The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-03-03
THE HAND OF FATE
Seemingly Revealed I'm the Curious
Coincidence OF Certain Things.

Coincidence OF Certain Things.
Baltimore Sun.
A piquant story now going the rounds
of the press relates q curious incident in
the life of the late Mr.. Henry C. Corheid
of Philadelphia. He was, Il is told.
standing on the roof of GIrard college in
1860, IN company with number of gen.
tlemen who were showing the Prince OF
Wales. now King Edward VII around
the Quaker City, when the princes hat
was carried off his head by the wind ana
dropped into the college yard. Mr.. COR
field offered his hat to the prince as \
temporary substitute and It was ac-
cepted. One Of the party turned to Mr..
Corfield and asked him-if he did not feel
honored that his hat had been worn by
the future king of England yes" re.
piled Mr.. Corheld, but he will not be
king of England It'll die" On Jan 20
last Mr.. Corheld was fatally stricken
with apoplexy and the accession of King
Edward was on the same day announced
to be imminent.
Such condolences as these are wonder
full or commonplace according to the
point OF view from which we regard
them. To thoroughly rational minds
they simply verify Wen known rule OF
mathematics. They dismiss them by
saying that given many millions of re-
marks casually and thoughtIessIv ut
tered a certain small number of them
would inevitably be verified by the event.
just as out of millions of bullets fired az
random a few would hit marks at which
they were not aimed. On the other hand.
the believer in gifts Of clairvoyance. the
Scotch second sight, and psychic phe
nomena Of that class will look upon the
yerifcation Of Mr.. Corfield's Iong-rangs
prediction touching King Edward VII.
as one more remarkable bit of evidence
in favor Of the theory cxpounded by
Hamlet: There are more things in
heaven and earth, Horatio, than are
dreamt of in your philosophy
Without attempting to decide between
these two views of the matter it is inter
esting to note a few of many we'll
authenticated cases in history of tho
same character, Charles Dickens was as
ISOLATED with two of such singular CO.
medicines. One of his sons. because of
a childish oddly about hts eyes. which
rad peculiar, wondering expression
was nieknamed by his father 1.-THE Ocean
Srecter," by which name he was pIay-
fllly called at through his beyhood. He
grew up to manhood and his father hai
been nearly two Years dead when the
nickname acquired prophetic meaning
serving as lieutenant IN the royal
navy, he died and was buried at sea. A
more gruesome coincidence is narrated
by Dickens in a letter which he wrote
from Boston to Lord Lytton. In this ler>
ter he tells Lord Lytton Of dinner
party given by Prof Webster. of Har-
ward college, at which he was a guest.
He relates that Mr.. Webster, while the
wine was going round whimsically ordered
the lights to be extinguished and a bowl
or burning minerals to be brought in. to
afford his guests the diversion of seeing
how CHASTITY they looked by its light. In
the midst of the fantastic scene Dickens
says that Webster suddenly produced a.
rope, put 1t around his neck and. bend>
ing over the phospherescent bowl. min-
licked with vivid realism the contoritions
OF man being hanged. Within a wear
this grim, fooling Prof. Webster was
himself actually hanged for the murder
of DR. Parkman
Charles Mackay, the poet, relates a
strange coincidence concerning his
friend Mr.. Ingram, the founder of the
Illustrated London News They Were
travelling together in Switzerland when a
occurred. Mackay was
in raptures over the grandeur of the cleo
tr1caI exhibition as seen from the top of
Chamounix. But Ingram became I'M
conscious from terror, and when he re-
covered told Mackay that from earliest
childhood he had an unaccountable hor-
ror of thunderstorrns. Eight years later
Mr.. Ingram met death IN wreck on
Lake Michigan, and the last five hours
of his life were passed clinging to the
wreckage in thunderstorm of terrific
violence.
The poet Selley made frequent allusion
in his private letters to his presentiment
that he would die by drowning-and he
did Plumer Ward, the novelist in his
DE We're, {" delineates a character found
Ell Fl4 in h IT,
a name for the house in which this
character lived he took a road book con-
tanning thousands of names and Sc
lected "Okeover Hall by pure chance.
Many years later he became master of
the real Okeover Hall, which was the
property Of a minor left to his guard
tanshfp. Sir Walter SCOTS grand
daughter. Mrs. Rutherford. was SO af-
fected by her daughters dream warning
that an attempt was to be made to kill
her by black servant that a watch
was set in her house. Some days aft or
the precaution thus taken the servant
was actually seized on his way to Mrs
Rutherford's bedroom, armed with
sharp knife, with which he confessed his
intention to murder her, exactly as her
daughter had seen him do in her
dream
There are condolences. also, of an
other class which may be called coin
cidences of dates and places. A curious
example of this kind is the locality at
Fall River, Mass. in which nearly
eight years ago, the extraordinary and
still mysterious murder Of Andrew J.
Borden and his wife took place In
the immediate rear of the house where
the tragedy occurred LongfelloW' s
Skeleton in Armor'' was dug out Of a
sand bank in 1882. Not long after, about
Christmas, 1882. only a few yards away,
the murdered body Of Sarah Maria Cor
neil was found. This murder was one
of the most celebrated IN American his
tory, leading to the trial of Rev. Eph-
rain K Avery which stirred New Eng
land at that time even more profoundly
than the Borden trial did in 1893. It
lasted for months, some 240 witnesses
were examined in It and the jury took
seventeen hours to find the minister mot
guilty." and then fully half the COM
munIty disagreed with them This same
crime-haunted spot has one more TRACE
dy to it's credit. In 1915 a certain Lad
wick Borden, uncle of the man murdered
eight years ago. lived in a little cot
tage next to the house Of the latter
tragedy. Ladwick's wife went insane,
drowned her two children In a cistern
and then killed herself There is prob
ably no more striking series of coinci-
dences connected with any spot in the
country.
AS for the condolences Of dates. there
is the case of Hon. John P. Hale OF
Maine, who died on the same day that
the schooner John P. Hale ran ashore
on the reef called 'Norman's Vice. the
same that Longfellow mentions in his
Wreck of the Hesperus." Great men
have been peculiarly susceptible to be-
lief in condolences Of dates. Thus Oil
yer Cromwell had a special regard for
Sept 8, on which date his two decisive
victories over King Charles were won
It was also the date of his death. The
great Nanaleon had superstitiouS re-