orded will enable
the reader to judge for himself more easily than in most narratives of
this type. Our informant is a gentleman [Mr. D.], occupying a
responsible position; his name may be given to inquirers."[10] The
detailed report of the occurrences occupies no less than twelve pages,
the greater part of which consists of a long letter addressed by Mr. D.
to the Society for Psychical Research. He explains that he is writing in
the main from notes taken at the time and not from memory. The following
is an abstract:--

On Friday, 23rd September 1887, he took his four pupils to a circus, his
lady housekeeper also going, leaving two servants at home. They left at
about 2 P.M. All but himself returned about 5.30 P.M. The two servants
were on the doorstep, telling the boys not to go in by the area
door--the kitchens being below ground--and explaining that all the bells
were ringing violently, no one touching them, and that they had been
doing so almost ever since half-past two. When the master of the house
came home, he found the same state of things, the servants almost in
hysterics and the bells ringing. Nine bells hung in a row just inside
the area door, opposite the kitchen door, and there was one bell--a call
bell--on the landing at the top of the house.

Mr. D. frequently saw several of these bells ringing at once, the
ringing being sudden and very violent, louder, he believed, than they
could be rung by pulling the handles. One bell was more than once pulled
over, so that it could not return to its normal position. Several of
the upstairs bells had no bell-pulls. The bellhanger was several times
summoned to the premises. He showed that the wires could not have been
entangled, and entirely agreed that it would be an utter impossibility
for any animals, such as cats or rats, to ring the bells as they were
rung. The house was quite a new one, standing alone, surrounded by
unoccupied plots of building land.

As to the question of trickery. There seemed no possibility of that
being the explanation. The phenomena occurred when the housekeeper and
pupils were all away; also when the cook was away; also when only the
two servants and the master were in the house, and both of them in his
sight. For instance, he says he stood in the passage in front of the
nine bells watching them ring, with both the servants close by. Once in
particular he watched the housemaid on her knees in the middle of the
wash-house scrubbing the ti