DREAMS and PRESENTIMENT

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7749, 15 July 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

DREAMS and PRESENTIMENT

There is something positi\ely weird, uncanny, and quite inexplicable in the many instances recorded of people predicting not only the precise date of their death to take place at some distant time, but also the nature of it; and still more remarkable are the cases where a party has known the precise moment of the death of a near relative or friend, although many miles away at the time. For instance, the mother of a sailor one evening rushed out of her cottage into that of her neighbour’s, sobbing, “My boy is dead, my boy is dead!” “How do you know?” they asked. “Have you had a letter?” “No, no,” she cried, “hut f was sitting there by tho fire thinking of him, when I saw them lower him into the sea, and just then his portrait fell off the wall.” The neighbours were incredulous hut sympathetic, so they took the old lady back to her cottage and tried to comfort her. Truly enough, the portrait of the son had fallen, but that they dismissed as being unimportant. Out of pure curiosity, however, one of the neighbours took a note of the exact hour and the date. Some weeks later came the melan - choly tidings that the young man had died', and had been buried at sea. The date and the hour correspond exactly! PRESIDENT LINCOLN’S CASE. An American physician who was very sceptical of such premonitions was told by a friend one night that he was sure President Lincoln had. been murdered. In a few hours tho news was flashed into the town, arid the sceptical doctor was convince'!, but dumbfounded. The same thing is said to have occurred when President Garfield was assassinated—the wife of a New York clergyman having said some hours before the news came that she saw him wounded and dying in a railway station, some ladies standing by and watching. In the case of President Lincoln, he himself had a presentiment of the disaster, which sometimes warns tho assassin’s victim. On the afternoon of the day on which he was murdered he attended a Cabinet Council. A!I present were struck by his unusual gravity. “Gentlemen,” lie said, “something very extraordinary la about to happen, and that soon. For the third time I have dreamed the same dream. I dream that I am drifting on a great, broad, rolling river. lamin a boat, and I drift—l drift. But this is not business; let us proceed to business.” A few hours later he was dead. Twice before tho dream had conic to him, each time presaging disastrous defeat. The strange story of dream clairvoyance told in connection with Bellingham’s murder of Mr. Pcrciva! in the House of Commons is well authenticated. Eight days prior to the tragedy a Cornishnian named John Williams saw the entire assassination performed, and so impressed was he that lie wanted to journey to London then and there in order to warn the Prime Minister of his danger, but was dissuaded by his friends. THE PHOENIX PARK MURDERS. Another premonition of historical importance is that which foreshadowed the Phoenix Park murders. On May 6til, 1882, Lord Frodeiick Cavendish and Mr. Burke were stabbed to death in the Phoenix Park, Dub tin, by unknown assassins. On May fird, three days previously, an incPvidual, resident in London, who claimed to be gifted with occult powers, warned the authorities that a hideous tragedy was impending in the Irish capital. This gentleman, it was proved later on, had never been in Dublin in 111 j life, nor could lie by any possibility have any personal knowledge of any of the members of the Invincible Society. Yet he drew from memory, and handed over to a Scotland Yard detective-inspector, sketch portraits of three men whom he foresaw would be actors in the bloody drama about to be enacted. Little importance was attached to all this at the time, but when, nearly a year afterwards’ the murderers were arrested, the sketches were produced in evidence. They were found to be very fair representations indeed of the countenances of Joe Brady, the man who actually struck tho fatal blows, of Tim Kelly, bis assistant in the butchery, and of Dan Curley, another of tiic gang, all three of whom were afterwards hanged Moreover—and this-, perhaps, in the most remarkable i part of tin*, whole remarkable business—ln the vision vouchsafed to <lie medium the plotters were in a room, across tins centre of which rail a partition. This informat ion was placed ip* the hands o:’ counsel for the Crown at the trial, and on it were based certain tolling questions which utterly astounded both the witnesses and the prison ers; for it transpired that this partition had .actually existed in the room in question at the time the conspire, tors met there, although it had been removed shortly after the murders had been committed.

i! THAT CAME TRUE.

SOME DICKENS STORIES. Charles Dickens is responsible for the telling of one or two strange instances of how fate has been foretold. Perhaps at once the most grue some and the most remarkable is that which he describes in a letter to Lord Lytton. Dickens was in America, and was one night at a dinner party given by Dr. Webster, a professor of chemistry at Harvard. The talk turned upon occult things during the evening, and while the wine was going its round the host, in whimsical humour, ordered the lights to be extinguished, and a bowl of burning mineral to be brought in t to afford the company the rather weird spectacle of watching the ghastly appear ance of each other’s faces. In its ghastly light each man looked at his neighbour, and was horrified; but judge of the consternation of the guests when they espied Dr. Webster bending over the phosphorescent bowl with a rope round his neck, simulating with ghastly realism the aspect of a man going through the torutres of being hanged. It was a strange sensation, and recurred to most of those present when, within a year of this grim jest, there came the news that Dr. Webster had been found guilty of murder and had .actually been hanged. Curiously enough, it was Dickens himself, too, who nicknamed one of liis sons “Ocean Spectre”—probably from the fact that there was some childish oddity In his large, wondering eyes. Th«*lad grew up, and the name stuck to him. Nearly two years after his father died the youth bearing this unique appellation, then a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, found his last resting-place in the depths of tlie sea. MAJOR ANDRE. The death of the gallant and unfortunate Major Andre, whom Washington had to hang as a spy, was foreseen by a Mr. Cunningham. In conversation with a friend, Mr. Cun ningham spoke of the circumstances of a dream he had had the night before which affected him so much that, lie could not shake off the recollection of it. He said lie was standing in the midst of a forest that was entirely strange to him. After gazing listlessly around him for a few moments he perceived a horseman approaching him at great speed. As the latter came opposite the spot where the dreamer stood three men who seemed to be lying in ambush sprang from their place of concealment, and, seizing tho bridle of. the hoise, ordered the rider to dismount. They then carefully searched his person and led him away. The face, figure, and bearing of the horseman made so deep an impression upon Mr. Cunningham's mind tl»n.t lie awoke; but, falling asleep again presently, he dreamed that he was one of a throng of spectators near a great city, that he saw the same person he had seen seized in the wood brought out between files of soldiers, who marched him to a gallows and there hanged him. Later in tlie dt.y Mr. Cunningham was introduced to Major Andre, who was then in Britain, and was horrorstruck to discover in his person tho very man whose seizure and execution he had witnessed in his dream. Here is ail accurate anticipation of events that actually happened within twelve months of the dream. Tlie capture of Major Andre, the search of bis person for documents that convicted him for acting the part of a spy, and his public execution constitute one of the most dramatic episodes of tlie Revolutionary War of Hie United States, and is an historical fact. DURING THE PRESENT WAR. Many strange coincidences and premonitions of death have taken place since the advent of the groat wai. Probably the most remarkable of those is in connection with the battle of Loos. Tiie parents—Berwickshire farm servants—of a non-commissioned officer in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders had a wondorfully realistic dream, which, unfortunately, proved to be too true. During tne night of September 25 the lather dreamt that he saw his son charge along with Ills companions. Right up to the barbed-wire entanglements in front of the German trenches they went, and here a pause took place. The leader turned to encourage his men. and the father saw his son full quite distinctly, and marked his every feature, but only for a moment. A shell burst where lie stood, and presently not a living soul was seen. On the same morning tho lad's mother had a somewhat similar dream. Neither told the other of the dream, fearing consequent anxiety, but both related their experiences to neighbours, and when the news came of their son’s death it was then they m.ado the disclosures, for his death had taken place during the great charge on tho morning of' Sunday, 6tii September.