The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1903-10-22
FREAKS OF CLOCKS.
THE STRANGE WARNING CHlMED
FROM STRASSBURG CATHEDRAL.

ness of MechIin's Clock - "Whcn
Clocks Go Crazy, Things Go Daft"
There is an old saw which declares
that when clocks go crazy, things go
daft"
At 2 a. m. on Sept 81, 1869, the
world famous clock in the great cathe-
dral at Strassburg commenced to chime
without rhyme or reason. 1t sounded
1870 peals, then stopped, and after an
interval slowly began to toll as if for
a great one dead.
The political atmosphere of Europe
at that time was Indicative of pro-
found peace. Nothing Of danger or dis
grace could by any possibility be con-
ceived of as threatening Strassburg or
it's inhabitants. Yet less than year
afterward the German armies had en-
circled the city with q ring of steel and
fire. The German shells were falling
thickly in her streets and squares and
exploding even within the precincts
of the stately cathedral itself. And
precisely at a. IN. Sept. %, 1870, Gen
eral Uhrich signed the capitulation
which was to deliver Strassburg into
the hands of the invaders.
In the house of lords is certain his
torical timepiece which is said to in
variably suffer from temporary aber-
ration whenever a member of the royal
family of Britain passes away. The
popularity was first noticed when vii.
liam ". died. Very early in the morn
ing the clock began to emit series of
peculiar gurgling noises, as though
gasping for breath, went suddenly
slow and finally stopped altogether.
All efforts 70 start it failed, and on the
evening of the day of the funeral it
reStarted Of its own accord. nor did it
give any further trouble whatever for
many years afterward.
1t has over and over again been no
ticed that clocks, especially those sit
uated in the turrets of high buildings
having unusually deep foundations, are
liable to go wrong in sympathy with
seismic disturbances happening in dis
tricts sometimes very far away.
On Nov l. 1865. for instance. fully
half the timepieces in Edinburgh were
affected Many stopped altogether.
Others went slow or fast or started
striking wrongly. In this the supersti-
tious saw some calamity impending,
and it was not until news arrived of
the great Lisbon earthquake that the
alarm was allayed. 1t was then discov-
cred, by comparing times and dates,
that the first shock must have Travelled
from Fee in Morocco to Cape Wrath
in less than eight seconds.
A curious coincident was then recall
ed. On the evening Of April Z, exactly
five years previously, several thou
sands of persons, particularly those Of
rank and fortune, had camped out in
Hyde park and had thus passed the
hours from dusk till daylight.
This was to avoid an earthquake
shock which had been predicted for
the early morning of the 9Th by an al
legged "madman." The threatened
quake. however. failed to materialize.
and the scared ones got heartily laugh
ed ut for their pains. Nevertheless. it
was noted at the time that several Of
the public and private clocks of the
metropolis stopped at precisely the
same moment on the morning in ques-
ton, and this fact at once took on
new and sinister significance.
WAS it possible" people began to
ask, that the so called mailman was
not so very mad after all and that
London had providentially escaped
what might possibly have been a hid
eous and unparalleled catastrophe?
The so called madness" of Mech
Inns clock constitutes one of the most
mysterious incidents of the Napoleonic
wars. 1t happened in 1906. Two
years previously the Corsican usurper
had RACED a portion of the city to the
ground, and the place had also suffered
severely in other ways. But the mag
nificent cathedral had been spared. and
then, as now, its massive tower rising
four square to a height of more than
300 feet and bearing four dials, each
forty-eight feet in diameter, was one
of the most striking landmarks for
miles and miles around.
Inside the tower was the gigantic
clock. the biggest in the world. 1t had
doomed the hours for longer than the
oldest burgher could remember and
had never gone wrong. When, there
fore, in the early dawn OF one summer
day the great bell began changing furi-
ously small wonder that not only the
city, but the whole countryside, was
reused. Mechlin itself was like dis
turbed hive. men rushing from their
houses half dressed, but all armed.
while from every town and village