FACT AND FICTION.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1520, 19 February 1886, Page 3

FACT AND FICTION.

It is a very trite saying that truth is stranger than fiction—so trile, indeed, that one feels ashamed to come over it again. But a truth, be it ever so venerable, is none the worse of forcible illustration, and here are two stories which illustrate the ancient saying in rather a suggestive way The one tale is fable, the other is fact. We will take the fable first There was once a sailor lad who returned home to his grandmother atter a cruise in the Red Sea. " And what did you see that wafti cu'ious, Jack 1" asked the old woman. " Well, granny, there were flying fl*h ; they came right; out of the water, and flew on the deck, and we picked them up on it" The grandmother laughed and shook her head. " What, else, Jack V " Why, I wish you could see the sea at night in parts, granny. Where the ship ploughs up the water it and you can see her track a long wav, like a regular road of fire." " Ha, ha ! go it, Jack. What else?" J.ck's budget at la&t being exhausted tor the moment, he took refuge in fiction. " Well, when we were in the Red Sea, vou know, we hauled up the anchor, and we found a carnage-wheel on one of the flukes. A queer old wheel it was And the chaplain, he looked at it, and found the maker's name, which was that of Pharaoh's coachbuilder. So he said there was no doubt it belonged to his army, when he followed the Israelites after they had gone out of Egypt" " Ah, now you are talking sense !" cried the old woman. "We know that Pharaoh's host was drowned in the Red Sea, and that they bad many chariot*. It is like enough you should fish one of the wheels up. But to try to stuff your poor old granny that tlsh can fly, and water take fire 1 For shame, you limb ! The true story puts the matter in another light. In " Gulliver's Travels " it is related that two astronomers on on the Island of Laputa, gifted with remarkable vision and possessing good telt scopes, discovered two satellites of the planet Mars, and one of these, it was announced, revolved round the planet in ten hours. Swift, of course, meant this to be preposterous, and it did seem preposterous that a statellite should revohe twice round its primary in the time occupied by one revolution of the latter on its axis. There was not a single analogous case in the solar system. But wher. in 1877 a telescope of unparalleled power was turned upon the planet, then in exceptionally favourable circumstances for observation) lo I there were two satellites in attendance upon bim, and one of them actually made its revolution in about 7j hours! And thus Swift's satirical '* discovery," which he thought to be wild and extravagant beyond the possibility of truth, was actually exceeded in strangenras by the fact, and perhaps the old woman was in her day and generation to believe fiction before fact Had Swift oniy believed what he invented, he would have been accredited prophet