, 1906-02-21
THE MYSTERY
OF DREAMS
STRANGE WARNINGS OF MURDER
AND IMPENDING CRIME RE-
vEALED BY VAGARIES.
Tailor's Assistant Sees in Dream Cot
tage of Man Who Slew a PeddIer
and His Pack Found in Cairn of
stones-Landlady Recalls Noted
Murder by Telling Dream.

Some of the %strangest stories in the
annals of crime are those which tell OF
the part dreams have played in the dis
covery of criminals. one spring day
in 1880 a farm laborer, when passing a
lonely mountain lake in Sutherland
shire, saw in the waters a dead body,
which when rescued proved to be that
of a w~ell-known peddler who had mys-
~teriously vanished about a month earl
Ter. The body bore marks of violence,
the pockets were empty, and it was
clear that the poor fellow had been
brutaIly murdered and robbed-but by
whom? That was a mystery which for
many a week completely defed eluci-
dation.
One night, however, Kenneth Fraser,
a tailor's assistant, saw in a dream the
cottage of a man named Hugh Macleod,
and heard a voice say in Gaelic, The
peddler's pack is lying in a cairn of
stones in a hole near this house" He
told the story of his singular dream to
the authorities, who accompanied him
to Macleod's house, and there, sure
enough, beneath a heap of stones, the
murdered mans property vas found.
Macleod was arrested, confessed and
was executed.
Killed With CoWard's Blow.
Another very remarkable story is
told of a tragedy in Ireland. One even
ing two strangers presented themselves
at a wayside inn near Portland, and
after taking refreshment continued
their tramp in the direction of Carrick-
on-Suir. The incident was common
place enough, but it led to startling de-
velopments, for in the wayfarers the
landlady of the inn recognized two men
of whom she had dreamed a very
strange dream the night before. In
her dream she had seen one of them
kill the other with a towards blow
from behind, rifle the pockets of the
dead man and stealthily bury him be
meath a hedge. So impressed was her
husband when this dream was told him
that he made his way to the spot indi,
Gated and there discovered the body
OF the buried nan The assassin was
pursued and arrested, and at the en-,
suing assizes was sentenced to death,
Implicated His AccompIices.
There has seldom been a more mys
~terious crime than the murder of Mr.
Stockton, a London %victualer, a great
many years ago, and the mystery would
have remained unsolved to this day
had it not been for the Intervention OF
Mrs. Greenwood, who came forward
with the statement that the murdered
and conducted her to a house in
Thames street, where one of his as
sassins was to be found; while in an
other dream Stockton appeared anC
showed her the likeness of the man
On the strength of this dream clew
the man indicated vas arrested, ant
not only confessed his guilt, but be
trayed his accomplices-three crimi
nails being brought to the scaffold as
the result of these visions of the night
Mrs. Rutherford's Queer Dream.
Some years ago a Mrs. Rutherford
dreamed that her aged relative, Lad,
Leslie was about to be murdered by {
man whom she clearly saw. She i'm
mediately set out on a visit to Lady
Leslie and asked permission to sleel
in the lady's room. In the middle o
the night Mrs. Rutherford heard some
one trying to open the bedroom door
sac raised an alarm and flung opel
the door, when Lady Leslie's two son
rushed out and in a moment had seizet
the man of the dream.
The S%transest of All.
The following story is, perhaps, thu
strangest of all. One night Rev. Her
bert Powys, a Church of England
clergyman, dreamed that the %daughteI
of n of his ~parishioners had one GU
into the darkness to meet her lover
who at the time was waiting for her il
a scheduled spot and spending thu
time in digging a grave for her. Jump
ing out of bed, Mr.. Powys rushed t
the place indicated in his dream ant
arrived just as the man had hurled the
girl to the ground by the side of the
open grave and was about to kill hel
with his spade.-London Tit-Bits.