A WELSH GHOST STORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5496, 28 June 1879, Page 7

A WELSH GHOST STORY.

♦- A strange ghost story (says the £trming7iam Oazelte) comes from the Principality. There is a friendly society at Pontardowe, in the Swansea Valley, among whose rules is one tbat the funeral allowance on account of a deceased member shall not be paid in caaea oE Buicide. One of the members recently died by his own hand, and the club accordingly refused to pay the death money. For this reasonable and just refusal the members '■ are now complaining that they are subjeoted to aarione persecution from as nnseen hand, presumably, a ghostly agent. The manifestations began on a recent Sunday, when one of the officers, returning home over a lonely road, was assailed, as ho asserts, by the spirit of the late member, who, failing to obtain a satisfactory reply'to his demand for the

money, in a somewhat unspiritlike manner assailed \be unfortunate man, and actually "tore his clothes to ribbons." Sncb, at least, was the account he gave, in tones of horror, at the first pablic-honse he came to after this terrible encounter. But the ghost aoes not appear to have been satisfied with this demonstration. On the next Tuesday evening, whilst the members were assembled in the lodge room, the usual knocks were heard at the door, as of a brother seeking admittance. The door was opened, "oat no one was to be seen. The members, however, are all very certain that they heard the voice of the deceased utter the words, " Pay my widow my funeral money, and then I shall be at reet." The meetiDg precipitately broke up, and the members are now puzzled to know what to do with such a determined deceased brother.