Two Ghostly Lodgers of West 14th Street

As this is October 31st, my very favorite day of the year, I would like to share with you the story of the two ghostly lodgers of West 14th Street.

The neighborhood around Union Square had been a fashionable one in decades passed. Filled with upscale retail shops, fancy townhouses, easily accessible to Fifth Avenue + quite an enviable address. By the 1880’s it had lost some of its luster. Those same townhouses were converted to apartments + a number of boarding houses had shown up along the way.

This story is set in just one of those boarding houses. It sat at 131 W. 14th Street between 6th + 7th Avenues. (Right next to the YMCA–today, there’s a vacuum cleaner shop in the bottom of it.) The photos are at different angles, but this is a 1922 picture of the building at 131.) Back in 1881, the building was owned + operated by a Mrs. Carr, landlady extraordinaire.

Word on the block was that Mrs. Carr had trouble hanging on to her staff for very long. They had run screaming from the house on more than one occasion. Rumors spread that the house was haunted. At first, the ghosts seemed to appear only to the staff. Two ghosts to be exact. The first, a very pretty blonde woman who liked to do her hair in any number of mirrors around the house–including the occasional unsuspecting boarder’s room. She was always quiet, neat + tidy. All good qualities in any neighbor. When The New York Times got hold of the haunting in June of 1881, they had this to say of her, “The peculiar duty of the female ghost seems to be to arrange her hair…she does this in a way with which no one need find any fault…moreover, she furnishes her own combs, pins, brushes [etc. She] makes no unnecessary noise. There is really no reason why anyone should find her conduct offensive.”

The male ghost on the other hand, was very aggressive–his behavior owing to the loss of some boarders’ marbles + a few of the servants’ jobs. Who can blame them? His ghost was about six feet tall. He had large, pitch black eyes. He had a habit of quietly walking into boarders’ rooms + standing over their beds in the wee hours of the morning, willing them awake with his intense, terrifying stare. A poor chamber maid was awakened one evening by a cold breeze. She looked up from her pillow to see the tall man with his back turned to her. As she looked at him, he slowly turned toward her, his hand covering his face. She promptly fainted. When she awoke, he was still in the room, lurking in the corner. She fainted again from fright. Finally, when she awoke a third time, he stood at full height and slowly, eerily, shrank in size before her eyes, until he was no more than a spot on the floor. Then he disappeared entirely. That poor woman flew down the stairs from her attic room + out into the street screaming at the top of her lungs. She never returned to W. 14th Street.

Mrs. Carr called the police who checked out the building + found nothing amiss. It was then remembered that the previous owners had two adult children living at home. The daughter’s fiance had died at sea + she sadly drank herself to death. The son downed a vial of hair dye to meet his end. It was then assumed the two spirits must be brother + sister.

After the Summer of 1881, the trail of Mrs. Carr + her two ghostly lodgers went cold.

Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor’s Big Ole (Empty) Tomb

Here is a witch of a different kind. The very wealthy, uber petty, gilded age kind. As this is October 30th, I would like to share with you the sordid story of Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor + her big ol’ (empty) tomb at Trinity Churchyard.

Caroline Astor was THE top of the New York social scene in post Civil War New York. She + her social toady, the self-appointed gatekeeper of society, Ward McAllister devised a system for creating the exclusivity they craved. McAllister decided (based on the maximum capacity of Caroline Astor’s ballroom) that only 400 people in all of New York were of proper social standing. Those 400 people became known as THE 400. An invitation to Caroline Astor’s January Ball was the bellwether of acceptance into high society. Not surprisingly, Mrs. Astor, as the queen of this realm, required that all in her circle refer to her as THE Mrs. Astor. This ruffled a lot feathers within the Astor family. 

So much so, that when Caroline Astor’s nephew, William Waldorf Astor thought that his wife Mary Dahlgren Paul should be called Mrs. Astor, Caroline was fuming. This simply would not do. The family feud was sensationalized in the press until William Astor + his wife eventually moved to England.

So bitter + petty was this conflict that when William Astor’s wife died, THE Mrs. Astor decided to host an opulent dinner party–to be held at the exact same time as Mary Astor’s funeral.

This simply would not do.

