Smithtown's Strange Doings

New York, 1895

A Deserted House in Which Mysterious Lights Go Bobbing About.

There is an unoccupied house on the banks of the Nissequogue river in Smithtown, which is said to be haunted. The place is owned by Miss Fannie Darling, who, for some cause, suddenly removed from the place, leaving behind her furniture. Recently a mysterious light has been seen in the house. It was surmised at first that burglars were looting the house, but an investigation disproved this theory. A man was set to guard the place. He avers that the light began to wander about the house at a certain hour. He searched from cellar to garret but found everything in its place and nothing to explain the illumination.

A few nights ago several men set out to watch the place. A light snow was falling when they went on guard. A cordon was established around the house to see that no one entered unobserved. When the light began to show they all made a rush for the place and doors and windows were watched. Another search through the house failed to explain the mystery and no traces of strange footprints were found in the snow. Many of the villagers profess to laugh at the scare, but the house is avoided after nightfall.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, Feb. 8, 1895, p. 1.

Lord Brougham's Dream

1917

Lord Brougham was one of the stubborn believers to the "common sense" explanation of ghostly appearances as dreams. At Edinburgh university he and an intimate friend drew up an agreement written with their blood that whichever of them died first should appear to the survivor.

Years passed; the friend was in India, and Brougham had almost forgotten his existence. Arriving late one night at an inn in Sweden, Brougham had a hot bath and was going to get out of it when he looked toward the chair on which he had left his clothes and saw his friend sitting on it. Brougham seems then to have fainted.

On getting home be received a letter announcing that the other had died in India at the very time. Yet this incident, which most people would put down to telepathy at least, was dismissed by Brougham as a mere dream and pure coincidence.

The Ghost of the Tower

1901

Superstitious people in merry England are busy prophesying many gloomy events because it has been declared that the ghost of Mary, queen of Scots, has again made itself evident.

The story was that an officer of the guard on duty in the constables' quarters in the Tower of London on Christmas eve heard a long wail from the top of the tower. He stopped to listen and heard it again. Footsteps followed, and a third time the wail rang out over the fog bound river and the sleeping city. He went to search for a cause. but found none.

According to tradition the ghost of the unhappy Queen Mary has frequently made itself manifest in the Tower of London. Mary, queen of Scots, was imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth in the constables' tower and was led from it to execution in the tower quadrangle. Before the death of every king or queen of England since her day her spirit has been reported as having appeared.

All of this is very unpleasant for those to whom the welfare of Queen Victoria is dear and who believe in appearances after death. But apart from any supernatural auguries it would not be surprising to hear at any time of the demise of the Queen of England. It is well known that her health is far from satisfactory and that she is daily growing more and more feeble. The death of the Dowager Lady Churchill threw her majesty into a condition which is alarming to court circles. Lady Churchill was the queen's oldest and closest companion, and Victoria's grief is extreme.

Should England be unfortunate enough to lose its august ruler there would not be lacking those who would sagely wag their heads and recall the appearance of Mary's ghost. But their "I told you so" would be far from satisfactory to more materially inclined individuals.

Woman Sees Ghostly Visitor Shoot Himself

1908

Spirit Tragedy Enacted In India Occurred As She'd Witnessed It

This is the tale of a ghost who shot himself. The woman who relates it had accompanied her husband to Tirzapur, India, says the Kansas City Star. He had been sent there to undertake the duties of an agent who had gone home on sick leave. The only accommodation they could find when they arrived was an inspection bungalow.

They retired about ten o'clock, but Mrs. S. remained awake for some time reading a novel by the light of a lamp. She was just thinking of turning it out when suddenly a man holding a revolver appeared in the room, she says:

"Before I could move or speak he said: 'Don't stop me; I am going to shoot myself.' As he put the revolver to his head I shut my eyes and was nearly deafened by the report that followed. My husband jumped up, wide awake at once, with a cry of 'Who fired?' and I opened my eyes expecting to see a ghastly heap on the floor.

