The darkness of the night, the gloom and horror produced by the report of haunted houses, or some disastrous occurrence, as murder or robbery in a particular situation, and a state of mind naturally depressed and melancholy, have doubtless contributed to give a currency to many of those legendary stories which have been credulously received and disseminated by the vulgar. Those, especially, who are trembling with a guilty conscience, are liable to deception; even the most intrepid have been alarmed, when in the night, posts, trees, and other objects, have been presented in a distorted form. We are familiar with the story of the frightened person, who, on passing a church-yard in the night, conceited that he saw a ghost clothed in white; but on examination it proved to be no other than a white horse. A few years ago, Dr Stearns was travelling from Boston to Salem in the evening, having a considerable sum of money about him. He suffered himself to be strongly impressed with the apprehension of being robbed. While his mind was wrought up to the highest pitch, he imagined that a robber approached him with a club suspended over his head, and demanded his money. He instantly took out his pocket book and threw it on the ground, and in great affright drove off with all speed. Having procured assistance and lights, they visited the spot in search of the robber, when to their surprise they found a pump standing near the road, having its handle turned upwards, and the doctor's pocket book instead of being in the hands of a robber, was found lying beside the pump. Were all the supposed apparitions and spectres to be met with the intrepidity displayed in the following instance, ghost stories would seldom be repeated. About the latter part of the last century, a Mr Blake, of Hingham, Massachusetts, was passing the church-yard in the night, when he saw an object in human form, clothed in white, sitting near an open tomb. Resolving to satisfy himself, he walked toward it. The form moved as he approached, and endeavored to elude his pursuit; when he ran, the object ran before him, and after turning in different directions, descended into the tomb. Mr Blake followed, and there found a woman, who was in a deranged state of mind, who had covered herself with a sheet, and was roaming among the silent tombs.