Part 20

Pope, who suffered much from intestinal disease, one day asked his medical man what the arm was which seemed to come out of the wall.

Goethe positively asserts that he one day saw the exact counterpart of himself coming towards him. The German psychologists give the name of _Deuteroscopia_ to this species of illusion.

Strange Hallucination.

On the 25th of November, 1840, Mr. Pearce, the author of several medical works, was tried at the Central Criminal Court for shooting at his wife with intent to murder, and acquitted on the ground of insanity. He entertained the peculiar notion that his wife wished to destroy him, and that she had bribed persons to effect his death in various ways, the principal of which was that his bed was constantly damped or wetted. This idea seems to have haunted him continually. He was shortly after his acquittal taken to Bethlem Hospital. For some time he refused to leave the gallery in which his cell was situated, and go into the airing-ground; in order, as it appeared, that he might watch his cell door to prevent anything "villanous" being done.

In a letter addressed to the Governors of the Hospital, Pearce argued the point in a very serious and connected manner. "If," said he, in allusion to some of the witnesses, who at various times had stated they felt his bedding and found it dry, "the simple act of placing one's hand upon a damp bed, or even the immediate impression on a man's body when he gets into it, was infallible, how could it occur so frequently that travellers at times are crippled with rheumatism, or lose their lives by remaining all night in damp bedding? If the thing was so easily discoverable, no man of common understanding could be injured by such a proceeding or accident at inns.

"Technically speaking, the matter of which I complain is not a delusion; it is an allegation--a positive charge, susceptible of proof, if proper evidence could be brought to bear upon the fact, not warped or suborned by the man or men in whose power I hourly am. It would be a sad delusion for me to declare my bed was composed of straw instead of flocks, or that I was a prophet, or the Pope, or Sir Astley Cooper. I grant I have no such crotchets. My mind is perfectly sound, calm, and reflective; and I implore you to consider well the distinction between the things which cannot in nature physically be and the things which can physically be. It is a vital one in my sad case.

"It may be told you, I have charged persons elsewhere with this atrocity of damping my bed. I have done so. At the private madhouse, near Uxbridge, whence I was brought here, my bed was kept almost wet for three months, and I only saved my life by sleeping on a large trunk, with my daily articles of dress to cover me. Some portion of this time, the cold was eight and ten degrees below freezing-point."

He then solicited that a lock might be put upon his cell-door to protect him from this annoyance; and concluded his letter with this appeal: "I beseech you to commiserate my hard lot. I have some little claim to the title of a gentleman, and have been estimated by persons of some consideration in society; I am now, by a wretched chain of circumstances, in a great prison hospital, dragged from my children and my home, and the comforts of social life, and doomed to herd with desperadoes against the State, the destitute, and the mad."

Mr. Pearce was afterwards introduced, and answered the questions put to him in a very collected manner. He then stated that since his marriage-trip to Boulogne, he had been subjected to the greatest abuse from his present wife, and on one occasion, had been struck by her, and insulted by the vilest epithets. He complained that when first brought to Bethlem Hospital, he had been "chummed" with Oxford, and objected, but had been compelled to associate with that ruffian. He had taught Oxford the French language, and tried to improve his mind. Oxford had conveyed to him matter of importance relative to the great crime of which he had been guilty, and which he (Mr. Pearce) thought of sufficient importance to be communicated to the Secretary of State, and had accordingly written a letter in Latin, detailing the several circumstances. It had, however been taken from him, and he did not know whether it had ever been sent to Downing Street. He wished to show how Oxford boasted of having cajoled Sir A. Morrison and Dr. Monro into a belief that he was insane, and how he sent for such books as _Jack the Giant-Killer_ in order to make the jury let him off on the ground of insanity. This was what he (Mr. Pearce) wished to tell the Secretary of State, and now the letter was used against him.

After some further remarks, Mr. Pearce was questioned by the jury, and persisted in the statement that his bed was damped, that deleterious drugs were applied to his clothes, and that a conspiracy existed against him. He produced from under his clothes a small packet, which he said contained portions of the shirt of which mention had been made, and a snuff-box, in which he stated he had kept parts of the shirt, and which he "demanded" to have submitted to the test of Professor Faraday or some other eminent chemist. He announced himself to be grand-nephew of Zachariah Pearce, Bishop of Rochester, and translator of Longinus, and prayed, in conclusion, the jury to relieve him from the situation in which he was placed.

The jury returned a verdict to the effect "that Mr. Pearce was of unsound mind, and that he had been so from the 16th of October, 1840."

"Corner Memory Thompson."

