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Show THE NIGHT OF GHOSTS If the celebrators tip . over your rubbish cans on Halloween, and you inquire of the neighobr's boy who did it, he will probably reply that it was the spirits. You will not of course believe that. If you try to chase that kid as the probable offender, he will be too well pleased and slip out of your fingers. This old idea of laying it off on the ghosts reminds us of days when people really believed there were such things. October 31 was a date when the spirits Were supposed to return to earth and visit former haunts. As many of them were bad ghosts and not popular with their neighbors, when they were living,, it was supposed that these undesirable spirits perpetrated per-petrated various tricks. The belief was once widely prevalent that certain housese were haunted. It was supposed that some person per-son once lived there who had committed some crime or undergone suffering there, and that the spirit of that person kept returning. He was supposed to express ex-press his sorrow or remorse by frightening noises in the night time.. It might be almost impossible to sell or rent such a place, since no one could be found who would dare live there. A scientifically minded person per-son would have found the groans of the spirit were due to the wind sucking through the chimney or some such cause. . ... . m:.--i-im-M- It used to be a favorite occupation of children to tell ghost stories. After an evening spent in hearing such yarns, they crept up stairs to bed with fearful looks over the shoulder to see if some ghost were following fol-lowing them. In those clays the boys used to run fast going bythe cemetery at night. The ghost stories have ceased to fool the world, and the kids who perpetrate serious mischief at Halloween Hal-loween may be headed for more trouble than was encountered en-countered m the clays when their grandfathers believed be-lieved m ghosts. |