[ London Times ]
This newspaper, most correctly known simply as The Times, began publication in 1785 and continues to this day.
The edition of November 27, 1860, carried a legal notice about a stow-away ship's steward — and a Newfoundland who apparently couldn't distinguish between a ghost and a human.
The case involves a ship's steward who filed suit against the ship's captain for unpaid wages. It certainly was true the steward was not paid for his entire time on board ship — but for a very good reason: the steward, whom the captain claimed was "slovenly, dirty, and negligent," suddenly disappeared from the ship during a storm off the Cape of Good Hope. A search of the ship turned up nothing, so it was assumed the steward fell overboard and was drowned. But that wasn't the end of the story, or the steward:
Eighteen days after this [the steward's disappearance] the second mate, who was in the cabin, stumbled over a man's feet in the dark, and upon obtaining a light discovered the steward under the table. The mate called out to the man at the held, saying "Bill, here's the dead steward!" Bill came to look, and was so terrified that he rushed back, and though one of the strongest men on the ship he went into a fit, and was ill for four days afterward. He thought that he had seen the steward's ghost. A Newfoundland dog, which came down at the same time with Bill, was struck with terror, ran back howling, and jumped overboard and was drowned.
But it was no ghost, just the very-much-alive steward who, having taken advantage of the storm to fake his death and thus avoid work, had been hiding out in the ship's bread locker, slipping out at night to procure food.
Perhaps needless to say, the steward's claim for unpaid wages was dismissed.