SPOOKS!

NZ Truth, Issue 169, 12 September 1908, Page 6

SPOOKS!

A New Brighton Boss.

Annie Besant is repluted to have a humble disciple m the wandering spirit biz. out at New Brighton, where. Foreman Heyton, of the local Borough Council, loses himself m the theory of re-incarna-tion on • occasion and communes with spirits of the departed. He has a couple of mahatmas m constant attendance, together with another disembodied "ghost, which the corporation men have named "The Chow," and m moments' of . perplexity these astral beings give sound advice to the devotee. The only thing harmful about the matter is the, tendency bf "the Ohow" to run the show, aM when the foreman starts sacking married men instead of bachelors, and^ keeping fon city laborers while New Brighton men . are thrown out on to their sunburnt , listeners, the Mongolian, spook is denounced with fervor and the Theosophical gajiie is declared to be ungentlemanly; ' Two married men were sacked 'recently, ostensibly because they weren't doing enough work, but they are declared to be as good as most, and . better than many ; single men on the job, and bitter reproaches ARE HURLED AT "THE CHOW," and at the spook service usually held m the. whare of an employee known as "Bummer,',', and at the foreman m a general way of speaking. His missus is reputed to be a medium, and the family believes m faith healing, so that head-aches and corns and things like that are.. cured on sight by the application' of. a little belief, warmed over a slow fire. Nothinsg m jihe shape bf a broken limb ; has been tested yet. The men don't know whether it is th« spook business, or merely Heytbn's cussedness that is responsible,, but they claim that preference should be given to married men when the benedicts' are capable persons, and they challenge the right of "the Chow" or, the mahatmas, or the spiritual shape of Heytbn's father, or any other sort of jabherwok,' to hang round the foreman's 1 ear and prompt him to acts of injustice. These are the representations made to "Truth," the columns of which influential journal are 'opened wide for an explanation pi such inconsistencies: If the "Chow" comes round, to explain, the office devil will be conjured up and a special charge will be made for admission to view the spiritualistic scrap, patrons to bjring their own spirit glasses'.