MAN WHO SAW GHOST

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21912, 22 September 1934, Page 3 (Supplement)

MAN WHO SAW GHOST

EMPTY HOUSE TRAGEDY CARETAKER'S SAD DELUSION Convinced that he had seen the ghost of his late employer in the big unoccupied house of which he was caretaker a man in London recently tried to hang himself. He died from "hock caused by the fact of his having tried to commit suicide. The strange story was told at the inquest at Paddington on Frederick Walter Wallace, aged 44. who was found dead in the late Lady Alington s house in Portman Square. He had been in the service of Lord Alington's family for 18 years, and in latter years was employed by the late Feodoroyma Lady Alington, who died recently. Since her death he had been caretaker of the house, now untenanted, in which she had lived.

Evidence of the man's belief that he had seen a ghost was given by a_ constable. Wallace, he stated, said to him: " Last night I saw her ladyship." Coroner: A ghost walking about the house ? —Yes.

Wallace added: " I could not go to sleep again," and told the constable that he had never seen anything like the ghost before. Mrs. Wallace, the widow, stated that when her husband wrote to her three weeks ago hei complained that he was very lonely. Wallace was hanging dead by a rope attached to a beam in the boiler-room, and Dr. Spurgeon explained that shock, and not hanging, was the cause of his death. . In recording a verdict of Suicide while of unsound mind," the coroner remarked that the loneliness of the large empty house seemed to have got on the man's nerves and he became jumpy and depressed. „" Deceased thought he saw a ghost, the coroner went on. "I say that advisedly, because, of course, ghosts are mere delusions or illusions of the mind. Wallace said he had seen a woman walking about the house. That I take as evidence of an unbalanced mind.