A remarkable incident now occurred. Mr. Wilkinson was visiting a friend in London, whose wife has all her life had perception of apparitions, while her husband is a "medium." He related to them the vision of the Captain's widow, and described the figure as it appeared to her, when Mrs. N. instantly said, "That must be the very person I saw on the evening we were talking of India." In answer to Mr. Wilkinson's questions, she said they had obtained a communication from him through her husband, and he had said that he had been killed in India that afternoon by a wound in the breast. It was about nine o'clock in the evening; she did not recollect the date. On further inquiry, she remembered that she had been interrupted by a tradesman, and had paid a bill that evening; and on bringing it for Mr. Wilkinson's inspection, the receipt bore date the Fourteenth of November. In March, 1858, the family of Captain Wheatcroft received a letter from Captain G------ C------, dated Lucknow, 19th of December, 1857, in which he said he had been close to Captain W. when he fell, and that it was on the fourteenth in the afternoon, and not on the 15th, as reported in Sir Colin Campbell's despatches. He was struck by a fragment of a shell in the breast. He was buried at Dilkoosha, and on a wooden cross at the head of his grave are cut the initials G. W., and the date of his death, 14th of November. The War Office corrected their mistake. Mr. Wilkinson obtained another copy of the certificate in April, 1859, and found it in the same words as that already given, only that the 14th of November had been substituted for the 15th.

Mr. Owen obtained the whole of these facts directly from the parties themselves. The widow of Captain Wheatcroft examined and corrected his MSS., and showed him a copy of Captain C.'s letter. Mr. Wilkinson did the same; and Mrs. N------herself related to him the facts which occurred to her. Mrs. N------had also related the circumstances to Mr. Howitt before Mr. Owen's investigations, as he certifies in his "History of the Supernatural," vol. 2, p. 225.

Mr. Owen also states that he has in his possession both the War Office certificates, the first showing the erroneous and the second the corrected date.

Here we have the same apparition appearing to two ladies unknown to and remote from each other on the same night; the communication obtained through a third person, declaring the time and mode of death; and all coinciding exactly with the events happening many thousand miles away. We presume the facts thus attested will not be disputed; and to attribute the whole to "coincidence" must surely be too great a stretch of credulity, even for the most incredulous.

The next case is one of haunting, and is called

In October, 1857, and for several months afterwards,' Mrs. R, the wife of a field officer of high rank, was residing in Ramhurst Manor House, near Leigh, in Kent. From her first occupying it, every inmate of the house was more or less disturbed at night by knocking, and sounds as of footsteps, but more especially by voices, which could not be accounted for. Mrs. E.'s brother, a young officer, heard these voices at night, and tried every means to discover the source of them in vain. The servants were much frightened. On the second Saturday in October, Miss S., a young lady who had been in the habit of seeing apparitions from her childhood, came to visit Mrs. E., who met her at the railway station. On arriving at the house Miss S. saw on the threshold two figures, apparently an elderly couple, in old-fashioned dress. Not wishing to make her friend uneasy, she said nothing about them at the time. During the next ten days she saw the same figures several times in different parts of the house, always by daylight. They appeared surrounded by an atmosphere of a neutral tint On the third occasion they spoke to her, and said that they had formerly possessed that house, and that their name was Children. They appeared sad and downcast, and said that they had idolised their property, and that it troubled them to know that it had passed away from their family, and was now in the hands of strangers. On Mrs. R. asking Miss S. if she had heard or seen anything, she related this to her. Mrs. R. had herself heard the noises and voices continually, but had seen nothing, and after a month had given up all expectation of doing so, when one day, as she had just finished dressing for dinner, in a well-lighted room with a fire in it, and was coming down hastily, having been repeatedly called by her brother, who was impatiently waiting for her, she beheld the two figures standing in the doorway, dressed just as Miss S. had described them, but above the figure of the lady, written in the dusky atmosphere, in letters of phosphoric light, the words "Dame Children," and some other words intimating that she was "earth-bound." At this moment her brother again called out to her that dinner was waiting, and, closing her eyes, she rushed through the figures. Inquiries were made by the ladies as to who had lived in the house formerly, and it was only after four months that they found out, through a very old woman, who remembered an old man, who had told her that he had in his boyhood assisted to keep the hounds for the Children family, who then lived at Ramhurst. All these particulars Mr. Owen received himself from the two ladies, in December, 1858. Miss S. had had many conversations with the apparitions, and on Mr. Owen's inquiring for any details they had communicated, she told him that the husband had said his name was Richard, and that he had died in 1753. Mr. Owen now determined, if possible, to ascertain the accuracy of these facts, and after a long search among churchyards and antiquarian clergymen, he was directed to the "Hasted Papers" in the British Museum. From these he ascertained that "Richard Children settled himself at Ramhurst," his family having previously resided at a house called "Childrens," in the parish of Tunbridge. It required further research to determine the date. This was found several months later, in an old "History of Kent," by the same "Hasted," published in 1778, where it is stated that "Ramhurst passed by sale to Richard Children, Esq., who resided here, and died possessed of it in 1753, aged eighty-three years." In the "Hasted Papers" it was also stated that his son did not live at Ramhurst, and that the family seat after Richard's time was Ferox Hall, near Tunbridge. Since 1816 the mansion has been occupied as a farm house, having passed away entirely from the Children family.

