Wild Talents (12 page)

Occurrences of more recent date. Story in the London
Daily Mail,
Dec. 13, 1921, of a boy, in Budapest, in whose presence furniture moved. The boy was about thirteen years of age. Since about his twelfth birthday, fires had often broken out in his presence. Alarmed neighbors or “superstitious” neighbors as they were described, in the account, had driven him and his mother from their home. It was said that when he slept, flames flickered over him, and singed his pillow.

In the
New York Times,
Aug. 25, 1929, was published a story of excitement upon the West Indian island of Antigua. This is a story that reverses the particulars of some of the other stories. It is an account of a girl whose clothes flamed, leaving her body unscorched. This girl, a Negress, named Lily White, living in the village of Liberta, flamed, while walking in the streets. However, at home, too, the clothes of this girl often burst into flames. She became dependent upon her neighbors for something to wear. When she was in bed, sheets burned around her, seemingly harmlessly to her, according to the story.

Early in March, 1922, an expedition, composed of newspaper reporters and photographers, headed by Dr. Walter Franklin Prince, arrived at a deserted house that was surrounded by snow banks out of which stuck the blackened backs, legs, and arms of burned furniture. The newspapers had told of doings in this house, near Antigonish, Nova Scotia, and had emphasized the circumstance that, “in the dead of winter,” Alexander MacDonald and his family had been driven from their home by “mysterious fires,” unaccountable sounds, and the meanderings of crockery. The phenomena had centered around Mary Ellen, MacDonald’s adopted daughter. With the idea that the house was haunted, the expedition entered, and made itself at home, everybody quick on the draw for note paper or camera. Mostly, in poltergeist cases, I see nothing to suggest that the girls—boys sometimes—are mediums, or are operated upon by spirits; the phenomena seem to be occult powers of youngsters. In MacDonald’s house, the investigators came upon nothing that suggested the presence of spirits. Mary Ellen and her father, or father by adoption, were induced to return to the house, but nothing occurred. Usually, in cases of poltergeist girls, phenomena are not of long duration. Dr. Prince interviewed neighbors, and recorded their testimony that dozens of fires had broken out, in this girl’s presence: but more striking than any testimony by witnesses was the sight, outside this house, of the blackened furniture, sticking out of snow banks.

New York Sun,
Feb. 2, 1932—a dispatch from Bladenboro, North Carolina. “Fires, which apparently spring from nowhere, consuming the household effects of C.H. Williamson, here, have placed this community in a state of excitement, and continue to burn. Saturday a window shade and curtain burned in the Williamson home. Since then fire has burst out in five rooms. Five window shades, bed coverings, tablecloths, and other effects have suddenly burst into flames, under the noses of the watchers. Williamson’s daughter stood in the middle of the floor, with no fire near. Suddenly her dress ignited. That was too much, and household goods were removed from the house.”

In the
New York Sun,
Dec. 1, 1882, is an account of the occult powers of A.W. Underwood, a Negro, aged twenty-four, of Paw Paw, Michigan. The account, copied from the
Michigan Medical News
was written by Dr. L.C. Woodman of Paw Paw. It was Dr. Woodman’s statement that he was convinced that Underwood’s phenomena were genuine. “He will take anybody’s handkerchief, and hold it to his mouth, rub it vigorously while breathing on it, and immediately it bursts into flames, and burns until consumed. He will strip, and will rinse out his mouth thoroughly, and submit to the most rigorous examination to preclude the possibility of any humbug, and then by his breath, blown upon any paper, or cloth, envelop it in flames. He will, while out gunning, lie down, after collecting dry leaves, and by breathing on them start a fire.”

In the
New York Sun,
July 9, 1927, is an account of a visit by Vice President Dawes, to Memphis, Tennessee. In this city lived a car repairman who was also a magician. “He took General Dawes’ handkerchief and breathed upon it, and it caught fire.”

