The Big Book of Canadian Hauntings. John Robert Colombo

making a report similar to that of a pistol shot. Mr. Manser states that he inserted more than one hundred new lights of glass and then gave it up, and boarded up the windows, first taking out the sash and setting them aside, but on account of the continued bursts of water, they were compelled to remove all their beds, some to the wood-shed and others to the barn, leaving only those things in the house that are not so liable to be damaged by the showering process to which he has been so repeatedly subjected. He has commenced the erection of a new dwelling, hoping thereby to escape those remarkable tricks of nature, or whatever it may be, which seem to continue their operations to the old house. If these strange occurrences had taken place at night one would suspect that Mr. Manser was the victim of some mischievous people, but occurring in the daytime in the presence of the family and other witnesses, and in fine weather, it seems very difficult of solution. Various theories have been put forward, but none of them seem sufficient to account for the double phenomena of the sudden showers of water under a good roof in fine weather, and the oft-repeated bursting out of the windows. Perhaps you or some of your scientific readers can crack the nut.

A MIDNIGHT APPARITION

       A Supernatural Visitor

      Ottawa Free Press, June 16, 1882

      A respected and jolly hotel keeper on the Perth Road from Kingston, recently at the midnight hour, when silence reigned in the tavern and the noisy bibulists had sought repose, was quietly roused from sleep, and at once recognized something standing near his bed in the appearance of a brother recently deceased, as also a man well known around the country who died some short time ago, who cautioned the landlord to at once give up selling drink, or if he did not stop giving out liquor, ruining the bodies and souls of his fellow men he would surely merit just condemnation; or to use his own words, “go to h .. ll.”

      So convinced was he of the truth of the apparition and meaning he received, that he got up early next morning, took down his sign board, locked up his bar room and will on no account give liquor to any one. This landlord is well known as a sober, clear-headed, conscientious man, a good neighbor in every way, and a man much respected by all who know him. Would not our temperance friends wish that those midnight visitants may also appear to and tickle the consciences of some other of the publicans who are not yet too hardened to reform.

THE CLARION-SQUARE GHOST

       A Christmas Tale of Toronto — Specially Written for The World

      Toronto World, December 25, 1883

      The natural and proper scene of a ghost story is some lonely old mansion in the country, whose better days have long deserted it, and which is now falling gradually into decay. A ghost is indigenous to such a house, with its long flights of stairs leading nowhere in particular, its gloomy straggling corridors which run hither and thither, and its musty, old-fashioned rooms, not less mysterious and gloomy. The blue room, and the red room, and the room which a hundred years ago was shut up because of some terrible deed committed within it, at the mention of which the gray-headed butler shakes his head solemnly and says nothing, offer attractions which no ghost in the course of my reading has ever been able to resist. The portraits of the periwigged and balloon-skirted ancestors which hang grimly on the walls, seem inanimate enough, but the on-looker secretly feels, as he gazes on them, that there is not one which is unprepared to step out of the frame when the clock strikes at midnight, and proceed at once to play all sorts of unwarrantable and ghostly antics. The wind, too, at night has a fashion of moaning dolorously around the corners and among the nooks and crannies of the old building, while the trees which cower close to its moss-covered sides, bend over and tap with their branches at the windows of the visitor’s room, and add fresh horrors to his lot. For, be it observed, it is always a stranger, some guest invited by the family perhaps, who is treated in this shabby way by the inhospitable old place. It is no credit to the house of this kind to have a ghost or two in it. Indeed, as modern advertisements say, it would not be complete without one.

      Number 39, Clarion-Square, is not at all a place of this kind, and you would as soon think of looking for a ghost in a baker’s shop as inside its walls. Judging from appearances indeed, no building in the whole city of Toronto would be less likely to harbor a supernatural occupants. As everybody who is acquainted with the Square knows, Number 39 is one of the new red brick row of houses, all of which are built exactly on the same pattern, and all of which bear equal testimony to the thriftiness of the builder, who has successfully solved the problem of how to get the maximum of rent in return for the minimum of outlay. True, the walls are not very tight, and the doors not very close, so that a moderately flexible ghost would experience very little difficulty in any of these respects, and as the plumbing is not better than that of the ordinary brick house built to see, his ghostship could, I am convinced, if he found every other means of ingress blocked, obtain easy entrance by way of the waste-pipe. At the time of my story, Number 39 did duty as a genteel boarding-house, and fairly comfortable we were on the whole with Mrs. Rackham. I — that is the secretary and paymaster of a thriving railway company — had a large room which opened off the first landing up-stairs, and immediately above mine were the apartments of Gormes and Johnson, two students of the law, of whom Johnson was a harum-scarum fellow, chiefly noted for his love of mischief and late hours, while Gormes, on the contrary, was steady and studious, with hopes someday of becoming a Q.C., and in the meantime a regular attendant at the Oak street church. One evening in December, not many years ago, as I was reclining in my easy chair after dinner, in front of a cheerful fire, Gormes tapped at the door, and in response to my invitation entered and took a seat. We lit our pipes, and as I liked nothing better than a chat with my young friend Gormes, who was an earnest, clever fellow, I essayed a conversation on one of our customary themes. Somewhat to my surprise, he made little or no effort to reply, and our talk flagged. I looked at him and saw he wore a perturbed look.

      “Gormes,” said I, “what’s the matter? Have you got the blues? You look as if you had seen a ghost.”

      “So I have,” was the rather startling reply.

      “Tut, you’re joking,” said I, though somewhat disconcerted by Gormes’ serious face.

      “Not joking a bit,” returned he; “I saw a ghost, or something very like one, no longer ago than last night.”

      “Where?”

      “In this very house, and in my own room,” said Gormes.

      This was coming near home indeed; for, as I said before, Gormes’ room was immediately above mine, and if a nocturnal visitor of this kind had called on him I was very likely to receive a similar compliment next.

      “Tell me how it was,” I said.

      “Well,” replied he, “you’ll laugh at me, perhaps, but I saw something last night that wasn’t of this world, or else I’m not Gormes, and I’m not sitting here on this chair looking at you.”

      As he was certainly both, I could offer nothing by way of objection and Gormes went on.

      “I’m not particularly superstitious, and I haven’t much faith in ghost yarns as a rule, but last night I was lying in bed reading, after everybody else was asleep, yourself included, and not a soul moving in the house. It was Taylor’s Equity I had, for that’s one of the books on the list for our next exam, and I was reading away when suddenly I felt constrained to lift my eyes from the book and raise them to the top of the door opposite the foot of the bed. In doing so, I caught a glimpse of something that looked like a face disappearing quickly from behind the fanlight, just as if somebody were standing on a chair peering in, and drawing away as soon as noticed. I got up and opened the door, but there was nobody there. Only half convinced that I had not dropped into a momentary doze and been deceived by my imagination I went back to bed and took up my book again. Presently I had the same feeling of being obliged to look up, and again I saw the face withdrawing from above the door. Thinking it might be some trick of Johnson’s