Psychic and scientific investigation of the realms lying "beyond the veil" has been popular ever since De Foe invented Mrs. Beal, but the possibilities are apparently endless. The latest wrinkle comes with the announcement that Dr. Prince, director of the American Institute for Scientific Research, has gone into the wilds of Nova Scotia to track down a ghost which, evidently considering itself an outlaw, refuses to behave according to our preconceived notions of such things. And with him the good doctor has taken an "elaborate equipment of bells, cameras, flashlights, wires and white tracking powder". Shades of Friar Bacon and the Brazen Head!

There is an air of foolishness about it all--this serious, cold-blooded hunting of a "spook", that appeals to one's sense of the ludicrous. Yet there is a certain reluctance, too, to see an old romantic supposition thus thrown overboard, and "ghaieties, and ghoulies, and things that go bump in the nicht" relegated to the sphere of the harmless. If this goes on much longer, Poe will be regarded as hopelessly mediaeval, and night-time will resolve itself into a mere prosaic absence of daylight, and we shall all be carrying our own outfits of ghost-catchers. The ghost will become as rare as the bison, and practically-minded persons will rejoice.

Perhaps it is all for the best, since the particular sprite in question has been misbehaving. But we cannot refrain from daring Dr. Prince to read James Whitcomb Riley in the midst of his bells and wires and powders some dark night.