While engaged writing the “Real Ghost Stories,” Mr. Stead says:—“My attention was called to a young lady, Miss Catherine Ross, of 41 High Street, Smethwick, Birmingham, who, being left with an invalid sister to provide for, and without other available profession or industry, bethought herself of a curious gift of reading character, with which she seems to have been born, and had subsequently succeeded in earning a more or less precarious income by writing out characters at the modest fee of 5s. You sent her any article you pleased that had been in contact with the object, and she sent you by return a written analysis of the subject’s character. I sent her various articles from one person at different times, not telling her they were from the same person. At one time a tuft of hair from his beard, at another time a fragment of a nail, and a third time a scrap of handwriting. Each delineation of character differed in some points from the other two, but all agreed, and they were all remarkably correct. When she sent the last she added, ‘I don’t know how it is, but I feel I have described this person before.’ I have tried her since then with locks of hair from persons of the most varied disposition, and have found her wonderfully correct.”
“All these things are very wonderful, but the cumulative value of the evidence is too great for any one to pooh-pooh it as antecedently impossible. The chances against it being a mere coincidence are many millions to one.”
I believe had this young lady, or others thus endowed, had the training, such as Buchanan, Denton, or other experienced teachers give their pupils, she would make a high class psychometer.
Rev. Minot J. Savage had a paper in a recent number of The Arena, on Psychical Research, etc., in which he said—“On a certain morning I visited a psychometrist. Several experiments were made. I will relate only one, as a good specimen of what has occurred in my presence more than once. The lady was not entranced or, so far as I could see, in any other than her normal condition. I handed her a letter which I had recently received. She took it, and held it in her right hand, pressing it close, so as to come into as vital contact with it as possible. I had taken it out of its envelope, so that she might touch it more effectively, but it was not unfolded even so much as to give her an opportunity to see even the name. It was written by a man whom she had never seen, and of whom she had never heard. After holding it a moment she said, ‘This man is either a minister or a lawyer; I cannot tell which. He is a man of a good deal more than usual intellectual power. And yet he has never met with any success in life as one would have expected, considering his natural ability. Something has happened to thwart him and interfere with his success. At the present time he is suffering with severe illness and mental depression. He has pain here’ (putting her hand to the back of her head, at the base of the brain).
“She said much more, describing the man as well as I could have done it myself. But I will quote no more, for I wish to let a few salient points stand in clear outline. These points I will number, for the sake of clearness:—
1. “She tells me he is a man, though she has not even glanced at the letter.”
2. “She says he is either a minister or a lawyer; she cannot tell which. No wonder, for he was both; that is, he had preached for some years, then he had left the pulpit, studied law, and at this time was not actively engaged in either profession.”
3. “She speaks of his great natural ability. This was true in a most marked degree.”
4. “But he had not succeeded as one would have expected. This again was strikingly true. Certain things had happened—which I do not feel at liberty to publish—which had broken off his career in the middle and made his short life seem abortive.”
About eighteen years ago a lady in Swansea sent me a lock of hair, and asked me to send her my impressions. I did so, which I remember were not pleasant. I informed her, as near as my recollection now serves, that the person to whom the hair belonged was seriously ill. No earthly skill could do anything for him. Diagnosing the character of the insidious disease which was then undermining a once powerful and active organisation, I felt constrained to add he would live six weeks. I held the envelope, with its contents, in my left hand, and wrote the impressions as they came with my right. I remember hesitating about sending that letter, but eventually sent it. The accuracy of my diagnosis, description of the patient, and the fulfilment of the prophecy as to his death were substantiated in a Swansea paper, The Bat. The patient was no other than Captain Hudson, the British master mariner who sailed the first ship on teetotal principles from a British port, and who subsequently became one of the most powerful of British mesmerists. The lady who sent the lock of hair was his wife, and the lady who contributed the letter to the papers was his widow. Of similar experiences Mrs. Coates and I have had many.