STRUCK BY LIGHTNING.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 622, 13 January 1870, Page 4

STRUCK BY LIGHTNING.

[CHAMBERS' JOUIINAI,.] The recent death of two lovers, struck by lightning in a field, is paralleled to a remarkable degree by an event which took place a century and a-half ago, and which exercised the pens of three of our poets— -Pope, ; Gay, and Thomson. It curiously marks the difference between the two periods, that the catastrophe was treated poetically at that time ; whereas now our newspapers are " ventilating" it as a matter of science, connected with currents, fluids, positive and nogative electricity, and so forth. Briefly, the episode in George I. 's reign was as follows (it will be found somewhat more fully treated in Chambers's "Book of Days") :— On the 31st of July, 1718, John Hewit and Sarah Drew were iv a field near Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire. They were rustic lovers ;he about twenty-five years of age, and she a comely maiden a little younger, -They were betrothed, and had on that very morning obtained the consent of the parents on both sides to their marriage, which was to take place in the next following week. Pope and Gay were both guests at Stanton Harcourt at the time ; and the latter recorded the tragic incident of the day in the following words :— " Between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, tiie clouds grew black, and such a siorm of thunder and lightning ensued, that all the laborers made the best of their way to what shelter the trees and hedges afforded. Sarah was frightened, and fell down iv a swoon on a heap of barley ; John, who never separated from her, having raked together two or three heaps, the better to secure her from the storm. Immediately after was heard so loud a crash as if the heavens had split asunder. Every one was now solicitous for the safety of his neighbor, and they called to one another throughout the field. No answer being returned to those who called to the lovera, they stepto the place where they lay. They perceived the barley all in a smoke, and then Bpied the faithful pair ; John, with one arm about Sarah's neck, and the other held over her, as if to screen her from the lightning. They were struck dead, and stiffened in this tender posture. Sarah's left eye was injured, and there appeared a black spot on her breast. Her lover was blackened all over ; not the least sign of life was found in either. Attended by their melancholy companions, they were conveyed to the town, and next day were interred in Stanton Harcourt churchyard." On Sunday, September 5, 1869, Thomas Hardaker and Emma Carrick were walking in the fields near Leeds, on a. footpath leading from Stanningley to Farsley. The young man was a toy-dealer. ; an"d the young woman a weaver, employed at one of the woollen mills which so abound in that neighborhood. The couple had been Sunday-school teaohers together, were betrothed, and had arranged to be married in a month or two. On the Sunday afternoon they took tea at the house of the poor girl's father at Stanningley; then walked to Farsley, where Hardaker was staying; and were returning when the catastrophe befell them. They took a field-path, and were last seen alive in conversation in a narrow road, bounded by two walls. They retreated a little towards Farsley, on seeing that a storm was coming on, and they took partial shelter behind a garden-wall. Two iron gates or palisadings were on either side of them at no great distance ; and these metals are supposed to have had an intimate connection with the sad result, It was about nine o'clock in the evening, dark, and gloomy ; rain fell slightly, then heavily, and vivid flashes of lightning were followed by terrific peals of thunder. , The circumstances led to a supposition that the lightning, attracted by the iron of the first gate, swept onward to the second, and -caught the hapless couple. on .the.. way. No one saw the death-stroke ; but the evidence afterwards lent support to this supposition. ... At eleven o'clock on that night a clothweaver, passing that way, almost trod on the bodies of the two young people, who. were lying across the footpath near one of the gates. Ho touched them with his umbrella^ and bade them get up, thinking they were iutoxicatod ; but as they were senseless and motionless, he hastened for a lantern. It was then found that the poor young people were really dead. Emma Carrick was lying flat on her face, Thomas Hardaker on his back ; her dress was but little touched, but his right boot was split or ripped up. The only actual mark of lightning on the bodies was to be seen on the faces, which were scarred and burned about the forehead and nose. Bosides the ripping up of the young man's boot, small holes were burned in his shirt and his purse. Gold, silver, and copper, in the purse and the pocket, were partially melted; and two. shilling-pieces : were fused together. So little was the discoloration of the faces, that when the lovers were laid out side by side, they seemed to be tranquilly asleep. No poet was Ifcear to write monody or epitaph ; but the sad event made a deep impression on the neighbors, by whom the young couple were 'well known and respected. There is something very mysterious in these attacks of lightning, on the human body. We know in a sort of rough, general way that metals and other substances differ greatly in their power of conducting electricity ; but science must advance beyond its present stage before we can lay down infallible rules for. guidance. Some persons have supposed that lightning does not penetrate far beneath the surface of the ground.; but in 1843 three men were struck with a flash at the bottom of a mine six hundred feet deep — the lightning having passed down achain in, the shaft. Others, again, believe that safety is to.be founl in bed. It certainly is so generally, but by no meaus universally. In 1828, lightning attacked a cottage near Chichester, destroyed with a crash the wooden part of a bedstead, 'threw the bed-clothea on the ground, and with it the mattrass and a person who was sleeping on it— fortunately without further mischief. Again, in the same year, near Doncnßter, a flash of lightning tore the coverlet from a bed, but.wjLthou doing any injury to its occupant. Again, in 1772, Mr Hearthley, of Harwgate, was killed by lightning while asleep in his bed ; his wife, lying by his side, was not even awakened by the shock. A Roman •Catholic Church was once struck by HghjLning during the celebration iff mass ; two (if the three officiating priests were struck dead, while the thirdTemained unt mched. Sometimes trees are sought, ■-Wnetimes shunned, for shelter during

