EXTRAORDINARY OCCURRENCE.

Kumara Times, Issue 412, 21 January 1878, Page 4

EXTRAORDINARY OCCURRENCE.

May'fair says —"We bad very nearly Host Lord Radstock, a gentleman who -represents the purest form of the reformed faith to be found in the Peerage. He was, the other day, attending the Clifton Conference on Confession, and was sitting in a conspicuous position mpon the platform, within view of the • assembly, when suddenly a trap door • opened under his chair. There was a shriek; Lord Eadstock's heels were ; seen where a moment before his head had been; and. then, with a great crash, his lordship and his chair disappeared below, and the trap flew back. A herrible suspicion fell upon the Conference, for few of the Evangelical : audience had ever seen anything so • complete and dramatic before; and ♦every one looked into his neighbor's «eyes for an explanation. The hair of the good Bishop Anderson stood on end, for, if the. Devil had flown away with -an Evangelical Peer, his turn might < come yet. But in a few minutes it was all explained. A conjuror had had the use of the room a few days before, and his trap door was the exit of one of his The chalk-marks had been rubbed off the floor, and Lord Badstock's chair had been placed where it • ought not to have been. I am happy to hear that the noble lord is not much • the worse for his fall, He created a ; profound sensation by his disappearance; but he re-appeared as soon as he could be found, looking a little pale and covered with dust, but with his chair had. It was, I hear, one of the most successful incidents in the Conference."