prayer was granted:  she saw him distinctly holding a yellow parchment book tied with tape.  ‘F——­, child,’ said he, ’this is the book your mother is looking for.  It is in the third drawer of the cabinet near the cross-door; tell your mother to be more careful in future about business papers.’  Incontinent he vanished, and she at once awoke her mother, in whose room she was sleeping, who was very angry and ridiculed the story, but the girl’s earnestness at length impressed her.  She got up, went to the old cabinet, and at once found the missing book in the third drawer.”

Here is another tale of an equally useful and obliging ghost.  “A gentleman, a relative of my own,” writes a lady, “often received warnings from his dead father of things that were about to happen.  Besides the farm on which he lived, he had another some miles away which adjoined a large demesne.  Once in a great storm a fir-tree was blown down in the demesne, and fell into his field.  The woodranger came to him and told him he might as well cut up the tree, and take it away.  Accordingly one day he set out for this purpose, taking with him two men and a cart.  He got into the fields by a stile, while his men went on to a gate.  As he approached a gap between two fields he saw, standing in it, his father as plainly as he ever saw him in life, and beckoning him back warningly.  Unable to understand this, he still advanced, whereupon his father looked very angry, and his gestures became imperious.  This induced him to turn away, so he sent his men home, and left the tree uncut.  He subsequently discovered that a plot had been laid by the woodranger, who coveted his farm, and who hoped to have him dispossessed by accusing him of stealing the tree.”

A clergyman in the diocese of Clogher gave a personal experience of table-turning to the present Dean of St. Patrick’s, who kindly sent the same to the writer.  He said:  “When I was a young man, I met some friends one evening, and we decided to amuse ourselves with table-turning.  The local dispensary was vacant at the time, so we said that if the table would work we should ask who would be appointed as medical officer.  As we sat round it touching it with our hands it began to knock.  We said: 

“‘Who are you?’

“The table spelt out the name of a Bishop of the Church of Ireland.  We asked, thinking that the answer was absurd, as we knew him to be alive and well: 

“‘Are you dead?’

“The table answered ‘Yes.’

“We laughed at this and asked: 

“‘Who will be appointed to the dispensary?’

“The table spelt out the name of a stranger, who was not one of the candidates, whereupon we left off, thinking that the whole thing was nonsense.

“The next morning I saw in the papers that the Bishop in question had died that afternoon about two hours before our meeting, and a few days afterwards I saw the name of the stranger as the new dispensary doctor.  I got such a shock that I determined never to have anything to do with table-turning again.”