The Savannah morning news., 1901-08-11
AE1ER AvoE's SCALP.
vxAHIAN THINKS HE DOES
MORE HARM THAN GOOD.

n who ORered TO Back His
of Faith In the Accuracy of
80. predictions of Two Weeks
,no Has Some More to Say ON the
Y s,e suDject-Is still of Little
CONGREGATIONS Made Before
-. Not Been Verified and 9th
won't Be-Phophesies of
and Disaster DO Lots of
Harm and No Coed
r,,o weeks ago, when the storm pre-
1,o+ed by Prof. De Voc of New Jersey
80 n make it's appearance on sched-
"a tin,a a Savannah gentleman. who
.-,os exceedingly skeptical as to the ac-
omrocv of any of the professors pre-
s,..;ons ventured some few caustic
-,,,o,srns of the weather prophet and
his prophesies.
y.sterdav the Morning News printed
Latter from Prof. De Voc, in which
- c1aimed that all his predictions had
- verified and that the storm he
Soretold did actually make its appear
- The only thing was that it did
,,al,A its appearance in Savannah.
savannah's critic of Prof. De Voc, the
uar,e gentleman who offered to wager
sEo that the storm would not make It's
.aorance within two weeks of its APP
.ir+ad and by some, expected time, is
po POI, etrentical and unconvinced, refus-
io5 m accept as the true explanation
s+be lack of faith now generally ex-
vr.t+ed in Savannah in the accuracy of
w. New Jersey prophets predictions,
~ statement that the storm came on
time but missed Savannah.
prof DeVoe says now that his
Storm did make it's appearance, but
&c four days late. According to mis-
,oradiction it was due to arrive in Sa-
,,annah on July %. AS the only storm
80 etruck this section of the country
eT,sn did not touch Georgia until Aug.
very simple problem in arithmetic
Soroonstrates that the storm was nine
6avs late, instead of four.
@Another thing. If DeVoe meant to
convey any impression at all it was
that Savannah would be visited by
one of the hurricanes that reach TINS
coast a storm that would do damage,
tbat in its effects and in the destruc-
zion il would work, would JUSTIFY the
fears that its prediction excited. The
fsct Of the matter is that the storm to
which the professor alludes started in
western Alabama and moved due
northeast instead of east, as he had
said it would. 1t began in slight To-
cal disturbance, the wind never reach
al velocity of more than twenty
four miles an hour, lasted only fifteen
minutes in any one place, and disap-
neared entirely on the day following
its first appearance. Now on July IL,
two days before the prophesies were
made. the wind in Savannah reached
velocity Of 26 miles an hour, and 1t is
scarcely to be believed that the profess
sol. who paid no attention whatever to
this. should think his prediction OF
storm verified by the appearance OF
tifiing wind like that of Aug. 6.
He finds his predition verified when
ANYTHING like a storm turns up WITHIN
nine days after he has said it would.
presume that he allows himself like
leeway in the other direction, and this
may enable him to feel that when he
nredicted hot weather for the third
week in July that this prediction was
verified by the occurrence or hot
weather during the fourth week, and
that when he has said the fourth week
was to be cooler and the third week
happens to catch the cool weather, that
he has equal occasion for satisfaction.
The weather insisted on just reversing,
It will be remembered, the conditions
the professor had predicted.
For the new predictions he makes,
I have as little respect as l had for
the others. Almost anybody would
venture the prediction that there will
be cool and perhaps cold weather some
where along the Atlantic coast about
Sept. /. There usually is, and it
doesn't require a weather prophet to
make such a prediction. l offer to
prophesy myself that on Sept. l there
will be a killing frost on the top of
Pixies Peak.
He says 1t viii be cooler on Aug.
% than it will be on Aug. 30. AS a
pure guess, and that's all he's making,
l am willing to hazard the prediction
that it win be cooler in Savannah on
Aug. 80 than it will be on Aug. %, just
because it will be later in the season
About ten years ago there was a
weather prophet of the name of Ven
ner, who predicted a terrible storm in
the Gulf of Mexico. He scared innum-
cradle people half to death and the
captain of a big steam vessel kept her
in the harbor of New Orleans, tied UP
for ten days to the levee, while he wait
ed for the storm that never came.
THE professor is right when he says
bet will not decide the truth of any
thing. Neither will positive assertions
and yet there are always people suf-
feiently credulous to believe any state
ment that is made positively. Just so
there are some people who will believe
man when he Is willing TO back his
beliefs with his money and that was
all l hoped to accomplish. hoped to
remove from the minds of some Savan-
nan people the foolish fears that Their
belief in DEVICES predictions had in
splred- His wild predictions of storms
90 incalculable harm and ii he will be
as careful about making them as he is
ABOUT refraining from betting, he will
come nearing so living that when he
is summoned into the other world the
people whom he leaves here will be
goth better and wiser from his ex-
amDle'f