WEBVTT - Accused by a Ghost! 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:03.800 Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from house 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:13.920 stuff Works dot com. Hello, welcome to the podcast, and 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.600 I'm deplte a chrucate boarding and we've focused a lot 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:21.360 on ghost stories this month for our Spooky Halloween Theories 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:24.320 and all said, though, I think the ghosts have been 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:28.920 a pretty diverse crowd, ranging from socialite Madame La Lourie 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:32.960 to headless Anne Boleyn to the real life false stuff. 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:36.159 But so far, all the ghosts we've talked about have 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:38.520 just kind of been there. They've been haunting, They've been 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:42.599 making their noises, doing things like hovering over babies, creepily, 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:47.600 taking headless carriage rides, washing laundry. Kind of aimless. I'd 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:51.000 almost say, well, washing laundry isn't exactly aimless, But okay, 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:53.199 I get your poor ghost, I get your point right, 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:58.080 there's no real agenda. Today's ghost, however, who is the 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:02.360 cock Lane ghost see to have had a mission, and 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:07.200 that was revenge, something that, according to Andrew Lang's book 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:10.480 on Hauntings and Hoaxes, tended to be fairly common in 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.360 the eighteenth century, which was an age where it wasn't 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:15.760 unusual to believe in ghosts at all. I mean it 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:19.640 does make sense. After all, a manufactured haunting could be 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:24.440 a pretty simple, if creative way to settle your earthly disputes, 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:28.280 you know, your unpaid loans, your feuds. Laying sums it 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:30.880 up pretty well with a quote from his book when 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:35.360 he writes about William Kent, this podcast unfortunate subject. He says, 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:40.039 accused by a ghost, he had no legal remedy. So recently, 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:43.400 in the Salem witch trials we talked about spectral evidence. 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:46.360 I think this is kind of the ultimate in spectral evidence. 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:50.919 Good point. When a ghost said that you murdered somebody. Actually, 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:53.200 when the ghost says that you murdered it, what are 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:56.400 you supposed to do? But before we get into all 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:59.000 of that, we need to go back to the beginning. 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:02.760 The cock Lane ghost wasn't initially out for blood. Its 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:06.880 first appearance was actually pretty pretty harmless. Yeah, this ghost 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:09.919 wasn't out for blood at least at first. It's initial 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:13.640 appearance came in seventeen fifty nine at this tiny house 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:17.240 on cock Lane, a road which the Oxford Dictionary of 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:22.440 National Biography describes as quote an obscure turning near St 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:26.360 Paul's Cathedral in London. So the home belonged to Richard Parsons, 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:29.440 who was the deputy parish clerk of St Sepulcher's Church 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:33.680 and also a landlord, an alcoholic, and a man pretty 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:36.960 deeply in debt. The year before though, he'd taken in 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:40.840 William Kent of Norfolk as a tenant. And Kent was 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.680 of an independently wealthy man, but he had a bit 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.440 of a family secret of his own. He was living 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:51.880 with his dead wife's sister. The arrangement had started pretty 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:55.000 innocently back in Norfolk, when Fannie Lyons, who was the 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:58.639 sister in law, moved in to help care for Kent's 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:02.480 motherless child. His wife had died during childbirth, but after 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:06.480 the baby died to the couple continued to live together, 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:09.560 eventually as a husband and wife, even though they weren't 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:13.760 legally allowed to marry. So finally they moved to London, 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:18.079 posing as a husband and wife still. But the unconventional 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:20.960 living arrangement proved to be a bit of a liability, 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:25.120 especially because Kent tended to make loans to his landlords, 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:28.760 maybe a bad policy already, but to make things worse, 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:32.280 he actually expected that he'd get the money repaid. This, 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:36.400 of course, gave any sort of vindictive landlord, especially one 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:39.760 who knew that he was living with his dead wife's sister, 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:44.040 fodder for eviction and a way out of the loan potentially, 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.680 So it must have seemed lucky when Kent met Parsons 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:51.400 at St. Sepulchri's church and was offered rooms to rent. 