nts of the village, rashly determined on
watching for, and shooting the ghost; when, unfortunately, in Black-Lion
Lane, he shot a poor innocent man, Thomas Millwood, a bricklayer, who
was in a white dress, the usual habiliment of his occupation. This rash
act, having been judged wilful murder by the coroner's inquest, Smith
was accordingly committed to gaol, and took his trial at the ensuing
sessions at the Old Bailey, January 13th, 1804. The jury at first found
him guilty of manslaughter; but the crime being deemed murder in the eye
of the law, the judge could only receive a verdict of Guilty, or
acquittal. He was then found guilty, and received sentence of death, but
was afterwards pardoned on condition of being imprisoned one year.

THE

FRIGHTENED CARRIER.

In October 1813, a little before midnight, as one of the carriers
between Nottingham and Loughborough, was passing near the village of
Rempstone, he was extremely surprised at meeting what he thought was a
funeral procession, marching in a most solemn and steady order in the
centre of the road. The carrier, with a becoming propriety and decorum,
drew his cart to the side of the road, that the mournful cavalcade might
pass without any interruption. Very active inquiry was immediately
afterwards made in the neighbourhood, but not the least knowledge could
be obtained as to where this solemn group had come from, or whither it
was going; it was therefore concluded, that some ghostly apparition or
other had thought proper to be then exercising its nocturnal avocation.
Some days afterwards it was found out, that a person, who lived in the
neighbouring village, had been endeavouring to construct a carriage upon
such a principle as to go without horses; and, wishing to make his
experiment as secret as possible, had chosen that dead hour of the
night, for trying his apparatus on the turnpike road; but unluckily
meeting with the carrier, he became alarmed for fear of an exposure, and
therefore threw a large sheet over the machinery, and passed the cart as
silently as possible, to avoid being detected.

THE

CLUB-ROOM GHOST.

At a town in the west of England, was held a club of twenty-four
persons, which assembled once a week, to drink punch, smoke tobacco, and
talk politics. Like Rubens's Academy at Antwerp, each member had his
peculiar chair, and the president's was more exalted than the rest. One
of the members had been in a dying state for some ti