In his fury, William Astor demolished his home + built the Waldorf hotel in 1893. (This made aunt Caroline’s house next door look teeny tiny.) Even MORE furious, Caroline moved further uptown. Her son built the Astoria hotel which was…even taller. Eventually, the two hotels were merged–under the condition that masons would build brick walls between the two families if necessary. Thus, the Waldorf-Astoria was born.

You can find Caroline Astor’s 39 foot tomb in the Trinity Churchyard downtown. Designed by famed architect Thomas Nash, it features all manner of Biblical heavyweights, there’s Noah on the ark, Adam + Eve, the list goes on.

But, Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor wouldn’t be caught dead downtown. She is interred in THE Astor Family Vault at the uptown Trinity Churchyard.

A Shrunken Skull + One Left Foot

As this is October 29th, I would like to share with you the eerie tale of the shrunken skull + one left foot…intact.

Like any other evening, George Mott, a firefighter, went to bed on the night of March 26, 1986. He lived alone just outside of Crown Point, New York. It is assumed he was asleep when his body was consumed by fire from the inside out–at least as far as the medical examiner could surmise. All that was left of him was his impossibly shrunken skull + some small pieces of bone. The mattress he slept on was burned through, but the rest of his home was not damaged in the slightest. Baffled, investigators proposed that he had burned from the inside out, his body somehow acting as its own pyre. Mr. Mott was known to be a heavy drinker, which some thought may have contributed to the apparent speed with which his body was consumed by the flames.

There are many cases of what is known as Spontaneous Human Combustion, or SHC. Defined as the alleged burning of a person’s body with no identifiable source of ignition, SHC has been around for centuries. The first official documentation of the phenomenon came from Mr. Jonas Dupont, a Frenchman who published a series of cases in 1763. Dupont’s writings were inspired by the death of Mrs. Nicole Millet. In 1725 her husband was accused of burning her alive. He was acquitted because it was shown in court that her heavy drinking could have caused her to alight Internally.

Alcohol consumption is one thing that many alleged victims of SHC have in common. Though it may explain the acceleration of the flames, it does not provide a means of ignition. What baffles investigators most is that the victims in these cases are incinerated so completely. In order for that to happen, the temperature of the fire must reach 3000 degrees. If that were true, the victims’ homes should be severely damaged. In every case where SHC is proposed, there is no damage beyond the spot where the victim died.

Perhaps the most famous case of SHC occurred in 1951 in St. Petersburg, FL. Mary Reeser, a 67 year old widow fell asleep in her living room recliner after an evening visit with her physician son. The next day, all that remained of her was her impossibly shrunken skull (rumored to have been roughly the size of a tea cup) and her left foot, completely intact. The recliner was destroyed, but a stack of newspapers adjacent to it was undisturbed. Aside from ash on the ceiling above, her apartment was not damaged at all.

SHC has never migrated from eerie possibility to scientific fact. There’s no proof that it exists…but there’s no proof that is does not. The lesson being…lay off the sauce before bed?

The Indelible Image of Olive Thomas

As this is October 28th, I would like to share with you the story of Ms. Olive Thomas.

In 1993, The Disney Corporation purchased, + sought to overhaul Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theatre. Late one evening, a security guard was conducting his 2:00 AM rounds. All was quiet in the theatre. Nothing amiss at all. With one solitary lamp illuminating center stage, the guard was inspecting the orchestra seats when he was startled to see a young woman in a green sequined dress + headpiece walking across the stage. She carried with her a large blue glass bottle. When he called out to her she finished her walk across the stage, right through the wall on the 41st Street side of the building. The man was so shaken that he called the project’s director of operations at 2:30 AM to say he wanted to quit on the spot. Based on her description, the staff began to research who this mystery woman might…have been. They soon discovered the story of Ms. Olive Thomas. She has since been seen regularly at the Theatre, now its resident ghost.

In life, she would be described as a super star. Coming to New York City in 1913 from a small town in Western Pennsylvania, she first bolted onto the city scene as a popular pin-up model, graduating to the rank of Ziegfeld Girl in 1915 when she debuted in Ziegfeld’s Follies that same year. She quickly became a sensation. In the years following, she starred in a number of successful silent films. She eventually married Jack Pickford + the two set off to make a reputation for themselves. One might say they were the predecessors of Zelda + Scott Fitzgerald. Their relationship was a tumultuous one; they were known to party harder than most at the time.

