REAL GHOST STORIES

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2710, 20 March 1924, Page 4

REAL GHOST STORIES

MANY HAUNTED HOUSES

FAMOUS CASES RECALLED. “Haunted houses really do exist!” That is Hie startling declaration made by the eminent French astronomer, M. Camille Flammarion. lie adds that he lias 5000 dossiers on haunted houses, each dossier scientifically establishing the fact that the house indicated was or is haunted. This compilation of dossiers on haunted houses by the French astronomer dates back to 1801. He issues a stern warning to those who make light of or cast ridicule upon haunted houses. Thus, in the Hue des Noyers in

Paris, near (he Sorbnune. in 1849 it was reported that an inhabited bouse was attacked every evening and during the whole night, by a hail of projectiles, paving stones, pieces of neighbouring walls, and large rough stones, which on account of their weight and the distance travelled could not have been hurled by the hand of a human being. In spite of the strictest watch, in spite of the mobolised police, nothing afforded explanation of the phenomenon, which did not stop even when the house was pulled down. THE HAUNTED MONK.

11l a castle at Calvados, inhabited and sheltering a Monk, in October. 1873, extraordinary noises occurred suddenly and the furniture was moving about. Violent blows were heard resounding all through the house.

Sometimes it was thought a great cannon ball was being rolled down the staircase, in jumping slowly each step, without disarranging the wires which had been stretched aeross in the hope of dsrovering the author of these disturbances. On another oeeason it was like a sudden stampede. One stormy night a very long drawn out cry like the call of a woman being strangled was heard then the sound of a born outside. At 4 o’clock in the afternoon, while the monk was at vespers there occurred in his closed room a lerritln- uproar, and the furniture was displaced. Armchairs were found overturned: one chair was discovered on the stand.

Ferocious watch dogs who formerly threw themselves at every stranger crouched in a corner and were howling and trembling with f right. INANIMATE THINGS ALIVE.

In I lie CoiTeze, the property of the Constantine in 1895, there was a terrible persecution by invisible forces which lias never been explained. There were barrels which rolled about in the cellars, a bowl full of coffee was displaced without spilling a drop, violent blows were struck on the partitions, dishes broken, drops of fresh blood fell one after another on open newspapers. Under the very eyes of the occupants a broom, a cover of a soup tureen, and a bottle were removed some distance and without apparent cause.

A thick smoke escaped from a room: a fife was suspected; indeed, contrary to the proverb, there was not the least llame, and the smoke “returned into the hods, where it disappeared.

SARDONIC LAUGHTER HEARD. In 19.19 M. Homen Christo a law student, was expelled from the Portuguese University for disobedience. He rented at Cornea da a small house, which he inhabited with his wife (tlm mother of a child still in the cradle) and two servants. The house had the reputation of being haunted.

A wecek after the installation of the new tenants, toward one o’clock in the morning; there commenced an infernal uproar; violent knocking**, doors and windows opened in spite of the holts, outbursts of sardonic laughter. Every evening a tumult. Trained police mounted guard. The policemen were thrashed by invisable malefactors. One went mad. While going up the staircase 111 mien Christo received a violent smackon the face, his wife called him to her help, for “in visa hie hands pulled her by the feet with such force that she vanished." The child was snatched from its cradle. It was found naked, placed. in the middle of a marble table in the other room, “carried there by a miracle without the doors having been opened.” They left the place and tied from this haunted house.