More Cases For Psychical Research.

Auckland Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 69, 23 March 1887, Page 3

More Cases For Psychical Research.

The two following incidents related by Mr E. W. Perry in the new number of " Lippincott's Magazine" will be of interest to the " Psychical Research Society " : —

One bright summer night, nine years ago, the schooner Charles Y. Richmond w"aa working her way up through the Straits of Mackinaw againac a pleasant westerly wind. Leaving the wheels at midnight, I turned in forward, and within a mfnute after putting my head on my pillow was sleeping as aoundly as one not too tired and without a care could sleep, lulled by the gentle, monotonous lapping of the waves against the planking of her bows a few inches from my head. I realised nothing until I found myself standing, rather less than half clad, beside the weather windlass-head, and shouting to the man at tho wheel —

" Down with your helm. Hard down, now, lively !" Then to the men below, " Tumble out, men, and be alive about it, if you don't want to go down in her !" By that time the waspish old mate had come forward, and demanded, — " What the devil do you mean by giving orders on my watch ?" " I don't know, I'm sure," I replied, half asleep, and wholly bewildered by finding my=olf on deck when I should have been below. Tho man at the wheel had, of course, promptly obeyed my order, and the - Sooner was al ready paying off on the other tack Instinctively we went to start the tack of the fore-staysail, and there, within twenty feet of us, was a big black schooner in stays. Had not my unconscious order been given as it was in the very nick of time, one of the two vessels must have crashed into the other. Even though no Hveß might have been lost, great damage would have resulted from the collision. I have never been able to find a reason for my action. In the discussions that took place among the crew, it was suggested that my ears might have caught the sound of the dashing of the waves against the bows of the other schooner ; but it was agreed that the lap of the waves against the bows of the Richmond must have drowned the other sound. It wbb thought that I might have heard the creaking of a block or the whipping of a rope againßt a spar on the other vessel ; but any sound of that kind would have been heard more plainly by the men on the deck than it could be heard by anyone in the forecastle. In short no tenable hypothesis appears, unleps it may be in the supposition that some influence, which we call unnatural because we cannot define its origin nor describe its nature, impelled me to act unconsciously and at the right instant and in the right way to prevent impending disaster.

"In the spring of 18S0 I was sleeping in my room at home. Suddenly, and without cause so far as I knew, I sprang out of bed nnd hurried through the noxt room to the bay window overlooking the tracks of the Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. My wife, awakened by my hurrying through her room, asked : —

"What is the matter? Why did you get up so early ?" "I don't know," I answered ; "but I believe some accident has happened, or is about to happen." I turned from the window to drees, but before I reached my room two or three quid; whistles eo;:nded' throneh the fog. A second later we heard a dull, grinding crash of timber and the loud roar of escaping steam. The heavy morning express had run into the rear end of a long freight train standing on tho main line. Two men wore killed, and the engine and many freight nara wore wrecked. The incidents deecribed happened in the exact order mentioned, and were discussed so often and so soon after their occurrence that they were clearly fixed fa out memories.