46 CHELTENHAM COLLEGE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
_ inherited from the time when our forefathers were savages. 
But it sometimes happens that in spite of all this the ghost returns. 
Music is played to lull him to sleep. Appeals are made to his good 
feelings. He is honoured with periodical feasts, in which he is invited 
to share. The North Americans smoke pipes all over the house till 
they find his shadow, which they then eject. In Bohemia they pelt 
the ghost with sticks and stones. He is taken out of the door feet 
first, lest he should be able to see his way back. Even to-day, in 
Cheltenham, people are most careful to do this, and to sprinkle water 
after him ; for over water the ghost cannot come. You will recollect 
the same thing in the Egyptian custom. He is often blindfolded ; and 
this too is the reason his eyes are closed. By many tribes the dead 
name is never uttered; and in some of the Polynesian islands, where 
personal names are the names of ordinary things, such as palmtree, 
dog, fish, languages change completely in a few generations ; when 
Mr. Fish dies, Fish has to be called by a new name. Or you may 
nail the corpse to the coffin; so, in England, suicides used to be 
buried with a stake through them, as they are particularly restless. 
The dead man can only return by the way he went out; hence 
sometimes a hole is made in the wall and afterwards bricked up. 
Another way of barring the ghost’s return is to pass over a fire on the 
way. But the number of devices to outwit the poor ghost are so great, 
that if the whole were told, the College Library would hardly contain 
the books that should be written. ” 
You will see anyhow from this sketch, that the customs which 
_ strike you as simply odd have always some reason underlying them, if 
it could be got at. May I appeal to readers of this to bring mea note 
_of any superstitions they may come across themselves? We may thus 
save from oblivion some of the curious practices which we have 
