Orders conceived and published by the

Lord Major and Aldermen of the City of

London, concerning the infection of the
plague Lord Major And Aldermen Of
The City Of London
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Title: Orders conceived and published by the Lord Major and

Aldermen of the City of London, concerning the infection of
the plague

Creator: City of London . Court of Aldermen

City of London . Lord Mayor

Release date: February 12, 2024 [eBook #72934]

Language: English

Original publication: London: James Flesher, 1665

Credits: Daniel Lowe and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ORDERS

CONCEIVED AND PUBLISHED BY THE LORD MAJOR AND
ALDERMEN OF THE CITY OF LONDON, CONCERNING THE
INFECTION OF THE PLAGUE ***
 ORDERS
CONCEIVED
AND
PUBLISHED
By
The Lord MAJOR and Aldermen of the City of London,
concerning the Infection of the Plague.

Printed by James Flesher, Printer to the Honourable

City of London.
 ORDERS
Conceived and published by the Lord Major and
Aldermen of the City of London, concerning the
infection of the Plague.

Whereas in the first Year of the Reign of our late Sovereign King
James of happy memory, an Act was made for the charitable relief
and ordering of Persons infected with the Plague: whereby Authority
was given to Justices of Peace, Majors, Bayliffs, and other Head-
Officers to appoint within their several Limits Examiners, Searchers,
Watchmen, Keepers, and Buriers for the Persons and Places
infected, and to minister unto them Oaths for the performance of their
Offices. And the same Statute did also authorize the giving of other
Directions, as unto them for the present necessity should seem good
in their discretions. It is now upon special consideration thought very
expedient for preventing and avoiding of infection of Sickness (if it
shall so please Almighty God) that these Officers following be
appointed, and these Orders hereafter duly observed.

Examiners to be appointed in every Parish.

First, it is thought requisite and so ordered, that in every Parish there

be one, two, or more persons of good sort and credit, chosen and
appointed by the Alderman, his Deputy, and Common-Councel of
every Ward, by the name of Examiners, to continue in that Office the
space of two Moneths at least: And if any fit Person so appointed,
shall refuse to undertake the same, the said parties so refusing, to be
committed to Prison until they shall conform themselves accordingly.

The Examiners Office.

That these Examiners be sworn by the Alderman, to enquire and

learn from time to time what Houses in every Parish be visited, and
what persons be sick, and of what Diseases, as near as they can
inform themselves; and upon doubt in that case, to command
restraint of access, until it appear what the Disease shall prove: And if
they finde any person sick of the Infection, to give order to the
Constable that the House be shut up; and if the Constable shall be
found remiss or negligent, to give present notice thereof to the
Alderman of the Ward.

Watchmen.

That to every Infected House there be appointed two Watchmen, one

for the Day, and the other for the Night: And that these Watchmen
have a special care that no person goe in or out of such infected
Houses, whereof they have the Charge, upon pain of severe
punishment. And the said Watchmen to doe such further Offices as
the sick House shall need and require: And if the Watchman be sent
upon any business, to lock up the House and take the Key with him:
and the Watchman by day to attend until ten of the clock at night: and
the Watchman by night until six in the morning.

Searchers.

That there be a special care, to appoint Women-Searchers in every

Parish, such as are of honest reputation, and of the best sort as can
be got in this kind: And these to be sworn to make due search and
true report, to the utmost of their knowledge, whether the Persons,
whose bodies they are appointed to Search, do die of the Infection, or
of what other Diseases, as near as they can. And that the Physicians
who shall be appointed for cure and prevention of the Infection, do
call before them the said Searchers who are or shall be appointed for
the several Parishes under their respective Cares, to the end they
may consider whether they are fitly qualified for that employment; and
charge them from time to time as they shall see cause, if they appear
defective in their duties.
That no Searcher during this time of Visitation, be permitted to use
any publick work or imployment, or keep any Shop or Stall, or be
imployed as a Landress, or in any other common imployment
whatsoever.

Chirurgions.

For better assistance of the Searchers, for as much as there hath

been heretofore great abuse in misreporting the Disease, to the
further spreading of the Infection: It is therefore ordered, that there be
chosen and appointed able and discreet Chirurgions, besides those
that doe already belong to the Pest-house: amongst whom, the City
and Liberties to be quartered as the places lie most apt and
convenient: and every of these to have one quarter for his Limit: and
the said Chirurgions in every of their Limits to joyn with the Searchers
for the view of the body, to the end there may be a true report made
of the Disease.
And further, that the said Chirurgions shall visit and search such like
persons as shall either send for them, or be named and directed unto
them, by the examiners of every Parish, and inform themselves of the
Disease of the said parties.
And for as much as the said Chirurgions are to be sequestred from all
other Cures, and kept onely to this Disease of the Infection; It is
ordered, that every of the said Chirurgions shall have twelve-pence a
Body searched by them, to be paid out of the goods of the party
searched, if he be able, or otherwise by the Parish.

Nurse-keepers.

If any Nurse-keeper shall remove herself out of any infected House

before 28 daies after the decease of any person dying of the
Infection, the House to which the said Nurse-keeper doth so remove
herself shall be shut up until the said 28 daies be expired.
 Orders concerning infected
Houses, and Persons sick of the Plague.

Notice to be given of the Sickness.

The Master of every House, as soon as any one in his House

complaineth, either of Botch or Purple, or Swelling in any part of his
body, or falleth otherwise dangerously sick, without apparent cause
of some other Disease, shall give knowledge thereof to the Examiner
of Health within two hours after the said sign shall appear.

Sequestration of the Sick.

As soon as any man shall be found by this Examiner, Chirurgion or

Searcher to be sick of the Plague, he shall the same night be
sequestred in the same house. And in case he be so sequestred,
then though he afterwards die not, the House wherein he sickned
shall be shut up for a Moneth, after the use of due Preservatives
taken by the rest.

Airing the Stuff.

For sequestration of the goods and stuff of the infected, their

Bedding, and Apparel, and Hangings of Chambers, must be well
aired with fire, and such perfumes as are requisite within the infected
House, before they be taken again to use: this to be done by the
appointment of the Examiner.

