Next day, and for several
weeks, my account caused quite a commotion, and a host of people spoke
to me about it; among the rest old Edward Pease, father of railways, and
his three sons, John, Joseph, and Henry. Old Edward sent for me to his
house and asked me all particulars. He and others put this question to
me: "Are you sure you were not asleep and had the nightmare?" My answer
was quite sure, for I had not been a minute in the cellar, and was just
going to get something to eat. I was certainly not under the influence
of strong drink, for I was then, as I have been for forty-nine years, a
teetotaler. My mind at the time was perfectly free from trouble. What
increased the excitement was the fact that a man a number of years
before, who was employed in the office of the station, had committed
suicide, and his body had been carried into this very cellar. I knew
nothing of this circumstance, nor of the body of the man, but Mr. Pease
and others who had known him, told me my description exactly
corresponded to his appearance and the way he dressed, and also that he
had a black retriever just like the one which gripped me. I should add
that no mark or effect remained on the spot where I seemed to be seized. "(Signed) JAMES DURHAM. "_Dec. 9th, 1890._"

Following the above statement Mr. Stead appends Mr. Kendall's reasons
for believing that what James Durham experienced was objective psychic
phenomena, and neither produced during sleep nor by hallucination. The arguments used strike me as being so concise and sensible that I
think it will not be out of place to reproduce them. "First," Mr. Kendall says, "he (James Durham) was accustomed as watchman
to be up all night, and therefore not likely from that cause to feel
sleepy. Secondly, he had scarcely been a minute in the cellar, and,
feeling hungry, was just going to get something to eat. Thirdly, if he
was asleep at the beginning of the vision, he must have been awake
enough during the latter part of it when he had knocked the skin off his
knuckles. Fourthly, there was his own confident testimony. I strongly
incline to the opinion that there was an objective cause for the vision,
and that it was genuinely apparitional." So interested was Mr. Kendall in the case that he visited the spot some
short time later. He was taken into the cellar where the manifestations
took place, and his guide, an old official of the North Road Station,
informed him he well remembered the clerk--a man of the name of
Winter--who committed suicide there, and showed him the exact spot where
he had shot himself with a pistol. In dress and appearance Mr. Winter
corresponded minutely with the phenomenon described by James Durham, and
he had had a black retriever. Mr. Kendal came away more convinced than ever of the veracity of James
Durham's story, though he admits it was not evidential after the high
standard of the S.P.R. I do not know whether the S.P.R. published the
case, and I certainly do not think Mr. Kendall need have minded if they
did not--for after all there is no reason to suppose the judgment of the
S.P.R. is always infallible. Mr. Stead does not comment on the apparition of the dog, which leads one
to suppose cases of animal phantasms were by no means uncommon to him. _The Grey Dog of ---- House, Birmingham_

According to a story current in the Midlands, a house in Birmingham,
near the Roman Catholic Cathedral, was once very badly haunted. A family
who took up their abode in it in the 'eighties complained of hearing all
sorts of uncanny sounds--such as screams and sighs--coming from a room
behind the kitchen. On one occasion the tenant's wife, on entering the
sitting-room, was almost startled out of her senses at seeing, standing
before the fireplace, the figure of a tall, stout man with a large, grey
dog by his side. What was so alarming about the man was his face--it was
apparently a mere blob of flesh without any features in it. The lady
screamed out, whereupon there was a terrific crash, as if all the
crockery in the house had been suddenly clashed on the stone floor; and
a friend of the lady's, attracted to the spot by the noise, saw two
clouds of vapour, one resembling a man and the other a dog, which, after
hovering over the hearth for several seconds, finally dispersed
altogether. A gasfitter, when working in the house, saw the same figures no less
than nine times, and so distinctly that he was able to give a detailed
description of both the man and dog. The house seems to have been well known in Birmingham, and was certainly
standing as recently as 1885. Many theories were advanced as to its
history, the one gaining most credence being that it was occupied, in
1829, by a man who supplied the medical students with human bodies. It was noticed at the time that many people who were seen to enter the
house in the company of the owner were never seen to leave it, which
accords well with the theory of resurrection men. No suggestion has been offered to account for the animal, which may very
easily have been the phantom of the murderer's dog, or, what is rather
less likely, the dog of one of his numerous victims. Anyhow, explanation or no explanation, the fact remains the house was
haunted in the manner described, and F. Grey, a Warwickshire Chief
Constable, in his _Recollections_, published 1821, alludes to it. _The Dog in the Cupboard_

Miss Prettyman, whom I met some years ago in Cornwall, told me she once
lived in a house in Westmorland that was haunted by the apparition of a
large dog, enveloped in a blueish glow, which apparently emanated from
within it. The dog, whilst appearing in all parts of the house,
invariably vanished in a big cupboard at the back of the hall staircase. Miss Prettyman, her family, several of their visitors, and the servants
all saw the same phantasm, and were, perhaps, more frightened by the
suddenness of its advent than by its actual appearance. The theory was that it was the ghost of some dog that had been cruelly
done to death--possibly by starvation--in the cupboard. _How the Ghost of a Dog saved Life_

When I was a boy, an elderly friend of mine, Miss Lefanu, narrated to me
an anecdote which impressed me much. It was to this effect. Miss Lefanu was walking one day along a very lonely country lane, when
she suddenly observed an enormous Newfoundland dog following in her wake
a few yards behind. Being very fond of dogs, she called out to it in a
caressing voice and endeavoured to stroke it. To her disappointment,
however, it dodged aside, and repeated the manoeuvre every time she
tried to touch it. At length, losing patience, she desisted, and resumed
her walk, the dog still following her. In this fashion they went on,
until they came to a particularly dark part of the road, where the
branches of the trees almost met overhead, and there was a pool of
stagnant, slimy water, suggestive of great depth. On the one side the
hedge was high, but on the other there was a slight gap leading into a
thick spinney.