evidence was not shown to later guests, and the journal was kept entirely private, contributions being written on separate pieces of paper, and afterwards pasted in. The earlier records, however, describe 'shrieks and groans,' of which the later investigators heard nothing, unless the droning and wailing' of which Professor Lodge wrote may be taken as in their degree equivalent to 'the piercing shriek' heard by Mr. G-, the deep groans' heard by Mrs. G——, the 'shriek or scream' heard by Father H-, 'the wild unearthly shriek which has rung through the house in the silence of the night,' during the H-tenancy. But 'the hunchback figure which glides up the stair,'‘the man with bronzed complexion and bent figure,' seen by two persons during the H—— visit, the rustling of a lady's dress, heard by many guests, are peculiar to the earlier tenancy. The veiled lady' seen by one of the H——— family may be the 'nun’so often seen during the later period; the shadowy form of a grey lady who paces with noiseless footfall the lonely corridor,' may be the grey woman afterwards seen, not in the house, but in the glen; the sensation of a bird flying about his bed and fanning him with its wings, described by the H.'s butler, may be the same as the 'jumping and prancing' 'as by a very large bird,' which later so often disturbed the occupants, even in daylight, of room No. 8. Footsteps, shuffling round the bed, appear to have been a common phenomenon for many years past, as was the removal of bed clothes, though the nearest approach to this disagreeable experience during Col. Taylor's period was the sensation of struggling with something unseen, or that of a superincumbent weight, described by three different persons.

6

However, the more picturesque nature of the earlier incidents may be partly due to the fact that earlier narrators were describing, as convincingly as might be, and for their friends, incidents of special interest to themselves; whereas later narrators were especially desired to bear in mind that they were contributing evidence to an investigation. Moreover, the earlier conditions under which the guests compared notes, analysed sensations, and discovered causes, were far more natural than the later restric tions, when it was especially desired that new-comers should receive no information, when all the arrangements were almost

laboriously normal,' when no canny' subjects were tabooe conversation, and comparison of notes under an interd Exploring parties, seldom of more than two, or three at the m were upon their honour to keep silence to each other, and report separately the experience they underwent.

H

During the H―― period one hears of parties of gentlem sitting up with sticks and pokers and a revolver, but during t later investigations all combined watches were avoided as co tributing to self-suggestion, and though the evidence includ experiences of wakeful and watchful individuals, no united mid night watches were held, except on one or two special occasions In short, the utmost care was directed towards checking what ever contributed in any degree to expectation and self-suggestion and though a few of the guests, some half-dozen in all, were members of the Society for Psychical Research, the greater number were simply united for a country house visit, in many cases with no special reference to the enquiry.

What may be regarded as a marked exception to the purely spontaneous nature of other incidents was the use, on one or two occasions, of the ouiga board,' a simple mechanical appliance of the nature of a 'planchette,' for the induction of automatic writing. To the rational person, who does not think it necessary to associate so simple a contrivance with the phenomena of spiritualism, and who realises that there are hidden depths in his own consciousness probably more accessible than those of his deceased ancestors, this form of automatism is merely a step or two in advance of the figures one draws upon one's blotting paper while engaged in a brown study,' or the words one scribbles without conscious intention when trying a new pen. That now and then one should thus externalise some halfforgotten knowledge, or half-apprehended concept, is a happy accident, and nothing could be more untrustworthy, or tend more easily in the hands of the superstitious to self-deception, than the statements thus elicited.

'This method of enquiry,' the Editors remark (page 98) displayed all the weakness to which it is usually and apparently inherently, liable, and is only mentioned here as explaining other

matters.

Miss Freer regarded the statements of

'Ouiga' with her habitual scepticism as to induced phenomena, more particularly those of automatic writing, in which, as in dreams, it is almost always difficult to disentangle the operations of the normal from those of the sub-conscious personality" (page 103). On one of these occasions the name Ishbel' was written, and was afterwards given, half in jest to the hallucinatory figure of a nun seen by four persons, independently, in the grounds. This single departure from the rule of entire passivity observed during the investigation, is, as will be observed, a very different matter from the introduction by Mr. Myers, into the enquiry of a semi-professional trance-medium, and the holding of dark séances, and communication with spirits' by means of table rappings, with the comic results referred to by the Editors in a note on page 199.

These remarkable disclosures included . . the murder of a Roman Catholic family chaplain at a period when the S's were and had long been Presbyterian, the suicide of one of the family who is still living, and the throwing, by persons in mediæval costume, of the corpse of an infant over a bridge which is quite new, into a stream which until lately ran underground.