Olive Thomas’s star was bright in life; her tragic death caused equal sensation. In 1920, her marriage to Pickford in a precarious state, the two decided to take a second honeymoon in Paris. It was late Summer. After a night of partying the two returned to their hotel room in Montparnasse. They’d had too much to drink as was their routine. Pickford left the room for a spell. He later told reporters he had been down the hall when he heard Olive Thomas scream, “Oh My God!” He entered the room to find her on the floor with a blue bottle at her side. The bottle contained the Mercury Bichloride + Alcohol solution that Jack Pickford was using to treat chronic Syphilis. He believed that Thomas drank the solution by accident, thinking the bottle was a flask. She was rushed to a nearby hospital where she died five days later on September 10, 1920. Her death was a great shock, with many contending she had taken her own life due to the state of her marriage to Pickford, though officially her death was ruled an accidental poisoning.

Olive Thomas’s funeral was a spectacle in the city, requiring a police escort. Women fainted at the site of her casket + there was a hat-crushing rush to get a final glimpse of her before she was laid to rest.

SIDENOTE: Today, two portraits of Ms. Thomas hang backstage at The New Amsterdam. Staff and performers make a habit of wishing her “Good morning, Olive” + “Good night, Olive” each day. Olive Thomas is buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.

Beautiful Cigar Girl

Friday is as good a day as any to delve into one of New York’s, nay, America’s most enduring unsolved murders, wouldn’t you say? This one comes complete with two hauntings + a cameo from the originator of Macabre-ie himself, Edgar Allan Poe.

As this is October 27th, I would like to share with you the sad, sad story of The Beautiful Cigar Girl. The year is 1838. Business is booming for local tobacco merchant John Anderson. His high-end shop at 319 Broadway is right in the thick of things. (SIDENOTE: Today, it’s a Pret A Manger.) Business improved exponentially after Anderson hired young, gorgeous Mary Rogers as his clerk. She was so striking that she became a local celebrity. The shop’s proximity to City Hall + Park Row (known then as Newspaper Row: all of the city’s papers maintained offices there to be near the action) meant that all manner of celebrities, politicians + reporters frequented the shop–especially once Mary Rogers hit the scene.

When she disappeared in October of 1838, it was news. For two weeks, papers printed speculations written by besotted reporters. (It turned out she was just visiting friends.) Some also speculate that Anderson paid her to make herself scarce for a while as a publicity stunt. If this is true, it worked. His shop was mentioned in every paper in town.

Mary Rogers had many, many suitors. There was Alfred Crommelin, a fine, upstanding, successful law clerk who had his heart dashed to pieces when Mary let him down gently. Crushed, he moved out of Mary’s mother’s boarding house. There was also William Kiekuck a sailor, + Daniel Payne, Cork Cutter + general ne’er-do-well. Guess who won fair maiden? Much to her mother’s dismay, Rogers went for the zero.

On the afternoon of July 25, 1841, Mary told Payne to meet her in front of Barnum’s Museum. There was a tremendous thunderstorm that afternoon + Mary didn’t show. Thinking she stayed in from the rain, Payne went to find her the next day. She was nowhere to be found. Days went by, nothing. Then, on July 28th her battered body was found in The Hudson River near Hoboken, NJ. She had been strangled + beaten, tied with pieces of fabric from the dress she wore. The press went wild. (SIDENOTE: the “Penny Press,” or gossipy, sensationalized papers had just gotten started around this time. They really ran with this story.)

Each of Mary Rogers’ three suitors were questioned, all were eventually released. Enter Frederica Loss, proprietor of the Nick Moore Tavern. One of her sons was rooting around near where Mary’s body was discovered + found a hastily discarded bundle of women’s clothing including a handkerchief that was monogrammed with the initials “M. R.” (Long story, here, but eventually Loss’s son accidentally shoots her in the leg + the wound gets infected + she’s on her deathbed where she tells everybody that Mary Rogers had gone to her tavern to secure an abortion + that she died as a result of the procedure so her sons discarded the body in the river.) None of this was ever corroborated + most people took the story to be delirious rambling of a dying woman.
However, Daniel Payne, who said that Mary’s ghost had visited him, eventually travelled to Hoboken to the spot where Mary’s body was found. There, he drank an abundance of Laudanum + died. A note found in his pocket read, “May God forgive my misspent life.” Some took this as a sign of guilt, others of despair.

