A CURIOUS COINCIDENCE.
[To THE EDITOR Or TEE " SPHGTATOR.1 SIR,—The other night I heard a distinguished Scottish Pros fessor relate a curious coincidence which might add another to the many subtle, insoluble questions relative to the specu- lative regions of the unknown in Nature, animate and in- animate. He stated that one day a woman was brought to his surgery, having been shot in the head with a bullet from a pistol. She had been in an auction-room. While the auctioneer was exhibiting and selling the pistol, it went off and shot the woman. He was unaware it had been loaded. The bullet was not found. The woman died. The auctioneer was tried for manslaughter, but was acquitted, the jury finding that the cause of death was accidental.
About ten years thereafter another woman was brought to the surgery of the Professor one day. She had been shot in the breast with a bullet from a pistol. The woman and her husband had intended to emigrate. The husband had bought a pistol to defend himself from the attacks of robbers or savages in a foreign land. While examining the pistol in his house it went off, shooting
his wife, who was sitting opposite. The bullet was found ; the woman recovered. The husband was tried for reckless use of firearms, but was acquitted. After the trial the chief criminal officer—who, singularly enough, had charge of both cases—presented the pistol to the Professor. It was the same weapon that bad caused both accidents. He stated that the criminal authorities had returned the pistol on the first occasion to the party to whom it belonged. After the second accident it was deemed advisable to put the weapon in safe keeping. Ultimately the Professor handed aver the pistol as a unique but dangerous relic to a Scottish museum. It bears a historical inscription. Unfortunate coincidences are not infrequent with people. The Professor has more of them. Ships, too, come under a similar category, even when their names are changed. Some sailors, from what is termed superstition, steer clear of these. Can there be an occult but perpetual law, causing dramatic results periodically, in such matters P—I am, Sir, &c.,
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