"To my amazement the room was empty and there was no sign of the tragedy that had just taken place in front of me. My husband said he had been awakened out of a sound sleep by the noise of the shot and when I told him what I had seen we searched the house together. Neither the punkah coolie, who was sleeping in the veranda, nor the servants, whose houses were close by in the compound, had heard anything. Even the dogs chained in the veranda had not been disturbed. It all happened so suddenly that I had no feeling of fright or terror. The man seemed to come from the direction of my husband's office, where there was a door connecting with the bedroom, in front of which we had placed a heavy wardrobe. He was a shortish, unpleasant-looking man and he held the revolver in his left hand. Neither my husband nor I were at all nervous people and when we could find nothing to explain what had occurred we decided that it must have been imagination and that our being in strong sympathy with each other had caused us to share the same hallucination."

Now for the sequel. Shortly afterward Mrs. S. accompanied her husband on a tour of the district. Among the bills they met a Mme. de Bevery, who had been a widow for several years. In the course of a conversation with her Mrs. S. discovered that at one time she had lived in the bungalow at Tirzapur where the spectral suicide had manifested itself.

"On hearing that she knew our bungalow and had actually lived in it," Mrs. S. adds, "I was impelled to relate our strange experience there, which hitherto my husband and I had kept to ourselves. She listened without comment, but when I ended my narrative by saying that we had come to the conclusion it must have been either indigestion or imagination she turned very pale and said, 'You have related something that really happened; my husband shot himself there before my eyes exactly as you have described.'

"I was terribly distressed at having, all unwittingly, reminded her of such a painful episode, but she reassured me by saying: 'It is many years ago and I can talk about it now, though I was ill for months afterward from the shock.'

"She then told me that her husband had gone into the bedroom through the door which we kept closed and had used the very words I quoted and the whole affair coincided exactly with what I had seen, down to the smallest detail. Mme. de Bevery spoke very calmly about her husband and said that he had been ill and mentally unsound for some time. I heard long afterward that he was a confirmed drunkard and had ill-treated her in every way."

Sad "Ghost" Foils Police

Pennsylvania, 1915

Wraith of Man Killed Who Was on Railroad Tracks Upsets Old Neighbors

Philadelphia. — On Garrett Hill, in Radnor township, the police are looking nightly for the "ghost" of a man who was killed several months ago at the railroad station at Radnor. The man lived at Garrett Hill, and has returned, his old neighbors say.

A number of residents say they have seen the wraith. It flits out of dark corners, they say, stares at them with sorrowful eyes, and then passes, moaning. A woman tells of being called to her door the other evening, and of finding the man there facing her with his piteous stare. As she stood, she says, paralyzed with fear, he vanished.

So many tales of the "ghost" have reached the police that they have begun an investigation, on the theory that a crank or a maniac is annoying the residents. So far, however, no trace of a flesh and blood marauder has been found.

Took Ghost's Word for It

Took Ghost's Word for It

1914

New York Woman Declares Father's Spirit Told Her That Friend Had Purloined Ring

Through the proxy of Mrs. Ida Shapiero of Brooklyn, the ghost of her father appeared as a witness before Magistrate Miller in the New Jersey Avenue police court of that borough, alleging that Mrs. Clara Steiner, who occupies an apartment on the same floor with Mrs. Shapiero, had stolen a $150 ring belonging to her.

Mrs. Shapiero charged that Mrs. Steiner had visited her on July 3 and was upward of an hour in her bedoom, which Mrs. Shapiero had occasion to leave once or twice. In a drawer of the dresser reposed the ring. On July 4, when Mrs. Shapiero missed her ring she went looking for Mrs. Steiner, and learned she had gone to Paterson, N. J.

"But sure as I am here, your honor," said Mrs. Shapiero, "the figure of my departed father appeared to me. I could see him as plainly as you yourself sitting before me. He spoke slowly. He said: 'Mrs. Steiner has your ring. She took it from a drawer in your dressing table. Take her into court and recover your property.' "

Whether Magistrate Miller pinned faith in the evidence of the astral father of Mrs. Shapiero or was unsatisfied with the answers made by Mrs. Steiner, who, among other things, declared most earnestly she did not steal the ring, does not appear as a matter of record, but he held her in $500 bail for the grand jury.