Shutting up of the House.

If any person shall have visited any man, known to be Infected of the
Plague, or entred willingly into any known Infected House, being not
allowed: the House wherein he inhabiteth, shall be shut up for certain
daies by the Examiners direction.

None to be removed out of Infected Houses, but, &c.

Item, that none be removed out of the House where he falleth sick of
the Infection, into any other House in the City, (except it be to the
Pest-house or a Tent, or unto some such House, which the owner of
the said visited House holdeth in his own hands, and occupieth by his
servants) and so as security be given to the Parish whither such
remove is made, that the attendance and charge about the said
visited persons shall be observed and charged in all the particularities
before expressed, without any cost of that Parish, to which any such
remove shall happen to be made, and this remove to be done by
night: And it shall be lawful to any person that hath two Houses, to
remove either his sound or his infected people to his spare House at
his choice, so as if he send away first his sound, he may not after
send thither the sick, nor again unto the sick the sound. And that the
same which he sendeth, be for one week at the least shut up and
secluded from company for fear of some infection, at the first not
appearing.

Burial of the dead.

That the Burial of the dead by this Visitation be at most convenient
hours, alwaies either before Sun-rising, or after Sun-setting, with the
privity of the Churchwardens or Constables, and not otherwise; and
that no Neighbours nor Friends be suffered to accompany the Coarse
to Church, or to enter the house visited, upon pain of having his
house shut up, or be imprisoned.
And that no Corps dying of Infection shall be buried or remain in any
Church in time of Common-Prayer, Sermon, or Lecture. And that no
children be suffered at time of burial of any Corps in any Church,
Church-yard, or Burying-place to come near the Corps, Coffin, or
Grave. And that all the Graves shall be at least six foot deep.
And further, all publick Assemblies at other Burials are to be forborn
during the continuance of this Visitation.

No infected Stuff to be uttered.

That no Clothes, Stuff, Bedding or Garments be suffered to be carried

or conveyed out of any infected Houses, and that the Criers and
Carriers abroad of Bedding or old Apparel to be sold or pawned, be
utterly prohibited and restrained, and no Brokers of Bedding or old
Apparel be permitted to make any outward Shew, or hang forth on
their Stalls, Shopboards or Windows toward any Street, Lane,
Common-way or Passage, any old Bedding or Apparel to be sold,
upon pain of Imprisonment. And if any Broker or other person shall
buy any Bedding, Apparel, or other Stuff out of any Infected house,
within two Moneths after the Infection hath been there, his house
shall be shut up as Infected, and so shall continue shut up twenty
daies at the least.

No person to be conveyed out of any infected House.

If any person visited do fortune, by negligent looking unto, or by any
other means, to come, or be conveyed from a place infected, to any
other place, the Parish from whence such Party hath come or been
conveyed, upon notice thereof given, shall at their charge cause the
said party so visited and escaped, to be carried and brought back
again by night, and the parties in this case offending, to be punished
at the direction of the Alderman of the Ward, and the house of the
receiver of such visited person to be shut up for twenty daies.

Every visited house to be marked.

That every House visited, be marked with a Red Cross of a foot long,
in the middle of the door, evident to be seen, and with these usual
Printed words, that is to say, Lord have mercy upon us, to be set
close over the same Cross, there to continue until lawful opening of
the same House.

Every visited House to be watched.

That the Constables see every house shut up, and to be attended
with Watchmen, which may keep them in, and minister necessaries
unto them at their own charges (if they be able,) or at the common
charge if they be unable: the shutting up to be for the space of four
Weeks after all be whole.
That precise order be taken that the Searchers, Chirurgions, Keepers
and Buriers, are not to pass the streets without holding a red Rod or
Wand of three foot in length in their hands, open and evident to be
seen, and are not to goe into any other house then into their own, or
into that whereunto they are directed or sent for, but to forbear and
abstain from company, especially when they have been lately used in
any such business or attendance.
 Inmates.

That where several Inmates are in one and the same house, and any
person in that house happen to be infected; no other person or family
of such house shall be suffered to remove him or themselves without
a Certificate from the Examiners of Health of that Parish; or in default
thereof, the house whither he or they so remove, shall be shut up as
in case of Visitation.

Hackney Coaches.

That care be taken of Hackney Coachmen, that they may not (as
some of them have been observed to doe) after carrying of infected
persons to the Pesthouse, and other places, be admitted to common
use, till their Coaches be well aired, and have stood unimployed by
the space of five or six daies after such service.
 Orders for cleansing and keeping of the Streets
sweet.

The Streets to be kept clean.

First, it is thought very necessary, and so ordered, that every

Householder do cause the street to be daily pared before his door,
and so to keep it clean swept all the Week long.

That Rakers take it from out the Houses.

That the sweeping and filth of houses be daily carried away by the
Rakers, and that the Raker shall give notice of his coming by the
blowing of a Horn as heretofore hath been done.

Laystalls to be made farre off from the City.

That the Laystalls be removed as farre as may be out of the City, and
common passages, and that no Nightman or other be suffered to
empty a Vault into any Garden near about the City.

Care to be had of unwholesome Fish or Flesh, and of

musty Corn.
That special care be taken, that no stinking Fish, or unwholsome
Flesh, or musty Corn, or other corrupt fruits of what sort soever, be
suffered to be sold about the City or any part of the same.
That the Brewers and Tipling-houses be looked unto, for musty and
unwholsome Cask.
That no Hogs, Dogs, or Cats, or tame Pigeons, or Conies be suffered
to be kept within any part of the City, or any Swine to be, or stay in the
Streets or Lanes, but that such Swine be impounded by the Beadle or
any other Officer, and the Owner punished according to Act of
Common-Councel, and that the Dogs be killed by the Dog-killers
appointed for that purpose.
 Orders concerning loose Persons and idle
Assemblies.

Beggers.