6

The fact that they found the label haunted,' already affixed to the disturbances under investigation, did not prevent the investigators from pursuing to the very utmost every possibility of normal explanation. The audile disturbances were, naturally, those most likely to be produced by intentional mischief, or by some misinterpreted natural phenomenon, and much time was devoted to experimental reproduction of the sounds, especially on the hypothesis of tricks from outside. Beating on outside doors with shovels and pokers, and wooden things on the walls and windows accessible, banging and clattering in outside coal-cellars in the sunk area round the house, beating on the front door handle with a wooden racket, were right in kind, but not enough in degree. Miss Moore, who was familiar with the noise (on this occasion that known as the clang' noise), did it rather well by going outside into a coal-cellar (always locked at night however), and throwing big lumps of coal from a distance into a big pail, but it wasn't nearly loud enough. Finally, the men climbed on to

·

the roof outside, they clattered, and walked, stamped, and kicked, and struck the slates, but they could make noise enough. Then we had in the gardener we s yesterday (who had been familiar with the phenomena bef Colonel Taylor's tenancy), and the four men made hideous ro as before. He was grateful and respectful, but contemptuo They couldn't make noise enough.' Page 110.

Other experiments were tried, as to the acoustic properties the house, as to the existence of under-ground water, as to th effect of disuse of hot-water pipes, of cold-water pipes, of effect of echo, of draughts, of currents of air; doors were locked, wer propped open, chimneys used and disused, the servants' sleeping quarters changed, the night habits of neighbours, man and beast, noticed, the hours of passing trains and their effect under varying conditions noted, but nothing was observed which seemed in any degree to account for what was heard or seen. A distinguished electrical engineer and three men of science were among the guests, but they could suggest nothing that had not already been tried. The late proprietor refused to allow the use of a phonograph when suggested by Sir William Huggins, and the present proprietor equally refused to allow the introduction of seismic instruments at the suggestion of Professor Milne, to the great disappointment of the investigators. The house is very simply and substantially built, and has no dark corners or obscure passages, no wooden panels, nor echoing roof. A space sacred to bell wires and water pipes at the junction of the roof and the wall seemed to promise possibilities of explanation, and, indeed, a bowl or tennis ball rolled along it, imitated fairly well one of the slighter sounds as heard from below; but granted that at intervals for a quarter of a century someone obtained access to an obscure spot only to be entered on hands and knees through a door usually screwed up, many varieties of disturbance remained. Nor did the discovery that bees had taken possession of another hollow under the roof carry things much further. An appendix is given on the sound known near the Ganges as that of Barisal guns,' and described by Professor Darwin, on similar sounds known on Dartmoor, among the hills of Cheshire, in the Eastern counties of England, in Connecticut,

in Piedmont, and in the Adriatic, and all this research and experiments may surely be taken, as, in some sort, evidence that the Editors did not accept the allegation of haunting, if they may be said to have accepted it at all, without careful consideration of every alternative which suggested itself.

Among the many curiosities (other than those inherent in the subject) the bye-products, as it were, of psychical research, few are more curious than the fact that enquiry into any supernormal matter is commonly taken as equivalent to belief in the occult, whereas, on the other hand, any effort at a normal explanation is looked upon as waste of good powder and shot; and some of the critics of the alleged haunting of B-- House are at a loss to know whether to be more annoyed at Lord Bute's ghosts,' or Miss Goodrich-Freer's hallucinations,' for it is thus, quite gratuitously, that the responsibility is distributed. Accepting for purposes of argument-the hypothesis of haunting, and gathering together all the scattered phenomena as observed by over fifty persons, the Editors look about them for some story or tradition which shall include among its elements a man with heavy shuffling footstep, dogs which run about the house day and night and sleep on door-mats, a woman coarsely handsome, two or more persons who quarrel, a nun, a crucifix, and a priest who recites his prayers at midnight. Such a story is easily found among the annals of the S-- family, and it is offered for consideration as earthquakes, barisal guns, or practical joking are offered. It is not entirely adequate,-neither are they. More may be read between the lines in the one case,-more perhaps remains to be discovered by science in the other.

The critics who are content to accept the hypothesis of haunting, simply because the case has been thus pigeon-holed, are nevertheless not satisfied with it. Lord Bute's spooks are a distinct disappointment,' says one critic. There is no originality about them. They do nothing but haunt.' 'It may strike reflective persons,' says The Daily News, that ghost labour has been thrown away upon most of these marvels, and that these may be done by any ordinary mortal possessed of self-confidence, a sliding panel or two, and three ha'porth of twine.'

Mr. Courtney, in The Daily Telegraph, however, points out