A PROPHECY FULFILLED.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sus,—As so many prophecies about the war have been false, it is interesting to recall one which has come true. I remember reading in the winter of 1914.15 that some Frenchman had prophe- sied that the war would end on November 11th. He had reasoned as follows. The Franco-Prussian War was fought in 1870 and 1871. The sum of these two years is 3,741. The first two of these figures added together make 10, the next two make 5, and the war ended on May 10th (as a matter of fact, it ended on the 23rd). This war was being fought in 1914 and 1915; added together these make 3,829, and similar treatment gives us 3 + 8 = 11 and 2 + 9 = 11. So the war was to end on the 11th day of the 11th month. The prophet was wrong in the date he assigned to the end of the earlier war and in the length he conceived that the Great War would last. But we must all hope that he was not wrong in his choice of November 11th as the day on which it should really end.
—I am, Sir, de., ARTHUR S. OWEN. Senile Club, 107 Piccadilly, W.
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