In any case, Mary Rogers’ murder probably would have faded entirely from our memories were it not for Edgar Allan Poe. He took the facts of the case, set it in Paris, + wrote what would become the first-ever mystery, “The Mystery of Marie Roget.” (SIDENOTE: some speculate that Anderson paid Poe to write it to address any lingering question of guilt. He reportedly lost his mind over the case, convinced that Rogers’ ghost haunted him relentlessly.)

The murder of Mary Rogers remains unsolved to this day.

The Dead Man’s Toe

As this is October 26th, I would like to share with you the story of the dead man’s toe.

It all began with the death of famed 19th-Century Shakespearean actor, George Frederick Cooke. Well known in Britain as much for his acting as for his off-stage antics, Cooke sought a new relationship with the (relatively) new press in the United States. In 1810 he (and all of his toes) hopped across the pond to join a tour of Richard III which opened at New York’s New Theatre. The show was wildly popular + opened to sold out crowds of up to 2,000 New Yorkers.

After a successful, if not somewhat hungover tour, Cooke attempted to return to England in 1812. This was a bad idea, given the start of the War of 1812. He did not have much time to ponder being stuck stateside. George Frederick Cooke died of Cirrhosis on September 26, 1812. He was given a rather paltry burial in The Stranger’s Vault at St. Paul’s Chapel. (The 1766 chapel sits at the corner of Broadway + Fulton Streets downtown. SIDENOTE: George Washington was known to have prayed there when he took the Oath of Office in the spring of 1789. His personal pew is marked inside today.)

Fast forward to 1821 when Edmund Kean, a British actor + great admirer of Cooke’s work, came to New York + paid for a new monument + Cooke’s subsequent re-interment in the St. Paul’s Cemetery.

Kean could not resist the overwhelming temptation to take a relic from his idol. Something no one would miss. Something easy to carry + display at home on the mantle of his living room fireplace for other actors to kiss in tribute.

Something like George Frederick Cooke’s big toe.

That is until his wife got so sick of that shriveled black stub (really, it was noted to resemble a bit of tobacco ) that she picked it up + threw it out the window one day while Kean was out on tour.

That toe wasn’t the only thing to go. Dr. John Francis performed the autopsy on Cooke’s body. He was a lover of theatre + a collector of skulls. (You can see where this is going.) But, could you have predicted that Francis would later lend Cooke’s skull to the Park Theatre to play the role of Yorick in a production of Hamlet? Well, you might. In fact, as far as is known, Cooke’s last performance was a reprisal of Yorick in a 1980 production at Mercer County Community College in New Jersey.

That doesn’t stop Cooke’s ghost from reportedly walking St. Paul’s graveyard at night in search of his lost parts. His skull now rests in The Scott Library at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

What Lies Beneath Your Feet

On this pleasantly gloomy day, let’s meander on over to the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral Catacombs, shall we? As this is October 25th, I would like to share with you the little-known story of what lies beneath your feet–if you happen to be standing at the corner of Mulberry + Prince Streets in SoHo.

The old church has been standing at that corner for over 200 years. (This photo was taken in 1929.) It’s doors officially opened in the summer of 1809. Though The Diocese of New York had only been established one year earlier, Catholicism in New York, or what would become New York, dates back to the 1640’s. Even back then the city was a melting pot. Visiting missionaries were stunned to discover that 19 different languages were spoken in New Amsterdam alone.

On the grounds of Old St. Pat’s, there is a lovely, bricked-in cemetery that is currently under restoration. The Crypt beneath seems a fascinating place. Among the stones you will find, a former slave from the French colony of Saint-Domingue, (now Haiti) whose tireless dedication + philanthropy has led to his consideration for sainthood, a Countess, a close friend + aide to Abraham Lincoln + an aged beauty of the stage among many others.

Let’s start with the The Venerable Pierre Toussaint. A former slave from Saint-Domingue, he arrived in New York with his owners in 1783. When his master died, he took it upon himself to support his master’s wife in addition to all of the other slaves on the plantation. He worked for his freedom + dedicated his life to the service of the poor. In 1997, the church officially declared him “venerable,” or in line to be considered for sainthood. He is the first African American to be bestowed this distinction in the history of the Catholic Church. The Countess Anna Leary, became a countess by order of Pope Leo XIII for all of her charitable works. She was particularly fond of lending aid to the Italian immigrant community of the 19th Century. Among many other things, she financed the construction of the chapel at Bellevue Hospital. General Thomas Eckert’s tomb is the first you will find upon entering the crypt. A Brigadier General in the Civil War, he was a close friend to Abraham Lincoln. It is said that Lincoln drafted The Emancipation Proclamation at Eckert’s desk, so as not to be disturbed. Charlotte Melmoth was known as “The Grand Dame of Tragedy” in her day. An English actress, she arrived on the New York scene in 1793. Joining the John Street Theatre, she was most famous for playing her signature role, Lady Macbeth.

