REMARKABLE COINCIDENCES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1757, 30 June 1888, Page 3

REMARKABLE COINCIDENCES.

Coincidences in names are of such frequent occurrence; as to be familiar, but some of them are surprising. Daniel Webster married Catherine Le Roy. A few months since in Buston a suit was noticed, the parties to which were Daniel Webster aud Catherine Le Roy. The First Unitarian Church of the city of Balti more was attended for more than 40 years by a gentleman recently deceased. From that pulpit he heard discourses by Drs Furness, Bellows, Sparks, Burnap, and Greenwood. Two were lettled Pastors; the others, | eminent men who appeared on various | occasions. In Guildford, Conn., till within a few years, the Second Congregational Ohurch had but three pastors in its entire history—Root, Wood, and Chipman. This society resulted from a disturbance in the First Church, and wten Mr Root was about to be installed, one of the members of the First Church, with equal bitterness and wit, suggested a text, "And I saw the wicked taking root." Not many years since the city of New York had attention drawn to the names of four great criminals whoie names contradicted their characters—Charles Peace, who had personated a clergyman, was hung for murder in England; Angel was the name of a defaulting cashier; John | Hope, one of the robbers of the Manhattan Bank; and the Bev. John Love was deposed for crime. On the day that the Hon John. P. Hale died, the schooner John. P. Hale ran ashore on a reef called Norman's Woe. When James Buchanan was President of the United States, a ship-of-war was named after his neice, the accomplished Miss Harriet Lane. The officer in command was Henry Wainwright. An accident happened to that vessel about the same time that Henry Wainwrigbt, of England, murdered a Miss Harriet Lane. The papers that announced the accident to the ship gave in another column the details of the murder. The superstitions concerning dates occasionally exhibit remarkable coincidences.. Thirty-three sovereigns have ascended the English throne since the time of William the Conqueror, every month except May witnessing the coronation of one or more; that month not one. In the lives of men extraordinary coincidences often occur on particular days of the- week. Impressive coincidences have occurred in th« words of parts performed by actors in their last appearance on the stage previous to death or attacks of fatal illness. The same iB true of clergymen whose texts for their last sermons, and frequently the very words which they uttered before being stricken with paralysis or apoplexy, have been singularly appropriate. How often resemblances of persons in no way related confuse the question of identity. Detectives frequently unravel difficult problems by their skill and sagacity, but owe their success in many instances to chance coincidences. Such happenings are of assistance to lawyers, and by them desperate cases are saved. Every lawyer of large practice has a list of anecdotes of this sort with which he delights young young "limbs of the law." As a general proposition, the law of coincidences is that when two phenomena always coincide they are either connected as " cause and effect" or are the " effect of a common cause." But if they do not always coincide, neither of these is proved. They may then be the effects of separate causes working in their respective planes. The first question is, Do the phenomena always coincide P The importance of a wide generalisation is often lost sight of, and erroneous conclusions are asserted with all the confidence of demonstration. A physician who lives near the sea says that during the past five years he has noted the hoo*.' and minute of death of 93 patients, and that every one has " gone out with the tide " save four, who died suddenly by accident. Tet about 32 years ago, a writer in the English Quarterly Review claimed to have ascertained the hour of|death in 2880 instances of all ages. ( His observations show that the maximum hour of death is from 5 to 6 a.m., when it is 40 per cent above the average; the next during the hour before midnight, when it is 25 per cent in excess. Between 9 and 10 o'clock in the morning it is 17£ per cent above, but from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. it is 16-a- per cent, below the average. From 3 to 7in the afternoon the deaths rise to 5| per cent above the average, and then fall from that hour to 11 p.m. averaging 6£ per cent below mean. It is probable that both these observations are worthless in view of the small number of instances covered. It is clear that they do not concur: • yet taken separately, each is conclusive evidence.