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Vol. VI.
New I31oonifleltl, 3?a., Tiiesdny-, November lO, 1872.
IVo. 47.
ft
m wmw ta i: ii us h hies
IS PUBLISHED EVERT TUESDAY MORNING, BT
FRANZ MORTIMER & CO.,
.'At Now Bloomfleld, Terry Co., Ta.
Being provided with Bteam Tower, and large
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ADVEItTISING KATES I
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YEARLY ADVERTISEMENTS.
One Inch one year J10.00
Two inches" ' 118.00
.For longer yearly adv'ts terms will be given
upon application.
Tho Haunted Closet.
MY sistor wrote to roe that she had
taken a house for the summor, "a
queer, old-fashioned house" away down on
the lonely coast, where the children would
have the benefit of the sea-breeze and the
surf-bathing prescribed for them after a
sickly spring season. And she urged me
at once to come and join thorn in their new
abode. Queer and old-fashioned indcod I
found it; each room bad the appearance of
having been built separately, by successive
owners.
At the back of the main building pro
jected a sort of long and narrow wooden
gallery, consisting of a row of throe or four
mall rooms, last used, it appeared, as store
rooms for grain and vegetables, all open
ing upon a covered passage-way connecting
with a brick office which had formerly
'Stood separate from the house. These
rooms and the office were unused by the
family as too remote to be desirable; be
sides there was plenty of room in the main
building.
Yet the first time I visited the little brick
office, it at once took my fancy. It was a
good-sized, comfortable room, with a fire
place on one side, and a queer little trian
gular closet, or cupboard in a corner, bear
ing the marks of books and ink-stands on
the shelves. The very place, I thought,
for a study, so I at once chose this little
room for my own, bedroom and Btudy in
one, and after giving it a thorough purifi
cation and airing, took possession.
It proved quite as pleasant as I antici
pated. Here, awaking in the morning, I
would open the windows and let in the
fresh sea-breeze; and when evening came, I
would sit in my little garden-door, and re
joice in the quiet and seclusion which I
loved so muoh.
Thus I was sitting, about twilight a few
days after I had moved into my little her
mitage, as I called it. The air was very
still : scarce a rustle disturbed the branches
of the willow, and the surf rippling on the
beach made but a low murmur. Suddenly,
I became aware of a faint, uncertain sound,
like the whispering of voices and rustling
of garments. Fancying that my sister or
the children had playfully stolen upon me
I looked around; but to my surprise, there
was no one visible.
It must have been fancy, of course, I
thought, and turned once more to the book ;
but hardly had I done so when again I
heard the rustling of drapery, and what
sounded like a foot fall on the floor. I was
startled and sat breathless, staring around
and listening. Once or twice it was repeat
ed and thea all was as still as before.
That my story may be credited, I must
tell the reader that I was at this time a
woman of four-and-twenty, bad never in
my life been ill or nervous, was the farth
est possible from being superstitiously in
clined, and bad been accustomed to regard
with rldioule all stories concerning ghosts,
goblins, aud other so-called spiritual mani
festations. Such being the case I set It
down as one of those odd and fleeting fan
cies which do sometimes puzzle aud bewil
der even the most rational.
But on the following day, aud agaiu on
the next, the mystorlous sounds which I
have described were repeated. It was exact
ly a though some person or persons were
occupying the room with me moving with
coft footsteps and speaking in low whis
pers, as if unwilling to be beard. Once I
distinctly distinguished a grating noise, as
of a key turned In a look; sfter which, all
was quiet
Should I tell my sister and brother-in-law
f No; I shrank frem the thought of
heir laughter. Finally and the reader
will credit me with the possession of almost
more than feminine courage in so doing I
resolved to keop silence for the present, and
spend the night as usual In my little office
room.
The first few hours passed away quiet
ly, and I was just falling into a doze, when
I was aroused by the door of the corner
closet slowly creaking. The moonlight
enabled me to see that this door stood ajar,
though I distinctly recollected having
closed it before retiring. It bad neither
lock nor bolt by which it could be secured.
I sat up in bod, watched tho closet and
looking half-fearfully around the room; and
and as I looked, with my eyes fixed upon
the half-open door, I heard within a jingle
of glasses and phials. It was a sound not
to be mistaken, and almost at the same
instant a voice said near me, in a hoarse
whisper: " Bring a light 1"
I started up trembling, and with a cold
perspiration breaking out on my forehead,
reached for a match and the lamp, and
tried to strike a light, but in vain. I had
but one or two matches left, and as I
dropped the last in despair, I heard the
voice which had before spoken, say slowly
and distinctly: "Poison !"
Sly first impulse was to flee from this
haunted room, but had my life depended
upon it, I could not have passod that closet
aud sped through the long deserted gallery
alone. I sank back upon my pillow and
drew the sheets about my head, and re
mained thus until daybreak.
