AN APPALLING APPARITION

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1633, 11 August 1887, Page 3

AN APPALLING APPARITION

The other, night (says the Melbourne " Leader ") a cyclist who had a great idea of winning the ten guinea trophy offered to the rider of the best illuminated bicycle m a certain lantern parade, smeared bia bicycle all over with phosphorus and then rode it down a street to see how it looked. The night was dark, and the effect very strange. The whole machine glowed fervidly a« it glided noiselessly along the quiet road. Presently a horse and trap approached. The animal sniffed and snorted thrice, violently plunged, turned ronnd asd rushed off. m the direction it

had come. At the same time two young girls who were standing at a garden gate shrieked and rushed inside, telling their father they had seen a ghost. " Nonsense, girls," said the father, an old Cornish farmer, an he picked up a cudgal, and with a remark that he'd settle the ghoßt, walked down the garden and through the gate, intending to crosß the road and take up hi? stand behind a tree. When halfway across be glanced up tho road, and his hair fairly stood on end, aud his blood curdled, for there, not twenty yards away, was the white apparition speedily approaching. A. moment later the wheel of the bicycle struck him on the bridge of the nose, while the cyclist tumbled headlong to the ground. The old man ahrieked, the girls rushed out m hysterics, and the wheelman picked himself up, apologised, and just got away as. two policemen arrived ©atheicen*,