icer
discovered that his brother died on the very night he saw the
apparition.

A ghost story was related for the first time about twenty years ago,
of the ghost of a murdered man appearing in the colony of New South
Wales. A farmer named Fisher, in the prime of life and unmarried,
suddenly disappeared, leaving L4000 worth of property behind him. A
neighbour called Smith reported that Fisher had gone to England, and
that he was authorized to act for him in all business matters during
his absence. The statement was received as a fact; but a strange
circumstance changed public opinion. An old man named Ben Weir, who
had a small farm near that of Fisher, was returning home one night
from Sydney, when he beheld farmer Fisher with a severe wound on the
forehead, and blood flowing from it. When Weir got within a few paces
of the figure, it disappeared. He could not rightly comprehend the
meaning of all this, and did not mention what he had seen, lest his
neighbours would say he had been drunk. A few nights afterwards he had
occasion to pass the spot where Fisher had appeared, and there again
the farmer stood before him as before. Weir could not now remain
silent. He went to a justice of the peace and told his tale. At first
the justice would not credit his informant, but subsequently he
instructed an inquiry to be made. Marks of blood were discovered at
the spot where the ghost appeared, and in a pond, a little distance
off, Fisher's dead body was found. Smith was consequently arrested,
and tried before the late Sir Francis Forbes. His guilt was
established, and he was sentenced to death. Before his execution he
confessed that he alone had murdered Fisher at the very spot where
Weir saw the murdered man's ghost.

An account is given of a house that was haunted at Bow last century. A
young girl declared one morning that a cold hand had been laid on her
about midnight. This proved to be the hand of death. She sickened, and
before many suns went down she lay in her winding sheet. Then followed
a series of strange annoyances, which gave rise to the report that the
house was haunted. So dreadfully were the inmates frightened, that
though the house contained many apartments upstairs and downstairs,
they took refuge in a small room on the ground floor. Night and day
strange noises were heard, and furniture and other articles were flung
about by unseen hands. A gentleman, a friend of the family, hearing of
what was going on, engag