FAMOUS GHOSTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 303, 23 December 1933, Page 7 (Supplement)

FAMOUS GHOSTS

FEATURES OF YULETIDE FIRESIDE STORIES. (By H. W. WILSON.) The ghost story has from time inr memorial been a feature at the Christmas fireside. And this may be my excusc for recalling certain uncanny experiences which have befallen fam ous persons and which are. beyond dispute historic. Sometimes these manifestations (il they arc really’’ such) produce terror and sometimes they cause no concern at all. I shall give them ns they om set forth by eminent authorities. What Earl Grey Saw. Thc most alarming of them all was the series of apparitions seen by thc second Earl Grey and various member* of his family in 1823 in a house in Hanover Square. This house was after wards let to the French Ambassador Talleyrand and his niece, the Ducliessc d G Dino. It is from her diary that I take thc following extract, compressing it slightly;— Lord Grey’ was crossing the diningroom to go to his own room. He had a light in his hand, and he saw behind one of the pillars which divide thc room a pale face, which appeared, to be that of an old man, though the eyes and hair were very black. He started back, but on again raising his eyes he saw the same face staring fixedly at him, while the body seemed to be hidden behind the pillar. It disappeared when he went forward. He searched, but found nothing. He told his family next day, when Lady Georgiana Grey told him that one night she had been awakened by feeling someone breathe on her face. Shc opened her eyes and saw the face of a man bending over her. Shc screamed and the face disappeared. She then jumped out of bed and rushed into the next room, locking the door behind her, and threw herself half dead with fright on the bed of her sister, Lady Elizabeth. Next day the windows, doors and bolts were found in good order, and what she had seen was pronounced to be a ghost. 1 remember asking the fourth 1’ Grey’, after his icturn from Canada, whether he had heard thc story; ami he said there was no doubt that his grandfather believed ho had seen something extremely uncanny. The family shortly afterwards left the house, finding its reputation or the ghostly happenings there too trying. The Duchesse de Dino's account is substantially the same as that given by Lady Granville in a contemporary letter. During Talleyrand’s tenancy of the house no apparitions were seen. The Duchesse de Dino, however, tells us that at first the servants wore afraid to go about thc house at night except in couples. The Green Lady. The i’yvie ghost has always been famous; and in her reminiscences Janet Ross tells a strange story of the haunted Gordon room in Fyvie Castle, which Aberdeenshire stronghold a cousin of hers inherited. During thc last illness (she says) of my cousin, Captain Gordon, he was moved from thc Gordon room into one near by, partly because it was more cheerful, partly because of the tradition that every laird who died at Fyvie must die in the Gordon room. Airs. Gordon was called away for a few minutes, and on returning, to her terror found bed and room empty’. .She called, servants came running, and the laird was found in a fainting condition in the fateful room. When he recovered consciousness he told his wife that as shc left the room the Green Lady (who was supposed to summon the doomed) glided in and beckoned to him. Feeling forced to obey her, he staggered out of bed and along the corridor, and followed her into thc Gordon room, which seemed to bo lit up by her presence. As she vanished thc room became dark. PoorCaptain Gordon died shortly after this. Lady Warwick, in the delightful volume of memoirs which she has just published, says: It is a fact that things have occurred at Warwick Castle that I could never explain. In my own private room at tac castle I frequently heard footsteps when there was nobody about, and one evening when 1 was in my boudoir I heard a strong masculine stop moving in the direction of my dressing room. Not being a nervous person, I rose and followed. The door was open . . . but there was no sign of any visible presence. Just thirty years ago the poet Lionel Johnson, well known to Oxford men of that day, left his chambers in one of the Inns of Court because of inexplicable happenings. The chambers in question had been quitted by a whole scries of tenants one after another, and there was a sinister report that everyone who occupied them camo lo an early end. This was verified in the case of Lionel Johnson, who died quite young, only a few months after luhad left, and in strange conditions, which, however, are no part of this story. Test by Sceptics. So circumstantial wer© the reports of supernormal incidents in these chum bers that a careful investigation was made by two barristers ol The DailyMail. Both weie cool and careful observers and neither of them had the slightest belief in ghosts. Their experiences were recorded in The Daily Al ail at thc time ami were of so strange a character that 1 will recount them here, condensing tnem from the narrative then published. I knew one of the investigators intimately, and can vouch for his good faith and his complete freedom from any excess of imagination. 'l'llo set of chambers hud three silting rooms and a bedroom, and was the only’ set inhabited at night on that particular staircase. Of the sitting room.', one was a large room with two doors in its south wall, one. leading to the entrance hall to the chambers ami the other to one of the small rooms, from which there was no other door. Precautions. The investigators searched the place thoroughly. There were no panels, no cupboards, “nothing to hide, a blackbeetle.” They locked the outer doors ind secured the windows and stove registers. They then spread powdered •halk on the floor of the two small rooms, closed thc doors into them, and retired to the large room. They had been warned that nothing •\er happened in the room in which a .vatcher sat. All the electric lights were turned on. At 12.43 (they re

ported afterwards i the door opposite to them on the right, leading into the little room with no other means of access to it, unlatched itself and opened slowly to its full extent. The click of the handle turning was very distinct, and the handle could be seen turning. At J 2.56 the same thing happened to the left door. Both doors then stood wide open. They wailed some minutes and thou got up ami closed the doors. Nothing could be seen; there were no marks iu the chalk. The Swinging Doors. Nothing further happened until 1.32, when the right hand door opened before, the. handle clicking and slowly turning. l’h G door swung slowly open, the process lasting JI seconds. At 1.37, the left hand door opened in the same way. 'I he observers watched and waited. At 1.40 both doors closed simultaneously, swinging gently to within bin. ol the wall, when they were slammed wilji a slight jar. Both latches clicked. Bel ween 1.45 and 1.55 I his happened twice again, thc openings ami closings of th e two doors not being simultaneous. At 2.7 and 2.8 they opened again, and this I inn- marks were noted in the chalk in both rooms. They were footprints like those of a turkey or large bird, converging diagonally towards the doors, ami were sharp, not blurred. There was nothing in the chambers and no one on the staircase when the vigil ended as daylight, set in. Aud. both the observers agreed that what they had seen was mysterious beyond rational explanation. Since that day to this, however, nothing more hai been heard of manifestations in these particular chambers—or at least nothing has reached the public ear.