American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1876-04-01


the French scientific Journals, mentions
twenty-four cases of lightning impress
sions on the bodies of men and animals.
Of these eight were impressions of trees
or parts of trees, one of q bird and one
of a COW, four of crosses, three of cir
cles, or of impressions of coins carried
about the person, two of horse shoes,
one of Il nail, one of metal comb, one
of number or numeral, one of the
words of sentence, and one of the
back of an arm chair.
There is no mention, so far as we are
aware, of any imprinting on the bodies
of the two hapless lovers mentioned by
Gay; but a very little exercise of the
Imagination, aided by an element of
credulity, would have sufficed to pro-
duce imaginary crosses, hearts or trees.
Those who know the story will remem
Der that Pope and Gay were visiting at
Stanton-Harcourt in 1718; that Gay de-
scribed the incident in one of his letters
and that Pope memorialized 1t in verse.
Two rustic lovers, John Hewitt and Sa-
rah Drew, abotit week before the day
fixed for the wedding, were at work
with other harvesters in the field. A
storm of thunder and lightning came on
in the afternoon, and the laborers has
tened for shelter to the trees and hedges.
Sarah Drew, frightened and dismayed,
fell in a swoon on heap of barley, and
John Hewitt raked up some more barley,
al al IL h ct
While thus engaged an intensely vivid
flash appeared; the barley was seen to
smoke, and there lay the two lovers, he
with one arm around her neck and the
other arm over her, as if to screen her
from the lightning. Both were dead;
her left eye was injured and a black
spot produced on her breast, while he
was blackened nearly all over. Pope's
epitaph on the hapless couple is engrav-
ed on stone in the parish church of
Stanton-Harcourt.
In all probability no one explanation
will apply to these several cases. The
descriptions require to be examined
closely, and they meet with the most
consistent solution by separating them
into groups. There is, in the first place,
love of the marvellous which induces
some persons to stretch the truth in or
der to make up striking story. Not
habitually untruthful, they nevertheless
yield to the temptation of so rounding
off a narrative as to cause hearers and
bystanders to make EXPLANATIONS of the
.good gracious kind. Other per-
sons, repeating what Jack told Dick
that Sam had heard Bob say to Bill, do
not reflect how much a story gathers as
it travels from mouth to mouth, until
the final version bears but slight re-
semblance to the original. In another
group of instances a physiological
agency of much Importance has to be
taken into account. Persons of nerv-
Gus and excitable temperament, when
under the influence of strong
mental agitation, have been
known to receive marks on some part
of the body or limbs corresponding in
shape to the object which they were
thinking of at the time. This is known
to have occurred in other domains of
human feeling, and there's nothing i'm
possible in the occurrence of a similar
phenomenon when the mind and the
body are alike exposed to the action of
lightning stroke. This was probably
the case in regard to French peasant
girl-one of the instances noticed by
Poey While tending COW in field a
storm came on; she took refuge under
tree. The COW fell dead from a stroke
of lightning. The girl loosened her
dress that she might breathe more free
ly, when nearly choked with agitation,
and then she saw a picture of the COW
imprinted on her breast. We give this
story the credit of being truthfully told,
and assign as the probable cause of the
phenomenon a cooperation between
lightning stroke and vivid mental or
nervous activity.