A few years subsequently to the affair of Elizabeth Canning, there occurred an event, which amply proved that superstition and credulity were as flourishing as ever. In January 1762 the whole town was thrown into a state of excitement by the imposture which bears the name of “the Cock-lane Ghost,” so called from the place where the mummery was performed, and the supposed agent in the performance. The scene in which the farce commenced was the house of one Parsons, the parish clerk of St. Sepulchre’s. As a preliminary to the proceedings, it was reported that, nearly two years before the affair gained notoriety, alarming knockings and scratchings had been heard by the daughter of Parsons, a girl about twelve years old, and that she and others had seen, at her father’s house, the apparition of a woman, surrounded by a blazing light. The girl, on being questioned as to whom the apparition resembled, said it was like Mrs. Kent, who had formerly been a lodger there, and had died of the smallpox since her removal. The next step was to throw out mysterious hints that Mrs. Kent had been murdered. These rumours were soon spread abroad, and the credulous and the curious rushed with headlong haste to witness the new marvels. The knockings and scratchings had by this time become exceedingly violent. It was now sagely resolved that several gentlemen, among whom a clergyman acted a prominent part, should sit up by the bed-side of Miss Parsons, to question the supposed ghost. As the ghost, it was imagined, might be dumb, or have forgotten its native tongue, the clergyman settled that it should reply by knocks; one knock being an affirmative answer, and two knocks a negative. This arrangement having been made, the ghost was interrogated, and it replied, that it was the spirit of a woman named Kent, who had been poisoned. As some persons suspected imposture, the girl was removed from her home, and was successively put to bed at several houses; the number of watchers was increased to nearly twenty, several of whom were clergymen and ladies. Still the knockings and scratchings were continued, and the same answers as before were made to questions. At length, on being pressed to give some proof of its veracity, the ghost consented to attend one of the gentlemen into the vault where the body was buried, and manifest its presence by a knock upon the coffin.