erial world is all "swank". At
the most we--Parsons, Priests, Theosophists, Christian Scientists,
Psychical Research Professors,--at the most can only speculate.
Nothing--nothing whatsoever, beyond the bare fact that there are
phenomena, unaccountable by physical laws, has as yet been discovered.
All the time and energy and space that have been devoted by scientists
to the investigation of spiritualism and to making tests in automatic
writing are, in my opinion--and, I believe, I speak for the man in the
street--hopelessly futile. No one, who has ever really experienced
spontaneous ghostly manifestations, could for one moment believe in the
genuineness of the phenomena produced at seances. They have never
deceived me, and I am of the opinion spirits cannot be convoked to
order, either through a so-called medium falling into a so-called
trance, through table-turning, automatic writing, or anything else. If a
spirit comes, it will come either voluntarily, or in obedience to some
Unknown Power--and certainly neither to satisfy the curiosity of a crowd
of sensation-loving men and women, nor to be analysed by some cold,
calculating, presumptuous Professor of Physics whose proper sphere is
the laboratory.

But to proceed. The phenomenon of the big bear, provided again it was
really objective, may have been the phantasm of some prehistoric
creature whose bones lie interred beneath the Tower; for we know the
Valley of the Thames was infested with giant reptiles and quadrupeds of
all kinds (I incline to this theory); or it may have been a
Vice-Elemental, or--the phantasm of a human being who lived a purely
animal life, and whose spirit would naturally take the form most closely
resembling it.

* * * * *

Judging by the number of experiences related to me, hauntings by phantom
hares and rabbits would appear to be far from uncommon. There is this
difference, however, between the hauntings by the two species of
animal--phantom hares usually portend death or some grave catastrophe,
either to the witness himself, or to someone immediately associated with
him; whereas phantom rabbits are seldom prophetic, and may generally be
looked upon merely as the earth-bound spirits of some poor rabbits that
have met with untimely ends.

_Hauntings by a White Rabbit_

Mr. W.T. Stead, in his _Real Ghost Stories_, gives an account of the
hauntings by a phantom rabbit in a house in ---- Road. He does not,
howe