"SPOOK HUNT"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23381, 24 June 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

"SPOOK HUNT"

STRANGE COURT STORY

IRISHMAN KNOCKED OUT

BRICKS INSTEAD OF GHOSTS

ROASTING that he could produce a ghost which "would make the house shake," William Perry took a fellow Irishman, Joseph Murphy, to the passage outside the house in which they both lodged in Birmingham. And this was what happened, according to the talo Murphy told the magistrates at Birmingham the other day:— "I followed him, ho climbed a wall, and then two bricks hit mo on the head and face —thoso were the ghosts." Both men appeared in court with heavy plasters on their noses. Murphy also had his left eyo nearly closed. Perry was charged with being drunk and disorderly and with assaulting Murphy. His landlady, Mrs. Kileen Mohanimed, said that lior other lodgers were telling ghost stories when Perry, who was the worse for liquor, claimed that he was a spiritualist and could produce ghosts. Perry pleaded that when they were in the passageway Murphy started shouting, "Come on, ghost. Show me a ghost." When none was forthcoming Murphy struck him in the face. Perry was sentenced to two months' imprisonment for the assault and one month for being drunk and disorderly, the sentences to run concurrently.