To this Mr. Colton promptly replied, that it was true that there was a mop-stick in the house, but that by means of the mop-stick the sounds heard and the vibration of the boards casting up dust could not have been effected. He and others had tried, and the marks observed on the ceiling were caused by these trials. As to the quarrel over a bill, it had not occurred. It was not to Mr. Chave’s interest to give the house a bad name, for he had but recently rented and fitted it up, and it would be an inconvenience to him to move; moreover, these supernatural phenomena were doing him much harm, in injuring his business. Mr. Colton now added further mysterious sights, but they rested on nothing better than the testimony of the maids. One had seen a white hand come out from under the bed, another had seen a livid arm hanging down from the ceiling. There can, I think, be little doubt that it was not Mr. Chave, but the servant-maids who managed the whole series of phenomena. These knockings could easily be transmitted through boards, and the curtains tossed about, and books and candlesticks flung across the room, by having horsehair attached to them. That is the true secret of the Poltergeist manifestations in England, France, and Germany. The authorities are:-- “Sampford Ghost. A Plain and Authentic Narrative of those Extraordinary Occurrences, etc., by the Rev. C. Colton, /M.A./, Reg. Col. Soc., Tiverton” (1810). “Sampford Ghost!!! A Full Account of the Conspiracy at Sampford Peverell, near Tiverton; Containing the Particulars of the Pretended Visitations of the Monster. Taunton, 1810.” (This by Marriott.) “Sampford Ghost. Stubborn Facts against Vague Assertions, etc., by the Rev. C. Colton, M.A., Reg. Col. Soc., Tiverton” (1810). Answer to Mr. Marriott. “Sampford Ghost! Facts Attested and Delivered to the Public Relative to these Extraordinary Occurrences, etc., by the Rev. C. Colton.... London (n.d.).” PHILIPPA CARY AND ANNE EVANS In the month of August, 1672, the wife of a dyer of Plymouth, one William Weeks, died after “many and frequent vomitings.” Shortly after that Mr. Weeks and his daughter were seized with the same symptoms--violent pains internally, cold sweats, faintings and vomitings; and in an engraving of the period relative to the tragic event about to be related, Mr. Weeks is shown in bed affected by this last symptom. At the outset the physician who attended them suspected poison, and he was confirmed in his suspicions when a neighbour who had entered the house found a pot in the kitchen with “crude arsenick” in it. Moreover, Mr. Weeks’s grand-daughter, child of a Mistress Pengelly, was affected in precisely the same manner.