thunder-storms, according to the prevalence of certain opinions. Some years ago, a theory wjis broached to the effect that lightning often strikes the elm, chesnut, oak, pine, and sometimes the ash, but not the beech, birch, or maple ; then there was an assertion that, when the oak and the pine grow near together, the latter escapes whilo the former is attacked. Generally speaking, however, the opinion prevails pretty strongly, that the further distant we are from trees during a thunder-storm the better. The supposed protective power of glass, too, is not always reliable. In 1780, two persons were killed at Eastbourne while standing inside a window during a thunder-storm ; the glass was reduced to powdor, but. the wood-work of the windows remained uninjured. Any articles of metal worn about the person are pretty certain to increase the danger from lightning. In 1819, lightning attacked the prison at Biberach, and out of 20 prisoners in one apartment, attacked only a brigand who was chained round the waist, leaving the others unscathed. In 1749, during a thunder-storm, a lady raised her arm to shut a window, the lightning flashed, and "a golden bracelet so completely disappeared that not a vestige of it could be found," without the lady herself being hurt. The complete disappearance of the bracelet is probably a bit of exaggeration. The melting, without the actual disappearance, is credible ; frn* in 1844, a lightning-flash struck a fishing-boat oft" the Shetland Islands, shivered the mast, and melted a watch in the pocket of a man sitting near the mast, without scotching his clothes or injuring him. In 1858, when a peasant- woman was killed by lightning near Anxerre in France, not a wound was found on her body, but a silver comb was melted in her hair —probably defining the spot where the death-stroke was given. Brydone relates an incident of a lady whose bonnet was reduced to ashes while she was looking out of a window at a thunder-storm: it is supposed that the wire in the bonnet attracted the electricity, It is, however, not very likely that ladies will adopt the highly scientific precaution suggested by him for such occasions : — " Every lady should wear a small chain or thread of brass wire, which she should hang, during the time of a thunder-storm, to the wires of her bonnet, by which the fulminating matter might pass to the earth, instead of traversing the head and other members."Not the least embarrassing of the questions which in reference to lightningflashes is to guess in what way the action will show itself when two or more persons are near each otljer in a line or in a curve. Will it act most'St the extremities of the line, or in the middle 1 In 1808 a light-ning-flash struck a house in a Swiss village : five children were sitting on a bench ; it killed the first and last in the row, but gave only a slight shock to the others. In 1851, at Drome in France, a lightning-flash killed a young girl in a farm-house, but left untouched a child in her arms. It is not yet known whether horses and other quadrupeds resist the effects of lightning less safely or more safely than humau beings ; for some re- . corded facts tell on the one side, some on the other. In 1785 lightning attacked a stable at Rambouillet : thirty-two horses were in a roSy ; thirty were overturned, of which two at the extreme ends of the line wore killed. In 1801 a miller near Chartres was walking between a horse aud a mule ; the two animals were struck dead, by lightning, while the man escaped with ' slight injury. In 1781, threo French gentlemen were out riding: a lightningflash killed all three of the horses, but only, one of the riders. In 1826, a boy was leading a marc on a road near Worcester; a t thunder-storm came on which killed the mare, out left the boy unhurt. In 1810, a gentleman was sitting with his dog by his side ; a lightning-flash killed the dog, but only gave a slight shock to the gentleman. In 1858, while a clergy:man near Leatherhead was riding in a fly with, two members of his family, a lightj mug-flash struck the driver from his seat, without hurting the other persons or the horses. There is almost as much doubt whether the popular view is correct, that ■ water is less attacked by lightning than land. Kaempfer, stated that the emjperora of Japan were wont to take refuge Un a grotto containing a reservoir of water . during a thunder-storm. Do the Tycoon |and the Micado, of whom we hear so much ;now a-days, -' : practise i.the same cunning : device 1 V .That . fish, are • stuuued in:, the ; ; water there is sufficient proof. In 1772, lightning attacked the river Doubs near Besancon, and the fish, which : were floated along by the stream. In 1670, r a lightning-flash fell on tlie lake of ;Zirknitz in Austria ; and." such a quantity of fish almost immediately floated ;upon the surface, that the neighboring : inhabitants collected twenty-eight wiiggoii:loads for manure."