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303
The Book of Dreams and Ghosts
·
Andrew Lang
221
MORE
HAUNTED
HOUSES
A
physician,
as
we
have
seen,
got
the
better
of
the
demon
in
Mrs.
Shchapoff's
case,
at
least
while
the
lady
was
under
his
care.
Really
these
disturbances
appear
to
demand
the
attention
of
medical
men.
If
the
whole
phenomena
are
caused
by
imposture,
the
actors,
or
actresses,
display
a
wonderful
similarity
of
symptoms
and
an
alarming
taste
for
fire-raising.
Professor
William
James,
the
well-known
psychologist,
mentions
ten
cases
whose
resemblances
"suggest
a
natural
type,"
and
we
ask,
is
it
a
type
of
hysterical
disease?
{229}
He
chooses,
among
others,
an
instance
in
Dr.
Nevius's
book
on
Demon
Possession
in
China,
and
there
is
another
in
Peru.
He
also
mentions
The
Great
Amherst
Mystery,
which
we
give,
and
the
Rerrick
case
in
Scotland
(1696),
related
by
Telfer,
who
prints,
on
his
margins,
the
names
of
the
attesting
witnesses
of
each
event,
lairds,
clergymen,
and
farmers.
At
Rerrick,
as
in
Russia,
the
little
hand
was
seen
by
Telfer
himself,
and
the
fire-raising
was
endless.
At
Amherst
too,
as
in
a
pair
of
recent
Russian
cases
and
others,
there
was
plenty
of
fire-raising.
By
a
lucky
chance
an
English
case
occurred
at
Wem,
in
Shropshire,
in
November,
1883.
It
began
at
a
farm
called
the
Woods,
some
ten
miles
from
Shrewsbury.
First
a
saucepan
full
of
eggs
"jumped"
off
the
fire
in
the
kitchen,
and
the
tea-things,
leaping
from
the
table,
were
broken.
Cinders
"were
thrown
out
of
the
fire,"
and
set
some
clothes
in
a
blaze.
A
globe
leaped
off
a
lamp.
A
farmer,
Mr.
Lea,
saw
all
the
windows
of
the
upper
story
"as
it
were
on
fire,"
but
it
was
no
such
matter.
The
nurse-maid
ran
out
in
a
fright,
to
a
neighbour's,
and
her
dress
spontaneously
combusted
as
she
ran.
The
people
attributed
these
and
similar
events,
to
something
in
the
coal,
or
in
the
air,
or
to
electricity.
When
the
nurse-girl,
Emma
Davies,
sat
on
the
lap
of
the
school
mistress,
Miss
Maddox,
her
boots
kept
flying
off,
like
the
boot
laces
in
The
Daemon
of
Spraiton.
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