Out of the case of the Negro who breathed dry leaves afire, I conceive of the rudiments of a general expression, which I expect to develop later. The phenomena look to me like a survival of a power that may have been common in the times of primitive men. Breathing dry leaves afire would, once upon a time, be a miracle of the highest value. I speculate how that could have come about. Most likely there never has been human intelligence keen enough to conceive of the uses of fire, in times when uses of fire were not of conventional knowledge. But, if we can think of our existence as a whole—perhaps only one of countless existences in the cosmos—as a developing organism, we can think of a fire-inducing power appearing automatically in some human beings, at a time of its need in the development of human phenomena. So fire-geniuses appeared. By a genius I mean one who can’t avoid knowledge of fire, because he can’t help setting things afire.

I think of these fire agents as the most valuable members of a savage community in primitive times: most likely beginning humbly, regarded as freaks; most likely persecuted at first, but becoming established, and then so overcharging for their services that it was learned how, by rubbing sticks, to do without them—so then their fall from importance, and the dwindling of them into their present, rare occurrence—but the preservation of them, as occasional, by nature, as an insurance, because there’s no knowing when we’ll all go back to savagery again, degrading down to an ignorance of even how to start fires—so then a revival of the fire-agents, and civilization starting up again—only again to be overthrown by wars and grafts, doctors, lawyers, and other racketeers; corrupt judges and cowardly juries—starting down again, perhaps this time not stopping short of worms. Occasionally I contribute to the not very progressive science of biology, and, as I explain atavistic persons in societies, I now make suggestions as to vestigial organs and structures in human bodies—that the vestigial may not be merely a relic, but may be insurance—that the vestigial tail of a human being is no mere functionless retention, but is a provision against times when back to the furry state we may go, and need means for wagging our emotions. Conceive of a powerful backward slide, and one conceives of the appearance, by only an accentuation of the existing, of hosts of werewolves and wereskunks and were-hyenas in the streets of New York City.

Mostly our data indicate that occasional human beings have the fire-inducing power. But it looks as if it were not merely that, in the presence of the Negress, Lily White, fires started: it looks as if these fires were attacks upon her. Men and women have been found, burned to death, and explanations at inquests have not been satisfactory. There are records of open, and savage, seizures, by flames, of people.

Annual Register,
1820-13—that Elizabeth Barnes, a girl aged ten, had been taken to court accused by John Wright, a linen draper, of Foley-place, Mary-le-bon, London, of having repeatedly, and “by some extraordinary means,” set fire to the clothing of Wright’s mother, by which she had been burned so severely that she was not expected to live. The girl had been a servant in Wright’s household. Upon January 5th an unexplained fire had broken out. Upon the 7th, Mrs. Wright and the girl were sitting by the hearth, in the kitchen. Nothing is said, in the account, of relations between these two. Mrs. Wright got up from her chair, and was walking away, when she saw that her clothes were afire. Again, upon January 12th, she was, with the girl in the kitchen about eight feet from the hearth where “a very small fire” was burning. Suddenly her clothes flamed. The next day, Wright heard screams from the kitchen, where his mother was, and where the girl had been. He ran into the room, and found his mother in flames. Only a moment before had the girl left the kitchen, and this time Wright accused her. But it was Mrs. Wright’s belief that the girl had nothing to do with her misfortunes, and that “something supernatural” was assailing her. She sent for her daughter, who arrived, to guard her. She continued to believe that the girl could have had nothing to do with the fires, and went to the kitchen, where the girl was, and again “by some unknown means, she caught fire.” “She was so dreadfully burned that she was put to bed.” When she had gone to sleep, her son and daughter left the room—and were immediately brought back by her screams, finding her surrounded by flames. Then the girl was told to leave the house. She left, and there were no more fires. This seemed conclusive, and the Wrights caused her arrest. At the hearing, the magistrate said that he had no doubt that the girl was guilty, but that he could not pronounce sentence, until Mrs. Wright should so recover as to testify.

In
Cosmos,
3-6-242, is a physician’s report upon a case. It is a communication by Dr. Bertholle to the Société Medico-Chirurgicale:

That, upon the 1st of August, 1869, the police of Paris had sent for Dr. Bertholle, in the matter of a woman, who had been found, burned to death. Under the burned body, the floor was burned, but there was nothing to indicate the origin of the fire. Bedclothes, mattresses, curtains, all other things in the room, showed not a trace of fire. But this body was burned, as if it had been the midst of flames of the intensity of a furnace. Dr. Bertholle’s report was technical and detailed: left arm totally consumed; right hand burned to cinders; no trace left of internal organs in the thorax, and organs in the abdomen unrecognizable. The woman had made no outcry, and no other sound had been heard by other dwellers in the house. It is localization, or specialization, again—a burned body in an almost unscorched room.