Mayor's Pleasant Duty

A pretty ceremony took place at Newcastle, England, recently, when the customs of "Barge Day" were observed, and the mayor and corporation sailed up the river to "claim the soil" of the Tyne. The great moment of the ceremony is the landing, when the mayor has the delightful, if invidious, privilege of selecting any young lady he pleases from the assembled crowd and giving her a kiss and a sovereign. The sheriffs also choose a fair lady on whom to bestow a kiss and a gift, and the mayoress is expected to make some useful present to the damsel kissed by his worship.

The Haunted Maintop – Fright Aboard An English Ship

1889

How a Talkative Parrot Frightened the Tars of An English Ship

Talking about ghosts, writes a correspondent of the Sheffield (Eng.) Telegraph, our chief mate once told me that on board a ship in which he once served the mate on duty ordered some of the youths to reef the maintop sail. When the first got up he heard a strange voice saying: "It blows hard!" The lad waited for no more; he was down in a trice and told his adventure. A second immediately ascended, laughing at the folly of his companion, but returned even more quickly, declaring he was quite sure that a voice not of this world had cried in his ear: "It blows hard!" Another went, and another, but each came back with the same tale.

At length the mate having sent up the whole watch, ran up the shrouds himself, and when he reached the haunted spot heard the dreadful words distinctly uttered in his ear:

"It blows hard!"

"Aye, aye. old one; but blow it ever so hard, we must ease the ear-rings for all that," replied the mate, undauntedly, and, looking round, he saw a line parrot perched on one of the clews — the thoughtless author of the false alarms — which had probably escaped from some other vessel to take refuge on this.

Another of our officers mentioned that on one of his voyages he remembered a boy having been sent to clear a rope which had got foul above the mizzentop. Presently, however, he came back trembling, and almost tumbling to the bottom, declaring that he had seen "Old Davy" aft the cross-trees. Moreover, that the evil one had a huge head and face, with prick-ears and eyes as bright as fire. Two or three others were sent up in succession, to all of whom the apparition glared forth, and was identified by each to be "Old Davy," sure enough.

The mate, in a rage, at length mounted himself, when resolutely, as in the former case, searching for the bugbear, he soon ascertained the innocent cause of so much terror to be a large horned owl, so lodged as to be out of sight to those who ascended on the other side of the vessel, but which, when any one approached the cross-trees, popped up his portentous visage to see what was coming. The mate brought him down in triumph, and "Old Davy," the owl, became a very peaceful shipmate among the crew, who were no longer scared by his horns and eyes, for sailors turn their back on nothing when they know what it is.

Had the birds in these two instances departed as they came, of course they would have been deemed supernatural visitants to the respective ships by all who had heard the one and seen the other.

Necromancers of Old: Raising of Ghosts a Favorite Exploit

1878

The raising of ghosts was a favorite exploit of the necromancers of old.

The fame of Torraiva, the Spanish magician, has been immortalized in Don Quixote. The demons that celebrated Italian artist, Benvenuto Cellini, describes as having seen when he got within the conjuror's circle, and which amazement magnified into several legions, are now believed to have been merely figures produced by a magic lantern; and their appearing in an atmosphere of perfumes is accounted for by the burning of odoriferous woods, in order to dim the visions of the spectators.

When the Emperor Charles the Fourth was married to the Bavarian Princess Sophia, in the city of Prague, the father of the tribe brought with him a wagon load of magicians to assist him in the festivities. Two of the chief proficients in the part — Zytho, the Bohemian sorcerer, and Guion, the Bavarian — appeared as rivals in an extraordinary trial before an exalted assembly. After superhuman efforts to astonish, Zytho opened his jaws from ear to ear, and swallowed his companion until his teeth touched his shoes, which he spat out because he said they had not been cleaned. The admiration of the audience was succeeded by feelings of horror, but Zytho calmed their apprehensions by restoring the vanquished Guion in his perfect corporal proportions to life — a triumph of art inexplicable.

Laying One Ghost Story to Rest: Just Had Gas

1916

A Simple Solution to the Mystery of a "Haunted" House

The mystery of a "haunted" house was explained in a recent number of Science. It was a large, handsome structure in Boston's Back Bay district. The trouble centered in the third and fourth stories, where the slumbers of servants and children were disturbed by strange sensations.