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:56.280 So Mr and Mrs Kent, as they thought she was anyway, 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:59.360 gone on well with Parsons, his wife, and his two 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:02.280 daughters for a little while, But then things started to 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:05.800 head south when the naive Kent admitted to Parsons that 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:10.480 he wasn't actually married after all. He also loaned Parsons 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:14.480 a good bit of money, and then, as you mentioned, 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:16.400 and as he had done in the past, he started 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:20.320 to follow up on repayment fell into that same old trap. Still, 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:24.400 though the ghosts didn't appear until Kent was out in 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:28.719 the country on business and Fanny asked Richard parsons little 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:31.719 eleven year old daughter, Elizabeth known as Betty, if she 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:34.040 wanted to sleep in in her room and in her 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:38.120 bed while Kent was gone. So that night, where when 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:41.800 Betty and Fanny were in bed together, they started to 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:48.560 hear strange noises wrappings, scratches, taps. Mrs Parsons must have 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:52.200 been pretty rationally. She explained away the noises as the 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:54.920 nearby cobbler who might have been working late at night. 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.240 But when the noises were heard again on a Sunday, 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:01.360 the family started to wonder what was really going on. Fanny, 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:06.120 for one, seemed completely convinced that the sounds weren't from 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:10.920 a cobbler, weren't from any human making noise. They came 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:14.599 from a ghost, and a specific ghost at that. Yeah, 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:16.360 she thought that they came from the ghost of her 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:20.200 dead sister who had come to shame her and warn 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:24.040 her of her own death. So pretty serious stuff. Richard 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:27.839 Parsons investigated the house, even stripping the wainscoating off the 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:30.640 wall to see if something was rattling around behind it, 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:34.880 but he had no luck. The nightly wrappings just got louder, 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:37.719 and it sometimes described as the sound of a cat 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:40.240 scratching a wicker chair, just to give you an idea. 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:44.000 But it wasn't long before the neighbors started gossiping about 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:47.279 the ghost that lived there as well and the secret 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:52.400 history between Mr Kent and his wife, For as they 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:55.000 previously thought his wife well and that the ghost was 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:59.240 her dead sister, and so with all this gossip going on, 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.280 the cup bowl did finally move out of the house. 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:06.560 At that point, the noises stopped, and according to Patrick 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:09.320 Collins in The Forty Times, this probably would have been 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:12.279 a good time for Kent to just throw in the towel, 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:16.400 cut his losses, forgive the twelve guinea debt that he 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:20.920 had lent to Parsons instead, though he threatened to sue 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:24.279 and um. At this point, the timeline gets a little hazy, 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:26.960 and it's understandable a lot of these a lot of 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:30.440 the stories we talked about in October have some sketchy 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:34.640 details about them, but depending on the sourci look at, 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:37.360 either several months go by or up to a year 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:41.200 and a half goes by until we catch up again 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:46.279 with the Kent family. At this point, Fanny was heavily pregnant, 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:52.039 died of smallpox, and the sound started again in the 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:54.400 house back on cock Lane and and this time they 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:59.680 seemed to come specifically from Elizabeth parsons bedside, and the 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:03.400 Little Girl Office started to suffer from fits, and according 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:08.320 to Charles Wild's Elliott's book, Mysteries or Glimpses of the supernatural. 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:13.280 Little Betty described even seeing an apparition of a quote 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:16.320 woman surrounded by a blazing light. So it's not just 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:19.960 these knocks that could be mistaken for a cobbler anymore. 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:24.280 It seems something much more. Richard Parsons called a medium 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:28.640 who interrogated the ghost, asking questions and receiving answers in 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:31.600 the form of knox one that yes and two men no. 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:35.320 This is very reminiscent of the Fox sisters story and 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:39.160 the way that they communicated with the ghosts, or supposedly 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:42.320 communicated with ghosts, depending on what you believe. But maybe 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:44.160 we should act this one out the end of I 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:47.760 think we should. So. One of the first questions the 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:51.520 that was asked of the ghost was are you the 0:07:51.560 --> 0:08:00.280 wife of Mr? Kent? Are you Kent's wife's sister? Did 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:09.440 you die naturally by poison? Was anyone but Kent responsible 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:14.480 for the poisoning? Will it ease your mind if the 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:21.240 man be hanged? Oh? Man, Yeah, that's bad news for Kent. 