“HOUSE OF ILL OMEN.”

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18165, 1 November 1930, Page 14 (Supplement)

“HOUSE OF ILL OMEN.”

GHOSTLY VISITS BEFORE DISASTER Queer "'Stories are told of ghostly visitors... to . the residence of the Illfated Yen family in Pitt' Street, Liverpool, which it is stated had been known for mapv years in the Chinese colony as "The House of Til-Omen.” A white woman neighbour, related: "On the Sunday night before the fire three friends of Mr Yen saw the figure of a man sitting on the steps outside the front door of Mr Yen’s house. "Later the same evening there was a knock at the door and when one of the Chinamen opened it a ghostly figure passed him without a word, walked along Hie passage, and up the stairs 1o the middle front room which was unoccupied. The man who opened the, door followed the figure with a lighted match in his hand, but as soon as he got inside the empty room the ghostly visitor had vanished. “Again came a knock at the door. This time another Chinaman opened it, and exactly the same thing happened. An hour later it happened a third time, and again it was a different Chinaman who opened the door. Each one declared there was no doubt of the figure being a ghost, and described it in the same way. They did not tell Mr Yen, knowing that he was superstitious,'and thinking that it might upset him.”

Another resident declared that more than 30 years ago, when the population of Liverpool’s Chinatown was much larger, seven Chinamen were burned to death in the same house in the room that was entered by the ghostly visitors. The victims were five stowaways from a Liverpool boat and two laundrymen who had been sleeping in the- room.