No less a man than Samuel Johnson believed in ghosts—believed in them implicitly, some of his biographers relate. Many eminent men believe in them. Few of them pretend to explain why they believe in them. They just do it, that’s all.
    About six years ago there was studying at a noted eastern medical university an extremely bright and promising young fellow from Tennessee. He was distinguished among his fellows for his absolute fearlessness. Many a ghastly joke have they put up on him to shake him from his pinnacle of courage, but he remained undaunted. They resolved to give him a mighty test. They dared him to sit alone through the night in the dissecting room in the presence of a corpse. He accepted the challenge.
    The dissecting room was a long, narrow chamber with a door at each end, with several suggestive tables in the middle and ranging shelves of surgical instruments on the walls.
    Into this room was brought the body of a man who had committed suicide a couple of days before. The body was laid on a slab at one end of the room. At the other end was a table, with a student’s lamp in the center and covered with books. Two loaded revolvers were laid on the table side by side. The student had placed them there as a precautionary measure. But the men who were testing his nerve took the bullets out of the revolvers and replaced them with blank cartridges. Early in the evening the student entered the room, examined the corpse, lit his lamp and sat down at his table and began to read. He became deeply absorbed in what he was reading and was oblivious to his surroundings. His fellows, who were watching him through a crack in the door at the other end of the room, took advantage of his absorption and one of them, clad in a long white robe, quietly entered the room and took the corpse from the slab and placed it underneath a table. He then lay down on the slab in the place of the corpse. The student, intensely interested in his book heard nothing and did not lookup.
    He read on for another half hour, when he heard a slight noise. He looked up and he turned white as he noticed one arm of the corpse slowly moving. He was totally unsuspicious of any trick. The supposed corpse slowly sat bolt upright. After a moment it rose to its feet and stood perfectly still. The fellows, who were watching through the farther door, noticed that the student was deathly pale and seemed dazed. But he did not lose his nerve. He jumped up, seized a revolver in either hand and faced the supposed corpse. The corpse took a long step towards him, then slowly advanced. The student commanded it to stop. No response, but the corpse kept advancing. Again the student, evidently crazed at the sight, commanded it to halt. No attention was paid to his demand, and the corpse was gradually nearing him.
    The youth, who was enacting the part of the corpse, raised his hand, pretended to catch the bullet (he had a hand full of them), and threw it back at the student. Again the latter fired, and again and again, until he had discharged the twelve cartridges. After each shot the bullet was tossed back at him. The pistols fell out of the student’s hands and he dropped dead.

From— The Salt Lake Herald. (Salt Lake City [Utah). 30 March 1889. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.