"SAW A GHOST"

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 78, 29 September 1934, Page 15

"SAW A GHOST"

A CARETAKER'S SUICIDE

Convinced that he had seen the ghost1 of his, late'employer in "the big unpeeu-i pied house of which he ■ was caretaker,; a man in London tried to hang him-' self. He'died from shock, says the "News-Ghroniele.". * The strange story was told at the in-1 quest at Paddington on Frederick Walter Wallace, aged forty-four, who was found dead in the late Lady Alington's house in Portman-Square. He had been in the service of Ldrd Alington's family for eighteen years, and in latter years was employed by the late Feodorowna, Lady. Alington, who died; recently. Since her death ho had been caretaker of the house, now unten-; anted, in which she had lived. .. ■ • , Evidence of the man's belief that he had seen a ghost was given by a; constable. Wallace, he stated, said to him: "Last night I saw . her ladyship." Coroner:. A ghost walking about the; house?—-Yes. Wallace added: "I could not go to sleep again," and told the constable that he had never seen anything like the ghost before. Mrs. Wallace, the widow, stated that j when her husband wrote to her three weeks ago ho complained that ho was very lonely. Wallace was hanging dead by a rope attached to a beam in the boiler-room, and Dr. Sturgeon explained that shock, and not hanging, was the causa of his death. ' In. recording a verdict of "Suicide while <if unsound mind," the Coroner remarked that the loneliness of the largo empty houso seemed to have got on tin man's nerves, and ho becaino jumpy and depressed. "Deceased thought he saw a ghost," the.CJroner woiit on. "I say that advißed'y, because, of course, ghosts are mere delusions or illusions of the mind. Wall ice said he had seen a woman1 walkng about the house. That I take as ev'dene of an unbalanced mind."