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:26.440 There the single knock meaning yes. So the ghost, who 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:30.200 was now revealed, of course, to be the murdered Fanny 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:34.800 Lions picked up a nickname Scratching Fanny, which an unfortunate 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:40.400 another element to the titles of this podcast. But um, 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:43.760 she started to give even more information, you know. This 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:48.440 interrogation went on even further and began to provide numerous 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.839 details on her death, the type of poison that had 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:55.280 been given her it was arsenic, how it was administered 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:58.480 through a drink called pearl, how many hours it took 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:02.920 two to three hours, um, All sorts of details. Although interestingly, 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:07.120 some information was apparently incorrect, I mean, aside from the 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.840 fact that this lady died of smallpox clearly, but some 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:13.200 of the details that the real Fannie Lions would have 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:17.760 known were also incorrect. Parsons, though, was interested in in 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:22.800 legitimizing this, seen the situation going on in his house, 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:26.400 the haunting, the haunting, and called in John Moore, who 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:29.880 was the assistant preacher at St. Suplker's, to get to 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:32.480 the bottom of things, and and more believed that there 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:36.160 truly was a spirit present and called on a fellow minister, 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:40.920 Thomas Broughton, for confirmation. And after these two guys were 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:44.320 on board with the idea of a haunting, other esteemed 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:46.839 men started to visit to which lended a lot of 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:52.120 legitimacy to the the entire premise. The public ledger even 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:55.240 wrote up the story, and crowds began to form at 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:57.760 the house every night, So it was something of a spectacle, 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:01.559 and the public began to truly believe that Kent was 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:04.680 a murderer. So this guy who they've never heard of before, 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:08.480 who nobody suspected of murdering his wife up until this 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:14.040 point his wife quotes, uh, suddenly is being accused of murder, 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:19.079 like pretty seriously. So as interests grew, Parsons could begin 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:23.080 to charge admittance to these seances that would be conducted 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:26.600 at his home by his relative Mary Fraser. And the 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.719 best members of society, of course, got bedside views. I mean, 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:33.480 this was a real attraction. Wasn't just something you'd read 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:36.960 about in the paper. You'd go out and experienced this yourself. 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:39.600 But if you were one of the better members of society, 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:42.840 you would get to pack in right next to little 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:47.440 Betty's bed and watch and wait while she slept and 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.360 see if the ghost visited. It's all. It adds an 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:56.720 extra element of disturbing um scenes to this whole story. 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:58.520 It's just wild to me. I mean, I have to wonder, 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:01.840 how did she even sleep? Well, these people standing around you. 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.360 You wonder how, Yes, an eleven or twelve year old 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:06.800 girl got a full night's sleep with all these people 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:09.559 in her house every day, but the just as an 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:13.480 example of the kind of people these sciances did attract. 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.920 The Duke of York even attended at one point. Um 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:19.360 Eliott's book, though, has a really good account of one 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.640 of the sciences. It is from a skeptics perspective, but 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:24.200 it gives you a sense of what it must have 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:27.800 been like coming into this tiny house, into this tiny room, 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:32.160 and watching this kid sleep, hoping a ghost would appear. Yeah. 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:35.280 Horace Walpole, a master of Gothic horror and author of 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.840 The Castle of a Toronto, visited one night with friends 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:42.760 after the opera. He wrote of the ghost in seventeen 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:46.680 sixty two. He said, quote, a drunken parish clerk set 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:50.160 it on foot out of revenge. The Methodists have adopted it, 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:52.640 and the whole town of London think of nothing else. 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:56.000 He then described the house on Cock Lane when we 0:11:56.040 --> 0:11:59.080 opened the chamber, in which were fifty people with no 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:02.079 light but one Hello candle. At the end, we tumbled 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:04.280 over the bed of the child, to whom the ghost 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:07.280 comes and whom they are murdering by inches in such 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:11.880 insufferable heat and stench, we heard nothing. He stayed until 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.959 one thirty am, but was told that the ghosts might 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:18.160 not come until seven, when, as Walpole put it, only 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:20.640 prentices and old women would still be about. So he 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:24.520 was very dismissive. And and this tactic too, seemed to 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:26.800 be a common one, you know, delaying the ghosts. Oh, 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:28.520 it's it's not gonna be here until seven, So if 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:31.040 you want to stick around all night, be my guy. 