“Up to the moment of the attack and for some time previously, I was absorbed in a calculation connected with Penarth Docks, then in construction, on which I was employed. My train of thought was interrupted for a moment by the sound of footsteps behind me. I looked back and saw the two young men, but thought no more of them, and immediately returned to my calculations.
“On receiving the blow, I began speculating on their object, what they were going to do next, how I could best defend myself, or escape from them; and when they ran away, and I had picked myself up I thought of trying to identify them and of denouncing them at the police station, to which I proceeded after following them until I lost sight of them.
“In short, I am positive that for about half an hour previous to the attack, and for an hour or two after it, there was no connection whatever, direct or indirect, between my thoughts and a person at that moment in London, and whom I will call ‘A.’
“Two days afterwards, I received a letter from ‘A,’ written on the day after the assault, asking me what I had been doing and thinking about at 4:30 P. M., on the day previous to that on which he was writing. He continued: ‘I had just passed your club and was thinking of you, when I recognized your footstep behind me. You laid your hand heavily on my shoulder. I turned, and saw you as distinctly as I ever saw you in my life. You looked distressed, and in answer to my greeting and inquiry, ‘What’s the matter?’ You said, ‘Go home, old fellow, I’ve been hurt. You will get a letter from me in the morning, telling you all about it.’ You then vanished instantaneously.
“The assault took place as near 4:30 as possible, certainly between 4:15 and 4:45. I wrote an account of it to ‘A’ on the following day, so our letters crossed, he receiving mine, not the next morning as my double had promised, but on the succeeding one at about the same time as I received his. ‘A’ solemnly assured me that he knew no one in or near Cardiff, and that my account was the only one he had received of the incident. From my intimate personal knowledge of him I am certain that he is incapable of uttering an untruth. But there are reasons why I cannot give his name even in confidence.
“Algeron Joy.”
Apparitions are perhaps more frequently seen by a single percipient; there are, however, numerous well authenticated cases where they have been seen by several persons at the same time, sometimes by the whole and sometimes only by a part of the persons present.
Such cases are called collective. Here are two such cases reported to Mr. Gurney by physicians.
First, one from Dr. Wyld, 41 Courtfield Road, S. W.
“December, 1882.