GHOST STORIES

Hokitika Guardian, 21 August 1925, Page 4

GHOST STORIES

A I'KOEBSSOB’S COLLECTION. AUCKLAND. August 10. (ilio.-.t stories were the order oi the evening at a lecture by Professor F. P. Worley, at the Ley.-. Institute. ‘‘.Superstition and Science” was Jbe subject and the lecture was prefaced by some references to common superstitions regarding numbers. The idea that 3. 7. and ') were lucky and that 13 was unluciy seemed fairly nell founded, said Professor Worley, otherwise trouble would not be taken on steamers and in hotels ol substituting 1:!A for 13 on dams, ”1 have lived in a house numbered 13.” lie added, “and I remember travelling to New Plymouth on Friday, the J3tn of the month, and 1 had berth No 13. lint not hating a superstitious nature nothing at all serious happened.” To illustrate how deeply ingrained was the superstitious trait in people, Professor Worley instanced the case of seven students of St. John’s College (the speaker had been one of them) who told ghost stories in an upstair.room by candlelight. Each was a sceptic and heartily disbelieved in ghosts yet when the story-telling was dene not one of them would go to his room alone. The Ie tiiier narrated the case ol a I fiend of his. lie was stopping at an old house, and in the middle ol Inc ilight awoke in a. fright to see the figure of a girl pass across the room from one door to the other. It was a quaint figure, dressed in old-fashioned attire, hut on rising to investigate he liiiiiid 1 Imth doors packed. Next umrniag lie told lus eompaitiiiu who was in the next room, of his strange visitor, and to his concern found that tin- latter had also had an uncanny experience, for unking in the night lie had seen a mail dressed in a Newmarket coat hanging Ir. iii the ceiling. Next, night, said Professor Worley, the two friends changed rooms, but they ,-av, nothing more. Some time aller ward-, in conversation with a haul inhnbitui'.t they learned that tho house had once been owned by a jockey, whose daughter had one ol the top rooms. The man got into financial difficulties, and eventually hanged himself. Although the lecturer laid set'll a ghost in a (cnictcry at midnight (it mined out to be a hush swaying in the wind), lie stoutly denied that he had over come across a. single instance of a ghost story that could he dcnitfly proved. It, was the same with -.pint inanilestations, such as *pirit rapping, which lie labelled “a suspicious pastime.” lie had hail sonic experience of spirit- rapping himself. Silting round a table in company with a number of the fair sex. their hands under the edge, he had found that the table would move slightly by what he considered was unconscious manipulation ol hands, certainly mil by intent. At his suggestion they all 1 laced t heir hands i n top, and a: tor much waiting the table eventually moved. “I then asked it to rise from tile lloor. Then that table rose and rive l am‘.-pea king the literal truth until it was as high as we could possibly reach. Those girls were in a terrible state about it, and would lie still il I had not told them I had nearly ricked my leg lifting it by its tripod base.”