It was a common occurrence for them to awake in the night with a feeling of oppression, "as if some one were tapping upon me." Sounds also were heard, as if some one were walking about or overhead. Once a child rushed screaming into the nurse's room, crying that a man was waking him up and asking why she let him frighten him so. In the morning the children were pale and sluggish, even cold water lacking its usual power to enliven them.

Investigation at length revealed a comparatively simple, mechanistic solution in the escape of a large amount of furnace gas. Often the sulphur in it was so strong as to make the eyes water and to hurt the throat, while the sensations of oppression were typical of carbon monoxide. The noises may have been actual sounds coming from an adjoining house, although any noise at all would probably be exaggerated in the minds of persons awakened in the night while suffering from poisonous gas.

—Stevens Point Daily Journal, Stevens Point, Wisconsin, July 29, 1916, page 7.

Famous Ghost Stories of Kansas City, 1895

1895

KANSAS CITY GHOSTS

FAMOUS SPOOKS OF THE TOWN ON THE BIG MUDDY

The Original Ghost Is From a Case of Fratricide — How the Santa Fe Spook Was Laid — How a Man With the "Jimjams" Stirred Up a Jail Full of Criminals

It may be true that conscience makes cowards of us all, but with the ignorant and superstitious conscience is not a circumstance when compared to a vivid imagination. The greatest coward on earth is the person who sees in every dark shadow, in each deserted house and around every dismal building the restless spirit of some departed sinner whose crimes will not allow him to enter heaven, who is doomed to wander around this earth until Gabriel's trumpet is sounded, who must hover near the scene of his former misdeeds until the last day.

The place by popular consent most adapted to ghost wanderings and the place most fruitful in the production of the bona fide article is naturally the graveyard. The drearier, gloomier and more mournful the aspect of the graveyard the more ghosts. But the real believer in spooks and spirits does not deem it necessary to go among the tombs and graves of the dead to find a spirit.

Ghosts are numerous. They can be found in all sections of the country. There is not a village nor a deserted country house nor a railroad bridge but has its ghost. But the ghosts are not all confined to the country by any means. There have been several in Kansas City that have gained extensive notoriety on account of their many visitations, and the parts of the city in which they are wont to disport themselves are still eyed with suspicion and looked upon askance by the inhabitants of Belvidere Hollow, Hick's Hollow and other portions of the city thickly settled by the descendants of Ham.

The oldest, the original ghost that is most vividly in the memory of the superstitious and is most often the topic of grewsome whispers among the people mentioned, walked the levee between Main street and Broadway 12 years ago. One winter's night, the story goes, a man was lying in wait for an enemy on the levee. In his hand he clutched a ponderous double barreled shotgun loaded with nails and slugs. He saw a man walking down the levee. In the dim, flickering light he thought he recognized his enemy. He raised his gun, fired and hurried away. The next day he read in the papers that his brother's body had been found on the levee, horribly mangled and torn. The murderer winced, but kept his secret. Then the dead brother's ghost began to walk. Every night, at the same hour of the shooting, it could be seen on the levee. Each time it would walk straight to the spot where the body had fallen. Then the ghost would fall, go through a death struggle and disappear. It kept this up for years, and there are those who say it does it still.

The second healthy, well developed ghost disported itself in the ruins of the old Santa Fe Stage Coach company's office at Second and Main streets in 1886. So generally known did it become that often large crowds would congregate and await the appearance of the nocturnal visitor. Early one evening a young man who wished to investigate a little went into the ruins. When he emerged from them an hour later, he found a large crowd standing on the opposite side of the street, near the jail, watching for ghosts. Someone in the crowd, thinking that the young man had been playing ghost, threw a brick at the investigator, striking him on the head. He fell senseless with a gaping wound in his head. The Santa Fe ghost has not been seen since.

In 1887 there was a story afloat that at 12 o'clock each night a ghostly cable train glided down the incline between Walnut and Main streets and disappeared into space. In the grip car, guiding the tram, was the ghost of a gripman who had died a short time before, after having been insane for some time, the result of grief over the fact that his train had run down and killed a pedestrian. Crowds congregated at the junction nightly to see the strange sight. For the most part they went away disappointed, although there was plenty who declared they had seen "it."

