OXFORD AND ITS MYSTERIES ON THE WEATHERING WALL

The city of Oxford is in great turmoil. A bizarre phenomenon that all the English press talks about has occurred in the university city: the cathedral of Christ Church has seen, on its walls, appear the effigy of one of its canons who has been dead for more than twenty-five years.

“Canon Liddel had lived like a saint,” claims the “Times,” perhaps he really comes forward with the intention of proving the survival of the soul.

If Canon Liddel manifests himself in this way, says Mr. Bussonne, president of the Union Spiritualiste de France, he will not prove anything. Incredulous people will always claim that the dilapidation of the walls of the old church is the only cause of the phenomenon, and then, there is, it seems, only a distant resemblance between the features of the late canon and the "spiritual" effigy appeared. To affirm his existence in the afterlife, the deceased priest would have a number of other means at his disposal. He could use the fluids of the many mediums that work in England and his communications would then be intelligible.

It is to be feared, and perhaps to be hoped, that the soul of the dead has nothing to do with what is currently upsetting scholarly circles in Oxford and that the humidity alone has pleased itself to draw on the ancient plaster of the wall, an image recalling from afar the figure of the holy man.

— But what is surprising in this affair, writes Mr. Bucher in the Scientific Magazine, of Liverpool, is that the effigy was formed exactly above a memorial plaque fixed on the walls of Christ Church, in memory of the canon.

Would the walls have become pranksters, like humans, would the Reverend show up: “in truth” or would some skilful and witty draftsman amuse himself at the expense of the learned university city of Oxford.