Upon the night of Dec. 23, 1916—see the
New York Herald,
Dec. 27,28, 1916—Thomas W. Morphey, proprietor of the Lake Denmark Hotel, seven miles from Dover, N.J., was awakened by moaning sounds. He went down the stairs, and found his housekeeper, Lillian Green, burned and dying. On the floor under her was a small, charred place, but nothing else, except her clothes, showed any trace of fire. At a hospital, the woman was able to speak, but it seems that she could not explain. She died without explaining.

One of my methods, when searching for what I call data, is to note, in headlines, or in catalogues, or indexes, such clue words, or clue phrases, as I call them, as “mystery solved,” or an assurance that something has been explained. When I read that common sense has triumphed, and that another superstition has been laid low, that is a stimulus to me to be busy—

Or that story of the drunken woman, of Whitley Bay near Blyth, who had told of finding her sister burned to death on an unscorched bed, and had recanted. Having read that this mystery had been satisfactorily explained, I got a volume of the
Blyth News.
The story in the local newspaper is largely in agreement with the story in the London newspapers: nevertheless there are grounds for doubts that make me think it worthwhile to retell the story.

The account is of two retired schoolteachers, Margaret and Wilhelmina Dewar who lived in the town of Whitley Bay near Blyth. In the evening of March 22, 1908, Margaret Dewar ran into a neighbor’s house, telling that she had found her sister, burned to death. Neighbors went to the house with her. On a bed, which showed no trace of fire, lay the charred body of Wilhelmina Dewar. It was Margaret’s statement that so she had found the body, and so she testified, at the inquest. And there was no sign of fire in any other part of the house.

So this woman testified. The coroner said that he did not believe her. He called a policeman, who said that at the time of the finding of the body, the woman was so drunk that she could not have known what she was saying. The policeman was not called upon to state how he distinguished between signs of excitement and terror, and intoxication. But there was no accusation that, while upon the witness stand, this woman was intoxicated, and here she told the same story. The coroner urged her to recant. She said that she could not change her story.

So preposterous a story as that of a woman who had burned to death on an unscorched bed, if heeded, or if permitted to be told, would be letting black magic or witchcraft, into English legal proceedings. The coroner tried persistently to make the woman change it. She persisted in refusing. The coroner abruptly adjourned the inquest until April 1st.

Upon April 1st, Margaret Dewar confessed. Any reason for her telling of a lie, in the first place, is not discoverable. But there were strong reasons for her telling what she was wanted to tell. The local newspaper was against her. Probably the coroner terrified her. Most likely all her neighbors were against her, and hers were the fears of anybody, in a small town, surrounded by hostile neighbors. When the inquest was resumed, Margaret Dewar confessed that she had been inaccurate, and that she had found her sister burned, but alive, in a lower part of the house, and had helped her up to her room, where she had died. In this new story, there was no attempt to account for the fire; but the coroner was satisfied. There was not a sign of fire anywhere in the lower part of this house. But the proper testimony had been recorded. Why Margaret Dewar should have told the story that was called a lie was not inquired into. There are thousands of inquests at which testimonies are proper stories.

Madras Mail,
May 13, 1907—a woman in the village of Manner, near Dinapore—flames that had consumed her body, but not her clothes—that two constables had found the corpse in a room, in which nothing else showed signs of fire, and had carried the smoldering body, in the unscorched clothes, to the District Magistrate.
Toronto Globe,
Jan. 28, 1907—dispatch from Pittsburgh, Pa.—that Albert Houck had found the body of his wife, “burned to a crisp,” lying upon a table—no sign of fire upon the table, nor anywhere else in the house.
New York Sun,
Jan. 24, 1930—coroner’s inquiry, at Kingston, N.Y., into the death of Mrs. Stanley Lake. “Although her body was severely burned, her clothing was not even scorched.”