The Book of Dreams and Ghosts

In the afternoon, when the devils went out of the ladies, the fowls flew into a state of wild excitement, while the swine rushed furiously about and tried to climb a wall. The family have become Christians, the fires have ceased; Mr. Chang is an earnest inquirer, but opposed, for obvious reasons, to any public profession of our religion. {233b} In Mr. Niu's case "strange noises and rappings were frequently heard about the house. The buildings were also set on fire in different places in some mysterious way." The Christians tried to convert Mr. Niu, but as the devil now possessed his female slave, whose success in fortune-telling was extremely lucrative, Mr. Niu said that he preferred to leave well alone, and remained wedded to his idols. {234} We next offer a recent colonial case, in which the symptoms, as Mr. Pecksniff said, were "chronic".