THE LAW ON GHOSTS! after a haunted house this journey, but, nothing daunted, the following morning we set forth on the same errand, having heard that there was "a real haunted house" at Halton Holgate, a village situated about eight miles from Wainfleet. Haunted houses are strangely coming into note and repute again; I really thought their day was over for ever, but it seems not so. The good old-fashioned ghost that roams about corridors, and stalks in ancient chambers till cock-crowing time; the ghost of our ancestors and the early numbers of the Christmas illustrated papers; the ghost that groans in a ghastly manner, and makes weird "unearthly" noises in the middle of the night, appears once more much in evidence,—I had nearly said "had come to life again"! He is even written about seriously and complainingly to the papers! In a long letter to the Standard that appeared therein on 22nd April 1896 under the heading of "A Haunted House," the writer gravely laments his lot in having unwittingly taken a lease of a house from which he and his family were driven, solely on account of the ghostly manifestations that took place there! The letter, which I afterwards learnt was written in absolutely good faith and was no hoax, commences: "In the nineteenth century ghosts are obsolete, but they are costing me two hundred pounds a year. I have written to my lawyer, but am told by him that the English law does not recognise ghosts!" The reading of this caused me to open my eyes in wonderment, the assertions were simply astonishing. Still the law seemed sensible; if any man were