It was now no longer a question with me
as to whether I should or should not in
form my relatives of what had occurred.
I told them the whole, and as I had ex
pected, was met with, laughter and badin
age. "Try it, yourself?" was all I could say
in answer; and on that night my brother-in-law,
Mr. Walton, agreed to occupy the
office-room, I remaining with my sister.
" Well, Kichard,did you see or hear any
thing of Louisa's ghost?" inquired my
sister, playfully, on our meeting at the
breakfast table in the morning.
"I saw nothing," he answered thought
fully. " But really, Emma, it did appear
as though, moro than once during the night,
I heard some unaccountable Bounds tho
turning of a key in the lock, a sort of moan
ing and sobbing child's voice, and very dis
tinctly the shutting of a small door. And
this last sound," he added decidedly, "cer
tainly came from the closet er cupboard in
the corner of the room."
Emma opened her eyes and looked fright
ened. "Oh, Richard ! you don't really
think that you heard these sounds in tho
room, with no one there but yourself?"
" It is very unaccountable at present, I
admit; but you know that I do not beliove
in the supernatural. We must oxamine
more fully into the matter."
For some days he kept sole possession of
the room, reporting once or twice that ho
bad again heard the mysterious noises,
and especially the grating of a rusty key,
as in the lock of the corner cupboard, was
very distinctly audible. And yet, as we
all knew, there was neither lock nor key to
the cupboard door, only traces of one that
had been there. There was no room ad
joining, no cellar below or garret above,
and the whole thing was most singular and
unaccountable. And once he even hesi
tatingly suggested, " Could it be, after all,
spiritual manifestations?" My own mind
echoed the inquiry.
Our nearest neighbor was a farmer who
lived about a mile distant, and of himself
and wife we made inquiries in regard to
the former occupants of the houso.
It had for twenty years within his mem
ory, Mr. Orover said, belonged to a small
farmer, an illiterate but good sort of man,
who had finally sold out and purchased a
better place farther south. Then the house,
with a part of the laud adjoining, had been
taken by a gentleman who was known as
Dr. Mather, and was understood to be
very learned and a writer. Mr. Orover and
the rest of the neighb ors believed him to
be " a little cracked." He used to go
about the country gathering sea-weeds,
plants, and insects, but would repel all ap
proach to acquaintance. Ho had a wife
with whom it was said he lived on bad
terms, and three sickly children whose pres.
cuce he would scarcely tolerate. The wife
and two of the children died, and then Dr.
Mather went away with the remaining
child, leaving the place to an agent for
sale. It was then rented for a time by some
people, who, for reasons known only to
themselves, would not remain their term
out; and finally, we had taken it, furnished
as it was, for the summer. This was all
that Mr. Orover knew.
Upon hearing this simple account, then
instinctively formed in my mind an expla
nation, if such it can be called, of the mys
terious circumstances which had so puzzled
and disturbed us. " They had all three
died." and my memory reverted with a
shudder to the word " Poison 1" which I
had heard uttered by that mysterious voice.
Perhaps murder had been committed in
this house even in that very office-room
which I had appropriated ; and this im
pression was deepened upon being informed
by Mr. Grover, in answer to my inquiries,
that room had in reality been Dr. Mathor's
study or library, into which no one was
ever admitted; and that he would some
times remain in it whole days and nights
together without being interrupted hav
ing bis meals brought aud deposited out-,
side the door, in the adjoining gallory.
The office and gallery were now carefully
shunned by us all, with the exception of
Mr. Walton, who haunted it with a per
sistency doubtless equal to that of the ghost
itself. He was determined, he said, to
learn all that could be learned of this mys
tery, and if possible, to thoroughly un
ravel it.
One evening after a rain, a heavy sea-fog
set in upon the const, and the atmosphere
became all at once so damp and chilly as to
render a fire indispensable to comfort. The
two most comfortable apartments of tho
house for cool weather were tho nursery
and the office-room, which wore situated at
opposite extremities of the long building.
So, leaving the former to the nurses and
children, Mr. Walton proposed that he and
Emma and I should make ourselves com
fortable for the evening in the haunted
room, as ho now called it, maugre the ghost;
and, as an inducement, promised us a hot
oyster supper. The oysters were to be had
fresh out of the water, almost at our very
door, just for the trouble of picking them up.
Certainly the room, as Emma and I rath
er hesitatingly entered it, looked pleasant
and cheerful enough, with its blazing wood
fire, and the tea-kettle steaming on the
hearth. No one made any allusion to the
ghost.
Supper ovor, Mr. Walton who was a fine
reader, entertained us with some chapters
from Dickens' latest work, and we were
soon so much interested as to forget every
thing else. In the very midst of this, how
ever, I was startled by feeling a faint breath
of cool air upon my nock, and at the same
instant saw my sister's eyes lifted with a
frightened glance toward the corner closet
behind me.