Another story, in which a ghost was never seen, but which smacked strongly of spooks, was the Conway murder on East Eighteenth street, between Oak and Locust, in 1885. Mrs. Conway, a young woman, and her little girl were beaten to death with a coupling pin. The murderer or murderers were never caught. Suspicion pointed toward two men, but there was no evidence. Both of them afterward died horrible deaths — one of the glanders and the other of cancer. The ghost of the victims never walked openly, but that section of the city was given a wide berth by the true believers for many months afterward.

Last, but not least, were the ghosts of Clark and Jones, the men hung for murdering Mme. Wright in 1893. These ghosts materialized in the jails, one at Independence and one in Kansas City. The scare lasted for some weeks, and the negro prisoners were thrown into a state of terror by any strange sounds. One night, when the jail was in a state of comparative quiet, a drunken prisoner, who had just been brought in, had an attack of "jimjams." By some strange coincidence he was placed in the cell once occupied by Clark, and the prisoners soon located the groaning of the unfortunate man. The negroes, not knowing that the cell was occupied, supposed that the noise was made by a departed spirit, and all started to howling with the "ghost." The effect was something that can be imagined better than it can be described. Since the Clark ghost left the jail Kansas City has been bereft of spirits, and Belvidere Hollow is breathing more easily than it has for years. — Kansas City Times.

—Warren Ledger, Warren, Pennsylvania, May 3, 1895, page 6.

Railroad Builder Makes Tracks to Suit Spirits

1922

INSPIRED BY SPIRIT WORLD

Arthur E. Stilwell Says He Was Advised in Railroad Building.

NEW YORK, June 15. — That every foot of the 3,000 miles of railroad he has built was constructed according to the advice of spirits and that he changed the direction of the Kansas City Southern so as to have his terminal at Port Arthur, Tex., instead of Galveston because the spirits warned him to avoid the latter place, is the assertion of Arthur E. Stilwell, who says he has been president of many railroads and was present for seven years of the National surety company.

Making his revelations last night at a meeting of spiritualists, he said he had not revealed his relations with the spirit world before because he did not want "people to think me a nut."

"When I was building the Kansas City Southern I was warned not to build the terminal at Galveston because it would lead to disaster. They told me to terminate it at Lake Sabine, where I built the terminal of Port Arthur. Four days after the terminal was completed the tidal wave wiped out Galveston."

—The Nebraska State Journal, Lincoln, Nebraska, June 16, 1922, page 1.

The Ghost That Sang

1913

I had never seen a ghost, but once in the company of a friend, I heard a ghost sing.

It was in London. I must not mention the house, because to say a house is haunted in London is criminal libel. This house was haunted. I knew it was haunted, but the ghost had never troubled me. It bothered a friend of mine who spent an autumn in the house, by stamping up the stairs in the middle of the night. It troubled my secretary, who used to work alone in the house in the evening sometimes, by opening and shutting the doors. It troubled the police by lighting up the house and giving false alarm of burglars in the middle of the night. It never troubled me. I never saw it. I never felt it never heard it till this once.

It was about 1 o'clock in the morning. I was sitting in my sitting-room with a friend whom I call "X", who is a well-known author. (One generally adds in a ghost story "and who was a hard-headed man of business, utterly skeptical and completely matter of fact," as if that had anything to do with it.) We had just come in and were expecting another friend who lived in the house, and we were sitting up for him. We were talking about Swinburne's verse, and took down the first edition of "Atalanta in Calydon," which I then possessed and which I foolishly sold for a small sum (it was immediately afterward resold at an auction for large sum and went to America and is now in some collector's library), and I read out a passage. As I was reading we heard singing next door. said, "There's Phil," and didn't pay any further attention, as I expected him to come in, and I went on reading.

