SOME STRANGE COINCIDENCES

Temuka Leader, Issue 2234, 30 July 1891, Page 2

SOME STRANGE COINCIDENCES

The Leeds Mercury recounts the following remarkable coincidences :—ln the year 1664, on the sth day of December, the English ship Menai was crossing the Straits and capsized in a gale. Of the 81 passengers on board but one was saved. His name was Hugh Williams. On the same day, in the year 1786, a pleasure schooner was wrecked on the Isle of Man. There were sixty persons on the boat, among them one Hugh Williams and his family. Of the three score none but old Hugh Williams survived the shock. On the sth day of August; 1820, a picnicking paity on the Thames was run down by a coal barge. There were 25 of the picnickers, mostly children under 12 years of age, Little Hugh Williams, a "visitor from' Liverpool, only 5 years old, w«T)S the only one that returned to tell the tale. Now comes the most singular part of the singular story; On the 19th of August, in the year of our Lord 1889, a Leeds coal barge, with nine men, foundered. Two of them, both named Hugh Williams, an uncle and nephew, were rescued by some fishermen, and were the only men of the crew who lived to tell of the calamity. These are facts which can be substantiated.