"Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long, And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time." But on other days of the year, every noise at night, however trivial, which cannot be satisfactorily explained by inquisitive minds, is thought by the superstitious to indicate that spirits are walking abroad; such illogical persons forgetting how in the stillness of the night sounds, which at other times would pass unnoticed, attract attention, and thus assume an exaggerated importance. In this way the whistling of the wind, the creaking of the floor, and a host of other natural noises have in the deceptive hours of midnight terrified their nervous victim, and filled the overwrought fancy with the most alarming delusions. An amusing volume might be written showing how most of the ghost stories connected with so-called haunted houses have arisen. Thus, as Mrs. Latham points out in her "West Sussex Superstitions," there is very little doubt but that the ghosts formerly seen wandering in blue flames, near lonely houses on the coast, "were of an illicit class of spirits, raised by the smugglers in order to alarm and drive all others but their accomplices from their haunts." On one occasion, for instance, the unearthly noises heard night after night in a house at Rottingdean caused such alarm among the servants, that they all gave warning, when one night the noises ceased, and soon afterwards a gang of smugglers who had fallen into the hands of the police confessed to having made a secret passage from the beach close by the house, and said that, wishing to induce the occupiers to abandon it, they had been in the habit of rolling at the dead of night tub after tub of spirits up the passage, and so caused it to be reported that the place was haunted. Ghosts are said to be especially fond of walking abroad on certain nights, the chief of these being St. Mark's Eve, Midsummer Eve, and Hallowe'en. Hence various methods have been resorted to for the purpose of invoking them with a view of gaining an insight into futurity, love-sick maidens, as we have said, seizing these golden opportunities for gaining information about their absent lovers. It must not be supposed, too, that apparitions are confined to the spirits of the departed, as throughout the country there are the most eccentric traditions of headless animals having been seen at sundry times rushing madly about at night-time.