Maryland independent. [volume] (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1874-current, 1886-10-15
GREAT MEMORIES.
Phenomenal Powers DeVel-
oped by Some Men.
Ordinary Abilities joined to Extraordinary
Strength Of Recollection.

Strength oil k9c0llectl0n'
If call great people have great memo
RIGS" as Sir Arthur Helps declares in his
de ightful book entitled "Social Pres
sure, it by no means follows that all
those who are possessed of great memo
rics arc great people" Many an in
stance might be cited to show that men
Of very moderate intellectual capacity
may be endowed with power Of memo
ry which is truly prodigious. In adj
dition to this, there arc plenty of we'll
authenticated examples Of the extraordi-
nary power of memory displayed even by
idiots. In the Memoirs of Mrs. Somer-
vile there is a curious account of most
extraordinary verbal memory. "There
was an idiot in Edinburg," she tells US,
'of arespectable family who had re-
markab.e memory. He never failed to
go to the kirk Sunday, and on returning
home would repeat the sermon, seying,
"Herc the minister coughed here he
stopped to blow his nose" During the
tour we made in the Iighands,n
she adds, "we met with an
other idiot who knew the
Bible so perfectly that if you asked him
where such verse was to be found he
could tell without hesitation and repeat
the chapter" These examples are suf-
fciently remarkable; but what shall be
said Of the case cited by Archdeacon
Fearon in his valuable pamphlet on
Mental Vigor ~ "There was In my
fathers parish" says the Archdeacon,
"a man who could remember the day
when every person had been buried in
the parish for thirty-fvc years, and could
repeat with unvarying accuracy the name
and age Of the deceased, with the MOURN
ers at the funeral. But he was com
plete fool. Out of the line of burials, he
had but one idea, aud could not give an
ineligible reply to single question,
nor be trusted to feed himself.n
These phenomenal instances may be
matched by the Sussex farm laborer
George Watson, as We find recorded in
Homes Table Book" Watson could
neither read nor write, yet he was wont
to perfor wondrous feats of mental cal.
culation, and his memory for events
seemed to be almost fautless sBut the
most extraordinary circumstance ssys
Hone, SIS the power he I,,,ssesss,. =. s :,
collecting the events of every day from
an early period of his life. Upon being
asked what day Of the week a given
| day of the month occurred he immedi-
ately names it, and also mentions where
he was and what was the state of the
weather A gentleman who had kept a
dairy put many questions to him, and his
answers were invariably correct"
OF similar kind is the memory for
which Daniel Mccartney has become
famous in the United States. The
strange story of this mans achievements
is told by Mr. Henkle in the Journal Of
Specutatice Philosophy. Mccartney, in
1869, declared that he could remember
the day of the week for aLy date from
January, 1S27-that is, from the time
when he was years and months old
! AZ 12 years. He has often been tested,
and, so far as Mr.. Henkle's account goes,
had not failed to tell his questoner what
day it was, and to give some informa-
tion about the weather, and about his
| own whereabouts and doings on any one
of the 10, 600 or more dates that might
be named. When Mr.. Henkle first met
this man or marvellous memory he was
employed in the office of the Hon. T. X
Burkenbrod, editor of the Salem Repub-
lican, where nothing better could be
found for Mccartney to do than 'turn
the wheel of the printing press two days
of each week." On the first formal ex-
animation this man underwent, his an
swers were tested by reference to the file
of newspaper which gave the day of
the week along with the date In one
case his statement was disputed, for the
day he named was not the same as that /
given by the paper; but on further in
quiry it was found that the newspaper
was wrong, for the printer had made
mistake. Shorthand notes of the
conversation were taken at subsequent |
interviews The report of these is very |
curious reading. Take the following as
a sample. "Question-Oct. s, 1S2oF /
Answer Gn two seconds)-Wednesday.
1t was cloudy and drizzled rain; | car
ried dinner to my father where he was
getting out coal. Question-Feb. q,
1922 AnswerGn two seconds Saturday.
1t was cloudy In the morning and clear
in the afternoon; there was a little snow
on the ground. An unc.e who lived
near sold horse beast that day for S35.
And so the conversation ran on for hours
ranging over forty years of Mccartney
personal history. DR., Henkle tells US
that if he went over some of the dates
again after few days interval, the an
swers, although given in different terms,
were essentially the same, showing dis
/ tinctively that he remembered the facts
and not the words previously used. Nc
Cartney's memory is not confined to
dates and events; he is rare calculator
can give the cube root of such numbers
as SO, 319; or 571, 7S7, etc, can repeat
some $50 hymns, and start 200 tunes has
a slngulary extensive and accurate
knowledge of geography, and never for'
gets the name of person he has once
seen or read of. With all this singular