AN AMAZING CASE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLVIII, Issue 4471, 12 February 1917, Page 2

AN AMAZING CASE.

DO THE DEAD RETURN? Sergeant Austral Burns was the only sou in a family of five, and he was one of the first to enlist, being a member of the Ist Battalion. He went through the whole of the Gallipoli campaign, and was eventually wounded. He recovered and went to France but was hilled in action. One of his sister s is Miss Burns, who is a- nurse in one of the hospitals in Sydney. She has taken an interest in matters of the occult but, to use her own words, she was an onlooker. She was anxious to find out. She has one of those minds—and there are many of them in these times—which are open to conviction.

MISS BURNS’ STORY. “It was on the night of July 19, of last year, 1916, that the occurrence took place. In the morning one of the other nurses told me in the presence of several others, that theie w as a ghost over my bed during tne night. ■She was afraid, and it alarmed me, too; but I passed it off at the time as I did not want to upset others. 1 immediately came to the conclusion that something had happened to Austie, and confessed my fears to a mend at Strath field. She endeavoured to put awav my fears, but I felt that something fatal had happened. A momm later word came that my brother had been killed in action. We do not know where, at least, the official message does not say. The official account simply gives the bare detail that my brother was killed.” Now these facts can be verified by the sceptical-minded, and they aie facts that demand an answer. Even appearing at the -bedside altliougn the evidence seems unassailable, how can the sceptic account for the fact that Miss Burns should become alannod about her brother on the day he was killed? But there is more to follow.

A FURTHER APPEARANCE. Miss Burns has a brother-in-law, Mr Alec Laurie, who resides at 'Bourne Doom,” RawdonVale, Gloucester. Mr Laurie was very sceptical about -all this kind of thing” until a few months ago. He states he has seen Sergeant Burns on two occasions, and on the latter occasion he had a long talk with him. The dead soldier told his broth-er-in-law that he was killed at Armentjeres—until then his relatives had thought that he was killed at Pozieres—and described the manner of his death, that lie was terribly injured by a shell. These appearances were about two months after his actual death had occurred'. The first time Mr Laurie saw him was at dusk, and the second tune was between three and four o’clock in the morning, when he saw him, and had the conversation on the top of the stairs in the home.