I "instinctively started up and crossed
over to the opposite side of tho fireplace.
" What is it Louisa ?,' said Emma, ner
vously, " I saw the door of the closet
open."
Mr. Walton closed bis book and sat look
ing attentively at the cupboard. And it
was while we were all thus, perfectly silent
and motionless, that a sound broke the
stillness at first what seemed tho jingling
of phials, and tattling of chains, and then
the faint, uncertain sound of muffled voices
which I had heard more than once before,
all coming unmistakably from the little
triangular closet in the corner.
"O Richard, do you hear?" gasped Em
ma, seizing fast hold of her husband's arm.
For myself, I came very near screaming
outright.
"Hush the quiot," said Mr. Walton.
And taking the lamp, he advanced to the
cupboard, threw wide open the door, and
surveyed it minutely.
It was simply a closet built of deal
boards against the naked whitewashed
-walls of the room. Three rickety ink.
stained shelves were all it contained. Be
tween tho lower and middlo shelves was a
Btrip of wood nailed against the wall, as if
to cover a place, where, as we could see, the
plaster had fallen away, and beneath this
strip could be discerned part of what seem
ed to be a rat hole. Besides these, not a
thing was visible in the closet.
And yet as I live, while we throe stood
there gazing Into the empty closet, from its
recesses came a holtow laugh, and a low,
childish voice said plaintively:
"Three all dead poisoned!"
Emma sank down, half swooning
Even Mr. Walton's face as I fancied, be
came a shade pale ; aud then we heard the
voice again:
" Bury them grave under the walnut "
I looked again at my brother-in-law, and
saw bis lips compress and a kind of des
peration appear In his face. Ho advanced
close to the closet, put his head almost
within, aud shouted loudly and distinctly:
" Who are you t Who is it that speaks?"
" In answer came a shriek, loud and sp
palling, ringing in our very ears. Then
the saine breath of cold air swept past,
followed by the violent shutting of a door
and grating of a key in a lock. We looked
at each other aghast, but before we had
time to utter a word, we were again star
tled by a different sound that of children's
cries, and footsteps hurrying along the gal
lery to the room in which we were. The
next moment the door burst open, and in
rushed nurse, bearing baby in her arms,
followed by her assistant, dragging the
three elder children after her all the latter
pale and terrified, and Freddy in particular
shrieking shrilly.
"What is the matter? What has hap
pened ?" - screamed Emma, forgetting her
own recent terror in alarm for her children.
"Oh, master I oh, missus 1" grasped
nurse, pitoously, hor eyes rolling white in
their sockets, " A ghost ! A ghost in the
nursery I"
"A ghost?"
" In the cornor closet iu the nursery I I
heerd itl We all heerd it 1 Master Freddy
was looking in that closet to see if there
was any mice in the trap that he'd set, and
somebody in the closet hollered out ' Who
are you? What are you talking about?"
We all heerd it."
Mr. Walton turned around and once
more looked into the closet. Then taking
the tongs from the hearth, he inserted
thorn behind the bit of board which I have
mentioned asnailed to the wall, and wrench
ed it away, exposing, as ho did so, a small
aperture surrounded by a metallic ring.
" I have discovered tho mystery at last!"
he said, turning to us with a smile. " It is
no ghost, but simply a speaking-tube.
Stay here, and when you hear the spirits,
place your mouth to this and answer them."
" He left the room, and in a few moments
we again heard the mysterious, sepulchral
voice in the closet, only much more distinct
now, since the board had been removed.
"How are you all ?"
I summoned courage to answer: " Much
better 1" And then there came a low
laugh, ghostly enough certainly, to have
caused our blood to curdle, had we not
been aware of the idoutity of tho apparent
ghost.
And so it was all explained, and the mys
tery of the haunted closet cleared up.
There was as Mr. Walton had said, a speaking-tube
communicating between the office
room and the distant nursery placed there
doubtless by the eccentric naturalist, Dr.
Mather, for his own convenience; and he on
leaving the houso, had simply carelessly
boarded over the mouth of the tube, not
dreaming of or indifferent to tho consequen
ces of this negligence.
The explanation of the various sounds
board by us in the office-room is vory sim
ple. The corresponding mouth of the tube
was in a closet in the nursery, precisely
similar to that In the office. Nurse stored
in this closet the varipus cups, phials, and
so-forth, used in the nursery, and, to secure
these from the children, the closet was gen
erally kept locked. It was tho opening and
shutting of this closet door, with the gra
ting of the key in the rusty lock, that bad
so often alarmed me ; aud when it was open
and a search going on among its contents
for some special article, the noise thus
made and the words spoken in the closet
could be heard, more or less distinctly, in
the office. Also, when the closet door was
suddenly shut to, it would produce a cur
rent of air through the tube sufficient to
slightly open the loosely hung door of the
office cupboard. Master Freddy's idea of
setting a mouse-trap iu the closet, baited
with poisoned food, had added much to the
effect of the mystery ; and it was little Ma
ry's voioe which had pleaded so patheti
cally for the three victims of her brother's
experiment, imploring that they might be
buried under the walnut-tree.
