'Then Mrs. White came in with Dr. Lloyd; also Tom White and Solomon
Wass. After they had been in two or three minutes, something else
happened. Tom White and Wass were standing with their backs to the
fire, just in front of it. Eliza Rose and Dr. Lloyd were near them, with
their backs turned towards the bin, the doctor nearer to the door. I
stood by the drawers, and Mrs. White was by me near the inner door. Then
suddenly a basin, which stood on the end of the bin near the door, got up
into the air, _turning over and over as it went. It went up not very
quickly, not as quickly as if it had been thrown_. When it reached the
ceiling it fell plump and smashed. I called Dr. Lloyd's attention to it,
and we all saw it. No one was near it, and I don't know how it happened.
I stayed about ten minutes more, but saw nothing else. I don't know what
to make of it all. I don't think White or the girl could possibly have
done the things which I saw.'
This statement was made five weeks after date to Mr. Podmore. We compare
it with the intelligent constable's statement made between March 3 and
March 8, that is, immediately after the events, and reported in the local
paper of March 9.
STATEMENT BY POLICE CONSTABLE HIGGS.--During Friday night, Police
Constable Higgs visited the house, and concerning the visit he makes the
following statement.
'About ten minutes past [to?] twelve on Friday night, I was met in Bridge
Street by Buck Ford, and Joe's brother, Tom White and Dr. Lloyd. Tom said
to me, "Will you go with us to Joe's, and you will see something you have
never seen before?" I went; and when I got into the house Joe went and
shut the cupboard doors. No sooner had he done so than the doors flew
open again, and an ordinary sized glass jar flew across the kitchen, out
of the door into the yard. A sugar jar also flew out of the cupboard
unseen. In fact, we saw nothing and heard nothing until we heard it smash.
The distance travelled by the articles was about seven yards. I stood
a minute or two, and then the glass which I noticed on the drawers jumped
off the drawers a yard away, and broke in about a hundred bits. The next
thing was a cup, which stood on the flour-bin just beyond the yard
door. It flew upwards, and then fell to the ground and broke. The girl
said that this cup had been on the floor three times, and that she had
picked it up just before it went off the bench. I said, "I suppose the cup
will be the next." The cup fell a distance of two yards away from the
flour-bin. Dr. Lloyd had been in the next house lancing the back of a
little boy who had been removed there. He now came in, and we began
talking, the doctor saying, "It is a most mysterious thing." He turned
with his back to the flour-bin, on which stood a basin. The basin flew up
into the air obliquely, went over the doctor's head, and fell at his feet
in pieces. The doctor then went out. I stood a short time longer, but
saw nothing farther.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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