with a quiet smile that was common to him, left the room, and I noticed, from the window, that he lingered. near the outside door, walking backward and forward before it once or twice. If I had afterward been required to depose, on oath, before a court of justice, that I had seen the boy enter and leave the room, and also that I had noticed him pass and repass before the parlorwindow, I should have sworn to these circumstances without a moment's hesitation. Yet it would seem that such a deposition would have conveyed a false impression.

"For, shortly after, my husband, coming in, said, 'I wonder where Silas is?' (that was the boy's name)

"He must be somewhere about,' I replied: 'he was here a few minutes since, and I spoke to him.' Thereupon Mr. D― went out and called him, but no one answered. He sought him all over the premises, then in his room, but in vain. No Silas was to be found; nor did he show himself that night; nor was he in the house the next morning when we arose.

"At breakfast he first made his appearance.

have you been, Silas?' said Mr. D———.

'Where

"The boy replied that he had been up to the island, fishing.'

"But,' I said, 'you were here last night.'

"Oh, no,' he replied, with the simple accent of truth. Mr. D gave me leave to go fishing yesterday; and I understood I need not return till this morning: so I stayed away all night. I have not been near here since yesterday morning.'

"I could not doubt the lad's word. He had no motive for deceiving us. The island of which he spoke was two miles distant from our house; and, under all the circumstances, I settled down to the conclusion that as, in my sister's case, her husband had appeared where he was not, so in the case of the boy also it

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SUGGESTION AS TO RULES OF EVIDENCE.

was the appearance only, not the real person, that I had seen that evening. It was remarkable enough that both the incidents should have occurred in the same house and on the same day.

"It is proper I should add that my sister's impression that the apparition of her husband foreboded death did not prove true. He outlived her; and no misfortune which they could in any way connect with the appearance happened in the family.

"Nor did Silas die; nor, so far as I know, did any thing unusual happen to him."*

There

This case is, in some respects, a strong one. was evidently no connection between the appearance to the one sister and that to the other. There was no excitement preceding the apparitions. In each case, the evidence, so far as one sense went, was as strong as if the real person had been present. The narrator expressly says she would unhesitatingly have sworn, in a court of justice, to the presence of the boy Silas. The sister addressed the appearance of her husband, unexpected as it was, without doubt or hesitation. The theory of hallucination may account for both cases; but, whether it does or not, the phenomenon is one which ought to challenge the attention of the jurist as well as of the psychologist. If appearances so exactly counterfeiting reality as these can, occasionally, cheat human sense, their possible occurrence ought not to be ignored in laying down rules of evidence. The presumption, of course, is, in every case, very strongly against them. Yet cases have occurred in which an alibi, satisfactorily proved yet conflicting with seemingly unimpeachable evidence, has completely puzzled the courts. An example, related and vouched for by Mrs. Crowe, but with

* Communicated to me, in Washington, June 24, 1859.

THE SURGEON'S ASSISTANT.

325

out adducing her authority, and which I have not myself verified, is, in substance, as follows:

In the latter part of the last century, in the city of. Glasgow, Scotland, a servant-girl, known to have had illicit connection with a certain surgeon's apprentice, suddenly disappeared. There being no circumstances leading to suspicion of foul play, no special inquiry was made about her.

In those days, in Scottish towns, no one was allowed to show himself in street or public ground during the hours of church-service; and this interdiction was enforced by the appointment of inspectors, authorized to take down the names of delinquents.

Two of these, making their rounds, came to a wall, the lower boundary of "The Green," as the chief public park of the city is called. There, lying on the grass, they saw a young man, whom they recognized as the surgeon's assistant. They asked him why he was not at church, and proceeded to register his name; but, instead of attempting an excuse, he merely rose, saying, "I am a miserable man; look in the water!" then crossed a style and struck into a path leading to the Rutherglen road. The inspectors, astonished, did proceed to the river, where they found the body of a young woman, which they caused to be conveyed to town. While they were accompanying it through the streets, they passed one of the principal churches, whence, at the moment, the congregation were issuing; and among them they perceived the apprentice. But this did not much surprise them, thinking he might have had time to go round and enter the church toward the close of the service.

The body proved to be that of the missing servantgirl. She was found pregnant, and had evidently been murdered by means of a surgeon's instrument, which had remained entangled in her clothes. The apprentice,

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AN APPARITION PERCEIVED

who proved to have been the last person seen in her company before she disappeared, was arrested, and , would, on the evidence of the inspectors, have been found guilty, had he not, on his trial, established an incontrovertible alibi; showing, beyond possible doubt, that he had been in church during the entire service. The young man was acquitted. The greatest excitement prevailed in the public mind at the time; but all efforts to obtain a natural explanation failed.*

If this story can be trusted, it is conclusive of the question. Both inspectors saw, or believed they saw, the same person; a person of whom they were not in search and whom they did not expect to find there. Both heard the same words; and these words directed them to the river, and were the cause of their finding the dead body; the body, too, of a girl with whom the apprentice had been on the most intimate and suspicious terms, whether he was her murderer or not. When did hallucination lead to such a discovery as that?

In the next case, if it be one of hallucination, two senses were deceived.

SIGHT AND SOUND.

During the winter of 1839-40, Dr. J

E—

- was

residing, with his aunt Mrs. L-, in a house on Fourteenth Street, near New York Avenue, in the city of Washington.

Ascending one day from the basement of the house to the parlor, he saw his aunt descending the stairs. He stepped back to let her pass, which she did, close to him, but without speaking. He instantly ascended the stairs and entered the parlor, where he found his aunt sitting quietly by the side of the fire.

"Night Side of Nature," by Catherine Crowe, 16th ed., London, 1854, pp. 183 to 186.

The distance from where he first saw the figure to the spot where his aunt was actually sitting was between thirty and forty feet. The figure seemed dressed exactly as his aunt was; and he distinctly heard the rustle of her dress as she passed.

As the figure, when descending the stairs and passing Dr. E- bore the very same appearance as a real person, and as the circumstance occurred in broad daylight, Dr. E long thought that, if not a mere hallucination, it might augur death; but nothing happened to justify his anticipations.*

The next example is of a much more conclusive character than any of the foregoing, if we except the narrative of Mrs. Crowe.

APPARITION OF THE LIVING,

Seen by Mother and Daughter.

In the month of May and in the year 1840, Dr. Da noted physician of Washington, was residing with his wife and his daughter Sarah (now Mrs. B-) at their country-seat, near Piney Point, in Virginia, a fashionable pleasure-resort during the summer months.

One afternoon, about five o'clock, the two ladies were walking out in a copse-wood not far from their residence; when, at a distance on the road, coming toward them, they saw a gentleman. "Sally," said Mrs. D, "there comes your father to meet us." "I think not," the daughter replied: "that cannot be papa: it is not so tall as he."

As he neared them, the daughter's opinion was confirmed. They perceived that it was not Dr. D—, but a Mr. Thompson, a gentleman with whom they were well

*The above was related to me by Dr. E himself, in Washington, on the 5th of July, 1859; and the MS. was submitted to him for revision.