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:35.760 He's already paid admittance, or just throwing off the crowd entirely. 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:39.720 One description of a seance has Frasier putting Betty to 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:43.480 bed and then about an hour later, running around asking 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:48.080 Fanny to to emerge, to show herself or make herself heard. Then, 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:51.840 when nothing happened, more than the minister told the crowd 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:54.640 that they were just too loud. They needed to quiet down, 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:58.040 They needed to step out for about ten minutes and 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:02.160 just collect themselves. Of course, when they came back, sure enough, 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:06.480 scratching Fanny was also there, the ghost making her her 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:12.160 presence known. So these little tactics of tricking or delaying 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:16.280 or distracting the crowd that had come to see the ghost. 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:19.920 So finally, with the situation that has come out of 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:22.000 people believing in this ghost so much, I mean, on 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:24.040 one hand, you have the mob which is spoiling for 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:27.680 Kent's punishment, and you have the crowds also gathering outside 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.800 the Parsons home, and both of these things together drive 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:34.959 the Lord Mayor to order a special investigation. Reverend Aldrich 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.240 of St John's Clerk Andwell assembled a company at his 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.840 home where Elizabeth had been moved. At ten, she was 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:42.840 put to bed by a group of women, and a 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:46.440 bit after eleven, that group, which included Dr Samuel Johnson, 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:50.120 came to her bedside and waited for the spirit. The 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:52.960 little girl said she could feel the spirit, but no 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:56.840 noises came, and so Dr Johnson declared that the whole 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:59.560 thing was a hoax, wrote an account of it, published 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:02.360 that in the Gentleman's Magazine. And it was really the 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:06.040 beginning of the end for this idea of of a ghost. 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:09.240 And poor Betty, of course, wasn't off the hook though. 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:13.040 Of Elizabeth um she was moved again, put through all 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:15.160 sorts of tests. She was at one point strung up 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:17.640 in a hammock with her feet and hands drawn away 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:20.240 from her body, you know, to prove she wouldn't be 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:23.600 able to make any sounds. And after scratching Fanny, the 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:26.680 ghost failed to make an appearance. Several nights in a 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:31.800 row after these tests, Betty was threatened pretty clearly that 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:34.800 her father would go to prison if she could not, 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:40.000 um call up the ghost. And that did the trick. 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:43.600 I mean, that night the girl was caught smuggling aboard 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.280 under her clothes and trying to make noises with it 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:49.360 in an attempt to save her family to stop her 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:53.480 father from going to prison. UM which, after that point 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:58.160 clearly the ghost hoax was over. Although one interesting note, 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:01.160 A lot of people who had heard the earlier noises 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:05.520 said that the ones that Betty had made with the 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:10.320 board under her clothes, which were clearly manufactured, were entirely different. 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:13.520 The two sounds were entirely different from each other. UM, 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:16.640 either suggesting a ghost had been making the first ones 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:21.160 and poor Betty had just been pressured this final time 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:23.600 into trying to save her family when the ghost wouldn't 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:27.720 really show up, or more likely, UM Betty had had 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:32.520 some other means of manufacturing the sound earlier. She was 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.240 right to be scared though, because her family did end 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:39.440 up being pretty uh strongly punished for for what had happened. 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:43.880 Right in July sev sixty two, Richard Parsons, his wife, 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:47.520 and Mary Fraser were all tried and convicted of conspiracy. 