However much any one of these incidents might have been scouted as a delusion, what are we to say to the combination of them ? A whole household hear distinct and definite noises of persons walking and speaking. Two ladies see the same appearances, at different times, and under circumstances the least favourable for delusion. The name is given to one by voice, to the other by writing; the date of death is communicated. An independent enquirer by much research, finds out that all these facts are true; that the Christian name of the only "Children" who occupied and died in the house was Richard, and that his death took place in the year given by the apparition, 1753.

Mr. Owen's own full account of this case, and the observations on it should be read, but this imperfect abstract will serve to show that none of the ordinary modes of escaping from the difficulties of a "ghost story" are here applicable.

The disturbances commenced from the time when two boys, aged 12 and 14, came to be educated by M. Tinel, the parish priest of Cideville, and continued two months and a half until the children were removed from the parsonage. They consisted of knockings, as if with a hammer on the wainscot; scratchings, shakings of the house so that all the furniture rattled; a din as if every one in the house were beating the floor with mallets, the beatings forming tunes when asked, and answering questions by numbers agreed on. Besides these noises there were strange and unaccountable exhibitions of force. The tables and desks moved about without visible cause; the fire-irons flew repeatedly into the middle of the room, windows were broken; a hammer was thrown into the middle of the room, and yet fell without noise, as if put down by an invisible hand; persons standing quite alone had their dresses pulled. On the Mayor of Cideville coming to examine into the matter, a table at which he sat with another person, moved away in spite of their endeavours to hold it back, while the children were standing in the middle of the room; and many other facts of a similar nature were observed repeatedly by numerous persons of respectability and position, every one of whom, going with the intention of finding out a trick, were, after deliberate examination, convinced that the phenomena were not produced by any person present. The Marquis de Mirville was himself one of the witnesses. The interest of this case consists first, in the evidence having been brought out before a legal tribunal; and secondly, in the remarkable resemblance of the phenomena to those which had occurred a short time previously in America, but had not yet become much known in Europe. There is also the closest resemblance to what occurred at Epworth Parsonage in the family of Wesley's father, and which is almost equally well authenticated.* Now when in three different countries, phenomena occur of an exactly similar nature; and which are all open to the fullest ex-aminatipn at the time, and when no trick or delusion is in either case found out but every individual of many hundreds who go to see them becomes convinced of their reality, the fact of the similarity of the occurrences even in many details, is of great weight as indicating a similar natural origin. In such cases we cannot fairly accept the general explanation of "imposture," given by those who have not witnessed the phenomena, when none of those who did witness them, could ever detect imposture.