Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-12-30
ODD FACTS ABOUT TWINS.
Pair in England Always Make Same
Remarks simultaneously.

When the local Board of Guardians
We're recently discussing the case of
a deaf and dunn Chertsey girl for
whom admission was being sought to
a home, the curious fact came out that
the girl had only been deaf and dumb
since the death of her twin sister. The
very day the other twin died the sur
yivor lost her speech and hearing.
The amazingly close physical resem-
blance that twins often bear to one
another is often accompanied by Gu
ricus sympathy that smacks almost of
the supernatural The late Sir Fran
els Cation, the great scientist. made a
special study of the subject and an
nouneed that with some pairs of twins
that had come under his notice the two
seemed not so much two separate be-
ings as one cut in two. each half feel
ing whatever affected the other.
whether physically or mentally
There is, for instance, a case on rec
ord in which two twins had at the age
of % their first experience of tooth
ache. The pain came to both on the
same day and the same tooth had to
be extracted in each case. These twins
were remarkably alike and very fond
of each other. They both obtained
Government clerkships and kept house
together. When one sickened and died
of Bright's disease the other fell vic
tim to the same disease (Which is not
conta gious) shortly after.
That the physical likeness of twins
extends much deeper than the skin is
also shown by a curious case that the
medical papers We're discussing some
time ago. A Paris hospital doctor had
under his charge a patient suffering
from an attack of rheumatic ophthal-
ma. One day the patient remarked:
My twin brother must be having
ophthalmia just now"
The doctor smiled at the idea, but
next morning the patient handed him
a letter from the other twin, then at
Vienna. 1t began with the words, II
am down with ophthalmia. l suppose
you have it, too?"
Twins, researches show, are nearly
always either so alike that it is almost
impossible to tell the difference be-
tween them, or else very unlike one
another indeed. Cases in which they
are only moderately alike are compar-
atively rare.
When they are very unlike each 9TH
,er land when one is a boy and the 9TH
er girl, this is practically always the
case) the physical unlikeness is ac-
companied by similar mental one.
Many pairs of twins, as every one
knocks, are difficult or almost impossi-
BILE to tell apart In the case of these
striking resemblance the similarity of
character which accompanies it breaks
out in curious ways. A London news
paper recently drew attention to
couple of Peckham twins, named
Evans, who bewilder the stranger by
making the same remarks simultane-
ously, and begin humming the same
song at the same moment. There are
lots of similar cases on record.
The theory that a curious telepathy
exists between twins. or, as scientists
put it. that their minds are in dupli-
cate, is borne out by the number of
twins who are in the habit of finishing
one another's sentences.
One of the most curious instances of
this similarity of ideas among twins
one inquired into and authenticated by
Sir Francis Gallon himself-is that of
bought set of champagne glasses
which caught his attention as a sur
prise for his twin brother, while at the
same time his brother was buying an
exactly similar set as surprise for
the first twin.
However startling alike they may be
in face. ways and mind, the man who
knows pair of twins can readily YER
ify the curious fact that in one point
the likeness never holds. No two
twins, for some inexplicable reason,
ever write alike.-Pearson Weekly.