In February, 1843, there died, at the age of 86, this remarkable person, whose eccentric success had become matter of public interest. John Thompson was a native of St. Giles's, where his father was a greengrocer; the boy on carrying a salad to the house of an undertaker in the neighbourhood, attracted attention by his ready and active manner, and the undertaker took him as errand-boy; then he became assistant, and next married his master's daughter, and thus obtained property. This was his _start_ in life, and enabled him to commence business as an auctioneer and brewer's valuer, by which he amassed considerable wealth. As he advanced in life, he sought retirement, and on a spot just below Hampstead Church, built for himself, without plan or order, "Frognal Priory," an assemblage of grotesque structures, but without any right of road to it, which he had to purchase at a great price. Thence, Thompson often went to town in his chariot, to collect curiosities for his house; and he might be seen pottering about among the curiosity-shops: as Horace Walpole cheapened Dicky Bateman's chairs at half-a-crown apiece for Strawberry Hill, so John Thompson collected his "items of taste and _vertu_" for Frognal Priory, and these, for a time, he would show to any person who rang at his gate. He was designated "Corner Memory," for his having, for a bet, drawn a plan of St. Giles's parish from memory, at three sittings, specifying every coach-turning, stable-yard, and public pump, and likewise the _corner shop_ of every street. He possessed a most mechanical memory; for he would, by reading a newspaper over-night, repeat the whole of it next morning. He gained some notoriety by presenting to the Queen a carved bedstead, reputed once to have belonged to Cardinal Wolsey; with this he sent some other old furniture to Windsor Castle.

Mummy of a Manchester Lady.

About the middle of the last century there died near Manchester a maiden lady, a Miss Bexwick or Beswick, who had a great horror of being _buried alive_. To avoid this, she devised an estate to her medical adviser, the late Mr. Charles White and his two children, _viz._ Miss Rosa White and her sister, and his nephew, Captain White, _on condition that the doctor paid her a morning visit for twelve months after her decease_. In order to do this, it was requisite to embalm her, which he did; she was then placed in the attic of the old mansion in which she died, and in which the doctor took up his residence. Upon his leaving it, she was removed to the house erected by him in King Street, Manchester, and which stood on the ground now occupied by the Town Hall. At the death of Mr. White, the doctor, she was sent to the Lying-in Hospital, where she remained until she was removed to her present resting-place, the Manchester Museum of Natural History, where the mummy is suspended in a case with a glass-door.

Mr. de Quincey, when a boy at Manchester School, at the beginning of the century, became acquainted with the mummy, and in one of his works mentions it being taken from the case, and the body of a notorious highwayman being substituted; but this is an embellishment or exaggeration of the already extraordinary story.

Hypochondriasis.

In the year 1827 there was living at Taunton a person who had often kept at home for several weeks under the idea of danger in going abroad. Sometimes he imagined that he was a cat, and seated himself on his hind-quarters; at other times he would fancy himself a teapot, and stand with one arm a-kimbo like the handle, and the other stretched out like the spout. At last he conceived himself to have died, and would not move or be moved till the coffin came. His wife, in serious alarm, sent for a surgeon, who addressed him with the usual salutation, "How do you do this morning?" "Do!" replied he in a low voice, "a pretty question to a dead man!" "Dead, sir; what do you mean?" "Yes; I died last Wednesday; the coffin will be here presently, and I shall be buried to-morrow." The surgeon, a man of sense and skill, immediately felt the patient's pulse, and shaking his head, said, "I find it is indeed too true; you are certainly defunct; the blood is in a state of stagnation, putrefaction is about to take place, and the sooner you are buried the better." The coffin arrived, he was carefully placed in it, and carried towards the church. The surgeon had previously given instructions to several neighbours how to proceed. The procession had scarcely moved a dozen yards, when a person stopped to inquire who they were carrying to the grave: "Mr. ----, our late worthy overseer." "What! is the old rogue gone at last? a good release, for a greater villain never lived." The imaginary deceased no sooner heard this attack on his character, than he jumped up, and in a threatening posture said, "You lying scoundrel, if I were not dead I'd make you suffer for what you say; but as it is, I am forced to submit." He then quietly laid down again; but ere they had proceeded half-way to church, another party stopped the procession with the same inquiry, and added invective and abuse. This was more than the supposed corpse could bear; and jumping from the coffin, was in the act of following his defamers, when the whole party burst into an immoderate fit of laughter. The public exposure awakened him to a sense of his folly; he fought against the weakness, and in the end conquered it.

