The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-07-23
THE BUNCH THEORY.
Evidence of History That Things
Really Do Happen in Series.
From the New York Sun.

From the New York Sun.
"Well. l wonder what kind of bunch We
will have next" said the thoughtful man,
who is always exercising his brain with
odd speculati0ns of one kind or another.
Bunch of WHAT" asked his matter-of-
fact friend.
That's what don't know" returned the
speculative man. 1T may be a bunch of
big fires, or a bunch of suicides, or a
bunch of railway accidents. or a bunch OF
any cid thing in that line. They always
come in lunches"
Nonsense"
mo nonsense about it, Ask any fireman
if one big fire doesn't always presage two
or three more Ask any policeman if one
sensational crime isn't invariably a fore
runner of others of a similar nature. Ask
the coroner if one unusual suicide isn't in
Variably followed with reasonable prompt
ness by others like it. In the case of
crime il may be the effect of suggestion
the report of the first case acting upon
some weak mind, and thus leading to a
similar offense, but that will not explain
the punches of accidents in which no de-
liberate and intenoinal human agency is
involved"
again say nonsense!' said the mat
ter-of-fact friend. such things are hap
pening with considerable regularity all
The time, and one sensational case merely
serves TO direct the attention TO others
that would otherwise pass without COM
ment."
Take the crime Of kidnapping as an IL
lustration," said the man of an investiga-
ting turn of mind, ignoring his compan-
ions explanation. There was the Marion
Clarke case and the Lapiner case, and
since they received wide publicity l have
seen accounts of at least dozen others"
"None of which you would have seen If
il had not been for those two affairs, I
grant" interrupted the hard-headed man
of business, who had no time for such
speculations and wouldn't have given the
time to them if he had had plenty of 1t
TO spare" but that doesn't mean that
things wouldn't have happened as they did
lust the same. The public mind was
full of the subject and mothers lived in
terror IL a child wandered away in play
and was missing for half an hour, some
frantic mother rushed 10 a police station
and told the man in charge her little one
had been kidnapped Then naturally IL
got to the newspapers and in view of the
state of the public mind it was an eXcep>
tionaily good item. Usually the young
ster returned home Z little later. But
the genuine cases of kidnapping were no
commoner than usual. They merely re-
ceived more attention than they would
have otherwise
ted the man of leisure and queer ideas
but it won't apply so well to fires and
railroad accidents, nor to the more import
ant events of history"
Possibly you can give some facts, other
than the mere ipse diXit Of a fireman or
a policeman, to uphold your theory"
Il can. l have been casually booking
the matter up to pass away the time"
Great Scott what lot of pressing bus
mess you must have in hand. But LET'S
have a few illustrations, anyway"
"Well, of course l don't mean to say
there are never isolated cases of sensa-
tional accidents or crimes" explained the
man of leisure but they usually come in
punches. In the latter part of 1898 there
was a bunch of big railway accidents in
which about l25 lives were lost while for
a year afterward and for nearly a year
before there was none worthy of being re-
corded In Haydn's dictionary Of dates. The
first three occurred between Aug. 26 and
Sept. IS less than a month. Then there
was an interval of about a month and
three more were reported, after which
there was another interval and then two
more accidents. TIE last two were not so
close together as they usually come. but
the whole coll elton, when viewed with re-
lation to the time preceding and The time
following serves to illustrate my point.
And that isn't ALL By going back few
years from that date q haven't the sta