Mr. Walton used to say that it was al
most a pity that the secret of the tube
should have been discovered, and thereby
so capital a ghost story spoiled.
A California Dairyman.
In the year 1855 or 1850, or thereabout,
says the Qrass Valley Union, we know a
man in Nevada City who milked two or
three cows and who used to walk around
the towu and sell the lacteal fluid. He car
ried two cans on a wooden yoke, which was
placed over his neck and shoulders. He
lias flourished since then, and now has
lauds aud horned cattle down in Montgom
ery county. He is now engaged in milking
1,200 cows, and be makes butter and cheese.
Next spring be will milk 1,500 cows. His
oows are of excellent stock, consisting of
Devon, Short Horn and Akloruey blood.
The name of this successful luilkist and ex
Nevada City man is 8. C. Abbott. His
property is assessed at 1 400, 000, and we
doubt much if he would soli out at that
figure. ,
An Address by thn United States Centen
nial Commission
To the people of t7te United Statee: '
The Congress of the United States has
enacted that the completion of the One
Hundreth Year of American Indipendence
Bhall be celebrated by an International Ex
hibition of the Arts, Manufactures and
Products of the soil and mine, to be held
at Philadelphia in 1870, and has appointed
a commission, consisting of representatives
from each State and Territory, to conduct
the celebration.
Originating under the auspices of the
National Legislature, controlled by a Nat
ional Commission, and designed as it is to
" Commemorate the first Century of our '
existence, by an Exhibition of the Natural
Resources of the Country and their devel
opment, and in our progress in those Arts
which benefit mankind, in comparison wjth
those of older Nations," it is to the people
at largo that the Commission look for the
aid which is necessary to make the Central
Celebration the greatest anniversary the
world has ever scon.
That the completion of the first ceutury
of our existence should be marked by some
imposing demonstration is, we bolieve,
the patriotio wish of the people of the
whole country. The Congress of the
United States has wisely decidod that
the Birth-day of the Great Republic can bo
most fittingly celebrated by the universal
collection and display of all tho trophies of
its progress. It is designed to bring to
gether, within a building covering fifty
acres, not only the varied productions of
our mines and of the soil, but types of all
tho intellectual triumphs of our citizens,
specimens of everything that America can
furnish , whether from the brains or hands
of her children, and thus make evident to
the world tho advancement of which a self
governed people is capable. 1
In this "Celebration" all nations will be
invited to participate; its charactor being
International. Europe will display hor arts
aud manufactures, India her curious fab
rics, while newly opened China and' Japan
will lay bare the treasures which for
centuries their ingenious people have been
perfecting. Each land will compete in
generous rivalry for the palm of superior
excellence.
To this grand gathering every zone will
contribute its fruits and cereals. No min
eral shall be wanting; for what the East
lacks the West will supply. Under one
roof will the South display in rich luxur
iance her growing cotton, and the North
in miniature, the ceaseless machinery of
her mills converting that cotton into cloth.
Each section of the globe will send its best
offerings to this exhibition, and each State
of the Union, as a member of one united
body politic, will show to her sistor States
and to the world, how much she can add
to the greatness of the nation of which she
is a harmonious part.
To make the Centennial Celebration such
a success as the patriotism and the prido of
every American demands will require the
co-oporation of the people of the whole
country. The United States Centennial
Commission has received no government
aid, such as England extended to her
World's Fair, and Franco to hor Universal
Exposition, yet the labor and responsibility
imposed upon the Commission is as great
as in either of those undertakings. It is
estimated that ten millions of dollars will
be required, and this sum Congress has
provided shall be raised by stock subscrip
tion, and that the people shall have the op
portunity of subscribing in proportion to
the population of their respective' States
and Territories.
The Commission looks to the unfailing
patriotism uf every section, to see that
each contributes its share to the expenses,
and receives Its share of the benefits of an
enterprise in which all are so deeply in
terested. It would further earnestly urge
the formation in each State and Territory
of a contonnial organization, which shall
in time see that county associations are
formed, so that when the nations are gath
ered together in 1870 each Commonwealth
can view with prido the contributions she
has made to the national glory.
Confidently relying on the zeal and pa
triotism ever displayed by mtf people lu
every national Undertaking, we pledge and
prophesy, that the Centennial Celebration
will worthily show how greatness, wealth
and intelligence, can be fostered by such
institutions as those which have for one
hundred years blessed the people of the
United States.
' ' Jos. R. Hawlkt, President. -Lewis
Walk Smith, Temporary Seo'y.