Northern Weekly Gazette. — 1910-07-09 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

THE FACULTY OF CLAIRVOYANCE.  A Wesleyan missiozary, Mr White, says: "There ! is a class of people in New Zealand called Eruku, or priests; these men .pretend to have intercourse with departed spirits." The receipt of communications announcing an event which has occurred at such a distanoe as to preclude the use of known physical means of transmission, is usually regarded as exceptional and marvellous. M. Gaston Mery, L'Etho du Merveilkuse," has collected instances to show that such transmission has been known and regularly practised for ages, by races who have been looked upon as ignorant and uncivilised. Weser records that during his campaign in Gaul. the news of a battle at Orlcans was speedily known in Auvergne, one hundred and sixty miles away, and he considers that this was done by men shouting across the country, from one village to another. Successive commentators on this story have tried to estimate the number of stages necessary for this transmission, and one Academician has calculated that over two thouand criers would be needed to pass the news from one to another. In 1898 an English officer who was whi4i some native troops at Freetown, South Africa, was told by a native sergeant that a great battle had been fought; this was found to be at Omdur. man, in the .Soudan. A similar case is that of an officer who was bringing up reinforcements to troops on the Blue Nile, a week b3fore he could join the main force, he was told by natives of a battle that had taken place on the previous day. Kailas have been known to give very definite information concerning what was taking piece at a consideeable distance from where they were. A farmer wrote to a friend living over forty miles away, saying that his Kaffire had told him of a light between a herdsman on the latter's farm and a bull which had attacked him, and said that both the man and bull had died from their wounds. This was true, and had occurred only three hours before the letter was despatched from the farm forty miles distant Another case is that of an old Kaffir woman who announced that a man who was ' being tried for homicide at Johannesburg, about forty Miles away, had been acquitted, and that the principal witness had been put in prison. This seemed very improbable, as the accused man had admitted his guilt. It was found, however, that the man had pleaded "not guilty." and had been acquitted, the principal witnesis agamst him was, later in .the day knocked down by a vehicle and taken to the prison infirmary, where he died. Dr. E. W. Blyden, an educated and deeply religious African, says: "The intercommunication between the people of the earth and those in the spiritual sphere is a cardinal belief of the African, and will never be unrooted. Death is simplya door through which men enter the life to come, or the, hereafter. This being the basis or tneir faith, the) have like the Japanese, no dread of death. In Enrope, continues the doctor, many people are trying by various methods, to get back into inter. course with the spiritual world, but everywhere in Africa there is this intercourse and confidence in it is so great, that it has led and still leads to .consequences that we cannot but deplore, but excesses may prove the intensity of a conviction nether than suggest the ignorance of a superstition, and the inte.nsity of a conviction especially when it persists for generations, must have some reason or •experience behind it." The Marquess de Mores, and African traveller, speaking of the rapid transmission of news among the Arabs says: "This is evidently an occult pherioneeeon. If the Arabs communicated with one another by any physical means we should perceive it; if by fires we should see them; if by sounds we should hear them. Their process is invisible and silent My opinion is that the news is transnutted mentally, through the old Marabouts, ascetics who have trained themselves for a long time. by ueknown practice to project their thoughts to a distance."  Why may a tallow chandler easily cool himself in the height of snmmor?----He can always have a dip on a melting day.  -: 0 :- Since 1810 Argentina has been heaped very greatly by the investment there of British capital. We have supplied the money for the construction of most of ,her railways, tramways, docks, and other public works. At present, the amount of British capital invested in Argentina is estimated at 5.00,000,000, and there is scope for plenty more.