(SIDENOTE: Monsignor Nicola Marinacci became the most recent addition to the catacombs when he died in 2014 at the age of 103.)

There are many, many more of the city’s early elite to be found in the churchyard + catacombs. In fact, you could end up there yourself. Assuming you’ve got seven million dollars to spare. That’s the going rate for a spot of Manhattan real estate on the grounds. The good news? You’ll own it forever.

Gracie Mansion

A portrait in Gracie Mansion of Elizabeth Stoughton Wolcott, who was the daughter of Oliver Wolcott, Jr., governor of Connecticut, and Elizabeth (Stoughton) Wolcott. At the age of 18, she was married on July 2, 1813, to William Gracie, son of Archibald Gracie (1755-1829), builder of Gracie Mansion. John Trumbull, a friend of the family, probably painted the subject from life sometime between his return to New York from England in 1816 and her death in 1819. Oct. 23, 2015

Ah, Ye Olde Gracie Mansion. New Yorkers know it as our very own “Little White House,” home to the Mayor of our fair city. Built in 1799 as a private residence for the very enterprising Scotsman, Mr. Archibald Gracie, the Mansion sits inside Carl Schurz Park at the intersection of East End Avenue + 88th Street, near a lovely little bend in the East River, known as Horn’s Hook. (In 1799, they had no idea they would eventually look out onto the future skyway of the Triborough Bridge + Hell Gate.)

Gracie was a successful merchant and founder of The Archibald Gracie and Sons, East India Merchants Company. East India, you say? Yes. In fact, he was a business associate to A dot Ham, Mr. Alexander Hamilton. Gracie went on to hold several high-profile positions in the banking industry. Eventually, he became an insurance man. He married twice + had 10 children.

It’s his daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Stoughton Wolcott Gracie whose presence endures at the mansion. She died suddenly of Apoplexy, or stroke on June 24th, 1819 at the age of 24, just six years after her marriage to William Gracie. She died at Gracie Mansion. Her presence has been seen multiple times “floating about the house from time to time.” If so, she’s “floating about” a very long way from her final resting place in The Trinity Churchyard downtown.

(SIDENOTE: Col. Archibald Gracie IV, came to notoriety as a survivor of the sinking of The RMS Titanic. He died eight months later due to complications from the effects of Hypothermia. He was the last person to leave the Titanic alive + the first adult survivor to die as a result of his injuries.)

So, what’s with the eerie statue of that little girl? (She came up several times in my online research for this story because her name happens to be Gracie, little Gracie Watson.) Hers is one of the most visited sites in Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, GA. She died of pneumonia in 1889 at the age of six. Her father managed the prestigious Pulaski Hotel in town. Gracie was a favorite among the guests there, always putting on little performances for them when she visited her father. The family was so devastated by her loss that they commissioned sculptor John Walz to create a life-sized monument of her from a photograph.

A Quite Charming Little Graveyard, or Three.

As this is October 21st, I would like to share with you the history of tiny, haunting, quite charming little graveyard that is hidden in plain sight on St. James Place in what is today a part of Chinatown. Passing by, you may not even notice it at first. You would never think that behind an aging, wrought iron fence lay the stones that mark the lives of some of the earliest New Yorkers.

The First Temple Shearith Cemetery holds the distinction of being the second oldest extant burying ground in New York City + the oldest surviving Jewish Cemetery in North America. It sits in Chatham Square, an area which marks the very busy intersection of seven different streets: Worth, Mott, Bowery, East Broadway, St. James Place, Oliver + Park Row. Back in 1682, when the land was purchased by Joseph Bueno de Mesquita, one of 23 founders of Temple Shearith whose congregation was mainly of Spanish + Portuguese descent, this spot was considered outside the city limits. (Until around 1820 the area functioned mainly as an outdoor market for selling livestock, mostly horses. It was the country.) 

