THE SKULKING SPECTRE, EXETER, 1829.

 From The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette,  10th January 1829: 

“A few evenings since, as a servant girl was passing through the burying ground opposite the Hospital,  in charge of two children, some mischievous fellow attempted to frighten them by playing ‘the Ghost,' for which purpose he had covered himself with a sheet, and when they had arrived opposite a grave stone, behind which he had secreted himself, he started forth exclaiming, “I am a spirit rising from a tomb.”

“Fortunately the girl possessed more nerve than generally falls to the lot of females in her line, she replied, ‘Then lie down again;’ and, bidding the children not to be alarmed, proceeded on her way without further noticing the skulking spectre.

“We regret that the fellow was not effectually laid, by an oak stick well applied by some manly arm.  It is no doubt in the recollection of many of our readers, that about eight years ago a young woman of the parish of the Holy Trinity was frightened by the thoughtless folly of a youth who also arrayed himself in a white covering;  the unfortunate victim has been ever since in a state of idiotcy - a lamentable spectacle to her friends and an expense to the public ! !”

Wrapping up in sheets and jumping out from behind gravestones to frighten servant girls seems to have gone out of fashion. It is just as well; one would not want too much public money being shelled out to females in a state of idiotcy (this was a correct form of the word at the time.)

The reporter's expressed wish for a well-applied manly arm to lay out 'the Ghost' with an oak stick seems somewhat harsh. After all, the mischievous fellow probably had a mum waiting for him.