THE EXPLANATION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2136, 11 December 1890, Page 4

THE EXPLANATION.

The Press ef Tuesday says :—We I yesterday gave particulars of what purported to be a remarkable dream by Mr Mathews Fidler, a merchant of Gothenburg, Sweeden. On the face of it it seemed to be, to say the least of it, a very strange coincidence, but we suggested that probably some explanation of the affair would be forthcoming It has come even sooner than we expected. A resident in this city has produced, for our inspection, a copy of the Weekly Scotsman, of the 20th September, 1890, in the obituary column of which appears the following notice;— “ Died at Christchurch, New Zealand, on the 13th instant, CeokGe Dvtnca.N LgckHAET, Esq., sixth son of the late Robert Lockhart, Esq., of Caallehi'.l, Lanarkshire, [By ta'egram.] It usually takes about five days, we are informed, for a mail to reach Sweden from Scotland. Mr Fidler’s dream did not take place till the 30th September, and his letter left Sweden for New Zealand on October 18th. It will be seen that all the salient points in Mr Fidler’s singular vision are contained in the Scotsman’s obituary notice. There is the name of deceased given in full, the place where he died, the date of his death, and Castlehill is also mentioned. The age of the deceased is not mentioned, and here Mr Fidler was hopelessly at sea. It is of course still difficult to believe that a presumably respectable butter exporter in Gothenburg, with an agency in London, should go to the trouble of inventing a fictitious dream, and send out the particulars to New,

Zealand, with the view of playing a very poor practical joke of exceedingly questionable taste on the residents of this city. It is of course possible that Mr Ticller saw the announcement in the paper, unconsciously absorbing the name into his memory, so to speak, and afterwards dreamed his dream and forgot all about haying seen in the jpaper the names which afterwards figured so mysteriously in his vision. Or it is possible that somebody else has deliberately attempted to perpetrate a hoax in Mr Fidler’s name, using his printed, notepapor for the purpose. The discovery of the fact, .however, that the news of the death was cabled Home deprives the story of the “vision” of any remarkable features which it might otherwise have possessed.