M

EN who have studied the subject scientifically are agreed that the most remarkable thing about coincidences is that they do not occur more frequently. In the vast and complex variety of incidents that makes up the daily history of the world, it is only natural that similar happenings should often take place. It is equally natural that such parallelisms should attract an undue share of attention, and should ofttimes be magnified by the tongue of gossip or superstition till they attain the proportions of a mystery or a miracle.

An odd coincidence occurred a little way out of Boston Harbor some years ago. Two schooners came into collision, each of the vessels being a sixmaster. This does not appear to be remarkable, as schooner collisions are common, but when the fact is added that they were then the only two six-masters in the world the coincidence is worthy

of note.

In the Dundee (Scotland) Advertiser of May 2, 1884, the following paragraph appeared:

On Saturday the four-masted ship Glencairn arrived from Chittagong with a cargo of jute. She hails from Glasgow, and has made the passage in one hundred and sixteen days.

In the same paper, a few days later, appeared these words:

On Monday the four-masted ship Trafal

gar arrived from Chittagong with a cargo of jute. She hails from Glasgow, and has made the passage in one hundred and sixteen days.

A writer in Knowledge relates that the Fairy, of Lowestoft, England, on December 11, 1883, lost her small boat as she was leaving the harbor and could not recover it. She kept on her way to the fishing-grounds. Eight days later, on her return, while she was yet eighty miles from Lowestoft, she collided in the dark with something, which upon investigation proved to be the missing

fell in with and chased a suspiciousA ship, on her way to the West Indies, looking craft which had all the appearance of a slaver. During the pursuit the chase threw something overboard. She was subsequently captured and taken into Port Royal as a slaver.

In absence of the ship's papers and other proofs, the slaver was not only in a fair way to escape condemnation, but her captain was anticipating the recovery of pecuniary damages against his captor for illegal detention.

While the subject was under discussion a vessel came into port which had

followed closely in the track of the chase above described. She had caught a shark; and in its stomach was found a tin box which contained the slaver's papers. Upon the strength of this evidence the slaver was condemned.

Coincidences in figures have been strikingly numerous, Richard Wagner's association with the number thirteen beHe ing one of the most remarkable. was born in 1813; those figures added give the sum of thirteen. He composed thirteen great works, and always said that he "set his head" on his aftercareer on the 13th of the month. "Tannhäuser was completed on April 13, 1845. Paris Wagner left September 13, 1861; and he died on February 13, 1883.

A Chapter of Thirteens.

on

An

The Boston Journal of July 14, 1906, gave a thrilling "thirteen story." alarm of fire was rung in on the 13th from box thirteen at 3.13 o'clock. Its location was 193 North Street, which numbers added amount to thirteen. The damage was thirteen dollars. There were present thirteen firemen. Thirteen policemen were detailed to the fire; there were thirteen men at work in the building; the alarm was pulled by a boy thirteen years old, whose name, Giovanni Cecci, contained thirteen letters.

A writer in Chambers's Journal vouches for the following: In 1869 a man died at Troyes, France, whose name contained only three letters and his left hand three fingers; his home was No. 3 Rue des Trois Aveugles (Street of the Three Blind Men). His death occurred at 3.33 o'clock after drinking three glasses of spirits with three friends. In his purse were found three francs and three sous, and in his pocket three small cakes. He wore three coats and three pairs of trousers.

An amusing coincidence, to the bystanders, occurred when Frederick Robertson, the famous English preacher, told Lady Charlotte Lindsay a story about Lord North. Some one inquired of his lordship, as a lady entered:

"Who is that horrid creature? "That is my wife."

"No, no; I mean that monster next her."

Fate Plays a Strange Trick.

Hutton, the historian of Derby, tells a curious story about his grandfather. He was serving under Cromwell in 1647, when one day in crossing over St. Mary's Bridge he saw a girl standing by the stream filling her pail with water. He flung a large stone toward her to frighten her with the splash, missed his aim, and hit her on the head. She fell motionless, and he ran away, fearing he had killed her. For years he was haunted by the idea that the girl's blood was on his hands. After his discharge from the army he married a Derby woman, and one day entrusted this secret to her. He was both relieved and surprised to learn that the girl had recovered, and that he had married her.

The extraordinary coincidences associated with dreams are a part of almost every one's experience. Izaak Walton, in his "Life of Sir Henry Wotton," tells the following story:

Wotton was staying in Kent, when one night he dreamed that the treasury of Oxford University was robbed by five persons. The next day he happened to be writing to his son, Henry, who was a student at Oxford, and in a postscript he mentioned the curious dream, The letter arrived the morning after a robbery actually had been committed at the university. Henry Wotton took his father's letter to the authorities, who acted on the light of the information he gave, and five men, who proved to be the robbers, were discovered, apprehended, and imprisoned.

A remarkable story is told of a tragedy in Ireland. One evening two strangers presented themselves at a wayside inn near Portlaw, and after taking refreshment continued on their tramp in the direction of Carrick-on-Suir. The incident was commonplace enough, but it led to startling developments, for in the wayfarers the landlady of the inn recognized two men of whom she had dreamed a very strange dream the night before.

In her dream she had seen one of them kill the other with a blow from behind, and stealthily bury him beneath a hedge.

So impressed was her husband when this dream was told him that he made his way to the spot indicated and there discovered the body of the buried man. The assassin was pursued and arrested, and at the ensuing assizes was sentenced to death.

Dream Prevented Murder.

The following story is, perhaps, the strangest of all. One night the Rev. Herbert Powys, a Church of England clergyman, dreamed that the daughter of one of his parishioners had gone out into the darkness to meet her lover, who at the time was waiting for her in a secluded spot and spending the time in digging a grave for her.

Jumping out of bed Mr. Powys rushed to the place indicated in his dream, and arrived just as the man hurled the girl to the ground by the side of the open grave and was about to kill her with his spade.

this individual did not reside in the place where the letter was sent (which is not a large place), and was there by chance only the day the letter reached there."

The late Richard A. Proctor, the English astronomer, related how an old woman came to Flamsteed, the first "astronomer royal," begging him to locate a bundle that she had lost. She evidently mistook him for an astrologer. Wishing to have a little fun with her, Flamsteed drew a circle, put a square in it, and gravely pointed out a ditch near her cottage, where he said she must look. To his utter astonishment, shortly afterward she came back in great delight, with the bundle in her hand, found in that very place."

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Here's What's in a Name.

Names have figured frequently in coincidences, one of the most remarkable cases being that recorded of a series of men named Hugh Williams, whose escapes from shipwreck are recorded by an English chronicler.

On December 5, 1664, according to this authority, the English ship Menia. was crossing the Straits of Dover and capsized in a gale. Of the eighty-one passengers on board, one was saved; his name was Hugh Williams.

On the same day of the same month, in 1785, a pleasure-boat was wrecked on the Isle of Man. There were sixty persons on the boat, among them one Hugh Williams and his family. Of the threescore, none but old Hugh Williams survived the shock.

On August 5, 1820, a picnicking party on the Thames was run down by a coal-barge. There were twenty-five of the picnickers, mostly children under twelve years of age. Little Hugh Williams, a visitor from Liverpool, only five years old, was the only one who was saved.

Now comes the most singular part of this singular story: On August 19, 1889, a coal-laden craft, with nine men, foundered in the North Sea. Two of the men, each of whom was 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.