But the singing continued. It sounded foreign — like Spanish. This didn't surprise us, as Phil was in the habit of singing Provencal songs. The singing went on, and as he didn't come in, we went to meet him and opened the door. The next room was a tiny ante-room opening into another sitting room, and beyond this again was the smallest of bedrooms — not bigger than a cupboard. There was nobody there, but the singing went on; such curious singing, too; strange, alien, faint, tinkly, as if four confused voices were singing the song of an early century; it was unreal and it had a kind of burr in it, as if you were listening to voices on a telephone that is out of order. We walked through the rooms and we walked through the singing, and we heard it behind us still going on; and in the bedroom we found our friend asleep in his bed. Then the singing stopped. Now as we walked through that sitting-room I noticed my friend's hair, in Kipling's phrase, sitting up. I daresay he noticed the name thing about mine, or he would have done so had I any hair to notice. — Maurice Baring in the February Metropolitan.

—Middletown Daily Times-Press, Middletown, New York, February 15, 1913, page 4.

Ghost is Whistler, Conductors Report

1920

SAN FRANCISCO, Cal. -- Is Twin Peaks tunnel haunted?

"It is," aver several conductors on municipal railway cars. "The tunnel is haunted, and what is more, the ghost that dwells in the tunnel is a whistler of ability, tenacity and great lung power."

According to several car men whose runs take them through the tunnel, the tube has a ghost that whistles in an uncanny way. One conductor avers he saw the ghost -- in the shape of a man -- the other night and that the ghost disappeared in thin air, like sunsets do in moving pictures.

Those who don't believe in ghosts explain the weird whistling as being due to the rush of air around the speeding cars, the walls of the tunnel confining the air and making the "ghost music."

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 27, 1920, page 9.

Comment: I like the phrase: "disappeared in thin air, like sunsets do in moving pictures."

The Eternity of Life May Be Known By Psychometry

"UNKNOWN GUEST," SAYS MAETERLINCK, ALWAYS WITH US

Belgian Writer in Newest Book Offers Interesting Glimpse Into Spirit Realm

RESULTS OF PSYCHIC RESEARCH

Eternity of Life May Be Probed Through Study of the Theories of Psychometry

By Henry Noble Sherwood, Ph.D.

Do you believe in ghosts?

Do you attach any significance to dreams?

Do you think fortune-tellers are fakirs?

Are you informed on the method and work of the Society for Psychical Research?

All of these topics are treated by Maurice Maeterlinck in his new book, "The Unknown Guest," (New York: Dodd Mead & Co.) in a most charming and suggestive way. An idea of the book may be had from the following review:

One of the mysterious manifestations of "The Unknown Guest" is the rope climbing feat performed by the people of the Far East. "The juggler takes his stand in an open space, far from any tree or house. He is accompanied by a child; and his only impedimenta are a bundle of ropes and an old canvas sack. The juggler throws one end of the rope up in the air; and the rope, as though drawn by an invisible hook, uncoils and raises straight into the sky until the end disappears; and soon after, there comes tumbling from the blue, two arms, two legs, a head and so on, all of which the wizard picks up and crams into the sack. He next mutters a few magic words over it and opens it; and the child steps out, bowing and smiling to the spectators."

Seen in Haunted Houses

The unknown guest is also seen in haunted houses. The Society for Psychical Research in 1884 examined carefully sixty-five cases of haunted houses. The scenes enacted were all simple and commonplace. For example, "an old woman, with a thin grey shawl meekly folded over her breast, who bends at night over the sleeping occupants of her old home," or on the stairs and in the halls, she, silent, mysterious, and a little grim, frequently encounters the passersby.

What is the explanation of such manifestations of the Unknown Guest? It is said the dead do not die entirely, that their spiritual or animistic entity neither departs nor disperses into space after the dissolution of the body. The utmost they can do is occasionally to cause a few glimpses of their existence to penetrate the fissures of those singular organisms known as mediums.

Definite Force Impels Medium

In this connection what is known as psychometry is very interesting. Psychometry is "the faculty possessed by certain persons of placing themselves in relation, either spontaneously or, for the most part, through the intermediary of some object with unknown and often very distant things and people." A medium is given an object handled by a person about whom it is proposed to question her. Perhaps the object is a letter. The medium sees the writer of this letter, his appearance, habits and surroundings, and traces in outline his future. Maeterlinck is inclined to believe that the object touched enables the medium's sensitiveness to distinguish a definite force from among innumerable forces that assail it. It is impregnated with human "fluid" and "contains, after the manner of some prodigiously compressed gas all the incessantly renewed, incessantly recurring images that surround a person, all his past and perhaps his future, his psychology, his state of health, his wishes, his intentions, often unknown to himself, his most secret instincts, his likes and dislikes, all that is bathed in light and all that is plunged in darkness, his whole life, in short, and more than his personal and conscious life, besides all the lives and all the influences, good or bad, latent or manifest, of all who approach him."