(SIDENOTE: Each of the headstones is inscribed with a mixture of Hebrew + Ladino, or Judaeo-Spanish. It is a form of Spanish based on “Old Castilian” or Medieval Spanish. Temple Shearith has three cemeteries in Manhattan. Each of which is equally charming.)

Temple Shearith itself was founded in 1654. It was the first Jewish congregation established in North America. It was the ONLY Synagogue in New York City until 1825. When The Bowery went through some growing pains in 1855, some 256 graves were relocated from Chatham Square to make room for the expanding street.

This little graveyard even played a critical role during the Revolutionary War. Its elevated position provided a clear view out to the East River. In the Spring of 1776 Major General Charles Lee wrote the following to his Commander-in-Chief, George Washington:

“The command of the Sound must be ours…The East River, I am persuaded, may be secured in such a manner that [British] ships will scarcely venture into it…A battery for this purpose is planned at the foot of the Jews’ burying ground. To protect this battery from the near approach of ships, guns in barbet placed on the heights of the Jews’ burying ground in correspondence with a battery on an opposite commanding knoll in Long Island, will certainly be sufficient.”

You never know what you may discover if you peer over an old wrought-iron fence just a little. The same can be said for Temple Shearith’s equally historic + inconspicuous graveyards at 6th Ave. + W. 11th Street (1805-1829) + 21st Street between 6th + 7th Avenues (1829-1851).

The Haunted Teapot

It can be said no other way. As this is October 20th, I would like to share with you the story of the Haunted Teapot. It appeared in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle on April 21, 1889.

On the occasion of our writer’s 16th birthday, (let’s call her Alice) a rosy-cheeked girl asked her mother if she could use the family’s silver teapot for the party. Though its origin was a mystery, the teapot itself dated back to The Revolutionary War. Over the years, it had been lost, sold + even stolen, but it always seemed to find its way back to the family.

Alice’s mother sighed, telling her that she supposed she was old enough to know the whole story. She explained that, “It has been remarked by its possessors for ages that no one has ever been able to use it…place it on the table and watch it as you will. It is invariably removed and returned to its case, by what or whom I cannot say.”

Intrigued, Alice did just that. She filled the pot + placed it at arm’s length on the table. As she watched intently, her mother left the kitchen. The minutes ticked by. she was getting bored. Suddenly, there came a great smack across her cheek. Stunned, Alice turned to see who had hit her. When she looked back at the table, the teapot was gone. She called for her mother, who told her impatiently to check the closet where the teapot was normally stored. There it was. In its case. Alice’s party went on without a fancy silver teapot.

As time passed, Alice inherited the heirloom. It had been years since the incident. Now married with a home of her own, a neighbor had asked to borrow a teapot for company. Curious to see if the incident was for family only, she lent her unsuspecting neighbor the infamous pot. Less that one hour later, the neighbor pounded on the door saying she was so sorry, but she thought the teapot had been stolen. Alice calmly checked the closet where she normally kept it. There it was, in its case.

Alice’s neighbor was quite offended.

She had resolved to have the thing melted down when her husband asked to see this teapot in action. Alice knew the drill. She filled it + placed it on the table. When the teapot began to disappear, her husband refused to let it go. After a tussle with an invisible hand, the pot rested back on the table. “We bent our heads over [the teapot] and saw instead of the bottom a spacious room. That is, we seemed to be looking as through a window into such an apartment. There were three persons in the room, a man and two women…both women were beautiful. One in a dark, vivacious style and the other in a blonde, English way…the fair woman went to the table and took up my teapot! She poured out a cup of some liquid (whether it was tea or not, I cannot tell) and handed it to the dark woman who in turn presented it to the man. He appeared to protest, but finally drank it. The blonde woman made a gesture as if to prevent it, but was too late. She again filled the cup and gave it to the other woman, who drank it. As she did so, the man fell on the floor, apparently dying. The dark woman fell also on her knees beside him. She arose soon and turning to the murderess, cursed her (I judged so by her silent gesture, and the teapot to which she pointed.) This done, she fell beside the man.”

And then, the lights flickered, a cold wind blew and the next day Alice sent the thing to be melted down. 48 hours later, the teapot returned to its resting place in Alice’s closet.

Oh, Victorian melodrama! How wonderful.