Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1888-09-02
MARVELLOUS MEMORIES.
People Who Could Read and Then Write 1t
An Out Without Hesitation.

=
An Out Without Hesitation
Welcome.
Mr.. Stanton, the United States wal
minister during the great civil war, had q
very rstentive memory, and was especially
well up in Dickens works. One evening
in the early part of 1868 Dickens, then on
a reading tour in the States, was dining
with Charles Sumner, when Mr.. Stanton
and some others were present. The war
minister was put to the test, and when
started could repeat from memory a
chapter from any Of Dickens
books, showing much greater
knowledge Of the works than their
author could beast. Mr.. Staunton &C
counted for this intimate knowledge Of
Dickens by mentioning the habit which he
had formed during the war of invariably
reading something by the author of Pick
wick, !" before going to bed at night.
The late Bishop Prince Lee, first bishop
of Manchester, was similarly gifted. 1t is
related of him that being once at an even
ing party, started by lady with line
quoted from "Marmion," he went right on
! with the poem from memory, and could
have recited the whole As further test
the same lady quoted few words from
conversation in 'Ivanhoe," whereupon
the bishop repeated the whole chapter cor
rectly from memory.
But greater than any of these was Lord
Macaulay. From very early age the re-
tentiyeness of his memory was extraordl-
nary. When only three or four years of
age his mind mechanically retained the
form of what he read, so that as his maid
said, he talked quite printed words"
Once as child, when making an afternoon
call with his father, he picked up Scott's
LAY of the Last Minstrel for the first
time, and quietly devoured the treasure
while his seniors were engaged in CONVEX
sation. When they returned home the
boy went to his mother, who at the time
was confined to her bed, aud sitting down
at the bedside repeated what he had been
reading, by the canto, until she was tired.
Later in life his wonderful memory was
always subject of interest to his friends,
and occasionally was put to searching
tests. One day, at board meeting ut the
British Museum, Macaulay wrote down
from memory in three parallel columns on
each side of four pages of foolscap COM
plete list of the Cambridge senior wranglers,
with dates and colleges attached, for the
100 years during which record Of the
names had been kept in the University cal
endar.
'On another OCCASION" says Trevelyan,
''Sir David Dundas asked, 'Macaulay, do
you know your Popes?' NO. was the
answer, Il always get wrong among the
innocents' But can you say your arch
bishops of Canterbury Amy fool, said
Macaulay could say his archbishops of Can
terbury backward and he went off at
score drawing bresth only once in order
to remark on the oGdity of there having
been both an Archbishop Sancroft and an
Archbishop Bancroft, until Sir David
stopped him at Cranmer." Macaulay
once said that if by any possible chance
all the copies of Paradise Lost" and
"Pilgrim's Progress in existence were
destroyed, he could write both out
again complete from recollection.
When O'Connell made his motion in
1884 for the repeal of the union Mr.. Ten
nant, member of Parliament from Belfast,
delivered speech lasting for three aud a
half hours, full OF figures and calculations,
entirely from memory, in which he trusted
so completely that he sent the manuscript
of his speech to the newspapers before he
delivered it, His confidence was not mis-
placed, for the Grafton was spoken without
a single mistake, or even q momentary hes.
itation.
Another Irish M. P, Robert Dillon
Brown, member for Mayo, had the same
useful faculty. He would dictate speech
to an amanneusis, and 81 hours after
ward, without looking at 1t or thinking OF
the matter in the meantime, could repeat
it word for word.
Woodfall, the editor of the Morning
Chronicle, and brother of Junius' publish
er, was able to report accurately In the
morning the debate of the previous even
ing without taking any notes.
In SOME cases the mental action involved
| in feats of this nature would seem to he
quite mechanical and unintellieeut. 10
the newspapers of January, 1920, there
are accounts of an extraordinary man, who
was known as "MemOry-corner Thomp-
SON" The man, although he could hard
| ly remember any thing he heard, could yet
| retain perfectly the names and descriptions
of large collections of objects that met his
eve. He could take an inventory Of the
contents OF q house from cellar to attic
merely by surveying them, and could after
ward write it ont from memory. He could
draw from recollection accurate plans Of
many London parishes and districts, with
every street, alley, public building, public
house, etc duly noted down, to the MI
nutest Typographical details, such as
pumps, trees, bow-windows and posts, oil
correctly marked.
Conspicuous instances of this mechan-
icsl kind of memory are to be found among
the famous mental calculators. Jedediah
Buxton was celebrity of this kind about
the middle of the last century. He had
but little education, aud indeed was not
able TO write his own name. But in arith-
metic and in abstruse calculations his
MOWERS were wonderful. The following is
specimen of the problems which, when
put to the test, he solved mentally in a
few minutes: Find how many cubical
eighths of an inch there are 10 quad
rangular mass measuring %, 145, 7S9 yards
A long, Z,OfS, TO- ydtuS mruc ouu ~ S1'
Yards thick. When in London in 1854,
he was taken TO see Garrick rs Richard
III. at Drury Lane. The play did not
interest him, but he occupied himself in
reckoning the number of words he heard
aud in counting the number of steps made
by the dancers.
The American boy, Zerah Colburn, who
came to London in 1912, was similar phe-
nomenon. He had no knowledge of the
rules Of arithmetic, and was quite unable
to explain how he arrived at the answers
to the problems submitted to him. Mental
power of this nature would seem to imply
an unwholesome development OF one part
of the brain at the expense of the rest The
retentiyeness of such a memory as Lord
Macaulay's is greatly to be preferred to the
abnormal mental activity of an animated
calculating machine.
When Justice Did Not Walt Very Long.
Our popular Justice, Warren d. Lewis,
is ''in luck" He purchased one'twenti-
81 FHI- Il