FISHER'S GHOST.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8598, 27 September 1893, Page 3

FISHER'S GHOST.

-*» By Luke Shaup. The smalloess of this world has often been insisted upon and most people can cite instances which go to show that the globe is not so big as geographers pretend. A Detroit man walking op the Boulevard in Paris meets a friend from Japan and their first exclamation is that the world, after all, is pretty small. Here is a little account of a chance meetng of three men in London the otker night which struck mc as rather odd, and as it would not do in fiction, because the things that actually happen are always too improbable to be used in a novel, I set it down here, and for this reason 1 give the real names of every one concerned, so that anybody who does not believe mc can look up the facts if he cares to go to that trouble. The Authors' Club is one of the most recently formed o< Louden club* and it occa*

pies very pretty premises on the Thames embankment in the same building that houses the sumptuous National Liberal Club.

The Author** owes its existence, I believe, to Mr Walter Besant, who has left England to represent English literature at the Chicago Exhibition. The Authoia* is run on the lines of come of the New York j literary clubs, more ao than any other t club in London, and this is largely due to * the influence of the hon. secretary, Mr Dougla3 Sladeo, who is an admirer of , certain features of American iiterary life. He is well acquainted with American literary men and their work, as his recent interesting article in the English illustrated Magazine on United States writers and their books shows.

Every Monday night there is a house ' dinuer at the Authors' similar te the Saturday function at the Savage. It is put on Monday, so as not to clash with the older institution, as both clubs possess many . members in common. :

One Monday night, not long ago, there was a notable assemblage of meu who make dynasties and publishers tremble, Douglas'Sladen was In the chair. Mr J. Henniker Heaton, member of Parliament for Canterbury and advocate of penny postage between all English speaking countries sat at the ricjufc hand > of the chair, and I sat on the left. I don't mention my position near the head of the table through any feeling of brag, for greater honors have been showered on mc at the Authors', and I have on occasion held down the chair myself.

I am merely drawing oat a war map of the situation with infinite detail.

In the course of conversation Mr Henniker Heaton, finding 1 was a member of the staff of the Detroit Free Press, asked mc if I remembered, years ago, how that paper started a punning controversy about ihe number of apples Eve ate, and how all the papers took it up. until the number the unfortunate woman devoured reached millions.

" I think," he said, "that it began like this : ' Eve ate one, and Adam, too, which made three. Then another paper said Eve ate one, and Adam ate one, too, which counted four; another that Eve eight one, which made niue, and Adam one, too, which totalled twelve, and chus the thing went along. , " I said I remembered the idiotic controversy well. I didn't think the Free Press was guilty of starting it, but I knew it was to blame for aiding and abetting the crime. At that time" I worked the scissors in the Free Press office in Detroit, and had several times cut out the item with its constant accretions until, as we could not give up the whole paper to its growing bulk, we had to let it go. I remembered that some of the comments were added as far s.way as Australia, as I had clipped the item out of the Toicn and Country Journal, the. huge weekly of Sydney, New South Wales. Then it was Mr Henniker Heaton's innings. He said : "I edited and was part owner of the Town and Country Journal at the time. It was a bright day when the Detroit Free Press arrived. We got them two or three, at a time.- lent that item out of the Free Press, added to it and started it on its rounds in Australia."

Then Douglas Sladen took up the run ninjr.

" You may recollect," he said to the member of Parliament, *' than you sent the 'Town and Country Journal to mc in Japan. I got the Free Press there at the same time. That celebrated sum in addition came at mc from both east and west. I clipped it out of one or both of the papers and took it to a friend of mine, who edited a native Japanese journal. He understood English and endeavoured to translate it to Japanese, publishing it in his paper. He missed the point of the puns entirely and treated the matter quite seriously, saying that there was an endeavour on the pare of the religious "srorld in America and Australia to find out how many apples Eve ate, but he did not see, he admitted, how they arrived at the conclusion that she consumed several millions even with the help of Adam."

It struck mc as rather odd that three meu who had manipulated the same item, one in Australia, one in Japan and the other in the United States should happen to meet around the same table in London.

