Ethics of a Ghost (Detroit)

Detroit Free Press, June 17, 1888

I'm not sure where the ethics part of this story comes into play but I'm guessing that it's in the regiment of this apparition or some colloquialism from the 1880s that I'm not aware of.

The gigantic woman, in proportion to the skies themselves, was an apparition that appeared in the latter part of spring 1888 in Detroit near Woodward and Warren avenues. She was said to pace the flat roof of a certain house at the bookends of each day.

Some say she was a nurse begging mercy with her confounding gesticulations and arms held out in supplication. While others thought the amazon a presentiment for the outbreak of a dread disease as she appeared shortly before a scarlet fever card was placed on the door by health officials.

It turned out that she was merely a quarantined nurse getting in her morning and evening calisthenics before and after tending to a scarlet fever patient. The ghost, fever and red card on the door dissipated just as abruptly as the hysteria had struck the neighborhood.