e dragged from them, and
the very floor and house made to rock as in an earthquake. Night after
night they would be appalled by hearing a sound like a death struggle,
the gurgling of the throat, a sudden thud as of something falling, the
dragging as of a helpless body across the room and down the cellar
stairs, the digging of a grave, nailing of boards, and the filling up as
of a new made grave. These sounds have subsequently been produced by
request, and spontaneously also, in the presence of many persons
assembled in circles at Rochester.

It was perceived that "the spirits" seemed to select or require the
presence of the two younger girls of the family for the production of
the sounds, and though these had been made without them, especially on
the night of the 31st of March, when all the members of the family save
Mr. Fox were absent from the house, still as curiosity prompted them to
close observation and conversation with the invisible power, it was
clear that the manifestations became more powerful in the presence of
Kate, the youngest daughter, than with any one else.

As the house was continually thronged with curious inquirers, and the
time, comfort and peace of the family were consumed with these harassing
disturbances, besides the most absurd though injurious suspicions being
cast upon them, they endeavoured to baffle the haunters by sending Kate
to reside with her eldest sister, Mrs. Fish, at Rochester; but no
sooner had she gone than the manifestations re-commenced with more force
than ever, in the presence of Margaretta. In course of time Mrs. Fox,
with both her daughters, went to live in Rochester, but neither change
of place nor house, nor yet the separation of the family, afforded them
any relief from the disturbances that evidently attached themselves to
persons rather than places as formerly.

Although the Fox family had for months striven to banish the power that
tormented them, praying with all the fervour of true Methodism to be
released from it, and enduring fear, loss and anxiety in its
continuance, the report of its persistence began to spread abroad,
causing a rain of persecutions to fall upon them from all quarters. Old
friends looked coldly on them, and strangers circulated the most
atrocious slanders at their expense.

Mrs. Fish, the eldest sister, who was a teacher of music in Rochester,
began to lose her pupils, and whilst the blanching of the poor mother's
hair in a single week bore t