The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories [94]
of Sergeant Davies of Guise's, slain in the autumn of 1749 in Glenclunie, were acquitted by an Edinburgh jury in 1753 in face of overpowering evidence of their guilt, partly because two Highland witnesses deposed to having seen the ghost of the sergeant, partly because the jury were Jacobites. The prisoners' counsel, as one of them told Sir Walter Scott, knew that their clients were guilty. A witness had seen them in the act. But the advocate (Lockhart, a Jacobite) made such fun out of the ghost that an Edinburgh jury, disbelieving in the spectre, and not loving the House of Hanover, very logically disregarded also the crushing evidence for a crime which was actually described in court by an eye-witness.
Thus, to secure a view of the original form of the yarn of Fisher's Ghost, what we need is what we are not likely to get--namely, a copy of the depositions made before the bench of magistrates at Campbelltown in October 1826.
For my own part, I think it highly probable that the story of Fisher's Ghost was told before the magistrates, as in the Buckinghamshire case, and was suppressed in the trial at Sydney.
Worrall's condemnation is said to have excited popular discontent, as condemnations on purely circumstantial evidence usually do. That dissatisfaction would be increased if a ghost were publicly implicated in the matter, just as in the case of Davies's murder in 1749. We see how discreetly the wraith or ghost was kept out of the Buckinghamshire case at the trial, and we see why, in Worrall's affair, no questions were asked as to the discovery of sprinkled blood, not proved by analysis to be human, on the rail where Fisher's ghost was said to perch.
I had concluded my inquiry here, when I received a letter in which Mr. Rusden kindly referred me to his 'History of Australia' (vol. ii. pp. 44, 45). Mr. Rusden there gives a summary of the story, in agreement with that taken from the Sydney newspaper. He has 'corrected current rumours by comparison with the words of a trustworthy informant, a medical man, who lived long in the neighbourhood, and attended Farley [the man who saw Fisher's ghost] on his death-bed. He often conversed with Farley on the subject of the vision which scared him. . . . These facts are compiled from the notes of Chief-Justice Forbes, who presided at the trial, with the exception of the references to the apparition, which, although it led to the discovery of Fisher's body, could not be alluded to in a court of justice, or be adduced as evidence.'* There is no justice for ghosts.
*Thanks to the kindness of the Countess of Jersey, and the obliging researches of the Chief Justice of New South Wales, I have received a transcript of the judge's notes. They are correctly analysed by Mr. Rusden.
An Australian correspondent adds another example. Long after Fisher's case, this gentleman was himself present at a trial in Maitland, New South Wales. A servant-girl had dreamed that a missing man told her who had killed him, and where his body was concealed. She, being terrified, wanted to leave the house, but her mistress made her impart the story to the chief constable, a man known to my informant, who also knew, and names, the judge who tried the case. The constable excavated at the spot pointed out in the dream, unearthed the body, and arrested the criminal, who was found guilty, confessed, and was hanged. Not a word was allowed to be said in court about the dream. All the chief constable was permitted to say was, that 'from information received' he went to Hayes's farm, and so forth.
Here, then, are two parallels to Fisher's ghost, and very hard on psychical science it is that ghostly evidence should be deliberately burked through the prejudices of lawyers. Mr. Suttar, in his 'Australian Stories Retold' (Bathurst, 1887), remarks that the ghost is not a late mythical accretion in Fisher's story. 'I have the authority of a gentleman who was intimately connected with the gentleman who had the charge of the police when the murder was done, that Farley's story did suggest the
Thus, to secure a view of the original form of the yarn of Fisher's Ghost, what we need is what we are not likely to get--namely, a copy of the depositions made before the bench of magistrates at Campbelltown in October 1826.
For my own part, I think it highly probable that the story of Fisher's Ghost was told before the magistrates, as in the Buckinghamshire case, and was suppressed in the trial at Sydney.
Worrall's condemnation is said to have excited popular discontent, as condemnations on purely circumstantial evidence usually do. That dissatisfaction would be increased if a ghost were publicly implicated in the matter, just as in the case of Davies's murder in 1749. We see how discreetly the wraith or ghost was kept out of the Buckinghamshire case at the trial, and we see why, in Worrall's affair, no questions were asked as to the discovery of sprinkled blood, not proved by analysis to be human, on the rail where Fisher's ghost was said to perch.
I had concluded my inquiry here, when I received a letter in which Mr. Rusden kindly referred me to his 'History of Australia' (vol. ii. pp. 44, 45). Mr. Rusden there gives a summary of the story, in agreement with that taken from the Sydney newspaper. He has 'corrected current rumours by comparison with the words of a trustworthy informant, a medical man, who lived long in the neighbourhood, and attended Farley [the man who saw Fisher's ghost] on his death-bed. He often conversed with Farley on the subject of the vision which scared him. . . . These facts are compiled from the notes of Chief-Justice Forbes, who presided at the trial, with the exception of the references to the apparition, which, although it led to the discovery of Fisher's body, could not be alluded to in a court of justice, or be adduced as evidence.'* There is no justice for ghosts.
*Thanks to the kindness of the Countess of Jersey, and the obliging researches of the Chief Justice of New South Wales, I have received a transcript of the judge's notes. They are correctly analysed by Mr. Rusden.
An Australian correspondent adds another example. Long after Fisher's case, this gentleman was himself present at a trial in Maitland, New South Wales. A servant-girl had dreamed that a missing man told her who had killed him, and where his body was concealed. She, being terrified, wanted to leave the house, but her mistress made her impart the story to the chief constable, a man known to my informant, who also knew, and names, the judge who tried the case. The constable excavated at the spot pointed out in the dream, unearthed the body, and arrested the criminal, who was found guilty, confessed, and was hanged. Not a word was allowed to be said in court about the dream. All the chief constable was permitted to say was, that 'from information received' he went to Hayes's farm, and so forth.
Here, then, are two parallels to Fisher's ghost, and very hard on psychical science it is that ghostly evidence should be deliberately burked through the prejudices of lawyers. Mr. Suttar, in his 'Australian Stories Retold' (Bathurst, 1887), remarks that the ghost is not a late mythical accretion in Fisher's story. 'I have the authority of a gentleman who was intimately connected with the gentleman who had the charge of the police when the murder was done, that Farley's story did suggest the