Forasmuch as nothing is more complained of, then the multitude of

Rogues and wandering Beggers that swarm in every place about the
City, being a great cause of the spreading of the Infection, and will not
be avoided, notwithstanding any Order that hath been given to the
contrary: It is therefore now ordered, that such Constables, and
others whom this matter may any way concern, do take special care
that no wandering Begger be suffered in the Streets of this City, in
any fashion or manner whatsoever upon the penalty provided by the
Law to be duly and severely executed upon them.

Playes.

That all Playes, Bear-baitings, Games, Singing of Ballads, Buckler-

play, or such like causes of Assemblies of people, be utterly
prohibited, and the parties offending, severely punished by every
Alderman in his Ward.

Feasting Prohibited.
That all publick Feasting, and particularly by the Companies of this
City; and Dinners at Taverns, Alehouses, and other places of
common entertainment be forborn till further order and allowance;
and that the money thereby spared, be preserved and imployed for
the benefit and relief of the poor visited with the infection.

Tipling-houses.

That disorderly Tipling in Taverns, Alehouses, Coffee-houses and

Cellars be severely looked unto, as the common Sin of this time, and
greatest occasion of dispersing the Plague. And that no Company or
person be suffered to remain or come into any Tavern, Alehouse or
Coffee-house to drink after nine of the Clock in the Evening,
according to the ancient Law and custome of this City, upon the
penalties ordained in that behalf.

And for the better execution of these Orders, and such other Rules
and Directions as upon further consideration shall be found needful; It
is ordered and enjoyned that the Aldermen, Deputies, and Common-
Councelmen shall meet together Weekly, once, twice, thrice or oftner
(as cause shall require) at some one general place accustomed in
their respective Wards (being clear from infection of the Plague) to
consult how the said Orders may be duly put in execution; not
intending that any dwelling in or near places infected, shall come to
the said meetings whiles their coming may be doubtful: And the said
Aldermen and Deputies and Common Councelmen in their several
Wards may put in execution any other good Orders that by them at
their said Meetings shall be conceived and devised, for preservation
of his Majesties Subjects from the Infection.

FINIS.
 Transcriber’s Notes:

Some inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, and

punctuation have been retained.
New original cover art included with this eBook is
granted to the public domain.
 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ORDERS
CONCEIVED AND PUBLISHED BY THE LORD MAJOR AND
ALDERMEN OF THE CITY OF LONDON, CONCERNING THE
INFECTION OF THE PLAGUE ***

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Another random document with
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flickering flame, before an image of the Virgin. At sight of it she
repressed a sob.
“You see, my child,” said the Mother Superior poetically, “it must
have been waiting for you. Anyhow it is empty. Perhaps it may have
known you were coming.”
She spoke softly so that the long rows of sleepers might not be
disturbed, then proceeded to turn down the coverlets.
“Oh, Mother,” Madeleine suddenly whispered softly as she stood
by the bed, “won’t you let me stay always? I never want to go out
any more. I have had such a hard time. I will work so hard for you if
you will let me stay!”
The experienced Sister looked at her curiously. Never before had
she heard such a plea.
“Why, yes, my child,” she said. “If you wish to stay I’m sure it can
be arranged. It is not as we usually do, but you are not the only one
who has gone out in the past and come back to us. I am sure God
and the Blessed Virgin will hear your prayer for whatever is right. But
now go to bed and sleep. You need rest. I can see that. And to-
morrow, or any time, or never, as you choose, you may tell me what
has happened.”
She urged her very gently to enter and then tucked the covers
about her, laying finally a cool, wrinkled hand on her forehead. For
answer Madeleine seized and put it to her lips, holding it so.
“Oh, Mother,” she sobbed as the Sister bent over her, “don’t ever
make me go out in the world again, will you? You won’t, will you? I’m
so tired! I’m so tired!”
“No dear, no,” soothed the Sister, “not unless you wish it. And now
rest. You need never go out in the world again unless you wish.”
And withdrawing the hand from the kissing lips, she tiptoed silently
from the room.
 II
THE HAND

D AVIDSON could distinctly remember that it was between two

and three years after the grisly event in the Monte Orte range—
the sickening and yet deserved end of Mersereau, his quondam
partner and fellow adventurer—that anything to be identified with
Mersereau’s malice toward him, and with Mersereau’s probable
present existence in the spirit world, had appeared in his life.
He and Mersereau had worked long together as prospectors,
investors, developers of property. It was only after they had struck it
rich in the Klondike that Davidson had grown so much more apt and
shrewd in all commercial and financial matters, whereas Mersereau
had seemed to stand still—not to rise to the splendid opportunities
which then opened to him. Why, in some of those later deals it had
not been possible for Davidson even to introduce his old partner to
some of the moneyed men he had to deal with. Yet Mersereau had
insisted, as his right, if you please, on being “in on” everything—
everything!
Take that wonderful Monte Orte property, the cause of all the
subsequent horror. He, Davidson—not Mersereau—had discovered
or heard of the mine, and had carried it along, with old Besmer as a
tool or decoy—Besmer being the ostensible factor—until it was all
ready for him to take over and sell or develop. Then it was that
Mersereau, having been for so long his partner, demanded a full half
—a third, at least—on the ground that they had once agreed to work
together in all these things.
Think of it! And Mersereau growing duller and less useful and
more disagreeable day by day, and year by year! Indeed, toward the
last he had threatened to expose the trick by which jointly, seven
years before, they had possessed themselves of the Skyute Pass
Mine; to drive Davidson out of public and financial life, to have him
arrested and tried—along with himself, of course. Think of that!
But he had fixed him—yes, he had, damn him! He had trailed
Mersereau that night to old Besmer’s cabin on the Monte Orte, when
Besmer was away. Mersereau had gone there with the intention of
stealing the diagram of the new field, and had secured it, true
enough. A thief he was, damn him. Yet, just as he was making safely
away, as he thought, he, Davidson, had struck him cleanly over the
ear with that heavy rail-bolt fastened to the end of a walnut stick, and
the first blow had done for him.
Lord, how the bone above Mersereau’s ear had sounded when it
cracked! And how bloody one side of that bolt was! Mersereau
hadn’t had time to do anything before he was helpless. He hadn’t
died instantly, though, but had turned over and faced him, Davidson,
with that savage, scowling face of his and those blazing, animal
eyes.
Lying half propped up on his left elbow, Mersereau had reached
out toward him with that big, rough, bony right hand of his—the right
with which he always boasted of having done so much damage on
this, that, and the other occasion—had glared at him as much as to
say:
“Oh, if I could only reach you just for a moment before I go!”
Then it was that he, Davidson, had lifted the club again. Horrified
as he was, and yet determined that he must save his own life, he
had finished the task, dragging the body back to an old fissure
behind the cabin and covering it with branches, a great pile of pine
fronds, and as many as one hundred and fifty boulders, great and
small, and had left his victim. It was a sickening job and a sickening
sight, but it had to be.
Then, having finished, he had slipped dismally away, like a jackal,
thinking of that hand in the moonlight, held up so savagely, and that
look. Nothing might have come of that either, if he hadn’t been
inclined to brood on it so much, on the fierceness of it.
 No, nothing had happened. A year had passed, and if anything
had been going to turn up it surely would have by then. He,
Davidson, had gone first to New York, later to Chicago, to dispose of
the Monte Orte claim. Then, after two years, he had returned here to
Mississippi, where he was enjoying comparative peace. He was
looking after some sugar property which had once belonged to him,
and which he was now able to reclaim and put in charge of his sister
as a home against a rainy day. He had no other.
But that body back there! That hand uplifted in the moonlight—to
clutch him if it could! Those eyes.

