ADELAIDE SLEEP-WALKER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIV, Issue LIV, 21 February 1920, Page 7

ADELAIDE SLEEP-WALKER

GHOSTLY FHU'IvH IN THE street SYDNEY, flan. 28. An exl vaordiiuiry story of a sloop-walker ,-comcs from Adelaide. Just . before daybreak last Sunday morning a constable on duty in Bundle' street. . Adelaide, saw a ghostly figure moving slowly a couple of hundred yards in front of him lie followed it at a safe distance for a while, hut he moved up closer when it made no effort to attack, and presently recognised a case of somnambulism. It was a woman of about 55, clad only in her nightgown and she was lightly and steadily walking ’ westward. She was staring ’ straight ahead, blankly and unseeing-. ly ‘ , The constable hovered round puzzled and uncertain what to do. Tie knew, sensible felloAv, that it was a dangerous thing to jar a somnambulist suddenly from the strange, condition of trance; yet the woman gave every indication of willingness to walk all night,. The eonstable walked beside her, but she took no notice, and they progressed thus for a hundred yards. Then the constable walked rapidly ahead, deliberately placed himself in the woman’s path, and let her collide with him. She gasped, and woke, hut displayed no excitement. The constable put hi» cloak round her and took her to the police station. It was found that the woman, had. walked from St. Peter’s—a full two miles away. The police sent a messenger to her husband, and when that alarmed and worried man arrived he found the lady comfortably asleep in the “parlour” cell.She" said that she had |>een to a picture show that night with her husband and went to bed at the ordinary hour. From, then, until the policeman awoke her in the street, . her mind had’ been a complete j blank.