Here is an instance of a cure for hypochondriasis in Switzerland:--A wealthy and hypochondriacal farmer, who believed himself to be possessed by seven devils, applied to the Swiss doctor, Michael Schuppach, to rout the demoniac occupants of his distressed mind. "Friend," said Schuppach gravely, "you believe there are but seven devils in you; in reality there are eight, and the eighth is the captain of the band." To expel the eight unclean spirits the physician had recourse to an electrical apparatus, with which contrivance the farmer was of course utterly ignorant. For eight successive days the patient visited the doctor and underwent an electrical shock. At each of the first seven shocks the operator said, "There goes one of your devils." On the eighth day Schuppach said, "Now, we must relieve you of the chief of the evil spirits--it'll be a tough job!" As these words were uttered, a violent shock sent the patient fairly to the floor. "And now," cried the benevolent impostor, "you are free of your devils--that last stroke was a settler!" The cure was complete.

[Illustration]

_STRANGE SIGHTS and SPORTING SCENES._

"The Wonder of all the Wonders that the World ever Wondered at."

Under the title of "_Horæ Subsecivæ_," in the _Dublin University Review_, in 1833, vol. i., p. 482, by the late Dr. West, of Dublin, appeared the following amusing trifle:--

"Among Swift's works, we find a _jeu d'esprit_, entitled 'The Wonder of all the Wonders that the World ever Wondered at,' and purporting to be an advertisement of a conjurer. There is an amusing one of the same kind by a very humorous German writer, George Christopher Lichtenberg, which, as his works are not much known here, is perhaps worth translating. The occasion on which it was written was the following. In the year 1777, a celebrated conjurer of those days arrived at Göttingen. Lichtenberg, for some reason or other, did not wish him to exhibit there; and, accordingly, before the other had time even to announce his arrival, he wrote this advertisement, in his name, and had it printed and posted over the town. The whole was the work of one night. The result was, that the real Simon Pure decamped next morning without beat of drum, and never appeared in Göttingen again. Lichtenberg had spent some time in England, and understood the language perfectly, so that he may have seen Swift's paper. Still, even granting that he took the hint from him, it must be allowed he has improved on it not a little, and displayed not only more delicacy, which, indeed, was easy enough, but more wit also.

"'Notice.

"'The admirers of supernatural Physics are hereby informed that the far-famed magician, Philadelphus Philadelphia (the same that is mentioned by Cardanus, in his book _De Naturâ Supernaturali_, where he is styled "The envied of Heaven and Hell"), arrived here a few days ago by the mail, although it would have been just as easy for him to come through the air, seeing that he is the person who, in the year 1482, in the public market at Venice, threw a ball of cord into the clouds, and climbed upon it into the air till he got out of sight. On the 9th of January, of the present year, he will commence at the Merchants' Hall, publico-privately, to exhibit his one-dollar tricks, and continue weekly to improve them, till he comes to his five-hundred-guinea tricks; amongst which last are some which, without boasting, excel the wonderful itself, nay are, as one may say, absolutely impossible.

"'He has had the honour of performing with the greatest possible approbation before all the potentates, high and low, of the four quarters of the world; and even in the fifth, a few weeks ago, before her Majesty Queen Oberea, at Otaheite.

"'He is to be seen every day, except on Mondays and Thursdays, when he is employed in clearing the heads of the honourable members of the Congress of his countrymen at Philadelphia; and at all hours, except from eleven to twelve in the forenoon, when he is engaged at Constantinople; and from twelve to one, when he is at his dinner.

"'The following are some of his common one-dollar tricks; and they are selected, not as being the best of them, but as they can be described in the fewest words:--

"'1. Without leaving the room, he takes the weathercock off St. James's Church, and sets it on St. John's, and _vice versâ_. After a few minutes he puts them back again in their proper places. N.B. All this without a magnet, by mere sleight of hand.

"'2. He takes two ladies, and sets them on their heads on a table, with their legs up; he then gives them a blow, and they immediately begin to spin like tops with incredible velocity, without breach either of their head-dress by the pressure, or of decorum by the falling of their petticoats, to the very great satisfaction of all present.

"'3. He takes three ounces of the best arsenic, boils it in a gallon of milk, and gives it to the ladies to drink. As soon as they begin to get sick, he gives them two or three spoonfuls of melted lead, and they go away in high spirits.

"'4. He takes a hatchet, and knocks a gentleman on the head with it, so that he falls dead on the floor. When there, he gives a second blow, whereupon the gentleman immediately gets up as well as ever, and generally asks what music that was.

"'5. He draws three or four ladies' teeth, makes the company shake them well together in a bag, and then puts them into a little cannon, which he fires at the aforesaid ladies' heads, and they find their teeth white and sound in their places again.

"'6. A metaphysical trick, otherwise commonly called παν, _metaphysica_, whereby he shows that a thing can actually be and not be at the same time. It requires great preparation and cost, and is shown so low as a dollar, solely in honour of the University.

