Futility Closet

One dark night in 1804, a London excise officer mistook a bricklayer for a ghost and shot him. This raised a difficult question: Was he guilty of murder? In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll consider the case of the Hammersmith ghost, which has been called "one of the greatest curiosities in English criminal law." We'll also worry about British spiders and puzzle over some duplicative dog names. Intro: In 1850, an English doctor claimed to have given first aid to a pike. In 1970, Air Force pilot Gary Foust ejected from his F-106 and watched it land itself. Sources for our feature on the Hammersmith ghost: W.M. Medland and Charles Weobly, A Collection of Remarkable and Interesting Criminal Trials, Actions at Law, &c., 1804. Thomas Faulkner, The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Hammersmith, 1839. James Paterson, Curiosities of Law and Lawyers, 1899. Thomas Faulkner, An Historical and Topographical Account of Fulham: Including the Hamlet of Hammersmith, 1813. R.S. Kirby, Ki