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.280 More the clergyman, as well as a tradesman named James, 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:54.520 who was believed to have assisted in this deception, were 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.920 also convicted, although they got off with reprimands and the 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:01.760 order to pay kent to settle meant Fraser and Mrs 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:04.800 Parsons received hard labor and Mr Parson's got two years 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.800 in prison and three appearances in the pillory. So it's 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:11.840 a testament to how many people still believed in the ghosts, 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:15.000 though that the crowd at the pillory was unusually quiet 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.680 each time, and the public actually raised a subscription for 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:20.720 the family. And I was surprised by this because I 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:24.760 would think that the public, having bought into this idea 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.480 of a ghost so thoroughly, would be maybe embarrassed and 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:31.320 angry at this guy for tricking them and for trying 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:33.400 to profit. But the more I thought about it, the 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.360 more I thought, well, if you if you admit that 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:38.680 you've been fooled by this hoax, then you look like 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:42.640 a fool. If you consider this guy as a poor, 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:46.680 unfortunate soul who's being unfairly punished when there really was 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:51.200 a ghost in his home, then I guess you're something 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:54.880 else entirely. But you can kind of get yourself off 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:57.960 the hook that way. The ghosts really did stick around 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:00.960 in the public's imagination to the Oh. It kind of 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.800 like the Mary Toft bunny birth hooks that we talked 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:06.720 about on an earlier podcast, and which was about a 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:12.080 generation or so before this became real shorthand for gullibility, uh, 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.880 just falling for things too easily. And um, I guess 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:18.639 while we're talking about Mary Mary tofton you mentioned the 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:22.600 Sister's Fox earlier. It does. It's so reminiscent of the 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.720 Sister's Fox story with the tappings and the wrappings and 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:31.440 the girls playing tricks on people. Um, but I kind 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:34.280 of think of it more in the spirit of the 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:38.240 Merry Tought bunny births because the Sister's Fox one is 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.119 so it's the beginning of that spiritualist movement of the 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.879 nineteenth century. It's kind of a different era than this. 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:49.120 This is really in the hoax generation on the um 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:51.760 and and like I said, you know, with the public 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:55.560 being interested in it, people found opportunities to benefit from 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:58.800 it as well, in a satirical sort of way. Charles 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:01.880 Churchill wrote a satire local poem about it called The Ghost. 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:06.280 William Hogarth, who was a famous illustrator, engrave the scene 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:10.720 of a seance at Elizabeth's bedside so people could indulge 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:14.080 in something like this, indulge in a hopes knowing that 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:16.640 it wasn't true. That was part of the fun, being 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:19.960 able to say, how could anybody fall for this? I 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:24.120 sure didn't. One of the other things that's very reminiscent 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:27.280 of the Sister's Fox story is that it's still unclear 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:32.800 exactly what was making these knocking or rapping sounds. Uh. 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:36.760 Some suggest that it was ventriloquism, And of course later 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.040 there was the board that was introduced, so maybe that 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:41.480 played a part in it. I guess. Probably the only 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:43.520 one who knows for sure, at least about the board 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:45.800 part of it is Elizabeth Parsons, but little is known 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:49.159 about her later life. She probably got married twice, the 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:51.560 second time to a gardener, but we don't know much 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:55.679 of the detail. I mean, what a ridiculous childhood. She right, 0:18:56.119 --> 0:18:59.840 I'm imagining maybe she'd be eager to put that behind 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:04.520 after so much, after the crowd, the Duke of York 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.560 at your bedside when you're eleven, trying to wait for 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.840 ghosts to appear, that she probably got a lot better sleep. 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:15.120 She probably spent most of her later life catching up 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:17.679 on sleep. We can we can think of it that way. 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:21.199 One thing I came across while while looking into this story, 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:24.640 it sounds like it might be sort of the Madame 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:28.080 Lo Loori equivalent in London. So you know, we talked 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:31.040 about that being the quintessential ghost story you hear if 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:33.520 you go on like a ghost tour of New Orleans. 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:37.600 So I'd really like to hear from our London listeners 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:40.720 or anybody who's even just visited and taking a ghost tour. 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:43.440 Is this something that is still a big deal there? 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:49.440 Because I hadn't heard of this ghost until pretty recently. Neither. 