II—June, 1905

Take that first year, for instance, when he had returned to

Gatchard in Mississippi, whence both he and Mersereau had
originally issued. After looking after his own property he had gone
out to a tumble-down estate of his uncle’s in Issaqueena County—a
leaky old slope-roofed house where, in a bedroom on the top floor,
he had had his first experience with the significance or reality of the
hand.
Yes, that was where first he had really seen it pictured in that
curious, unbelievable way; only who would believe that it was
Mersereau’s hand? They would say it was an accident, chance, rain
dropping down. But the hand had appeared on the ceiling of that
room just as sure as anything, after a heavy rain-storm—it was
almost a cyclone—when every chink in the old roof had seemed to
leak water.
During the night, after he had climbed to the room by way of those
dismal stairs with their great landing and small glass oil-lamp he
carried, and had sunk to rest, or tried to, in the heavy, wide, damp
bed, thinking, as he always did those days, of the Monte Orte and
Mersereau, the storm had come up. As he had listened to the wind
moaning outside he had heard first the scratch, scratch, scratch, of
some limb, no doubt, against the wall—sounding, or so it seemed in
his feverish unrest, like some one penning an indictment against him
with a worn, rusty pen.
 And then, the storm growing worse, and in a fit of irritation and
self-contempt at his own nervousness, he had gone to the window,
but just as lightning struck a branch of the tree nearest the window
and so very near him, too—as though some one, something, was
seeking to strike him—(Mersereau?) and as though he had been
lured by that scratching. God! He had retreated, feeling that it was
meant for him.
But that big, knotted hand painted on the ceiling by the dripping
water during the night! There it was, right over him when he awoke,
outlined or painted as if with wet, gray whitewash against the
wretched but normally pale-blue of the ceiling when dry. There it was
—a big, open hand just like Mersereau’s as he had held it up that
night—huge, knotted, rough, the fingers extended as if tense and
clutching. And, if you will believe it, near it was something that
looked like a pen—an old, long-handled pen—to match that scratch,
scratch, scratch!
“Huldah,” he had inquired of the old black mammy who entered in
the morning to bring him fresh water and throw open the shutters,
“what does that look like to you up there—that patch on the ceiling
where the rain came through?”
He wanted to reassure himself as to the character of the thing he
saw—that it might not be a creation of his own feverish imagination,
accentuated by the dismal character of this place.
“’Pears t’ me mo’ like a big han’ ’an anythin’ else, Marse Davi’son,”
commented Huldah, pausing and staring upward. “Mo’ like a big fist,
kinda. Dat air’s a new drip come las’ night, I reckon. Dis here ole
place ain’ gonna hang togethah much longah, less’n some repairin’
be done mighty quick now. Yassir, dat air’s a new drop, sho’s yo’
bo’n, en it come on’y las’ night. I hain’t never seed dat befo’.”
And then he had inquired, thinking of the fierceness of the storm:
“Huldah, do you have many such storms up this way?”
“Good gracious, Marse Davi’son, we hain’t seed no sech blow en
—en come three years now. I hain’t seed no sech lightnin’ en I doan’
know when.”
 Wasn’t that strange, that it should all come on the night, of all
nights, when he was there? And no such other storm in three years!
Huldah stared idly, always ready to go slow and rest, if possible,
whereas he had turned irritably. To be annoyed by ideas such as
this! To always be thinking of that Monte Orte affair! Why couldn’t he
forget it? Wasn’t it Mersereau’s own fault? He never would have
killed the man if he hadn’t been forced to it.
And to be haunted in this way, making mountains out of mole-hills,
as he thought then! It must be his own miserable fancy—and yet
Mersereau had looked so threateningly at him. That glance had
boded something; it was too terrible not to.
Davidson might not want to think of it, but how could he stop?
Mersereau might not be able to hurt him any more, at least not on
this earth; but still, couldn’t he? Didn’t the appearance of this hand
seem to indicate that he might? He was dead, of course. His body,
his skeleton, was under that pile of rocks and stones, some of them
as big as wash-tubs. Why worry over that, and after two years? And
still—
That hand on the ceiling!

