The Argosy — page 265: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

248 The Shapes that Dreams may take. One would ask many questions anent this case—such as: Were these two dreamers conversant with the locality or with the nephews ? Did they have any prior knowledge of each other? The lawyers, of course, were conducting a criminal case and not a scientific inquiry. One cannot help wondering how much evidence of this sort is tendered to the detective police—and whether it is always duly investigated. One readily understands that much of such dubious testimony is suppressed at its very source from fear of ridicule on the one hand or of suspicion on the other. We have given these instances first, simply because they have been exposed to all the tests by which evidence is usually sifted. We will now pass on to some of a different stamp, yet also attested by dates, proper names, etc. In May, 1812, Mr. Spencer Perceval, Prime Minister of England, was shot in the lobby of the House of Commons, by one Bellingham, _ It was claimed that eight days before the assassination, it was fore- seen in a dream by a gentleman, a Mr. Williams, living near Truro, in Cornwall. The story has been often told, sometimes carelessly, , sometimes with added “effects.” We shall give the version of a gentleman whose father was with the dreamer at the date of his dream, as corrected by the version of another friend, who frequently heard the story from the lips of the dreamer himself, when in advanced age. | Mr. Williams, his brother and his partner, were, in the early part” of May, 1812, visiting their mines in the Eastern part of Cornwall. Mr. Williams had lately sent his son, Michael (afterwards M.P. for the — County), to London to confer with the Government respecting the — duty on foreign copper. One morning, Mr. Williams, when driving® with his friends, remarked that on the previous night he had had a singular dream of being in the lobby of the House of Commons, and seeing a tall man shoot a short one in the left side. He repeated this dream so often that his companions were rather annoyed. When he himself told the story in after years, he added that the shot was; fired as from behind his shoulder, and that he heard an usher say that the murdered man was Mr. Perceval—that he had debated with his sons on the propriety of his going to London and warning the minister, but that they had dissuaded him, which he ever afterwards’: regretted. He added that it was eight days before the murder that’ he had this dream. His son, Michael, was in a Committee room opening off the lobby when the murder took place, and returned straight home, where his father, the moment he saw him, exclaimed, that he knew the news he had brought. When the old gentleman went to London, he sought for portraits of the assassin and his victim, but was not satisfied with the first he saw of the former, as the hero of his dream had ‘‘ basket buttons” on his coat. Presently he found a print in which this detail was correctly portrayed. Mr. Williams was generally considered a very practical and unimaginative man. CORNIECLOOOKSaeey aa)