g in the wall appears to have been the work of
Parsons' wife, while the scratching part of the business was left to
the little girl. That any contrivance so clumsy could have deceived
anybody, 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 tumults, 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