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 24, 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-repairer, 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 occasionals, 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 werehyenas 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 10, 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 Societe 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 worth while to re-tell 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."
Chapter 14
THE story of the "mad bats of Trinidad" is that the discoverer of them had solved a mystery of many deaths of human beings and cattle. "Dr. Pawan, a Trinidad scientist, had discovered that the infection had been caused by mad vampire bats, affected by rabies, which they transmitted in a new form of insidious hydrophobia."
But the existence of hydrophobia is so questionable, or of such rare occurrence, even in dogs, that the story of the "mad bats of Trinidad" looks like some more of the sensationalism in science that is so obtrusive today, and compared with which I am, myself, only a little wild now and then. It is probable that the deaths of human beings and cattle, in Trinidad, have not been accounted for. Once upon a time the explanation would have been "witchcraft." Now it's "rabid vampires." The old hag on her broomstick is of inferior theatrical interest, compared with the insane blood-sucker.
The germ-theory of diseases is probably like all other theories, ranging from those of Moses and Newton and Einstein and Brother Voliva down, or maybe up, or perhaps crosswise, to mine, or anybody else's. Many cases may be correlated under one explanation, but there must be exceptions. No pure, or homogeneous, case of any kind is findable: so every case is variously classifiable. There have been many cases of ailments and deaths of human beings that have not been satisfactorily explained in the medical terms that are just now fashionable, but that will probably be out of style, after a while. Nowadays one is smug with what one takes for progress, thinking of old-time physicians prescribing dried toads for ailments. Here's something for the enjoyment of future smugness. Newspapers of Jan. 14, 1932— important medical discovery— dried pigs' stomachs, as a cure for anaemia. I now have a theory of what is called evolution, in terms of fashions— that somewhere, perhaps on high, there is a Paris— where, once upon a time, were dictated the modes in bugs and worms, and then the costumes of birds and mammals; grotesquely stretching the necks of giraffes, and then quite as unreasonably reacting with a repentance of hippopotami; passing on to a mental field of alternating extravagances and puritanisms, sometimes neat and tasteful, but often elaborate and rococo, with religions, philosophies, and sciences, imposing upon the fashion-slaves of this earth the latest thing in theories.
In the New York Sun, Jan. 17, 1930, Dr. E. S. Godfrey, of the New York State Department of Health, told, in an interview, of mysterious deaths on a vessel. In a period of four years, twenty-seven officers and men had been stricken by what was called "typhoid fever." Taking his science from the Sunday Newspapers, which had full-paged the story of "Typhoid Mary," a scientific detective, with his microscope, boarded this vessel, and of course soon announced that he had "tracked down" one of the sailors, as a "typhoid carrier." Such sleuthing has become a modernized witch-finding. There are, in New York State, today, persecutions that are in some cases as deadly as the witchcraft-persecutions of the past. "There are 188 women and 90 men recorded as typhoid-carriers, in New York State." Why there should be twice as many women as men is plain enough: the carrier-finders, with "Typhoid Mary" in mind, probably went looking for women. It may be a matter of difficulty, or it may be impossible, in times of general unemployment, for somebody in the grocery or dairy business, to change into some other occupation: but these 278 "typhoid-carriers," tracked down by medical Sherlock Holmeses, who had read of "typhoid-carriers," are prohibited from working in food-trades, and have to report to district health officers once every three months. But this is for the protection of the rest of us. But that is what the witch-finders used to say. Chivalry can't die, so long as there is tyranny: every tyrant has been much given to protecting somebody or something. It is one of the blessings of our era that we are tormented by so many abominations, enormities, and pestiferous, smaller botherations that we can't concentrate upon the germ-scares that the medical "finders" would spread, if it were not for so much competition. They did spread, with some success, with their parrot-scare, in the year 1929. Abandoned parrots, in their cages, were found, frozen to death, in parks and doorways. Probably the psittacosis scare, of 1929, did not become the hysteria of former scares, because lay-alarmists were checked by their inability to pronounce the name of it.
