November 29th 1852

Dealing with demons

It concerned a schoolmaster friend of Mr Small who occasionally went to converse with and console a man who had once been in the army and was subject to fits of uttering the most shocking blasphemy. One fateful night, the schoolmaster himself “felt something press upon and envelop his head, and like a strong current of air rushing down his throat, sucking his breath down after it, and ever after, at times, he had an irresistible impulse to blaspheme.” 

From then on, the old soldier recovered and went back to work but the schoolmaster became progressively worse and as Mr Small maintained, became possessed by a demon. Mr Small used his good offices to speak to it. “After hearing it speaking out of the man for some time in the most outrageous manner, I said, ‘I am astonished that anyone should hesitate in the least about that being a devil. I am just as sure that it is a devil speaking out of the man as I am sure that the sun is now shining.’ The devil could not resist this appeal but cried out in the most ferocious manner ‘Yes! Yes! Yes! I’m a devil; I’m a devil; I’m a devil.” 

Mr Small recorded a number of lively conversations with the demon and eventually decided to publish his experiences. Unfortunately this decision resulted in the demon and his associates transferring their attentions from the schoolmaster to Mr Small himself. It was the start of a long struggle between Mr Small and the demons.

“That very night I was attacked by some of those inferior ones; and by the eye of the mind saw its diminutive shape, not so big as a rat, with wings, but grinning with rage. Their object was to prevent me falling asleep in order to intimidate me and prevent the carrying on of the Narrative.”  They tormented him with “galvanic shocks”  and subjected him to “a tremendous pressure on the whole body.”  Some men might have wilted under such an attack but Mr Small rose triumphantly to the challenge.

A few days later “a detachment of these diminutive or inferior ones, little larger than bats, had been sent from headquarters from their chief. They came down the chimney and filled the room, evidently having bodily shapes, for they made a noise fluttering as if the room had been full of birds. Some of these came close up to my mouth to see if I was asleep or not. I gave a start and a sign to let them know that I was awake when they decamped.” 

But they were soon back again and so continued most of the night. There were periods of comparative calm, but Mr Small was aware that the demons were merely biding their time and would soon attack again. Some days later while in bed “I felt the most fearful pressure upon my head, enveloping it and pressing it down to the pillow. I was conscious at once that it was an evil spirit and struggled for breath as a drowning man and in an instant I felt as if a strong current of air had rushed down my throat sucking my breath after it. I immediately rose up and said ‘You vile infernal fiend, have you got advantage over me again?’ and put my hand upon my heart and felt the greatest agitation and trembling at it being detected. I said ‘You shall not stay long there,’ at the same time giving a stroke with my hand upon the place, ‘else you shall have uneasy quarters.’ Suffice to say it was obliged to relinquish its hold and I was entirely free This made me perceive the necessity of using the precaution of always sleeping with my mouth shut and breathing through my nostrils.” 

Such enterprise and quick thinking deserved to ensure Mr Small a peaceful life but there were still troubles in store for him. His battles with the demons had given him a certain local prestige and he was approached for help regarding another gentleman, who like the schoolmaster, was apparently possessed by demons. Mr Small, always willing to help in such matters wrote at length to the patient’s superintendent. No doubt his advice was both practical and efficacious.

Unfortunately for him the demons got to know about his letter and were furious. “I was attacked by one of the most ferocious and incorrigible of all that had ever been sent to persecute and annoy me; so that for the space of three months, from the end of September to the end of December, I was never allowed to enjoy a sound sleep until the morning came in, when they lose their influence.” 

However he found that sleeping in his stockings gave much relief. “A thought at last struck me, if I could get it confined into a narrow space as I saw that it could make little impression on woollen cloth. I left my stocking loose at top to see if it would go in, and the bait took, for it went in and gave a severe shock which I knew at once to be on the bare skin. It was allowed to pass for that night, but next night I prepared three bandages and laid them on the pillow, and whenever it gave the shock I got up and tied one of them firm above my ankle, one below the knee and another above the knee. I then gave it a complete thrashing with the palm of my hand, upon the very spot where I knew it was confined and could not get shifted, crack for crack with all my might, continuing until I was quite exhausted, and then lay down a little, but whenever it found that it was caught the effects of its rage ran up my leg like the most strong and virulent poison. I got up again and gave it another severe castigation saying, ‘Take ye that, you vile infernal viper, for pouring your venom upon me.’ The pain began immediately to subside. I lay down and soon fell asleep, but by that time I felt it get through the first barrier and was up at the second one pressing in my leg to get through; and before I awaked again it had also gone through the third one, but after that I was never more troubled with it.” 

But of course there were other fiends ready to carry on the persecution and it was now that Mr Small made his final triumphant discovery. “This gave me the hint to try and exclude them altogether. I had previously stopped up the chimney to keep them from coming down, which they often did, making a noise……I then rolled a slip of paper and stopped up the keyhole, waiting the result; but behold next morning the paper was pierced through as if it had been pierced by a small leaden bullet. This inspired me with a glow of hope, saying to myself ‘I have you now’ I next knocked in a piece of wood the exact shape of the keyhole, and for further security nailed a thin straight slip of wood for the foot of the door closing on, and after that was entirely free of annoyance for more than eight days and then was again attacked. I could think of no way of entrance but by the bell-wire hole. I next took a piece of wood exactly the size of the wire hole making a narrow groove in it for the bell-wire moving in; and fixed it in, and then slept as safe as in a garrison for a great length of time and was allowed to finish my Narrative as I pleased.” 

The fiends made one last attempt to continue their persecution by the simple expedient of entering the bedroom with Mr Small. “This I soon found out and as soon put an end to it by undressing in another room and dashing them away with a cloth; as by their invisibility as spirits they have the advantage of us but they are easily frightened and driven away; and then I retreated backwards waving the towel to keep them off from clinging to me before I got to my room; and when they perceived that I was up to all their stratagems, they gave me up entirely and I have been in a manner entirely free, both from the night-mare and every other species of annoyance, for more than these sixteen years past.”  Presumably his bedroom was a little stuffy at times, but that was a small price to pay for continual freedom from these nocturnal visitors.

Mr Small considered that his discovery was of sufficient importance to offer it to the nation for a small ‘premium’ which he intended to devote to church purposes. He wrote to Sir Robert Peel, who “in his usual cautious, though polite manner, rather declined it.” 

Later he wrote to the Melbourne cabinet, “as they pretend to have more liberal and patriotic view of things, as friends of the people,”  Alas, to their everlasting shame they never even acknowledged his letter. Having, as so many people before and since, been disappointed by government, Mr Small generously made over his discovery “for the benefits of the human race at large, though I should never receive a shilling for it.” 

For all his exhausting battle with the Devil and his minions, and his unconventional methods of sleeping, Mr Small lived to the ripe old age of 86, dying in 1852.