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.
All this was printed in the London papers, and, on 15th November, The Daily Telegraph and Daily News published Emma’s confession that she wrought by sleight of hand and foot. On 17th November, Mr. Hughes went from Cambridge to investigate. For some reason investigation never begins till the fun is over. On the 9th the girl, now in a very nervous state (no wonder!) had been put under the care of a Dr. Mackey. This gentleman and Miss Turner said that things had occurred since Emma came, for which they could not account. On 13th November, however, Miss Turner, looking out of a window, spotted Emma throwing a brick, and pretending that the flight of the brick was automatic. Next day Emma confessed to her tricks, but steadfastly denied that she had cheated at Woods Farm, and Weston Lullingfield, where she had also been. Her evidence to this effect was so far confirmed by Mrs. Hampson of Woods Farm, and her servant, Priscilla Evans, when examined by Mr. Hughes. Both were “quite certain” that they saw crockery rise by itself into air off the kitchen table, when Emma was at a neighbouring farm, Mr. Lea’s. Priscilla also saw crockery come out of a cupboard, in detachments, and fly between her and Emma, usually in a slanting direction, while Emma stood by with her arms folded. Yet Priscilla was not on good terms with Emma. Unless, then, Mrs. Hampson and Priscilla fabled, it is difficult to see how Emma could move objects when she was “standing at some considerable distance, standing, in fact, in quite another farm”.
Similar evidence was given and signed by Miss Maddox, the schoolmistress, and Mr. and Mrs. Lea. On the other hand Mrs. Hampson and Priscilla believed that Emma managed the fire-raising herself. The flames were “very high and white, and the articles were very little singed”. This occurred also at Rerrick, in 1696, but Mr. Hughes attributes it to Emma’s use of paraffin, which does not apply to the Rerrick case. Paraffin smells a good deal—nothing is said about a smell of paraffin.
Only one thing is certain: Emma was at last caught in a cheat. This discredits her, but a man who cheats at cards may hold a good hand by accident. In the same way, if such wonders can happen (as so much world-wide evidence declares), they may have happened at Woods Farm, and Emma, “in a very nervous state,” may have feigned then, or rather did feign them later.
The question for the medical faculty is: Does a decided taste for wilful fire-raising often accompany exhibitions of dancing furniture and crockery, gratuitously given by patients of hysterical temperament? This is quite a normal inquiry. Is there a nervous malady of which the symptoms are domestic arson, and amateur leger-de-main? The complaint, if it exists, is of very old standing and wide prevalence, including Russia, Scotland, New England, France, Iceland, Germany, China and Peru.
As a proof of the identity of symptoms in this malady, we give a Chinese case. The Chinese, as to diabolical possession, are precisely of the same opinion as the inspired authors of the Gospels. People are “possessed,” and, like the woman having a spirit of divination in the Acts of the Apostles, make a good thing out of it. Thus Mrs. Ku was approached by a native Christian. She became rigid and her demon, speaking through her, acknowledged the Catholic verity, and said that if Mrs. Ku were converted he would have to leave. On recovering her everyday consciousness, Mrs. Ku asked what Tsehwa, her demon, had said. The Christian told her, and perhaps she would have deserted her erroneous courses, but her fellow-villagers implored her to pay homage to the demon. They were in the habit of resorting to it for medical advice (as people do to Mrs. Piper’s demon in the United States), so Mrs. Ku decided to remain in the business. [{232}] The parallel to the case in the Acts is interesting.