scratching part of the business was left to the
little girl. That any contrivance so clumsy could have deceived any body
cannot fail to excite our wonder. But thus it always is. If two or three
persons can only be found to take the lead in any absurdity, however
great, there is sure to be plenty of imitators. Like sheep in a field, if
one clears the stile, the rest will follow.

About ten years afterwards, London was again alarmed by the story of a
haunted house. Stockwell, near Vauxhall, the scene of the antics of this
new ghost, became almost as celebrated in the annals of superstition as
Cock Lane. Mrs. Golding, an elderly lady, who resided alone with her
servant, Anne Robinson, was sorely surprised on the evening of
Twelfth-Day, 1772, to observe a most extraordinary commotion among her
crockery. Cups and saucers rattled down the chimney--pots and pans were
whirled down stairs, or through the windows; and hams, cheeses, and loaves
of bread disported themselves upon the floor as if the devil were in them.
This, at least, was the conclusion that Mrs. Golding came to; and being
greatly alarmed, she invited some of her neighbours to stay with her, and
protect her from the evil one. Their presence, however, did not put a stop
to the insurrection of china, and every room in the house was in a short
time strewed with the fragments. The chairs and tables joined, at last, in
the tumult, and things looked altogether so serious and inexplicable, that
the neighbours, dreading that the house itself would next be seized with a
fit of motion, and tumble about their ears, left poor Mrs. Golding to bear
the brunt of it by herself. The ghost in this case was solemnly
remonstrated with, and urged to take its departure; but the demolition
continuing as great as before, Mrs. Golding finally made up her mind to
quit the house altogether. She took refuge with Anne Robinson in the house
of a neighbour; but his glass and crockery being immediately subjected to
the same persecution, he was reluctantly compelled to give her notice to
quit. The old lady thus forced back to her own house, endured the
disturbance for some days longer, when suspecting that Anne Robinson was
the cause of all the mischief, she dismissed her from her service. The
extraordinary appearances immediately ceased, and were never afterwards
renewed; a fact which is of itself sufficient to point out the real
disturber. A long time afterwards, Anne Robinson confessed the whole