PRODIGIOUS FEATS OF MEMORY

Taranaki Daily News, 15 July 1935, Page 12

PRODIGIOUS FEATS OF MEMORY

NEW ZEALAND SOLDIER WHO REMEMBERED Unless there is something unusually difficult in memoring figures quickly, the young Serb of Belgrade who claims to have set up a world’s record by committing to memory in 10 minutes a number containing more than 80 figures does not seem to have done anything remarkable. He would, at any rate, have had a formidable rival in James Milnes Gaskell, a cousin of Lord Houghton (Monckton Milnes), who once repeated the tellers in every House of Commons division for the preceding 60 years and suggested an “amusing game” which consisted in each player giving the name of a Parliamentary borough and the persons who had represented it during the same 60 years. Gaskell said that he and his father once played at that game nearly a whole day without stopping. What prodigies of useless knowledge they must have been! Another remarkable feat of memory is recorded of a soldier who served in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force during the war. He claimed that he could remember the name and number of every soldier in his battalion, and his claim was unexpectedly put to a test whdn the battalion headquarters were blown up and all the records were destroyed. But the soldier, who is now a professor at Edinburgh University, was as good as his word and supplied the missing details.