III—December, 1905

Then, again, take that matter of meeting Pringle in Gatchard just at

that time, within the same week. It was due to Davidson’s sister. She
had invited Mr. and Mrs. Pringle in to meet him one evening, without
telling him that they were spiritualists and might discuss spiritualism.
Clairvoyance, Pringle called it, or seeing what can’t be seen with
material eyes, and clairaudience, or hearing what can’t be heard with
material ears, as well as materialization, or ghosts, and table-
rapping, and the like. Table-rapping—that damned tap-tapping that
he had been hearing ever since!
It was Pringle’s fault, really. Pringle had persisted in talking. He,
Davidson, wouldn’t have listened, except that he somehow became
fascinated by what Pringle said concerning what he had heard and
seen in his time. Mersereau must have been at the bottom of that,
too.
At any rate, after he had listened, he was sorry, for Pringle had
had time to fill his mind full of those awful facts or ideas which had
since harassed him so much—all that stuff about drunkards,
degenerates, and weak people generally being followed about by
vile, evil spirits and used to effect those spirits’ purposes or desires
in this world. Horrible!
Wasn’t it terrible? Pringle—big, mushy, creature that he was, sickly
and stagnant like a springless pool—insisted that he had even seen
clouds of these spirits about drunkards, degenerates, and the like, in
street-cars, on trains, and about vile corners at night. Once, he said,
he had seen just one evil spirit—think of that!—following a certain
man all the time, at his left elbow—a dark, evil, red-eyed thing, until
finally the man had been killed in a quarrel.
Pringle described their shapes, these spirits, as varied. They were
small, dark, irregular clouds, with red or green spots somewhere for
eyes, changing in form and becoming longish or round like a jellyfish,
or even like a misshapen cat or dog. They could take any form at will
—even that of a man.
Once, Pringle declared, he had seen as many as fifty about a
drunkard who was staggering down a street, all of them trying to
urge him into the nearest saloon, so that they might re-experience in
some vague way the sensation of drunkenness, which at some time
or other they themselves, having been drunkards in life, had
enjoyed!
It would be the same with a drug fiend, or indeed with any one of
weak or evil habits. They gathered about such an one like flies, their
red or green eyes glowing—attempting to get something from them,
perhaps, if nothing more than a little sense of their old earth-life.
The whole thing was so terrible and disturbing at the time,
particularly that idea of men being persuaded or influenced to
murder, that he, Davidson, could stand it no longer, and got up and
left. But in his room upstairs he meditated on it, standing before his
mirror. Suddenly—would he ever forget it—as he was taking off his
collar and tie, he had heard that queer tap, tap, tap, right on his
dressing-table or under it, and for the first time, which Pringle said,
ghosts made when table-rapping in answer to a call, or to give
warning of their presence.
Then something said to him, almost as clearly as if he heard it:
“This is me, Mersereau, come back at last to get you!
Pringle was just an excuse of mine to let you know I was
coming, and so was that hand in that old house, in
Issaqueena County. It was mine! I will be with you from
now on. Don’t think I will ever leave you!”
It had frightened and made him half sick, so wrought up was he.
For the first time he felt cold chills run up and down his spine—the
creeps. He felt as if some one were standing over him—Mersereau,
of course—only he could not see or hear a thing, just that faint tap at
first, growing louder a little later, and quite angry when he tried to
ignore it.
People did live, then, after they were dead, especially evil people
—people stronger than you, perhaps. They had the power to come
back, to haunt, to annoy you if they didn’t like anything you had done
to them. No doubt Mersereau was following him in the hope of
revenge, there in the spirit world, just outside this one, close at his
heels, like that evil spirit attending the other man whom Pringle had
described.

IV—February, 1906

Take that case of the hand impressed on the soft dough and
plaster of Paris, described in an article that he had picked up in the
dentist’s office out there in Pasadena—Mersereau’s very hand, so
far as he could judge. How about that for a coincidence, picking up
the magazine with that disturbing article about psychic
materialization in Italy, and later in Berne, Switzerland, where the
scientists were gathered to investigate that sort of thing? And just
when he was trying to rid himself finally of the notion that any such
thing could be!
 According to that magazine article, some old crone over in Italy—
spiritualist, or witch, or something—had got together a crowd of
experimentalists or professors in an abandoned house on an almost
deserted island off the coast of Sardinia. There they had conducted
experiments with spirits, which they called materialization, getting the
impression of the fingers of a hand, or of a whole hand and arm, or
of a face, on a plate of glass covered with soot, the plate being
locked in a small safe on the center of a table about which they sat!
He, Davidson, couldn’t understand, of course, how it was done,
but done it was. There in that magazine were half a dozen pictures,
reproductions of photographs of a hand, an arm and a face—or a
part of one, anyhow. And if they looked like anything, they looked
exactly like Mersereau’s! Hadn’t Pringle, there in Gatchard, Miss.,
stated spirits could move anywhere, over long distances, with the
speed of light. And would it be any trick for Mersereau to appear
there at Sardinia, and then engineer this magazine into his presence,
here in Los Angeles? Would it? It would not. Spirits were free and
powerful over there, perhaps.
There was not the least doubt that these hands, these partial
impressions of a face, were those of Mersereau. Those big knuckles!
That long, heavy, humped nose and big jaw! Whose else could they
be?—they were Mersereau’s, intended, when they were made over
there in Italy, for him, Davidson, to see later here in Los Angeles.
Yes, they were! And looking at that sinister face reproduced in the
magazine, it seemed to say, with Mersereau’s old coarse sneer:
“You see? You can’t escape me! I’m showing you how
much alive I am over here, just as I was on earth. And I’ll
get you yet, even if I have to go farther than Italy to do it!”
It was amazing, the shock he took from that. It wasn’t just that
alone, but the persistence and repetition of this hand business. What
could it mean? Was it really Mersereau’s hand? As for the face, it
wasn’t all there—just the jaw, mouth, cheek, left temple, and a part of
the nose and eye; but it was Mersereau’s, all right. He had gone
clear over there into Italy somewhere, in a lone house on an island,
to get this message of his undying hate back to him. Or was it just
spirits, evil spirits, bent on annoying him because he was nervous
and sensitive now?

