The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-08-19

was named Hugh Williams. For years afterward the relatives of the fortunate men held a reunion on the nineteenth of August to celebrate the day of deliverence from what had seemed certain death.
 But the superstition that no Hugh Williams can become Neptune's vic- tim is far older than that. In Au- gust, 1920 a pleasure boat of the Thames collided with another vessel and went down. There were twenty five persons on board, most of them children. and all were drowned save one, Hugh Williams, a lad of six.
 Another similar case was that of the Menai, a ferry boat, which piled across the Straits of Dover. In 1785 this craft was caught in a, gale and went down. Sixty persons were drowned and onI yone was saved, an old gentleman named Hugh Williams
 A similar instance is recorded at an even earlier date. In 1884 a ves- sei was wrecked on the Isle of Man, with eighty persons on board. One was saved-Hugh Williams.
 F1amsteed's birthday will be ob- served to-day at Greenwich Observa- tory, the great English center of as- tronomical science. John Flamsteed, who was born 267 years ago to-day, August 19, 1646, was the first astron- j. 2 Hill, on which Greenwich Observatory was built in 1878, was named in his honor. His celebrated catalogue of the stars, completed in 1888, was only one of many contributions to astro- nomical lore. In Flamasteed's day astronomy was just coming into it's own, and the devotees of that science were often confused with astro1ogers, who had long preyed on the credulity of the ignorant and superstitious. It is related that on one occasion an old woman called on F1ansteed at Green wich Observatory and asked him to To- cate a bundle she had lost. It was evident that she labored under the delusion that the astronomer royal was an astrologer, and F'lamsteed did not disabuse her mind of this idea Just as a joke, the learned student of the stars went through the form of incantations, drew a circle on the ground, and then soberly told the old woman to visit a certain spot in a ditch nearby. where she would find her lost property. He considered that this would cure the woman of her faith in astrology, and then dismissed the matter from his mind. Within an hour, however, the woman return ed, her face beaming with pleasure, and thanked the astronomer effusive- ly. She had found the lost bundle in the exact spot which F1amsteed had directed her to visit.
 Frank Josef T., Emperor of Austria, and Apostolic King of Hungary. pass ed his eighty-third milestone yester- day. The worlds oldest monarch has ruled over Austria for nearly six five years and over Hungary for for ty-six years His life has been one long succession of tragedies, scandals and disappointments, and yet through it all he has remained a philosopher.
 The Austrian Kaiser has a wide va riety of names and titles. Officially he is, His Most Catholic Majesty, Franz Josef Karl T., Emperor of Aus tria, Ferencz Jozsef, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, of Dal- rnatia, of Croatio, of Slavonia, of Gal icia, of Lodomeria and of I1lyria, King of Jerusalem, Archduke of Austria, Grand Duke of Tuscany and of Cra- COW, etc
 Francis Joseph Is the most capable Nnguist among European rulers, as he speaks a round dozen languages: Ger man, French, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Servian, Croatian, Italian, Ruthenian, Da1mation, Roumanian and Hebrew. He has a fair know1- edge of English and a goodly smat- tering of Latin.
 The Austrian Emperor cares little for books although in the last few years he Eas manifested more inter est in literature, and has paid signal honors to the venerable Austrian poetess and novelist, Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
 Although simple and kindly, even democratic, in his tastes the Empe TOT is bound by the rigid social laws of the stiffest and most exclusive court in the world. Until advancing years forced him to abandon that medieval custom, he sought relief from the cut and-dried order of events by giving daily audiences to his subjects.
 At eighty-three, it is unlikely that