Was it a Ghost They Saw ?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4763, 2 October 1893, Page 1

Was it a Ghost They Saw ?

Mrs H. H. Jbknings lives at No. 211, Main street, Bridgeport, and Miss Minnie Parrot boards with her. The house is an old one, but in good order. One night early in December (1891) the two women locked all the doors and went to tbe theatre, leaving not a eoul in the house. They left the gas burning, however, in the front parlour. At about half-past eleven they returned, and entered the house laughing and talking. But as they went into the parlour the merry humour died out of them in a second. Bight in the middle of the room stood a dark man of gigantic stature. The upper part of hiß face was concealed by a mask, his eyes gleaming through the eyeholes in it. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, and in one hand he carried a long, old-fashioned pistol. The women fled screaming from the room, and when Mr Jennings came in five minutes later he found no one in the parlour and all the doors and windows securely locked. What was it the women saw ? " During a recent period of ill health," writes an American friend, " I had slept badly for several successive nightß. On the fourth of these nightß about two o'clock, I was suddenly aroused from a doze by what seemed like the calling of my name ; and at the foot of the bed stood the image of my mother just as she looked five years before, as she was leaving home to go on a journey, on which journey she was killed in a railway disaster. I screamed and fainted. I was foolish enough to tell of it, and the looal old women gossips said it was a summons and I would never get well. Yet I did, and am in perfect health now. I believe tbat vision came of my weak nerves, for Pve never seen it since, and it's more than three years ago now." No doubt it was the nerves. Why, there's no end to the tricks the nerves will play off on you when your syotem is out of condition. In March, 1890, it was that Mrs Jane Foster, of . Darrscott Eoad, Pokesdown, Hants, wrote us aa follows — "I was so dreadfully nervous I could not bear anyone in the room with me, yet I did not wish them far away in case I should call out for help. This was in June, 1889. I slept very badly, and in the morning felt little the better for having gone ' to bed. There wa3 often a severe pain in my head and over my eyes, and I waß sick most of the time. My skin.' was dry and yellow, and the stomach and bowels felt cold and dead,' By and by I had to lie helpless in bed. The doctor said he didn't know what my complaint was. 1 took nothing but liquid food, and could not retain even tbat on my stomach. By this time I was nothin g but skin and bone. My memory completely failed. My head ached so dreadfully I thought I should lose my senses, and my friends agreed that I would never get better. " I had given up all hope, when one day Mrs West, of Bournemouth, call and aßked what I was taking. She told me she was herßelf once just as badly off, and was cured by Mother Seigel'a Curative Syrup. As she seemed to have so much faith in thiß medicine, I tried it, and in three days I was able to work across the room, and by the end of the week I went down stairs. Now lam as well as ever. I can eat and digest my food, and all my nervousness haß left me." The malady Mrs Foster suffered from was indigestion and dyspepsia and nervous prostration. The original cau.e waa grief and shock at the violent death of her. husband, by accident, and the system rallied only when the Syrup had given new vigour to the digestion, and thus fed and toned the nerves. ' Whatever may be your opinion of the Bridgeport ghost, it remains true that most uncanny visions and sounds mean nothing more or less than a set of nerves all upset by indigestion and dyspepsia. Ghosts come from the inside of the person who sees them, and when Mother Seigel's Syrup does its work the eyes and ears entertain only what is natural and wholeBorne.