"'7. He takes all the watches, rings, and other ornaments of the company, and even money if they wish, and gives every one a receipt for his property. He then puts them all in a trunk, and brings them off to Cassel. In a week after, each person tears his receipt, and that moment finds whatever he gave in his hands again. He has made a great deal of money by this trick.

"'N.B. During this week, he performs in the top room at the Merchants' Hall; but after that, up in the air over the pump in the market-place; for whoever does not pay, will not see.'"

[Illustration: The Princess Caraboo. From a sketch by Bird, R.A.]

"The Princess Caraboo."

Early in the year 1865 there died at Bristol a female of considerable personal attractions, whose early history was amusing enough, yet took a strong hold upon credulous persons half-a-century since. She pretended to be a native of Javasu, in the Indian Ocean, and to have been carried off by pirates, by whom she had been sold to the captain of a brig. Her first appearance was in the spring of 1817, at Almondsbury, in Gloucestershire. Having been ill-used when on board the ship, she had jumped overboard, she said, swam on shore, and wandered about six weeks before she came to Almondsbury. She appears next to have found her way to Bath, and there to have created a sensation in the literary and fashionable circles of Bath and other places, which lasted till it was discovered that the whole affair was a romance, cleverly sustained and acted out by a young and prepossessing girl, who sought to maintain the imposition by the invention of hieroglyphics and characters to represent her native language.

In 1817, there was published at Bristol a narrative of this singular imposition, "practised upon the benevolence of a lady residing in the Vicinity of Bristol by a young woman of the name of Mary Willcocks, _alias_ Baker, _alias_ Bakerstendht, _alias_ Caraboo, Princess of Javasu;" for which work Bird, the Royal Academician, drew two portraits.

It was ascertained that she was a native of Witheridge, in Devonshire, where her father was a cobbler. She appears to have taken flight to America, and in 1824 she returned to England, and hired apartments in New Bond Street, where she exhibited herself to the public at the charge of one shilling; but she did not attract any great attention.

On being deposed from the honours which had been awarded to her, "the Princess" retired into comparatively humble life, and married. There was a kind of grim humour in the occupation which she subsequently followed, that of an importer of leeches: but she conducted her operations with much judgment and ability, and carried on her trade with credit to herself and satisfaction to her customers. The quondam "Princess" died, leaving a daughter, who, like her mother, is described as very beautiful.

There is, it should be added, a very strange story of the Princess having got an introduction to Napoleon Bonaparte at St. Helena, of which affair the following account appeared in _Felix Farley's Bristol Journal_, September 13th, 1817:--

"A letter from Sir Hudson Lowe, lately received from St. Helena, forms at present the leading topic of conversation in the higher circles. It states that on the day preceding the date of the last dispatches, a large ship was discovered in the offing. The wind was strong from the S.S.E. After several hours' tacking, with apparent intention to reach the island, the vessel was observed to bear away for the N.W., and in the course of an hour the boat was seen entering the harbour. It was rowed by a single person. Sir Hudson went alone to the beach, and to his astonishment saw a female of interesting appearance drop the oars and spring to land. She stated that she had sailed from Bristol, under the care of some missionary ladies, in a vessel called the _Robert and Anne_, Captain Robinson, destined for Philadelphia; that the vessel being driven out of its course by a tempest, which continued for several successive days, the crew at length perceived land, which the captain recognised to be St. Helena: that she immediately conceived an ardent desire of seeing the man with whose future fortunes she was persuaded her own were mysteriously connected; and her breast swelled with the prospect of contemplating face to face an impostor not equalled on earth since the days of Mohammed; but a change of wind to the S.S.E. nearly overset her hopes. Finding the captain resolved to proceed according to his original destination, she watched her opportunity, and springing with a large clasp-knife into a small boat which was slung at the stern, she cut the ropes, dropt safely into the ocean, and rowed away. The wind was too strong from the land to allow of the vessel being brought about to thwart her object. Sir Hudson introduced her to Bonaparte under the name of Caraboo! She described herself as Princess of Javasu, and related a tale of extraordinary interest, which seemed in a high degree to delight the captive chief. He embraced her with every demonstration of enthusiastic rapture, and besought Sir Hudson that she might be allowed an apartment in his house, declaring that she alone was an adequate solace in his captivity.

"Sir Hudson subjoins: 'The familiar acquaintance with the Malay tongue possessed by this most extraordinary personage (and there are many on the island who understand that language), together with the knowledge she displays of the Indian and Chinese politics, and the eagerness with which she speaks of these subjects, appear to convince every one that she is no impostor. Her manner is noble and fascinating in a wonderful degree.'