V—October, 1906

Even new crowded hotels and new buildings weren’t the protection
he had at first hoped and thought they would be. Even there you
weren’t safe—not from a man like Mersereau. Take that incident
there in Los Angeles, and again in Seattle, only two months ago
now, when Mersereau was able to make that dreadful explosive or
crashing sound, as if one had burst a huge paper bag full of air, or
upset a china-closet full of glass and broken everything, when as a
matter of fact nothing at all had happened. It had frightened him
horribly the first two or three times, believing as he did that
something fearful had happened. Finding that it was nothing—or
Mersereau—he was becoming used to it now; but other people,
unfortunately, were not.
He would be—as he had been that first time—sitting in his room
perfectly still and trying to amuse himself, or not to think, when
suddenly there would be that awful crash. It was astounding! Other
people heard it, of course. They had in Los Angeles. A maid and a
porter had come running the first time to inquire, and he had had to
protest that he had heard nothing. They couldn’t believe it at first,
and had gone to other rooms to look. When it happened the second
time, the management had protested, thinking it was a joke he was
playing; and to avoid the risk of exposure he had left.
After that he could not keep a valet or nurse about him for long.
Servants wouldn’t stay, and managers of hotels wouldn’t let him
remain when such things went on. Yet he couldn’t live in a house or
apartment alone, for there the noises and atmospheric conditions
would be worse than ever.

VI—June, 1907

Take that last old house he had been in—but never would be in
again!—at Anne Haven. There he actually visualized the hand—a
thing as big as a washtub at first, something like smoke or shadow in
a black room moving about over the bed and everywhere. Then, as
he lay there, gazing at it spellbound, it condensed slowly, and he
began to feel it. It was now a hand of normal size—there was no
doubt of it in the world—going over him softly, without force, as a
ghostly hand must, having no real physical strength, but all the time
with a strange, electric, secretive something about it, as if it were not
quite sure of itself, and not quite sure that he was really there.
The hand, or so it seemed—God!—moved right up to his neck and
began to feel over that as he lay there. Then it was that he guessed
just what it was that Mersereau was after.
It was just like a hand, the fingers and thumb made into a circle
and pressed down over his throat, only it moved over him gently at
first, because it really couldn’t do anything yet, not having the
material strength. But the intention! The sense of cruel, savage
determination that went with it!
And yet, if one went to a nerve specialist or doctor about all this,
as he did afterward, what did the doctor say? He had tried to
describe how he was breaking down under the strain, how he could
not eat or sleep on account of all these constant tappings and
noises; but the moment he even began to hint at his experiences,
especially the hand or the noises, the doctor exclaimed:
“Why, this is plain delusion! You’re nervously run down, that’s all
that ails you—on the verge of pernicious anemia, I should say. You’ll
have to watch yourself as to this illusion about spirits. Get it out of
your mind. There’s nothing to it!”
Wasn’t that just like one of these nerve specialists, bound up in
their little ideas of what they knew or saw, or thought they saw?

VII—November, 1907

And now take this very latest development at Battle Creek recently
where he had gone trying to recuperate on the diet there. Hadn’t
Mersereau, implacable demon that he was, developed this latest
trick of making his food taste queer to him—unpalatable, or with an
odd odor?
 He, Davidson, knew it was Mersereau, for he felt him beside him
at the table whenever he sat down. Besides, he seemed to hear
something—clairaudience was what they called it, he understood—
he was beginning to develop that, too, now! It was Mersereau, of
course, saying in a voice which was more like a memory of a voice
than anything real—the voice of some one you could remember as
having spoken in a certain way, say, ten years or more ago:
“I’ve fixed it so you can’t eat any more, you—”
There followed a long list of vile expletives, enough in itself to
sicken one.
Thereafter, in spite of anything he could do to make himself think
to the contrary, knowing that the food was all right, really, Davidson
found it to have an odor or a taste which disgusted him, and which
he could not overcome, try as he would. The management assured
him that it was all right, as he knew it was—for others. He saw them
eating it. But he couldn’t—had to get up and leave, and the little he
could get down he couldn’t retain, or it wasn’t enough for him to live
on. God, he would die, this way! Starve, as he surely was doing by
degrees now.
And Mersereau always seeming to be standing by. Why, if it
weren’t for fresh fruit on the stands at times, and just plain, fresh-
baked bread in bakers’ windows, which he could buy and eat quickly,
he might not be able to live at all. It was getting to that pass!

VIII—August, 1908

That wasn’t the worst, either, bad as all that was. The worst was
the fact that under the strain of all this he was slowly but surely
breaking down, and that in the end Mersereau might really succeed
in driving him out of life here—to do what, if anything, to him there?
What? It was such an evil pack by which he was surrounded, now,
those who lived just on the other side and hung about the earth, vile,
debauched creatures, as Pringle had described them, and as
Davidson had come to know for himself, fearing them and their ways
so much, and really seeing them at times.
 Since he had come to be so weak and sensitive, he could see
them for himself—vile things that they were, swimming before his
gaze in the dark whenever he chanced to let himself be in the dark,
which was not often—friends of Mersereau, no doubt, and inclined to
help him just for the evil of it.
For this long time now Davidson had taken to sleeping with the
light on, wherever he was, only tying a handkerchief over his eyes to
keep out some of the glare. Even then he could see them—queer,
misshapen things, for all the world like wavy, stringy jellyfish or coils
of thick, yellowish-black smoke, moving about, changing in form at
times, yet always looking dirty or vile, somehow, and with those
queer, dim, reddish or greenish glows for eyes. It was sickening!

IX—October, 1908

Having accomplished so much, Mersereau would by no means be

content to let him go. Davidson knew that! He could talk to him
occasionally now, or at least could hear him and answer back, if he
chose, when he was alone and quite certain that no one was
listening.
Mersereau was always saying, when Davidson would listen to him
at all—which he wouldn’t often—that he would get him yet, that he
would make him pay, or charging him with fraud and murder.
“I’ll choke you yet!” The words seemed to float in from somewhere,
as if he were remembering that at some time Mersereau had said
just that in his angry, savage tone—not as if he heard it; and yet he
was hearing it of course.

