A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon

by S. Baring-Gould

"Mr. Bidder took a distinguished part in the great parliamentary contests which attended the establishment of railways. His wonderful memory, his power of instantaneous calculation, his quick perception and readiness at repartee, caused him to be dreaded by hostile lawyers, one of whom made a fruitless application before a committee in the House of Lords that Mr. Bidder should not be allowed to remain in the room, because 'Nature,' he said, 'had endowed him with qualities that did not place his opponents on a fair footing.'

"A remarkable instance of Mr. Bidder's wonderful readiness and power of mental numeration occurred in connexion with the passing of the Act for the North Staffordshire Railway.

"There were several competing lines, and the object of Mr. Bidder's party was to get rid of as many as possible on Standing Orders. They had challenged the accuracy of the levels of one of the rival lines, but upon the examination before the Committee on Standing Orders their opponents' witnesses were as positive as those of the North Staffordshire, and apparently were likely to command greater credence.

"Fortunately Mr. Bidder was present, and when the surveyors of the opposing lines were called to prove the levels at various points he asked to see their field-books, which he looked at apparently in the most cursory manner, and quietly put down without making a note or any observation, and as though he had seen nothing worthy of notice. When the surveyors had completed their proofs Mr. Bidder, who had carried on in his own mind a calculation of the heights noted in all the books, not merely of the salient points upon which the witnesses had been examined, but also of the intermediate rises and falls noted in the several books, suddenly exclaimed that he would demonstrate to the Committee that the section was wrong. He then went rapidly through a calculation which took all by surprise, and clearly proved that if the levels were as represented at one point they could not possibly be as represented at another and distant point. The result was that the errors in the levels were reported, and the Bill was not allowed to proceed."[26]

Some of his extraordinary achievements have been reported, but they are somewhat doubtful. It will be best to quote only one that is well authenticated from the Proceedings of the Institute of Civil Engineers (lvii. 309).

"On 26 September, 1878, being in his 73rd year, he was conversing with a mathematical friend on the subject of Light, when, it having been remarked that '36,918 pulses or waves of light, which only occupy 1 inch in length, are requisite to give the impression of red,' the friend 'suggested the query that, taking the velocity of light at 190,000 miles per second, how many of its waves must strike the eye and be registered in one second to give the colour red, and, producing a pencil, he was about to calculate the result, when Mr. Bidder said, 'You need not work it; the number of vibrations will be 444,433,651,200,000.'"

Mr. Bidder died suddenly from disease of the heart on September 20th, 1878, aged seventy-two years.

Mr. Bidder remembered many of the old stories of the moor told him by the blacksmith in whose forge he spent so many hours.

I have given one in my chapter on Dartmoor and its tenants. Here is another, as recorded by Miss Bidder, the daughter of Mr. George P. Bidder.

There was a woman, and she lived at Brennan[27] on the moor. And she had a baby. And one day she left her baby on the moor to play and pick "urts" (whortleberries), and she hasted to Moreton town. Now as she went she saw three ravens flying over her head from Blackiston. And she said, "Where be you a goin' to, Ravens cruel?" They answered, "Up to Brennan! up to Brennan!" She had not gone far before she saw three more flying in the same direction. And again she asked, "Where be you a goin' to, Ravens cruel? "And these three likewise answered her, "Up to Brennan! up to Brennan!" Now when she had gone somewhat further, and was drawing nigh to Moreton, again she saw three ravens fly over her head, and for the third time she put the same question and received the same answer. When in the evening she returned to Brennan Moor, there no little baby's voice welcomed her, for all that remained of her child was a heap of well-picked white bones.

Brennan is what is marked on the Ordnance Survey as Brinning, a lonely spot south of Moreton Hampstead, and between it and North Bovey. It seems to me that the story needs but a touch, and it resolves itself into a ballad.

BRENNAN MOOR.