Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

One little-known fact about the “Illustrated Police News” (AKA “the slightly-warped blogger’s best friend”) is that along with the usual ‘orrible murders, grisly suicides, and other lurid news items, it was a regular source of “true” ghost tales, usually with a crime angle. One such spectral cautionary tale appeared in the February 5, 1876 issue:

The large illustration in the centre of the front-page of this week’s POLICE NEWS represents the scene of a murder, which took place in a village in Warwickshire, the details of the tragedy have been narrated at many a fireside in the county.

The two murderers represented in our illustration were aware that their victim would pass through the village in question, they therefore concealed themselves till he arrived, whereupon they rushed out from their hiding place and slew their victim, after which they proceeded to rifle his pockets. It is said (and is, moreover, implicitly believed by the natives of the place and surrounding districts) that while thus engaged a grim spectre, in the shape of Death or a skeleton, appeared to the guilty men, who were panic-stricken at the awful figure presented to their wonder-struck eyes--their hearts seemed to sink within them. The figure stood on an old rustic wooden bridge, and seemed by its presence to warn them that the time of retribution was near at hand. The murderers were so overcome that they fled from the spot. Their movements, however, had not escaped the notice of a lad who, concealed in a waggon, had been a silent witness of the crime. The boy immediately raised an alarm and the whole village was aroused, the villagers gave chase, night crept over the scene, the moon, which had been clear and cloudless, became suddenly obscured. The murderers grew desperate, and ran they knew not whither. In the extremity of their fear they rushed madly on, and at length found themselves chin deep in water and entangled amongst weeds and brushwood. In vain did they endeavour to release themselves. The villagers, who had given up the search, discovered the dead bodies of the assassins next morning floating on the surface of the stream.

Now, it’s possible that you are tempted to leave a comment asking, “Undine, if the murderers both died, how does anyone know what they saw?”

Hush. Don’t spoil a good ghost story.