HOUSES OF DREAD

Evening Star, Issue 19089, 5 November 1925, Page 12

HOUSES OF DREAD

SCENES OF TRAGEDY It is astonishing—when there is such a scramble for a place in which to lay one’s head—how many good houses and flats are standing because people arc afraid to live in them. In a much-favored quarter of London is a handsome block of mansion flats. They are elaborately appointed, the address is good, the neighborhood select, the rents reasonable. Yet for over a year one of those flats has been vacant—and nobody will take it. People look over it, they like it, they decide that hero is the very homo for which they have been seeking. And then, sooner or later, they recall or aro reminded of a certain terrible and notorious tragedy, and they say:— . “ Oh. but isn’t this the flat whore that gliastly murder was committed ? . . Ugh! Fancy having to sleep in the very room! . . . No, thanks. ’ When houses were plentiful and rents wore low a Birmingham landlord let a villa much below its real rental to an elderly couple in straightened circumstances —not out of pure charity, but because he considered it better to have the place occupied at a loss rather than stand empty. Being a cautious business man, he made his tenants sign an agreement to vacate at short notice whenever lie might find somebody willing to take the house at its usual rent. 'When he did at last require possession ho reminded the old couple ol what they had undertaken to do. They wore perfectly reasonable—or seemed to be. Put the prospective new tenant backed out at the last moment, and they were allowed to remain. In course of time the landlord found another person apparently anxious to take the house—but again the negotiations were abruptly broken off. Similar hitches occurred several times, until at last _ a lady who had been most enthusiastic about the place explained that she was sorry, hut she could not live in a jjaunted house. , “Haunted!” exclaimed the amazed landlord. “ Who has been telling you that?” “The old people who live there, said the lady. “ They say that many years ago a man cut his wife’s throat there, and that her ghost has roamed through the rooms ever since, uttering the most bloodcurdling cries and slamming the doors.” “.Rubbish!” said the landlord. _ “ It’s been in my family ever since it was built. If there had been a murder there I should know.” “They showed mo bloodstains on the floor where the poor woman was killed,” said the lady. “No amount of scrubbing will remove them. . . . I couldn’t live in a house like that. ’ The landlord went to see the old couple. They eontessod they had invented the grisly story because they did not wish to be turned out. They had also invented the bloodstains —with a solution of permanganate of potash. They had to go quickly then. But the story spread—and to this day some of the locals firmly believe that a murder did take place there, and that the victim still haunts the tragic scene. In a Suffolk village there is a very old. but still good and substantial, house in which nobody wbo knows the history would live, even if they could do so rent free. This is the story In the long ago the farmer who lived there was ploughing an adjacent field. But the ground was so hard that the horses could scarcely drag tho plough. Ho swore horribly at the poor animals, and at hist exclaimed : “I defy the Old Devil himself to plough with lazy beasts like yon. II he con, let him come and do it—and he can have me.”

“That’s a bargain,” said a strange voice beside him.' “I’ve been waiting my chance to got yon.” The man sank to his knees and cried for mercy, pleading wildly lor another chance. 1< or there was the Evil One—horns and all.

“I’ll give you a chance,” agreed Satan. “If you can roach home before I have finished ploughing your field, 1 will let you off.’ The man took to his heels and ran for home. But just as he was entering his own door Satan overtook him and caught him by the heel. Now—the story goes—every night the fanner's fearful cries cau bo hoard, and the sounds of a terrible struggle. You will meet men and women in that lonesome village who will solemnly assure yon that thev themselves have hoard those unearthly shrieks from a distance—but you would not got one of them to approach the house after dark.

Wc may smile if wo will. Wo may believe that the weird cries are those of owls, the scuffling sounds made by rats. But it is an uncontrovertible fact that several sceptical persons have from time to time taken the Devil’s Farm in the last twenty years—and not one has found courage to remain in the uncanny place a week. And there are in this country more of these Houses of Dread than may ho believed,—English newspaper.