FAMOUS GHOST

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 645, 25 September 1933, Page 7

FAMOUS GHOST

COCK LANE STORY GARRULOUS SPIRIT THAT COULD NOT STAND TEST. NOT EXPLAINED YET. The Cock Lane ghost has become, on account of its exposure, a synonym for imposture and trickery; but Andrew Lang, in his hook, "Cock Lane and Common Sense," written more than U hundred years after Johnson's death, maintained that the mystery was never satisfaetorily' explained, and that "the vqry people who exposed the ghost jwere well aware that their explanatSon was worthless, 'and frankly admitted the fact," says th'e Melbournje Age. It was in -January, 1762^ that London newspapers called attention to the Cock Lane ghost, and made a sensation of it. People in all rstnks of life, I from peers to pedlars, Jfrom ladies ; of high degree to servant girls, became interested in it. Cock Lane is a small thoroughfare off; Snow Hill, close to the Smithfield Mjeat Market. ' Several years before the! newspapers became excited about th^ ghost of a widower named Kent? who had come 1 from Norfolk to Londqjn, and took lodging in ia. house in Cock Lane, occupied hy Mr. Parsons, j Clerk of the Church' of St. Sepulchlre. Kent's sister-in-law, a girl named Fannie, ' kept house for him. I te would have { 'married her, but in thpse days mar- \ ' riage with a deeeased wife's sister ! was forhidden hy law j While ICent was awiay from Londoh on one occasion, Elizabeth Parsons, the young daughter of the hou^e, slept in the same bed as Fannie. ( I Rappings oi j Wall. As the result of a'dispute between Kent and his landlojrd, to whom he had lent some mone^, Kent and1 Fannie left Cock Lane ajhd went to live in Bartlett Court, Cljlerkenwell, where Fannie died of sm'allpox on Fehruary 2, 1760. Ahouj; eighteen months afterwards there v^ere frequent rappings and scratchings on the bed of little Elizabeth Parsons, living with her parents in C(ick Lane. It was said that these rappings and scratchings were made hy the ghost of Fan'nie, and th'at the jbhild Elizabeth had seen a shrouded %ure without hands. The noises recurjbed when the child went to other pedple's houses. A servant named Maify Frazer suggested that questions slaould he put to the ghost, and that! in reply it should give one knock ijo signify "Yes" and two knocks whetji it meant "No." By this primitive pieans it was elicited that Fannie hdd been poisoned hy Kent with "red ^rsenic" put in a glass of purl (i.e. wfarm spiced ale), to which she was partial. The ghost also expressed hy hieans of knocks the hope that Kent would he banged for murdering her.j Other questions of a less vital natiire were answered hy the ghost; sojnetimes the answers were right ana somtimes wrong. For instance, she gave th'e Christian name of Fannie's fither as John, whereas it was Thomas. In consequ^noe of the sensation created by th'e newspapers about the Cock Lane ghost, steps were taken t0 test the child/ Elizabeth. ! I . Hieard Nothing. The girl Elizabeth was taken, with the consent cjf her father, to the house of the Rev.jMr. Aldrich, of C'lerkenwell, on th p night of Fehruary 12, 1762, for thfe purpose of a test in the presence of rniiany gentlemen eminent ■for their r^nk and charaeter," as Dr. Johnson (v|ho was one of them) said in -"^he repirt of the proceedings he supplied to! the newspapers. "About 10 at niglit," continues th'is report, "the gentlfemen met in the chamber in which t jie girl, supposed t0 he dis- , turbed by, a spirit, had with proper caution, hteen put to bed hy several ladies. ijhey sat rather more than an hour, ; and hearing nothing went ' downstaiifs, when they interrogated the father of the girl, who denied in the stronpest terms any knowledge or belief of j fraud. After midnight the company, which included j Kent, went to the Church of St. Jqhn Clerkenwell, in the vault of whic|i lay Fannie's coffin. The ghost had previously promised one of the gentlemen in the company to give a l/nock on Fannie's coffin in his presencja, as proof of her genuineness. But wHen this gentleman went into the vaiilt of the church and called on the spi/'it to fulfil its promise, nothing happenjed.

At sj later date, wh'en the members of the/ Parsons family were threatened with arrest and imprisonment, Elizabeth resorted to a transparent fraud! in order to reproduee the raps and scratchings. She secreted in her dress j a small board about six inches by four inches, and endeavoured to reproduee the sounds by means of it. i Used a Board. But the sounds she made were not like i the original ones, and she was see^. by her investigators hiding the boafd in her dress. In modern references to the Cock Lane ghost (which finds a place in many encyclopa^dias), it is assumed -that the ghost was a fraud, and that the sounds were made by Elizabeth by means of a board secreted in her bed; or that shfe made the scratchings on,the board artd her mother supplied the raps. ■ T|iis apparently was the view of the Lprd Chief Justice Mansfield, before ■v^hom Parsons, his wife, his child, l\^ary Frazer, the Rev. Mr. Moor, and a tradesman were tried on a charge of , conspiracy against Kent. All were £ound guilty. Moor and the tradespian were severely reprimanded, and f|£reeommended to make some pecuniary compensation" to Kent. Mrs. Parsons was sent to the Bridewell prison for 12 months, and Mary Fraz;er for six months. Parsons was sen!tenced to two years, and ordered to stand three times in, the pillory. A . subscription on his hehalf was raised ! from amongi the sympathetic spectators round the pillory.