The Rhode Island Republican

Commitment of A Methodist Ghost TO THE TREADMILL.—The neighborhood of Winsford, near Middlewich, has, for three years, been disturbed by an apparition of rather a strange character, which in that part of the country folks call a boggart. This appeared in the shape of a naked man, generally at dusk on the roads adjacent to Winsford, sometimes three or four months intervening between the appearance so much scared the female part of the community that they dare not venture out of doors after dusk.

A few evenings since, as a female servant at a beer house was washing the floor, all the family but herself being in bed, she heard a gentle tapping at the window. She lifted up her head and, to her terror and amazement, there beheld the much dreaded boggart standing before the window. The terrified girl uttered a scream, and fell insensible on the floor. The noise awoke the master, who ran through the back door to the front of the house, where he came in contact with the apparition: but being in no way daunted, by his ghostship, he seized him. when he stated that he had merely come for a glass of ale.

The individual who had been terrifying in this disgusting and extraordinary manner turns out to be a member of the Primitive Wesleyan Chapel, in Winsford, named George Barlow. He was brought before the magistrates, who regretted that the law did not empower them to punish him further than by sending him to the tread-mill for three months.