But all that has nothing; to do with Fisher or his ghost. Hemiiker Heaton told the Fisher s glio.sk yarn, which is a true story, and the events happened many years ago in Australia. The ghost, story has been printed several times in English and Australian papers, but the sequel to it Mr Heaton happened to meet when he was making researches in Australia among official documents while preparing his Weil-known book on Australia. The sequel, he believes, has never been printed. Fisher was a ! rich ranchman who lived very much alone. His companion was a ticket-oMeave man. Australia at that time contained m»ny ex-convin.ts, and it is an old joke against Australia that the people there are not as proud of their ancestry as are the aristocracy of England. For the life of mc I cannot see why this should be, for the ancestry in both instances were thieves, as a general thing. Personally, I would prefer the founder of my house to be a convict rather than to be, say, Nell Gwynne; bub that, of course, is all a matter of taste.

Well, one day FLsher disappeared and the convict said he had gone to Ireland to claim a large property he had fallen heir to and that he had left the ranch and all its belongings to the convicb. The people around thought the story of Fisher's disappearance rather fbby, but there was nothing to show that it was nob so and suspicion would likely have quieted down were it nob for the untimely appearance on the scene of Fiahei's ghost. Fisher's ghost was seen by a passer-by sitting on the fence near his former residence. The person who saw the ghost was not in the least afraid and he stepped forward to question the apparition. The ghost, however, was not in a talkative humour and it slid off the fence, moved mysteriously toward a dftep water hole and there disappeared. This story went like wildfire around the settlement and after that one, man after another saw Fisher's ghost, always on the fence rail and always eluding an interview by slidiuK away and vanishing in the water hole. If one or two persons only had seen the ghost nothing might have-been done, but every one in the neighbourhood who happened to be passing about dusk saw it, some of whom were men whose ""word could not be doubted.

The persistent haunting of the water pool by the ghost turned the attention of the authorities to it and the poud was dragged, but no body was found there, although there were indications that a body had been in the poo!. Search in the neighbouring thicket, however, was more fruitful, for there they found the body of the murdered man. The ex-convict was arrested and seeing the. game was up, be confessed that he had murdered Fisher and put him in the water hole, but on account of the intrusive and objectionable ghost he had fished up Fisher and put him in the thicket. The ghost had utterly demoralized the convict and he was afterwards duly hanged. This much of the story is well-known in Australia, but the sequel is not so well known. Unfortunately it rather rakes the gilt off the ghost, although it fastened the guilt on the convict. Ud to this point the yarn proves nofc only the existence of ghosts, but the usefulness of them.

Mr Henniker-Heaton knew the Fisher story well, and when he was searching among official documents for material for bis book he noticed on an affidavit the name of Fisher. He read the instrument and found it related to the ghost. Ad ex-convict dying had made the deposition before a magistrate, and it was to this effect: He was on tramp through the country when lie came one moonlight night to Fisher's ranch. He slept in the thicket and was aroused in the night by crie3 for help. Peering out he saw in the moonlight the convict murder his employer and drag the body to the water hole. The tramp was afraid to interfere at the time and was afraid to tell what he saw afterwards. There existed a kind of Free Masonry among ticket-of-leave men and it was a dangerous tbing for one to split on another. Besides this the ex-convict was well known in the neighbourhood, while the tramp was a stranger, so he feared that if he told what he saw, he would himself be accused of the Fisher murder. He got work in the neighbourhood and pondered over the situation. He thought first of personating the ghost, but fearing he might be caught he abandoned that idea. One night returning from the Fisher ranch he told his employer that he had seen Fisher's ghost sitting on the fence, afterwards disappearing in the water hole. This was the spark to the tinder. Suspicion was ripe for a story like this, and after that everyone in the neighbourhood saw the ghost, all apparently in good faith believing that they saw it. , The mythical ghost, however, made a real ghost of the guilty man and the real ghost is said to this day-or perhaps it would be more accurate to say to # am night—to combat with the ghoacofFiaher Iα the ligUt of *fee moon.