who, after reading an author who treats of the power of the human will, determined with the whole force of his being to be present in spirit, and if possible perceptible, to two sisters of his acquaintance. They were aged twentyfive and eleven, and lived about three miles off. Without mentioning his intention of trying such an experiment, he decided to appear to them at one o'clock in the morning, and at that hour projected his mind toward them with great force. "Beside exercising my power of volition very strongly," he said, "I put for--ward an effort I cannot find words to describe. I was conscious of a mysterious influence of some sort perm eating my body, and had a distinct impression tiiat I was exercising some force with which I had been hitherto unacquainted, but which now I can at certain timps set,in Jnothja:.at,wilL"

A day or two afterwards he called on the two sisters, but kept silent about what he had done. They, on their part, had intended to keep "silent, too, but their resolution gave way, and they told their friend that at one o'clock on Monday morning they had seen his phantom. The elder girl was awake, but the younger one was asleep. Upon seeing the apparition, which was in evening diess, the former aroused the latter, who saw it also. . The gas was burning low, and the phantom was clearer than a material figure would have been. Both sisters were much terrified. The same man appeared once again to the elder sister at a time agreed upon between him and Edmund Gurney. He succeeded upon this occasion also, but the percipieat was so shocked that he had to relinquish the experiments. The question then a*ose that if a living man can thus project an image of himself to a distance, why should not a. departed spirit do the same! This, it is thought, would give a rational explanation of ghosts. Such, indeed, is the explanation given by Myers.