BLAME THE CAT.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XIII, Issue 1359, 27 April 1920, Page 3

BLAME THE CAT.

GHOST HUNTS IN LONDON. In one of the old London inns—not the "fully licensed" sort, but that variety devoted to brief bags and forensics there were some weird occurences recently. Stumbling through a dark and narrow doorway, writes a representative of the Daily Chronicle, I was ushered into a room in total darkness, heavy with incense and peopled with vague and shadowy shapes. But these were not the spectres from the past which I had come to see materialise. These were companionable shapes, who pierced the gloom with the friendly light of burning cigarettes. Most of them, too, were sceptics, and affected to be wrought to a pitch of nervous tension expressed in catcalls and imitations of 5.9*5! The other spirits came later —in a doorway. There was a deal of green light, without which no respectable visitant from the other world would exhibit itself and their reception must have been a shock. For instance, Gladstone came on the scene, but appeared to be embarrassed by an invitation to state exactly what he said in '65; his voice faltered, and his grammar went all astray, and he didn't furnish the information required. Directly afterwards a shower of dry peas rattled about the room—this may have been mere peevishness on his part; on the other hand, it may have been an impish act of one of the sceptics. Other "manifestations" were accompanied by groans and one or two shrieks, which woke the night beadle in his office, and moved him to search with a stick for "one o' them 'ere cats, drat 'em." A spirit, which claimed to have come from Egypt, did indeed announce itself by unspiritlike meowings, but retired before the suggestion that it should be given "a saucer of milk." Some of the sitters claimed to have felt a cold wind, to have experienced ghostly touches, and a young lady cried out that she had been pinched. Since. she was hemmed about by male sceptics, this phenomenon was perhaps quite natural. I obtained a clue to the ghostly happenings when I detected one of the "controls" at the seance imitating spirit rappings with a device in his pocket. He called me "old thing" as he bade me good night, and winked. I should not hestitate to engage that suite of "haunted" rooms in the old inn if they should fall vacant.