SEARCH FOR GHOSTS

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12616, 29 November 1926, Page 6

SEARCH FOR GHOSTS

HAUNTED ITALIAN CASTLE STRANGE STORY OF LONDON DOG COUNTESS’S THRILLING ACCOUNT An English M.P., Mr Crompton Wood, has returned home after seeking in vain for ghosts in a haunted Italian castle. But in Paddington three women, living quietly in an ordinary city house, are convinced that they heard the ghost of their dog scratch at the door during the night. They did not, however, see it. Lady Tankerville, however, has seen several spectres, and here describes her adventures. DUNGEON~SOUNDS ALP. AND*'"REVOI/VER. “My wife and I spent nearly six weeks in a Moorish 14th century castle on the island of Ischia, near Mr Crompton Wood, M.P. for Bridgewater, told a Press representative. “We went because the castle was said to bo badly haunted by an old German baron who had murdered his wife! N° n G of our servants would sleep in the place so my wife and \ slept alone in the castle. “I am sorry to say we saw nothing. One night we heard ghostly noises in one of the dungeons. With a revolver and a lamp I went down. By the time I got there the noises had stopped, so I fired my revolver into the dungeon, went back to bed, and glept soundly.” COUNTESS'S VISION The Countess of Tankerville tells many thrilling stories of “The Ghosts of Chillingham Castle.” “Our most famous apparition,” she writes, “was known as the Radiant

Boy, which used to be seen in what is now called the Pink Room. There, when from the clock tower the hour of midnight sounded, were heard the cries and the moans of n child. “Always the noige came from a spot nearest to a passage cut through the ten-feet-thick wall into the adjoining tower; and, as the blood-curdling cries died away, a bright halo of light began to form close to the old four-posted bed. Anyone sleeping there saw . . . the figure of a young boy dressed in blue, end surrounded by the light. • . . The bones of & boy, and some fragments of a blue dress, were later discovered. They were decently interred in consecrated ground, since when the figure has never been seen again. After describing many other ghostly visitors the countess relates a remarkable personal experience one day just before the Great War. In the formal garden the form o T a woman seemed to take shape before me, walking on the parapet of a tower .... She was in the garb of a Dominican abbess .... A man stood beside her—handsome and richly dressed. “A few paces behind were two men in velvet court dress of the time of Henry VIII. They were chatting in subdued tones. ... I got up to watch the scene . . . thinking I was about to witness some tragedy of former times .... . “I saw another woman bring the abbess an ermine cape, and the man’s rich dross was covered now by a surroat. The atmosphere was tense with a feeling of impending danger. . “I spoke to them twice . , . when the man stopped and looked at me. “It was the face of my husband, but in the garb of Prance four centuries ago! . . . I had inadvertently ‘tuned in,’ as it were, to a similar moment in the long ago.” CANINE SPOOK The “ghost” of Peter, an Alsatian dog, which lived in Atherley-grove, Westbourne-grove, is seriously believed —by three persons—to have “appeared” recently at his former homePeter was put to death at Pe<ldington Police Station on a magistrate’s order after he had savagely attacked Mrs Peggy Sullivan, his owner. “The dog died in my presence on Saturday at 3 a.in.” is the statement made by Mr R. Stokoe, M.H.C.V.S. “And at the same hour 3 a.m. on Saturday,” declared Mrs Sullivan, “I heard a quick scratching at my bedroom door. “IT'S PETER” “There was no light in the room. I was in bed with the bandages on my arm and chest where the dog had bitten me. I sprang out of bed, crying ‘lt’s Peter I It’s Peter!’ and switched on the light. By my watch the time was 3 o’clock. “My mother, who was sitting up with me, came rushing from the other side of the room, and we both plainly heard the scratching of a big dog on the door. My sister, who was in another part of the house, also heard the scratching. “I did not then know that Peter was dead, and my first thought was that he had broken away from the police station. “I am no spiritualist, neither is my mother, nor is my sister. But- I do believe that it was Peter come back.” “I also,” said Mr Stokoe, “nm no spiritualist, but the case is distinctly curious. “I was called by the police and found Mrs Sullivan bleeding from bites, and still nluckily hanging on to the collar of the dog, wit’ll a crowd of people looking oil. “As it happens all dogs are very good with me, and after I liacl patted Peter’s hend, we got him away to the police station as quiet ns a lirmn. DEFYING DEATH “The dpg yas certainly not rabid.

and 1 was against killing him. In the end, however, I gave way. “Prussic acid was obtained from St. Mary’s Hospital, and I injected a very strong dose. “Death should have been instantaneous. But the poison seemed to have no effect. After 20 minutes the dog showed no signs of poisoning, ahd I telephoned to the hospital and made sure that there had been no mistake.

“I watched the do? very carefully, and it seemed to me that he was, with his mind, deliberately resisting the effects of the poison. He so obviously wanted to go home——kept tugging and straining at his lead, poor brute.

“Peter was still alive at the end of 40 minutes, and then, in a moment, without struggle or moan, he fell over dead. The time was 3 o’clock.”