The symptoms returned; the native Christian was sent for, and found
Mr. Chang's establishment full of buckets of water for extinguishing
the sudden fires. Mrs. Chang's daughter-in-law was now possessed, and
"drank wine in large quantities, though ordinarily she would not touch
it". She was staring and tossing her arms wildly; a service was held,
and she soon became her usual self.
In the afternoon, when the devils went out of the ladies, the fowls
flew into a state of wild excitement, while the swine rushed furiously
about and tried to climb a wall.
The family have become Christians, the fires have ceased; Mr. Chang is
an earnest inquirer, but opposed, for obvious reasons, to any public
profession of our religion. {233b}
In Mr. Niu's case "strange noises and rappings were frequently heard
about the house. The buildings were also set on fire in different
places in some mysterious way." The Christians tried to convert Mr.
Niu, but as the devil now possessed his female slave, whose success in
fortune-telling was extremely lucrative, Mr. Niu said that he
preferred to leave well alone, and remained wedded to his idols. {234}
We next offer a recent colonial case, in which the symptoms, as Mr.
Pecksniff said, were "chronic".
THE GREAT AMHERST MYSTERY
On 13th February, 1888, Mr. Walter Hubbell, an actor by profession,
"being duly sworn" before a Notary Public in New York, testified to
the following story:--
In 1879 he was acting with a strolling company, and came to Amherst,
in Nova Scotia. Here he heard of a haunted house, known to the local
newspapers as "The Great Amherst Mystery". Having previously
succeeded in exposing the frauds of spiritualism Mr. Hubbell
determined to investigate the affair of Amherst. The haunted house
was inhabited by Daniel Teed, the respected foreman in a large shoe
factory. Under his roof were Mrs. Teed, "as good a woman as ever
lived"; little Willie, a baby boy; and Mrs. Teed's two sisters,
Jennie, a very pretty girl, and Esther, remarkable for large grey
eyes, pretty little hands and feet, and candour of expression. A
brother of Teed's and a brother of Mrs. Cox made up the family. They
were well off, and lived comfortably in a detached cottage of two
storys. It began when Jennie and Esther were in bed one night.
Esther jumped up, saying that there was a mouse in the bed. Next
night, a green band-box began to make a rustling noise, and then rose
a foot in the air, several times. On the following night Esther felt
unwell, and "was a swelling wisibly before the werry eyes" of her
alarmed family. Reports like thunder peeled through her chamber,
under a serene sky. Next day Esther could only eat "a small piece of
bread and butter, and a large green pickle". She recovered slightly,
in spite of the pickle, but, four nights later, all her and her
sister's bed-clothes flew off, and settled down in a remote corner.
At Jennie's screams, the family rushed in, and found Esther "fearfully
swollen". Mrs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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