“HAUNTED” BILLY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 250, 3 August 1937, Page 6

“HAUNTED” BILLY.

SUNDAY ISLAND EXPERIENCE. (Special to the Guardian.”) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Strange tales of a haunted billy and eerie noises at night were told by the five men who returned yesterday from Sunday Island after having attempted to settle it. They confess that they are now almost believers in the occult, but they also admit that, through lack of food and other troubles, their nerves are not now as strong as they were a few months ago. Nevertheless they stedfastly declare that their tale of the behaviour of a tin billy is true. The story was told to a reporter by Mr J. Grant, and was later confirmed by tlie others. The billy, according to Mr Grant, was an ordinary one which he had taken to the island in April, and soon after then he discovered its peculiar behaviour. Every time it reached boiling point it cdpsized. First it was balanced on stones, and later it was propped up with more stones, green sticks, or other stakes, but they could do nothing to stop it tipping over. From a joke it became a serious mental strain, and as the other billies were tried and found to behave in the ordinary way the strain became greater. Each of the men now firmly believes that some unseen power was responsible for the capsizing of the billy. Eeerie noises at night also worried members of the party, and in particular Mr Grant, who tells strange tales of hearing human voices at night. He holds firmly to a belief that m years past a shipload of diseased kanakas was left at the island to die, and ho claims that the spirits of some of these still .haunt a part of the island to which none of the party was willing to go.