“Another time I returned off duty at midnight, and after my comrade, a married Sergeant, had gone outside to his quarters I went to the kitchen to change my boots.  There was a good fire on, and it looked so comfortable that I remained toasting my toes on the hob, and enjoying my pipe.  The lock-up was a lean-to one-storey building off the kitchen, and was divided into two cells, one opening into the kitchen, the other into that cell.  I was smoking away quietly when I suddenly heard inside the lock-up a dull, heavy thud, just like the noise a drunken man would make by crashing down on all-fours.  I wondered who the prisoner could be, as I didn’t see anyone that night who seemed a likely candidate for free lodgings.  However as I heard no other sound I decided I would tell the guard in order that he might look after him.  As I took my candle from the table I happened to glance at the lock-up, and, to my surprise, I saw that the outer door was open.  My curiosity being roused, I looked inside, to find the inner door also open.  There was nothing in either cell, except the two empty plank-beds, and these were immovable as they were firmly fixed to the walls.  I betook myself to my bedroom much quicker than I was in the habit of doing.”

“I mentioned that this barrack was demolished owing to the construction of a new railway line.  It was the last obstacle removed, and in the meantime workmen came from all points of the compass.  One day a powerful navvy was brought into the barrack a total collapse from drink, and absolutely helpless.  After his neckwear was loosened he was carried to the lock-up and laid on the plank-bed, the guard being instructed to visit him periodically, lest he should smother.  He was scarcely half an hour there—­this was in the early evening—­when the most unmerciful screaming brought all hands to the lock-up, to find the erstwhile helpless man standing on the plank-bed, and grappling with a, to us, invisible foe.  We took him out, and he maintained that a man had tried to choke him, and was still there when we came to his relief.  The strange thing was, that he was shivering with fright, and perfectly sober, though in the ordinary course of events he would not be in that condition for at least seven or eight hours.  The story spread like wildfire through the town, but the inhabitants were not in the least surprised, and one old man told us that many strange things happened in that house long before it became a police-barrack.”

A lady, who requests that her name be suppressed, relates a strange sight seen by her sister in Galway.  The latter’s husband was stationed in that town about seventeen years ago.  One afternoon he was out, and she was lying on a sofa in the drawing-room, when suddenly from behind a screen (where there was no door) came a little old woman, with a small shawl over her head and shoulders, such as the country women used to wear.  She had a most diabolical expression on her face.  She seized the lady by the hand,