Brutes Show Attitude

This story of the Unknown Guest is carried into the kingdom of the brutes. A most interesting chapter is devoted to the Elberfeld horses. They perform feats in mathematics, know the meaning of words, which possess no interest to them, represent no picture, no memory. Does this mean that, if the brute world was taught as ardently as we teach our children it, too, would show itself our equals?

All of these manifestations of the Unknown Guest and the hundreds of other enumerated or referred to in Maeterlinck's book might be intelligible to us if the field of the mind has been exploited as thoroughly as the field of the material. Modernity, however, has found matter a more profitable field than mind. We can build great skyscrapers, organize gigantic industrial concerns, build irrigation ditches, and harness waterfalls. Many are the Edisons, Burbanks and DeLesseps. But the Bergsons are few. When more study is given to the subconscious, the supernatural, and the psychic, then the unknown guest may be better known. We may have an indisputable proof of the eternity of life and the immortality of the spirit.

Maeterlinck is a Belgian

Our author is a Belgian with a French education and habit of life. He was trained in the law and has been a deep student of philosophy and zoology. In religion he is a Catholic. In preparation no one is better suited to write a book on The Unknown Guest. Teixeira de Mattos, a Dutch, has translated this work as well as many other books of Maeterlinck from the French language into our own. This Belgian author, now fifty-two, like us, is still tapping hauntingly at the Gates of the Unknown.

--The La Crosse Tribune, La Crosse, Wisconsin, February 1, 1915, page 1. The translation referred to above and other details written about the book pertain to the edition current at the time of this 1915 article.

Alchemy, Spiritualism, Ghosts, Ectoplasm; Sharing the Secrets

1922--

LINKS THE ALCHEMIST WITH THE SPIRITIST

Ancients' 'First Matter' May Be the Mysterious Ectoplasm of Today

CAMBRIDGE. Mass., April 14-(By the Associated Press)-"It seems quite possible that the great secret of the ancient alchemist -- the nature of 'first matter' -- is the ectoplasm of the modern spiritist," said S. Foster Damon, a graduate student at Harvard university, in an interview today. Mr. Damon was named by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as the man who had established the fact that the Alchemists were familiar with ectoplasm, described by spiritualists as a combination of matter and ether emanating from bodies of mediums, which makes possible spirit manifestation.

LITERARY RESEARCH

Explaining that he was speaking only of the results of literary research, Mr. Damon said he had never personally seen the material and had never attended a seance, but that a study of the writings of the alchemists had convinced him that the ancients were familiar with estoplasm.

"There is a striking parallel between the experiments of the modern spiritists and the alchemists," Mr. Damon said.

"This old school of thought, whose writings were published for centuries and whose secret was never officially given to the world, has interpreted in several ways but never satisfactorily. Few believe now that the alchemists were really attempting to make gold. In fact, they themselves issued many warnings against being interpreted literally.

NEW SCHOOL APPEARS

"About 1850 a new school of interpretation appeared which claims that the alchemists were mystics endeavoring to unite the soul with God. This school still has numerous followers, but they cannot explain what the alchemists were doing in the laboratories.

"That alchemy was concerned with physical things is obvious since modern chemistry developed from it. On the other hand, the alchemists were certainly concerned with metaphysics.

"Spiritualism may well furnish the link between the altar and the laboratory. Of spiritualism, I know nothing, but I could not fail to be impressed by the literary parallels between its writings and the works of ancients.

"The great secret of the alchemists centered about a substance which they commonly called the 'first matter or mercury.' To find this substance, which they distinguished from common mercury, was the first and most important step in their art."

"Too many persons," Mr. Damon said, "have insisted that they have seen, handled and analyzed ectoplasm for us to believe that it was anything intangible. On the other hand," he added, "chemists have found nothing remotely resembling it.

"It seems quite possible that the secret of the alchemists was estoplasm.

