WHEN DAME NATURE STEALS IDEAS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2410, 10 May 1900, Page 59

WHEN DAME NATURE STEALS IDEAS.

SURPRISING PLAGIARISMS IN REAL

Plagiarism in literature is loudly condemned, but nobody tlrnks of condemning the plagiarism of Mature. Yet Nature frequently steak the Ideas oi men, and the plans and schemes of novelists are continually being developed in leal life. _ t Perhaps the most remarkable instance of Nature borrowing an idea was one which occurred two years ago m Lancashire, Avhen Dame Nature took a hint from certain" colliery proprietors as to the best means of putting out a fire. The fire broke out between 30 and 40 years £>go in the coal pits of Skelmersdale, near Liverpool, and aiter it had "oeen raging some time, the owners of the colliery conceived the idea of diverting the river Tawd so as to run the water down the shaft.

The idea was duly carried out, and the fire ceased. But almost immediately afterwards the flames burst out again with tenfold intensit};. The mine had been so weakened by fire and water that it would not uear another flooding, and as it was impossible to extinguish it, huge walls were built around it to keep it within bounds. So fiercely did the fire rage, however, that the walls cracked with the heat, and men were engaged daily to repair them and keep them cool. So the fire burned for 60 years, defying all the skill of man. Then a strange thing happened. The Tawd, which 30 years before was artificially turned into the pits, now burst "its banks and flooded the burning mine, and since then tha Skelmersdale pits have been worse than worthless. The inrush of the Tawd cost tLe owners £100,000, but it did its work by putting out the fire.

Another remarkable example, not altogether dissimilar, occurred only a few months ago in Staffordshire. The inhabitants of Crawley Heath petitioned the Rowley District Council to compel a manufacturer of varnsh to abate a nuisance, it being contended that his works emitted an obnoxious effluvium, which made it impossible to " live in the locality. Before the council could decide the matter, however, Dame Nature stepped" in and relieved the local authorities of their responsibility by burning down the factory. It is hard to be killed, even in a book, but it is harder still when Nature steals the novelist's plan of disposing of his character. This has lately happened in France. Those who have read Pierre Loti's book, "Pecheur d'lslande," written in 18bb, will remember that the famous author makes his hero, Yann, die by drowning. Yaun, who was a real person, and whose right name was GkriHaume Fleury, never forgave Pierre Loti, and frequently remarked, " That will bring me bad luck."' Noi long ago Yann died by drowning in the north of France, near his native place !

Nature has made good use of Tennyson's idea in " ICiiocli Arden, ' winch has, been verified in real life over and over again. A comparatively recent instance occurred a year or two ago in the Midlands, when a man came home after being absent 12 years through shipwreck, and found that his wife, having regarded Usm.as dead, had taken unto herself another husband. The man went away without making trouble, and the ease iame to light through the

Board of (Juardicns

Many readers v ill remember a remarkable incident mentioned in Mr Hall Caine's novel, " The (Scapegoat." written eight years ago. The author makes the heroine, a girl who is glind, deal, and dumb, the subject of a recovery absolutely unknown to medical science, restoring her lo&t senses. The story wa* ridiculed in certain quarters on this account. ]S T ot many months afterward?, however, a remarkable plagiari&m of fact came to light in Cumberland, where a deaf and dumb girl had her senses, restored h> precisely the same way as Mr Hull Caine's heroine.

Mr Gladstone once called attention to an Irish story, " Kilgroom, ' by Mr J. A. Steuarl, of which a similar story of the plagiari&m of fact is told. The author imagined ,an incident which had never occurred in the whole course of the Irish troubles — the arrest of a priest iv the pulpit ; and tLe bock was nardly out of the press when an arrest of this kind was made. Such conceptions of story-writers as a man with two heads, an infant being carried oft by an eagle, a man corning to life after being hanged, have all been copied of late years, by Mature in various parts of the world ; and the amazing conception of a dead man running an engine was realised on the Chicago and Alton railv/ay in 1898, where an engine driver named House was discovered dead at his post, his hand on the whistle communicator, and his eyes fixed straight ahead on the track,

along which his train Avas Cjlng at 50 miles an hour !