The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1886-10-07
GREAT MEMORIES.
Phenomenal Powers Devel-
oped by Some Men.
Ordinary Abilities joined to Extraordinary
Strength Of Recollection.

Ordinary Abilities Joined to Extraordinary
Strength Of Recollection.
If "all great people have great memo
ries," as Sir Arthur Helps declares in his
delightful book entitled "Social Pres
sure" it by no means follows that all
those who are possessed of great memo
ries are "great people," Many an in
stance might be cited to show that men
of very moderate intellectual capacity /
may bo endowed with power of memo
ry which is truly prodigious. In ad-
dition to this, there are 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 curious account of a most
extraordinary verbal memory. "There
was an idiot in Edinburg," she tells us,
"of arespectable family who had re-
markable memory. He never failed to
go to the kirk Sunday, and on returning
home would repeat the sermon, saying,
''Here the minister coughed here he
stopped to blow his nose" 'During the
tour we made in the Highlands,"
she adds, 1--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-
ficiently remarkable; but what shall be
said of the case cited by Archdeacon
Fearon in his valuable pamphlet on
"Mental Vigor 2" "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 five 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, and could not give an
ineligible reply to single question,
nor be trusted to feed himself"
These phenomenal instances may be
matched by the Sussex farm-laborer
George Watson, as we find recorded in
''Hone's 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 faultless. ''But the
most extraordinary circumstance, says
Hone, 'fs the power he possesses of re-
collecting the events of every day from
an early period of his life. Upon being
asked what day of the week 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.. Henklc in the Journal Of
Speculative Philosophy. Mccartney, in
1869, declared that he could remember
the day of the week for any date from
January, 1s27--that is, from the time
when he was years and months old
AZ 1-2 years. He has often been tested,
and, so far as Mr.. Henkle's account goes,
had not failed to tell his questioner 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 Is, 900 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 'turr
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 filt
of newspaper which gave the day o.
the week along with the date. In ont
case his statement was disputed, for thu
day he named was not the same as thai
given by the paper; but on further in
quiry it was found that the newspape
was wrong, for the printer had made
mistake. Shorthand notes of tn,
conversation were taken at subscquen
interviews. The report of these is yer.
curious reading. Take the following a
a sample. "Question-Oct. s, 1928
Answer Gn two seconds)--Wednesday
1t was cloudy and drizzled rain; I car
ried dinner to my father where he wa
getting out coal. Question-Feb. 81
1892 AnswerGn two secondO Saturday
1t was cloudy IN the morning and clea
in the afternoon; there was little snoy
on the ground. An uncle who live
near sold horse-beast that day for $35.
And so the conversation ran on for hour
ranging over forty years of Mccartney
personal history. DIR. Henklc tells u
that if he went over some of the date
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 t
/ dates and events; he is a rare calculator
: can give the cube root of such numbei
as SO, 319; or 571, 7s7, etc., can repea
some $50 hymns, and start 200 tunes; hs
singulary extensive and accurat
: knowledge of geography, and never fol
o,nts the pama of n pnrsnn he has onc