A STRANGE DREAM.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3886, 20 December 1928, Page 4

A STRANGE DREAM.

WHEREABOUTS OF ILLICIT j LIQUOR.

One often reads of dreams proving true as forecasts of impending events and a 3 clues to the discovery of the facts of mysterious happenings, hut one of the strangest stories told has just been related by a reputable American journal. II was that of John M’Gill, Deputy-Surveyor of the .United States Customs, who was in charge of a harbour patrol in New York. M’Gill said that he saw in his dream the fishing smack Carolina being loaded with liquor in a fog iat sea. The liquor was packed in the hold and covered with fish. Then Mr. M’Gill awoke. He hurried to his office, with the stuff of dreams still whirling in his subconscious mind, summoned a squad of nine men, and gave them the clue. The ship would be called something like South Carolina, ha told them, and the liquor was to be found hidden under tons of fish. The men did not question why, orreason, but set out immediately in a patrol boat, for, as it was revealed later, they had seen M’Gill’s dreams come true before. The patrol found the Caroline, and after seeking through what appeared to be merely a cargo of fish, found the liquor. It consisted of 2,000 bags ' of rye, each containing twelve bottles. “Yes,” said Mr. M’Gill some- , what smugly later in the day. “It’s a family trait. The M’Gill' —James M’Gill it was, who founded M’Gill University in Montreal, was a brother of my great-grandfather. The two brothers had this power. They could dream things about the sea before they happened, but never anything about the land. My father, who was a merchant, sometimes dreamed things about the land that came true, but mostly about the sea. My dreams that come true are always about the sea.' That’s the way it goes.” Mr. M’Gill spoke of his past dreams.

“There was one in Yonkers last spring,” he said. “I have a memorandum of it hero —‘just a minute —l’ll tell you the date. It was March 29, 1928. I dreamed about two weeks before that date that a schooner was being loaded with liquor on the coast of Florida. “They were hiding the liquor under a cargo of gotten laths. I waited until about the time I figured it would take the schooner to get up here, and then sent out a squad to look for her. This time I hadn’t dreamed the name, so it was harder. Off Yonkers, however, my men found a schooner loaded with a cargo of rotten laths, and under the laths they found—let me see, yes, 3,000 packages of liquor. That was a pretty good dream.” Mr. M’Gill said he was too busy to tell us about the other dream raids, some of which were good and some only fair. Mr. M’Gill is about fifty years old, and was placed in charge of the new patrol in August, 1928, during the drive directed by General Lincoln C. Andrews. This patrol consisted of only forty men, but since then, under the conscious and sub-conscious direction of Mr. M’Gill, it has been very successful in enforcement work, and now consists of 123 men.