DREAMS and PRESENTIMENT

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 193, 21 July 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

DREAMS and PRESENTIMENT

There is something positively weird, uncanny, and quite inexplicable in 1 the many instances recorded of peo- j pie predicting net only the precise ( date of their death to take place at : some distant time, but also the na-. ture of it; and still more remarkable j are the cases where a party baa ( known the precise moment of the death of a near relative or friend, j although many miles away at the . time. i For instance, the mother of a Bailor one evening rushed out of her cottage into that of her neighbours, ! sobbing, "My boy is dead, my boy is ( dead!" j "How do you know?' they asked. ; "Have you had a letter?'" j "No, no," she cried, "but I was sitting' there by the fire thinking of him, when I saw them lower him into the sea. and just then his portrait fell off the wall." j The neighbours were incredulous but 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 unimport- f ant. Out of pure curiosity, however, j one of the neighbours took a note of j the exact hour and the date. j Some weeks later came the melan- j oholv tidings that the young man had , died", and had been buried at sea. The date'and the hour correspond exact- 1 lv! PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S CASE. ' An American physician rt'ho wa-3 very sceptical of such premonitions was told by a friend one night that I he was sure President Lincoln had been murdered. In a few hours th« news was flashed into the town and the sceptical doctor was convinced, but dumbfounded. The same thing is said to have oc- . curred when President Garfield was j 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 th& 1 assassin's victim. On the afternoon j of the day on which he was murdered ! he attended a Cabinet Council. All present were struck by his unusual 1 gravity. ' ! "Gentlemen," he said, "something very extraordinary is about to happen, and that soon. For the third time I have dreamed the same dream. ' 1 dream that I am drifting on a great, broad, rolling river. lamin a boat, j and I drift —I drift. But this is not ' business; let us proceed to business." : A few hours later he was dead. Twice before the dream had come to him, each time presaging disastrous 1 defeat. _ ; The strange story of dream clair- - { voyance told in connection with Bell- ' ingham's murder of .Mr. Pereival in the House of Commons is well authenticated. Eight days prior to the tragedy a Cornishman named John Williams saw the entire assassination performed, and so impressed was he that he wanted to journey to Lon- , don then and there in order to warn ' the Prime .Minister of his danger, but was dissuaded by his friends. i

THE PHOENIX PARK MURDERS. Another premonition of historical importance is that which foreshadowed the Phoenix Park murders. On .May 6th, ISS2, Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke were stabbed lo death in the Phoenix Park, Duo I in, by unknown assassins. On May •;Vd. three days previously, an ind : - vidual, resident in London, who daimed 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 libs life, nor could he by any possibility have any personal knowledge of any of tlie 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 l e enacted.

Little importance was attached lo all this at the but when, nearlv a year afterwards' the murdereri 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 the fatal blows, of Tim Kelly, bis assistant in tho butchery, and oi Dan Curley, another of the sang, all three of v.'ho::i were afterwards hanged. Moreover—and this, perhaps, in the most remarkable part of the whole remarkable business —In the vision vouchsafed to the medium the plotters were in a room, across thocentre of which ran a partition. This information was placed in the hands) 0:' counsel for tlie Crown at the trial, and on it were based certain telling (iiTcst'oiis which utterly astounded both the witnesses and the prison ots: for it transpired that this partition had actually existed in the room in question at tho time the eonspira tors met there, although it had been removed shortly after the murders had been committed.

THAT CAME TRIE.

SOME DICKENS bTORIES. Charles Dickens is responsible for the telling of one or two strange instances of how fate has been fore told. Perhaps at once the most grue some and the most remarkable is that wiiich he describes in a letter to Lo'"d Lytton. Dickens was in America, and was one night at a dinner party given by Dr. Webster, a professor of chemibtry 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 f to afford the company the rather weird spectacle of watching the ghastly appearance of each other's faces. _ In its ghastly light each man looked at his neighbour, and was horrified; bui 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 or his sons "Ocean Spectre"—probably from the fact that there was some childish oddity In his large, wondering eyes. The lad grew up, and the name stuck to him. Nearly two years after bis father died the youth bearing this unique appellation, the:> a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, found liis last resting-place in the depths of the 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 hefore which affected him so much that, he could not shake off the recollection of it. He said he was standing in the midst of a forest that was entirely strange "to him. After gazing listlessly around him for a few moments lie perceived a horseman approaching him at great speed. As the latter came opposite tlie spot where the dreamer stood three men who seemed to be lying in ambush sprang from their place of concealment, and. seizing the bridle of the Loise, ordered the rider to dismount. They then carefully searched his person and led him away.

i The face, figure, and bearing of the ' horseman made so deep an impression upon Mr. Cunningham's mind . that he 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 weed brought out between files of soldiers, who inarched him to a gallows and there hanged liim. I Later in the u;.y Mr. Cunningham | was introduced to Major Andre, who ; was then in Britain, and was horrorstruck to discover in his person the i very man whose seizure and execution he had witnessed in his dream. I Hero is an accurate anticipation of events that actually happened within . twelve months of the dream. The capture of Major Ar.d:e, tho search of his 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 the Revolutionary War of i I he United States, and is an historical ! fact " I)I'RING THE PRESENT WAR. . I Many strange coincidences and prei monitions of death have taken place since fhe advent of the great vvai. » Probably the most remarkable of ! these is in connection with fhe battle | of l.oos. j Tlie parents—Berwickshire farm servants—of a non-commissioned officer in tlie Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders had a wonderfully realistic dream, which, unfortunately, proved to be too true. During tne night of September 2o the father dreamt that he saw his son charge along with his companions. Right up to the barbed-wire entanglements in front of the German trendies ttiey went, and here a pause took place. The leader turned to encourage his men and the father saw his son fall quite distinctly, and marked his every feature, but only for a moment. A shell burst where he stood, and presently not a Ttving soul was seen. On the same morning the lad's mother had a somewhat similar dioi'.m. 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 made the disclosures, for bis death luul take.) place during the great charge 011 the mordug cf Sunday. 2Gth September.