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:52.640 It's it's an interesting one and one that does tie 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:55.719 in pretty clearly to a lot of our other shows though, 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:59.000 and Scratching Fanny. I think Scratching Fanny makes a fun 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:01.760 addition to this little family of ghosts that we've collected 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:03.760 this month. So far, it sounds like it would be 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:09.080 a good um like humorous band or something. What would 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:13.159 you call it, like a parody parody musician or something. 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:15.719 Maybe I also really like accused by a ghost. If 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:18.320 we're going to talk about band name, I think accused 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:21.439 by a ghost you could do all novelty Halloween music. 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.000 Maybe that's what we'll be doing next year, to novelty 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:34.840 Halloween music, Halloween music all month long, promising. Alright, so 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:36.919 what do we have for listener mail this week? Sarah? 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:41.000 We have turn up themed mail. I'm sure that's intriguing 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:44.040 to you because you don't know what I'm talking about. No, 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:46.840 I haven't no idea what you're talking about. That is true. 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:49.480 So Kristen and I, as you know, did an episode 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:51.840 on the history of trick or treating and probably my 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:56.280 favorite fact from that episode was that before people carved 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:00.080 pumpkin into jack lantern, they carved turn up and we 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:06.720 yes and difficult to carve. We speculated over that being difficult, 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:10.040 and sure enough we did hear from a few listeners 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:15.520 confirming our suspicion. The first one is Derek in Dublin, Ireland. 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:18.560 He wrote, uh, He wrote in an email and said, 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:21.480 greetings from Ireland. I'm a big fan of the podcast 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:24.240 after discovering it over the summer and raiding the massive 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:27.320 archives to keep me awake on long drives. I was 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:30.040 also delighted when you covered the history of Halloween on 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:33.040 a recent episode, not least because you looked at the 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:36.800 tradition of using turnips as jack lantern. A couple of 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:40.160 years ago, my father in law decided to revive this tradition, 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:43.600 much to his family's amusement. There are a few pros 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:46.960 and cons he learned to using a turnip. First of all, 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:49.200 it takes a lot more effort to carve a face 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:52.040 into the turnip he was whittling away for at least 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:54.920 a couple hours. Also, over the course of the night, 0:21:54.960 --> 0:21:58.600 it actually cooked from the heat of the candle. That 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:02.320 was really funny too. On the plus side, this made 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:05.520 it look genuinely scary in the window. By midnight it 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:08.200 looked rather like a head hunter trophy with a little 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:11.520 bit of smoke for extra creepiness. I asked him for 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:14.359 any advice to pass on to your listeners. He said 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:17.920 would be turn up. Listeners should get a big round 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:21.200 E one quote and be prepared for some tough carving, 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:25.440 so that was good practical information. We also got a 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:28.200 note though from David. This was actually a Facebook comment. 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:29.960 I thought it would be fun to throw one of 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:32.840 those in. He was also writing in on turn ups 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:35.920 and he said you mentioned that in the past people 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:39.000 holid out turn ups instead of pumpkins and speculated that 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:42.159 it must have been tough. I can confirm that they 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:45.359 are incredibly difficult to hollow out. Growing up in England 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:49.120 in the nineteen seventies, pumpkins were exotic and expensive items, 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:53.080 so most children hollowed out turn ups. There were lots 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:56.040 of injured hands from the knife flipping on the incredibly 0:22:56.080 --> 0:22:59.040 tough flesh of the turnip. It took hours to hollow 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:02.480 out and craft good turnip head. Oh my gosh. Many 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:05.480 years later, when I hollowed out my first pumpkin, I 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:08.119 couldn't believe how easy it was. It was like a 0:23:08.240 --> 0:23:10.600 light went on thing. Now this is how it's supposed 0:23:10.640 --> 0:23:14.560 to be Nowadays in England, children hollow up pumpkins for Halloween. 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:18.080 They don't know how lucky they are. So I thought 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:21.080 that both of these messages from Derek and from David 0:23:21.160 --> 0:23:25.520 were pretty hilarious. Makes you appreciate pumpkins a lot. I 0:23:25.560 --> 0:23:29.600 know it makes me appreciate my life of carving pumpkins 0:23:29.680 --> 0:23:35.400 and working with gourds instead of tough root vegetables. Yeah, 0:23:35.480 --> 0:23:37.120 especially if you're like me and you have a lot 0:23:37.119 --> 0:23:39.160 of mess ups or you end up forgetting and wait 0:23:39.200 --> 0:23:40.720 too long to carve your pumpkin and then you have 0:23:40.800 --> 0:23:43.119 to come up with a lot of pumpkin recipes. Sounds 0:23:43.119 --> 0:23:44.359 better to me than having to come up with a 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:47.120 lot of turn up recipes. I like turn up, I 0:23:47.200 --> 0:23:49.800 like them, but I definitely prefer pumpkins if I'm going 0:23:49.880 --> 0:23:52.080 to go all out. Turn ups are good when they 0:23:52.160 --> 0:23:55.800