“I’ll choke you yet! You can’t escape! You may think you’ll die a
natural death, but you won’t, and that’s why I’m poisoning your food
to weaken you. You can’t escape! I’ll get you, sick or well, when you
can’t help yourself, when you’re sleeping. I’ll choke you, just as you
hit me with that club. That’s why you’re always seeing and feeling
this hand of mine! I’m not alone. I’ve nearly had you many a time
already, only you have managed to wriggle out so far, jumping up,
but some day you won’t be able to—see? Then—”

The voice seemed to die away at times, even in the middle of a

sentence, but at the other times—often, often—he could hear it
completing the full thought. Sometimes he would turn on the thing
and exclaim:
“Oh, go to the devil!” or, “Let me alone!” or, “Shut up!” Even in a
closed room and all alone, such remarks seemed strange to him,
addressed to a ghost; but he couldn’t resist at times, annoyed as he
was. Only he took good care not to talk if any one was about.
It was getting so that there was no real place for him outside of an
asylum, for often he would get up screaming at night—he had to, so
sharp was the clutch on his throat—and then always, wherever he
was, a servant would come in and want to know what was the
matter. He would have to say that it was a nightmare—only the
management always requested him to leave after the second or third
time, say, or after an explosion or two. It was horrible!
He might as well apply to a private asylum or sanatorium now,
having all the money he had, and explain that he had delusions—
delusions! Imagine!—and ask to be taken care of. In a place like that
they wouldn’t be disturbed by his jumping up and screaming at night,
feeling that he was being choked, as he was, or by his leaving the
table because he couldn’t eat the food, or by his talking back to
Mersereau, should they chance to hear him, or by the noises when
they occurred.
They could assign him a special nurse and a special room, if he
wished—only he didn’t wish to be too much alone. They could put
him in charge of some one who would understand all these things, or
to whom he could explain. He couldn’t expect ordinary people, or
hotels catering to ordinary people, to put up with him any more.
Mersereau and his friends made too much trouble.
 He must go and hunt up a good place somewhere where they
understood such things, or at least tolerated them, and explain, and
then it would all pass for the hallucinations of a crazy man,—though,
as a matter of fact, he wasn’t crazy at all. It was all too real, only the
average or so-called normal person couldn’t see or hear as he could
—hadn’t experienced what he had.

X—December, 1908

“The trouble is, doctor, that Mr. Davidson is suffering from the
delusion that he is pursued by evil spirits. He was not committed
here by any court, but came of his own accord about four months
ago, and we let him wander about here at will. But he seems to be
growing worse, as time goes on.
“One of his worst delusions, doctor, is that there is one spirit in
particular who is trying to choke him to death. Dr. Major, our
superintendent, says he has incipient tuberculosis of the throat, with
occasional spasmodic contractions. There are small lumps or
calluses here and there as though caused by outside pressure and
yet our nurse assures us that there is no such outside irritation. He
won’t believe that; but whenever he tries to sleep, especially in the
middle of the night, he will jump up and come running out into the
hall, insisting that one of these spirits, which he insists are after him,
is trying to choke him to death. He really seems to believe it, for he
comes out coughing and choking and feeling at his neck as if some
one has been trying to strangle him. He always explains the whole
matter to me as being the work of evil spirits, and asks me to not pay
any attention to him unless he calls for help or rings his call-bell; and
so I never think anything more of it now unless he does.
“Another of his ideas is that these same spirits do something to his
food—put poison in it, or give it a bad odor or taste, so that he can’t
eat it. When he does find anything he can eat, he grabs it and almost
swallows it whole, before, as he says, the spirits have time to do
anything to it. Once, he says, he weighed more than two hundred
pounds, but now he only weighs one hundred and twenty. His case
is exceedingly strange and pathetic, doctor!
 “Dr. Major insists that it is purely a delusion, that so far as being
choked is concerned, it is the incipient tuberculosis, and that his
stomach trouble comes from the same thing; but by association of
ideas, or delusion, he thinks some one is trying to choke him and
poison his food, when it isn’t so at all. Dr. Major says that he can’t
imagine what could have started it. He is always trying to talk to Mr.
Davidson about it, but whenever he begins to ask him questions, Mr.
Davidson refuses to talk, and gets up and leaves.
“One of the peculiar things about his idea of being choked, doctor,
is that when he is merely dozing he always wakes up in time, and
has the power to throw it off. He claims that the strength of these
spirits is not equal to his own when he is awake, or even dozing, but
when he’s asleep their strength is greater and that then they may
injure him. Sometimes, when he has had a fright like this, he will
come out in the hall and down to my desk there at the lower end,
and ask if he mayn’t sit there by me. He says it calms him. I always
tell him yes, but it won’t be five minutes before he’ll get up and leave
again, saying that he’s being annoyed, or that he won’t be able to
contain himself if he stays any longer, because of the remarks being
made over his shoulder or in his ear.
“Often he’ll say: ‘Did you hear that, Miss Liggett? It’s astonishing,
the low, vile things that man can say at times!’ When I say, ‘No, I
didn’t hear,’ he always says, ‘I’m so glad!’”
“No one has ever tried to relieve him of this by hypnotism, I
suppose?”
“Not that I know of, doctor. Dr. Major may have tried it. I have only
been here three months.”
“Tuberculosis is certainly the cause of the throat trouble, as Dr.
Major says, and as for the stomach trouble, that comes from the
same thing—natural enough under the circumstances. We may have
to resort to hypnotism a little later. I’ll see. In the meantime you’d
better caution all who come in touch with him never to sympathize,
or even to seem to believe in anything he imagines is being done to
him. It will merely encourage him in his notions. And get him to take
his medicine regularly; it won’t cure, but it will help. Dr. Major has
asked me to give especial attention to his case, and I want the
conditions as near right as possible.”
“Yes, sir.”

