Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-05-31

about the dream. but she ridiculed the idea
of finding my box of Jewels in the coal cellar
And with that the matter dropped no search
was made. We looked upon the dream a
mere freak of the sleeping brain. Nearly a
year later, however, in the following August
Mr.. Thompson went into our cellar to see how
much coal we had left, with view to stocking
up for the winter. He was astonished to see
sticking out of the dust little parcel wrapped
in newspaper. Picking it up and opening it.
he was much puzzled to behold my missing
box of trinkets. And the newspaper bore
the very date of the burglary,
80, 1907.
Saw Her Fathers Boat Wrecked
THESE premonitory dreams occupy large
part of the psychological records and the
last case to be given Is very puzzlIng one. A
Mrs. Spruit lived at Balmain, one of the sub
urbs of Sydney, Australia. Her husband was
a sea Captain in command of the Atacama, a
wooden ship Of thirteen hundred tons She
had arrived in Sydney in leaking state, and
was picked up cheap by firm known as
Cowshaw Bros for thirty-five hundred dol
lars. Twice much was spent in repairs.
and then the Atacama was sent up the coast
with a cargo of coal She delivered this, and
next set out for San Diego, California
But when FIVE hundred miles out from
Sydney she sprang leak, and Captain Sprult
decided to put back. In spite OF the pumps. the
water gained, and soon there was depth of
eleven feet in the hold Spruit now resolved
to abandon the ship and launch the three
boats. The Captain himself, with one sea-
man. the steward, boatswaln and an appren-
tice, was in the twenty-four-foot lifeboat;
while the rest of the crew, twelve IN all, were
in the other two boats. Heavy were run
ming and the boats were nearly swamped. As
Spruit could not swim, he nearly drowned,
some of his men were lost Their sltua-
ton was indeed fearful, in boats half filled
with water and exposed to fierce gale, four
hundred miles from land. Again and again
was Spruit washed out but at last his boat
was picked up when its occupants were in the
last stages of exhaustion from fatigue, ex
posture. and lack of food. A reporter Of The
Sydney Morning Herald" called to interview
the Captain, and found him barefooted, with
terribly swollen legs, covered with severe cuts
and bruises, both his hands were bandaged.
Now consider Mrs. Spruit's report to the
Psychical Research Society, which Is most re-
rnarkable.
Last Thursday week. she writes, : at
three o'clock in the morning, my thirteen
year-old daughter Lily came into my bed room
and woke me by tap on my forehead. Oh.
mama she cried in a breathless whisper, I'm
so frightenedi | tried to soothe her. but she
only covered her face with her hands and
whispered tremblingly. oh, look My papas
ship IS all wrecked. Papa's come home all in
rags with his feet and legs cut, and | see two
three Of his men drowned out of the boat.
Il told Lily sternly it was all nonsense.
1T isn't she sai- passlolA natelv. I've
seen it in my dream, and know it's all true!
But | coaxed her off to bed. The girl kept
worrying about it until the next Sunday. A
week after her dream my husband returned;
and Lily found me crying when she in
from school
"'Oh, MAMA she cried sharply, is the
Atacama wrecked!
Il told her evasively her papa had come
home.
She was not to be denied, however, and
asked with strange persistence, Are papas
legs CUT
Il said they were.
And the very first thing she said to her
father was, Why YOU didn't have those
clothes when saw you. The ones you had
then were all torn in the shipwreck.
Lily Spruit herself furnished report to the
Psychical Research Society. She said she
woke in terrible fright, having seen every
microscopic detail of the shipwreck and its
sequel She saw her father get into the big
boat and keep close to his ship for sometime.
Allen drown. What woke her, she said, was
the bowling of the wind about the wreck; and
the last she the other men pulling her
father back into the water logged boat.
Who shall explain these things? Some
Psychologists say that no human being IS ever
absolutely awake, and merely oScillate be-
tween deep sleep and high or low degrees of
wakefulness. Surely Shakespeare had such a
theory in mind when he wrote:
We such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little lite
Is rounded with a Sleep