"I base this identification," Mr. Damon continued, "upon the many photographs and descriptions published by Mme. Alexander Bisson and Dr. A. Freihern Von Schrench-Notzing. Considering the obscurity of alchemistic symbolism, it is possible that no interpretation satisfactory to every one would be reached, but if so the ancient and modern investigators are certainly making the same mistake."

--The Ogden Standard-Examiner, Ogden City, Utah, April 14, 1922, page 7.

Seance Features Conversation With Woman Dead 30 Years

Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1920--

SPIRIT MEDIUM HELD SEANCE HERE LAST NIGHT

Mrs. Eva Middleton of Davenport, spiritualist, gave local followers of the cult something to think about last night when she gave a trumpet reading at the Jadwin home in South Ninth street, west. The most interesting event of the evening, say some of those who were present, was conversation., through the medium and a girl named Rose who has been dead thirty years. There was a woman present who had been a close friend of the girl during the childhood days and she recalled to the women many things that happened between them, it is said.

--The Evening Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, September 14, 1920, page 12.

Marriages In Heaven, Says Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

1922
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MARRIAGES IN HEAVEN SAYS SIR CONAN DOYLE

NEW YORK, April 10.- There are marriages in the spirit world, but no births, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said today.

The celebrated English creator of "Sherlock Holmes," who has come to America to lecture on matters psychic, made this statement, in giving reporters a more intimate view of the next world as he conceived it than on his arrival yesterday on the steamer Baltic.

Marriages, he said, were on a higher level than in this world. They constitute the mating of affinities and always continue happily. Indeed, he said, there was a very complex form of society of the world hereafter.

Sir Arthur said that the great agreement among spirits of various nationalities as to life in the spirit world will be one of the strongest proofs of the existence of such life. He added that the spirit world was all about us but that it was expressed in colors and sounds which our senses were too gross to understand.

Sir Arthur said that some ministers taught that it is hard to get into heaven, but a normal, decent person could not keep from going there after death.

Asked about a suicide, Sir Arthur said that no one could force the hand of providence, and that a suicide would have to bear in the spirit world the trouble that had caused him to end his life.

He said that the object of life was to spiritualize ourselves and that riches and successes here did not count against that.

Some Stumbling Blocks

Climatic conditions are one of the stumbling blocks in the path of mediums, declared Sir Arthur.

Expressing the belief that all could become mediums if the talent were developed, Sir Arthur said that it was through ectoplasm that conversation with the spirit world was conducted.

"Ectoplasm," he explained, "is a substance emanating from the medium. At first it is a vapor or gas, which becomes glutinous or puttylike, and in that state can be felt.

"I have felt it myself; it can be photographed. I have a number of photographs.

"It has been analyzed by Dr. Schrenck-Notzing in Germany and by Parisian scientists. It has been found to contain phosphates, carbonates and sulphates, and some other substance undetermined.

"It is only on ectoplasm that a spirit can materialize. A spirit passing through it becomes visible to the medium. I saw my mother's face in the ectoplasm following her death a few months ago. There is not the slightest question about that. It was while I was in Australia. The face seemed as solid as in life."

--Nevada State Journal, Reno, Nevada, April 11, 1922, page 5.

Captain Kidd's Ghost Sells His Treasure Farm

Trenton, New Jersey, 1919
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CAPT. KIDD'S SPOOK SWINDLE

Pirate's Ghost Induces "Suckers" to Purchase Farm -- Found No Treasure.

Trenton, N. J. -- Capt. Kidd's spirit is not a reliable witness as to where the redoubtable pirate buried his treasure, in the opinion of Sophie Sauter and Marie Blumer of Paterson and Fred Laechers of Elizabeth, who appealed to the supreme court against both the spook and his alleged sponsor, Daniel Balsinger of Oakland, N. J.

The three took a chance and bought a farm from Balsinger in May, 1913, on the strength of his assurance that Capt. Kidd's spirit had appeared to him in the night and revealed the exact spot on the farm where he had buried whole chests of pieces of eight.

They do not wish to pay the balance due now because they have dug up the entire farm without finding a single doubloon.

--The Van Wert Daily Bulletin, Van Wert, Ohio, September 4, 1919, page 2.