XI—January, 1909

The trouble with these doctors was that they really knew nothing of
anything save what was on the surface, the little they had learned at
a medical college or in practise—chiefly how certain drugs, tried by
their predecessors in certain cases, were known to act. They had no
imagination whatever, even when you tried to tell them.
Take that latest young person who was coming here now in his
good clothes and with his car, fairly bursting with his knowledge of
what he called psychiatrics, looking into Davidson’s eyes so hard
and smoothing his temples and throat—massage, he called it—
saying that he had incipient tuberculosis of the throat and stomach
trouble, and utterly disregarding the things which he, Davidson,
could personally see and hear! Imagine the fellow trying to persuade
him, at this late date, that all that was wrong with him was
tuberculosis, that he didn’t see Mersereau standing right beside him
at times, bending over him, holding up that hand and telling him how
he intended to kill him yet—that it was all an illusion!
Imagine saying that Mersereau couldn’t actually seize him by the
throat when he was asleep, or nearly so, when Davidson himself,
looking at his throat in the mirror, could see the actual finger prints,—
Mersereau’s,—for a moment or so afterward. At any rate, his throat
was red and sore from being clutched, as Mersereau of late was
able to clutch him! And that was the cause of these lumps. And to
say, as they had said at first, that he himself was making them by
rubbing and feeling his throat, and that it was tuberculosis!
Wasn’t it enough to make one want to quit the place? If it weren’t
for Miss Liggett and Miss Koehler, his private nurse, and their
devoted care, he would. That Miss Koehler was worth her weight in
gold, learning his ways as she had, being so uniformly kind, and
bearing with his difficulties so genially. He would leave her something
in his will.
 To leave this place and go elsewhere, though, unless he could
take her along, would be folly. And anyway, where else would he go?
Here at least were other people, patients like himself, who could
understand and could sympathize with him,—people who weren’t
convinced as were these doctors that all that he complained of was
mere delusion. Imagine! Old Rankin, the lawyer, for instance, who
had suffered untold persecution from one living person and another,
mostly politicians, was convinced that his, Davidson’s, troubles were
genuine, and liked to hear about them, just as did Miss Koehler.
These two did not insist, as the doctors did, that he had slow
tuberculosis of the throat, and could live a long time and overcome
his troubles if he would. They were merely companionable at such
times as Mersereau would give him enough peace to be sociable.
The only real trouble, though, was that he was growing so weak
from lack of sleep and food—his inability to eat the food which his
enemy bewitched and to sleep at night on account of the choking—
that he couldn’t last much longer. This new physician whom Dr.
Major had called into consultation in regard to his case was insisting
that along with his throat trouble he was suffering from acute
anemia, due to long undernourishment, and that only a solution of
strychnin injected into the veins would help him. But as to Mersereau
poisoning his food—not a word would he hear. Besides, now that he
was practically bedridden, not able to jump up as freely as before, he
was subject to a veritable storm of bedevilment at the hands of
Mersereau. Not only could he see—especially toward evening, and
in the very early hours of the morning—Mersereau hovering about
him like a black shadow, a great, bulky shadow—yet like him in
outline, but he could feel his enemy’s hand moving over him. Worse,
behind or about him he often saw a veritable cloud of evil creatures,
companions or tools of Mersereau’s, who were there to help him and
who kept swimming about like fish in dark waters, and seemed to
eye the procedure with satisfaction.
When food was brought to him, early or late, and in whatever form,
Mersereau and they were there, close at hand, as thick as flies,
passing over and through it in an evident attempt to spoil it before he
could eat it. Just to see them doing it was enough to poison it for
him. Besides, he could hear their voices urging Mersereau to do it.
“That’s right—poison it!”
“He can’t last much longer!”
“Soon he’ll be weak enough so that when you grip him he will
really die!”
It was thus that they actually talked—he could hear them.
He also heard vile phrases addressed to him by Mersereau, the
iterated and reiterated words “murderer” and “swindler” and “cheat,”
there in the middle of the night. Often, although the light was still on,
he saw as many as seven dark figures, very much like Mersereau’s,
although different, gathered close about him,—like men in
consultation—evil men. Some of them sat upon his bed, and it
seemed as if they were about to help Mersereau to finish him,
adding their hands to his.
Behind them again was a complete circle of all those evil,
swimming things with green and red eyes, always watching—
helping, probably. He had actually felt the pressure of the hand to
grow stronger of late, when they were all there. Only, just before he
felt he was going to faint, and because he could not spring up any
more, he invariably screamed or gasped a choking gasp and held his
finger on the button which would bring Miss Koehler. Then she would
come, lift him up, and fix his pillows. She also always assured him
that it was only the inflammation of his throat, and rubbed it with
alcohol, and gave him a few drops of something internally to ease it.
After all this time, and in spite of anything he could tell them, they
still believed, or pretended to believe, that he was suffering from
tuberculosis, and that all the rest of this was delusion, a phase of
insanity!
And Mersereau’s skeleton still out there on the Monte Orte!
And Mersereau’s plan, with the help of others, of course, was to
choke him to death, there was no doubt of that now; and yet they
would believe after he was gone that he had died of tuberculosis of
the throat. Think of that.

XII—Midnight of February 10, 1909

The Ghost of Mersereau (bending over Davidson): “Softly!

Softly! He’s quite asleep! He didn’t think we could get him—that I
could! But this time,—yes. Miss Koehler is asleep at the end of the
hall and Miss Liggett can’t come, can’t hear. He’s too weak now. He
can scarcely move or groan. Strengthen my hand, will you! I will grip
him so tight this time that he won’t get away! His cries won’t help him
this time! He can’t cry as he once did! Now! Now!”
A Cloud of Evil Spirits (swimming about): “Right! Right! Good!
Good! Now! Ah!”
Davidson (waking, choking, screaming, and feebly striking out):
“Help! Help! H-e-l-p! Miss—Miss—H—e—l—p!”
Miss Liggett (dozing heavily in her chair): “Everything is still. No
one restless. I can sleep.” (Her head nods.)
The Cloud of Evil Spirits: “Good! Good! Good! His soul at last!
Here it comes! He couldn’t escape this time! Ah! Good! Good! Now!”
Mersereau (to Davidson): “You murderer! At last! At last!”

XIII—3 A.M. of February 17, 1909

Miss Koehler (at the bedside, distressed and pale): “He must
have died some time between one and two, doctor. I left him at one
o’clock, comfortable as I could make him. He said he was feeling as
well as could be expected. He’s been very weak during the last few
days, taking only a little gruel. Between half past one and two I
thought I heard a noise, and came to see. He was lying just as you
see here, except that his hands were up to his throat, as if it were
hurting or choking him. I put them down for fear they would stiffen
that way. In trying to call one of the other nurses just now, I found
that the bell was out of order, although I know it was all right when I