"_To the Editor of the Norfolk Chronicle._
"SIR,--My name having lately appeared in the _Bury Post_, as well as in your own journal, without my consent or knowledge, I doubt not you will allow me the opportunity of occupying some portion of your paper, in way of explanation.
"It is most true that, at the request of the Rev. Mr. Stewart, I was at the Parsonage at Syderstone, on the night of the 15th ult., for the purpose of investigating the cause of the several interruptions to which Mr. Stewart and his family have been subject for the last three or four months. I feel it right, therefore, to correct some of the erroneous impressions which the paragraph in question is calculated to make upon the public mind, and at the same time to state fairly the leading circumstances which transpired that night.
"At ten minutes before two in the morning, '_knocks_' were distinctly heard; they continued at intervals, until after sunrise--sometimes proceeding from the bed's-head, sometimes from the side-boards of the children's bed, sometimes from a three-inch partition, separating the children's sleeping-rooms; both sides of which partition were open to observation. On two or three occasions, also, when a definite number of blows was requested to be given, the precise number required was distinctly heard. _How_ these blows were occasioned was the subject of diligent search: every object was before us, but nothing satisfactorily to account for them; no trace of any human hand, or of mechanical power, was to be discovered. Still, I would remark, though perfectly distinct, these knocks were by no means so powerful as your paragraph represents--indeed, instead of '_being even louder, and of longer continuance that night_, as if to give _the visitors a grand treat_,' it would seem they were neither _so_ loud nor _so_ frequent as they commonly had been. In several instances they were particularly gentle, and the pauses between them afforded all who were present the opportunity of exercising the most calm judgment and deliberate investigation.
"I would next notice the '_vibrations_' on the side-board and post of the children's beds. These were distinctly felt by myself as well as others, not only once, but frequently. They were obviously the effect of different blows, given in some way or other, upon the different parts of the beds, in several instances while those parts were actually under our hands. It is not true that '_the effect on all present was like a shock of electricity_,' but that these '_vibrations_' did take place, and that too in beds, perfectly disjointed from every wall, was obvious to our senses; though in what way they were occasioned could not be developed.