CURIOUS COINCIDENCES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11401, 19 April 1899, Page 3

CURIOUS COINCIDENCES.

(Belgravia.)

Mr James Brinsley Richards, author of "Seven Years at Eton,'' tells a curious story about himself and Mr Angelo, the fencing master at Hal-row, Westminster, and other places. It is a very weird incident, and something more' than a strange coincidence, and might well claim the attention of Mr Stead or the Psychical Research Society. Let me tell the. story in Mr Richards's own words:— '

" A curious- adventure occurred to me in connection with Mr Angelo, which I will mention for tiie benefit of those who like ghost stories. In March, 1869, alighting from a train at Buckingham, I saw Mr Angelo get out of a compartment next to mine and walk across the platform in company with a couple of young fellows who were veiy gay and frolicsome. One of them gave the other a push, upon which the latter said, 'Isn't he behaving badly, Mi- Angelo?' ' '

"I intended to accost Mr Angelo, but thought I would wait until. he had parted with the_ two gentlemen, who were strangers to me. Presently they both entered a private carriage, which had come to the station for them, and'drove off,' but when I looked round ■ for Mr Angelo I saw' he had disappeared. Imagining he had entered one of the waiting rooms, I,lingered about the entrance to the station'for a quarter of an hour, but he was not to be seen. I thought this rather*trange at the time, for the Buckingham station on the arriving side had but one approach, and Mr Angelo could not have, walked away along it without being noticed by me.

"In the following week I wasfat Harrow, and lunching at the King's Head with a young relative -of mine, when the conversation fell upon, fencing, and the boy casually alluded to his fencing master as being the successor of Angelo, who was dead. 'Dead,' I exclaimed, 'how very sudden! Why, I saw him not a week ago!' ' You couldn't have seen Angelo, the fencing master,' answered the Boy, ' for he has been dead some years.' i really stared. If there had only been the evidence of my eyes as to Mr Angelo's appewanee on the platform of Buckingham station, I should, have concluded at once that my sight had deceived me, but I had distinctly heard Mr Angelo addressed by name. 'I had the plainest recollection of. having heard one of the two young men in whose company he was say. ' Isn't he behaving badly, Mr Angelo?' "On mj- return to town from Harrow, I had the fact of Mr Angelo's death some years previously amply confirmed. Here the story ends. Nothing ever came of the apparition I had witnessed. It brought mc. no portent; it had not been preceded by any thoughts about Mr Angelo, and it was followed by no circumstance which can thiow the faintest light upon it, so that, of course, I am bound to submit to the inference that I was labouring under an optical and acoustic delusion. Still, I am not. convinced of this myself in my own mind, and I liave always thought "of the incident as being one of those mysteries which are, perhaps, thrown into our Jives to make us weary of (Scoffing too readily at strange things reported by others."

A Cambridge lawyer once told me of a peculiar adventure he had in a railway train on the way to London. On getting into his carriage he saw as he supposed a man with whom he was on terms of pretty close intimacy, aud accosted him in a familiar manner. But the other rejected all his advances, denied the pleasure of his acquaintance, and took refuge in his paper. My friend, thinking it a joke, tried him again, but with no better result. On reaching town, the lawyer, utterly puzzled, and not knowing what to make of it, drove stiaight to the chambers of the man whom he thought he had seen in the train. He found him in, and heard that he had not. been far from home tluit day. The lawyer, a iiavd-bp.adptl business man of the world,

swears that the likeness was complete in every particular—the one being a. facsimile of the other. Here was a pretty plain case of a double, and I liave heard of similar instances, .though not so strikilig. What a mystery though might arise ou. of such an incident, and what misleading evidence might be tendered honestly enough in a court' of law ' in circumstances of similar mistaken identity! ,