Haunted houses have proved an insuperable stumbling-block to those wiseacres who no sooner insist that superstition has died out than the familiar headline in the daily paper, “A haunted house,” stares them full in the face. It is believed that many such houses stand tenantless to-day because of the secret fear they inspire in the minds of the timid or superstitious, who, quite naturally, shrink from living under the same roof with disembodied spirits. It has already been noted that M. Camille Flammarion is a firm believer in haunted houses. Here is what he has to say upon that much debated subject:-- “There is no longer any room to doubt the fact that certain houses are haunted. “I began the scientific studies of these questions on November 15, 1861, and I have continued it ever since. I have received more than four thousand letters upon these questions from the learned men of every land, and I am glad to be able to say that some of the most interesting letters come from America.” For every haunted house there must, of course, be an invisible intruder who comes only in the small hours, when the effects of its unwelcome presence would, of course, be most terrifying to weak nerves. But it is to be remarked that we hear nothing nowadays of the old-time, hair-raising, blood-curdling ghost whose coming forebode something terrible about to happen, or who had some awful revelation to make. That type of ghost has passed away. The modern ghost never makes set speeches in a sepulchral voice or leaves a palpable smell of brimstone behind. It comes rather in a spirit of mischief-making, shown in such petty annoyances as setting the house bells ringing, overturning articles of furniture, twitching the bedclothes from off a sleeping person in the coldest of cold nights, putting out the lights, or making a horrible racket, first in one room, then in another, as if it revelled in pure wantonness of purpose. In short, there is no limit to the ingenious deviltries perpetrated by this nocturnal disturber of domestic peace and quiet. After two or three sleepless nights, followed by days of quaking apprehension, the occupants usually move out, declaring that they would not live in the house if it were given to them. And so it stands vacant indefinitely, shunned by all to whom its evil reputation has become known, a visible monument of active superstition. That all these things have happened as lately as in this year of grace (1900) is too well known to be denied. And as most people would desire to shun publicity in such a matter, there are probably very many cases that never reach the public eye at all. One such is reported of a family at Charlestown, Massachusetts, being disturbed by strange noises, as of some one pounding on the walls or floors at all hours of the night. Even the police, when summoned, failed to lay hands on the invisible tormentor, who, like the ghost in Hamlet, was here, there, and nowhere in a jiffy.